Full Length Western

 

Rooster Cogburn - western movie review

 Think The African Queen out west and you've pretty much got this western summed up.

"Any deputy who shoots and kills 64 suspects in eight years is breaking the law not aiding and abetting it." Judge Parker.

"Now let's get this straight, Judge. Only sixty of them died and none was shot but in the line of duty or in the defence of my person." Deputy Marshall Rooster Cogburn.

That line of dialogue leads up to Cogburn's badge being revoked and when Rooster objects the judge tells him that he's gone to seed and that he drinks too much. Rooster then points out, "I ain't had a drink since breakfast." And proceeds to go back to the shack he calls home and drink himself stupid.

The west is changing and the modern world has no place for men like Rooster Cogburn however when an army troop are ambushed and killed Rooster is soon back on the job. Judge Parker has no option but to reinstate Cogburn to go after a gang led by Hawk (Richard Jordan), a one time associate of Cogburns.

Katherine Hepburn plays Eula Goodnight, a missionary whose father is shot down by Hawk's gang and her mission destroyed - that's one of the oddities in the movie - that Hepburn was sixty eight when she made this movie and the actor playing her father, Jon Lormer was actually only a year older at sixty nine. However when Wayne and Hepburn (who, by the way, were both 68) get together their chemistry means that we can overlook this small hitch.

Hepburn's character rides along with Cogburn in pursuit of Hawk's gang and , as with the character she played in The African Queen, is fond of spouting out passages from the Holy scripture at each and every opportunity. Rooster is not one for the Good Book but gradually he mellows towards Hepburn and the story becomes as much a tender love story as action movie. Again, echoes of the African Queen.

The film was shot around Oregon and the Rogue River in Southern Oregon was used for several key scenes - the photography is wonderful and the film really comes into its own on a widescreen television - at the moment there is only a standard DVD version available but the transfer is pretty good and the scenery is clearly reproduced but one suspects a blu-ray hi-def print would look absolutely stunning.

That this was Wayne's penultimate movie and that his health was failing at the time makes the film all the more poignant and although I don't feel it's quite as good as True Grit, it is a worthy follow up. Wayne has an even better handle on the character of Cogburn that he did in the Oscar winning original.




Not his best maybe but it's another great movie by the greatest western star of them all and teamed up with Hepburn, another icon of Golden Age Hollywood, means that the film is essential viewing for anyone interested in classic cinema.

You won't see a better western in a lustrum - (in-joke there. Watch the movie and you'll understand.)

They sure don't make em like they used to.

Young Guns - western movie review

 It's been years since I've watched this film, but in the mood for some stylised western mayhem, and a smidgen of Charlie Sheen, I slipped the disc into my DVD player. Remember those! They'll make a comeback one day. Like vinyl the DVD will once again reign supreme.

You know, this is the film where Charlie Sheen is the level headed one and his younger bro is Billy the Kid. These days the tables have been turned, and it is Charlie who is the hellraiser - mind you, I love this guy. As he points out in his Twitter status - born small, now huge...winning.

But, I've gone off on a tangent, so back to the movie - this is the western for those weaned on the big action movies of the 80's and 90's. It's Die Hard with a Stetson, Lethal Weapon on the range, it's set in a west sound-tracked by synthesiser but above all it's bloody good fun, and that final shoot out, can't have a western without a final shoot out, is up there with those classic westerns. Of course most of us already know that the western has always been cool, but coolness oozes out of each and every frame of this movie. It really isn't a bad film - despite what some reviews would have you believe.

Billy the Kid, the dreamscape deperado, rides again.

Firstly the film is not historically accurate but then if we ignored every western that took liberties with historical fact, we'd have only a fistful of movies to watch.

Young Guns was what we used to call, a high concept movie - cast the then popular group of actors known as The Brat Pack in a western and sit back and watch the big bucks roll in. And roll in they did- $44 million on its original cinema release and many times that since. In fact during its opening weekend it was the highest grossing movie and all from a limited budget of $13 million.

The picture belongs to Emlio Estevez with his psychotic reading of Billy the Kid, but Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips are also excellent. The parts given to the rest of the brat pack are mostly supporting and Charlie Sheen does his best with his straight laced character but the character doesn't stand out in comparison to the more interesting roles given out to the other actors.

Old hands Terence Stamp and Jack Palance are on hand to give the film a touch of class, and Palance is especially effective as the sinister Lawrance Murphy. There scenes he shares with Keiffer Sutherland as the lovesick Doc are especially effective with Palance coming across as an almost vampiric figure.

