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There was a time, though, when the Spanish film industry
was less buoyant, but the country itself was much in demand
for locations - Lawrence
of Arabia, Cleopatra, Doctor
Zhivago... The golden age of film-set Spain was the sixties
and its capital was Almería. The nearby Tabernas
desert, the only true desert in Europe, was a magnet to
film producers, and a number of the sets that were used at
the time can now be visited.
 I
went to Mini-Hollywood,
the longest established of three theme parks existing in the
area. The other two, Western Leone and Texas Hollywood, are
still working locations, at least some of the time, but Mini-Hollywood
is now entirely given over to the theme-park business. Its
heart is a Wild-West set, what one critic calls "your
standard Spaghetti-Western town." And most of it is deliciously,
authentically false - real, phoney buildings that were actually
used in films.
Some of the movies that were shot here are legendary: Sergio
Leone's 'Dollars' trilogy ('A
Fistful of Dollars', 'For
a Few Dollars More' and 'The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly') starring Clint
Eastwood as the Man with No Name, 'Django'
with Franco
Nero, the sequels to which never seemed to end... over
a hundred titles were at least partially filmed in these dusty
streets. Almería was also used as a location for other
film genres after the sixties (Patton,
The
Wind and the Lion, Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade...) but it was the spaghetti-western
that really defined the relationship between the province
and the film industry.
Mini-Hollywood is a solidly commercial affair, from the moment
you leave your car in the 400-peseta car park and acquire
your 2,560-peseta entrance ticket (1,350 pesetas for children).
The price does include a reasonably entertaining zoo as well
as the wild-west film set, and so it is not bad in terms of
value for money. But, as at any theme park, they feel obliged
to try and lighten your pocket a little more and so make you
pose for photographs as soon as you cross the Fort Apache
stockade entrance (actually built, not for a film, but for
an arcade video game - how times change). As you walk up the
street to the main square, you pass the schoolhouse, smithy
and mine, which look more or less like any good theme-park
attraction, though the Baptist Church on the corner is impressive,
if telescoped. A games room is tucked in there where your
kids can dispose of even more of your hard-earned, the shop
dispenses just the kind of souvenir you would expect, and
the photo studio has a variety of costumes for you to dress
up in and have your photograph taken as a cowboy, Indian,
general... Read On >>
| Getting
There |
Tabernas is on the
N-340, less than an hour's drive from Almeria. |
| Who
is it for? |
Movie
buffs or enthusiasts and children (especially boys). |
| Eating
and Drinking |
Visitors are captive
consumers - there is nowhere else to go. Fortunately,
prices are not especially abusive and you have a certain
amount of choice. The saloon does sandwiches, the cafeteria
in the zoo does meals and the Hotel Arizona Palace does
an acceptable serve-yourself, all-you-can-eat buffet lunch
for 1,600 pesetas, drinks charged separately. |
Next page > The Shows (and
the Zoo) > Page 1, 2
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