100+ Greatest Westerns Introduction |
(chronological by film title) Introduction | Silents-1930s | 1940s | 1950-1955 | 1956-1959 | 1960-1965 1966-1969 | 1970s | 1980s-1990s | 2000s-present See all Greatest Westerns Title Screens |
100 Greatest Westerns - Introduction and Brief History: For over 100 years, Westerns have been a popular, uniquely American staple -- although the genre has suffered both peaks and valleys in popularity. In fact, Westerns made up the dominant film genre from the beginning of cinema until about 1960, and they appear to be making an invigorating comeback, at least on TV. Modern movie remakes such as 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and the Coen brothers' True Grit (2010) have paid homage to their mid-twentieth-century predecessors. All Westerns embody a return to the bygone frontier: wide-open spaces, sturdy individualists, gunfighters, shoot-outs, larger-than-life good guys and bad guys, institutions such as the saloon (with bad girls), horse chases, cattle, and lawmen. Edwin S. Porter's innovative short The Great Train Robbery (1903), marked the real birth of the genre. Some of the earliest traditional Westerns were based on Wild West pulp novels and stories, including the genre's first epic -- the pioneer spectacular The Covered Wagon (1923). From the thirties to the late forties, inexpensive, formulaic B Westerns were churned out each year by the hundreds by lesser studios (Columbia, Universal, and Republic) -- mostly for kiddie audiences at matinees. As B Westerns began to disappear from theaters and appear on television, the genre's development was saved by some respectable A Westerns. They included John Ford's influential Stagecoach (1939), Ford's take on the Wyatt Earp legend My Darling Clementine (1946), and Ford's acclaimed Cavalry trilogy. Also important was Howard Hawks' definitive generational-conflict and cattle-drive tale Red River (1948). During the era, the much-censored The Outlaw (1943) and scandalous Duel in the Sun (1946) infused the genre with sex. The traditional Western experienced a resurgence in the fifties, brought about by Fred Zinnemann's allegorical High Noon (1952), George Stevens' Shane (1953), and the wide-screen epics Vera Cruz (1954) and The Big Country (1958). During the postwar period of the forties and fifties, some Westerns took on brooding, dark, and intense themes. Hollywood infused them with cynicism, character complexities, flawed outlaw heroes, and dark pessimism. Anthony Mann teamed with James Stewart for a cycle of five Westerns (from 1950-1955) with themes including revenge, paranoia, and obsession, while neglected director Budd Boetticher collaborated with Randolph Scott in the late 1950s on seven B-Westerns with lean and simple plots. Sergio Leone's trilogy of spaghetti Westerns was representative of a subgenre of foreign films featuring American stars (e.g., Clint Eastwood and Henry Fonda): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, It.). Spaghetti Westerns helped pave the way for the further globalization of Westerns, evidenced earlier by John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960) (a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954, Jp.)). So-called revisionist Westerns reinvented, redefined, ridiculed, and questioned the themes and elements of traditional classics. Delmer Daves' Broken Arrow (1950) was considered the first Hollywood picture to take a sympathetic view of the Native Americans. It was followed 40 years later by Kevin Costner's politically correct Dances With Wolves (1990). Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Peckinpah's violent The Wild Bunch (1969), Little Big Man (1970) with Dustin Hoffman as elderly Jack Crabb, Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Robert Aldrich's Vietnam allegory Ulzana's Raid (1972), and many other similar films turned the genre upside down. Spoofs such as Cat Ballou (1965), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and Blazing Saddles (1974) made fun of some of the form's conventions. Actor-director Clint Eastwood's serious Best Picture-winning Unforgiven (1992) brought the genre back full-circle. |
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Unforgiven (1992): The # 4 western film in ABC-TV's "The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time" in 2011; ranked the # 4 western film in AFI's 10 Top 10 polling in 2008; with the second most Oscar wins (4) and nominations (9) of any western in film history; also one of three westerns that won the Academy Award for Best Picture; the # 4 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012; ranked # 25 in the Men's Journal's listing of "The 50 Best Guy Movies of All Time" taken in 2003. |
Dances
With Wolves (1990): The # 2 western film in ABC-TV's "The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time" in 2011; the highest-grossing western of all time, and also with the most Oscar wins (7) and nominations (12) of any western in film history; one of only three westerns to win the Best Picture Academy Award; the # 15 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012; ranked # 75 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies polling in 1998, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies. | |
Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid (1969): The # 1 western film in ABC-TV's "The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time" in 2011; the # 8 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012. |
The Wild Bunch
(1969): The # 10 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012; ranked the # 6 western film in AFI's 10 Top 10 polling in 2008; ranked # 23 in the Men's Journal's listing of "The 50 Best Guy Movies of All Time" taken in 2003; ranked # 57 in Entertainment Weekly's "100 Greatest Movies of All Time" book published in 1999; ranked # 79 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary edition) polling in 2007, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies; ranked # 80 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies polling in 1998, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies. | |
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968,
It.): The # 2 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012. |
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966,
It.): The # 3 western film in ABC-TV's "The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time" in 2011; the highest-ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012. | |
The Magnificent Seven (1960): The # 5 western film in ABC-TV's "The Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time" in 2011; the # 21 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012. |
The Searchers
(1956): Ranked # 12 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary edition) polling in 2007, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies; ranked the # 1 western film in AFI's 10 Top 10 polling in 2008; the highest ranked western film (# 4) in the Village Voice's listing of the '100 Best Films of 20th Century'; ranked # 13 in Entertainment Weekly's "100 Greatest Movies of All Time" book published in 1999; the # 14 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012; ranked # 31 in the Men's Journal's listing of "The 50 Best Guy Movies of All Time" taken in 2003; ranked # 96 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies polling in 1998, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies; most often mentioned in a poll of the favorite films of directors by German language Steadycam Magazine. | |
Shane (1953):
Ranked the # 3 western film in AFI's 10 Top 10 polling in 2008; also ranked # 45 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary edition) polling in 2007, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies; the # 30 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012. |
High Noon
(1952): Ranked # 27 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary edition) polling in 2007, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies; ranked the # 2 western film in AFI's 10 Top 10 polling in 2008; the highest ranked western film (#33) in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies polling in 1998, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies; the # 7 ranked western in IMDb's top rankings of western genre films, voted upon by site visitors in 2012; ranked # 33 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies polling in 1998, a list of the 100 greatest English-language movies |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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The Great Train Robbery
(1903) Set in a railroad telegraph office, onboard a moving train, in a valley, and in a dance hall One of the milestones in film history was this first narrative film - a primitive one-reeler action picture, about 10 minutes long with 14 scenes, filmed in November 1903 on the East Coast. It was the most popular and commercially-successful film of the pre-nickelodeon era, and established the notion that film could be a profitable and viable medium. The story, about bandits robbing a moving train, used a number of innovative techniques, many of them for the first time, including parallel editing, minor camera movement, location shooting and less stage-bound camera placement. |
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The Covered Wagon (1923) In 1848, at a time of covered wagon train caravans traveling from Westport Landing (Kansas City) westward on a 2,000 mile trek to Oregon Considered the first great western epic - an authentic-looking film recreating the 1848 tale of a pair of wagon trains moving towards Oregon. The tagline bragged: "Indian Attacks, Prairie Fires, Fording of Swollen Streams, a Great Buffalo Hunt, Dramatic Situations Galore --- All Go to Make Up 'The Covered Wagon'." The group of wagons was led by Jesse Wingate (Charles Ogle) and Will Banion (J. Warren Kerrigan). Also included was a slight romantic love-triangle storyline regarding Jesse's daughter Molly Wingate (Lois Wilson), engaged to fiance Sam Woodhull (Alan Hale) but showing growing interest in Banion. With impressive scenes copying the many elements of the series Western (earlier seen in the silent films of Tom Mix and Broncho Billy) - including Indian attacks and shoot outs, wagons crossing rivers and braving snow storms, and a buffalo hunt. |
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The Iron Horse (1924) Opening in Springfield, Illinois; then the post Civil War period (beginning in 1862) at the time of the construction of the transcontinental railroad, completed in the late 1860s This was Fox Film's silent western epic-scale response to The Covered Wagon (1923). Noted as the film to establish John Ford's reputation as one of Hollywood's most accomplished directors. The slowly-paced film was a combination of a fictitious narrative, interwoven with historical background. It told the story of an Illinois man, hero Dave Brandon (George O'Brien), searching for the shortest route over a mountain range to unite the Union Pacific (starting from Omaha, Nebraska) and Central Pacific (starting from Sacramento, California) - two railroads at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869. Noted for realistic scenes of a cattle drive, an Indian attack, a saloon brawl, and the Pony Express, and appearances of historical figures including Wild Bill Hickok (Jack Padjan), Buffalo Bill (George Waggner), and Abraham Lincoln (Charles Edward Bull). |
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Tumbleweeds (1925) Set in Caldwell, Kansas on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, at the time of the Cherokee Strip land rush in 1889 A William S. Hart classic from the popular silent western hero of the time - and his last movie (of almost 70 films) over a ten-year period. Hart played rancher Don Carver who was displaced by the onslaught of homesteading farmers. The most spectacular scene was the Oklahoma land rush of homesteading farmers in many types of conveyances (covered wagons, stagecoaches, surreys, even a big-wheeled bicycle). |
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The Big Trail (1930) Set in the late 1830s to the mid-1840s, with a California-bound wagon train leaving from St. Louis, trekking along the Oregon Trail and at the settlers' destination - Willamette Valley of Oregon This was the first epic western talkie - a big-budget production (and box-office failure) filmed in both 35mm and in the 70mm "Fox Grandeur" wide-screen process, and shot on-location to enhance its authenticity. The plot presented the travails of a wagon-train along the way - Indian attacks, harsh weather conditions (snow storms), and other challenges. With western iconic star John Wayne (previously named Marion Morrison) in his first leading role as Breck Coleman - although the film put John Wayne back into minor B-western roles from Poverty Row studios until 1939. Coleman joined prairie schooners crossing the vast West - his motivations to scout for the wagon trail were to seek revenge against the killers of his recently-murdered trapper friends - Red (Tyrone Power, Sr.) and Lopez (Charles Stevens), and to romance Southern belle Ruth Cameron (Marguerite Churchill). |
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Cimarron (1931) Set in Wichita, Kansas, and then on the westward trek to the Oklahoma Territory (and the Oklahoma "boomer town" of Osage in the 1890s), including the opening scene of the Cherokee Strip land rush in 1889; also later scenes in the early 20th century (until 1929) Winner of Best Production (Picture) and two other Academy Awards, a first for a western, but also viewed as one of the most undeserving to win the top award - except for its dramatic, opening land-rush sequence. A dated, un-PC, soap-operish film based upon Edna Ferber's original 1930 novel, about a husband and wife - adventurous, wanderlusting newspaper editor Yancey (an over-the-top Richard Dix) and reluctant Eastern-bred Sabra Cravat (Irene Dunne) with their toddler named Cimarron, struggling for survival in the early days of the Oklahoma Territory, and later scenes of the evolution of the westward-expanding frontier (and empire-building in the 1920s). MGM remade the film in Technicolor in 1960, with Glenn Ford and Maria Schell as the Cravats. |
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The Plainsman (1936) At the close of the Civil War, when the Western Frontier was opened; at the US Cavalry outpost of Fort Piney, and in the Black Hills of the Dakotas; set from the years 1863 to 1876 Flamboyant director DeMille created this fictionalized (truth-stretching), romanticized and entertaining adventurous film which, in a hodge-podge, brought together many famous names from the West, including Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), stagecoach-driver Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), army scout William "Buffalo Bill" Cody (James Ellison), and General George Custer (John Miljan). The western villain was John Lattimer (Charles Bickford), in Missouri as a gun-running trader to the Cheyennes, and fueling the Indian uprisings on the Plains. The Indian-besieged Fort Piney was resupplied with ammunition by orders of General Custer, while Hickok tracked after Chief Yellow Hand (Paul Harvey). After a raiding party on the Cody home, Calamity Jane and Hickok were captured, and as he was about to be tortured, Jane was forced to reveal the whereabouts of Cody leading a relief column. Cheyenne Indians (with Lattimer's contraband repeating rifles) ambushed Fort Piney, its few soldiers, and Cody (aided by Hickok who was freed) - all of whom were saved with a repulsing counter-attack by General Custer (who had been alerted by Jane). However, Custer felt Hickok was guilty for murdering some of Lattimer's men and ordered Cody to capture him. Meanwhile, Custer's own 7th Cavalry were defeated by Sitting Bull and the Sioux Indians at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Both the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians were on the warpath in the Black Hills against white encroachment - with Lattimer's deadly weapons. In Deadwood City, Dakota Territory, Hickok self-defensively killed Lattimer. Later during a saloon poker game, Lattimer's vengeful Jack McCall (Porter Hall) shot Hickok in the back, as he was holding the "dead man's hand" - black aces and eights. In the finale, Jane cradled Hickok's dead body. |
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Way Out West (1937) Set in the small western town of Brushwood Gulch One of the best Laurel and Hardy comedy films, and their only western spoof. Again, they reprised their most familiar roles: Stanley, the thin, meek simpleton, and Ollie, the fat, pompous one. The film's plot was simple: Stan and Ollie arrived at the western town of Brushwood Gulch on a secret mission to deliver a valuable gold mine deed to Mary Roberts (Rosina Lawrence). She was the orphaned daughter of their recently-deceased prospector friend, and a demure kitchen maid in Mickey Finn's (James Finlayson) Palace saloon in town. Outside, the pair performed a cute and charming soft-shoe dance routine to the 1905 hit tune: "At the Ball, That's All." When they stupidly admitted their objective to Finn, the unscrupulous owner had his wife/saloon singer Lola Marcel (Sharon Lynne) impersonate Mary so he could acquire the deed. Finn's plan worked, as the bumbling duo turned over the deed (and a locket belonging to Mary's father) to Lola, and they tricked Mary into signing away her rights to the deed. As it turned out, the boys happened to meet Mary and realized their error. When Stan momentarily retrieved the deed, he was locked in Lola's bedroom, where he was cornered, wrestled and tickled to death - an excruciatingly funny sequence. After a long extended chase for the deed, Finn locked it in his safe. Their plan that evening (after Stan was forced to literally eat his hat) was to break into Finn's safe on the second floor of the saloon and steal back the deed, using their mule Dinah as a counterweight. After succeeding in retrieving the deed, the duo and Mary left town together. |
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Destry Rides Again
(1939) Set in the fictional western town of Bottleneck A popular and marvelous Western comedy spoof/farce from Universal Pictures. Director George Marshall parodied and satirized the classic Western with its stereotypical elements - a lawless Western town with a saloon and a sheriff, peppered with three saloon/musical numbers! Notable as James Stewart's (and Marlene Dietrich's) first westerns early in their careers, with Dietrich reprising her sexy role from The Blue Angel (1930), especially with the song: "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have." In the town of Bottleneck, villainous gambler Kent (Brian Donlevy) and the corrupt mayor appointed the town's drunk, Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger) as sheriff. He then chose a new type of gunless, pacifistic, milk-drinking deputy - Thomas Jefferson Destry (Stewart). Noted for the scene of a frenzied catfight between saloon singer Frenchy (Dietrich) and Mrs. Callahan (Una Merkel). |
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Dodge City (1939) Set in the post Civil War era (late 1860s to early 1870s), at the small frontier post of Dodge City, Kansas A landmark, action-packed Technicolored western with a Max Steiner score produced in one of filmdom's most famous years, and the first western for swashbuckling star Errol Flynn (as cattleman Wade Hatton) in the western town run by corrupt cattle dealer Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot). Flynn was making his eighth of ten films opposite star Olivia de Havilland (as love-interest Abbie Irving). With all the stock components and formulaic sequences of typical westerns - a frontier town, a massive bar-room brawl, cattle rustlers, a wagon train, a cattle stampede, the crime-fighting sheriff vs. outlaws, flirtatious dance-hall girl Ruby Gilman (Ann Sheridan) in the Gay Lady gambling saloon, a cold-blooded professional killer Yancey (Victor Jory), a shootout on a hijacked train on fire, etc. |
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Jesse James (1939) In the mid-19th century in Liberty, Missouri (and environs), in Northfield, Minnesota, and ending in 1882 Advertised in its tagline as: "The Epic Story of the Most Colorful Outlaw Who Ever Lived," and although the Technicolored western claimed to be an accurate portrayal of the notorious outlaw brothers (the James gang), it failed to capture the ruthless nature of the glamorized heroes - viewed as Robin Hoods. Due to its box-office success, Fritz Lang directed the sequel, The Return of Jesse James (1940). Tyrone Power starred as the likeable Jesse James, while Henry Fonda co-starred as his tobacco-chewing brother Frank. The plot followed the James boys from their early days as a farm family in Missouri, struggling against big business (specifically the St. Louis Midland Railroad) - with crooked railroad agents and hired guns. Their life as fugitive criminals after becoming train and bank robbers began after Jesse self-defensively shot one of the aggressive agents named Barshee (Brian Donlevy). In a subplot development, Jesse's girlfriend Zerelda (or "Zee") (Nancy Kelly) - who wished for Jesse to settle down - began a side-romance with Liberty's marshal Will Wright (Randolph Scott) due to Jesse's frequent absences. She was the niece of town newspaper editor Major Rufus Cobb (Henry Hull). One celebrated action scene was a reenactment of their unsuccessful and risky Northfield Minnesota Bank robbery. In the conclusion set in the year 1882, an unarmed, badly-wounded 34 year-old Jesse (who had just decided to reunite with his family and make a new life in California) was shot in the back by cowardly trusted friend Bob Ford (John Carradine). [Note: A horse killed in a cliff jump during filming resulted in the American Humane Association monitoring subsequent movies to protect animals.] |
