The Guns from Uberti We’re taking you to the primary source of the guns from our American History, but the source is not in the US It’s in Italy where the guns were made for Clint Eastwood in the gritty roles that made him famous—The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, A Fist Full of Dollars and the others, now referred to as spaghetti Westerns. Back then, Aldo Uberti was the man who built the historic guns for the movies. Today his company makes more guns for cowboy shooters than anybody else. The guns of the American past carry the names of the giants in firearms history: Sam Colt, Oliver Winchester, Eliphlet Remington. 150 years ago, they lived and worked in New England’s gun valley, creating the instruments of our freedom that would expand this country Westward.  Today, their guns are collectors items that are frequently too valuable to shoot, but the guns are back for shooters who want to re-live the experiences of the Civil War or the old West, recreated not in New England’s Gun Valley, but  in the historic Gun Valley of Italy.  The Gardone Valley, in the foothills of the Italian Alps, is a peaceful place with a history of commerce in weapon making that dates back two thousand years to the Roman Empire. The Roman Legions built bridges and dams in the valley that are still in use today. And the residents of Gardone made the weapons--first swords for the Romans, later gun barrels, from the iron mines in the hills above the valley.  This is where Aldo Uberti founded his company in the 1950s to recreate the famous firearms of the past. He first made the Colt designed black powder revolvers and later moved on to Remington and Winchester designs.  And in 1960 Italian movie director, Sergio Leone, came to consult Aldo Uberti to find the Old West guns he needed for what would become known as “spaghetti westerns”. For a Fist Full of Dollars was the first of Leone’s gritty movie interpretations of the Old West that would change moving making forever and make Clint Eastwood a star. The movies would also promote world-wide interest in the guns of the American West. Today A. Uberti makes the guns of the past affordable for cowboy shooters and civil war skirmishers by blending state of the art computer controlled machining with the skills of the workers who do the hand finishing and tuning. It is the tradition of Italy’s Gun Valley that makes it possible, where the skills of gun-making have been passed down from father to son for some 50 generations.   Related Links A. Uberti   The History of the “Spaghetti Westerns” It was the summer of 1960 when Clint Eastwood signed to play the grim faced gun-fighter in A Fist Full of Dollars for Italian Director Sergio Leone, but the character had a name, “Joe”. Clint created the character, buying black Levi’s in a Santa Monica sports shop and the worn hat from a wardrobe supply company in Los Angeles. And Eastwood has said the foul tasting black cigars helped put him in the right mood. But the squint came from shooting in the desert of Spain under arc lights for Director Leone’s style of shooting tight shots of gritty faces. It wasn’t until 1964 when the movie was dubbed into English and released in America that it became a box office hit. The critics called it a spaghetti western, intended as a put-down, but the audiences didn’t see it that way. Quickly, Director Leone signed Eastwood for A Few Dollars More, this time as “Mongo” the bounty hunter. The man with no name slogan was created by the movie publicists. And this time, there was one other English speaking actor, hawk-nosed, Lee Van Cleef, also a bounty hunter. And this time the guns got more interesting. Van Cleef had a shoulder stock for his Peacemaker. A Few Dollars More hit big again with a world-wide audience. So Sergio Leone went back to the Desert of Spain with a big budget to produce The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He shifted time back to the days of the Civil War, hiring 15-hundred Spanish Militia to play the North and the South in a major production. But again the acting was done in Italian. with only Clint, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach speaking English. By the third movie the guns had become even more interesting, with the help of Aldo Uberti. One example is the scene when Eli Wallach goes shopping for a gun and assembles the best combination of Colt Navy Conversion parts to make a shooter. There are two other points you didn’t know or have forgotten. The haunting music, that instantly reminds us of Clint Eastwood, didn’t appear until the third movie. And the three movies aren’t sequels. Clint appears in each as the squinty eyed gun fighter, but with different names. There is, otherwise, no relationship between the three movies.  Except for the result: changing forever the authenticity of Western Movie-Making and making Clint Eastwood an internationally famous star. Even if “the man with no name” had names that we prefer not to remember. If you don’t know, in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Eli Wallach spends much of the time calling Clint “Blondie”. Clint’s character was actually named “Joe”. You can buy the three movies now as a boxed set for about 30 bucks. It’s a small price for the historic films that helped make Aldo Uberti’s historic guns famous and launched Clint Eastwood as a super star.   Related Links Clint Eastwood Filmography Buy the Movie Set