The final scene is a voice over of Doc explaining what happened after the picture, a voice over that was contradicted in Young Guns II. In Doc's explanation, he includes that Alex's widow caused a congressional investigation into the Lincoln County War. Chavez took work at a farm in California; Doc moved east to New York and married Yen Sun, whom he had saved from Murphy; and Billy continued to ride until he was found and shot dead by Pat Garrett, who in this film is shown as barely knowing Billy. Billy was buried next to Charlie Bowdre at Fort Sumner. A stranger went to the grave of Billy the Kid late at night and made a carving into the headstone. The epitaph read only one word: "PALS".

It's got action, laughs and thrills - what more could one want?

Vintage Western Review: The Lonely Man 1957

Directed by Henry Levin.
Paramount Pictures.
Main Cast: Jack Palance, Anthony Perkins,Neville Brand, Robert Middleton, Lee Van Cleef.
Black and white
88 minutes
Original Release Nov 10 1957

Early hours of the morning, and I'm lounging on the sofa, my pipe filled with a Virginia/Perique mixture, a glass filled with a creamy porter from Brains, and I'm just flicking through the TV channels, so many of them with nothing to watch when I stumbled on this western, which I don't think I've seen before, on Netflix.

It was odd seeing Jack Palance in a role such as this -  he was usually cast as the bad guy, playing the part in some memorable westerns including of course Shane, but here he's the leading man. Technically, he's a bad guy but he's determined to go leave his life as a gunslinger behind him at the outset of this movie and provide a life for his son, Riley (Anthony Perkins).

The plot is quite simple - Gunslinger, Jake Wade (Palance) rides into save his long abandoned son Riley (Anthony Perkins) and provide him with some kind of future after the death of the boy's mother. The son though hates his father, is totally fixated on his dead mother and acts like a petulant child - seems that even then Anthony Perkins had cornered the market on playing dead mother fixated young men. Though Perkins doesn't display this by dressing up as his late mother and running around with  a carving knife, but instead refuses to accept anything from his father. The pair end up torching the family home and moving out together - at the first town they try to settle in they are moved on because of Jake's gunslinger past, and so they go to the home of Ada (Elaine Aiken), a women who looks wonderful in a pair of blue jeans. The woman's in love with Jake but all he can think of is providing some kind of future for his son.

Jake: What do you do for a living?
Riley: Nothing...I get along.


Soon the ;past catches up with Jake, in the shape of enemies from the past and it is revealed that Jake is going blind - what good's a blind gunfighter?

I'm surprised this movie is not better known - I pretty much have a good knowledge of western movies, and I can't say I'd ever heard of this one. It doesn't follow the standard structure of such movies, and the performances are quite excellent. It was also filmed in Vistavision which gives a clarity to the black and white images, unusual in itself since most Vistavision pictures were filmed in colour. The scenes in which Palance and his small band try and round up the wild horses are breathtakingly filmed, and look quite beautiful, and the inevitable final showdown is brilliantly staged. The female lead played by Elaine Aiken in her debut performance, and I don't think I've ever seen a woman fill a pair of jeans so well, but incredibly she didn't go onto have much of an acting career though did become one of the leading acting teachers at the Strasberg Theatre Institute. She is brilliant here and pulls of the part of a women torn between father and son with gusto.


You can't beat a good western - I've always said that, it's my favourite genre, And I really enjoyed this movie. Tonally, I found it not dissimilar to the Anthony Mann westerns of the same period and Palance and Perkins are both excellent, as are the rest of the cast.

Godless spoilerless review- a fine western a'streaming now

That kid who played Paul McCartney in the Lennon bio-pic, Nowhere Boy plays a Billy the Kid type role as Whitey Winn, that guy who played dumber alongside Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber gives us the most memorable and complex western bad guy in recent years with his finely honed performance as Frank Griffin, that woman from Downtown Abbey gives us a much more grounded character than the aristocratic lady which shot her to fame, and that handsome guy who is not George Clooney from Money Monster is the good bad guy, Roy Good. Curious casting maybe, (in fact with the exception of Jeff Daniels the lead actors are all Brits)  but Godless from streaming service, Netflix is the finest small screen western since Lonesome Dove. I kid you not, it is that good - expect it to be rewarded highly when award season comes around.

 Written and directed by Scott Frank the production shows a fondness for Leone type tracking shots, Ford'ian cinematography, Tarantino'esque violence and most importantly storytelling of the finest kind. The script was originally intended as a movie but Netflix were on a spending spree and asked Frank to flush out the story for a limited TV mini-series and we should be thankful for this - split over seven episodes, all of them longer than a hour and some of them a mini movie in themselves, gives a larger canvas to work with. And not a second of this time is wasted with each and every character flushed out. Of course we have all the stock western characters - the good time girls, the crusading newspaperman, the noble sheriff. They're all present and correct but the world in which they operate seems very real indeed.