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Stagecoach (1939) On an east-bound stagecoach from Tonto, Arizona Territory to Lordsburg, New Mexico Territory, in 1880, through Apache territory This was the first film collaboration between film auteur-director John Ford and John Wayne (in the film that made him a major star in his role as the Ringo Kid). Filmed in the Southwest's gorgeous Monument Valley. This was Ford's first sound Western - marking a return to his most-acclaimed film genre. By 1939, the Western genre had fallen out of favor, but Stagecoach (1939) helped reinvent the genre, providing for its rebirth. With seven Academy Award nominations and two wins: Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Mitchell) and Best Score (for its compilation of 17 American folk tunes of the 1880s). This revolutionary, influential film was considered a landmark quintessential film that elevated westerns from cheaply-made, low-grade, Saturday matinee "B" films to a serious adult genre - one with greater sophistication, richer Western archetypes and themes, in-depth and complex characterizations, and greater profitability and popularity as well. |
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Union Pacific (1939) Set in the late 1860s at the time of the building of the transcontinental railroad, with the pounding of the golden spike in 1869 An action-oriented, melodramatic, sweeping epic western (that reworked actual history) from masterful director DeMille, about the construction of the trans-continental railroad, stretching from Omaha, Nebraska to California, and ultimately uniting the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads (similar to John Ford's earlier The Iron Horse (1924)) in Utah. It was the director's last black and white film. It was the top-grossing Western of the year, but lost its sole Oscar nomination (for Best Special Effects). An unscrupulous, opportunistic Eastern financier, represented by wealthy bank president and stock manipulator Asa M. Barrows (Henry Kolker) of the Central Pacific (building eastward from California), hired suave gambler-hall proprietor Sid Campeau (Brian Donlevy) and his reckless partner Dick Allen (Robert Preston) to sabotage and cause the failure of the competing Union Pacific (building westward). There was a big-stakes race of both railroads to reach Ogden, Utah for the connection of the two lines. Their tactics to delay the work included enticing the Union RR workers with alcohol, gambling, women, and instigating rebellion over late wages (with a payroll robbery). On the opposing side, the Union Pacific hired Captain Jeff Butler (Joel McCrea) to be a tough-guy troubleshooting lawman to prevent any difficulties, including the keeping of peace with the Indians, putting down worker strikes, and counteracting the efforts of Campeau and Allen (who was Jeff's ex-Civil War buddy). In the competitive mix was a descendant of Irish immigrants, Irish-brogued engineer's tomboyish daughter Mollie Monahan (Barbara Stanwyck). She was caught in the squabbles and in a love triangle between Jeff and Allen (who married Mollie!). In the exciting finale, Mollie was killed in a collapsing train steam engine during a derailment wreck, as the Union Pacific raced to Ogden and beat the conniving forces of the Central Pacific. As the golden spike was driven into the tracks, Campeau killed Allen. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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The Westerner (1940) Set in the town of Vinegaroon, Texas, and ending in an opera theater in Ft. Davis, Texas An offbeat fictionalized western, with fabled film star Walter Brennan as notorious, self-appointed, despotic hanging Judge Roy Bean (and winning his third Best Supporting Actor Oscar) and Gary Cooper as horse-stealing saddle tramp Cole Hardin. The story was told in the era of vicious range wars between cattlemen and homesteaders in the post-Civil War period. Included an impressive Gregg Toland-filmed prairie fire sequence. Hardin was on trial charged with horse theft - circumvented when he learned of Bean's obsession with English stage actress Lily Langtry (Lilian Bond). |
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The Outlaw (1943) During the times of Doc Holliday, Pat Garrett, and Billy the Kid An infamous sex-western salaciously marketed to full effect. Obsessed millionaire director/producer Howard Hughes' B-grade, much-censored film was notorious for leering camera views of star Jane Russell's ample cleavage (in her breakthrough debut film). The storyline, the pursuit of Billy the Kid by Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell), with Jane Russell as Doc Holliday's (Walter Huston) sexy, half-breed mistress Rio (with an oft-unbuttoned, low-cut peasant blouse), was considered too racy for contemporary audiences in 1941 and postponed until 1943 for limited release. After a one-week run, Hughes shelved the film for three years after which it was finally placed in general release in 1946 (in a cut version), and again in 1947. |
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The Ox-Bow Incident
(1943) In and around the small Nevada town of Bridger's Wells, in 1885 Received only one Academy Award nomination - for Best Picture (a rarity among Best Picture nominees that usually received multiple nominations). Basically a somber morality-play set in the West, regarding vigilante justice. The film was the inspiration for Sidney Lumet's courtroom drama 12 Angry Men (1957). The thought-provoking indictment of blood-thirsty mob rule in the noirish film (filmed on studio sound sets) starred Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan as drifters Gil Carter and Art Croft, who attempted - unsuccessfully - to prevent the lynching of three innocent men for alleged murder and cattle rustling. Famed for Fonda's letter-reading of the farewell words of rancher Donald Martin (Dana Andrews), one of the lynched victims - an epitaph to the dead man's wife. |
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Duel in the Sun
(1946) Set in Texas in the 1880s, mostly at the Spanish Bit cattle ranch Critically nicknamed "Lust in the Dust" by its detractors, although it still remains one of the top box-office westerns - in inflation-adjusted dollars. The ambitious scandalous production from David O. Selznick was a "Gone With The Wind"- type grand western. This lurid Technicolor western, directed by King Vidor (who quit and was one of eight directors and cinematographers), was a sprawling melodramatic saga of sexual longing that was forced to cut nine minutes of its content before widespread release. Jennifer Jones starred as 'half-breed' Pearl Chavez caught in a destructive love triangle between the two sons of cattle baron family, crippled Senator Jackson and long-suffering Laura Belle McCanles (Lionel Barrymore and Lillian Gish): (1) Joseph Cotten as moderate and cultured Jesse, and (2) Gregory Peck as hot-tempered, amoral Lewt, both Cain and Abel archetypes. In the violent orgiastic, melodramatic ending, Pearl and Lewt shot each other to the death at Squaw's Head Rock and died in each other's arms. |
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My Darling Clementine (1946) Set in Tombstone, Arizona in 1882, then at the time of the gunfight-shootout against the Clanton gang at the O.K. Corral (an actual historical event that occurred on the afternoon of October 26, 1881) Noted for not being entirely historically accurate, although the film's theme was the coming of civilization to the West. Shot in Arizona's Monument Valley. The story focused on frontier marshal Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda), tubercular gambler/saloon owner Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), the object of Earp's affections (and Holliday's ex) - aristocratic East coaster Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs), and floozy saloon singer Chihuahua (Linda Darnell). Fonda, a superb character actor, portrayed the life of the legendary Earp - an independent, drifter cowboy and ex-marshal of Dodge City who became a responsible lawman in Tombstone - a rough frontier outpost (with raucous saloons) transformed into a civilized, law and order community settlement (with a church, a school and new schoolmarm Clementine, and even a traveling drunken Shakespearean actor (Alan Mowbray) performing in a saloon). |
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Pursued (1947) New Mexico at the turn of the century, and in flashback the 1880s A noirish, melodramatic psychological western was told mostly in flashback, and noted for cinematographer James Wong Howe's film-noir chiaroscuro (black and white) photography and Max Steiner's musical score. Robert Mitchum starred in an early role (his first lead role) as anti-hero, orphaned Jeb Rand, "pursued" by a haunted past (highlighted by nightmares of boots with jangling spurs and flashes of light, seen in flashbacks to the 1880s). He had witnessed the murder of his entire family as a young boy by a mysterious stranger, and suffered from repressed memories. [Note: There appeared to be a long-running feud between two families - the Rand family, and the Callum family.] Adopted by widowed "Ma" Callum (Judith Anderson), he grew up with two step-siblings - "Ma" Callum's biological daughter Thorley (Thor) Callum (Teresa Wright), and her son - the competitive, antagonistic Adam Callum (John Rodney). The main "pursuit" in the film was by villainous, one-armed county prosecutor Grant Callum (Dean Jagger), Ma Callum's vengeful brother-in-law who despised the Rand family and sole survivor Jeb. Grant continually baited others to bring Jeb down. There were two coin tosses that decided Jeb's fate - both of which were lost by Jeb. He was forced to volunteer to fight in the Spanish-American War, and he also was compelled to give up the Callum ranch to his step-brother Adam. Soon after, Jeb was forced to defend himself against Adam during an ambush, and he killed him in self-defense. He fell in love with Thor despite the fact that they were almost siblings. They married on the hidden pretext that she would kill him on their wedding night. Instead, she couldn't carry through on her promise and vowed her love instead. Grant also prodded local boy Prentice McComber (Harry Carey, Jr.) to challenge Jeb to a gunfight in a dark stable - when Jeb shot and killed the boy. The climactic revelation was that Grant was responsible for killing all the members of the Rand family, including Jeb's father, brother, and sister. The true nature of the precipitating bitter feud with the Rand family was revealed. Grant Callum had revenge obsessions because: (1) Jeb's father had murdered his brother, and (2) "Ma" Callum, the former wife of Grant's murdered brother, also had an incestuous affair with Jeb's father. Finally, during a climactic violent shootout with Grant, Jeb was forced to surrender and was about to be hanged. However, in the therapeutic ending, he was saved when Ma shot Grant. She atoned for her actions in the past, told Jeb about the true nature of the forces opposing him, assured him that his childhood trauma was over, and saved the young married couple. |
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Fort Apache (1948) After the American Civil War, at Fort Apache, an isolated cavalry post in Apache Territory in Arizona The first of Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" - a reworking of the Custer myth about the flawed military character. John Wayne starred as veteran war Captain Kirby York stationed at desolate Fort Apache, who soon found himself at odds with arrogant, stuffy, Indian-hating, racist lieutenant Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda). The commander was accompanied by daughter Philadelphia (Shirley Temple in one of her first adult roles). Noted for the spectacular race-across-the-desert sequence. A minor distracting sublot concerned a romance between Philadelphia and Lt. Mickey O'Rourke (John Agar), the son of Fort Apache veteran Sgt. Michael O'Rourke (Ward Bond). A disgruntled widower who resented being demoted after the Civil War and transferred to the West, stubborn and by-the-book Thursday attempted to destroy honorable, clever and elusive Apache chief Cochise (Miguel Inclan) after luring him across the border from Mexico to return to the reservation, highlighted by a suicidal Army attack (symbolic of blundering "Custer's Last Stand"). Afterwards, "Thursday's Charge" was trumped up as heroic by the Eastern press, with York loyally assenting. |
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Red River (1948) First in 1851, then in Texas along the Red River, and during a long cattle drive in the mid-1860s from Texas to Abilene, Kansas along the Chisholm Trail A classic and complex epic western (and considered by many critics to be one of the ten best westerns ever made), and the first western from director Hawks. A sweeping story, similar to Mutiny on the Bounty, about a three-month cattle drive (historically based on the opening of the Chisholm Trail in 1867) and a film of generational rivalry and rebellion between a son and father, spanning a time period of fifteen years. With John Wayne as ruthless, strong-willed, bitter and contemptible Tom Dunson and Montgomery Clift (in his first film) as his less harsh, surrogate, adopted son Matthew. By film's conclusion, the cattle herd was successfully brought to market on the new Chisholm Trail, and the two men were reconciled after a brutal brawl, arbitrated by Tess Millay (Joanne Dru). |
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3 Godfathers (1948) In the town of Welcome, Arizona (the site of the opening bank robbery), and flight into the Mojave desert, ending in the town of New Jerusalem on Christmas Day Ford's Technicolored remake (with Winton Hoch's superb cinematography) of the silent film The Three Godfathers (1916), which starred Ford's long-time friend Harry Carey, now used Carey's son as the character of William, aka The Abilene Kid. Ford's film (his first Technicolored film) was a heavy-handed tale of redemption - and a western retelling of the Biblical Three Wise Men tale. It was the precursor of the comedy, Three Men and a Baby (1987), and the Japanese anime film, Tokyo Godfathers (2003, Jp.). John Wayne starred as Robert Marmaduke Hightower, one of three "godfather" fugitive bank-robbing outlaws. In the film's opening moments, the trio robbed a small bank in the town of Welcome, Arizona, and were immediately pursued by local sheriff Perley "Buck" Sweet (Ward Bond) and his posse of deputies. They escaped from town, although William Kearney, the Abilene Kid (Harry Carey Jr.), was shot in the shoulder and wounded. Soon, the group of desperate cowboys was running low on water (their waterbag had been pierced with a bullet), had lost one horse, and were facing long stretches of desert, and a fierce sandstorm. The Sheriff strategically placed his men at each watering station, making it impossible for them to refuel. During their trek, the men came upon an abandoned wagon at Terrapin Wells (where the water tank had been dynamited) - and found a dying expectant mother (Mildred Natwick). [Note: She was actually the niece of the Sheriff.] She was assisted in the birth of the newborn baby boy, named Robert William Pedro (named after the three men, and allegorically the Christ child), and then she asked that the men accept "godfather" responsibilities for the soon-to-be orphaned child before she died. They buried her, and then continued to evade pursuit, by following a bright star in the sky. All they had was a baby-care book, cans of condensed milk, a Bible, some baby clothes and a baby bottle. The group of bandits fled with the baby through the desolate Arizona desert (filmed in Death Valley) toward the town of New Jerusalem, vowing redemptively to protect the innocent child while pursued. The Abilene Kid was the first to succumb to the heat, exhaustion and dehydration, due to his shoulder wound during the robbery. The second to die was Pedro or "Pete" (Pedro Armendariz), who fell and broke his leg, and committed suicide (off-screen). Robert was the sole survivor of the trek who was able to make it to the town of New Jerusalem, after he had hallucinated his friends encouraging him to continue on, and miraculously discovered a stray donkey. Robert staggered into a saloon in New Jerusalem on Christmas Day, where he was on the verge of collapse. He entered the bar, placed the baby on the counter, greeted everyone: "Merry Christmas to all," and ordered: "Set 'em up, bartender, milk for the infant, and a cool, cool beer for me." Moments later, the Sheriff charged in and apprehended Robert, who fell to the floor. He was viewed as a hero in the town of Welcome for saving the child. After a trial was held, the judge (Guy Kibbee) sentenced him to a minimum prison sentence of one year and one day after he vowed to continue caring for the baby, even after his release. In the meantime, the child would be cared for by his relatives (Uncle Buck and wife Mrs. Sweet (Mae Marsh)). |
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Yellow Sky (1948) In 1867, in the ghost town of Yellow Sky Screenwriter Lamar Trotti based his screenplay on a novel by W.R. Burnett - the stark b/w film was thought to have parallels to William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Bank-robber outlaw leader James "Stretch" Dawson (Gregory Peck) led his gang - including the menacing Dude (Richard Widmark) - to the frontier ghost town of Yellow Sky in the year 1867, as the film opened. They were on the run from a cavalry regiment after robbing the bank in Rameyville, and they wished to resupply with water and food for only a few days. There were only two residents in the deserted town: an elderly prospector named Grandpa (James Barton) and his attractive, gun-toting, forthright, Apache-raised grand-daughter Constance May (nicknamed "Mike") (Anne Baxter), Stretch's soon-to-be love-interest. During their stay in the town, Stretch learned that Mike and Grandpa were mining gold in the foothills and forced the two to make a fifty-fifty deal. Mike refused to cooperate, although Grandpa offered to split $50,000 in gold that they had buried in a mine shaft entrance. Major dissensions, hostilities and greed entered into the action when gold-crazy, double-crossing Dude refused to accept the deal and wished to claim the gold for himself. Dude shot and wounded Stretch, and after additional shoot-outs between gang-members, Dude lay dead. After healing, Stretch was redeemed - he and two of his gang members returned the stolen bank money at Rameyville. |
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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
(1948) Mexico in the mid-1920s, in Tampico, on a train to Durango, and into the Sierra Madre Mountains A classic tale of the elusive search for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains by a trio of ill-matched prospectors who met in Tampico, Mexico. An intense character study showing the corruptive and cancerous effects of greed on the souls of men, including Humphrey Bogart as paranoid, vicious, and murderous gold-prospector Fred C. Dobbs and director John Huston's father Walter as a crazy but sage old prospector named Howard. The Hustons (John and father Walter) received the film's three Academy Awards - out of four nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Walter Huston with his sole Oscar win after three previous losses), Best Director (John Huston), and Best Screenplay (John Huston). Its sole losing nomination was for Best Picture (it lost to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet). Noted for repeated instances of the spoofed line: "Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!" |
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She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) At Fort Starke, a one-troop cavalry post, and on-patrol, after Custer's defeat in 1876 The second of Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" and the director's personal favorite of the three (preceded by Fort Apache (1948) and followed by Rio Grande (1950) which were in black and white). Noted for gorgeous Technicolor Oscar-winning cinematography by Winton C. Hoch (the film's sole nomination and win), and filmed in his favorite scenic locale - Monument Valley. An autumnal and sentimental western in which John Wayne played retirement-age cavalry Captain Nathan Cutting Brittles, serving at Fort Starke, a one-troop cavalry post, in 1876. His final goal was to prevent a large-scale Indian uprising following the Battle of the Little Big Horn that massacred Custer and his men of the 7th Cavalry. In one sunset scene, soon-to-be retired Capt. Brittles sat at the gravestone of his wife Mary Cutting Brittles and spoke to her while he watered the flowers. Brittles took a last patrol and dangerous mission to protectively accompany two women being evacuated from the post for their own safety to an awaiting stagecoach at Sudros Well: post commander Major Allshard's (George O'Brien) wife Abby 'Old Iron Pants' Allshard (Mildred Natwick), and attractive single lady Olivia Dandridge (Joanne Dru) (with a 'yellow ribbon' in her hair signifying she had chosen a beau) - who was being pursued by two lieutenants at the fort: Lieutenant Flint Cohill (John Agar) and Lieutenant Pennell (Harry Carey, Jr.). During the trip, Captain Brittles learned that warring Indians had destroyed the stage depot, forcing them to return to the fort. On his last day in a farewell scene, Brittles' C troops gave him a silver pocketwatch with the inscription "Lest we forget" that he tearfully and proudly read with his glasses. To avoid a bloody war, even after his retirement, Brittles chose a risky strategy of stampeding the Indians' horses out of their camp at midnight, to force them to return to their reservation on foot. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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Broken Arrow (1950) Set in the late 1870s, in Apache Territory in Arizona This highly-praised, well-meaning Technicolored film was nominated for three Academy Awards (Best Supporting Actor - Jeff Chandler, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography), and was considered one of the first mainstream films to sympathetically portray Native-Americans in a non-condescending way. [Note: However, two of the main Apache Indian roles were played by whites with Indian makeup.] The film was set during a time of frequent skirmishes between the Apaches, led by their leader Cochise (Jess Chandler) who was opposed to the encroachment of whites. Indian scout and former Union Army soldier Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) became acquainted with Chiricahua Apache ways, learning their language, interpreting smoke signals, and was called upon to seek safe passage for white mail-carriers through Indian territory to get to Tucson. He was also asked to help seek a peace treaty (symbolized by a 'broken arrow') with the Apaches, yet a splinter group emerged led by renegade Goklia (Mexican-named Geronimo) (Jay Silverheels). Atypically, Jeffords married Sonseeahray (or 'Morningstar') (Debra Paget), an Apache girl, but the morals codes in the early 1950s forbid their miscegenation to be long-lasting, so their marriage ended tragically when she was killed during a shoot-out. When Jeffords sought revenge against one of the white renegades, his befriended Cochise advised against it, claiming that peace would be difficult. Soon after, Jeffords and Cochise learned that the murderers were executed. |
