The Man With No Name Trilogy

Leone's five westerns are famous for their post-production dubbing. One movie critic has said of them: "The guns sound like cannons, and the cannons sound like nuclear explosions."

I'm watching 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'. The music score by Morricone is phenomenal, and yes the guns really do sound like cannons. Not a bad Sunday- reading a book (Unlikely Destinations) and watching a western, going to take a nap soon!

What's great about westerns?
You don't really have to pay much attention, there's minimal dialog, and they (almost) always have the same story.

Leone deservedly gets credit for one great breakthrough in the Western genre that is still followed today: in traditional Western films, heroes and villains alike looked like they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine and the moral opposites were clearly drawn, even down to the hero wearing a white hat and the villain wearing a black hat.

Leone's characters were, in contrast, more "realistic" and complex: usually "lone wolves" in their behaviour, they rarely shaved, looked dirty, and there was a strong suggestion of body odour and a history of criminal behaviour; they were morally ambiguous and often either generously compassionate or nakedly and brutally self-serving as the situation demanded. This sense of realism continues to affect Western movies today, and has also been influential outside this genre.

Many have called it ironic that an Italian director who could not speak English and had never even seen the American West could have almost single-handedly redefined the typical vision of the American cowboy.