When I first saw the trailer I feared it was another of those all too common shows with correctness as the driving force - the trailer seemed to suggest it was a western about a town populated solely by women and their fight to survive in the harsh environment, and whilst the  town of La Belle is important to the story, Godless is really driven by the promise of an inevitable showdown between Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and Roy Good (Jack O' Connell).  Of course the all female town is an interesting twist to the standard western story and the origin of this town is explained logically within the story - La Belle is a mining town, a small town in which each of the residents has a stake in the mine and a disaster one day takes out virtually the entire male population. This makes the town interesting to a swindling mining corporation and this is just one of the story threads running through the rich tapestry that is Godless.

The relationships between Frank Griffin and Roy Good is presented in flashbacks alongside the main thrust of the story, and it's all the better for it. After the first episode we view Frank Griffin as a man without a soul, pure evil itself but a couple of episodes in and we see he is much more than a pantomime villain,. In fact in his own mind he's not evil at all, and although he does much during the run of the show that would put the devil to shame, he does a lot of good also. It's a wonderful performance by Jeff Daniels. Likewise Roy Good (Jack O'Connell) who has a father/son, Love/hate relationship with Griffin gives a pitch perfect performance.


'Ain't nothing scarier than a man with a gun. Ain't nothing more helpless than a man without one.' Frank Griffin.

Other notable characters are Whitey Winn, the fast shooting deputy whose lanky frame and amiable manner brings to mind a young James Stewart, the lesbian Mary Agnus played by the always wonderful,  Merritt Weaver who steals every scene she's in and a passel of well rounded townsfolk, gunmen and plain old ordinary old west citizens.

All in all this is an excellent show and all 7 episodes are available to stream over on Netflix right now. I'm a western lover and I rate this show as better than the recent Hell on Wheels, hell to my mind it even bests the wonderful Deadwood. Godless then is a true classic of the genre with a soundtrack that equals those old Morricone scores. And that final operatic shoot out - well without spoilers all I can say is that it is an absolute masterclass in action film - virtually the entire town are involved and the women folk of La Belle prove that they are every bit as deadly as the hardened men who would do them harm.

'I seen my death. This ain't it.' Frank Griffin.

In the final summery - FUCKING BRILLIANT

Food for Western nerds: Cahill United States Marshal

Neville Brand, America's second most decorated serviceman next to Audrie Murphy,  played the Indian character, Lightfoot who is drafted in by John Wayne's Cahill US Marshall to track down a band of bank robbers in this lightweight but enjoyable western from director Andrew V Mclaglen and Wayne's own Batjac company. The veteran actor was joining a cast made up of many screen-vets, most notably Harry Carey Jnr and John Wayne himself.

It was the fifth time that the director had worked with Wayne, and in his entertaining commentary that accompanies the DVD of this movie, he provides a lot of interesting snippets of information. The famous opening scene for instance, where Wayne rides in and guns down several badman, was actually filmed on a sound stage which is something you'd never noticed. I've seen this film several times over the years and not once had I ever suspected the great opening was stage set.

He also points out that Wayne was drawn to the script, because of its modern themes. All action western it is but at its heart it is a story of children craving the attention of their far too busy lawman father, played of course by the aging Wayne who appreciated the depth this gave his character. He hoped it would make the movie attractive to modern audiences. This was 1973 and good parenting in a chaotic world was very much an issue of the day. At least it was according to the commentary on this disc. And although I'd never considered the movie from this angle before, but I could see it on this viewing. I watched the film twice - once without the commentary and once with.

The DVD, in the UK released as part of The Ultimate Western Collection, boasts a strong transfer with both sound and visuals which are up to the usual high standards of the medium. However it still looks and feels like a TV western to me, as do a lot of Wayne's late 60's/ 70's output. I started this piece by calling the movie lightweight and it is indeed that and must have seemed very old fashioned against the grim and gritty cinema of the 70's.

It's still a good film, though - maybe not exceptional but good all the same. George Kennedy plays the type of badman he so often excelled at, and although he often seems to be operating on auto-pilot, he is sinister when it is needed, but never quite reaches the levels of evil that his character so needs. Other weaknesses include the fact that Wayne is simply too old to have two such young sons and even the throwaway line that he had kids late in life doesn't make this premise any less likely.

I guess the biggest problem is that the movie doesn't seem to know if it should go for being a conventional Western or a children-in-peril movie. Still it's a John Wayne movie and John Wayne is John Wayne so I can still go with it and for the most part ignore the flaws. Wayne provided so many cinema high points that as a viewer I feel I owe him that much respect. He was 66 years old when this picture was made and yet he still comes across as pure bad-ass - a walking, talking definition of machismo.

Western Movies

I love movies. During my formative years going to the cinema was the highlight of the week. I grew up in the seventies and was twelve when Star Wars came out so I suppose I'm of that generation - the sci-fi kids, the blockbuster bunch. And yet my favourite movies have always been westerns, a genre that was in the final stages of its golden age by the time I was born.
I have an extensive DVD collection and most of my films are stored by genre - pictured left is part of my western collection. Click on image for a bigger view.
There are some classic westerns in my collection - from the acknowledged classics to curious B-westerns that are often far better than they have the right to be.

