A collection of videos produced by Paolo Pecora celebrating the career of Gordon Mitchell, with the odd bit of promotion thrown in for good measure. From what I can gather these were originally broadcast on TV Calabria, a private channel only available in the Calabria region of Italy some time in the 1980s. Watching host Paolo Pecora attempt to summarise Gordon Mitchell’s somewhat extensive film career in less than twenty minutes, it’s obvious he has an impossible task although there are some interesting, albeit brief, comments from Gordon Mitchell as he tries to squeeze a word in edge ways and fails in almost all attempts. 

Gordon Mitchell’s western village mentioned in the interview was located in Manziana, a village about thirty minutes drive outside of Rome. Apparently Gordon was owed some money by a film producer who couldn’t pay him so he accepted a large plot of land as payment instead and built a village. Enzo G. Castellari recalled that the construction work was done with very little money so all the doors and windows were far smaller than normal, he described it “a village for dwarves”.

With the western genre very much in decline by the time the village was eventually completed I don’t think it was in operation for very long, although the aforementioned Enzo G. Castellari did shoot the seminal western Keoma there in 1976. Pecora mentions that Gordon lived with him for a while which suggests he may have relocated to the south of Italy after his business venture with the western village failed.

I have no affiliation with Paolo Pecora although I am guilty of subtitling his Mafia epic Faida some years ago. He’s a curious mix of part-time TV presenter, infrequent director and inventor.