Many people followed in the wake of the Master's works, giving rise to one of the most prolific "threads" in the Italian film industry: hundreds of films, with peaks of 40-50 titles a season, especially in the Sixties. But only a few directors stood out from the mass: the veteran of "genres", Sergio Corbucci, who with "Django" (1966) and "The great silence (Il grande silenzio)" (1967) focuses on violence and brutality; the eclectic Duccio Tessari who, in "A Pistol for Ringo (Una pistola per Ringo)" (1965) and "The return of Ringo (Il ritorno di Ringo)" (1965) presents a paraphrase of elements from Homer; the easy-going Franco Giraldi, who manages to inject healthy doses of irony into "Seven guns for the MacGregors (Sette pistole per i MacGregor)" (1966) and "7 women for the MacGregors (Sette donne per i MacGregor)" (1967); lastly Giulio Questi, director of "Django, Kill... If you live, shoot! (Se sei vivo spara)" (1967), perhaps the most unusual title of the lot, a work that was censored in many countries and which mixes echoes of Buñuel and suggestions of De Sade, presenting an unparalleled measure of cruelty. The so-called political western deserves separate mention: permeated by buzz words worthy of 1968 and third-world suggestions, it owes its most convincing results to Damiano Damiani ("A bullet for the general" - "¿Quien sabe?", 1966), Sergio Sollima ("The big gundown - La resa dei conti", 1966; "Face to face - Faccia a faccia", 1967; "Run, Man, Run! - Corri uomo corri", 1968), Giulio Petroni ("Long live the revolution - Tepepa", 1968) and, again, Sergio Corbucci ("Compañeros - Vamos a matar, compañeros", 1970). At the beginning of the seventies, ousted by the new "genres" (the spaghetti thriller, led by Dario Argento, joint script-writer of "Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)" (1968), the western lost much of its drive and enjoyed a last, fleeting period of glory in the slapstick version inaugurated with "They call me Trinity" ("Lo chiamavano Trinità") (1970) by E.B.Clucher - alias Enzo Barboni ? featuring fisticuffs with the duo Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. Further attempts to revive its glories ? such as those made by Enzo G.Castellari with "Django rides again" ("Keoma") (1975) or by Sergio Martino with "A man called Blade" ("Mannaja") (1977) ? were unsuccessful: from the commercial point of view, the death knell was tolling for the genres and the western was one of the first to pay the price.