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"Favourite Westerns"
On 2/19/2011 at 12:17:14 AM, Dac started the thread:
Having watched the Dollars trilogy again recently (all excellent films, far and away) as well as True Grit, and intending to watch The Magnificent Seven for the first time soon enough, I got to wondering, which Westerns have people seen and value the most?
Have a love for Yellow Sky, Unforgiven and 3:10 to Yuma, but it occurs to me I don't know as many Westerns as I should. So, hit me.
(Appaloosa was OK, too)
Msg #1: On 2/19/2011 at 12:38:49 AM, Pteranadon2003 replied, saying:
Check out "Hombre" with Paul Newman. Such a great film.
Msg #2: On 2/19/2011 at 12:44:06 AM, PaulSF replied, saying:
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Tombstone, and The Coen's True Grit are honestly the only Westerns I've truly given a damn about.
The John Wayne films I've watched were... fine, but very grounded in their time. The Searchers just came off as an overrated film in particular and Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven especially bored me to no end. The late Gene Siskel was my only friend in the world on that. Currently an opinion not shared.
Msg #3: On 2/19/2011 at 1:07:27 AM, Majestic-1 replied, saying:
Love Unforgiven. Try:
Open Range
Once upon a time in the west
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Dead Man
The Searchers
Man who shot liberty valance
Tombstone
My darling clementine (it's like tombstone only old)
The quick and the dead (sam raimi. Silly but fun)
I know I'm forgetting some but I'm tired.
Msg #4: On 2/19/2011 at 1:18:42 AM, PaulSF replied, saying:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance was actually my favorite of the Wayne films I've seen. Seems very underrated.
Msg #5: On 2/19/2011 at 1:22:44 AM, Raptor Vinny replied, saying:
Tombstone
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
True Grit (2010)
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Still have to watch the rest of the Dollars trilogy though. Have them on DVD.
Msg #6: On 2/19/2011 at 2:12:57 AM, Dac replied, saying:
Ah yes, Tombstone. Was a fan of that too. Love Sam Elliott. Haven't seen too many of Wayne's...I think Stagecoach is actually the only one. Am curious to see The Searchers as well as his True Grit, if for no other reason than they come highly recommended. Dead Man was pretty good, if offbeat (only Jim Jarmusch film I've seen that I liked). Requires a few viewings.
I'll keep an eye out for those others. Thanks, guys.
I will say this, though...going through a lot of the web, most people seem to regard For A Few Dollars More as the lesser of the Dollars trilogy. While I grant that TGTB&TU is hands down the best of the three, I actually prefer FAFDM over Fistful. Must be something to do with Lee Van Cleef.
Msg #7: On 2/19/2011 at 3:11:15 AM, Grizzle replied, saying:
Seconded on "Once Upon a Time in the West" Truly great film.
"Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" is another good one.
Anything John Wayne is great, but they can seem pretty dated sometimes. If you can get into the mindset of "these were made 50-60 years ago" then they can be pretty enjoyable.
Nice to see some love for the "Dollars Trilogy" too. And I think "For a Few Dollars More" is the best of the trilogy. "TG,TB&TU" was more epic in scale, but "FAFDM" had a better story, theme music, villain, & conclusion. Eastwood & Van Cleef against El Indio was fantastic.
Msg #8: On 2/19/2011 at 2:00:35 PM, Majestic-1 replied, saying:
Yeah, I like Few Dollars More over Fistful, everybody said I was crazy. Maybe because I saw Yojimbo before Fistful, so it kind of bored me.
Msg #9: On 2/19/2011 at 6:03:51 PM, JPJunkee replied, saying:
I also prefer For a Few Dollars More to Fistful. My love for Yojimbo might have something to do with this, but in my case I saw Fistful first. I just think Few Dollars More is more enjoyable in every way.
I had heard that Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was a prequel to the other two. Is this widely considered to be the case or was somebody mistaken? I mean, maybe it would explain a few things regarding Van Cleef's character, but I don't know.
The one popular western that I have never shared any love for was Rio Bravo, but I may have to see it again.
Some suggestions;
High Noon (second best western of all time behind Good, Bad, Ugly I think)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah's masterpiece)
Once Upon a Time in the West
Assassination of Jesse James
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Good, the Bad, The Weird (Korean western, but still)
The Magnificent Seven (it doesn't come close to Seven Samurai, but it's decent fun)
The Proposition
High Plains Drifter
Replies: 10
Msg #10: On 2/19/2011 at 9:22:26 PM, Grizzle replied to Msg #9, saying:
Oh yeah I forgot about The Proposition. I finally saw it a few weeks ago. Was really good. :)
Msg #11: On 2/20/2011 at 2:11:30 AM, Narrator replied, saying:
Wild Wild West!
Msg #12: On 2/20/2011 at 3:42:23 PM, raptor2000 replied, saying:
Shane
Tombstone
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
True Grit (2010)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
I've seen and liked many others but I can't think of them right now. I own the man with no name trilogy but I haven't watched them yet.
Msg #13: On 2/20/2011 at 8:19:58 PM, dieterstark replied, saying:
Tombstone of course- only movie that got the character of Johnny Ringo right (though the man actually commited suicide).
Assassination of JJ by Coward RF is a close second
Msg #14: On 2/20/2011 at 10:57:43 PM, Guilty Spark replied, saying:
Check out The Magnificent Seven.
Msg #15: On 9/12/2011 at 10:00:40 AM, Dac replied, saying:
Dragging this one back up.
Taken a lot of your suggestions and seen them...well, I'd forgotten to include The Assassination of Jesse James earlier. But now I've also seen The Magnificent Seven (not bad...not great, but OK) and The Proposition (very good, great performances by all), in addition to getting High Plains Drifter (haven't watched it yet).
Been picking up a lot of other ones as well - spaghetti westerns, made by Italian filmmakers, and a couple more American-made ones. Just about any Western I can get my greedy hands on. The ones I haven't yet watched are One Eyed Jacks, My Name Is Nobody, Rough Night in Jericho and Joe Kidd.
