Turkish cinema had its share of cowboys and aliens as well

While the much anticipated Hollywood movie ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ hits the movie theaters, we remember the cowboys and aliens of Turkish cinema..

Westerns and science fiction are two of Hollywood’s defining genres. Bringing together two action heroes of two generations, Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, Cowboys & Aliens blends two genres as it lands a spaceship into the Wild West of the 19th century.

It might come as a surprise to those not familiar with the history of Turkish cinema that these two genres had their moments here as well. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed an uncanny period, when movies flew high with everything from westerns and science fiction to adaptation of European comic books and American superheroes.

The movie researchers Giovanni Scognamillo and Metin Demirhan cite the release of the very first Turkish space movie in 1955 and the first western in 1963. When Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood made the spaghetti westerns a worldwide phenomenon in the 1960s, not only Hollywood but cinemas of many countries were inspired. Turkey was quick to jump on the bandwagon, which eventually saw at least 15 western movies produced per year in the 1970s.

Click here for full article (Hürriyet Daily News)

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