It has the quality of a metafilm that references so many others, and the self-consciousness and deliberateness that went into so many of its details comes through brilliantly on the whole, whether the audience is aware of them or not. A love of films went into this film. It has the flavor Pulp Fiction had, making gold from turds. Its an homage to all the hokey backlot Westerns that we hate.

I think one possible reason it didn’t make it to the AFI list is that it is basically an Italian film, with some American actors. It was filmed in Europe and just about everyone involved in it was Italian.