The ones I have watched are The Professionals (didn't think much of at first but was loving by the end - the charisma of the actors and the clever dialogue, especially Jack Palance at the end, sold me), Death Rides A Horse (a bit overhyped, I think, but enjoyable for Morricone's score and Lee Van Cleef. Didn't like John Philip Law much) and God's Gun, which I really liked far more than I thought I would. Characters were well fleshed out, it took the time to show that, and the plot itself didn't go where I thought it would. Was really welcome. Again, Lee Van Cleef was excellent, and Jack Palance was great as the villain.
Msg #16: On 9/12/2011 at 1:15:59 PM, Oviraptor replied, saying:
Lonesome Dove
Msg #17: On 9/12/2011 at 2:18:31 PM, Ostromite replied, saying:
I don't even know how to respond to your dismissal of the western genre, Paul, especially considering that so many of your favorite movies are blatant ripoffs of so many masterful westerns. How many have you actually seen?
Msg #18: On 9/12/2011 at 7:20:00 PM, PaulSF replied, saying:
I didn't say I hated Westerns, just that the majority I've sat down to watch just didn't do a significant amount for me beyond their technical merits (Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford might have the greatest cinematography of the last decade right next to Conrad Hall's work on Road To Perdition). I've seen a large chunk brought up in this thread, but yes, not all.
Replies: 19
Msg #19: On 9/13/2011 at 7:26:04 AM, Ostromite replied to Msg #18, saying:
Not to be a dick, but do you think there's a possibility that that might be partially due to how much you've inundated yourself with Star Wars and Indiana Jones? Both of them copy so much out of old westerns that, if you'd seen them first, the content of the originals may not feel like anything new.
I'm bringing this up not to sound superior but because I have the same problem: not with westerns, which I grew up on (without exaggeration, I probably saw 75% of the films mentioned in this thread by the time I was 12, and I never saw Raiders of the Lost Ark until I was 16), but with Fritz Lang movies, all of which are so unbelievably influential that I feel like I've seen them already, regardless of how masterful and brilliant they are.
Also, I will make a sort of mega-post later about my favorite westerns, mainly to point out some glaring omissions from this thread. Fortunately, westerns are one of the few genres where many of the best films are also the most popular, but a lot of the great auteurs of the genre - Anthony Mann in particular - don't get nearly as much recognition as they deserve nowadays.
Replies: 21
Msg #20: On 9/13/2011 at 7:57:38 AM, Dac replied, saying:
Give me anything you got. I'm in love with this genre for some reason so I'm taking whatever I can get. Hence why I haven't got hold of some of the ones that've been brought up here, but wound up with some that came out of nowhere. So any suggestions, hell yes.
Replies: 25
Msg #21: On 9/13/2011 at 9:00:40 AM, PaulSF replied to Msg #19, saying:
I can't recall any western I've seen where I've even remotely thought "Meh seen this before in goddamn Raiders/Empire Strikes Back", so no that's not why. Anyone feeling that way would be a complete moron in my view. Stagecoach has the stunt where John Wayne carries himself under a moving carriage like Indy eventually mirrors decades later utilizing a whip and a truck. There's no tedium of such a thing in either film. One invented the shot which left other artists inspired, the latter is a loving homage to a genre and style of movie-making brought back to life. Raider's tagline of "The Return Of Great Adventure" sums it up. As a kid, this confused me as I initially thought it meant ROTLD was a sequel.
I've begun watching Metropolis on Blu-Ray for the the first time. Seeing all the bits and pieces of inspiration is a similar treat so far.
Msg #22: On 9/27/2011 at 8:28:14 AM, Dac replied, saying:
High Plains Drifter was...I liked it, but I kept feeling like it never quite hit the notes it was going for. Felt a bit flat. Same with Hang 'Em High, which benefitted better from a better cast and the protagonist not being a clone of the Man With No Name. Was nice to see Eastwood doing a Western but playing a different part - in HPD it felt like the director wanted him to do the Man With No Name again, without the flair or style that Eastwood was able to conjure with Leone.
Gonna watch The Gun And The Pulpit tonight.
Also picked up The Shooters (young Nicholson? Wow), My Name is Nobody (another Leone, so should be good) and Buffalo Bill And The Indians (Altman). Slowly working my way through them.
Msg #23: On 9/27/2011 at 2:08:11 PM, Ostromite replied, saying:
Leone only directed some scenes of My Name is Nobody. The rest is by Tonino Valerii, and it shows. The presence of Morricone music makes it seem more Leone-like than it really is.
Also, do you mean The Shooting, the 1965 Monte Hellman movie? If so, it's one of the greatest anti-westerns ever made.
Msg #24: On 9/27/2011 at 5:23:56 PM, Dac replied, saying:
Yeah, it is The Shooting. My bad.
That's disappointing about Nobody. Had higher hopes for it.
Msg #25: On 5/7/2012 at 5:20:31 AM, Ostromite replied to Msg #20, saying:
Dac, while I was writing a recent review for the Bright Lights Film Journal on Anthony Mann's 1964 film The Fall of the Roman Empire, I mentioned some of his westerns and it jogged my memory about this thread where you were looking for suggestions. I had meant to get something of a list to you, so I'm going to write one now off the top of my head so I don't forget. I normally don't like writing just little sound bites because it reduces movies I really like to just a few tag phrases, but I don't have the time to elaborate on them and this is really just so you can figure out which ones you may want to check out.
I'm sure a lot of the films I'll mention are ones you've already seen or already know about, but I'll just mention them anyway. First, I'll try to list my favorite westerns by director, along with ones that may not be that great but which I still like. Then, at the end, I'll list westerns I think are overrated or a waste of time.
GOOD WESTERNS
ANTHONY MANN
One of my all time favorite film directors. Even though John Ford, Clint Eastwood, and Sergio Leone are usually the names people think of as big directors of westerns, Mann made more truly great westerns than any of them, and I highly, highly recommend all of them.