Look at the top shelf and there is a box set called 50 great westerns and there really are 50 films there - from early Roy Rogers to Italian Westerns. I got this off Ebay a few years back and I've watched every film even if the transfer is not of the finest quality with none of the films remastered. But it contains the unusual White Comanche which features a very young Captain Kirk as a half breed Comanche. This is actually a very strong B WESTERN.

There are several Wyatt Earp movies in my collection - Tombstone, My Darling Clementine, Gunfight at the Ok Corral, Hour of the Gun and Wyatt Earp - I'll have to be contrary on this but Wyatt Earp is my favourite simply because it covers so much of Earp's life when most others concentrate on the infamous gunfight . Probably Tombstone features the best filmed version of the gunfight, though but the best film for a cinematic experience is John Ford's Clementine which features a brilliant performance by Henry Fonda even if it does play loose and fast with historical fact.

I've actually got an original wanted poster for Wyatt Earp framed above my desk - this is one of my proudest possessions. Well when I say original - it is actually a reproduction but it's from the 1920's so it's original enough for me and I paid a small fortune for it.


There are both 3:10's to Yuma - and the original is my favourite. And there's a large selection of John Wayne westerns - I've even got his debut as Singing Sandy - yep, the Duke was the first singing cowboy. My favourite Wayne would be The Searchers, Red River or the elegiac The Shootist. I'm not one of those who thinks Wayne couldn't act and everytime someone says he always played himself I point them to Red River, The Searchers, True Grit,The Shootist- all very different performances, all technically brilliant. Wayne was an excellent actor. A recent addition was the Coen's version of True Grit which whilst excellent will never eclipse the Wayne original.





It goes without saying that all of the Eastwood westerns are there -from Leone to The Unforgiven. In fact I recently bought a great Eastwood box set that contains thirty five  movies, that's all his Warner Brothers films up to his recent Edgar Hoover biopic I've got all of Eastwood's movies though, including the ones he did with Universal,Paramount and MGM.

I've got the full three seasons of Deadwood - I'm still furious this was canceled and left so open ended. This really was a brilliant series. And on a more lighthearted but nonetheless entertaining note there's also a box set of Alias Smith and Jones and the complete run of McCloud. The latter of course was the modern day, fish out of water western series that starred Dennis Weaver.

On a lower shelf - not visible in the pic - is Ken Burn's eleven and a half hour documentary masterpiece , The West. This covers the West from 1500 - 1914 and was hailed by The New York Times upon its first release. This may be the definitive documentary on The West and I plan to cover each part in separate postings on this blog. I paid £80 for this set which is the most I've ever spent on a DVD but it's well worth it. I've watched it several times and as someone who writes, Western novels, I tend to dip into it from time to time.

The days where I step into a store and find a western movie I don't already own are rare, which is something of a pain because I'm always on the lookout for a new western fix. Ahh well at least I've got Tarantino's take on the genre to look forward to when Django hits UK cinema screens early next year.
 

Those old westerns

Check out this amazing show HERE

Men of many parts

During Hollywood's Golden Age, almost all of the leading men were, at times, made to put on a Stetson or such like and saddle up and take to the cinema range. Some looked better than others. Some (Randolph Scott for one) looked magnificent. The actors that looked more at home on the range did their part in defining the look of the genre and scripts were often altered to accommodate the established style of the star. Some actors like John Wayne will forever be associated with the western but there were many stars who were equally successful outside the genre. Actors like Henry Fonda and James Stewart for instance were just as effective in melodrama and comedies as they were on the range.

Here are several actors who were as well known for other genres as they were for the western.



Errol Flynn - The actor brought his swashbuckling style to his westerns, making him for many years Warner’s biggest star. He was excellent as the cattleman turned lawman in Dodge City (1939). Another notable western role came in 1940's Virginia City but by far his most famous western role was as Custer in Raoul Walsh's whitewashed, but exciting They Died with their Boots On.

Robert Taylor – The actor’s early westerns were forgettable but when he cast aside his handsome leading man image, he really began to shine. Cast in the title role for 1941’s Billy the Kid, the actor seemed uncomfortable but there was a spark in his performance. However it was only as the actor aged that he made some great western appearances – 1950’s Devil’s Doorway saw him give an effective performance as a Shoshone Indian facing racial prejudice.  And he was superb as the aging buffalo hunter in 1956’s The Last Hunt.

