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Best and Worst Western Movies.


allan downes

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And one of the best motorcycle chase sequences on celluloid.

Can I nominate Cowboys and Aliens as, if not the worst, definitely the silliest?

 

 

Yeah !  But it`s very watchable.....I`ve got it on DVD and quite like it........... :locomotive:

 

 

I`ll raise you......    Jonah Hex                           Josh Brolin       Megan Fox

Edited by ROSSPOP
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I'm mildly amazed nobody has mentioned "Shane".

An iconic film of it's time, with a bit of everything.

 

"SHANE......SHANE.... COME BACK....".

 

I suppose in these more enlightened times the connection between Shane and Little Joe would be classed as an inappropriate relationship.

 

Another all time great also not yet mentioned is "High Noon".

 

Ah but yes. SHANE. I was saving THE BEST, THE ABSOLUTE BEST until last and until enough posters had saw fit to place High Noon way up there on top where In fact  I rated it as one of the most boring westerns ever made that just dragged on and on and on and... Burt Lancaster's version of it - Lawman - is how it should have been made in the first place. 

 

However, and though suited for the part, Brandon De Wild as the kid was supposedly a right PINTA to work with were whenever he had to face Shane on his horse, he just kept going boss eyed and poking his tongue out as Alan Ladd tried to deliver his lines at which Ladd looked over at the kid's father who was always present during filming, and threatened to " Hit the kid over the head with a brick if he didn't stop playing up !"

 

Here's one instance.

 

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Edited by allan downes
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Four others I do like:

 

Ride the High Country

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

The Ballad of Cable Hogue

The Shootist

 

All are notable for their poignant acknowledgement of the end of the old west (fictional or otherwise), as well as entertainment.

Another Sergio Leone film with some wonderful music (and not seen very often) is A Fistful of Dynamite.

Plus another vote for John Ford's cavalry trilogy.

Edited by Bon Accord
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 And best opening scene ever ?

 

Just has to be.

 

 

And music.

 

 

And by way of comparison.

 

Absolutely beautiful !

 

 

and if this one doesn't capture your heart, nothing will.

 

Edited by allan downes
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Difficult to get away from Clint really, even 'Dirty Harry' is pretty much a western, albiet set in San Francisco in 1971!

 

I only noticed it after my daughter developed an interest (well, obsession really) in drawing comics/graphic novels, but the Dirty Harry movies that I've seen are, pretty much, live action comic books in terms of the scenes and storytelling style. Much more so than the contemporary film adaptations of actual comic book material that seems to form 75% of Hollywood's current output. That is, they would be very easy to adapt into individual frames with speech bubble dialogue. Not a criticism as such. i still enjoy them. Just an observation on how they seem to have been put together.

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Some great westerns mentioned above. I prefer Jeff Bridges' fairly recent Coen Brothers version of True Grit to the Wayne version. Bridges is superb. Have read the novels that many of these westerns were based on. The OutlawJosey Wales in its novel form Gone to Texas by Forest Carter and its sequel The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales. are well worth a read as is The Searchers by Alan Le May which to my mind is better and more spaced out than the film.  I also like the novel and film of  Dances With Wolves. The film has more space and time in it than the usual western more akin to a long French or Italian film.

Edited by geoffers
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One which is sort of a western and which is a train movie too (how good is that?!) is The Emperor of the North Pole, with Ernest Borgnine in one of the best roles of his career as a psychotic conductor with a hatred of train riding hobo's and Lee Marvin as the hobo that decides to ride his train.

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For me, John Wayne always gave value for money and no more so in my books than in The Train Robbers with a truly memorable supporting cast - Ben Johnson,  Rod Taylor " Don't expect to live too long when you hang around with Lane/John Wayne ",Ricardo Montalban, just to name a few.

 

 

TrainRobbersLobby.jpg

The-Train-Robbers-images-65774f6b-2579-4

Edited by allan downes
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One which is sort of a western and which is a train movie too (how good is that?!) is The Emperor of the North Pole, with Ernest Borgnine in one of the best roles of his career as a psychotic conductor with a hatred of train riding hobo's and Lee Marvin as the hobo that decides to ride his train.

 

I do believe that was Borgnine's favourite film, albeit relatively unknown these days.

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As much as I love the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, for me Unforgiven is the masterpiece Clint Eastwood movie where he plays William Munny, a cold blooded gun slinger. The scene where he walks in the bar near the end and confronts Gene Hackmann's character Little Bill is very powerful. 

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I rather enjoyed Breakheart Pass, if only because it remained reasonably faithful to the book and I was a huge Alistair Maclean fan when I first saw it. Mr Bronson was always good value for money.

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There is this film trilogy, which I rather like:-

 

- Rio Bravo

- El Dorado

- Rio Lobo

 

Essentially the same film plot with John Wayne in each film. The first also stars Walter Brennan and the last, the brilliant Jack Elam. The second stars a very young James Caan.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

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