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Since we've been talking westerns here's my ten favorite at the moment, in no particular order.
The Searchers
Winchester 73
Red River
The Long Riders
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance
The Unforgiven----The Burt Lancaster-John Huston picture
Rio Grande
My Darling Clementine
Rio Bravo
Follow Ups:
MCCABE AND MRS MILLER This wasn't on a list yet ??? A great movie and there is no reason it doesn't qualify as a "Western". One of the first Westerns I remember (other then Shane) where the West is dirty, muddy and makeshift. I also like how realistic and clumsy the gunfights are portrayed. I can watch McCabe once a month.EL DORADO -more realized then Rio Bravo -Mitchum's performance of the alcoholic sheriff is outstanding (deeper then Martin's) and Ricky Nelson couldn't act worth a bean. Mitchum and Caan's character (with his sawed-off shotgun) tip the scales quite a bit for Dorado over Rio. I'll give Jill St John and Angie Dickinson a draw. It's kind of fun that they are both basically- the same movie.
ONCE UPON TIME IN THE WEST (Leones greatest Western and Morricones greatest soundtrack)
RED RIVER
ONE EYED JACKS
SHANE
THE BIG COUNTRY
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE
THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY
...and any post Leone, Eastwood directed Western usually has too much rape, torture, whipping, sadism and gratuitous violence to be deemed as a "good movie" - in my opinion.
Makes me wonder what the original list looked like.(-: There-feel better?
"Dammit..."
I wanted to convey the differences in Rio verses El. I kept going back to tweak it.
Anyway, to answer your "wonder"...
I added "Good the Bad ..." later, but other then that, my list was exactly as you read it.
Are you okay with that? Or will "wondering" persist?
Loosen up Dr. ThinSkin. I said it was a good list-an appropriate response might have been a chuckle and a "yeah, does seem a bit overboard-but I wanted it to be perfect!" You know, a bit of self deprecation?
I'll tell you what-I'll edit a squinky-face onto my post so you'll know it's all just good clean fun.
"Dammit..."
Yeah, El Dorado is a very good picture. I like the last line where Mitchum tells Wayne "we don't need your kind around here". And ya gotta love Arthur Hunnicutt in anything, he was a great Davy Crockett in The Last Command.
Rio Lobo is a remake of Rio Bravo too but I don't think it's very good.
Man Without a Star with Kirk Douglas by King Vidor is a good one.
The Claim, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by frequent collaborator Michael Winterbottom, has a similar setting and tone as Altman's film (although stylistically they are not close). The plot is a reworking of The Mayor Of Casterbridge - and please don't let that deter you, even if you are allergic to Thomas Hardy. The cinematography is stunning and the performances are all first rate. It's one of my favorite modern westerns.
Boyce and Winterbottom are the team who brought us Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People, Code 46 and Tristram Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story. Winterbottom is one of the most interesting British directors now working IMO.
I waffle on whether I prefer El Dorado or Rio Bravo. I tend to prefer the former, since I think it's a better movie over-all. But RB is always watchable and entertaining.
I love The Big Country, especially the score with its wonderful theme by Jerome Moross (sp?).
Thanks for the tip, I saw "24 hour" and liked it. I'm always up for a western!
nt
...how about Incident at Owl Creek?
A killer 'western' after a story by Ambrose Bierce.
NT
-Wendell
Favorites:
The Searchers
Stagecoach
Once Upon a Time in the West
Rio Bravo
Red River
The Magnificent Seven (Despite its patronizing tone.)
Unforgiven
Open Range
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Good, but highly overrated.)
The Wild Bunch
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
My "Worst" Westerns:
Young Guns (Dreadful in every way.)
Wyatt Earp
Dances With Wolves
True Grit (For the single most irritating character in the history of American cinema.)
High Plains Drifter/Pale Rider
The Cowboys
Once upon a Time is the West........
I would add:
"Bad Company"
"Once Upon a Time in the West"
"Stagecoach"
"Johnny Guitar" (chosen because it is an early off-beat western where the women and men switch roles).
with Tab Hunter + Divine.
The Grey Fox and Barbarossa weren't overlooked, but seem to have faded away. Farnsworth was a fine, low key star, and more important, a good, believable actor. Same with Nelson. Both played stoic, grizzled old guys well.
.
d
One Eyed Jacks is a pretty good picture but I like any picture with Hank Wordan and Ben Johnson.
But ole Marlon did a pretty good job there.