Henry Fonda – despite making relatively few westerns, Henry Fonda will always be associated with the genre because of several key roles. The actor was displeased with his role as Frank James in 1939’s Jessie James and he was reluctant to repeat the role in 1940’s, The Return of Franks James. Fonda had to fight with the studio to cast him in the classic western melodrama The Ox-Bow Incident in 1943. The studio were worried that his role as a bystander who watches an illegal lynching would damage his leading man image, but Fonda’s performance was excellent and showed he had  a far greater range than previously displayed. He played Wyatt Earp with stoical charm in the magnificent but inaccurate, My Darling Clementine. When Fonda was cast in Fort Apache he insisted that John Wayne had the sympathetic role while he played the wrong-headed commander who was loosely based on General Custer. Another notable bad guy role came in Firecreek and of course he was exceptional as the smiling sadist in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.

Gregory Peck – The actor may not be chiefly associated with westerns but he played some iconic roles in the oaters. He was excellent as the solemn man trying to escape his past in The Gunfighter (1950). For the role the actor donned a moustache and alienated many of him fans, but the film and his performance were excellent and the movie is rightly regarded as a classic. None of the actors other westerns could quite match this one but with his performance here guarantees him a place in any list of western greats.

James Stewart – the actor had excellent comedy timing and it is fitting that his first western success was 1939’s Destry Rides Again. It was a complete surprise then to see the normally mild mannered actor shine as a haunted cowboy in Winchester 73 which was directed by Anthony Mann. After this movie Stewart teamed with Mann for a string of classic westerns including, The Naked Spur (1953) which guarantees he will always stand in the line of western legends.

Alan Ladd – one film gives Alan Ladd his status as western legend and that was 1953’s Shane. The actor was superb as the strong, silent drifter who sides with a group of victimised homesteaders. And although Ladd’s other western roles were mostly forgettable it was his performance here that propels him towards the top of the list. Before Clint Eastwood, Alan Ladd defined the laconic loner.

SOLDIER BLUE (1970)

Given that this revisionist western is pro-Indian, it is odd that the actual Indian characters have so little screen time. The film is remembered for its graphic violence which is a shame really for it truly is a beautifully filmed, excellently acted movie and the new DVD transfer from Optimum Classics really show it off to its best advantage. There is so much more to this excellent movie than the few minutes of extreme violence that bookend the main story.

While riding through  Cheyenne territory transporting a safe to Fort Reunion, the cavalry are attacked by the Indians. Only Cresta,(the beautiful Candice Bergman)  a white woman who has lived with the Indians,  and the naive, idealistic and clumsy private Honus (Peter Strauss) survive. Together they take the eventful journey to Fort Reunion, where Cresta is supposed to meet her fiance.

Along their journey, which becomes an education for them both, Honus protects Cresta against Kiowa Indians, destroys the shipment of a trader of weapons (Donald Plesance in a great seedy turn) and falls in love for Cresta. However  he remains true to his uniform and does not believe Cresta words that most Indians are peaceful and that it is the white men who are the aggressor.

"You Miss Cresta, are a traitor."

When the cavalry attacks the village , Honus witnesses the hideous massacre of five hundred peaceful Cheyenne, more than half composed of women and children, and realizes that Cresta was telling the truth. The rapes and mutilations are shown in graphic detail. The story was based on the true life Sand Creek Massacre which is still a blight on American history, but it also acted as an allegory to the, then fresh in the mind, My Lai massacre during the Vietnam conflict. It was this latter point that enraged the conservative film critics but endeared the movie to the emerging counter-culture.

It's an intense western that doesn't pull any punches and with some small reservations depicts the Indians as a noble people fighting for their way of life, if not their actual lives. Flawed, maybe but still a masterpiece.

THREE GODFATHER'S

£4.00 in Morrison's as part of their Father's Day display was this John Ford classic - one of the few John Wayne movies I didn't have on DVD. I don't need to tell you it flew off the shelf and into my hands as soon as I saw it - man, I love the Duke.

The film is actually a remake of Ford's 1919 silent movie, Marked Men (today no prints of this film are believed to exist) which in itself was an adaption of the novel written by Peter Kane. Basically it's the Biblical story of the three wise men in a western setting. And whilst it may not be up there with Ford's best it is an enjoyable western.

The film opens with the dedication To Harry Carey, bright star of the early western skies (Harry Carey actually starred in the original silent version) and this film features the debut of the actor's son, Harry Carey Junior who would go on to become a regular fixture in Ford movies. Other Ford regulars are Ward Bond and Hank Worden. The film is also notable for Pedro Armedariz who would later play Kerim Bay alongside Sean Connery in From Russia with Love.

