Best and Worst Western Movies.

[Old Gringo]

I've agreed, Allan,

 

But, upon closer inspection - same year - same style of Hat, but a different colour!  Grey in Tombstone, more downbeat Brown in Desperate Trail, perhaps? (Well it is on the cover of the DVD).

 

Oh dear, I fear I may be in Andy's territory of outfits, Ponchos and Buckskins.  Mind you wasn't that a line from one of the songs in a film, "I like you in Buckskins" diddley, diddley?

 

Nobody's mentioned 'Oklahoma' (1955) yet!  Or 'The Oklahoma Kid' with James Cagney (1939).  I wonder why not? 

[allan downes]

I've agreed, Allan,

 

But, upon closer inspection - same year - same style of Hat, but a different colour!  Grey in Tombstone, more downbeat Brown in Desperate Trail, perhaps? (Well it is on the cover of the DVD).

 

Oh dear, I fear I may be in Andy's territory of outfits, Ponchos and Buckskins.  Mind you wasn't that a line from one of the songs in the film, "I like you in Buckskins" diddley, diddley?

 

Nobody's mentioned 'Oklahoma' (1955) yet!  Or 'The Oklahoma Kid' with James Cagney (1939).  I wonder why not? 

 

Hi OG,

 

That would have been the song "Buttons and Bows" from the film "The Paleface" with Bob Hope and Jayne Russel a rendition of which I gave on stage at our boarding school that was met with stunned and shocked silence !

 

The follow up was "Son of Paleface" but this time I gave the school end of term concert a wide berth !

 

Buttons and Bows

 

Dinah Shore

 

East is east and west is west

And the wrong one I have chose

Let's go where they keep on wearin'

Those frills and flowers and buttons and bows

Rings and things and buttons and bows.

Don't bury me in this prairie

Take me where the cement grows

Let's move down to some big town

Where they love a gal by the cut o' her clothes

And you'll stand out, in buttons and bows.

I'll love you in buckskin

Or skirts that you've homespun

But I'll love ya' longer, stronger

Where yer friends don't tote a gun

My bones denounce the buckboard bounce

And the cactus hurts my toes

Let's vamoose where gals keep a-usin'

Those silks… 

[62613]

I seem to recall a 'modern western', in B & W, in which Kirk Douglas played an escaping minor con. who takes a horse up a hill; the sheriff, IIRC, was George Kennedy. Just can't remember the title.

[Reorte]

I have just remembered that the lee van clef character dies in the good the bad and the ugly so if that was a prequel to the two other movies it can't be the same charactot

He was a very nasty piece of work in TGTB&TU and a decent guy in For A Few Dollars More, definitely not the same character even without the timeline clues.

[Two_sugars]

I seem to recall a 'modern western', in B & W, in which Kirk Douglas played an escaping minor con. who takes a horse up a hill; the sheriff, IIRC, was George Kennedy. Just can't remember the title.

 

Lonely Are The Brave . . . . .The sheriff  was played by Walter Mattau

 

 

 

It makes regular appearances on the higher digital channels

Edited March 8, 2018 by Two_sugars

[allan downes]

"Lonely Are The Brave "

 

[geoffers]

A year or so back I had a spell of reading some Mountain Man novels. Sydney Pollack's film with Robert Redford in the title role of Jeremiah Johnson is based on western fact/legend with a more rece nt one called The Revenant.  Two others based on excellent novels are The Homesman and The Missing, both of which I enjoyed watching. Broken Trail with Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden-Jones brings an interesting angle on the west regarding the slave-like abuse of chinese workers in the west. Finally though it is an epic series I found Gettysburg riveting as was the book.

[allan downes]

 This was a great Western you don't hear much of today.

 

 

And come to that, not much of this one either

 

 

And this  was pretty good too and, I do believe, there was a sequel.

 

 

Oh dear. That was the sequel !

Edited March 9, 2018 by allan downes

[brianusa]

The sixties and seventies produced some lousy films mainly because of the break up of the studio system.  That time was also the end of the classic Western with familiar stars who were beginning to age to be replaced with younger actors, many of whom hadn't achieved star status.  But to its credit, the industry tried very hard with films such as "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Dr Zhivago" and others.   Also TV audiences were turning to cable who in turn were running more and more movie channels and over time increasing quality and content.  At a younger age, I was able to see top class entertaining movies every week, some were duds but then you didn't care.  Now we don't go to the cinema much any more because of movie content including excessive swearing, gratuitous sex or other offensive scenes.

          Is it me or is the sound louder these days?  At least we can turn it down at home!

 

Brian.

[Ohmisterporter]

Trying to think of the old film in which the baddie held up a stage then rode off. The hero then took over the stage and its six horses and chased him down. Well, everyone knows that six horses obviously run six times faster than one horse. At least in Hollywood.

