This is a list in date order of the films made in and around Guadix, some of which include the Babwil locomotive. Thanks to Bob Yareham who has produced a fascinating book called "Movies Made in Spain". Contact us for .pdf copies.
The film was shot during the autumn and winter of 1956 and the spring of 1957 in Guadix, Granada.
Guadix, being a flexible kind of place, was Albania this time, in a story about a mercenary rescuing the imprisoned, blind brother of an inevitably attractive girl.
Various locations around the Sierra Nevada mountain range were used, such as Almuñécar (Punta de la Mona) for the yacht scenes, and the famous house caves of Guadix, with strange conical shapes as a result of erosion.
Juan José Carrasco Soto, author of 'Granada y el Cine' adds the locations of the caves of Sacromonte the Abogado gulley and Llano de la Perdiz, which portrays the border with Albania.
But of course the most recognisable landmark was the castle of La Calahorra, perched on its barren hill, it would beckon film-makers for decades.
The castle belongs to Countess Valone, a typical English-speaking Albanian aristocrat who helps the brother and sister to escape at the price of being slapped around by Communist policemen.
Sean Connery's love affair with Spain began long before he became James Bond, or anyone else we've heard of. This story of smugglers and political prisoners didn't exactly promise a brilliant future for our Sean, who plays a drunken sailor, although he probably had his eye on some of the local golf courses, where he would later spend quite a lot of his spare time between shooting films and villains.
The story is set in India and concerns the attempts of Kenneth More and Lauren Bacall to save an Indian prince by escaping on a train.
Although the first part is largely filmed in India, the countryside of the province of Granada provided the 'authenticity', and the stations at Iznalloz and Guadix (where Spielberg would later film part of the third Indiana Jones film) provided most of the 'authentic' Indian train station material.
The station at Guadix is Bhivandi Pura, where More and Bacall find the massacred refugees and a surviving baby.
The scenes at a bridge took place at the River Anchurón on the Linares- Baeza line in Jaen province. The bridge, which our heroes have to cross as it falls apart, crosses the river on the road between Fonelas and Belerda de Guadix.
The group finally reach safety at Kalapur, whose station is provided by Iznalloz.
Speaking of lines; the film contains the classic "half the world is only civilised because we made it so" from Lady Wyndham.
The film is worth watching if only to enjoy the theme music, the stunningly appropriate 'Henley Boating Song'.
This film was shown as a 'Smell-o-Vision' movie, as the theatre was equipped with a system that gave off various odours in synch with the film.
The opening scene involved a butterfly flitting through a peach grove, with accompanying delicious odours. Later on a barrel of wine fell off a cart going up a hill, and rolled down the street only to smash at the bottom, again to the accompanying odour.
Denholm Elliott and Peter Lorre star in a thriller about a tourist travelling, strangely enough, around Spain, and his 'unusual' Spanish taxi driver.
Cordoba's emblematic Mosque with its black and white hooped pillars is seen when the American woman is being pursued by the villain.
There is a brief appearance of Diana Dors on the beach at Torremolinos, Malaga, where Elliott tries to convince her that her life is in danger, although blondes only want to have fun; and Malaga's cathedral, which the mysterious woman in the huge hat walks mysteriously past, also appears, with its distinctive railings.
Madridejos in Toledo, a well known Spanish snapshot because it conserves its Quixotic windmills on a hill at the edge of town, also featured.
In Granada the terrace of the Hotel Alhambra Palace, where the stars actually stayed, appears, along with various bits of the Alhambra itself; such as the 'Jardines del Partal' and, further afield but still in Granada province, the caves of Guadix, famous for its underground dwellings. Here we see some rambling Flamenco music and dancing as Lorre and Elliot converse philosophically about life.
The film was banned for a while in Spain; not because of its political content, but because national pride could not stomach the scene in which a taxi ride begins in Málaga then passes Segovia's Roman Aqueduct and the Moorish palace of the Alhambra in Granada and finally arrives in Pamplona, Navarra to experience the bull running phenomenon of the 'San Fermin' festival.
One hopes the passenger left a good tip!
For the follow up to 'Fistful of Dollars', many of the old cast were joined by new 'names' such as Lee Van Cleef and Klaus Kinski. Like the first in the trilogy, the film's title is a reference to Leone's 'state of the budget'.
Italian villain Gian Maria Volonte, in reality a Shakespearian actor, returned to play the marihuana-smoking baddy El Indio.
Religious symbolism played an important role in the film (there are twelve bandits helping El Indio and he explains his plan to rob a bank from the pulpit of an abandoned church), the Church of Santa Maria, Turrillas, Almería. Director Sergio Leone was in fact quite obsessed with religion, among other things.
The church still stands, although the exterior as seen in the film is actually in a completely different place (such is the magic of the cinema). The exterior of the chapel is in fact the 16th century Alumbres Castle in the Rodalquilar Valley, built in 1510 to protect nearby miners from the attacks of Berber pirates.
In this it was not very successful as in 1520 the pirates burnt the village and took the inhabitants away as slaves, bringing an end to mining for the next 50 years.
The tower is located on the road leading to the beach called El Playazo.