Man of the West: My all time favorite "real" western (i.e. other than Dead Man, my favorite movie, which is a western on paper but is really so many other things too that it doesn't quite count). It's kind of an adaptation of King Lear, but it's also just a really rich and beautifully shot psychological drama about a decent guy trying to avoid turning back into the brutal psychopath he was when he was young. I could talk about this film for hours, but a few things I really love: the hero and the villain are more alike than they are similar; Mann refuses to glorify revenge, as he always does, and makes the final act of vengeance seem ugly and pathetic; the romantic subplot is subverted and actually makes sense; every single character represents a psychological counterpoint to the hero; and all the settings are shot in an almost expressionistic way to affect the mental state of the hero, who wavers between collected calmness and crazed paranoia
The Naked Spur: My second favorite Mann western, and it's a close second. I might actually say it's a better movie than Man of the West because it's so minimalist and cohesive: there are five characters, none of them change clothes, and the whole movie takes place outside over the course of a few days, the story following how they off-and-on trust and distrust each other as they escort a prisoner for reward money. The only DVD available has really ugly colors, though, so if you get it on video and it looks flat and dull, that's why. The real film is gorgeous.
Winchester '73: Not quite as good as the first two I mentioned, but it's quite similar (a psychological story about a violent man trying to become civilized, and why that's so hard in a society that values guns more than the people holding them). Absolute must see.
Cimarron: Kind of like Gone With the Wind, but a western, and a lot better. Not as well shot as his earlier westerns or the two epics he made right after it (El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire) and a bit flat because of the actors, but it's rarely cheesy
The Furies: This is a really inconsistent film, but, like Man of the West, it's kind of an adaptation of King Lear, only with a subtext of incest that really gets at Mann's obsession with Greek tragedy. I like it a lot, but it's not amazing.
The Man from Laramie: I honestly don't remember this movie very well, but mainly because it's very similar to his other westerns; the same kind of hero gets caught in a revenge plot that ends tragically, the story focused mainly on his psychological change. If you like the others, you'll like this, too, but for some reason it doesn't stand out in my memory that much compared to the others.
The Tin Star: This is my favorite Anthony Perkins movie other than Psycho, where he plays a greenhorn sheriff that some hick town hired temporarily, assuming that he'd get killed or quit in fear before he'd actually try and do some good. Henry Fonda is awesome as a badass former sheriff who rides in and shows him a thing or two. It has a lot to say about how men respond to other men in terms of violence and confidence, and the final shootout is one of my favorites.
The Far Country: Same sort of stuff as most of the other ones, only in Canada. Nobody seems to care about it because it doesn't have deserts or Indians, but I still like it more than most of Ford's westerns.
JOHN FORD
I assume you've already seen at least one John Ford western because they're the most famous and popular ones ever made. What I think you ought to look out for while watching them is Ford's leftist politics, fondness for outcasts and poor people, and use of poetic rhythms instead of standard cutting
The Searchers: This is one of his most popular, but I think it's actually his weirdest western. A lot of people now like it because it actually comments on white racism and the horrors of westward expansion, but I like it because it's poetic, abstract, and mythic, like a Homeric epic or a French chanson de geste.
Stagecoach: I'm not a huge John Wayne fan, aside from the films he made with John Ford and Howard Hawks, but he's not really the star of this movie because it's a real ensemble cast, even though everyone acts like it's all about him. Film teachers love to show the racist but awesome chase scene in intro-level classes, but this is largely a leftist screed against banking corruption and Christian hypocrisy (the main villain is a wealthy embezzler, the heroine is a prostitute ostracized by "proper ladies," and the Southern "gentleman" turns out to be a caveman throwback who loves shooting Indians and women)
My Darling Clementine: This is probably the only great movie that embodies the "typical western," mainly because Ford invented the "typical western" with it. It's my favorite movie about Wyatt Earp and is essentially flawless, but it's not as cool or political as some of his other westerns. It has the best version of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral I know of.
Wagon Master: The best Ford western nobody ever talks about, probably because it was a low budget thing with no stars. John Ford actually came up with the story and had his son write it, so it's one of his most personal films (and, if memory serves, his favorite western he ever made). I tend to like the parts of Ford's westerns where all the minor characters from different classes and ethnic background mix together rather than the main plots with the movie stars, and that's all this movie is. It's also got some corny musical numbers by some Mormon folk group that I think are kind of fun. If for no other reason than it's criminally underrated, I suggest going way out of your way to see this.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: I actually think this is better than The Searchers because it's more honest about the lies Americans tell themselves about the Old West, the justice system, democracy, and gun violence, but I recommend watching it after you've seen some of his others first because it has a really hanging weight of sadness, like Ford had a tumor of guilt he had to drain after all the ideological bullshit he shoveled with his previous westerns. Andrew Sarris said it was closer to Citizen Kane than it was to other westerns, and I think it's a good point.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon: His "Cavalry Trilogy" is supposedly one of his greatest achievements, but this is the only one I really like, even though the other two, Fort Apache and Rio Grande, are technically good films. I think it's embarrassingly racist and John Wayne is kind of insufferable, but the photography is amazing and the marching band music is great, too, if you're into that sort of thing.
Cheyenne Autumn: I still can't decide if I like this movie or not; it desperately tries to make amends for all the wrongs done to Indians in western movies, but it ends up being pretty patronizing in the process. Still one of his most overlooked and heartfelt films.
The Iron Horse: Sadly, I've only seen one of Ford's silent films, and this is it, a musical and poetic epic about the train as a symbol of American civilization in all its glory and ugliness.
How the West Was Won: Ford actually directed this with Henry Hathaway and George Marshall, and it's not really that great of a movie, but it was shot in this weird process that projected the film on a big semi-circle that would enclose the audience. It's crazy to see, but on video it looks terrible unless you get the copy that puts a cylindrical curve on the image to make it look right.
HOWARD HAWKS
Hawks is usually considered one of the great auteurs of the western, but he only made five of them, and two suck (Rio Lobo and El Dorado)
Rio Bravo: Like The Searchers, this is one of those officially sanctioned top ten westerns that everybody thinks is a classic but which is actually a really weird movie. The screenplay and pacing is brilliant, almost every line memorable, but it's a very lazy movie about a handful of bumpkins hanging around waiting for something to happen, and when it does, it's fast and off-screen. One of my all time favorite westerns.
