supper. The outdoor scenes of many Spaghetti Westerns, especially those with a relatively higher budget, were shot in Spain, in particular the Tabernas desert of Almería and Colmenar Viejo and Hoyo de Manzanares. In Italy, the region of Lazio was a favorite location. The genre expanded and became an international sensation with the success of Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's samurai film Yojimbo. But a handful of westerns were made in Italy before Leone redefined the genre, and the Italians were not the first to make westerns in Europe in the sixties. But it was Leone who defined the look and attitude of the genre with his first western and the two that soon were to follow: For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Together these films are called the Dollars Trilogy. Leone's portrayal of the west, in the latter, wasn't concerned with ideas of the frontier or good vs. evil but rather interested in how the world is unmistakably more complicated than that, and how the western world is one of kill or be killed. These films featured knifings, beatings, shootouts, or other violent action every five to ten minutes. "The issue of morality belongs to the American western," explains Italian director Ferdinando Baldi. "The violence in our movies is more gratuitous than in American films. There was very little morality because often the protagonist was a bad guy." Eastwood's character is a violent and ruthless killer who murders opponents for fun and profit. Behind his cold and stony stare is a cynical mind powered by a dubious morality. Unlike earlier cowboy heroes, Eastwood's character constantly smokes a small cigar and hardly ever shaves. He wears a flat-topped hat and Mexican poncho instead of more traditional western costuming. He never introduces himself when he meets anyone, and nobody ever asks his name. Furthermore, Spaghetti Westerns redefined the western genre to fit the everchanging times of the 1960s and ’70s. Rather than portraying the traditional mythic West as an exotic and beautiful land of opportunity, hope, and redemption, they depicted a desolate and forsaken West. In these violent and troubled times, Spaghetti Westerns, with their antiheroes, ambiguous morals, brutality, and anti-Establishment themes, resonated with audiences. The film's gratuitous violence, surrealistic style, gloomy look, and eerie sound captured the era's melancholy. It is this new approach to the genre