Trains also play an important role in the film, perhaps because RENFE was always on hand to lend its old steam trains and, for a few dollars more, build some extra track in the middle of the Almeria desert, just as they did for 'Lawrence of Arabia'.
The train stations of Almería and Guadix, Granada were employed, and La Calahorra station represented Tucumcari.
The previously used location of Los Albaricoques repeated for the shooting of the apples, and the final Mortimer-Indio showdown took place there inside the circle of stones, which can still be seen, and which are in fact an 'era', used for collecting hay or grain.
Los Albaricoques is Agua Caliente in the film, where Eastwood faces the three Mexican gunmen.
Old Madrid favourites Colmenar Viejo ('White Rocks' in the film) and Hoyo de Manzanares ('Tucumcari'), also saw action again.
The scene where the bandits drag the stolen safe cross country was filmed at Cortijo de la Union among the dunes of Cabo de Gata.
Almeria has been quick to take advantage of the spaghetti western trend by creating western theme parks, although Oasis Mini Hollywood, constructed in 1965, was not created as a theme park, but to represent the town of El Paso in 'For A Few Dollars More'. Included on the site are the bank that is robbed by Klaus Kinski, Aldo Sanbrell and Luigi Pistilli.
The set was designed by Carlo Simi, who also played the bank manager in the film. It later also featured in 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'.
Other sites used for the film in Almeria were Cortijo de Genoveses (the jail and hay cart scenes), Oasis de Rambla Viciana (built for 'Lawrence of Arabia,' it is the place Indio plans to meet his gang after the bank hold up when he says "after the hold up we will meet at Las Palmeras") and Venta de los Callejones, where we can find the cantina where Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef drink and plot together. Indio's headquarters also used some partial shots of Almeria's bullring.
At Rambla de Indalecio we can see the scenes where Indio checks that the posse has left, Groggy shoots the telegraph wires and the gang race off with the safe.
The Russians are great lovers of poetry; something to do with the immense snowy wastes I'm told. It is therefore not surprising that to capture the heart and soul of a Russian poet, they should use an Egyptian actor.
Doctor Zhivago was released in 1965, except in Russia where it came out just a little bit later in 1994. As the book was banned in the Soviet Union, so the film was too, and of course that meant that the wide vastness of Siberia could be found nowhere else but in the Spanish province of Soria, a land where snow is always guaranteed; except when you actually want to make a film about Russia there, which naturally meant that they had one of the mildest winters on record.
Two streets of Moscow and a tramway were rebuilt in great detail in Canillas on the outskirts of Madrid. The site has since been urbanised and is now occupied by Calle de Silvano, near the Canillas Cemetery.
Also in Madrid, the Palacio del Capricho (Whim Palace!) belonging to the Duke of Osuna was used, specifically for the scenes of Zhivago's funeral, where his brother (Alec Guinness) and lover (Julie Christie) have their last meeting.
The entrance to the palace in the park was also used for a scene where the scheming but really not a completely lost cause Rod Steiger meets Julie Christie for one of their illicit trysts.
Most of Robert Bolt's screenplay was written in the Hotel Richmond, also in Madrid.
As he recreated Arabia in Franco's Spain, so director David Lean recreated revolutionary Russia there, and had a good supply of Spanish soldiers to depict Cossacks massacring Spanish (Muscovite) extras singing 'The Internationale.' Good practice.
The famous dam at the beginning and end of the film, a tribute to the proletarian achievements of communism (or it would have been if Franco hadn't built it!) and where Alec Guinness interrogates Rita Tushingham, is in fact the Aldeadávila hydro-electric dam in Salamanca province, on the border with Portugal on the River Duero.
David Lean must have liked his realism, and the scene where the woman falls while handing a baby into a moving train to escape carnage, was a genuine accident. This was shot at Aldealpozo in Soria and the woman's name was Lilí Murati; after all, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
She survived with what journalists like to describe as 'a few scrapes and bruises.'
Other parts of Spain were also treated to a sprinkling of Yankee dollars; the funeral of Yuri's mother, with 8 year old Yuri played by Omar Sharif's own son Tarek, took place near La Calahorra, Granada, specifically in the area known as Marquesado de Zenete, probably in order to use the Sierra Nevada mountains as a backdrop, impersonating the Urals.
The scenes of Yuri and Lara living their last days together in the 'ice palace' at Varykino were in fact manufactured using hot wax and marble dust as the snows refused to fall, and many winter scenes were actually shot in summer at 40 degrees, fur coats and all.
The battle on the frozen lake for example was shot near Candilichera in June with temperatures of over 30 degrees, using marble powder and plaster to simulate the ice. The Bolshevik cavalry galloping through the forest was filmed at Abejar, between the present day camp site and the Cuedar del Pozo dam.
The villagers of the tiny village of Candilichera couldn't believe their luck when the studio offered to pay them the equivalent of two years' harvest in order to use their land for filming the scenes at Varykino.
Mind you, the money wasn't spread evenly, and when we visited the village some inhabitants remembered that while some landowners were able to buy a flat in Soria with the money, others got nothing.