The Big Sky: I don't know if it counts as a western because it takes place in Missouri and is about fur trappers, but it's a beautiful story about frontier multiculturalism (aside from the American leads, most everybody is a Creole Frenchman or an Indian)
Red River: My favorite John Wayne performance, where he gradually turns from a one-dimensional hero into a loathsome, scum-of-the-earth capitalist megalomaniac, a thief, murderer, misogynist, and obsessive lunatic. The last two minutes almost ruin the movie, though, so I try to block it out.
DELMER DAVES
I think Daves is one of the most underrated western auteurs there are. Like a lot of other directors in the fifties, he made film noir crime thrillers in the forties before he moved on to westerns when popularity shifted that way, so his westerns tend to be kind of dark and psychological.
3:10 to Yuma: Probably his best known western, it's tighter and more tense than the remake, and the villain is played by Glenn Ford, who was kind of a Tom Hanks of the '50s so his turn as a psycho gang leader is extra creepy
The Hanging Tree: This is one of Gary Cooper's most complicated performances, where he plays a half-crazy frontier doctor with a fucked up past who gets in a feud with an even crazier Christian miracle healer. It's also got a lot of funny moments for modern viewers because they say "glory hole" a lot.
Broken Arrow: I don't like it as much as some people do, but it's one of the first Hollywood westerns to deal with racism towards Indians and is generally entertaining. It has James Stewart, though, who I'm usually not a big fan of
Jubal: Daves' most underrated western that I've seen, a really smart and well written story about jealousy focused on an old ugly guy married to a young girl. I think people don't like it because it doesn't have any handsome actors or an actress with a nice rack.
The Last Wagon: This is a good movie in general, but it's worth seeing mainly for the fact that it reverses the sexes in one of the standard western story formats, with a man coming back after being "ruined" by Indians instead of a woman and with a female lead being the real hero.
HENRY HATHAWAY
Another great western director nobody gives a shit about. He wasn't really a big auteur with much unique vision, but he made a few really good westerns (actually, he made a lot, but I haven't seen most of them)
True Grit: His most popular movie, at least now. The only movie I think John Wayne is funny in. I'm starting to like the Coens' remake a bit more because Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn is a much richer character, but this is still a classic. I like it mostly for how it portrays tense and unusual friendships between different kinds of people. You've probably already seen it.
The Sons of Katie Elder: It actually kind of falls apart halfway through because the writing isn't what it could be and it's not as deep as it thinks it is, but the story overall is solid and the photography has a lot of nice landscapes. Don't bother with it if it's a huge hassle to get a hold of, but it's definitely entertaining.
The Shepherd of the Hills: Another western set in Missouri, this is actually kind of a weird story about Ozark gun nuts and moonshiners. It's a hillbilly western. I guess there was a novel and a silent film, but I have no idea what they're like.
HENRY KING
Yet another great western director nobody seems to remember other than film critics and wacko cowboy enthusiasts. I haven't seen most of his movies because he was usually just hired to direct whatever bullshit Fox had around, but a few of his westerns are fantastic.
The Gunfighter: A fairly slow "noirish" movie about a famous gunslinger trying to escape his reputation because assholes are always trying to kill him in a duel so they can be famous. Really smart and beautiful movie, one of the most neglected art films of the fifties that nobody cares about because it happens to be a cheap western that was big flop. I think it's a masterpiece.
Tol'able David: This is cheating because it's not really a western, but it's one of my favorite American silent dramas and his has poor people getting in gunfights on the frontier, so it's close.
The Bravados: Simply a fantastic western, aside from some bad acting. Very dark and beautiful. I would stand it against The Searchers in terms of film poetry.
NICHOLAS RAY
One of the great Hollywood auteurs, his best movies were mainly melodramas (like Rebel Without a Cause), so his westerns were basically melodramas set in the west. They're all good, but not equally so.
Johnny Guitar: A masterpiece, an anti-McCarthyist pseudo-musical about poor people and social outcasts being harangued by landowners, angry mobs, and homosexually repressed political assholes. Some DVDs look like shit, so beware, because this movie really needs to be seen in high image quality. One of my favorite westerns.
The Lusty Men: You could guess from the title, but this is a sexy movie, though probably more so for gay men and straight women because of Robert Mitchum. It's basically a quiet love story about a rodeo star.
The True Story of Jesse James: My least favorite Ray western that I've seen (not sure how many others he made), mainly because it feels like it was really watered down by the studio. It's kind of like Rebel Without a Cause, with Jesse James and his friends as a bunch of juvenile delinquents.
SAMUEL FULLER
One of my favorite directors. His westerns weren't his best films, but I've seen two of the four he made, and I like them both.
Forty Guns: It's a solid B-western, but what makes it great is how amazing some of Fuller's camera work is (it has one really long and complicated take that baffles me considering the film's budget) and how crazy it is. The characters are so mixed up in how they confuse sex with violence that the whole movie feels like it's going to blow apart at any minute. It's about a woman who basically has a male harem of forty hired guns and cowhands, and it only gets crazier from there.
The Baron of Arizona: It's like There Will Be Blood, only zanier, with Vincent Price playing the villain and the plot revolving around some weird con artist thing about forged letters.
FRITZ LANG
One of the all time greatest filmmakers ever. If you haven't seen M, Metropolis, Spies, the Dr. Mabuse films, or his film noirs yet, see them first, because they're better.
Rancho Notorious: It's kind of campy, but on purpose, and so over-the-top that it works. It's basically a dime novel revenge plot but with really dark undertones and a Greek chorus singing a silly cowboy song called "Hate, Murder, and Revenge". Marlene Dietrich plays a German cougar who owns a cattle ranch called "Chuck-a-Luck," where she lets fugitives hide for hotel rates. It's awesome.
The Return of Frank James: Kind of like Rancho Notorious, only a lot less crazy and with slightly better acting. Not a great movie overall, more of a half-baked film noir shot on leftover western sets
Western Union: In his other films, Lang was obsessed with communications technologies and how they enable paranoia, espionage, and voyeurism. This is a western about that, specifically the telegraph, and I like it mainly because of how beautiful and innocent Lang portrays the idealistic Americans who laid the foundations for all the fucked up techno-insanity of the 20th Century
WILLIAM WYLER
I'm not a huge Wyler fan, since most of his movies were filled with old-fashioned folk morals, but these two are real good. Neither of them are close to The Best Years of Our Lives, though, so if you only see one Wyler film, make it that one.
