Once Upon a Time in Italy: A Spaghetti Western Roundup

(NYTimes) WHEN film critics and historians refer to the spaghetti western, they tend to mean four films directed by Sergio Leone: his “Dollars” trilogy with Clint Eastwood, and his epic, “Once Upon a Time in the West.” This focus on Leone’s work is understandable: he was a great filmmaker who made Mr. Eastwood a star. And it also acknowledges Akira Kurosawa, the form’s spiritual godfather, whose film “Yojimbo” inspired Leone and his colleagues to see westerns as cynical samurai films. But the spotlight on one director has tended to obscure the rest of the Italian western subgenre, which may include as many as 500 films. Continued