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The Gunfighter (1950) The western town of Cayenne Known as a seminal "psychological" western and noirish character study, yet under-rated as a film about a cursed and outcast outlaw. With Gregory Peck starring as reformed, legendary gunslinger Jimmy Ringo with a violent past he cannot escape (with many upstarts and three vengeful murderous brothers intent on challenging him), in town hoping to visit his estranged wife Peggy (Helen Westcott) and child. His self-defensive killing of cocky gunman Eddie (Richard Jaeckel) brought forces down upon him. Sequestered (and trapped) in the mostly-empty saloon, the Palace Bar, the mustachioed Ringo was also aided by his pal, the town's sheriff named Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell), but was tragically felled (shot in the back) in the film's conclusion by hot-shot, two-bit gunfighter Hunt Bromley (Skip Homeier). |
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Rio Grande (1950) On the Texas frontier near the Mexican border (marked by the Rio Grande River), threatened by renegade Apache Indians, in the summer of 1879 The third of Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" (the best of the three by most accounts) with John Wayne's third appearance as promoted, duty-devoted Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke - he was co-starring with Maureen O'Hara as estranged southern wife Kathleen Yorke (who would also appear with him in Ford's future film The Quiet Man (1952) and three other films). Commander Yorke was at the remote outpost when his West Point flunkee cadet son Trooper Jefferson Yorke (Claude Jarman, Jr.) was assigned there for service. The younger Yorke was befriended by two older recruits: troopers Travis Tyree (Ben Johnson) and Daniel "Sandy" Boone (Harry Carey, Jr.). The western concluded with Yorke ordering his troops to rescue a caravan from the outpost (including his captured wife and other innocent women and children) seized by the Apaches and held in a small village's church, across the Rio Grande. During the battle in which Jeff displayed his heroism and bravery, his father was wounded with an arrow in the chest. |
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Winchester '73 (1950) In 1876, in Dodge City, Kansas, shortly after Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn; also in areas of Texas This 1950 western was the first of five westerns from 1950-1955 teaming James Stewart with director Anthony Mann. It was noted as the film which revived westerns and set a new standard for actor's salaries - Stewart chose a profit percentage (50%) instead of an up-front salary, eventually earning himself $600K. The psychological western opened with a Fourth of July shooting contest in the town of Dodge City, with the "One of a Thousand" prize - an 1873 Winchester repeating rifle. Although Lin McAdam (James Stewart) won the competition, the rifle was stolen from him by outlaw Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) - setting up the remainder of the film as a pursuit as the rifle often changed hands. Numerous plot storylines crossed during Lin's chase after the rifle and his nemesis - including encounters with murderous sociopathic psychotic Waco Johnny Dean (Dan Duryea), and romance with young, golden-hearted frontier saloon-hall girl Lola Manners (Shelley Winters). The western concluded with a climactic shoot-out between Lin and Dutch Henry on a hilly mountainside - and the revelation that they were actually brothers (and Dutch Henry had murdered their father). |
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Bend of the River (1952) With a wagon train of settlers from Missouri bound for Oregon, in 1847, and set in a settlement outside Portland The second of five westerns pairing director Mann with James Stewart, in the director's first Technicolored western. Ex-outlaw Glyn McLyntock (James Stewart) with a questionable past served as a scout for an Oregon-bound wagon train of farmers in the late 1840s, assisted by former Missouri border raider and horse-thief Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy). After arriving in Portland, Oregon, the scheming and unreformed Cole (working with corrupt steamboat owner, town saloon owner, and supplier Tom Hendricks (Howard Petrie)) abducted the leader of the settlers Jeremy Baile (Jay C. Flippen) and his injured daughter Laurie (Julie Adams) as hostages to ensure safe passage while stealing valued supplies for the settlement. His mutinous objective was to profitably divert the supplies to a gold mining camp. The film was highlighted by a series of conflicts between Cole and McLyntock, ending in their climactic rushing river fight. |
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High Noon (1952) In the small town of Hadleyville, in the New Mexico Territory on a hot summer's Sunday, possibly in the late 1860s to the mid 1870s The classic masterpiece was linked at the time to the McCarthy hearings (as an allegorical tale about Hollywood's failure to stand up to anti-Communist accusations, and to blacklisting), and considered un-American by some, including director Howard Hawks who helmed Rio Bravo (1959) as a reaction to it. Oscar-winning Gary Cooper starred as stoic, newly-married Marshal Will Kane. Just before departing, he learned that a group of vengeful killers, led by pardoned Frank Miller, were on their way to town on the 'high noon' train - and he was faced with a decision - should he leave with his loyal Quaker wife (Grace Kelly), or gather supporters to stand up to them? Deserted by most of the townsfolk, Kane faced his fate alone - with the clock tensely clicking toward 12 noon (allegedly the film was shot in real-time). With Tex Ritter's theme song: "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" (the first Oscar-winning song from a non-musical). |
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Rancho Notorious (1952) Set mostly at the Chuck-a-Luck horse ranch near the Mexican border Following Destry Rides Again (1939), this was the second Western specifically written for star Marlene Dietrich (as saloon singer Altar Keane), and Fritz Lang's third (and last) western. It was a distinctive, stylized (set-bound) drama with perverse Freudian overtones. A Technicolored frontier revenge western (with an unrelated title), it told of events after the murder and rape of Wyoming ranchhand Vern Haskell's (Arthur Kennedy) sweetheart and fiance Beth Forbes (Gloria Henry). Whitey (John Doucette), the mortally wounded partner of the murderer, provided Vern with a single "Rosebud"-type clue to the guilty man's destination: the word 'Chuck-a-Luck.' He searched for her surviving outlaw killer (revealed in a climactic shoot-out to be Kinch (Lloyd Gough)), hiding out at Altar Keane's Chuck-a-Luck horse ranch (named after a roulette-style gambling game). Mel Ferrer also starred as infamous sharpshooter Frenchy Fairmont, involved in the love-triange. The film's opening thematic ballad, "Legend of Chuck-a-Luck" had the refrain of "Hate, Murder, and Revenge." |
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Hondo (1953) At a remote ranch in the desert of New Mexico, set in Apache country One of John Wayne's best - but overlooked - westerns - he also served as the film's co-producer with his Batjac production company. The story, a classic Louis L'Amour story titled The Gift of Cochise, was basically a Western romance. Originally filmed in 3-D - a crazed fad at the time, which was highlighted during the ending's Apache attack sequence. It starred Wayne as half-Apache Indian wanderer and cavalry scout Hondo Lane (John Wayne) accompanied by a brown collie-like dog named Sam. He provided protection for down-to-earth, abandoned homesteader-settler woman Mrs. Angie Lowe (Geraldine Page in her screen debut, and an Oscar-nominated role) with young fatherless 10 year-old son Johnny (Lee Aaker), living in threatening Apache territory. She had previously been married to Ed Lowe (Leo Gordon) - a no-good gambler, cheat and adulterer, and Hondo had had a brief marriage to a now-deceased Apache bride. Hondo was forced to kill Mrs. Lowe's long-absent husband in self-defense. |
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The Naked Spur (1953) In 1868, on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains in Southwestern Colorado Nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar, and noted for starring James Stewart in his third of five western collaborations with director Anthony Mann (also Winchester ’73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952), The Far Country (1954) and The Man From Laramie (1955)), in a Technicolored, vengeful bounty-hunter tale with only five acting-speaking roles. In the untamed Colorado Rockies, Howard Kemp (James Stewart), a tormented, brooding and manic anti-hero, was intent on tracking and capturing a wanted murderer and bringing him back to Abilene, Kansas for the advertised bounty. [Kemp had a mysterious past that was uncovered later during a delirious state of fever when he was suffering from a leg wound. Earlier, when he went off to fight for the Union in the Civil War, he trusted his faithless fiancee Mary with the title to his ranch and farmland, but then while he was away fighting in the war, she sold his property and ran off with another fellow.] Therefore, Kemp sought to apprehend cunning outlaw Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) with a $5,000 bounty on his head (dead or alive), in order to repurchase his land in Abilene and settle down. Ben was found to be accompanied by blonde, short-haired, tomboyish 'traveling companion' Lina Patch (Janet Leigh). Lina was the daughter of one of Ben's deceased friends, Frank Patch, who was killed while robbing a bank in Abilene. Accused killer Vandergroat had murdered a marshal in Abilene, Kansas, and Kemp had been on his trail for a long time. The fearless Kemp first enlisted the aid of grizzled, luckless prospector Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell) by claiming he was an official lawman, and would pay Jesse $20 for his time and trouble. The two were soon joined by dishonorably-discharged, amoral, playboyish and disreputable Union cavalry rider Lt. Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker) (who it was revealed later was being pursued by a Blackfoot Indian war party, for defiling one of the chief's daughters). Things became more complicated when Ben was apprehended with Jesse and Roy's help, and Kemp was revealed as a mercenary bounty-hunter. Then, the two others wanted to split the reward three ways with him. During their trek back to Abilene, scoundrel Ben used persuasive tactics of psychological warfare (greed, discord, suspicion, mistrust, and jealousy within a love triangle) to create conflict among his three captors. Ben convinced Lina (with unpredictable shifting loyalties) to distract Kemp so he could escape from the back of a cave during one night, and he also unbuckled Kemp's saddle-strap so that he might topple the bounty-hunter off a steep ridge - but neither ploy fully worked. One bluff that did work was to convince Jesse to desert the group at night to visit a nearby goldmine. Besides a violent Blackfoot native Indian attack from twelve riders that ended up in a massacre (only Kemp was wounded in the leg), the exciting climax came at a raging riverside after Ben had ruthlessly killed Jesse. Ben positioned himself high up on a rock face, poised as a sniper with a rifle to ambush Kemp and Roy. As he fired at Kemp, Lina pushed Ben's rifle up, preventing him from firing accurately. Kemp climbed the face of the rocky cliff behind Ben and flung his "naked spur" (used to scale the cliff-face as a axe/piton) into his lower cheek or neck - after which he reeled around and Roy shot him from a distance and finished him off. Ben's corpse fell into the roaring river below. Roy was able to string a line across the rough water and retrieve the body - so that they could claim the reward. However, while swimming in the rapidly-flowing river, Roy was lethally struck by a gigantic log stump, drowned and was carried downstream. Kemp hauled Ben's body back to the shore by a rope, and became insanely single-minded and heartless - determined to claim the reward all for himself as he strapped the corpse on his horse. After Lina's pleadings to leave the ordeal behind them, Kemp gave up his potential blood-money bounty, buried Vandergroat's body in the ground, and then rode off with her to start a new life in California together. |
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Shane (1953) In the Territory of Wyoming during various range wars on the frontier The wide-screen, Technicolored panoramic masterpiece recreated a symbolic myth: the age-old story of the duel between good and evil, the advent of civilization and progress into the wilderness (a world of roaming cattlemen, lawless gunslingers, and loners on horseback), a land-dispute conflict between a homesteader and cattle baron, and the coming of age of a young boy. Alan Ladd starred as the archetypal title character, a lone gunman with a shady and violent past who was taken in by the frontier family (and was soon enamoured by homesteading wife Marion played by Jean Arthur). He also became embroiled in the range wars between greedy cattle barons (led by Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer)) and hard-working pioneering farmers (Joe Starrett portrayed by Van Heflin). Jack Palance also co-starred as the villainous black-garbed hired gun Jack Wilson. The film climaxed with wounded Shane's departure as young Joey Starrett (Brandon deWilde) cried out the famous tear-jerking line: "Shane. Shane! Come back! 'Bye, Shane." |
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The Far Country (1954) In 1896, during a cattle drive, from Wyoming to Seattle to Canada, Scagway and Dawson City (Alaska) The fourth western, another dark revenge western, pairing Anthony Mann and James Stewart - this time set in the 'far country' of Alaska and Canada. During the Klondike Gold Rush, self-reliant, anti-hero cattle herder and loner Jeff Webster (Stewart) and sidekick Ben Tatum (Walter Brennan) hoped to sell their herd of cattle in Dawson City to fund their dream ranch in Utah. But they ran afoul of the film's antagonist: Scagway's corrupt, wealthy yet affable judge/Sheriff Gannon (John McIntire). During a bogus and unfair trial held in the saloon of Ronda Castle (Ruth Roman), they had their herd confiscated by the tyrannical judge. Afterwards, the seductress Ronda hired Webster to lead a group of travelers to her new saloon address, Dawson Castle, in the gold rush settlement town of Dawson City. During the ride, Webster restole his herd and took them to Canada. The film ended with the inevitable final shoot-out between the villainous Gannon and Webster. |
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Johnny Guitar (1954) In and around an Arizona cattle town An astonishing, and unusual one-of-a-kind camp cult classic rife with political allegory, repressed Freudian themes (guns as phallic symbols), gender-confusion, and presented as veiled commentary on the anti-communist McCarthy hearings and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee at the time. Starring Joan Crawford as strong-willed, non-conformist saloon owner Vienna (often dressed in black shirt, pants, and boots) in an Arizona small town during changing times, Sterling Hayden as the gun-crazed title character (Vienna's former lover Johnny 'Guitar' Logan, a gunslinger from Albuquerque), and Mercedes McCambridge as opposing gang-leader, contentious spinster and cattle rancher Emma Small. The sadistic Emma had a love-hate relationship with an outlaw named the Dancin' Kid (Scott Brady), one of Vienna's associates, while Vienna's business was about to boom due to the presence of the railroad, causing hatred and conflict among the black-clad townsfolk who demanded her exile. The film ended with Guitar's rescue of Vienna from a lynching, and a challenge between the two female leads - a bloody pistol shoot-out. |
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River of No Return (1954) In the Northwest US in 1875 A great-looking CinemaScopic western adventure/romance (director Preminger's first and sole oater), from a script inspired by Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief, and set during the 19th century Gold Rush. Recently released from prison, widower and dirt farmer Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum) was homesteading with estranged 9 year-old son Mark (Tommy Rettig), who had been cared for in a trading post town by sultry, ex-saloon hall girl Kay (Marilyn Monroe) during his sentence. [Matt had shot a man in the back who was threatening to kill his friend.] On their way to Council City (to register a gold mining claim won in a stud poker game) on a river raft over dangerous and deadly rapids, Kay and fiancee card-shark gambler Harry Weston (Rory Calhoun) were rescued by the Calders, although Harry stole Calder's only rifle and horse, and left his wife behind. Hostile Indian threats forced the remaining defenseless trio to take a treacherous journey down the 'river of no return' (the actual river was the Salmon River in Idaho) on the raft, as they watched their homestead burn. Along the way, they were beset by a wild mountain lion, a vengeful knife-wielding poker player/gold prospector, and an Indian attack. In Council City in the film's contrived ending, young Mark was forced to defend his father by shooting Harry in the back - similar to the crime for which Matt was incarcerated. In the resolution, they reconstituted themselves as a family and restarted their lives. |
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Silver Lode (1954) In the western town of Silver Lode on the Fourth of July A low-budget, independent western (inspired by High Noon (1952)), with veiled yet obvious allegorical references to the Red Scare McCarthy hearings of the historical time period. Respected wealthy rancher/citizen Dan Ballard (John Payne) in the western town of Silver Lode had his Fourth of July wedding to wealthy and pretty fiancee Rose Evans (Lizabeth Scott) interrupted by four men from the town of Discovery, California. The group of deputies, led by accusatory and vengeful blonde Fred McCarty (Dan Duryea), claimed they were US marshals on a manhunt with a warrant to arrest him for the murder of Ned's brother and the robbery of $20,000 a few years earlier. Loyalty of the fickle townsfolk began to falter as wrongly-accused Ballard stalled the proceedings to track down evidence to clear his name and prove his innocence. The only two left believing persecuted Ballard were Rose and his brazen ex-mistress/saloon singer Dolly (Dolores Moran) in a bright purple dress. The taut and suspenseful film concluded with a showdown between a cornered and wounded Ballard and McCarty high up in the bell tower of the town's church, involving a (forged) telegram indicting McCarty's credentials and exonerating Payne, and a gunshot's bullet ricocheting off the giant bell. |
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Vera Cruz (1954) After the American Civil War, set during the Mexican Revolution of 1866, in Mexico bound for Vera Cruz An action-packed, cynical western (and one of the first Hollywood productions filmed entirely in Mexico), and the first released in SuperScope, about two treacherous buddies greedy for gold. It was one of the major forerunners of the 'spaghetti westerns' of the mid-1960s and Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969). The plot was about two footloose American soldiers of fortune: a cynical, gentlemanly, ex-Confederate loner, Major Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) - a Southern landowner who lost everything during the Civil War, and his unreliable, misanthropic, always-grinning career-outlaw rival Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster). The duo met over a horse stolen from a Spanish soldier. Both were mercenaries, choosing to sign up with either crooked, French-supported Emperor Maximilian (George Macready) or peasant rebel Juaristas led by General Ramírez (Morris Ankrum). They joined forces with Maximilian to escort cunning, aristocratic French Countess Marie Duvarre (Denise Darcel) from Mexico City to the port of Vera Cruz, bound for Paris by boat, with a hidden gold cache of $3 million. They were aided by Erin's gang members (future stars Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Jack Elam). The entire journey was a tale of scheming rivalry, shifting alliances, betrayal, and deceitful double-crosses, eventually leading to a shootout between the two (and Erin's death). |
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Bad Day at Black Rock
(1955) In 1945, in the desert Southwest town of Black Rock (California?) A tightly-written, suspenseful, dramatic action western film (with film noirish qualities), and one of the first Hollywood statements about the racist treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Its themes were individual integrity, group conformity and complacency, and civic responsibility, while it allegorically denounced the Hollywood blacklisting of the 1950s McCarthy era. It tensely portrayed one-armed stranger John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) who intrusively arrived in the half-forgotten town of Black Rock with only nine stereotypical townsfolk. Over a twenty-four hour period, he found himself unwelcome and facing several ominous situations, animosity, collective guilt, hypocrisy, and bigotry. The film built suspense by withholding information about the visitor's mysterious mission, and by creating a who-dun-it mystery regarding the hostile town's dark secret. Eventually, he learned the town's deepest secret, and fulfilled the promise he made to present a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism to the farming father of a Japanese wartime buddy (Joe Komoko) who had saved his life in World War II on the battlefields of Italy. |
