13 Iconic Landscapes of Western Movies

The snow-capped peaks of Lone Pine, California are conveniently close to the studios of Los Angeles. Take a right turn along Movie Road to see the hills where Blue Steel (1934), Comanche Station (1960), and How the West Was Won (1962) were filmed.

This town has played a part in so many film that it's been nicknamed 'Little Hollywood'. Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), The Lone Ranger (1956), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) were all made here, and the Parry Lodge (pictured) was a favourite of many actors.

You might not imagine it, but amongst the busy streets and ancient monuments to Roman glory was once a small piece of America. The Cinecittà Studios in Rome, Italy were from the 1960s onwards one of the main filming locations for Spaghetti Westerns.

Similarly, it didn't take much work to turn the mountains and scrub of Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park in south-eastern Spain into the arid deserts of western America. Shooting here was, of course, much cheaper for the smaller European studios.

The Torre de los Alumbres was built in 1510 to help protect the Spanish town of Rodalquilar from pirate raids. In Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965) it was the hideout of the ruthless villain Indio.

The small Spanish town of Guadix played the role of Mesa Verde in the 1971 film, Duck, You Sucker! also known as A Fistful of Dynamite, which tells the story of a group of amoral outlaws during the Mexican Revolution.

The 1968 spaghetti western epic Il grande silenzio (The Great Silence), was filmed almost entirely on location in the Italian Dolemites. In the film, this alpine village played the part of the blizzard-struck frontier town Snow Hill.