Hell's Heroes: An early sound film, it's kind of an allegory for the nativity story, with three prison escapees adopting a baby in the wilderness and finding God. John Ford remade it as 3 Godfathers with John Wayne, but this one's better because it's less sentimental and doesn't assume the audience is a Christian, so it actually affects you emotionally regardless of the religious content
The Westerner: Basically just a really solid western with no real quirks or difficult themes. I mainly recommend it if you like Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan.
WILLIAM WELLMAN
A film noir genius. I haven't seen a film by him I didn't like.
Track of the Cat: One of the best westerns ever made. Psychologically dark, complex, symbolic, perfectly dramatized, and beautiful. It's mostly about a dysfuntional family trying to deal with each other during a blizzard.
The Ox-Bow Incident: Not quite as subtle as Track of the Cat, but it's absolutely gut-wrenching and powerful. Probably the best film I've ever seen about lynch mobs, and one of the best about capital punishment.
Yellow Sky: Maybe Wellman's least popular western, but it's still fantastic. The symbolism of death/heaven is more heavy-handed than anything in Track of the Cat, though. There's a new Blu-Ray that really does it justice.
JOSEPH H. LEWIS
Another guy who made mostly film noir thrillers and westerns, and there isn't must difference between the two.
Terror in a Texas Town: There's some horrible acting, but it's shockingly anti-capitalist for the time (it was written by a blacklisted writer) and it's the only western I can think of where the hero uses a harpoon (he's a Swedish sailor played by Sterling Hayden).
7th Cavalry: Lewis made a bunch of movies with Randolph Scott, but this is the only one I've seen. As a movie about actual cavalry fighting Indians, I like it better than Ford's Cavalry trilogy, but it's racist (obviously) and the most interesting parts are the subplots about family squabbles.
BUDD BOETTICHER
He made a lot of westerns, but I've only seen a few, the ones recommended to me by critics who slogged through his many mediocre ones. IMDB says he directed 45 movies over five decades, but these three were made in two years.
Buchanan Rides Alone: A really simple and tight story about greedy assholes and stupid feuds. It's funny, too, but not a comedy.
Ride Lonesome: I think this might be my favorite of the bunch, but I'm not sure. It's mostly a bunch of tense conversations people have while riding across the country on horseback, and it's all well written. No bullshit action scenes to keep the illiterates awake.
The Tall T: I actually found out recently that this was based on an early Elmore Leonard story, which explains why it's so cool. Almost a gangster movie set in the west.
JACQUES TOURNEUR
You've probably seen some of his early horror movies if you're a horror buff, like Cat People, but I'm in the minority because I like his westerns better (I tend to prefer westerns over horror films in general, though, except for vampire movies). I've only seen a few, though, because they're not on video in the U.S. Wichita is supposedly one of the greatest westerns ever made and Tourneur's masterpiece in the genre, but I've never seen it.
Canyon Passage: One of the best westerns I've ever seen, it basically has an entire community as its hero, completely flipping around the lone wolf archetype that pops up in these movies all the time. It's worth seeing just because it's so beautifully shot (it's in the Pacific Northwest instead of the desert, so it's really green and lush), but it's also just a really in-depth drama played out by quality character actors. I don't recall a lot of the plot details because it's fairly intricate, but it manages to balance stories about Indian fights, gold mines, trains, and love triangles without seeming too big.
Stars in My Crown: Not a western, really, because it takes place in the South, but it feels like a western a lot of the time and is simply a masterpiece. It's really a deep and sympathetic portrait of small town life, as much focused on folksy details of country living and boyhood fun as it is on race violence and religious hypocrisy.
SERGIO LEONE
I'm actually not a huge fan of spaghetti westerns in general, since most of them are really just bad westerns made in Spain by Italian hacks, and I don't particularly care for Leone's "Dollars" movies, but the three he made after those are astounding.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: I assume I don't really need to even mention this movie, but it's probably the single strangest western that's still considered a veritable classic. It's kind of an avant-garde B-epic, a mix of Arthurian legend and paranoid crime thrillers shot like Lawrence of Arabia on peyote.
Once Upon a Time in the West: My favorite Leone film, it's less cartoony and experimental than The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and more thoughtful about the process of mythmaking Leone is obsessed with. I actually think Charles Bronson is a more interesting nameless hero than Eastwood in the other films, and Henry Fonda is a more charismatic and Satanic villain than Lee van Cleef. It's a film that knows it's a myth, and seems reluctant to end because the train that's coming in the final shot is going to erase the Wild West from existence. The opening sequence is one of the greatest feats of mise en scene in cinema.
Duck, You Sucker: Not as entertaining as the first two, but it's a lot more controlled and dramatic, and James Coburn is probably more entertaining than any other single performance in a Leone film I can recall (other than Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West). This is also labeled as Once Upon a Time... the Revolution and A Fistful of Dynamite. I think the first stagecoach robbing is the highlight of the film.
SERGIO CORBUCCI
Spaghetti western fans call him "the other Sergio." He's okay, but don't grab a film just because his name's on it because he did a lot of hackwork and most of it sucks.
Django: If the appeal of spaghetti westerns is in iconic, mostly silent heroes walking a mythic desert landscape filled with death, then this is a better and more entertaining one than the "Dollars" films, by far.
The Great Silence: Memorable for me mainly because it's snowy and has Klaus Kinski in it. Spaghetti westerns are most visual treats, and the mixture of blizzards and Klaus Kinski's insane face make this a lot more enjoyable than the usual fare Corbucci turned out. It's my favorite film of his.
CECIL B. DEMILLE
His best movies were big biblical epics and shit like that, but he made some good westerns in the thirties and forties. They're mostly just entertaining, so don't go out of your way to see them unless you are, for some reason, really into DeMille.
The Plainsman: One of the more enjoyable Gary Cooper movies from the period where Hollywood treated him like a hunk, like Brad Pitt in the early nineties. It's historical inaccuracy is shameless and really quite stupid, but as a sort of pulp take on Wild Bill Hickok's life it's pretty fun.
Union Pacific: A big heavy melodrama about trains. I like westerns about trains, but this is mostly good because of Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck. It has one of the best cavalry charges I've seen, if you ignore the standard racism involved.