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The Man From Laramie (1955) In threatening Apache territory, and in the isolated western town of Coronado, New Mexico The fifth (and final) western that paired Anthony Mann and James Stewart - another psychological western and comparable to Shakespeare's King Lear. The 'man from Laramie' - cavalry Captain Will Lockhart (James Stewart) was accompanied by Charles O'Leary (Wallace Ford) on a wagon mule train to the town of Coronado, NM to deliver supplies to storekeeper Barbara Waggoman (Cathy O'Donnell). His major obsessed objective was hateful revenge against those who sold repeating rifles to the Apaches, used to massacre a 12-man cavalry detachment at Dutch Creek that claimed his younger lieutenant brother's life. Lockhart soon became embroiled in a struggle in Coronado with Barbara's sadistic cousin Dave Waggoman (Alex Nicol), over trespassing charges and theft of lagoon salt, and he was lassooed and dragged through a fire. (Later during another encounter, he was shot/wounded in his shooting hand.) Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp), the blind (physically and emotionally), wealthy and ruthless patriarch of the Barb Ranch empire where the massacre occurred, had two rival 'sons' - he favored his bloodlusting, loutish natural son Dave over sensible hired hand/ranch foreman Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy), adopted and raised as an orphan. Vic's plan was to marry Waggoman's niece Barbara, while Will (who was accused of two murders) was eventually made a hired hand by Kate Canady (Aline MacMahon), a tough and rival rancher at Half Moon Ranch, who was jilted by Alec Waggoman years earlier. In a surprise twist, Will was able to reveal Vic's complicity in the continuing arms-sales to the Indians - leading to Vic's death by the outraged Apaches. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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Searchers (1956) In 1868, set during the West Texas-Indian Wars following the Civil War A true American masterpiece of filmmaking, and the best, most influential, and perhaps most-admired film of director John Ford. With John Wayne in a complex character anti-hero role as Ethan Edwards, an ex-Confederate and Civil War vet who witnessed the slaughter of his brother's family by Comanches. Noted for Wayne's oft-repeated phrase: "That'll be the day." For years, he nursed hatred, racism, and prejudice as he madly sought the location of his kidnapped nine year-old niece Debbie (Natalie Wood), taken by Chief Scar and made his Comanche wife. Edwards was accompanied by his nephew - his brother's adopted son - half-breed Cherokee Indian Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter). At the conclusion of the film, rather than kill Debbie, Ethan embraced her with the words: "Let's go home, Debbie." Yet he did not enter the threshold of the house in the final image - he grabbed his arm and turned toward the desert behind him - a tragic, lonely, morally-ambiguous figure perenially doomed to be an outsider. |
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Seven Men From Now (1956) Set in Arizona, in the 1800s This was the first of seven excellent westerns (between 1956 and 1960) known as the "Ranown cycle" bringing together Randolph Scott and director Budd Boetticher (most of them were released through Columbia Pictures) - although the lead role in this one was originally intended for John Wayne. [Note: "Ranown" combined the first letters of Scott's and final letters of his production partner, Harry Joe Brown's, names.] It was a traditional vendetta-revenge western, in its story of vengeful, guilt-ridden former Silver Springs Sheriff Ben Stride (Randolph Scott) during a vigilante hunt. He was obsessively searching for the seven men, led by Payte Bodeen (John Larch), who were responsible for murdering his wife in a Wells Fargo freight station holdup in Silver Springs. In the film's opening, he killed two of the outlaws during a heavy rainstorm. Afterwards, he befriended a married couple - two Eastern travelers on their way to California, John and Annie Greer (Walter Reed and Gail Russell). As he accompanied them on their journey to the border town of Flora Vista, and on the side took a romantic interest in Annie, the group encountered villainous Bill Masters (Lee Marvin), an ex-nemesis of Stride's (he had been jailed twice by Stride in the past), whose opportunistic objective was to follow along and steal the $20,000 in gold that the seven men had robbed. As it was later revealed, a gullible John Greer had been promised to be paid $500 to deliver the stolen gold in his wagon to the bandits in Flora Vista. In a confrontation with two more of the robbers, Stride killed them, but was wounded. When Greer reached Flora Vista, he was gunned down when he told Bodeen that Stride had taken the gold. After a pair of eventual showdowns and shootouts, Bodeen was killed by Masters, and Masters was shot and killed by Stride. In the finale, Stride had intentions to return to his job as lawman in Silver Springs - with Annie tailing along with him. |
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Decision at Sundown (1957) Set in the town of Sundown, Arizona A grim, psychological (and philosophical) revenge Western - another of the seven westerns pairing Boetticher with Randolph Scott. It opened with the marriage of crooked businessman Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll) to pretty blonde Lucy Summerton (Karen Steele) in Sundown, Arizona's church. Seeking twisted and obsessive revenge (over the previous three years) against Tate for seducing his dishonored late wife Mary in his hometown of Saving Pass and prompting her suicide was Texan Bart Allison (Randolph Scott), accompanied by best friend Sam (Noah Beery, Jr.). Bart threatened to kill Tate by sundown. Complicating matters was the presence of womanizing Tate's saloon girlfriend/mistress Ruby James (Valerie French), and Sam's revelation to Bart that Mary was the unfaithful trampish one. The film concluded with a long and tense stalemate and much soul-searching amongst the townsfolk about their rotten town (led by the righteous local Dr. John Storrow (John Archer)), while Bart was surrounded with Sam in the town's livery stable by the malevolent Tate and his hired men (including the town's corrupted sheriff Swede Hansen (Andrew Duggan)). The climactic shoot-out and gunfight (with wounded Bart shooting left-handed) ended with a twist - Ruby shot and wounded Tate, forcing the conflicted Bart to allow Tate to ride away from the town and never return. |
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Forty Guns (1957) Tombstone Territory in Cochise County, Arizona Writer/producer/director Samuel Fuller's low-budget, campy, bawdy (with obvious phallic double-entendres), action-packed, violent, melodramatic, and stylized western starred Barbara Stanwyck as stern cattle-queen rancher Jessica Drummond. Riding a white stallion and dressed in black, she was a domineering matriarch who ruled an Arizona county, supported by her private posse of 'forty' hired guns, and in control of the town's cowardly and weak sheriff Ned Logan (Dean Jagger). Inevitably, she would fall (or find redemption), as per the words of the western's theme song: "She's a High Ridin' Woman with a whip... But if someone could break her and take her whip away, someone big, someone strong, someone tall, you may find that the woman with a whip is only a woman after all." When confronted by non-violent, Wyatt Earp-like, ready-to-retire federal lawman and ex-gunman Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan) and his two itchy-fingered brothers, Wes (Gene Barry) and the younger Chico (Robert Dix), she also revealed her own troublesome, hot-headed brother: the evil Brockie (John Ericson). After Wes romanced Louvenia Spanger (Eve Brent), the pretty daughter of a local gunsmith, they were married although their ceremony was marred when Brockie murdered Wes. In the climactic stand-off, Marshal Griff retaliated (10 years after his last killing) and mercilessly gunned down Brockie, who was using Jessica as a shield. He told bystanders: "Get a doctor, she'll live." |
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Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) In October, 1881, in the town of Tombstone, Arizona Hollywood's ahistorical version of the Wyatt Earp-Doc Holliday legends (portrayed by Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas), also seen in My Darling Clementine (1946) and the more recent Tombstone (1993). Derived from a screenplay by novelist Leon Uris, and based on an article by George Scullin. After his long career as a legendary lawman, the upright Earp took up with love interest, poker gambler Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming) and then moved to Tombstone, while his reluctant ally, terminally-ill gambler Doc Holliday, amused himself with trampish Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet). Earp was supported by brothers Virgil (John Hudson) - the Tombstone town marshal, Morgan (DeForest Kelley), and his youngest brother James (Martin Milner) and his green Deputy Sheriff Charlie Bassett (Earl Holliman). Complications arose when Kate joined up with powerful cattle rustler Ike Clanton's (Lyle Bettger) hired gun Johnny Ringo (John Ireland), and young Jimmy was shot in the back. Concluded with a 5-minute bloodbath of shooting at the O.K. Corral - a showdown between the Earps and Clantons. |
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The Tall T (1957) Somewhere between Contention and Bixby, at a Relay Station, and in a Hilly Hideout Another of the Boetticher-Scott collaborations. The film's unrelated title referred to name of the Tenvoorde ranch in the early scenes. On foot after losing his horse in a bet, unmarried rancher Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott) was picked up by a stagecoach driven by his old buddy Rintoon (Arthur Hunnicutt), traveling from Contention to Bixby. The unlikely passengers were two honeymooning newlyweds, unsympathetic, fortune-hunting Willard and timid and homely Doretta Mims (John Hubbard and Maureen O'Sullivan). Bandits soon ambushed them at the stage relay station (where the trio had already murdered the station manager Hank Parker (Fred E. Sherman) and his son Jeff (Chris Olsen)): sadistic and menacing gang leader Frank Usher (Richard Boone), trigger-itchy Chink (Henry Silva), and the impressionably young Billy Jack (Skip Homeier). Rintoon was killed by Chink and the others were taken hostage. Negotiating with the outlaws, the cowardly Willard unwisely sold out his new wife, confessing that her wealthy father could afford to pay them a ransom of $50,000 - he soon met his fate. Brennan and the distraught widow Doretta were kept prisoner in a remote dark cave hideout in the hills and became romantically involved after Willard's murder, and her confession that she married him out of loneliness. Brennan used her as sexual bait to lure Billy Jack and shoot him dead, and then killed Chink. When Usher returned with the ransom money, Brennan was also forced to kill Usher when he charged with his guns blazing. |
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3:10 To Yuma (1957) In the 1880s, in the Arizona Territory (in the towns of Bisbee and Contention, Arizona) Another taut, low-budget psychological "adult" western (centering on a tense cat-and-mouse game between the two leads), with obvious similarities to High Noon (1952), and highlighted by Frankie Laine's title song. Remade in 2007. Poor, family-man, frontier rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin) heroically accepted a job (with a $200 reward) to transport desperate outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) to prison. Wade was wanted for stage robbery and for the murder of the stage driver Bill Moons - the womanizing and charismatic desperado was apprehended while romancing forlorn saloon-girl Emmy (Felicia Farr) in town. The two were forced to wait in a hotel room in the town of Contention City, Arizona for the 3:10 pm train to Yuma, where Wade would stand trial. Smooth-talking Wade tempted civic-minded, dutiful Evans with a promise of $10,000 if he was released. The townsfolk and others (including Bob Moons (Sheridan Comerate), the drunken brother of the deceased, Evans' worried wife Alice (Leora Dana), and the leader of Wade's gang Charlie Prince (Richard Jaeckel)) provided additional problems for Evans - misgivings, threats, taunts, and bribes, etc. |
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The Tin Star (1957) A small western town A low-budget character-study western about frontier justice, nominated for a Best Original Story & Screenplay Oscar. Cynical veteran bounty-hunter (ex-tin star sheriff and widower) Morgan (or "Morg") Hickman (Henry Fonda) brought the body of a dangerous outlaw into a small western town to claim his reward for killing the stage robber and murderer Bogardus. There would be four days of delays, according to young, idealistic, brash, greenhorn and temporary sheriff Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins) and other townsfolk, who first needed to verify the wanted man's body. Meanwhile, Morgan (when denied boarding in town) was given a room by pretty blonde and widowed mother Nona Mayfield (Betsy Palmer), with a young half-breed son Kip (Michel Ray). Ben's critical sweetheart Millie Parker (Mary Webster) worried that he was doomed to be dead as a sheriff, like her father who was killed during a stagecoach robbery. Morgan began to teach the inexperienced and ineffective Ben the ways of a lawman (how to handle guns and outlaws and protect himself), made more challenging by the murder of the town's 75 year-old Doctor Joseph J. "Doc" McCord (John McIntire) on his birthday - "Doc" was killed by the same two stagecoach outlaws, the half-breed McGaffey brothers (Lee Van Cleef as Ed, and Peter Baldwin as Zeke), that had killed Millie's father. Millie's fears for the nervous and inept sheriff were realized when bigoted, bullying livery stable owner Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand), the dead outlaw's cousin, demonstrated his rivalry for the sheriff's job. He confronted Ben and a recently-deputized Morg (who had both successfully brought in the Indian-blooded bad guys) with an angry lynch mob. It was a typical showdown between the two lawmen and mob rule (denying the criminals a fair trial), with Ben proving his manhood (and the strength of his law-and-order tin star) against the hot-headed and barbarous Bart by shooting his dead. Impressed by Ben, Millie decided to marry him, while Morg, Nona and Kip left town to begin a new life together. |
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The Big Country (1958) In the small western town of San Rafael, and on the two Western ranches (Ladder Ranch and Blanco Canyon) surrounding a strip of land called the "Big Muddy" An epic western with an enormous cast of characters, and a story about powerful families feuding over water rights (interpreted by some as an allegory about the Cold War nuclear standoff). Co-producer Gregory Peck starred as James McKay, a wealthy and newly retired sea captain from Maryland who had traveled westward to meet up with his spirited fiancee Patricia (Carroll Baker) at the Ladder Ranch owned by her proud father Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford). There was continuing rivalry between Terrill and Blanco Canyon's stubborn and patriarchal Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives, Best Supporting Actor winner), and in the middle of the feud was the "Big Muddy" ranch (with control of water rights to the river) owned by Patricia's headstrong yet sensible schoolteacher friend Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons). Challenging and taunting pacifist McKay's manhood (and calling him cowardly) was both Terrill's cocky foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) and Rufus' troublesome, hot-headed and irresponsible son Buck (Chuck Connors). (One celebrated scene was an exhausting fisticuffs brawl at dawn between Leech and McKay, when the latter proved himself.) McKay purchased the key "Big Muddy" strip of land from Julie (with whom he also began a romance), alienating Patricia (and breaking their engagement) when he told her that he would continue to allow peace-keeping water rights for both families. In the exciting conclusion, Hannassey kidnapped Julie (to lure Terrill into narrow Blanco Canyon for ambush) and Buck threatened to rape her. McKay and Buck faced each other in a duel, revealing that Buck was the real coward. Hannassey shot and killed his own son when he threatened to unfairly shoot McKay in the back. Then, during a one-on-one showdown between Hannassey and Terrill, both were left dead. |
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Cowboy (1958) In Chicago, on a westward-bound train to Wichita, Kansas, and on a cattle drive from Guadalupe, Mexico back to Wichita, Ks. (and by return train to Chicago) This fish-out-of-water western (and coming of age story) was an adaptation of Frank Harris' semi-autobiographical novel My Reminiscences as a Cowboy. Real-life writer and Chicago hotel desk clerk Frank Harris (Jack Lemmon), with aspirations of becoming a cowboy, saw his opportunity. When experienced tough cowboy/cattle driver and trail boss Tom Reece (Glenn Ford), with a penchant for whiskey and hot baths, lost his savings in a poker game, greenhorn Harris offered $3,800 to help finance Reece's purchase of a herd of cattle in Guadalupe, Mexico from Mexican baron Señor Vidal (Donald Randolph) - in exchange for becoming his ranch hand partner during his dusty travels to/from Mexico. After traveling by train to Wichita, and then arriving in Guadalupe seven weeks later, they rode to the Vidal ranch to arrange to pick up the herd, for transport back to market. In a side story, tenderfoot Harris was motivated by romantic interest in Vidal's daughter Maria (Anna Kashfi), but was dismayed when her disapproving father arranged her marriage to Don Manuel Arriega (Eugene Iglesias). By film's end, Harris had proved himself to Reece, in the midst of Indian scuffles, challenges on the trail with other trailhands and with the cattle. |
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Man of the West (1958) In Crosscut, Texas and then on a train bound for Fort Worth, Texas Director Anthony Mann's last western. After being robbed (of the savings of his community of Good Hope, raised to hire a schoolteacher) while on a train to Fort Worth, Texas, family man Link Jones (Gary Cooper) - with a dark and troubled past - was joined up with Crosscut (Texas) saloon singer Billie Ellis (Julie London) and cardsharp con-man Sam Beasley (Arthur O'Connell). The trio came upon an isolated, broken-down ranch house where Link, now reformed, revealed he had once been raised and trained as a gang member to rob banks. Inside, he was startled to find the thieves and their patriarchal leader Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb) - Link's uncle. Jones found himself defending the honor of Billie when the twisted Dock lusted after her, and gunman Coaley Tobin (Jack Lord) made her strip down to her underwear. Link was compelled to rejoin the robbers for a bank heist in the (ghost)town of Lassoo. By the film's end, Link had killed off a number of gang members, but found that in his absence, Billie had been raped (off-screen) and beaten. In retaliation in the film's climactic end, he killed Dock and reclaimed the stolen funds. |
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The Horse Soldiers (1959) Set during the American Civil War, in the year 1863, from Tennessee through the state of Mississippi near Vicksburg, and then into Louisiana This docudrama's plot was inspired by the true story of Union Army Colonel Benjamin Grierson, who led a daring and successful "Grierson's Raid" before the Battle of Newton Station, to cut the Confederate-controlled railroad line connecting the supply depot of Newton Station with the stronghold Southern city of Vicksburg - this military action in Mississippi occurred just prior to the famous Battle of Vicksburg in 1863. In Ford's western version, John Wayne starred as Yankee cavalry brigade leader Colonel John Marlowe (who later revealed that he was an engineer who built railroads before the war). Marlowe conducted a raid of saboteurs to cause havoc and destroy a Confederate railroad and supply depot 300 miles behind the lines at Newton Station. Feuding and bickering continually with Marlowe (who had a deeply-founded hatred of doctors) was his new humanitarian, self-righteous regimental surgeon Major Henry "Hank" Kendall (William Holden). Fiery Southern belle and Greenbriar Landing plantation mistress Miss Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers) was taken hostage after she overheard their plans and would undoubtedly have undermined their mission as a spy if left behind. A major military action occurred when the Union forces were surprise counter-attacked by Confederate forces at Newton Station, although it ended with the Union army blowing up the depot and destroying the railroad lines. A second attack was conducted against Marlowe's brigade by uniformed young school children cadets from a nearby military institute, marching to war to the sound of fife and drum. As Marlowe and his men retreated to avoid conflict with the underaged soldiers and pushed further southward, he was wounded at a crucial bridge crossing, although he was able to lead a successful attack to rout the Confederates. Just before mining and blowing up the wooden bridge and crossing into Louisiana, he bid farewell to love interest Hannah, and to Kendall who chose to remain behind (and was facing certain imprisonment at Andersonville). |
