West and Soda

West and soda (also known as The West Way Out) is a 1965 Italian animated Western comedy film directed by Bruno Bozzetto. It is a parody of the traditional American Western.[1]

In an interview, Bozzetto claimed to have invented the Spaghetti Western genre with this film, an achievement usually attributed to Sergio Leone with his A Fistful of Dollars which was released the year before, but whose development started later and was faster than the traditionally animated West and Soda.[2]

The plot of the film follows the traditional stranger arriving in a small western town. The stranger finds a pretty woman holding out from selling her uniquely green land to the local big shot, who is harassing her in hope of seducing her/buying her land. There is an ongoing mystery about how the stranger got a hold of the gold nugget he possesses, though at the end of the film it is revealed that he found it in a soap box (it is fake).

A PAL R2 DVD of the film has been released in Italy. It contains 40 minutes of extra material, including interviews, a completely restored version of the film as well as English subtitles.