ProtoItaloWestern
ProtoItaloWestern is a scholarly label used by a minority of film historians to describe a transitional subset of Italian Westerns that predate the more internationally known Italo-Western (Spaghetti Western) cycle. The term aims to capture a phase in which Italian production groups began to reinterpret American Western tropes within European studio systems, often under budgetary constraints and with transnational distribution in mind.
The concept covers films produced in Italy and other European studios from roughly the late 1950s to
Typical features attributed to proto-Italo-Westerns include location shooting in Europe that stands in for the American
Scholarly reception of the term is mixed. While it helps to describe transitional practices and cross-cultural
See also: Italo-Western, Spaghetti Western, Western genre, Italian cinema, film history.