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Ride Lonesome (1959) Across desolate and dangerous Indian territory on the way to Santa Cruz Another Boetticher/Scott collaboration in a B-grade western about revenge. Taciturn bounty hunter Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott), aging ex-sheriff of Santa Cruz, captured no-good drifter Billy John (James Best), wanted for shooting a man in the back in Santa Cruz. Brigade's intention was to take Billy John to the Santa Cruz jail - and meanwhile vengefully capture his sadistic older brother Frank John (Lee Van Cleef) by using Billy John as bait. As a side-note, Frank had murdered Brigade's wife years earlier, at the site of a hanging tree (just outside Santa Cruz). The plot was furthered by the arrival of two outlaws: Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts) and his companion Whit (James Coburn in his screen debut), and the presence of blonde widow Mrs. Carrie Lane (Karen Steele) - saved by Brigade during an Indian attack when her stagecoach trading post husband was killed. The film concluded with Brigade's revenge upon Frank (who was killed at the hanging tree), and the surrender of Billy John to Boone and Whit (and the young widow), who then proceeded toward Santa Cruz for the bounty, leaving Brigade to again 'ride lonesome.' |
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Rio Bravo (1959) Texas' rural Presidio County in the late 1860s, in the town of Rio Bravo, Texas Filmed by Hawks as a reaction to High Noon (1952), and remade as El Dorado (1966) and John Carpenter's action-thriller Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). John Wayne starred as self-reliant small-town Sheriff John T. Chance, who enlisted the help of a group of misfits: drunken deputy Dude (aka Borachón - Spanish for drunk) (Dean Martin), teenaged cocky sharpshooter Colorado Ryan (singer Ricky Nelson), and elderly, limping and grumpy sidekick Stumpy (Walter Brennan), while finding love with stranded, on-the-run dance-hall girl Feathers (26 year-old Angie Dickinson), who was on her way to Fort Worth. They were guarding jail inmate Joe Burdette (Claude Akins), who was charged with the murder of an unarmed bystander in a saloon fight (in the film's opening). His ruthless land baron brother Nathan Burdette (John Russell) and hired guns attempted to release him, before he could be taken by a US Marshal to Presidio for trial. A final shoot-out amidst overturned wagons (filled with dynamite cargo) defeated Burdette's men. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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Comanche Station (1960) At Comanche Station and in Comanche territory, on the way to Lordsburg Randolph Scott once again worked with director Budd Boetticher - but this was the last of their western collaborations. The old-fashioned, pessimistic oater told of stoic, forlorn loner Jefferson Cody (Randolph Scott) during a heroic yet private, obsessive rescue mission. He had been searching for 10 years for his captive kidnapped wife, taken by Comanches. After bartering his Winchester rifle and $5 worth of traded goods for a female captive, he realized that the abductee wasn't his wife, but a red-headed, married white woman named Nancy Lowe (Nancy Gates). Thinking he had mercenary motives, she didn't believe him when he told her that he didn't know about the bounty on her head - a dead-or-alive $5,000 reward offered by her husband. On his way to return her to her hometown of Lordsburg, he met up at Comanche Station with a trio of bounty-hunting outlaws: Dobie (Richard Rust), Frank (Skip Homeier) and their greedy leader Ben Lane (Claude Akins) (with whom Cody had a past rivalry). The mercenary group's malevolent intent was to claim her for the dead or alive $5,000 reward. The unscrupulous Lane was planning to kill both Nancy and Cody to claim the money. After skirmishes with Comanches and a final shootout with Lane, Cody safely delivered Nancy to her young son and husband (revealed to be blind). He turned and rode away before accepting the reward money. |
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The Magnificent Seven (1960) A small agricultural village in across-the-border Mexico A westernized remake of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954, Jp.), and with a memorable score by Elmer Bernstein. The box-office "feel-good" hit inspired three sequels (1966, 1969, and 1972) and a late 1990s TV series. The ensemble film involved seven gunslingers who served as a vigilante force to protect a terrorized Mexican town and its oppressed peasant villagers from invading bandits, led by gold-toothed Calvera (Eli Wallach). The seven in the low-paid group of misfit, mercenary gunmen included Yul Brynner (as reluctant black-clad leader Chris Adams), Steve McQueen (as easy-going gambler/drifter Vin Tanner), Charles Bronson (as Irish-Mexican Bernardo O'Reilly), James Coburn (as knife-throwing, cowpuncher Britt), Robert Vaughn (as fugitive gunman Lee), Horst Buchholz (as young and hot-tempered Chico) and Brad Dexter (as greedy Harry Luck). After the climactic shootout, only three of the seven were left -- Chico, Chris, and Vin, and the film concluded with Chris' pessimistic words: "The Old Man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose." |
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The Unforgiven (1960) Set in the Texas Panhandle sometime after the Civil War, in the mid to late 1860s An intriguing social conscience western about racial injustice, with an anti-racist stance although often criticized for its stereotypical depiction of Indians. Director Huston's film can be compared to its counterpoint - Ford's The Searchers (1956). The film opened with adopted young Rachel Zachary (Audrey Hepburn) galloping on the open range, when she was startled and frightened by an elderly strange man in a tattered Union uniform lifting his saber, declaring she was "no Zachary," and shouting vengefully "I am the sword of God." Rachel's mother, Texas panhandler-settler Mattilda (Lillian Gish) shot at the man and chased him off. She lived in the Zachary family with three brothers who were just returning from a cattle drive: patriarchal Ben Zachary (Burt Lancaster), bigoted and violent Indian-hater Cash (Audie Murphy) and virginal good-guy Andy (Doug McClure). The haggard and demented man was revealed to be Bible-quoting, one-eyed Abe Kelsey (Joseph Wiseman), who had good reason to be an Indian-hater, and to suspect and spread rumors that Rachel had Indian blood and had been raised by the Zacharys from infancy. Indians had killed Kelsey's son and later killed Mattilda's pacifist, compassionate husband Will, who had managed to save Rachel as a baby - the only survivor of a slaughtered Kiowa camp. Tensions heated up after two incidents: Rachel's Kiowa brother Lost Bird (Carlos Rivas) came to return her to her native people in exchange for horses, and the Kiowa murder of Charlie Rawlins (Albert Salmi), the son of Ben Zachary's ranching partner Rev. Zeb Rawlins (Charles Bickford) and also Rachel's suitor-boyfriend. As a result, local whites turned against Rachel and ostracized her adoptive family (even Cash disowned his own adopted sister), and they were forced to defend themselves on their own from a ferocious Indian attack on the Zachary homestead. Many criticized the commercial, typical, Hollywoodized, incongruent "action-packed" ending (the Zacharys killed dozens of Kiowa, with Cash arriving for a last-minute rescue). At the end of the assault which left Mattilda mortally wounded, Rachel shot Lost Bird dead. |
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The Comancheros (1961) In the year 1843, first in New Orleans, Louisiana, then on a paddleboat to Galveston (Texas), with most of the action in Texas Famed veteran director Michael Curtiz' last film. Comancheros in the title referred to white renegade traders and Mexicans who were selling guns and whiskey to the marauding Comanches in early Texas. Texas Ranger Capt. Jake Cutter (John Wayne) (aka Big Jake, although not related to his character in Wayne's later movie, Big Jake (1971)) tracked down and arrested Louisiana gambler/duellist and womanizer "Monsieur" Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman). While bringing him (through extradition) to Louisiana to hang for killing Emil Bouvier (Gregg Palmer), the son of a Louisiana judge in a pistol duel in New Orleans, Regret escaped as a fugitive, but was recaptured. Jake also encountered surly, half-scalped, liquor-swilling Tully Crow (Lee Marvin), a Comanchero agent. Jake was ordered to go after the Comancheros, by impersonating a gun smuggler. Out of necessity, Jake had to team up with Regret to defeat the band of renegade arms merchants and thieves, led by older, refined and crippled Mexican warlord Graille (Nehemiah Persoff) with a bandit Comanchero stronghold in the American desert (his character was similar to a Bond villain). In a romantic side-plot, Regret had a tryst with the ruthless leader's daughter Pilar Graille (Ina Balin), who eventually helped Regret and Jake escape capture and sabotage her father's stronghold before they were rescued by the Texas Rangers during a concluding shootout. |
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One-Eyed Jacks (1961) Set in the 1880s in Mexico, and in Monterey, California This ragged, overlong revenge western was directed by its own star Marlon Brando, his sole directorial effort. It opened with two bank robbers, Rio or "The Kid" (Marlon Brando) and his pal Dad Longworth (Karl Malden), fleeing from the Rurales in the Mexican mountainside. When Rio's horse was shot out from under him, Longworth promised to find another horse and return, but he betrayed him and absconded with the gold loot in saddle bags - and Rio was caught and imprisoned in Sonora for five years. After escaping with cellmate Chico Modesto (Larry Duran), Rio went on a vengeful vendetta against Longworth, who had settled down as the elected sheriff of Monterey (in California), and had married a Mexican woman - Maria 'Mother' (Katy Jurado) with a daughter. His plan was to join with two other outlaws, Bob Amory (Ben Johnson) and Harvey Johnson (Sam Gilman), to rob the Monterey bank, and to seduce and shame Longworth's virginal teenaged step-daughter Louisa (Pina Pellicer) (she ended up with an unwed pregnancy). However, as it turned out, after Rio killed (in self-defense) a drunken and abusive saloon patron in town, Longworth got even. He publically whipped Rio, smashed and injured his shooting hand, and drove him away. And then Rio was blamed for the bank heist (and a murder), imprisoned, and about to be hanged. Louisa helped Rio to escape from jail and Longworth's sadistic deputy Lon (Slim Pickens), after which in a predictable shootout, Rio gunned down his long-time enemy Longworth in the back. |
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Two Rode Together (1961) In the 1880s in Texas, in Comanche country A minor western from John Ford about racism, slightly similar to The Searchers (1956). In the 1880's, Marshal Guthrie McCabe (James Stewart), a cynical, mercenary Texas marshal, was ordered to join cavalry officer First Lt. Jim Gary (Richard Widmark) in rescuing, bringing home, and repatriating a long-lost group of white settlers who had been held captive by the Comanches. McCabe agreed due to Army pressure and the promise of payment, and secondarily so that he could escape marriage-minded, attractive saloon owner Belle Aragon (Annelle Hayes). The two traded two rifles for two of the Indian captives: Running Wolf (David Kent), a white boy raised as an Indian, and Elena de la Madriaga (Linda Cristal), a beautiful young Mexican woman - the forced squaw of warring Comanche Stone Calf (Woody Strode). As they departed from the Indian camp, Stone Calf tried to reclaim Elena, and McCabe killed him. When they returned to the fort, there were ugly issues to face when bringing them back to civilization. Savage 17 year-old Running Wolf's only claim from the racist fort-dwellers came from mentally-deranged Mrs. McCandless (Jeanette Nolan), who was shockingly killed by him. In retaliation, the settlers proceeded to lynch the youth, and learned he was actually the abducted brother (named Steve) of tomboyish white settler Marty Purcell (Shirley Jones) - Lt. Gary's love interest and fiancee. Elena was similarly shunned by the hypocritical white society. When McCabe was leaving to return to his Texas marshal's job, he changed his mind (he learned his position had been filled in his absence) and decided to join Elena and go to California. |
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How the West Was Won (1962) Set between 1829 and 1889, following three generations of a family (starting as the Prescotts and then following the Rawlings) as they moved westward from western New York State to the West Coast A five part Western travelogue epic (narrated by Spencer Tracy) with an all-star cast about three generations of pioneers, filmed in the short-lived super-widescreen Cinerama format. The five sections were: (1) THE RIVERS, (2) THE PLAINS, (3) THE CIVIL WAR, (4) THE RAILROAD, (5) THE OUTLAWS. The film opened in 1829, with Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) journeying with his four children and his wife Rebecca (Agnes Moorehead) from his New England farm westward to Ohio via the Erie Canal and down the Ohio River on a raft. Along the way, they met backwoods fur trapper Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who soon after rescued the Prescotts from river pirates led by Colonel Hawkins (Walter Brennan). Afterwards, two of the Prescott children drowned in the rapids, and Linus married Eve (Carroll Baker). In St. Louis, daughter Lilith Prescott (Debbie Reynolds), now working in a dance hall, impressed hustling gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), who joined her on a westward trek to California, to opportunistically locate her inherited gold mine - discovered to be worthless. After marriage, they settled in San Francisco. The plot returned to widowed Eve (Linus died in a Civil War battle), whose eldest farm boy son Zeb Rawlings (George Peppard) joined the Union troops, and was fortuitously present to save Generals Sherman (John Wayne) and Grant (Henry "Harry" Morgan) from being assassinated during the Battle of Shiloh by Confederate-Reb deserter (Russ Tamblyn). After the war, when Zeb found that his mother had died, he joined the US Cavalry to protect railroad construction workers and keep peace with the Indians, assisted by grizzly buffalo hunter Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda). The peace was short-lived when Union Pacific RR foreman Mike King (Richard Widmark) broke the Arapaho Indian treaty by cutting through Indian territory, and the Indians retaliated. Disheartened, Zeb Rawlings resigned and went to Arizona, where he became a Marshal and married Julie (Carolyn Jones) and had children. They were visited by Zeb's aunt - widowed and impoverished Lilith who had moved from Nob Hill to Arizona. Zeb pursued outlaw gang leader Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach), intent on robbing a train's gold shipment, and was able to kill his adversary during the exciting runaway train sequence. |
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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) The small western town of Shinbone, in the year 1910, with flashbacks to several decades earlier Another pairing of the duo of John Ford (with his last great film) and frequent star John Wayne (as gunfighter and respected rancher Tom Doniphon), noted for repeatedly calling his co-star "Pilgrim." A re-examination of Western myth told in a flashbacked story, the classic western starred James Stewart (as transplanted pacifist tenderfoot and Easterner lawyer Ransom Stoddard), Lee Marvin (as drunken and villainous outlaw Liberty Valance), Vera Miles (as young waitress Hallie), and Woody Strode (as Doniphon's farmhand Pompey). The film opened with US Senator Ranse Stoddard describing his bullying by menacing and ruthless Liberty Valance years earlier, and eventually leading to a challenge-duel on a dark street - won surprisingly by a wounded Stoddard, and making him a hero ("the man who shot Liberty Valance') for the remainder of his life. The real truth was told years later by Doniphon, who claimed he was hiding and had fired the fatal shot from a side angle. The words: "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend," added another layer of meaning. The heroic, self-sacrificing Doniphon lost the love of his life to Stoddard, and died a drunken and disconsolate man - with a burned-down house he had planned to live in with her. |
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Ride the High Country (1962) Set in the early 20th century, mostly In the high country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, to and from the mining town of Coarse Gold An end-of-an-era western always noted as the 'swan song' for iconic western actor Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. Aging, law-abiding ex-marshal Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) arrived in town (the modern era was signaled by automobiles) to take a dangerous new position, as $250,000 gold-deposit guard during transport from the mountain claims in the country to the bank - a three day's journey. He hired old friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott), first seen looking like Buffalo Bill at a traveling carnival where he was bragging about his past as "The Oregon Kid" sharpshooter. The old heroes were joined by womanizing, reckless gunslinger Heck Longtree (Ron Starr) and rebellious farmgirl Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley in her film debut). She wished to leave her demanding, repressive and puritanical father Joshua Knudsen (R. G. Armstrong) to elope with her fiancee, miner Billy Hammond (James Drury) in remote Coarse Gold, who had a number of drunken, no-good brothers (including menacing Henry (Warren Oates)) who wished to share the new bride. Complicating matters, double-crossing Westrum plotted to steal the gold shipment on the way back. The film ended with a shootout at Elsa's farmhouse between the group and some of the Hammond brothers, with Judd mortally wounded (yet promised by Westrum that the gold would be delivered), and Elsa and Heck together. |
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A Fistful of Dollars (1964, It.) (aka Per un Pugno di
Dollari) (# 1 "The Dollar Trilogy," "The Man With No Name Trilogy")
In the Mexican border town of San Miguel The first low-budget "spaghetti western" classic from Sergio Leone, filmed in Spain, with a script based on Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961, Jp.). Clint Eastwood starred as the iconic, brooding, squinty-eyed, nameless, enigmatic gunslinger ("The Man With No Name" yet referred to once as Joe), involved in an uneasy feud between two warring factions - the Rojo and the Baxter families. The film opened with the bearded, cigar-smoking, poncho-wearing lone cowboy (Eastwood) riding on a mule into San Miguel, a border town, where he firsthand learned about the ongoing rivalry between the two clans, both involved in contraband whiskey and guns. The amoral and opportunistic stranger, sensing a "fistful of dollars" to be made, first shot at four of the Baxter hired guns, then offered to work for the Rojos. Playing both sides, he stoked and intensified the hatred between the families (while not revealing his true allegiance). However, after helping imprisoned hostage Marisol (Marianne Koch) to escape from the Rojos and reunite with her family, patriarch Ramon Rojo (Gian Maria Volonté) was incensed and brutally tortured and maimed the "Man with No Name." While recovering in an abandoned mine, Ramon killed the entire Baxter family and burned their house down. After recovering, the cunning stranger returned to town for a final showdown with the Rojo clan and killed all of them, before leaving the town on his mule (and riding off with gold stolen by the Rojos from a Mexican cavalry unit). |
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Cat Ballou (1965) In the town of Wolf City, Wyoming in the year 1894 A wild western parody, acclaimed for Lee Marvin's Oscar-winning double role, and with musical interludes from balladeers Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye. The film's title character, aspiring school teacher Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda), was returning to her father Frankie Ballou's (John Marley) ranch in Wolf City, Wyoming by train, after completing an Eastern finishing school. Although appearing prim and proper, she was secretly reading a western pulp about legendary and notorious outlaw Kid Shelleen. Enroute, she aided the escape of handsome accused cattle rustler Clay Boone (Michael Callan) from Sheriff Maledon (Bruce Cabot), when Boone's drunken Uncle Jed (Dwayne Hickman) disguised as a preacher distracted the lawman. At the ranch, she learned that her father was being pressured and threatened with death by the Wolf City Developing Company (WCDC) - they wanted him to sell his ranch to them for its watering rights. Educated Indian ranch-hand Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini) seemed to be the only one to defend Frankie. After fast-draw hired killer Tim Strawn (aka Silvernose) (Lee Marvin) murdered her father, Catherine sought ineffectual help from the two escaped outlaw-cons (Clay and Jed) from the train, and then enlisted gunslinger Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin) for $50 to seek revenge. When Shelleen appeared, he was hopelessly drunk and unable to shoot, so Catherine decided to seek vengeance herself as "Cat" Ballou. With a gang of associates, she robbed a train that was carrying the Wolf City payroll, using the Kid's robbery plan written about in the dime novel. When Shelleen sobered up - partially because of his unrequited love for Cat, he killed his own twin brother Strawn. Cat went after WCDC town boss Sir Harry Percival (Reginald Denny) - masquerading as a prostitute promising sex - and killed him. Although sentenced to be hanged, Cat's gang arrived for a daring rescue and escape. |
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For a Few Dollars More (1965, It.) (aka Per Qualche
Dollaro in Più) (# 2 "The Dollar Trilogy," "The Man With No Name
