Other SWs with a female lead?
Are there any other Spaghetti Westerns with a female lead role? Seems like a no-brainer plot device/selling point.
shareAre there any other Spaghetti Westerns with a female lead role? Seems like a no-brainer plot device/selling point.
shareWow. Good question.
Can't think of one; and I think I've seen a lot of spaghetti westerns.
Cannot believe they didn't make any others. The Japanese were quick to make female protagonist sword fighting films.
There was Lucio Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse.
I really liked that.
There was a con man, a crazy man, a wino and a female prostitute.
Female co-lead role.
Not sure you'd consider it a Spaghetti western, but "Cat Ballou" with Jane Fonda. A revenge theme, female lead and great performance by Lee Marvin!
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Gonna check out Cat Ballou
thx!
Not an sw but asylum films made a kind of remake of hannie caulder in 2010. It's showing on encore western and is in the $5 dollar bargin bin at wallmart. its not to bad for a cheepy flik from now of days.
shareI am guessing you are using "Spagetti Westerns" as meaning lower budget western movies rather than western movies made in Italy? (the originals being the Clint Eastwood movies, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY)
Anyway, a 1976 movie, LIPSTICK, with the two Hemmingway granddaughters (Margaux and Mariel) as lead actresses also had a similar rape/revenge theme.
Also not a western, (unless you count Las Vegas *smile*), is the movie SHOWGIRLS (1995). The rape victim was a close friend of the woman getting the revenge in that movie.
--- Probably the real reason for the shortage of that theme is the same reason women were *burning their bras* and having *conciousness raising seminars* in the time period when HANNIE CAULDER was made. At that time period, women were considered less than victims in those days, and *were asking for it* when they got raped.
That may have contributed to the poor box office showing for HANNIE CAULDER at the time, and a following Raquel Welch movie with a *casting couch* theme taken to the popular (at that time) roller derby setting in KANSAS CITY BOMBER.
If you don't think those ideas existed in that time period, try watching the TV series ONE DAY AT A TIME (Vallerie Bertinelli) which was quite popular, but is terribly out of place watching it now. It is even hard to watch THE BIONIC WOMAN (Lindsay Wagner) on some of the episodes when she has such low self-esteem and/or self-confidence... And you could try the original ROLLER DERBY (Charlton Heston) and SOYLENT GREEN's treatment of women (*furniture*).
Women in positions of power, and powerful women were just not portrayed in movies or shows back then. That left an even smaller space for violent women, (just watch the Elizabeth Montgomery THE LEGEND OF LIZZIE BORDEN with its theory of the killings.)
*** Edit added SOYLENT GREEN movie reference ***
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Not a spaghetti western, but since you're fond of that genre, I think you'll like Lady Snowblood, a chanbara movie with a strong, female lead.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
The story is a bit far fetched but The Quick And The Dead with Sharon Stone fits the bill although it is not a sw.
shareThree spaghetti westerns featured female characters as more or less gunfighters. GARTER COLT with Nicholetta Machiavelli is one, available only in Spanish so far as I know...then there's THE BELLE STAR STORY starring Elsa Martinelli. And LITTLE RITA OF THE WEST, starring singer Rita Pavone, which is believe it or not, a spaghetti western musical with break dancing indians and many songs by this pop star icon. Ironically, except for the fringe coat white hat costume worn by Rita, it has the look of a spaghetti western, and features a cameo by Django, and Ringo.
shareSomeone should mention Kill Bill 1 & 2. Not a SW, but they were based on Hannie Caulder.
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1954's "Johnny Guitar," with Joan Crawford as a saloon owner (Vienna), and Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge shooting it out at the end. Directed by Nicholas Ray, almost all of the action is female-centered. One prime example: While two of the men are engaged in a barroom brawl (normally the center of attention in a scene from a "regular" Western), the camera instead stays focused on a conversation that Vienna is having with an ex-lover. We hear the men fighting, and see a body flying through the doorway every now and then, but it's of minor importance in the scene. Ernest Borgnine also plays a bad guy in "Johnny."
shareOnce upon a time in the West. The beautiful Claudia Cardinale.
shareThere's 3 westerns that Brigitte Bardot starred in: Viva Maria (1965) with Jeanne Moreau, Shalako (1968), and Les pétroleuses (1971) with Claudia Cardinale.