Visiting Candilichera today it is easy to understand why they chose this area to make Zhivago. The wide open spaces around the village still have an isolated feel and very little has changed apart from the occasional electricity line and an expansion of sunflower crops among the endless wheat fields. There's even an abandoned railway line.
The scenes of Yuri's time in a World War One hospital were filmed in the fields around Gómara and Ólvega in Soria, with the Moncayo mountain in the background. Here were also shot the scenes of Yuri and Lara's separation.
Near Candilichera they filmed the scene where the two Russian armies going to and from the front meet and have a bit of a disagreement with their officers, as well as the wheatfield machine gunning of young cadets.
The Ural Mountains were represented by the more modest El Moncayo Mountain, and the battle scenes were shot among the pine trees bordering the Cuerda del Pozo reservoir, which can also be seen when Yuri and his wife and father in law are riding towards Varykino the first time, and stop to contemplate Yuryatin covered in smoke.
The film is train spotters' heaven; Yuri's long train journey took him further away from Lara, and included stops at the stations of Tardelcuende, Matamala de Almazán (which represents Barikino where the family arrive en route to their summer residence), Villaseca de Arciel, Navaleno and Villar del Campo.
The tram scene, where Yuri doesn't achieve his longed-for reunion with Lara at the end was filmed using the tram that used to go to Pinar de Chamartín in Madrid, and was shot around the Plaza de España.
Another train station used was 'Delicias', now a railway museum to be found at Plaza Delicias, Madrid. This is where Sharif and Geraldine Chaplin are first seen together when she arrives by train all dressed up in pink.
When Zhivago unadvisedly gets off a train, he is briefly taken prisoner by partisans and interrogated by Tom Courtenay; this scene was shot on the road between Vinuesa and one of Soria's most popular nature spots, the lake called Laguna Negra, (which isn't black at all).
The station at Guadix, Granada was also used, and represented the Russian Siberian station of Yuriatin, and Lipgrad station in Russia was recreated at the now disappeared station of Muñogrande in Ávila province.
The city of Soria had its heyday during the making of the film, with every hotel occupied. The producers even rented out the local teacher training college in the Paseo de El Espolón as an administration building (today it is a health centre). Even today there is a Lara Cinema in the city. 80 sequences all in all were shot in Soria province.
The Hotels Comercio (now the Caja Duero Savings Bank), Las Heras, now demolished and Florida (now a police station) were all filled to the brim with actors and crew.
The people of Soria received their first ever children's playground in the area known as La Dehesa, next to the Cafeteria Alameda, thanks to MGM. It was in this area that Omar Saharif would walk with his son in the evenings after shooting. The playground has since been replaced with a more modern one, but you can still drink from the same fountain as the Doctor on his evenings off.
Thanks to local expert and author Juli´n de la Llana for much of this information. In fact some of the furniture collected by artistic director John Box for the film came from Julián's parents' and grandparents' houses!
Burt Reynolds rehearses for his role in 'Deliverance', but without the banjos, alongside a bunch of Italian secondary actors, plus Spanish actor Fernando Rey, in one of his favourite roles as a priest. The film was made all over some of Spain's drier 'Western' scenery, such as Colmenar Viejo, near Madrid, Guadix in Granada province for all the train sequences, Tabernas in Almería province and Torremocha in Cáceres province.
In Granada a lot of the shooting took place at the 18th century Cortijo Anchurones de San Pedro at Fonelas, which is now a hotel. Specifically we can see on the hotel estate the hill known as Pico del Grajo, in the scene with the horse ride along the river Fardes just north east of Fonelas, and the final fight that takes place with the Rambla de los Bancos in the background, situated between Fonelas and Guadix.
Reynolds apparently thought this was a Sergio Leone film, only to discover that Leone was not the only Sergio in Italy. This one was directed by Sergio Corbucci, who passed through on his way to obscurity, although the music was composed by the real Ennio Morricone.
The scenery is quite spectacular and Corbucci knew how to take advantage of the variety of scenery, with lush green prairies, snow-capped peaks and landscapes with soils of many colours.
This Mexican adventure with Raquel Welch and Jim Brown was filmed mostly around Almeria, with shooting taking place around Rioja, Níjar, Tabernas, El Nazareno and Senés, as well as Valle del Búho and Lanújar.
Around Madrid they filmed at the station of Villamanta, next to which a whole Wild West town was built, and the train crash and final showdown occurred, with more deaths than the entire population of Mexico.
The opening shots of Indians hanging (literally) around the station give us an idea that we are in for some serious killing. Also in Madrid province, the ruins of the monastery of Santa Maria La Real de Valdeiglesia at Pelayos de la Presa were used for the scene in which Burt Reynolds, Jim Brown and Raquel Welch meet up after escaping from the Federal troops, and are arrested again, although one of the Indian tribe escapes.
Between these two scenes, the scenery they pass through is many miles away in Almeria. The Cortijo where the federal soldiers have their HQ, and enjoy executing innocent Mexican peasants who only want a decent crust of bread and a revolution, is the Cortijo del Cura in Almeria, just north of la Boca de los Frailes.
The Indian village where the heroes sort out their 100 rifles before moving on to the attack is Polopos, a small village in Granada province about 20 kilometres east of Motril.