Because of the plot - three outlaws on the lam, a posse in pursuit, come across a dying woman and make a promise to care for her newborn son, this is something of an off-beat western. There are some particularly effective scenes - one where the three man trudge through a sand storm , the sands looking like the waves of a sea in the grip of a perfect storm, is particularly thrilling. Indeed many hardships are suffered and only Wayne and the baby make it to town, the outlaw broken but not beaten as he stumbles, child in arms, into New Jerusalem on Christmas Day.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

Butch and Sundance, directed by George Roy Hill sees the western invent the buddy movie. It is also the western that non western fans can most enjoy.

Made in 1969 it is as much counterculture chic as western adventure and the pairing of Newman and Redford defines screen chemistry between male leading men. It is far more contemporary than any western has the right to be - with its hippie values, catchy soundtrack and humour it is very much a 60's West Coast Western.

The film starts with the caption: Most of what you are about to see is true.

But it's not - screenwriter William Goldman spent years researching his subject and then threw that research out of the window in favour of a comedy adventure with the bad guys as good guys. It's still a brilliant film and one of the most mainstream westerns in history. Sure the story and characters have hardly any relation to historical fact but that's not the point. And this is probably a far better movie than it would have been had the makers been concerned with making a realistic biopic.

It was filmed on a budget of $400,000 and on its initial release grossed $46 million in the US alone. The film was highly influential on the genre films that followed- on TV the comedy western Alias Smith and Jones even went as far as using the aliases Butch and Sundance used while in Bolivia - Pete Duel was Joshua Smith and Ben Murphy was Thaddus Jones. And the long running Starskey and Hutch owed much to Butch and Sundance.

There was a prequel made - Butch and Sundance: The Early Days but the film suffered without Newman and Redford to carry off the roles. And an interesting TV movie spin-off was Wanted: The Sundance Woman in which Katherine Ross reprised her role of Etta Place for a look at the characters adventures after her time with Butch and Sundance. Elizabeth Montgomery (best known for TV's Bewitched) also played Etta in 1973's Mrs Sundance.

This is the western to try if you're not a particular fan of the genre - the comedy action buddy movies of today have this film buried deep within their DNA - an excellent movie.

THE MAN WITH A GREAT NAME - THOSE EASTWOOD WESTERNS

Excluding the three groundbreaking Dollar films, which I've talked about enough in earlier articles, Eastwood has been responsible for many of the western genre's greatest films. From the genre defining Josey Wales and The Unforgiven to the Italian-alike Joe Kid and Two Mules for Sister Sara and the classically styled Pale Rider and Hang Em High and that's not to mention the unique noir western, The Beguiled. To my mind the only weak Eastwood western is Joe Kidd and all the others are essential films for any fan of the genre.

Hang Em High (reviewed HERE) was Eastwood's first American western movie and that same year he teamed up with Don Siegel for the East meets West Coogan's Bluff which was the inspiration for the TV series, McCloud. The two men worked so well together that actor and director were back together for Two Mules for Sister Sara which Eastwood described, at the time, as "African Queen meets the man with no name." The films is a quirky comedy western with Shirley McClain stealing the show. Interestingly she was only cast after Eastwood's first choice, Elizabeth Taylor dropped out.

Director and star reunited in 1970 for one of Eastwood's strangest, but compelling, westerns - the psycho-noir melodrama The Beguiled. Eastwood is an injured Union soldier totally at the mercy of a group of women. The Siegal/Eastwood partnerships is comparable in terms of success to that of Wayne/Ford. Siegal of course was the director of the seminal Dirty Harry.

Eastwood's first western in the directorial chair was the excellent, supernaturally tinged, High Plains Drifter. It's a blood thirsty uber-violent western that owes much to the Leone Dollar Films but Eastwood is smart enough to give the film a twist with its other worldly atmosphere. Truly excellent.

The Outlaw Josey Wales with Eastwood once again in the director chair is equal to the majestic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It's brilliant sprawling western that improves each time it is watched.

Eastwood's next western, Pale Rider (1985) was a cross between Shane and High Plains Drifter. The introduction shot of Eastwood inverted the opening shot of High Plains Drifter. Where in Drifter Eastwood's character seems to appear from nowhere on the fiery plains this time it is reversed and Eastwood appears from out of the heavenly clouds. Indeed the character in Pale Rider is Ying to Drifters, Yang. Again an excellent western.

The Unforgiven (1992) is Eastwood's masterpiece - one of the seminal films of the genre by anyone. It is interesting that in actor identification for the western Eastwood is second only to John Wayne and yet out of Eastwood's vast filmography only eleven of them are strictly westerns. I'm not counting the likes of Coogan's Bluff, Honkeytonk Man and Bronco Billy here although it could be argued they are contemporary westerns.But what a contribution the great man has made to the genre.

THE LEFT HANDED GUN (1958)

This movie was originally intended for James Dean and would have been the stars only true western had the fatal car crash not robbed the world of Dean's talent. Paul Newman had already taken over Dean's role in another project, Somebody up there Likes me (see previous post) and so he was once again selected to take the lead role.