Trilogy") Set in the post-Civil War Southwest, in El Paso, Texas The second low-budget "spaghetti western" classic from Sergio Leone - a violent vigilante western with stylistic violence and again Ennio Morricone's soundtrack. The film opened with the appearance of two cunning bounty hunters in El Paso, Texas: (1) a laconic stranger or "The Man With No Name" (referred to as Manko) (Clint Eastwood), and (2) vengeful ex-Confederate Army officer Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef). They begrudgingly decided to team up and together split the $10,000 reward/bounty for the capture of sadistic and maniacal outlaw El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). (Later in the film, it was learned that Indio had raped Mortimer's sister (Rosemarie Dexter), causing her to commit suicide.) Their strategy was to first win favor with Indio - so they orchestrated a jailbreak to free him, and then joined his gang to rob the El Paso Bank. The two distrustful, wary bounty hunters acquired the safe stolen from the bank and hid the money inside, but then Indio captured them. However, by the film's bloody conclusion, only Mortimer and the stranger were alive, and Mortimer had avenged his sister's death. Mortimer let the stranger collect the bounty by himself. |
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El Dorado (1966) In the frontier town of El Dorado, during the Civil War Considered director Hawks' first derivative film (or remake) of Rio Bravo (1958), followed by another remake Rio Lobo (1970). John Wayne starred as gunfighter Cole Thornton, who was in town to reunite with old friend J. P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum). Thornton had been summoned by evil wealthy landbaron-rancher Bart Jason (Ed Asner) to drive off the rival family of struggling patriarch Kevin MacDonald (R. G. Armstrong) to acquire his water and land. Thornton refused the job, then was ambushed when returning to town from the ranch by MacDonald's son Luke (Johnny Crawford) standing guard. He reflexively fired back and one of his bullets wounded Luke in the gut, and then to his surprise, Luke suicidally shot himself. When Thornton brought the body back to the Jason ranch, before he could explain himself, he was shot by feisty daughter Joey (or Josephine) (Michele Carey), and the bullet lodged dangerously near Thornton's spine. He left town for treatment in the city, although remained partially paralyzed. The story shifted to about a year later, with Thornton returning to El Dorado with a new young buddy/drifter nicknamed Mississippi (or Alan Bourdillion Traherne) (James Caan), a knife-thrower. In town, he met Jason's new hired gun, Nelse McLeod (Christopher George), and learned that friend J.P. had become an alcoholic, after being jilted by a dance-hall girl. Efforts were extended to restore J.P.'s self-respect and cure him of his drinking problem. After some power struggles in town in an attempt to restore peace, the film concluded with the disabled trio in a showdown, joined by grizzled deputy sheriff Bull (Arthur Hunnicutt). Right-hand paralyzed Thornton, semi-crippled and leg-wounded J.P., and concussion-suffering Mississippi killed off Jason, Nelse, and the hired gang, and then settled in town. |
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, It.) (aka Il Buono,
Il Brutto, Il Battivo) (# 3 "The Dollar Trilogy," "The Man With No Name
Trilogy") Within desolate ghost towns and a cemetery in the Southwest, during the American Civil War The third "spaghetti western" classic from Italian director Sergio Leone, again accentuated by Ennio Morricone's trademark score. In this well-known and most famous operatic classic, "The Man with No Name" was now known as Joe or Blondie (Rawhide TV actor Clint Eastwood) - or the "Good" one - a laconic, lone, enigmatic drifter with his familiar poncho. [This third film appeared to be a prequel to the other two films, because it had a Civil War setting previous to the other films, and because Blondie acquired his trademark serape near the end of the film from a dying soldier to whom he lent a last cigarette.] The other two individuals were: Lee Van Cleef's Bad (or Angel Eyes) or Setenza, a bounty hunter and sadistic hired killer, and Eli Wallach's Ugly (or Tuco Ramirez), a Mexican bandit. The three greedy treasure hunters were searching for a cashbox of $200,000 worth of lost or stolen Confederate gold buried in an unmarked grave in Sad Hill Cemetery. The film was noted for loud sound effects, intense close-ups, widescreen cinematography, and intense set-pieces, climaxed with a three-way, five-minute-long, circular graveyard face-off amidst tombstones and grave markers. In the final gunfight, the stranger shot and killed Setenza but spared Tuco and left him his share of the money, but first he had to escape the rope around his neck. Before he rode off, the stranger shot through the rope, leaving Tuco in the middle of nowhere with gold coins - but without a horse. |
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The Professionals (1966) Set during the last years of the Mexican Revolution (around 1917), at and across the Mexican border A "Dirty Dozen" type film - about a group of mercenaries on a perilous rescue mission (paid for by a millionaire rancher) who found out that their objective wasn't what they thought it was. The exciting action-western opened with corrupt rancher J. W. Grant (Ralph Bellamy) hiring four professionals (at $10,000 apiece, with $1,000 paid up-front) to rescue his allegedly kidnapped Mexican wife Maria (Claudia Cardinale) from her abductor - ex-Revolution guerrilla leader/bandit Jesus Raza (Jack Palance). The four hired guns were: leader and professional soldier Henry "Rico" Fardan (Lee Marvin), horse wrangler and pack master Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan), dynamite expert Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster), and black tracker and archer Jake Sharp (Woody Strode). The group crossed the Mexican border and located Raza's hideout deep within a canyon. Although Fardan had an opportunity to kill Raza, Maria interceded and saved him. It was clear that Maria was Raza's willing mistress. Ruthless rancher Grant had acquired Maria for an arranged marriage, but she had escaped and returned to lover Raza in his desert stronghold in Mexico. At the border to claim their reward in the film's conclusion, the professionals turned over a wounded Raza and Maria to Grant, then changed their minds and freed the two. The final dialogue was priceless: Grant called Fardan a bastard, to which Fardan retorted: "Yes, sir, in my case an accident of birth. But you, sir, you are a self-made man." |
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The Shooting (1966) A trek across a Southwestern desert, to the town of Cross Tree, and then continuing on to the town of Kingsley This low-budget B-movie, considered one of the first off-beat, stylized existential 'acid westerns,' was never released theatrically. It was an arthouse-type road-quest film that finally found a cult audience after being released to TV in 1968, and after actor Jack Nicholson came to fame. Universally, viewers were puzzled by its strange ending. It has been conjectured that the western was about the JFK assassination and that the ending was about the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald. The film opened in a mining camp, where scruffy, grizzled ex-bounty hunter Willett Gashade (Warren Oates) was partnered with foolish cohort Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins), and friend Leland Drum (B.J. Merholz). Gashade's look-alike brother Coin Gashade (also Warren Oates) had recently fled from camp and was missing. Slow-witted and fearful Coley told Willett that Drum had been murdered by an unidentified killer. Willett and Coley were now on a hunt - but the identity of the wanted man the two were hunting down was unclear, as was the motive for the hunt (there was only a brief mention of gravely injured (or killed) people in town, including maybe a child). Willett and Coley were hired for $1,000 to escort a mysterious, enigmatic nameless woman (Millie Perkins) to a town across the desert called Kingsley. She had just shot and killed her seemingly-healthy horse. Paranoia soon set in, as the two suspected that the empowered woman was leaving clues for a cocky, black-clad, leather-vested menacing hired gun named Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson) who seemed to be following them. The And then unexpectedly, the intimidating and threatening Spear visited them at camp one night and joined their hunt. During their unusual doomed trek in the harsh desert climate when they became short on horses and water, Coley was shot dead by Spear, and all of their horses died. Willett found an opportunity to wrestle with and attack Spear and crush his gun-shooting hand with a rock. And then on the side of a rock formation, as Willett was following after the woman (who was following another unidentified man), she exchanged rapid gun-fire with the man and they killed each other. When Willett came upon the dead man, he spoke the name "Coin," realizing that the corpse belonged to his own twin brother. Spear continued to be delirious in the hot sun from sunstroke. |
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Hombre (1967) Set in late 19th-century eastern Arizona, on a stagecoach bound for Bisbee A revisionist, liberal-minded western with minor amounts of dialogue - with the theme of racial prejudice and injustice against outcast Native Americans. A story with some similarities to John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). With Paul Newman starring as John Russell, an Apache-raised white man on a reservation. He traded an inherited boarding-house from his adoptive father for a herd of horses, then took a stagecoach ride out of town with others back to the Indian reservation (he was forced to sit on top, not with the others). The paying passengers included: widowed, fiery ex-boarding house manager Jessie Brown (Diane Cilento), Mexican driver-friend Henry Mendez (Martin Balsam), bigoted Indian agent Dr. Alexander Favor (Fredric March) and trophy wife Audra (Barbara Rush), a bickering, unhappy newly-married couple (Billy Lee Black (Peter Lazer) and Doris Blake (Margaret Blye)), and ominous tough-guy stranger Cicero Grimes (Richard Boone). During the journey, the coach was robbed by Grimes' gang of gunmen, knowing that Favor had embezzled $12,000 from US government funds intended for Indian beef contracts, and Audra was taken as hostage. During the robbery, Russell shot and killed two outlaws and retrieved the sack of money, and then led the group to seek refuge in an abandoned mining cabin. The next day, Russell refused to give the outlaws the sack of money in exchange for Audra. Instead, with a last-minute fatalistic and doomed decision, he faced and gunned down all the bandits while trying to rescue Audra (staked out to die in the sun), but nobly died in the process. |
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Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, It.) (aka C'era Una
Volta il West) At the desert homestead of Sweetwater and the surroundings After the success of his earlier "spaghetti westerns," Leone was given a bigger budget from a Hollywood studio, and bigger-name stars for his revisionist revenge western. It was filmed in both Spain and Monument Valley (US). Its opening has been justly celebrated - a tense standoff at noon in the midday sun between three gunmen at a train station, marked by only exaggerated sound effects, wide closeups, and the arrival of the train with a harmonica-playing killer (Charles Bronson). The plot was about a beautiful widow, ex New Orleans prostitute Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale), who arrived at her Sweetwater homestead in the desert, where her new husband, local businessman Brett McBain and his three children had been massacred (due to a railroad dispute). The cold-blooded and sadistic killer was not wily outlaw Cheyenne (Jason Robards, Jr.), but blue-eyed railroad company employee Frank (Henry Fonda in an about-face role), taking orders from sickly railroad tycoon Morton, aka "Mr. Choo Choo" (Gabriel Ferzetti). Jill received help from the mysterious harmonica-playing stranger (who was seeking revenge against Frank) and protector Cheyenne after the brutal killings, to thwart efforts of others to take her inherited strategic plot of land. |
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(1969) Set in the late 1890s Wyoming, with the 'Hole in the Wall' Gang and the early 1900s, in New York, and then in Bolivia A light-hearted, entertaining, fast-paced, action-comic, revisionistic western set at the turn of the century, with Burt Bacharach's soundtrack highlighted by "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." Loosely based on the two charismatic, anti-hero title characters: Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) (alias Robert LeRoy Parker) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) (alias Harry Longabaugh), buddy-members of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang. In the early 1900s, they had come toward the tail-end of a long stream of bank/train robbers and highwaymen in the 19th century. The two were relentlessly pursued by authorities, led by renowned Indian tracker "Lord Baltimore" and relentless lawman Joe LeFors, paid for by Union Pacific head E. H. Harriman. To make their escape, the train-robbing outlaws fled to Bolivia (after a brief stopover in New York City) with the Kid's schoolteacher-lover Etta Place (Katharine Ross) - hoping to find better luck. A deadly Brazilian posse surrounded them, leading to their violent freeze-framed deaths. |
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True Grit (1969) Set in 1878 in Yell County, Arkansas and then across the border in Indian territory Known as being the only film to bring John Wayne a Best Actor Oscar (a sentimental honor for his many years of western movie-making), in the role of a pot-bellied, aging, one-eyed, cantankerous marshal. Wayne reprised his role as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn in a sequel, Rooster Cogburn (1975) opposite Katharine Hepburn. The film was remade as True Grit (2010) by the Coen Brothers. The film's plot was about headstrong 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who hired the gruff old Cogburn to find fugitive Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) and avenge the death of her father Frank Ross. Also tracking Chaney in Indian territory was $1,500 reward-seeking Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Glen Campbell in his first major big-screen role). Chaney's gang-members included leader Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and two horse thieves Quincy (Jeremy Slate), and Moon (Dennis Hopper). With Mattie joining Cogburn and La Boeuf, the trio tracked Chaney across the border to Pepper's hideout where a deadly shootout occurred, but Pepper escaped. Later during their pursuit when Mattie was taken hostage by Chaney himself, she was able to shoot the outlaw and wound him, while Cogburn (who was himself wounded) and La Boeuf finished off Pepper. In another confrontation with Chaney, Mattie wounded him again (and Cogburn killed him) although La Boeuf was struck on the head with a rock and mortally wounded. A rattlesnake bite almost cost Mattie's life, but Cogburn sped with her on horseback to a physician who saved her life. Later, she promised him that he could be buried next to her family's cemetery plot after his death. |
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The Wild Bunch
(1969) Along the Texas-Mexico border, around 1913 One of the most controversial westerns of its time, due to director/co-writer Sam Peckinpah's unrelenting, graphically-brutal, slow-motion violence and savagely-explicit carnage. It was hailed for its truly realistic and reinterpreted vision of the dying West in the early 20th century. At the time, it was considered a veiled criticism of the Vietnam War. The film opened with an impressive botched bank robbery and ambush, introducing its unrelenting, bleak tale of a group of aging, scroungy outlaws (the 'wild bunch'). They were bound by a private code of honor, camaraderie and friendship, but at odds with the society of 1913. The lone band of men were led by Pike Bishop (William Holden), who was joined by second in command Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson), and Sykes (Edmond O'Brien). They had come to the end of the line after taking flight to Mexico. They were no longer living under the same rules in the Old West. They were relentlessly stalked by inept bounty hunters, one of whom was Pike's former friend Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who would rather side with the outlaws if it weren't for the threat of being sent back to Yuma Prison. In the bloody conclusion, the Wild Bunch faced an over-the-top massacre at the hands of a corrupt and malicious South American General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) and his guerrilla army during the Mexican Revolution, when Angel (Jaime Sanchez) jeopardized their livelihood. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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Chisum (1970) In 1878, in the New Mexico Territory in the town of Lincoln, at the time of the Lincoln County Cattle Range War An old-fashioned range-war western with John Wayne. Reformed New Mexico cattle ranch owner John Simpson Chisum (John Wayne) discovered that rival corrupt and powerful businessman Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker) was trying to expand his own ranch and gain control of his surrounding land by illegally foreclosing mortgages, making governmental bribes, and rustling cattle and horses. Murphy also had influence over the appointed Sheriff Brady (Bruce Cabot). To combat the greedy Murphy, Chisum sought the aid of neighboring cattleman - effete Englishman J. H. Tunstall (Patric Knowles) and Tunstall's houseguest - the notorious Billy "The Kid" Bonney (Geoffrey Deuel). Chisum attempted to open his own general store and bank in the town of Lincoln, to be run by honest lawyer Alex McSween (Andrew Prine). When traveling to Santa Fe to report to Governor Sam Axtell (Alan Baxter) about Murphy's evil-doings, the unarmed Tunstall was murdered by Deputy Sheriff Morton (Robert Donner), causing Billy to vengefully kill Brady and his deputies. Bounty hunter Dan Nodeen (Christopher George) was dispatched by the governor as the new sheriff, to arrest Billy and his gang - leading to a fierce gunfight between the two sides. To create chaos and break down barricades during the shootout, Chisum stampeded his cattle through town, while Billy ran Nodeen out of town and Chisum killed Murphy in a fistfight. In the aftermath when order was restored, buffalo hunting drifter Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett) was appointed sheriff. |
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El Topo (1970, Mex.) (aka The
Mole) In the desolate Mexican desert, and in a western frontier town Argentinian director/star Alejandro Jodorowsky's film was a self-conscious, surrealistic, often incoherent and incomprehensible, unique and avant-garde film (translated "the Mole"). It was a strange variant of the 60s "spaghetti" westerns - both gory and spiritual - and the first 'midnight movie' film. Perfectly timed for its counter-cultural era of free love and cannabis freak-outs, it was up to late-night, 'midnight movie' viewing audiences to interpret the self-conscious, spaced-out and often incoherent and incomprehensible avant-garde cult film. It told the surreal story of the existential and spiritual quest, with Christian and Eastern philosophy symbolism, of a black-clad, violent gunfighting title character (the director himself). The film opened with El Topo riding in the Mexican desert with his naked son (Brontis Jodorowsky) on the saddle in front of him. In the startling opening sequence, they found the bloody remains of a town massacre where animals were gutted and people were decimated, leaving a river of blood. When threatened by three crazed evil-doer bandits, El Topo quickly dispatched with them, and then sought further vengeance in a mission town against the fat, balding (with a toupee), pasty-faced but vicious and sadistic Colonel (David Silva) and his outlaw gang. After castrating the Colonel (who then committed suicide) and executing his men, El Topo rescued the man's terrorized concubine-slave Mara (Mara Lorenzio) and rode off with her into the desert. She convinced him that for her to best love him, he had to prove himself by journeying onward to defeat and kill the "four great gun masters" who lived in the desert. Following the demise of all four adversaries and acquiring their wisdom, El Topo was betrayed by the 'Woman in Black' (Paula Romo), a whip-cracking bi-sexual gunslinger. In the second part of the film years later, a group of small-statured deformed cripples (exiled and outcast cave-dwellers) worshiped him as a god and savior, and expected him to free them. Simultaneously, El Topo appeared to have found enlightenment and holy "sainthood" and was born again. In a gun-blasting finale, El Topo shot all of the oppressive cultist clan members in a frontier town, and then immolated himself in the dusty street. A swarming beehive grave was constructed for El Topo's remains. The film ended as El Topo's grown son, his dwarf girlfriend and child rode off on the horse into the desert, mirroring the scenes in the film's opening. |