The scene with the water tower, in which Raquel's charms under a jet of water lure the Federal soldiers into an ambush, was filmed near the station of La Calahorra-Minas de Alquife, near Guadix in Granada, although the tower was especially built for the film. This 12 kilometre line once belonged to the British company the Alquife Mines and Railway Co Ltd.
As the German officer rides off after the final massacre and Raquel appears as beautiful in death as in life, some unfortunate telephone or electricity cables are briefly visible, perhaps to ease us back from the violent past into the comfortable world of the 21st century.
Raquel was brought back to life in Almeria in May 2005 when the authorities paid tribute to her for her role in this film and in 'Hannie Coulder' at a gala dinner.
Over 750 extras were employed during the making of the film.
Originally intended to be the next Beatles movie, this film was one of many to take advantage of the wild western feel of the mountains around Madrid, where Richard Widmark stars in a film based on a book by Richard Condon of 'Manchurian Candidate' fame.
Filming took place at the Dehesa de Navalvillar near Colmenar Viejo, La Pedriza, the castle of Viñuelas, Manzanares el Real and Fuencarral, all in the province of Madrid, as well as Córdoba, Guadix in Granada province and Málaga, all in Andalusia.
The US Video version was called 'Gun Crazy'.
Telly Savalas plays the hard man in a film shot around Manzanares el Real near Madrid and at the often used 'Ermita de Los Remedios', which serves as the church where Luisa is buried, and whose priest is none other than Fernando Rey.
Also used were La Pedriza, the Alberche River and the Golden City township at Hoyo de Manzanares, also known as El Poblado del Oeste.
The train station was at Guadix in Granada province.
The film is a fable in which bad blood is stirred and victims abound so that one man's fortune can be amassed upon the ruins of homes and the piles of corpses. Thank God such things no longer happen!
It's the eternal conflict between cowboys and Indians, each taking an eye for an eye and a scalp for a scalp until in the country of the blind.....
Omar Sharif returned to Spain for this John Frankenheimer story of real men and their horses.
Actually they started filming in Afghanistan itself until fevers and dehydration set them scurrying back to locations in Almeria and around Madrid with comfortable hotels and excellent mineral water.
The Santillana Reservoir was one of the 'Afghan' locations as was an old airstrip, both located at Manzanares el Real, Madrid.
After leaving Kabul, passing in fact through a gate in the walls of Jairán, part of the Alcazaba castle of the city of Almeria, Omar Sharif stops to break off his unmanly plaster cast with a rock; a decision he would have later regretted were he not so manly. This pause takes place in the ruins of Tabernas Castle.
Also used was Guadix in Granada province, where filming once more permitted the Sierra Nevada mountain range to double up as the Himalayas at no extra cost.
Animal lovers will no doubt have a collective fit when they see this film; most of what passes for Afghan culture consists of two animals destroying each other for the benefit of gambling tribesmen, and the headless calf race would even make some Spanish villagers think twice about tossing a goat from a church steeple.
Before that delight, we are treated to a bloody camel fight and even two tweetie birds slugging it out. Later we also see two rams going at it, twice, disproving the old adage that two heads are better than one.
Despite all this disgraceful cruelty towards animals, the Afghans do seem to have tremendously intimate relationships with their horses.
Two men from totally different cultures have to learn to work together in order to kill some other men; a not infrequent Hollywood plot.
A truly united nations film, made in Spain with U.S. born Charles Bronson of 'Magnificent Seven' fame and Japanese actor Toshirô Mifune from the original 'Seven Samurai' film. French actor Alain Delon and Swiss actress Ursula Andress are directed by Briton Terence Young. All of them lodged at the Hotel Melia in Aguadulce.
Once again Tabernas in Almeria provided most of the authentic Wild West locations, with its terribly beautiful grey and yellow rock and soil and rocks, lots of rocks; in fact, more boulders than Colorado.
Shooting took place specifically at Rambla del Buho, Camino de la Rellana, Mini Hollywood western township at Tabernas (where Maxime's whorehouse is situated-but don't bother looking for it anymore!) and at the Cabo de Gata sand dunes.
Delon's hideout was the now demolished Cueva de la Molineta, where Bronson finds Ursula Andress, foul of mouth and full of curves, and they head off across the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains, which had also been seen in the distance in the opening scenes with the train.
The railway scenes were once again filmed at La Calahorra railway station in Granada and a section of the Guadix - Hernan Valle railway line. It is in the latter location that the film begins with a classic western train holdup that gets complicated by Alain Delon's betrayal of fellow robber Bronson.
Delon's character is called 'Gauche' and he dresses in black so that we don't get confused about who the baddy is.
The climax takes place at a Mission surrounded by long rushes, in which goodies and baddies combine to fight and exterminate the baddiers, the Comanche Indians, who can only be described as 'interesting' as far as realism is concerned.
According to local expert Antonio Jesús Sánchez, the battle took place on the outskirts of Adra at a place known as Venta Nueva, situated on the border between Almeria and Granada provinces.
Further information was also supplied by Guadix expert Roberto Balboa Garnica.
Sergio Leone's last western, and one whose two titles emphasise some of the confusion surrounding its making.