At this stage in Newman's career he certainly has a lot of both Brando and Dean in his method acting style which interestingly he would tone down as he became more well known and comfortable in his own abilities. There are a couple of scenes where Newman's teenage angst looks ridiculously over the top and melodramatic - at times it seems all the young bandit needs is a clip across the ear to put him on the right track.

Directed by Arthur Penn, who would later make the western classic, Little Big Man, The Left Handed Gun tells the legend rather than the story of the west's most famous desperado, Billy the Kid. And it is a great western that has grown in stature over time and is these days rightly regarded as an important film in the development of the western.

Newman is for the most part superb and portrays The Kid as an illiterate (in reality The Kid was anything but illiterate as his famous letters to Governor Wallace prove) and psychotic teenager who has to make his own way in an uncaring society.

On its initial release the film turned audiences away - westerns didn't usually concern themselves with social comment - but it stands up well today and is an intelligent and gripping movie that deserves a higher status in the western genre than it currently enjoys.

Violent, gripping and compelling with a mostly great performance from all concerned.

Available as part of the Paul Newman DVD box set from Warner Video (for full contents scroll down to previous post)

Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)

Return of a Man Called Horse
1976
Directed by Irvin Kershner

1970's A Man called Horse was an exceptional western and this 1976 sequel, whilst not quite as compelling as the original, is a worthy follow up. Lord John Morgan (Richard Harris) is fed up with his staid life in the UK, he's no doubt annoyed by the MP's expenses scandal, and so he decides to leave once more to join his brothers in the Yellow Hand Tribe.

Critic Judith Crist wrote at the time - "Maintains a tricky balance between nausea and boredom."

The pre-title sequence is 17 minutes long and serves as a prequel to the main narrative. We see that even when home in his British mansion, Morgan has not left his Indian Friends. His room is filled with memorabilia of his time with the Yellow Hand tribe.

When Morgan does return to the sacred burial grounds he finds that the people have been driven away by an evil band of trappers who enslave many Indians and construct a massive fort on sacred ground. What follows is an authentic look into the life of the Sioux in the early 19th century as Morgan goes through another painful ritual and persuades his Indian brothers to fight for what is theirs.

The attention to Indian life is incredibly detailed and Richard Harris puts in another great performance as the white man living among the Sioux. And there is a touching climax when the chief who died in the battle for land that has been theirs for centuries is buried in the sacred ground of his forefathers.

The film is currently available on a vanilla DVD from MGM - not so much as a trailer. Still it's an excellent movie.

STAGECOACH TO TOMBSTONE BY HOWARD HUGHES

Stagecoach to Tombstone: the film goers companion to the great westerns
Howard Hughes
I.B.Tauris books
£12.99

I was so impressed with the same author's Once Upon a Time in the Italian West that as soon as I saw this book in my local Borders I had to have it. It takes the same format as Once Upon a Time and is very much a companion piece but this time with the emphasis on the American westerns, though European films are also included.

There's a lengthy introduction that covers the silent westerns and takes us upto John Ford's Stagecoach - but the book treats Stagecoach in 1939 as year zero for the modern western. And there is an in depth analysis of 27 westerns of which the author considers the best of the entire genre. And it's a contentious list with several films being conspicuous by their absence - no True Grit, no The Shootist and no Long Riders. Sons of Katie Elder is included which, to my mind, is a lesser western than both True Grit and The Shootist.

Still the author knows his stuff and he gives a detailed analysis of each film covered, including trivia and original box office business. It's a great book which no western movie buff will want to be without but I would most certainly argue for the inclusion of The Shootist

TUMBLEWEED ROCK - THE KING GOES WEST

Elvis Presley made some dire movies but thankfully his westerns, all three of them, are amongst his better film work. And each of them offered him a chance for some straight acting.

First was Love Me Tender (1956) which starred the magnificent looking young Elvis and during this period Elvis was still aiming to become something of a James Dean(his idol) figure. And although this is his first movie and his acting displays all the signs of a beginner he does take things seriously and turns in a adequate performance.

The film was originally titled, The Fighting Reno Brothers but with the casting of the new teen sensation it was decided to change the title of the movie to allow Elvis to release the soundtrack songs.

When the film was released Time Magazine famously called Elvis both a sausage and a goldfish while the Hollywood Promoter said he was an obscene child. The film did massive business at the box office and fans screamed when the Elvis character died at the end but soon perked up when his ghost was brought back to sing the title track over the end credits.

Elvis' second western, Flaming Star (1960) came at a time that the singer/actor most needed it. A good director in Don Siegal, an intelligent screenplay, only the one song plus the title track. The result was perhaps his best acting performance and a movie that is arguably his all time best. Only King Creole comes close in any case.

