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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Location: Sad Hill - The Ecstasy of Gold

 
Part 2 of 3 on my coverage of Sad Hill.
 
Once arriving into Sad Hill, the walk towards the center of the fictitious cemetery is actually the same path that Tuco arrives at upon discovering the graves


Tuco begins his journey in search of the grave of Arch Stanton

I will admit that once I got to this location I cranked up Ennio Morricone's "Ecstasy of Gold", and proceeded to run around the entire area same as Tuco (no photos or video of that will be posted here!). 

I was SHOCKED to see someone had erected perfect replicas of the grave markers of Arch Stanton and "the grave marked Unknown".  CRAZY!




 
 

This is truly an awe inspiring location from arguably one of the greatest scenes in motion picture history, and as it was the last location I visited in Spain, it was the perfect end to the trip!



"The Ecstasy of Gold"
 
 
Additional pictures of the "graves" below.  Click to enlarge!
 

 a sea of red graves

the graves

panoramic

 
 
"Two can dig a lot quicker than one"
 
 
Next week- The Trio!
 


7 comments:

  1. Well I would have done the same. Ran around while listening to "Ecstacy of Gold" in my headphones. This is like visting the place where Moses parted the Red Sea for fans of SWs. Wow... whoever it was did a fantastic job on the graves for "unknown" & "Arch Stanton".

    I watched "Death Rides A Horse" on TCM Thursday night (I have it on DVD but it's not a good print) & when Lee was released from prision, for the first time I knew he was at the beach. I got the feeling that much of the film up to that point was probably shot in Italy then it moved to Spain.

    Again thank you for all the neat pictures & info. Almost 50 years now since I saw For A Few Dollars More the first time at a downtown movie theater & later that year (December) saw Good, Bad & Ugly & it is wonderful to have this here for films that have been so important to me for so many years. And I agree. The Sad Hill scenes at the end are among the greatest location shooting in motion picture history!

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  2. To me, it seems kind of ironic that all the graves are now covered with red foliage.
    I have always wondered who's idea it was to create a cemetery around one of those circles that are generally used for separating grain from its stalks.
    Thanks for posting all of this Aaron. I thoroughly enjoy going through all of these.

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  3. Just saw GBU on the local PBS affiliate here in Minneapolis. They showed the "extended" version and I had never seen the ending before. WOW -- the graveyard scene made such an impression. I went to IMDB and they gave the coordinates of the gravesite as 41.990517, -3.408511, but when I went to google maps you can't zoom in close enough to see the shot from space you give.

    Very cool, thanks for posting this.

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  4. We are the cultural association Sad Hill in charge of organizing the 50th anniversary of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" in the Valley of Arlanza (Burgos, Spain) in 2016, where Sad Hill cemetery, Langstone Bridge, the prison camp Batterville and other sequences of this legendary film took place. Visit us on https://www.facebook.com/acsadhill and enjoy the spaghetti western. of course, you are invited to visit sad hill, again. salute you

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  5. This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen, thanks a lot for sharing it!

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  6. Excellent! Thank you!

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  7. You have done this for all of us who cannot, for all of us who could only daydream about doing it. Magnificent!

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