Once again Leone indulges in repeated musical themes, slow motion and excessively long close-ups. Fortunately the symbolism is more under control, except in the opening scene with Steiger pissing on an ants' nest.
James Coburn (Sean), who cleverly plays an IRA explosives expert before the IRA even existed, and Rod Steiger (Juan) star in a film, at all the usual locations and a few less popular locations more.
The ramp next to the Church of Santiago in Guadix, Granada was used for the scene where dissidents are executed against a wall. Further executions of difficult citizens are performed in a quadruple moat, which was once the sugar factory of Guadix, known as 'La Azucarera.' Curiously, the old sugar factory is now the HQ of the Guadix Development Group, which among other things promotes cinema tourism.
Guadix cathedral is the the most notable building from the outside when Juan arrives in Mesa Verde.
Also employed was the surprisingly rarely used medieval town of Medinaceli, perched on a hilltop in Soria province. Here a few street scenes were shot in and around the Plaza Mayor during the fighting at Mesa Verde. The bank was also in the main square, although it was a set constructed for the film.
There were a few scenes with horses riding up and down that were filmed in the Valle de Arbujuelo. Perhaps they just needed a break from all the executing in Guadix, which does of course take it out of a man.
La Calahorra Railway station is the scene of the derailment of the troop train, and on the Guadix - Hernan Valle railway line Sean jumps from the train; and it is on the same line that we see the train cross a bridge.
At Guadix station Juan kills the Governor and an ambush on the railroad takes place at the old abandoned station at Gor, near Guadix.
Almería Railway Station became Mesa Verde, and the city railway station's facade appears in a scene where Steiger arrives there and the many windowed front of the station can be clearly seen behind him.
The opening scene takes place in the Rambla del Saltador. In the Valle de Rodalquilar, at the foot of the Cabo de Gata mountain range is the tower (Torre) de los Alumbres, where Sean blows up a church full of soldiers, and at the mines of Rodalquilar Sean and Juan meet on the trail, and we also see the scene with the army column, with a tank, in pursuit.
At Los Albaricoques we can find the old farmhouse known as Caserio del Campillo de Doña Francesca, where Juan faces a firing squad but is rescued by Sean.
The Cervantes Theatre in Almeria city was used for the interior scenes of Molly Malone's saloon. The theatre is situated in Calle Poeta Villaespesa, which is also the location of the Town Hall's attempts to imitate Hollywood by putting stars on the pavement.
At the Rambla de Lanujar the armoured coach is ambushed, whereas at the Mini Hollywood site in the Sierra Alhamilla they shot the scenes where Sean blew up the coach, and also where Sean and Juan blew up the bridge. The film was not so named in vain!
Another western made largely at the Madrid 70 Studios at Daganzo near Madrid.
Lee Van Cleef and Stuart Whitman fight it out, but only Van Cleef gets to sing.
The train scenes were shot at Guadix in the province of Granada.
Known as 'Captain Apache' in Spain, the plot concerns the attempted assassination of a US President.
With a budget of 25 million pesetas 'Pancho Villa' was filmed in Aranjuez and Colmenar Viejo near Madrid and around Guadix in Granada province between August and September 1971, using the Madrid 70 western township built at Daganzo.
In the film Pancho Villa takes revenge on a double-crossing arms salesman by invading the USA no less!
According to local expert Roberto Balboa filming took place in Guadix during the first fortnight of September 1971.
That part of the filming consisted mostly of the scenes involving trains, with the station of La Calahorra portraying the American city of Columbus.
There we see Villa (Telly Savalas) and his men near the end of the film, awaiting the train carrying General Goyo, being drawn by the legendary train spotters' dream train, the Babwil 140-2054 locomotive.
A battle takes place between Villa's men and the Federal troops, both sides consisting of local gypsy extras, who could change sides at a moment's notice.
At the same location, in the early stages of the film, there is a scene in which Clint Walker, in his first Spanish film, is cheated by arms salesmen and takes refuge in a wagon, which is rammed by another train in a comical scene with Walker being thrown about inside.
Walker plays Villa's sidekick Scotty, nobly resisting the temptation in moments of danger of asking to be beamed up.
Chuck Connors was also in La Calahorra, playing the manic Colonel Wilcox, who is seen off from the station to the relief of his soldiers.
The royal palace and grounds of Aranjuez can be perceived both in the show jumping scene, where the appropriately named Lieutenant Eager tries to warn Wilcox that Villa and his men have sneaked across the Rio Grande, (although in reality he has entered the Dehesa de Navalvillar near Colmenar Viejo where the prefab fort has been knocked together), and also in a brief glimpse on a film that Villa watches, enjoying the memory of his glory days at the palace in the capital.
Other scenes were shot on the line between La Calahorra and the Alquife mines. In these scenes, Villa's train, in which he is captive at the beginning of the film and having his hair shorn in a cage to explain why he is bald, is pursued by a train carrying his men.
In the same place they filmed the scenes where Villa's and Wilcox's trains play chicken at the end.
Finally, in the scene where Villa acts as a waiter in the presence of General Pershing, we can observe the mountain range known as Sierra de Gor in the background.