Unconquered: Not a western because it takes place during the 18th century and is about early American colonists, but it's still a classic frontier melodrama with an Indian uprising in it. My favorite part is Boris Karloff as an Indian, which is ridiculous but kind of works.
SAM PECKINPAH
Considering that he's so synonymous with westerns, I haven't seen that many of his. Most of them are from the early sixties and pale in comparison to his seventies films.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia: It's set in modern times, so it doesn't count, but it uses western iconography and has a really gritty story about desert assassins, graverobbing, and rape. It's part romantic comedy, part revenge tragedy, part gangster film, part all-night whiskey drunk nightmare. The best film I know of about self-destructive American masculinity. One of my absolute favorite films.
The Wild Bunch: A very cynical 60s movie, with no heroes and an apocalyptic ending. I know this is really popular and famous, but it seems to me like most people just like the gore and violence and not its really dark messages about macho bullshit and every day violent crime being presented as light entertainment.
The Ballad of Cable Hogue: Most people hate this movie, but I think it's mainly because of how frustrated they are at Peckinpah's denial of their expectations. This isn't a tough guy western; this is a sweet comedy with a tough guy protagonist. It shows how much Peckinpah really had a heart of gold underneath his alcoholic Yosemite Sam exterior. I love it.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: In a lot of ways, I think this is a better film than The Wild Bunch because Peckinpah takes the themes of murder-as-entertainment even further, but it was apparently heavily compromised by the studio. A sad movie with brilliant performances.
RAOUL WALSH
A brilliant director who made some truly awful films when he wasn't making masterpieces. His westerns tend to be pretty good to mediocre, but I think he has a few stinkers I haven't seen. His crime thrillers are better.
The Big Trail: A very early John Wayne movie that shows what he was like before he came up with that strutting, wide-mouthed persona - in other words, a young, promising actor who could play a character without simply standing in his clothes. I don't remember the story because it's standard stuff, but it's beautifully shot.
Colorado Territory: A remake of Walsh's awesome gangster movie High Sierra, so it's literally a gangster movie set in the west. Probably my favorite Walsh western, though High Sierra is a better film.
CLINT EASTWOOD
A better director than an actor, and all his good westerns are commentaries on his own movie star appeal as The Man With No Name, Dirty Harry, and just a tough white guy hero in general (same goes for my favorite non-western he made, White Hunter Black Heart)
Unforgiven: One of my favorite westerns, and, thankfully, one of the most popular. Eastwood absolutely refuses to justify or glorify violence in any capacity, or even the motivations for committing violence (usually presented as misinformation, intoxication, or stupidity).
The Outlaw Josey Wales: Partly a remake of Stagecoach, I think of it as a tipping point for Hollywood westerns; once Eastwood sided with Indians against his own appeal as a fascist ass-kicker, everyone else either had to put up or shut up. I don't think it's a coincidence that westerns basically disappeared from Hollywood as a big genre after this. It's a bit heavy-handed and a bit dumb in its politics, though, which basically just say that the government can't be trusted (no shit). Chief Dan George is the best part of the movie.
Pale Rider: Kind of a remake of High Plains Drifter, only much better; not only is Eastwood a better actor and director here, but the vague allusions to ghost stories has some real mythic power, with Eastwood's second-to-last version of The Man With No Name conjured as a dusty angel of death.
OTHER
These are just westerns I like that were made by people who either never made any other westerns or never made any other ones I liked
Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch): My favorite film, one of the most radical American movies ever made. It essentially reinterprets the entire genre to make room for dream logic, poetic narrative structure, non-capitalist ideology, and American Indian experiences. Beautiful, heartbreaking, funny, as dense as a modernist novel. I've seen it maybe a dozen times and still get more out of it with each re-viewing; this is a film that really needs to be seen more than once. I highly recommend Jonathan Rosenbaum's book on it, or at least his his original review.
The Shooting (Monte Hellman): A predecessor to Dead Man, a hallucinatory epic about white people's westward trek towards their own deaths. Fucked up and unforgettable, but the film Hellman made at the same time, Ride in the Whirlwind, is pretty standard and not nearly as exciting.
Walker (Alex Cox): I hesitate to call it a western because it's kind of just a drugged out anti-colonialist allegory that uses the western genre and the true story of some whackjob to move it along. It's politics are helter skelter but it's crazy and exhilirating.
Death Rides a Horse (Giulio Petroni): One of the few spaghetti westerns I think is entertaining enough on its merits as an action movie to warrant a watch. It's in the public domain, so a lot of shit copies are all over the place.
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann): Somewhat overrated, but mainly because it's overly praised "political" screenplay mostly just amounts to liberal self-pity in the wake of the McCarthy hearings. What I like is how Zinnemann makes the town feel like an imprisoning vortex of time with crazy high angles and random shots of clocks as Gary Cooper's sheriff waits for someone to come to his aid.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik): Pretentious a lot of the time, at least in how it mimics European art films and Stanley Kubrick, it's largely a slow art film about how reality-TV-style celebrity interacts with morally bankrupt artificial folklore in the collective American imagination. I doubt Casey Affleck will ever top this film.
The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter): One of the first feature films, it gets taught a lot as a historical artifact but I genuinely enjoy it as a movie
The Virginian (Victor Fleming): A perfect example of the kind of western popular in the 20s, with a white-hat hero and a black-hat villain, but it's fairly complicated for a morality tale and there's something I like about how innocent it seems to be about how the world actually works, like a children's show
Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt): A boring but fascinating movie that tries to address the kinds of issues young women would face in the frontier without getting preachy or overly political about it. Quentin Tarantino hated it, which is reason enough to check it out, as far as I'm concerned.
The Missing (Ron Howard): A toned down retelling of The Searchers, a hell of a lot less bombastic and a lot more sensitive to issues of sex and race. It gets a bit corny, but that's Ron Howard for you.
Open Range (Kevin Costner): Not very well directed (which doesn't surprise me, since it's Costner), but the gun violence is some of the most honest I've seen in a modern western and the film actually pays attention to the tiny details of frontier politics
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston): Takes place a bit late to be a western, and the cowboy hats are replaced with fedoras, but it's one of the best films about what happens to greedy men isolated in the wilderness with access to guns and gold. There Will Be Blood rips it off left, right, and center. Humphrey Bogart is terrifying as a likeable joe who slowly descends into total madness. The ending is amazing.
