Texas Hollywood


About 25km north of Almeria you'll find Mini-Hollywood, now renamed Oasys for some reason. If you're looking for a tourist experience, this is it. If, however, you're looking for the real set where, amongst others, the Spaghetti Westerns were filmed, go a few km further on and turn down a dirt road. After another km or 2 you'll come to Texas Hollywood. Texas Hollywood has a slightly neglected air, with the Mexican and American towns constructed next to each other faded, peeling and generally looking the worse for wear which is actually somehow gratifying. You can enter the façades of homes, banks, shops and barbers’, but of course they're only façades. The saloon, however, is real and even has a restaurant out the back. Once upon a time, this barren land was home to some of the greatest actors in movie history. Since the 1950s, the province of Almeria has produced more than 150 films. Most recently, "Blueberry" (2004), starring Vincent Cassel, Juliette Lewis and Michael Madson. However, it was during the 1960s and 1970s that location Almeria had its heyday. At its peak you couldn’t move two yards without falling over a member of Hollywood’s A-list. Anthony Quinn , Stewart Granger, Faye Dunaway, Ursula Andress and Peter O’Toole were common sights in the area.
	It was the famous Spaghetti Westerns that were first to make cinematic magic in the light and heat on the wind-blown sand, stone, scrub and dry riverbeds of the Tabernas Desert. Director Sergio Leone revolutionised the Western, turning it into a kind of ironic fairytale that blended grungy close-ups and over-the-top spectacle with a grunting, growling understated dialogue. Leone’s "Dollars Trilogy": A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) introduced the world to a young Clint Eastwood, becoming box office hits in Europe and the US. And it’s Leone’s sets still standing today, designed by Carlo Simi, that make up Texas Hollywood.
There are few visitors compared with the number you’d find at Wild West recreation towns in the US, possibly because Texas Hollywood is not as well known as you’d think. But this just adds to the authentic atmosphere. Standing here you can imagine a tumbleweed rolling down the main street or, better still, the likes of all who filmed here, from Yul Brynner and Henry Fonda to Klaus Kinski, Lee Van Cleef and Charles Bronson.
After the demise of the Western, this region was able to adapt to many other parts. Almeria hosted war, biblical and adventure productions and was transformed into Arabia, Russia, Mexico and North Africa. David Lean turned the seaside town of Carboneras into the Jordanian port of Aqaba for the charging and battle scenes in Lawrence of Arabia; the classic love story Dr Zhivago, set during the Russian revolution, was partly filmed at Guadix; Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton shot some of Cleopatra in the area; and Steven Spielberg picked the beautiful coastal park of Cabo de Gata-Nijar for parts of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Texas Hollywood is normally open in summer from 10am - 8pm. Here's a quick glimpse.

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