Elvis turns in a fine performance in a role originally written for Brando. The King plays Peter, a half-breed Kiowa. Director Siegal was initially horrified with the casting of the rock and roll star but he soon changed his mind. The scene in which Elvis declares his love for a stunned Barbara Edan is absolutely pitch perfect.

The resulting movie is more western than Elvis Presley movie and is as good as many of the oaters made at the time.

Charro (1969) was the last western Elvis would ever make. It was a dream role for him - a totally music free movie with Elvis only being called upon to sign the title track.

Elvis was at home in the dusty clothes and thick beard and he was hoping that the movie, boasting a Italian western feel to it, would be taken as seriously as the Clint Eastwood westerns which were all the rage at the time.

The problem is that the movie came out disjointed and at parts Elvis seems to be sleepwalking. Still it's a decent enough minor western which is at least watchable and doesn't feature any scuba diving, speedway driving, singers.

In many way Elvis' movies mirror his signing - one wonders what could have been if better material had come along. And the story of Elvis Presley is one of the saddest in American show - business.

THE WESTERN - IN MONTAGE

WILD WEST MONDAY GUEST BLOGGER - Bill Crider

Our first guest blogger is Mr. Bill Crider and he shares his thoughts here on Rio Bravo (one of The Archive's favourite oaters) and Brian Garfield's Western Films: A Complete Guide.

Please check out the links below the post leading to Bill's own books and his wonderful Blog. And thanks to Bill for taking part in The Archive's month long series of western posts, leading upto Wild West Monday the third.

OK- I hand you over to Mr. Bill Crider:

In his otherwise excellent book entitled WESTERN FILMS: A COMPLETE GUIDE, Brian Garfield has this to say about one of my favorite westerns, RIO BRAVO: "I remain mystified by the way Howard Hawks's apologists hold this juvenile and predictable movie up as an example of auteuriste genius." He also says, "It's overrated, overripe, and overlong." And, "Nelson is wooden. Brennan overplays." There's more, but that will give you the idea.

I've been reading Brian Garfield's novels for years. I've enjoyed his crime novels as much as his westerns, though I think WILD TIMES is his masterpiece and a fine novel no matter what your reading tastes. But I don't agree with his opinion about RIO BRAVO. Well, not entirely. I'm willing to agree that it's 'not "an example of auteuriste genius," whatever that means. However, I think it's a wonderfully entertaining movie, especially for guys.

Let me just repeat my often-quoted (by me and James Reasoner) opinion that RIO BRAVO has something for a guy of any age to identify with. When I first saw the movie as a teenager, I identified with Ricky Nelson (who's not wooden, just cool). As I got older, I identified with Dean Martin, the self-pitying loser who finds himself. Later on, I thought I was more like John Wayne, getting along in years, maybe, but still appealing to hot babes like Angie Dickinson. Now, I identify with Walter Brennan.

RIO BRAVO is one of those movies I can watch any time at all, even though I know it pretty much by heart now. Call it childish if you will (and Garfield does), it still thrills and entertains me as much as it ever did even though I'm in the Brennan years. (A sad fact is that when he made the movie, Brennan was younger than I am now. By several years. Well, maybe that's not sad to you, but it's sad to me.)

Garfield doesn't like the near-remake, RIO LOBO, either. He says it's "virtually an amateur movie." I don't think it's in the same league with RIO BRAVO, and it would have been better with Ricky Nelson.

All that being said, if you like western films and you don't have a copy of Garfield's book, you really should get one. It makes for great reading whether you agree with him or not.


ABOUT BILL

Bill Crider writes mysteries. Check him out HERE
His most well known series is the Sheriff Dan Rhodes books - The Sheriff Dan Rhodes series features the adventures of a sheriff in a s mall Texas county where there are no serial killers, where a naked man hiding in a dumpster is big news, and wh ere the sheriff still has time to investigate the theft of a set of false teeth. The first book in this series won an Anthony Award for "best first mystery novel" in 1986. The latest book in the series is Red, White, and Blue Murder.

Bill also publishes the widely read blog on popular culture HERE

Bill also writes Blog Bytes which is my favourite non-fiction bit of The Ellery Queen Magazine

I was thrilled to see The Tainted Archive mentioned in the current issue.



Pictured - Back Row: Bill and Judy Crider, Marion Reasoner. Front Row: James Reasoner, Doug Grad. WWA convention, Jackson Hole, 1993.

ANGEL AND THE BADMAN - FULL MOVIE TO WATCH AT THE ARCHIVE

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and public domain movies the Tainted Archive is able to go all picture palace and embed the entire 1947 John Wayne western, The Angel and the Badman.

The movie was produced by John Wayne who hoped for a massive hit. He didn't exactly get that but it's a damn fine Duke western that is often unfairly ignored, overlooked by all the classics he made within the genre.

So saddle up and enjoy the movie here on The Archive

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