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Little Big Man (1970) Over the course of a century, in various locales in the Great Plains A serio-comic, revisionist Western and one of the best (and most successful) films of the 1970s. The anti-establishment, unconventional western depicted the inhumane treatment of Native Americans within its heavy-handed, fictional biopic tale (with the title character shuffling back and forth between Indian and white cultures). The daring film also served as a veiled criticism of Christian hypocrisy and a critique of the genocidal mistreatment of Native Americans (paralleling the My Lai Vietnam massacre in 1968). It opened with 121 year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) recalling his tall-tale epic exploits in the West to a skeptical historian-interviewer (William Hickey), and claiming to be the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. Crabb surveyed his various incarnations - beginning as an orphaned and adopted Indian. Orphaned at age 10 with his sister Caroline (Carol Androsky), Jack was raised by Cheyenne Indians and fatherly Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George) after his pioneer parents were killed crossing the Great Plains. He acquired the nickname 'Little Big Man' during adolescence when he saved the life of Younger Bear (Cal Bellini) in a raid against Pawnees. Subsequently, he was seized by white men during a battle and raised by stern Rev. Silas Pendrake (Thayer Drake) and his sex-obsessed, seductive wife (Faye Dunaway). The saga continued as Crabb hawked patent medicines with snake-oil huckster-peddler Allardyce T. Merriweather (Martin Balsam) and became a gunfighter known as the "Soda Pop Kid." He rubbed elbows with contemporaries including gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok (Jeff Corey), married Swedish Olga (Kelly Jean Peters), and ran a haberdashery. Then after heading west, he scouted for the racist, pompous, and foolhardy Gen. George A. Custer's (Richard Mulligan) Cavalry unit, then deserted and traveled to the reservation led by now-blind Old Lodge Skins. Crabb fathered a child with Indian Sunshine (Amy Eccles). But then Custer's forces struck and only Jack and Old Lodge Skins survived the attack at the Washita River (set up as a criticism of the My Lai Vietnam massacre). Later, he became an alcoholic and a hermit, and was rehired by Custer as a scout. The vengeful Crabb was present when Custer's 7th cavalry forces were massacred by Cheyenne Indians at the Little Big Horn in 1876. He was saved when recognized by Younger Bear, and was reunited with dying Old Lodge Skins. |
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A Man Called Horse (1970) In the Dakotas in the early 19th century (in 1825), among the Dakota Sioux tribe A violent, melodramatic, torture-strewn, gory western told from the viewpoint of the Native Americans. Although viewed as an authentic look at Indian life, it also sensationalized its subject matter. During a hunting expedition in the Dakotas in the early 19th century, the camp of blonde-haired, wealthy and aristocratic Lord John Morgan (Richard Harris) was attacked by Indians. Due to his blonde hair, he wasn't scalped, but was captured and brought to Sioux Chief Yellow Hand's (Manu Tupou) camp. He was humiliated and ridiculed when made a slave to old squaw Buffalo Cow Head (Judith Anderson), and as her beast-of-burden was named "Horse." Over time, he learned the customs and language of the Sioux Indians, and proved himself by killing two Shoshone war party scouts. When he desired to marry Running Deer (Corinna Tsopei, Miss Universe of 1964), the Chief's daughter, he was faced with the painful Sun Vow torture (completely fictional). In the film's most gruesome sequence, his body (hung by chest skin from ropes and talon hooks) was hung high in the air. He exhibited further bravery when during a Shoshone attack, he killed the opposing chief, although Yellow Hand was also killed, and so was his mortally-wounded pregnant wife. As Buffalo Cow Head's son (to prevent her from being outcast), he was named the tribal chief. Upon her death, he returned to England. |
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McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) In the autumn of 1902 in the rough, muddy mining town of Presbyterian Church in Washington Director Robert Altman's dimly-lit, lyrical and cynically-bleak tale was about a rough turn-of-the-century mining town in the northwest frontier. It was a revisionistic western about the American frontier, preaching the evils of capitalism, and haunted by Leonard Cohen songs on the soundtrack. Warren Beatty starred as John McCabe, a two-bit gambler and foolish entrepreneur who used his winnings to build a saloon-casino-brothel in the remote, makeshift Washington community of Presbyterian Church. It portrayed his ultimately unsuccessful efforts to build a capitalistic business. His goal was to construct a classy saloon-casino-brothel in the remote area. McCabe forged what he believed would be a profitable business alliance-partnership with shrewd Cockney drifter-prostitute Mrs. Constance Miller (Julie Christie) - she would be the madam of the whorehouse and manage the prostitutes, with a promise to transform the initial tents into a classy and professional bordello within the soon-to-be booming town. She was also addicted to pipe-smoked opium, and had sex with McCabe as a paying customer. Due to his lucky success, McCabe was confronted by representatives of the Harrison and Shaunessy Mining Company that wanted to buy him out for $5,500 (the offer was increased to $6,250), but he inexplicably turned them down. McCabe inexplicably and stubbornly refused to be bought out by the corporate mining company. He then faced the ugly consequences - the appearance of three hired enforcers: gunmen Butler (Hugh Millais), Breed (Jace Vander Veen) and Kid (Manfred Schulz). In the final celebrated sequence set during a snowstorm, he temporarily and cowardly evaded them by taking refuge in the church, then shot and killed the three men, but mortally-wounded himself. McCabe succumbed in a snowdrift - a victim to big business, while Mrs. Miller succumbed to her addiction to her drugs. |
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Jeremiah Johnson (1972) Set in the 1830s and later, in the Rocky Mountains on the American-Canadian border A survivalist, anti-establishment western, beautifully photographed. Robert Redford starred as the title character Jeremiah Johnson, a real-life legendary mountain man, a bear-trapper who lived among hostile Crows and the harsh climate of the natural world. The film's tagline: "some say he's dead...some say he never will be." He was an ex-soldier and societal drop-out who chose to return to nature (a timely countercultural and environmental subject in the 1970s). He came upon the corpse of Hatchet Jack, frozen upright in the snow, who bequeathed him his first gun. Almost perishing, he enlisted the aid of white trapper Chris "Bear Claw" Lapp (Will Geer), who taught him skills of how to trap, fish, and interpret Indian signals. Later, he reluctantly adopted mute adolescent son Caleb (Josh Albee) of a deranged-from-grief widow whose settler family had been massacred, and he rescued bald-headed trapper Del Gue (Stefan Gierasch) buried in the sand by hostile Blackfoot Indians. Flathead Indians gave him the chief's daughter Swan (Delle Bolton) to be his squaw wife and the three lived in a log cabin. Johnson's domestic life was changed forever when he was forced to lead a US cavalry unit (on a rescue mission for a broken-down homesteading wagon train) across a sacred Crow burial ground. As he suspected, the enraged Crow brutally slaughtered his wife and Caleb upon his return, and afterwards, he sought retaliatory revenge. The fate of Johnson was left ambiguous, although he was both sought after and revered by the Crow. |
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Ulzana's Raid (1972) In 1880s Arizona, beginning at Fort Lowell Director Robert Aldrich's R-rated revisionist western (an allegory of the Vietnam War) was a brutal and harsh story of warfare between Chiricahua Apache warriors, Arizona homesteaders and settlers, and the cavalry sent to protect them. The tagline stated: "To Defeat the Apaches, They Had to Be Just as Savage." Burt Lancaster starred as aging army scout and Indian fighter McIntosh, who maintained respect for the Indians led by the vicious reservation-fugitive Ulzana (Joaquin Martinez) and his warring tribe utilizing guerrilla tactics. Bruce Davison co-starred as fresh and idealistic West Point graduate Lieutenant Garnett DeBuin with Christian ideals, although he soon exhibited racist anger at Ulzana, known for rape, corpse mutilation, and torture. The mission to quell the Indians included McIntosh, DeBuin, veteran Sergeant (Richard Jaeckel) and Apache scout Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke) who knew Ulzana (their wives were sisters). During prolonged tactical skirmishes with Ulzana, McIntosh was fatally wounded (and chose to be left in the desert to die with a cigarette), and most of Ulzana's band members were killed. In a face-to-face confrontation, Ke-Ni-Tay killed a kneeling and defeated Ulzana, whose body was given a proper burial by the less naive DeBuin. |
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High Plains Drifter (1973) In the stark, corrupt lakefront, frontier mining town of Lago In this stylistic, controversial, off-beat and bizarre revisionist western, director/star Eastwood (with his second directorial effort, and his first western) portrayed the enigmatic, anti-hero loner, named only as The Stranger (similar to Sergio Leone's "Man with No Name"). He took a stylized approach to Sergio Leone's 1960s "spaghetti" westerns and Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (1952). The bleak and violent morality tale began with the 'high plains drifter' slaughtering three hired guns after arriving in the corrupt mining community of Lago. He was then revered as a protective and righteous savior of the townsfolk, and hired by the mining company to hold off three more desperadoes on their way to town: outlaw Stacey Bridges (Geoffrey Lewis) and brothers Dan (Dan Vardis) and Cole Carlin (Anthony James). The trio had brutally whipped and killed the town's local lawman Marshal Jim Duncan (Buddy Van Horn) who was buried with an unmarked gravestone. Dwarf Mordecai (Billy Curtis) (appointed by the Stranger as the town's mayor and sheriff) and innkeeper's wife Sarah Belding (Verna Bloom), the Stranger's perverse love interest, suspected that the Stranger had unusual intentions. He made increasingly-bizarre and outlandish demands, painted the town red, and renamed it "Hell." By his cryptic presence, the almost-supernatural Stranger revealed the townspeople's secret cowardice and hypocrisy. The film ambiguously asked: was he the symbolic reincarnation of the town's murdered honest young lawman Jim Duncan, or his brother seeking retribution? In the concluding sequence, he contemptuously killed three vengeful desperadoes and then abruptly and mysteriously left. As he rode away from the ruined town as Mordecai asked: "I never did know your name." The Stranger replied: "Yes, you do. Take care." |
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Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) In 1881, beginning at Old Fort Sumner (in Lincoln County) in New Mexico Noted as director Peckinpah's final western, and as a complex and challenging film that was initially cut and re-edited by MGM studios against the director's wishes. Many years later, Peckinpah released his own version of the revisionist western. Although it featured lots of legendary western character actors, it replaced traditional western content (i.e., a dramatic gun-battle showdown between good and bad guys) with more character study, ambivalence and guilt over betrayal. Set in New Mexico in 1881, the tale was about the continuing confrontation between outlaw-turned-lawman Sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn), and his notorious old friend, anti-hero outlaw Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) (aka William Bonney). Both were aging and viewing the handwriting on the wall - reluctantly facing the slow death of the "Old West" by desecrating future forces of corrupting, cold-hearted capitalism. The two were joined by enigmatic stranger Alias (folk singer Bob Dylan in his first screen role, and singing the memorable "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"). Garrett was named sheriff of Lincoln County to defeat his old friend Billy the Kid. Although Billy was successfully jailed and awaiting execution, he escaped by shooting two deputy sheriffs. Then, in Santa Fe, Garrett was hired by the Santa Fe Ring, a group of wealthy (and corrupt) New Mexico cattle-land barons, politicians, attorneys and greedy speculators, including the governor (Jason Robards Jr.) and cattle baron Chisum (Barry Sullivan). He was commissioned to bring in Billy and end his killing sprees and cattle rustling. Billy ignored Garrett's wise advice about escaping to Mexico, and met his fateful end at the hands of his friend. Garrett stalked Billy (back at Fort Sumner rather than fleeing to Mexico) while he was making love to Maria (real-life wife Rita Coolidge) and killed him point-blank. The film ended 28 years later in 1909 near Las Cruces, New Mexico, when Garrett was ambushed and ironically assassinated by the same group, the Santa Fe Ring, who had earlier hired him to kill Billy - a Faustian conclusion. |
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Blazing Saddles
(1974) In the American Old West of 1874, set in the town of Rock Ridge The iconoclastic, not-politically-correct western was one of director Mel Brooks' funniest, most successful and most popular films. It was an unsubtle spoof or parody of all the cliches from the time-honored genre of westerns. Brooks' third feature film tagline blurb advertised: "Blazing Saddles...or never give a saga an even break!" The crude, racist and sexist film with toilet humor (the infamous bean-eating campfire scene) and foul language included the main elements of any western - a dance-hall girl, a gunslinger, a sheriff, a town full of pure folk, and more, but it twisted them around. In the small frontier town of Rock Ridge (with all the racist townspeople named Johnson) in the 1870s, pardoned black railroad worker Bart (Cleavon Little) was appointed by dim-witted and sex-obsessed Governor William J. Le Petomane (Mel Brooks) as the new Sheriff. In cahoots was evil and corrupt State Attorney General Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) whose plot was to scare off the townsfolk, replace them with his own thugs, led by villainous Taggart (Slim Pickens), and complete a cheap land grab for a railroad route. Naive Bart joined with drunken "Waco Kid" gunslinger Jim (Gene Wilder) to save the town. There was also German seductress-for-hire Lili von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn), a spoof of Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again (1939). In the absurdist finale, the action broke through the "fourth wall" into the WB studios, onto a film set with Buddy Bizarre (Dom DeLuise) directing a musical, then into the studio commissary for a pie fight, and onto the streets of Burbank and the landmark Grauman Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. |
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The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) Set during and after the American Civil War, beginning in the border state of Missouri, and then moving westward A great Eastwood revisionistic western, and considered his personal favorite. [Note: It was Eastwood's fifth-directed film and eighth Western as a performer. His next western would be nine years later. It was one of the last few major studio Westerns until the 1990s, marked by Eastwood's own Unforgiven (1992).] Eastwood fully fleshed-out the title character Josey Wales, who became a vengeful, ex-Confederate rebel guerrilla fighter who refused to surrender. Earlier as a farmer during the Civil War along the Kansas-Missouri border, he had witnessed the massacre of his family and pillaging of his farm in a border raid led by marauding renegade Union Red Leg soldier Captain Terrill (Bill McKinney). Regarded as an outlaw after the war, wanted man Wales journeyed westward to Texas, still haunted by the slaughter and driven to murderous revenge. He joined a band of Confederate irregulars under Bloody Bill Anderson (John Russell). He was pursued by bounty hunters and other lawmen, including reluctant Confederate regimental Captain Fletcher (John Vernon). However, the angry loner-fugitive began to regain some of his humanity when he rescued aging Indian Cherokee Lone Watie (Chief Dan George). He also saved farm family settlers from Comanche raiders - pretty love-interest Laura Lee (Sondra Locke) and her spirited, self-righteous Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman), on their way to settle down on an abandoned ranch near the ghost town of Santa Rio. |
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The Shootist (1976) In the town of Carson City, Nevada in early 1901 Noted as the final film role for John Wayne, in the role of a dying gunfighter (or "shootist"), paralleling the death of the Old West (with the presence of streetlights, automobiles, trolleys, etc.) - Wayne actually died of stomach cancer three years later. The western swan song opened with a tinted montage (taken from previous Wayne westerns), to showcase the life of notorious and legendary John Bernard (J. B.) Books. After learning of his medical fate (terminal pancreatic cancer) in his hometown of Carson City, Nevada in early 1901, Books rented a room from feisty widow Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall) and her hero-worshipping son Gillom (Ron Howard) to live out his final painful days - hoping to be shot in the line of "duty" rather than dying in bed. After learning of his presence, numerous foes and past acquaintances showed up in his final few weeks to challenge him or profitably use him for their own ends: Marshall Thibido (Harry Morgan), newspaper reporter Dan Dobkins (Rick Lenz), undertaker Hezekiah Beckum (John Carradine), and even opportunistic ex-girlfriend Serepta (Sheree North). The film climaxed on Books' 58th birthday in the Metropole saloon for a showdown with vengeful gunslinger Mike Sweeney (Richard Boone), Jay Cobb (Bill McKinney), and gambler/dealer and pistol shooter Jack Pulford (Hugh O'Brian). Books shot dead all three opponents, although he was shot twice and seriously wounded. The film concluded with the bartender fatally shooting Books in the back, with young idolizing Gillom picking up Books' gun and killing the man. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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Heaven's Gate (1980) During the period of the Johnson County War (in 1892) in northern Wyoming around 1890, although the film opened years earlier at Harvard University in 1870, and ended in the year 1903 Pretentious auteur director, the Oscar-winning Michael Cimino (for the multiple-award-winning The Deer Hunter (1978)), brought out this multi-million dollar failure for United Artists - a detailed, over-long epic western which contributed to the genre's weakening. The overindulgent director had been given unprecedented creative control and a large budget for the production of his long-brewing, flawed script titled The Johnson County War. The expensive 'boondoggle' film and revisionistic Western told about the Johnson County War between starving Eastern European immigrant farmers and mercenaries hired by the cattlemen. It featured a cast of prominent actors (Christopher Walken as hired mercenary Nathan D. Champion, John Hurt in a minor role as Billy Irvine, Kris Kristofferson as US Federal Marshal James Averill, and French actress Isabelle Huppert as young brothel madam Ella Watson). The ponderous and flawed film (with beautiful cinematography and art direction, but often muffled dialogue) included abundant nudity, violence throughout, a love triangle (between Averill, Champion, and Ella), a cock fight, a country-western roller-skating sequence, and a lengthy series of bloody battles and deaths at film's end. Mercenary Nathan Champion suffered a fiery death outside his wall-papered frontier cabin by the hired killers of evil, black-garbed cattlemen association leader Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) - with his hasty writing of a farewell note to his friends knowing that he would die. The film also concluded with the surprising shock ambush killings of both local entrepreneur John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges) and young bordello madam Ella wearing a beautiful white dress (she died in Sheriff Averill's arms). |
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Pale Rider (1985) In the fictional, small mining community of Lahood, California, in the 1880s (during the Gold Rush) Producer/director/star Eastwood's quasi-religious (good vs. evil) western film was reminiscent of Shane (1953). And his ghostly, other-worldly "Preacher" (pale rider) character resembled similar ones in his 'spaghetti westerns' ("The Man With No Name") and High Plains Drifter (1973). [Note: This would be Eastwood's last western until Unforgiven (1992).] The film opened with the attempted takeover of the small gold-mining town of Lahood, California by ruthless strip-mining company owner Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart) with his son Josh LaHood (Christopher Penn) and other hired guns. The prayers of young 15 year-old Megan (Sydney Penny) (the daughter of Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgrass)) for a miraculous savior to help defend the town's victimized miners and take a stand came in the form of a 'Pale Rider' - a gunslinging Preacher (Eastwood) riding into town on a pale-colored white horse. The mysterious drifter joined up with unofficial miner leader Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty), Sarah's panhandling fiancee, to organize opposition among the innocent prospectors and to counteract LaHood's brutalities, persecution and bribery. Rather than accept an offer of $1,000 per claim, the miners decided to resist. LaHood's mining facility was blown up with dynamite, and the Preacher executed corrupt county Marshal Stockburn (John Marshall), hired to clear out the town. The film concluded with a Shane-like ending after the town's salvation: the Preacher rode away into the nearby Sierra Madre Mountains as Megan cried out after him. |
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Silverado (1985) In the year 1880, in and around the town of Silverado The revisionistic western with an ensemble cast was a cliched and rousing tribute to the big-budget, large-casted westerns of the 1950s and 1960s, although it fared poorly at the box-office. Chance encounters brought together four disparate and unlikely heroes in the town of Silverado:
Meanwhile, greedy cattle rancher Ethan McKendrick (Ray Baker) was driving off homesteaders with a murderous posse to maintain an open range for his herds. One of McKendrick's victims was Mal's father Ezra (Joe Seneca). The four misfit cowboys prepared to restore order in Silverado by confronting corrupt and malevolent Sheriff Cobb (Brian Dennehy) who was in cahoots with McKendrick, and running the local saloon with Stella (Linda Hunt). The overly long western concluded with a climactic showdown between the heroes and the villains: a shoot-out and gunfight sequence, before the four parted ways. |