The Magnificent Seven
The Good, Bad, and the Ugly
For a Few Dollars More
Fistfull of Dollars
Open Range
Unforgiven
The Horse Soldiers
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance
Tombstone
Big Jake
Big Jake - Although Richard Boone is always riveting and convincing as a bad guy, Big Jake suffers many annoying & weak supporting performances (isn't Waynes real-life son in this one?)Open Range - Basically a poor version of a Lonesome Dove & High Noon combo. I have to admit though, I am a bit anti-Costner so maybe that's where our taste differs. Most recently I enjoyed a Costner performance in "Mr Brooks" but prior to that one, I'm amazed he calls what he does, acting. It's something else, and I'm not sure what it is.
Magnificent Seven- Great in some ways, but the older I get, the more I laugh at the dated sentiment of "love among men". The last time I watched "Magnificent..." I wondered why the seven of them didn't move to California and marry each other!
I'll never question Leone - Sir!
NT
.
You know I used to love Peckinpah movies and must'a seen The Wild Bunch a half dozen times when it came out. But I've lost my taste for his pictures and now The Wild Bunch is a picture I respect more than I enjoy.
I'll probably get some flak on this, but my favorite version of the Wild Bunch is the edited for TV version usually seen late at night on broadcast TV. All of the goofy slow motion bloody stuff is edited out, and you can see just how tightly edited the movie really is. When Peckinpah slowed the blood splaters down to very slow motion, the blood just looked like red jello to me, and I never believed any of it. In particular, the scene where the stolen locomotive is put into reverse, and runs backwards to collide with the train while the cavalry is unloading their horses, stands out much more than it did with all of the flying jello. The basic premise of the movie was some situation that developed inevitably to some disastererous conclusion, hapening over and over. The scene where the bridge is blown out under the posse and their horses could'nt be filmed today except as special effects animation.
Just my take on it.
Paul
Brazil's classic, "Barren Lives" (Vidas Secas), relatively is unknown.
It has a naturalness, a believability, a power that few films achieve in any genre.
I've never thought of it as a western, I've always associated it with neo-realist films like the Bicycle Thief. But I can see the connection.
s
The best of all.
" Mieux vaut une tête bien faite qu'une tête bien pleine."
NT
.
about food, sex, and hedonism in general and the protagonist wears a
cowboy hat and is a truck driver. So it is a western in faint allusion
only. Surely you meant "El Topo," a real western. Regards,
J.R.
.
NT
.
.
nt
But it wasn't nearly as good as it could or should have been. Nicholson
and Brando? In the same picture? This should have been five star flick
for the ages. But, sadly, it wasn't. Too bad.
Mike
it being quite a bit better but... the glass is over half full, I'm thinking.
Have you seen, "The Dark Knight?"
I think Heath borrowed heavily from several characters in Brando's repertoire, especially the cross-dressing characterization.
But I intend to. Usually comic book movies do nothing for me, but
apparently this one (and the 2 Hellboy movies) are very much worth
seeing.
Mike
d
I'm a Peckinpah Fan, so here goes.
The Wild Bunch
The Proposition
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Silverado
Once Upon a Time in the West - the scene where Jack Elam traps the fly
in the barrel of his pistol is one of my all time favorites.
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - far and away the best of that trilogy.
Liberty Valance
Monte Walsh - nobody ever mentions this one.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid - not Peckinpah's best effort, but far, far
better than the average horse opera.
I have never liked John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, except in a couple of
instances. Their acting is wooden, and the range of emotions they can
portray runs the gamut from A to A-. OTOH, Lee Marvin, Jason Robards,
and Peckinpah's regulars (Ben Johson, LQ Jones, Slim Pickens, Chill Wills,
Strother Martin (especially!)) always turn in top notch performances.
Jack Elam is another western actor I particularly like.
Mike
Ballad of Cable Hogue
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia ( tho' not strictly a cowboy film )
Grins
an all midget cast and all the cliché you could dream up.
The Searchers
Lonesome Dove
Rio Bravo
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Magnificent Seven
True Grit
Once Upon a Time in the West
Stagecoach
The Big Country
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Searchers
Red River
High Noon (mostly for Grace K and Tex Ritter singing Tiomkin's best movie theme)
The Cavalry Trilogy; Fort Apache (on cable tonight), She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grand
Liberty Valance
Broken Arrow
Rio Bravo
Lonesome Dove (I know its TV, but easily one of the best of the genre)
Recent: Open Range
As the guy who jumped off the 20-story building shouted as he passed the 10th Floor "So far..so good!"
Yeah DW, Open Range is a very good picture. And Duvall really has that old coot thing of his down to an art. He's the modern Gabby Hayes. ;)
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