As well as the habitual Colmenar Viejo, Manzanares el Real and La Pedriza near Madrid, filming took place in Guadix in the province of Granada. In Almeria the Molineta caves and El Fraile appear.
Lee Van Cleef is the star of this film made when the TV series 'Kung Fu', starring David Carradine was at the height of its success.
One of a series of Chop Suey Westerns, like 'Red Sun', also made in Spain, where the producers try to cash in on martial arts in a sort of double whammy hype.
At La Calahorra, Granada, as is so often the case, the station was used, and all the train scenes were shot using the legendary Babwil 140-2054 steam train.
This film has some original moments, mostly involving tattooed female buttocks. Presumably, if hillocks are small hills, buttocks must be small butts!
Another splendid moment, possibly a hiatus in cinema history, occurs when Lee Van Cleef manages to unhorse four virile riders with some bunting....twice!
The malicious, Bible-quoting preacher with the mobile church is also a triumph of the imagination over the ludicrous.
Filming took place between 8th April and 22nd June 1974 starting at the western township of Daganzo and the nearby Madrid-70 studios.
Filming also took place in Almeria (El Fraile, El Condor, Salinillas and Mini Hollywood), whereas the scenes in China were actually filmed in Hong Kong.
Our thanks once again to Roberto Balboa from Guadix for his help with this information.
And once again David beats Goliath in injury time. Young David is played by Timothy Bottoms and King Saul by Anthony Quayle. Jane Seymour also takes part.
This two part film shows David as a young and later as an old man. The first part was shot in Israel, while the second was filmed in Almeria, where Keith Mitchell played David.
The old El Condor fort was remodelled for its adaptation as a much older castle, and the much older Alcazaba palace in Almeria capital became Jerusalem.
We see the Alcazaba as David's men, all five of them, storm the walls, in a film seriously short of extras, and later he arrives, apparently in his pyjamas, for some Dervish-like swirling celebrations.
Later David starts his decline into sin, starting with a young girl who berates him about her pregnancy as he reclines with soothing views of the walls and battlements.
The last 50 minutes of the film, as David declines further. Events unfold, and are seen from and from below the backdrop of the battlements.
According to film expert Juan José Carrasco, the caves of Guadix in Granada province were also used.
Even Gene Hackman can have a bad day, and this was it. As the commander of a Foreign Legion outpost, fighting a battle he doesn't believe in, his men are massacred by Spanish extras posing as Berbers.
These things happen.
The action begins at the old railway station of Las Delicias in Madrid, although Almeria once more provides perfect Saharan scenery, with filming taking place at the reconstructed fortress of El Cóndor near Gérgal, the port in Almeria city, and Cabo de Gata.
The Alcazaba castle features in the scenes when archaeologist MaxVon Sydow locates a treasure.
There was also some shooting of the railway convoy scenes at Guadix and La Calahorra, both in Granada province.
When British ex-army officer Robert Dapes arrives in Cuba to advise the Batista government on fighting the revolutionaries, he realises that the cause is already lost, with well organised rebels constantly gaining ground against poorly trained government troops. His difficulties are compounded when he runs into Alexandra, the love of his life who has settled for a comfortable marriage, which is now threatened by the revolution and by the exploits of her philandering husband.
At the beginning of the film, two suspects are being driven to a seaside fortress which in reality is the castle of San Sebastian in Cadiz harbour. So Cuban-looking is it in fact that it would be used again for the same function in the James Bond film 'Die Another Day'.
Cadiz's Plaza de España was used for the scene with the Havana crowds hailing Castro, and black marines from the nearby Rota Military Base helped to give the scene some authentic Havanan ethnicity.
The battle scenes in the cane field with the old steam train were shot in Motril, using the famous Babwil 140 train, used in so many films. Martin Balsam's troops are defeated among the reeds by Castro's rebels.
Balsam plays the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who ironically would die among the authentic luxury of nearby Marbella in 1973.
Motril is also host to the tobacco factory that an American businessman is thinking of doing business with, and is in reality the Fabrica del Pilar, an old sugar factory where, in another scene, Sean Connery is taken prisoner by the rebels. These scenes also include some footage shot in the old tobacco factory of Cadiz, which has since been transformed into the Palacio de Congresos.
When Connery takes a young officer to ambush some guerrillas, the filming was done near the Camino del Canal around Monte Castillo known as the Era del Maíz, just above the aerodrome E.V.A 9, also at Motril.
When he arrives in Cuba, Connery is taken to a modern hotel, which he rejects for something with more 'local colour.' The hotel he rejected was Malaga's Miramar Hotel, while the more down-market one he moves to is the Hotel Roma en Calle Real, Cadiz.
Another location in Cadiz was the Isla (Island) del Trocadero, while Malaga's Town Hall and Plaza de San Juan de Dios also feature in the film.
Some equestrian elegance was provided by the Fundación Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Equestre at Avenida Duque de Abrantes, Jerez de la Frontera. The Havana Yacht Club scenes were also shot in Jerez, using the swimming pool of the Five Star Hotel Jerez, Avenida Alcalde álvaro Domecq, 35, where Connery actually stayed instead of the seedier Hotel Roma.
