Kill Bill References Guide/westerns

This section of the Kill Bill References Guide lists all references with Western films, for example American Westerns or Spaghetti Western.

AMERICAN WESTERNS

The Searchers (1956)

• Directed by John Ford

• When the Bride exits the church before finding Bill on the porch.

• When the Bride limps off from the trailer after her encounter with Elle Driver.

• The latter is a version of the last shot from The Searchers - where John Wayne limps off into the desert before the door of the house shuts - which in itself was a reference to an earlier William S. Hart western - taking Tarantino's references all the way back to the silent era.

SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1967)

• Directed by Sergio Leone

• The opening shot is a reference to a similar scene in The Good The Bad and The Ugly in which Eli Wallach points a gun at Clint Eastwood, who is near-death from dehydration and being out in the sun for hours and hours.

• The music played when Sentenza (Lee Van Cleef) appears for the first time ("Il Tramonto" by Ennio Morricone) is used in Kill Bill: Volume 2 when the Bride exits the church and finds Bill.

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Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

• Directed by: Sergio Leone

• On her way to Budd's trailer (after escaping the coffin), The Bride is walking through a sun-bathed desert out of focus, then slowly comes into focus, just like Henry Fonda in C'era una volta il West.

• It's clear as well, that the perfil image of Budd it's the same as Charles Bronson in Once Upon A Time In The West.

Da uomo a uomo aka Death Rides a Horse (1969)

• aka As Man to Man

• Directed by Giulio Petroni

• Starring Lee van Cleef

• The music "Death rides a horse" composed by Ennio Morricone.

• The extreme closeup of the eyes followed by a bright orange/yellow spaghetti western flashback of the massacre. When The Bride's Vengeance Theme plays, we also get a red/orange spaghetti western flashback.

• The trailer says: "The bandits who killed 5 defensless people made one big mistake. They should have killed 6". In Kill Bill The Bride says "The DiVAS thought they killed 10 people that day but they made a mistake, they only killed 9".

• The opening scene of the movie is very similar to the first part of the anime sequence in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (The little kid assists to his family massacre hidden somewhere, the villains burn the house and one of them weres a skull pendant similar to O-Ren father's killer skull ring).

• Lee Van Cleef says: "Somebody once wrote that revenge is a dish that has to be eaten cold".

Il Mercenario aka A Professional Gun (1968)

• Directed by Sergio Corbucci

• Starring Franco Nero, Jack Palance and Tony Musante.

• The music Il Mercenario (ripresa) and L'Arena composed by Ennio Morricone

• A kind of "Death List Five" (The word bank is underlined twice like Bill's name in Beatrix list).

Django Kill...If You Live...Shoot! (1967)

• Directed by Giulio Questi

• The main character only known as "The Stranger" (Tomas Milian) is buried alive but manages to dig himself out. The scene is almost take for take reenacted in Kill Bill Vol 2 when Beatrix escpes from the grave of Paula Schultz.

Un dollaro a testa aka Navajo Joe (1966)

• Directed by: Sergio Corbucci

• Starring Burt Reynolds

• The music "A Silhouette Of Doom" and "The Demise Of Barbara, And The Return Of Joe" composed by Ennio Morricone

• Throw an axe in the head