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I cannot say for certain, but believe that to be quite possible. Most people simply don't realize just how many Civil War battles were fought west of the Mississippi River, nor how many of these were fought in New Mexico.
Good question and one of my favorite movies.
I can't say if that battle scene was but the entire film was based on the New Mexico campaign. By the way the is an incredibly fascinating campaign, with the desert conditions truly being the most significant factor in the campaign.
Anyways I have the extended remastered DVD cut of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" (also out on blueray) and it has a special feature on the New Mexico campaign on one of the discs and relates it to the film. The general's involved are specifically mentioned several times, Canby and Sibley, the script mentioned a few actual battles - maybe Valverde and I think Glorietta. Confederate General Henry Sibley is shown retreating in one of the film scenes, along with his true-to-life rough bearded bodyguards.
One of the added scenes for the extended cut disc, a 5 or so minute scene, has Tuco and Blondie traveling through a battlefield after a battle (Both Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach actually dubbed in their vocal parts to the otherwise silent film, almost 40 years after originally filmed), I think this was Gloriata.
Sergio Leone was a real American Civil War fan and based many of his filmed scenes on actual civil war photographs. He wasn't always historically accurate - using cartrige pistols which did not exist yet, mentioning "Grant and Lee" before they were active as commanding generals, but some of the scenes indeed can be taken directly from one of Matthew Brady's prints. Leone would literally have the photographs in front of him while filming to compare the two.
Sergio Leone was a real American Civil War fan and based many of his filmed scenes on actual civil war photographs. He wasn't always historically accurate - using cartrige pistols which did not exist yet...
He also "mixed" things up a bit. In a widely-known publicity still from the movie For A Few Dollars More, Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) is leaning against a porch post in front of a brick doorway, pipe in mouth. His right hand is posed threateningly near his handgun, which is in a cross-draw "gun-bucket" holster. The gun is clearly an unconverted cap-and-ball Remington New Model Army revolver. Though only a few of them show in this particular pic, other pics reveal that his gun belt is studded with cartridges in loops.
The Confederates in the movie are Texans under the banner of the Trans-Mississippi district and the Arizona Rangers, local volunteers. The Union troops are Colorado Volunteers and possibly the California Column.
Partways into the movie where Tuco attempts to hang Blondie in the hotel during a Confederate retreat in the town (I believe) is supposed to be the Confederate retreat from Santa Fe either after the Battle of Valverde, which puts this scene at the very end of the battle of Albequerque at latest (one of the characters remarks that Sibley looks terrible, and Sibley did fall ill after the latter battle.)
The desert that Blondie ditches Tuco weaponless and tied up in is White Sands? (the film was made in Extremadura, Spain. But I mean it could represent it), where in which Tuco pays Blondie back by marching him through the "Jornada del Muerto" (March of Death/the Dead, nice name for a desert), essentially both are in the same region.
About midway through when Angel Eyes reaches a bombed out Confederate encampment, and when Blondie & Tuco (in CSA Uniforms) reach an overfilled infirmary I think are immediately after Glorietta Pass and Apache Canyon repectively, (the infirmary itself in Soccoro?).
The great battle between the Union forces of Canby and the Confederate forces of Sibley is a very fictionalized (and much grander) version of the Battle of Peralta near modern Los Lunas, New Mexico, the river they fight over where the bridge is would be the Rio Grande, and Sad Hill cemetary would be past the mountains in modern Valencia County, New Mexico.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060196/faq#.2.1.5
^^
This would explain it much better, but it's assertion that the battle at the end of the movie occurs in Fort Smith, Arkansas (desert landscape on the Oklahoma/Arkansas border?) and the POW camp being in Kansas (it was shown as being in a VERY rocky and canyon filled region which would cancel out Kansas) is a point I disagree with, I am pretty certain the battle is supposed to be Peralta, and the POW camp itself a fictional Union POW camp in New Mexico.
Last edited by Desert kid; 04-16-2011 at 05:10 PM..
Yes, it was a "Paella-Spaghetti Western".
I don't think that Almeria bears any resemblance with New Mexico.
All those westerns are Italian films that replaced the Mamma and bambinos with Mexican and American looking actors, and pasta was replaced with pork and beans.
It's quite suprising that those films were a success in the United States.
It's quite suprising that those films were a success in the United States.
No lie. You even have jaspers here who think they're chic and you wouldn't believe how many say they love "Once Upon a Time in The West".
I hated those pictures from the very get-go back in the 60s. I far prefer fellas like Ford, Hawks, Walsh, Daves and Mann to Leone. Hell, I'll even take a Curtiz-Flynn western like "Santa Fe Trail" to Leone. Or even a late John Wayne-Andrew McLaglen picture like "Chisum" (which at least has Ben Johnson). And Leone was the best of the spaghetti western bunch; it goes downhill fast after him.
No lie. You even have jaspers here who think they're chic and you wouldn't believe how many say they love "Once Upon a Time in The West".
I hated those pictures from the very get-go back in the 60s. I far prefer fellas like Ford, Hawks, Walsh, Daves and Mann to Leone. Hell, I'll even take a Curtiz-Flynn western like "Santa Fe Trail" to Leone. Or even a late John Wayne-Andrew McLaglen picture like "Chisum" (which at least has Ben Johnson). And Leone was the best of the spaghetti western bunch; it goes downhill fast after him.
You have to understand how novel the spegghetti western and the theme of "the man with no name" was in the late 60's. Here was a hero that was a criminal, violent, killed without regret, motivated by greed, but was still good - the anti-hero. The setting itself - violent criminals, used to hard living and quick death, themeselves being over-shadowed and horrified by the even more brutal realities of war. Nothing in these films could be compared to the old Ford and John Wayne classic westerns.
It's amazing these films were even produced - here you have an Italian director, spanish actors, and American stars. Three different languages. Wallach used to converse with Leone in rudimentary French. Leone would film his scenes without sounds, each actor speaking his native language, and the dialoge was later dubbed in.
"Once Upon a Time in the West" is another Leone classic, definetly different/slower paced than "The Good, The Bad,...". It took me about 3 times of watching this film to realize what a classic it is, to appreciate it. It's a masterpiece.
Without Leone's westerns, I doubt we would have Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" being such a success. And there we have another even more violent western anti-hero tale.
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