[dvdlcs]

Another vote for Clint Eastwood and the various westerns that he made. Seen a few John Wayne films but Clint has it. Wayne was too clean-cut for my liking, I guess Clint was an early example of the anti-hero.

 

So many memorable lines from them: the number of times I've said (or thought) "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk." when watching other films and programmes...

 

The beginning of High Plains Drifter, which is only around 90 minutes long, has no dialogue until around the 7th or 8th minute. It is all nods, glances, and grimaces.

 

In other areas, can remember watching the original Django, with the man dragging the coffin behind him, but {gasp} I don't think I've ever seen "Once Upon a Time in the West".

 

One recent TV series that I liked and had a Western feel to it at times was Justified, with Timothy Olyphant as a US Marshal with some good lines e.g. "You draw on me, I'll put you down".

[PatB]

I seem to recall a 'modern western', in B & W, in which Kirk Douglas played an escaping minor con. who takes a horse up a hill; the sheriff, IIRC, was George Kennedy. Just can't remember the title.

Sounds like Lonely are the Brave.

[allan downes]

Trying to think of the old film in which the baddie held up a stage then rode off. The hero then took over the stage and its six horses and chased him down. Well, everyone knows that six horses obviously run six times faster than one horse. At least in Hollywood.

 If John Wayne didn't, then nobody did !

[allan downes]

 

 

"... but {gasp} I don't think I've ever seen "Once Upon a Time in the West".

 

 

 

OMG. But an absolute must !

 

[wagonbasher]

OMG. But an absolute must !

 

Old Gringo's layout is called Once Upon a Time in The West and although it is 'geographically similar' to the film it is not a western themed layout.

 

I did however mae a few characters to wait on the station

 

 

Andy

[62613]

"Lonely Are The Brave "

 

 

That's it! Ta!

[allan downes]

"Dual At Diablo" wasn't a bad Western either with James Garner and Sydney Poitier as a really impressive black gunfighter. 

 

Better still was the cinema advertising poster which the manager of a cinema in Romford gave me a spare copy of.

 

Garner of course is  Garner in every film he makes but who would believe that his Father, Rocky in the Rockford Files, was actually  Noah Beery junior was the leader in the Dalton Gang Saturday morning Westerns when I was a kid ! - real rubbish mind you but not to us kids back in 1945.

 

 

But there has been worse since - a lot worse.

 

Paul Hogan as "Lightning Jack" A terrible farce, especially after his success as "Crocodile Dundee"

 

[Two_sugars]

I liked  The Shootist starring John Wayne . . . .but mebees only 'cos it also had Lauren Bacall

[wagonbasher]

That's it! Ta!

 

Is that the one where old dimple chin goes on and on about barbed wire?

 

Andy

[allan downes]

Is that the one where old dimple chin goes on and on about barbed wire?

 

Andy

 

I think it was, Andy. He was kind of portraying the last of the open range cowboys - a kinda loner.

 

Nobody hear seems to have mentioned "Chato's Land " with Charles Bronson as a lone pursued Apache bumping each member of the posse off as and when he chooses.

 

A truly magnificent film where the Indians win for a change !

 

 

Nothing to do with this of course, but why do Radio DJ's always screw up a good song before the end as they can't wait to get their banal and corny interruptions in as they have just done with my favourite song, Scot McKenzie's "San Francisco " with utter crap like -

 

"And that was "San fran " or something like that  - I think - So, a BIG, BIG hello to Sharon from Southend who's just bought her hundredth pair of white shoes, bottle of bleach and just turned 60 today !"     

Edited March 11, 2018 by allan downes

[Dick Turpin]

Most of my favourite westerns follow a common theme: a stranger turns up into a situation which is unbearably unjust and lawless, where decent folk are being abused by the corrupt and powerful, and systematically sets about dealing out brutal justice. I guess that in real life we know that the bad guys not only get away with it, but often they are the ones in charge, and we can usually do nothing about it, so we delight in watching an idealised 'what if' situation. It would be like if I turned up at work as Sabata, one morning and CENSORED - RMWeb Automatic PostMarshal Software has removed the following in the interest of calmness and decency!

[jjb1970]

I found Soldier Blue to have dated very badly. However groundbreaking it was when I watched it recently it all felt very superficial and cheap shock value.

[allan downes]

 Googled "Best Western Ever Made " and this, believe it or not, was what it came up with.

 

 

So dare't google "Worst Western Ever Made " in case it come up with something this !

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by allan downes

[allan downes]

And just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse...

 

[luckymucklebackit]

Now there is a pub question - Which Western had the same name as a Rebuilt West Country Pacific!

 

Jim