Perhaps the most curious scene in the film is the one in which Connery visits a police station (Comiseria de Policia) and walks past a row of cages holding prisoners. Behind them we can make out some children playing basketball. All very charming and probably typical of pre-castro Cuban police stations, except that the scene was shot in the Padre Luis Coloma school in Jeréz de la Frontera where, presumably for budgetary reasons, they didn't bother to close the school for filming.
Carlos Jiménez worked in the transport business when Reds arrived at the village of Villacañas, Toledo to shoot some scenes, and Carlos was responsible for ferrying the equipment from the station to the filming locations back in the USSR.
Carlos showed me where some of the train scenes were shot on an old line, which is now a cycle path, halfway between Villacañas and Don Fadrique on the CM 410 road opposite a sign for Viveros Rodelgo.
Gaudix also played an important part, for the scenes of Reed's train journey to the Caucasus with a group of Bolsheviks, fighting off White Army ambushes, burning effigies of American capitalists, all filmed on the tracks between Guadix-Baza and La Calahorra stations, Granada.
The main purpose of the train journey is to take Communism to the east, and we see Trotsky lecturing the eastern masses in Los Reales Alcázares in Sevilla.
In Segovia province the royal palace at Riofrio, a big favourite with film makers, was employed, according to palace employee Miguel Angel Sancristan, who helped us with our enquiries.
The train used was once again the Babwil 140.
Most famous for being the last film in which Ava Gardner participated, this TV movie tells the story of the fading days of the Ottoman Empire, which could be knocked down either by a feather or by Nancy Travis, a young English girl in love.
Nancy ends up in a harem and Julian Sands, her fiancé (not unexpectedly) would prefer to get her out.
Omar Sharif returns to an Arab role, leaving his Russian roots behind in Soria, where he made 'Doctor Zhivago' to play the Sultan, a man whose vision of Empire is clouded by poor judgement and the attractions of his harem, (hence the subtle title).
When the British party arrive in what is supposed to be Constantinople, we find them staying at a luxurious hotel with ornate Arabic decoration, which is none other than the Alfonso XIII hotel in Sevilla, also used in 'Lawrence of Arabia.'
Later, when Sands' fiancée goes off on an adventure, during which she will be kidnapped while visiting some ruins, which were in fact the Bolonia ruins near Tarifa in the province of Cádiz, Sands searches for her and comes across Sarah Miles having tea in front of a palace, the Palacio Mudejar in the Plaza de America, another landmark of Sevilla.
In Granada province the attack on the train was filmed around Guadix, specifically at the puente del Grao, Rambla del Agua and Hoya de Guadix according to cinema expert Juan José Carrasco.
When the Sultan visits the Dervishes to find out if he should rely on his conscience or his army, their home is the castle of La Calahorra, also in Granada province.
Filming took place at Almodovar del Rio, Cordoba, where the local 8th century castle (now an Opus Dei school) served as the Sultan's palace, and the River Guadalquivir, represented the Bosphorus, separating Europe from Asia, although the interiors and gardens were mostly shot at the Casa de Pilatos and Reales Alcázares in Sevilla.
Alfonso Luna, tour guide at the Almodovar castle, told us that he worked as an electrician's mate during the filming. He especially remembers a tiger that was brought to the town, and escaped. Fortunately it didn't eat anyone, and sat on a rock waiting for the dart to send it to a well-earned sleep. The tiger is shown in a cage as a contemplative Omar Sharif walks past the first time we see his castle.
The production team spent seven days in Cordoba province and Gardner stayed at the Parador La Arruzafa.
Although a story of Italian immigrants in America, scenes with an old steam train were shot, like so many needy steam train films, in Guadix and Calahorra, Granada. In the version I saw, when the brothers reach America they start talking in English in the scenes shot in Spain, but on arrival in Hollywood, suddenly everyone and their grandfather is speaking Italian.
Our friend from Guadix, Roberto Balboa, introduced us to this film, shot in Granada and Almeria provinces, and also known as 'Adventures Beyond Belief.'
Filming began on 13th September 1986 at La Calahorra and then carried on in Almeria province until mid-October, with scenes taking place at the Monsúl beach, the sand dunes at Cabo de Gata and the port of Almeria, which portrays both Calais and Bombay ports.
At La Calahorra once again the steam train scenes were shot and the multi-purpose castle appears briefly as the headquarters of the fat, video game fanatic villain, supposedly in India.
Filming also took place at the Hotel San José in San José and at the old tuberculosis santorium, which is now the Centro de Arte Museo de Almeria, situated in Plaza Barcelona. The museum represents the Hotel Roma in Rome when Neat and Tidy arrive there at the beginning of their adventure.
San José also represents Bengazi Harbour.
Stephen Spielberg was influenced as a student by David Lean, who directed most of 'Doctor Zhivago' and a great part of 'Lawrence of Arabia' in Spain.
In fact, one of Spielberg's unrequited wishes was to make a James Bond film, and he has said that making Indiana Jones was a kind of next best thing.
Spielberg selected his locations on a helicopter trip over the desert scenery of Almeria, after which he and the crew landed at the Parador Nacional de Mojacar for lunch.