And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (Bruce Beresford): A movie about how movies were already mythologizing the west while it still existed, and a really entertaining story about how cinema affects our ability to look at ourselves. Beresford is a terribly underrated director. My favorite film of his is Black Robe, which is almost a western and is even better than this.
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (William Beaudine): As dumb and hilarious as it sounds.
River of No Return (Otto Preminger): If I remember correctly, this is basically a watered down version of Bicycle Thieves transplanted to the desert. It doesn't compare to that film, but it's sexy and fun.
Keoma (Enzo G. Castellari): I think Castellari is basically the Jesus Franco of westerns (and I hate Jesus Franco), but this is too stylish to not enjoy at least a little bit.
Lonesome Cowboys (Andy Warhol): A super-gay camp comedy about cowboys who like cowboys. Actually more poignant than it sounds.
Giant (George Stevens): A big, sprawling melodrama with James Dean, Rock Hudson, Sal Mineo, and Elizabeth Taylor in it. It's entertaining and rich, but it's not the fabulous art film some people think it is.
Taza, Son of Cochise (Douglas Sirk): Sirk is one of my all time favorite directors, but this is the only western of his that I've seen. I'm not sure if he made any others, but this is is one of his lesser films, not nearly as complex, gripping, or beautiful as his melodramas and war movies. It's unique in that it's almost exclusively about Indian characters, and they're portrayed as complex, real people, but they're all played by whites.
BAD WESTERNS
Shane (George Stevens): The most overrated western ever made, a corny, poorly acted, schmaltzy tug at the heart strings that has as much emotional sincerity as an episode of Lassie. I hate this movie. The iconic scene with Jack Palance and the shepherd's son is the only good part of the whole film.
El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky): Touted by some people as a great surrealist masterpiece, it's really just a pretentious bunch of bullshit by a guy who merely wishes he was crazy. It's got some neat visuals but it's basically just a freak show. It was popular as a midnight movie for acidheads and hipsters. Jodorowsky's wacky horror movie Santa Sangre is similar but much better.
The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges): A sacrilege against Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, it's not even that good on its own terms. There are some good actors but it's just a big, dumb mess.
Silverado (Lawrence Kasdan): This film's main contribution to the genre is that the big set they built for it has been re-used a bunch of times for other, better westerns (like Tombstone). It's got Kevin Kline and John Cleese in it, so you'd think it's a comedy, but it's not. It's just a middle-of-the-road attempt to recreate the magic of a 1950s western thirty years too late. It's totally safe and incredibly mediocre, nothing offensive
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill): Lame attempt to get off on star power; The Sting is better, and so is just about every other movie Paul Newman's acted in. It acts like it's getting you to root for the bad guys, but they're not really bad, just outlaws on paper. No grit or authenticity, just a facade of Hollywood winks.
Hondo (John Farrow): The John Wayne movie everybody's dad is thinking about when he lovingly refers to Wayne as "the Duke," barely suppressing a boner. Racist and totally uncritical of Wayne's macho posturing. Hardly Wayne's worst film, or even his worst western, but it's the most popular of his non-Ford, non-Hawks westerns.
The Alamo (John Wayne): This is the worst John Wayne movie ever made. Pure propaganda, and not even well made.
Okay, I guess that's it for now. Took me a while to type this, so I'm not going through it to proofread. Hope everything reads fine.
Replies: 26, 27, 30
Msg #26: On 5/7/2012 at 6:03:34 AM, Grizzle replied to Msg #25, saying:
Msg #27: On 5/7/2012 at 9:05:26 AM, fordprefect replied to Msg #25, saying:
This is the most effort anyone has put into a reply to anyone on this board imo, kudos
Msg #28: On 5/8/2012 at 4:40:40 PM, Ostromite replied, saying:
Just occurred to me that I haven't seen Dac on the board in a long time, so maybe he won't even see my post LOL
Msg #29: On 5/8/2012 at 5:37:42 PM, Dac replied, saying:
Oh, I'm still here. I check the board every day, I just rarely post any more.
That said, HOLY BALLS! I...I dunno what to say...thank you, thanks man! Holy shit!
I'm building a list now of what to aim for...see what the shop has. Thanks man!
Msg #30: On 5/8/2012 at 5:41:56 PM, Phily replied to Msg #25, saying:
This is why I was emotionally void when Lee left for that period of time a few years ago. He's a one-of-a-kind.
Msg #31: On 5/9/2012 at 4:05:14 AM, Dac replied, saying:
Alright, so as far as the ones I've seen on that list go:
Stagecoach: I saw this in my second film course at uni, years ago, and haven't seen it since. I remember thinking it was OK but not spectacular, although I liked the cast, and I enjoyed the murkiness of the shootout at the end, where it wasn't clear what was going on rather than showing it straight up.
Red River: Shit, I remember loving this movie but not a lot about it, haven't seen it in over 10 years, and when I did I didn't know jack about films, really. Gotta see it again.
Yellow Sky: I loved the shit out of this one. My favourite Peck performance, and some spectacular cinematography.
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Well yeah. Gotta say, Lee Van Cleef's eyes still resonate with me after seeing them loom out of the darkness here.
Once Upon A Time in the West: Excellent, excellent, excellent. Bronson turned in his best performance here, and yeah, Fonda was great as the villain. Everyone mentions the opening scene, and for good reason, but my favourite scene is the second, the one that firmly establishes Fonda as the villain. Added with the harmonica chords, seeing Fonda and his crew emerge from the bushes and death march on the family, that's an image that will stay with me.
Unforgiven: Relentless, savage and cruelly honest. Eastwood holds nothing back on breaking down the myths he built up in his earlier films, and the supporting cast worked wonders.
Dead Man: I had to watch this one a few times to really get it, to be honest, and I haven't liked other Jarmusch films I've seen, but this one has grown on me. Depp was excellent, but the supporting cast really made this one. The mercenaries hunting him, the crooked trading post owner, and especially Nobody. This one has really come out well.
