'You dig': Spain lures film fans to sets of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'

CARAZA, Spain, Sept 13 (Reuters) - There are two types of people in the world, Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name tells a rival gunslinger who has no bullets. Those with a loaded gun, and those who dig. "You dig." Volunteers in northern Spain have taken his words to heart, painstakingly tending the freshly dug graves on sets featured in Sergio Leone's classic 1966 spaghetti Western "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" to make the area a pilgrimage site for movie fans.

With its rolling hills of heather-strewn shrubland, the countryside near the town of Santo Domingo de Silos, some 200 km (125 miles) north of Madrid in Burgos province, stood in for the American Southwest in the epic set during the U.S. Civil War.

Aerial view of refurbished film set Betterville Prison in Carazo, Burgos province, Spain, September 7, 2024. REUTERS/Vincent West

The last installment in the Dollar Trilogy that propelled actor Eastwood to international stardom is a fixture in most all-time best movie lists. In 2015, a local cultural association launched a sponsorship drive to reconstruct the fictional Sad Hill Cemetery, the site of a famed showdown between Eastwood's Man with No Name and two rivals for a hoard of buried Confederate gold. The cemetery now boasts more than 5,000 prop graves.

Sad Hill Association founder Sergio Garcia and Kristine Guzman, from the Castilla And Leon Film Commission, stand next to the inaugural plaque of the renovated film set of Better Ville Prison in Carazo, Burgos province, Spain, September 8, 2024. REUTERS/Vincent West

Kristine Guzman of the regional film commission said its refurbishment should sway fans to flock to what "will constitute a new place of pilgrimage". Angel Sanchez, 63, from Toledo in central Spain, told Reuters he was weighing whether to have his own ashes scattered there. To the east of the cemetery lies the Better Ville prison camp, where the gunslingers played by Eastwood and Eli Wallach are held after being captured by Union soldiers.

Angel Sanchez, 63, from Toledo, and Luciano Maldonado Moreno play out a scene at Sad Hill cemetery in Santo Domingo de Silos, Burgos province, Spain, September 8, 2024.REUTERS/Vincent West

Better Ville was rebuilt using juniper trunks burnt when a fire ravaged the surrounding natural park in 2022. The project received 50,000 euros ($55,000) in funding from the park and involved professional construction crews. Last Sunday, reenactors marked the project's completion.

Garbed in a Union officer's uniform, Sergio Garcia, a founding member of the Sad Hill Cultural Association, unveiled a plaque commemorating the hundreds of local extras who partook in the original production. At the cemetery, a man stood in a ready-to-draw pose as his portable speaker blared Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold" earworm from the film's unforgettable score.