Spielberg and his crew began shooting Last Crusade in May 1988, in Almeria, and among the scenes from there was the Palace of the Sultan of the Republic of Hatay, which was in fact Almeria's 'Escuela de Artes,' which used to be the convent of Santo Domingo. Among the school's claims to fame was having once had Frederico Garcia Lorca as a student there.
The scene where a Rolls Royce is enough to seal the Sultan's collaboration with the Nazis was at first intended to be filmed in the famous Patio de los Leones in Granada's Alhambra Palace, but the high cost resulted in the use of the Escuela de Artes.
Spielberg, his wife and son stayed at the Parador Nacional in Granada, while in Almeria they rented a villa at the resort of Aguadulce, just west of Almeria city.
There actually was a Republic of Hatay from 1938 to 1939, after the region was granted independence from French Syria and before it became a province of Turkey. The capital of Hatay was Alexandretta before 1939 when the city's name was changed to Iskenderun.
In the film, the Andalusian town of Guadix, near Granada was Iskenderun, and made its railway station available so that Denholm Elliot could be mobbed by beggars before being kidnapped by Nazis.
One Almeria street that appeared in the film was Calle Almanzor, which had to shed its modern street lights for Indie, his father and Fez-wearing ally to wind their way up towards the Alcazaba palace; or at least they would have done had they gone further.
The Tabernas Desert, with the Ramblas de Trujillo, Búho, Benavides, Lanujar and Indalecio were used for Indie's single-handed battle against German tanks (although to be fair, the Germans didn't have whips), as were Las Salinillas and the Finca las Lomillas. It is in the Búho (owl) ravine that Indie shoves a rock into the tank's barrel, next to a famous pile of red rocks known locally as La Tortuga (the tortoise).
The old road between Rodalquilar and Aguamarga was also used, particularly for the tunnel scene where Indie and father are followed into the tunnel by a gulping German pilot in his flaming plane (the road tunnel was in fact part of the abandoned Rodalquilar mines).
The scene where Indie's car was attacked by a German plane was filmed in Los Escullos, Nijar, as well as at Turre and Sierra Cabrera, and at Punta del Esparto, just south of Los Escullos, their car hit a bomb crater.
Other places in Almeria that appear in the film are Ramblas Viciana and Lanos and the Baños de Alfaro. It is the Alfaro hill from which the tank goes over a cliff, apparently with Indie inside, which leads his father to briefly mourn him. In reality the drop is only five metres, but nifty camera work disguises that inconvenient and undramatic fact.
This time around it's not snakes that rattle Indiana Jones but rats (in Venice) and seagulls. When Dr Jones Senior scares the 'seagulls', making them fly up to provoke the plane crash, they are in fact pigeons. If you look closely you can see that there are a number of 'cut out' seagulls in the sand, which do not move. It was filmed at the beach of Monsúl.
When Indiana is earlier seen heading towards Berlin on his sidecar, the crew had moved away from arid Almeria, but not too far away. In fact they went to the adjacent province of Granada, and the greener mountains of the Sierra de Huetor, on the track that goes to Prado Negro (Black Meadow!) among others.
The crossroad where they have to decide whether to go to Berlin or Venice is situated in the Sierra de la Alfaguara, at the crossroads between Las Mimbres and Prado Negro. The airfield used for the zeppelin scenes was at Turre near Mojácar, and the crash landing in the Sierra de Cabrera, nearby.
This appears to be a rather long video clip from a group called KLF. They spend a long time driving around London and then some more time driving around the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Granada, finding time to visit the cave dwellings of Guadix and La Calahorra castle.
Their trip to La Calahorra begins down at the Plaza del Ayuntamiento and then one member of the duo, socks tucked into his trousers, walks up to the castle for suitably ambiguous purposes.
Near the end of the film they trudge through the snow, accompanied by a Country and Western Talking Blues version of Born Free up to the radar station perched upon the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
They also pass through the deserts of Almeria around Tabernas and Gérgal.
People say they are legendary, but what seems to be an old American police car is the real star.
This dramatization of the story of Pope John Paul II includes the assassination of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador and the Pope's later visit to pay him homage.
In both cases the cathedral of Guadix, Granada was used.
We also see the assassins walking up the famous ramp used by Leone in Duck You Sucker, on the way to do their dastardly deed, and as the Pope arrives, he drives into the arcaded main square.
A new take on the story of Jesus, with filming taking place around Baza and Orce in Granada province.
The scenes in front of some cliff caves, where the rebels led by Jesus are frequently seen and occasionally put to the sword by Romans, are in fact the Cuevas Almagruz at Purullena, near Guadix in Granada province. The crew and actors stayed at the tourist complex Cuevas Almagruz nearby.
In Baza, which represents Galilee, the crew filmed the scenes where Saint John accuses Saint Luke of fabricating the story of Christ, in the Baños árabes. Also used were Los Poblados Serranos de El Tesorero and San Nicolás el Moro in the Parque Natural de la Sierra de Baza and in the Rambla del Espartal.
In Orce the old city wall provides the backdrop to a market scene replete with conventional Roman repression.