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Dances with Wolves (1990) Set during the Civil War era (beginning in 1863), and among the Lakota Sioux Indian tribe near the remote post of Fort Sedgwick (in the Dakota Territory) Producer/actor Kevin Costner's politically-correct three-hour dramatic epic (his directorial debut film) was a box-office and critical success, credited with revitalizing the western genre. The revisionistic western received twelve nominations and seven Oscar awards including Best Picture and Best Director. It was noted as one of the few westerns that cast Indians in acting roles, used Lakota Sioux sub-titles, and viewed Native Americans in a sympathetic way and not as blood-thirsty savages. Although the film was officially sanctioned by the Sioux, not all Native American groups were sympathetic to its portrayals. One of the film's best set-pieces was the buffalo stampede-hunt. The film's plot followed the adventurous life of a disillusioned Civil War hero - Union Army First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Costner), who after the war moved westward to the deserted frontier post of Fort Sedgwick in Dakota Territory. He became acquainted with the local Sioux Indians through widowed Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell), a white orphan raised by the tribe's medicine man Kicking Bird (Graham Greene). He also cavorted with a wolf named "Two Socks" for its white forepaws - the derivation of the film's title and his given Sioux name. He found himself living between two worlds when he went native. After helping the Sioux tribe repel warring Pawnee, he married Stands With a Fist. Due to a misunderstanding, however, he was charged with treason and was being taken East for trial when the Sioux freed him. To avoid having the Indians blamed for his circumstances, he retreated with Stands with a Fist leave on horseback. In the film's epilogue, it stated that thirteen years later, the last freed band of Sioux submitted to the US Army at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. |
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Unforgiven (1992) Mostly in the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming in the 1880s This was producer/director/star Clint Eastwood's own tribute to his legendary legacy in Sergio Leone's low-budget 'spaghetti' westerns. It was the winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture - the third western to win the top prize. Eastwood's acclaimed revisionist western examined life on the frontier, with Eastwood in the role of mythological, retired gunslinger William Munny, also a struggling pig farmer, father and widower. He teamed up with the bounty-hunting Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolnett), to confont injustices (including an attack on prostitute Delilah (Anna Thomson)) and collect the $1,000 bounty, in a town run by mean sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman, winner of Best Supporting Actor), and to seek bloody revenge for the gruesome death of his friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman). With Munny's famous line: "It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man...You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have." |
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Tombstone (1993) Set in Tombstone, Arizona in the 1880s This action-oriented, over two-hours long, violent western about the taming of the West was a tense dramatization of the real-life events of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the Earp Vendetta, seen earlier in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) and Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957). Some of the tale was based on legend rather than historical fact. It told the story of the law-abiding Earp brothers in the town of Tombstone, Arizona: retired Dodge City marshal Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), older brother Virgil (Sam Elliott) and younger Morgan (Bill Paxton). In town, Wyatt was reunited with his sickly TB afflicted friend, Southern gambler and gunslinger Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer). Because of problems with his laudanum-addicted common-law wife Mattie Blaylock (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), Wyatt began an extra-marital romance with saucy traveling theatre actress Josephine "Josie" Marcus (Dana Delany). The town was terrorized and threatened by a lawless, brutal group known as the Cowboys, red sash-wearing, roughnecks led by "Curly Bill" Brocious (Powers Boothe). When the town's Marshal Fred White (Harry Carey, Jr.) was shot dead by Bill, Wyatt stepped in temporarily to prevent an angry mob from lynching him. Virgil Earp became the new town marshal, with both of his brothers Morgan and Wyatt as deputies. Virgil instituted a weapons ban which caused resultant conflict and enmity between the Earps and the Cowboys - and their allied Clanton clan (led by Ike Clanton (Stephen Lang)). These events brought about the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881. Virgil and Morgan were both wounded, and Billy Clanton (Thomas Haden Church) and other Cowboys were killed. Shortly later, vengeful retaliation brought about the murder of Morgan and the serious wounding of Virgil. Shortly later, after the Earps had left town, Wyatt returned for a vengeful vendetta as U.S. marshal against the leader of the Cowboys, first "Curly Bill" and then sharpshooter Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn), Curly's successor. During a final duel showdown, Doc killed Ringo and the Cowboys were finally defeated. In the film's conclusion, Doc died in a sanitarium after bidding farewell to Wyatt. And Wyatt humbly proposed marriage to Josie. |
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Wyatt Earp (1994) Set in Missouri, then Arkansas, Dodge City (Kansas), Texas, Arizona (Tombstone), and Alaska and numerous other places from the 1850s to the late 1920s Director Kasdan's muddled version of the oft-envisioned story was a semi-biographical, episodic tale of the whole life span of the famed Western lawman-gunfighter, Wyatt Earp. The rambling and slow-told film (of over 3 hours) first followed the Earp Family in Missouri, composed of strict father Nicholas Porter Earp (Gene Hackman), and the many Earp brothers, two of whom were Union army soldiers: Virgil (Michael Madsen) and James (David Andrews). The teenaged years of Wyatt (Ian Bohen as youth, Kevin Costner as adult) were surveyed, after which Wyatt worked out west as a stagecoach-wagon driver, and a Missouri city policeman. He married childhood sweetheart, Urilla Sutherland (Annabeth Gish) but she soon died tragically of typhoid fever in Missouri. He spent some restless years, depressed, drinking, horse-thieving in Arkansas, and eventually became a buffalo hunter. In Wichita, Kansas, Wyatt Earp began his career as a city lawman in the mid 1870s - and then moved to Dodge City as a marshal to clean up the town, with brothers Bat (Tom Sizemore) and Ed Masterson (Bill Pullman) as his assistants. After a falling out there, he had a short stint as a railroad employee (capturing outlaws such as Dave Rudabaugh), and became life-long friends with Southern gambler/gunman and dentist John "Doc" Holiday (Dennis Quaid) in Texas. Earp returned to Dodge City to restore law and order when he heard of the death of Bat Masterson. Then, he and the Earp family moved to Tombstone, Arizona in 1879, where the outlaw gang of Cowboys, led by Curly Bill Brocius (Lewis Smith), and the McLaury family threatened the peace. Although in a common-law marriage to prostitute Mattie Blaylock (Mare Winningham), Wyatt began a romantic relationship with traveling actress Josie Marcus (Joanna Going). In Tombstone, Wyatt helped to restore order, and was assisted by his brothers as deputies Morgan (Linden Ashby) and Virgil. The latter became Marshal after Curly Bill murdered the town's Marshal Fred White (Boots Southerland). The Cowboys were allied with the Clanton clan, led by Ike (Jeff Fahey). The Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881 pitted the Earps (and Doc Holliday) against the Cowboys and the Clantons, and Virgil and Morgan were both wounded. A few months later in a vengeful ambush, Virgil was seriously wounded, and Morgan was assassinated. Wyatt led a vendetta as US Marshal against the Cowboys. In the subsequent years, Wyatt (married to Josie, his third wife) became a miner, a saloon manager, a boxing fight referee, and a horse racer. Eventually, he moved to Alaska and was mining gold at the turn of the century, and then lived to the age of 80 (dying in 1929 in Los Angeles). In the film's epilogue, Doc Holliday succumbed to TB (consumption) in a Colorado hospital. |
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Film Title/Year/Director/Length/Studio, Setting (or Time Period) and Brief Description |
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Open Range (2003) On the free-range frontier of 1882 in Montana, threatened by the close of the American frontier Some thought that this traditional western by co-star, co-producer, and director Kevin Costner helped to redeem his reputation - it was his first film since the unpopular The Postman (1997). However, it was mostly a sentimental vanity project with cliched western themes. During range wars and cultural clashes in the 1880s between ranchers and free-grazing cowboys in the open prairie of Montana, two law-abiding cattlemen - veteran "Boss" Spearman (Robert Duvall) and his hired hand partner of 10 years, ex-Civil War soldier and guilt-ridden gunslinger Charley Waite (Kevin Costner), found themselves confronted by threatening and ruthless, big-time land baron-rancher, Irish immigrant Denton Baxter (Michael Gambon). The corrupt Baxter was in control of local Sheriff Poole (James Russo), and his hired gun Butler (Kim Coates) attacked two of Boss' men. Gentle giant Mose Harrison (Abraham Benrubi) was killed and 16 year-old Mexican orphan Button (Diego Luna) was seriously wounded. During a predictable climactic mid-day shoot-out against Baxter and his men, the vengeful Boss and Charley were aided by local old-timer Percy (Michael Jeter) and Doc Barlow's (Dean McDermott) middle-aged sister Sue (Annette Bening). Boss was wounded, but Baxter ended up mortally-wounded. Peace was restored, after which Charley proposed to Sue in the anti-climactic, hackneyed love story, and he and Boss decided to settle down in nearby Harmonville as saloon owners. |
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3:10 to Yuma (2007) Set in 1884, opening in Bisbee, Arizona Territory, then in a hotel room in the boom town of Contention City An action-movie remake of the original 1957 classic, a psychological western and intense character study. It opened with a typical stagecoach payroll robbery by legendary, black-hatted outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his gang. Injured bounty hunter/Pinkerton guard Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda) was taken to Bisbee, Arizona for treatment, where Wade was captured by the authorities. Two-faced railroad representative Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) offered $200 to a crippled (by friendly fire), one-footed Civil War veteran - a struggling small-time farmer named Dan Evans (Christian Bale), to join a posse that would take Wade to the Contention train station in a nearby town, three days away across dangerous Apache Indian land. There, the 3:10 train would take Wade on a prison car to Yuma for a quick Federal trial before his hanging-execution.Wade's sadistic, slightly fey and treacherous right-hand gunman, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) led Wade's gang to liberate their charismatic leader. Meanwhile, Butterfield bargained further with the beleaguered Evans (who wished to regain his son's respect) - he promised to safely escort Evans' 14 year-old hot-tempered, judgmental son William (Logan Lerman) home, pay off Evans' debts, ensure his water rights, and provide $1,000 to Evans' wife on Butterfield's return. As Evans put Wade on the train, he was shot to death. In the improbable conversion sequence in the conclusion, Wade vengefully murdered every single one of his own gang members, then boarded the train by himself - respectfully paying tribute to the martyred rancher. |
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(2007) In 1882, beginning in frontier Missouri, ending in the year 1892 This highly-acclaimed, historically-accurate, epic-length psychological western retold the story of charismatic, frontier Missouri fugitive outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt). Sam Shepard co-starred as Jesse's devoted older brother Frank James. The legendary Jesse James was felled (shot in the back after disarming himself) on April 3rd, 1882 by Judas-like, young 19 year-old gang member Robert "Bob" Ford (Casey Affleck), lending him mythic status. Many motivations were suggested for the assassination - jealousy, a desire for fame or the bounty reward, disillusionment with his idol, resentment, or the promise of a pardon. After the killing, the Ford brothers become notorious, exploitative celebrities with a Manhattan theater show that re-enacted the assassination. Bob played himself, while older brother Charley (Sam Rockwell) acted as Jesse James. As Jesse's fame as a folk hero increased, the two brothers were ultimately undone. A terminally-ill case of TB caused Charley to commit suicide in May of 1884. Eight years later in 1892 in Colorado, Bob was murdered by Edward O'Kelley (Michael Copeman) - who was later pardoned. |
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Appaloosa (2008) Set in 1882, in the small western mining town of Appaloosa, New Mexico Territory Unrelated to The Appaloosa (1966) starring Marlon Brando. Noted as the second film for actor/director Ed Harris, who starred as newly-appointed lawman Virgil Cole in the New Mexico town of Appaloosa, with his buddy/partner - deputy Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen). This traditional western's bad guy was intimidating rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), responsible for the recent cold-blooded murders of the town's Marshal Jack Bell (Robert Jauregui) and two of his deputies. After Bragg was tried for murder and found guilty, he was rescued during train transport to his execution by brutish, gunslinging brothers Ring and Mackie Shelton (Lance Henriksen and Adam Nelson). The outlaws had taken along with them Cole's attractive yet fickle love interest, recently widowed Allison "Allie" French (Renée Zellweger). Bragg was freed by the Sheltons, leading to the inevitable showdown between the two sides - Cole and Hitch were wounded, while the two Sheltons and their cousin Sheriff Russell (Argos MacCallum) were killed, although Bragg again escaped. Since it was impossible for Cole to arrest Bragg (who was secretly engaging in illegalities and romancing Allie on the side) after he returned to Appaloosa with a presidential pardon, Hitch turned in his deputy's badge and challenged Bragg to a duel - and the terrorizing, ruthless rancher was finally killed. |
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True Grit (2010) At Fort Smith (Arkansas), then on a mission into Choctaw Indian territory A superb, more violent remake of the classic 1969 western with John Wayne, made by writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen. An exceptionally fine narrative of the Old West - this renewed version had a flashbacked structure. Determined 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) enlisted the aid of notorious, broken-down, hard-drinking, aging yet resourceful one-eyed federal Marshal Reuben "Rooster" J. Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and cocky and vain Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) in her relentless quest to bring her recently murdered father's killer Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) to justice. Mattie stubbornly joined the other two lawmen to pursue Chaney, to be assured that he would be hanged. The film's climax involved the deaths of the two main outlaws: Chaney (killed by Mattie wielding La Boeuf's rifle) and his desperado partner "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) (shot by La Boeuf from 400 yards away). Mattie suffered a rattlesnake bite, and was sped on horseback to a doctor by Cogburn, but she had to have the arm amputated to avoid gangrene poisoning. The film concluded 25 years later, when Mattie missed reuniting with Cogburn who had died three days earlier. She had his body buried in her family cemetery. |
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The Hateful Eight (2015) In the 1870s (post-Civil War), during a Wyoming blizzard inside a frontier stagecoach station, Minnie's Haberdashery, near Red Rock Writer-director Quentin Tarantino's eighth self-indulgent film, a violent Western 'who-dun-it' (with six narrative sequences) and tale of vengeance and double-dealing. [It had some resemblances to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), and Tarantino's own Reservoir Dogs (1992).] Shot in an ultrawide-screen format, it was accompanied by music from famed composer Ennio Morricone (his first complete Western score in 35 years). Caught inside a stagecoach way station/store were a number of individuals, including stagecoach driver O.B. Jackson (James Parks), black ex-Union soldier Maj. Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) (an infamous bounty hunter), another bearded bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) - known as "The Hangman" - handcuffed to battered prisoner-fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) on the way to being hanged in Red Rock. Also holed up was Red Rock's new Sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) - and ex-Confederate soldier, itinerant Britisher executioner Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) from Red Rock, suspicious quiet cowpuncher Joe Cage (Michael Madsen), doleful Bob (Marco the Mexican) (Demián Bichir) who claimed he was temporarily running Minnie's store, and retired Confederate General Sanford "Sandy" Smithers (Bruce Dern) guilty of massacring black Union soldiers during the war. Immediately, there were tensions within the group between different factions: between North-and-South, black-and-white, American-foreigner, and between law-abiders and law-breakers. During the forced time spent in the store, a number of violent incidents occurred: the shooting murder of Smithers by Maj. Warren, the poisoning of the coffee by Cage (incapacitating Ruth and O.B.), Daisy's killing of Ruth with his own gun, and the murder of Mexican Bob by Warren who was rightfully suspicious that the lodge owners had been killed earlier (by a gang of four, including Bob, Mobray, Gage, and a fourth person hiding in the cellar named Jody (Channing Tatum)). Others were also shot during gunfire: Warren (shot by Jody), Mannix and the lethally-wounded Mobray. Daisy, who was Jody's sister, bargained to be let free, and was shot in the foot. Gage was shot dead by Mannix and Warren. To free herself from handcuffs, Domergue sawed off Ruth's arm, but was shot by Mannix. The only two remaining survivors (but dying) were Warren and Mannix, who in the final scene listened as Mannix read Warren's 'forged' personal letter from martyred Abraham Lincoln. |
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The Revenant (2015) The wilderness of the unsettled Great Plains of the Louisiana Purchase Territory (Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota) in 1823 A brutal and unforgiving adventure-western tale and period drama of heroism, survival and retribution, about a frontiersman and fur trapper. It was based partly on Michael Punke's 2002 historical novel, "The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge." An earlier film about the real-life protagonist, Hugh Glass of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, was made many years earlier, Man in the Wilderness (1971), with Richard Harris as Zachary Bass and John Huston as Captain Henry. Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) was an expert tracker and frontiersman in 1820s Wyoming, working for a commercial fur company in the snowy Rocky Mountains (in the wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase), hunting for bear pelts. He was a single father (with an unnamed deceased Pawnee wife (Grace Dove) murdered by white troops) and had a half-Pawnee son named Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), who was disliked by racist and cruel John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), another hunter-trapper. During a Native American Arikara tribe attack, Glass and only some of his group barely survived. Then, Glass (separated from the group) was viciously mauled by a raging mother bear, and was near death, and slowing the group down during continuing pursuit by the tribe. Scrupulous hunting party leader Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) proposed that a payment be offered to two people willing to remain behind and care for him. For a greater reward, Fitzgerald also opportunistically remained behind with Hawk and innocent Jim Bridger (Will Poulter). Once the hunting party left, Fitzgerald attempted to smother Glass to death, and when discovered by Hawk, killed him with a Bowie knife. Then, Fitzgerald (after burying Glass alive in a shallow grave) lied to Bridger before the two fled. After returning to camp, Fitzgerald fabricated a false heroic tale (in order to receive the reward) that they couldn't save Glass, and that they left him with his son. Meanwhile, Glass revived, crawled out, slowly recovered, and was helped by a Pawnee. He evaded hostile Arikaras, and survived the elements before being rescued by a search party. Realizing that Glass would defy his outrageous claims, Fitzgerald fled the camp. When Glass and Captain Henry went after him, the Captain was ambushed and killed by Fitzgerald, after which Glass used his corpse as a decoy to fool Fitzgerald. Ultimately during their one-on-one face-off, Fitzgerald was seized and scalped by angry Arikaras, although they let Glass live - in respect for his earlier rescue of rape-threatened Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk'o), the daughter of Arikara Chief Elk Dog (Duane Howard). |
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