The Shooting: This one was unfortunately a bit spoiled for me, because upon watching it I realised the last twist of the movie, the protagonist's final revelation, was given away in the blurb on the DVD case, so I'd approached the film from the wrong mindset. I'm going to watch it again with that in mind, but I did like it as it stands.
Death Rides a Horse: I liked it, but there were a few things that didn't work for me. I didn't like John Phillip Law, chiefly. His character didn't do it for me at all; Law played him like a kid in a man's body out for a more childish brand of revenge, which might have worked with another actor but Law didn't sell me on it. Van Cleef was great, though and anything scored by Morricone has some merit.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: Gorgeous cinematography and some fine performances in a film that could have withstood an increased pace. A bit lost in its own introversion, but on the whole I liked it.
And the bad...
The Magnificent Seven: Thank christ! Everyone seems to like this film, but I just found it to be dull and uninspiring. The entire cast disappointed me with the sole exception of Eli Wallach, who was at least charismatic enough for me to enjoy watching him. Coburn, Bronson, Vaughn, McQueen and the rest were dead in the water, and too much focus was put on the reckless rookie.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: I liked the opening few scenes, in the bar and confronting their team and robbing the train, but after the first half hour the movie got too caught up with showing Butch and Sundance joking like old lovers that the plot got lost and left behind. Things only got worse when they went to Bolivia; everything before that felt like a lazy set-up to get them there, and when they finally did, nothing interesting happened.
So yeah, there's a lot there that I haven't seen. Thanks man, you've given me a lot to go for!
Msg #32: On 10/2/2012 at 1:11:18 AM, Ostromite replied, saying:
Just thought I'd add that, if you're interested in the western genre outside film, you absolutely have to read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I just finished it a few weeks ago and it's not only the best McCarthy novel I've read, but one of the best American novels by any author that I've read.
Msg #33: On 10/2/2012 at 5:27:09 AM, Dac replied, saying:
Heard of that one. I'll see if I can track it down.
Been through a few more of the above. Loved Man of the West and Duck, You Sucker. Pale Rider was pretty good too. And Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia...it was like an endurance test of a film. Excellent film, but challenging.
Msg #34: On 10/7/2012 at 9:34:36 AM, Dac replied, saying:
Winchester '73. EXCELLENT film.
Replies: 35
Msg #35: On 10/7/2012 at 1:35:15 PM, Ostromite replied to Msg #34, saying:
You should definitely watch Anthony Mann's other westerns, then, especially Man of the West (my favorite western) and The Naked Spur. Mann is one of the supreme masters of the genre and Winchester '73, as good as it is, isn't close to being his best.
Hell, while you're at it, just watch the rest of Mann's work. I saw on Twitter that you recently watched or re-watched El Cid, and if you liked that, I highly recommend Fall of the Roman Empire (shameless plug to my review of it). His film noirs are also some of the best ever made (Border Incident and T-Men are my favorites), and The Glenn Miller Story and God's Little Acre are classic. Just don't watch A Dandy in Aspic or Strategic Air Command; they're awful.
Msg #36: On 10/7/2012 at 7:06:08 PM, Dac replied, saying:
Yeah, I watched Man of the West and El Cid as well, really liked them both (helps that the El Cid legend was one of my favourite stories as a kid). I couldn't get a hold of The Naked Spur, sadly, and I'm still working on the rest of the ones you listed.
Alright, I'll note those other ones down. Thanks, man
Msg #37: On 11/19/2015 at 12:21:35 AM, PaulSF replied, saying:
This thread seems worth the bump despite the cringe I feel re-reading some of my older thoughts going on five years. I just finished watching Unforgiven, and am at a loss on why it turned me off so much way back when other than watching in the wrong frame of mind. It's probably the most thoughtful western I can think of that I've seen, and definitely one of the most atmospheric and well acted. I'm still not sold on the Richard Harris subplot, but I can appreciate where Eastwood was going with it relating to in regards to the core themes of the film.
I've finally picked up a copy of The Searchers on Blu. I've seen it once over twelve years ago, which means I may have well not have seen it at all. On top of that, The Assassination Of The Coward Robert Ford. My main goal is to blow through every Howard Hawks and John Ford film I've missed, and then move on from there. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant looks so incredible its ignited a spark in me to catch up on an entire genre.
Msg #38: On 11/23/2015 at 10:45:18 AM, Ostromite replied, saying:
I've changed my mind about a few of the films I mentioned in this thread after re-watching them, and a lot of the comments I made in Msg 20 are overly simplistic.
Msg #39: On 11/26/2015 at 5:26:47 AM, PaulSF replied, saying:
I've blind bought Stagecoach, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Pale Rider. Trying to focus on John Ford and Clint Eastwood directed westerns I haven't seen (for the time being). Are these among those you've changed your mind about?
Also, I didn't see Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson in there, unless I've missed it. Worth a look?
Replies: 40
Msg #40: On 11/26/2015 at 9:17:11 PM, Ostromite replied to Msg #39, saying:
I haven't really changed my mind about those films, but I do think Stagecoach is better than the other two by a mile. Jeremiah Johnson is okay but it's nothing special or memorable.
EDITED
Replies: 41
Msg #41: On 11/26/2015 at 11:56:50 PM, PaulSF replied to Msg #40, saying:
I think The Searchers is good. There's some incredibly strange, I'll have to chalk it up to dated humor in it, though. My jaw kind of dropped the other night when Martin, already this grating, whining presence of a character, violently kicks the native woman away from him (tumbling through the air down a hill) for the sake of a laugh. It's a bizarre, silly string of nothing scenes to begin with in the middle of an otherwise dark narrative. There's a lot I admire about it; every frame is a work of art. With that said, Jesus at the heartless sense of humor, jarring tonal shifts, and some other awkward moments/characters. I have a feeling Eastwood is probably more my speed.
Replies: 42
Msg #42: On 11/27/2015 at 12:28:07 AM, Ostromite replied to Msg #41, saying:
I made a mistake in Msg 40: I meant to write Stagecoach, but I wrote The Searchers on accident (fixed it now). I love The Searchers despite the awful sense of humor, but I prefer Stagecoach.
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