I love a good Western. This uniquely American genre sums up our collective spirit better than any other. In fact, the decline in the popularity of Westerns seems to track right along with the fragmentation of our society. So a look back at the classics (I’m not into post-modern revisionist oaters) is also a look back at ourselves, as we were, silhouetted against the horizon. Maybe in doing so we can re-learn a few things.
Anyway, here are my top five Westerns:
SHANE
1953, dir. George Stevens
Not just the best Western ever, but one of the top American films of any genre. Mythic, amazing to look at, and featuring one of the great villains: the grinning Jack Palance (he earned an Oscar nod for his turn as the gunfighter Wilson, the “low down Yankee liar”). Alan Ladd and Van Heflin are superb as the mysterious gunman and rock solid homesteader (the early scene where they team up to remove a stump is a symbolic prophecy for the entire film). Also earning an Oscar nomination was the young Brandon De Wilde as Joey (yes, it’s easy to parody “Come back, Shane!” But it’s been done, so don’t go there). The film should be seen on the big screen if at all possible.
The movie is about the need for a community to band together to defeat evil.
SEVEN MEN FROM NOW
1956, dir. Budd Boetticher
When director Budd Boetticher, writer Burt Kennedy and B star Randolph Scott got together for a series of Westerns in the 1950’s, no one paid them much mind. But the French critics recognized true auteur artistry when they saw it, and these Westerns were rediscovered and are now honored. Seven Men is the best, a prime reason being the fabulous turn by Lee Marvin as the villain. The quiet scene where he verbally emasculates a husband in front of his wife is as memorable as any gunfight in any corral. The movie succeeds despite its low budget and fast shooting schedule (Boetticher trademarks). Randolph Scott becomes an icon here, and the film is a gem you need to watch more than once. Please disregard the awful theme song that the studio stuck in over Boetticher’s objection.
This is a movie about revenge and greed, two of the best motivations.
HIGH NOON
1952, dir. Fred Zinnemann
Gary Cooper displays his acting chops almost entirely with his weathered face (and earned his second Oscar as a result). You know the story. A retiring town marshal, newly married to Grace Kelly (Grace Kelly!) stays to face the just pardoned killer coming back for revenge. He’ll raise a posse, he reasons. But as the clock ticks toward high noon, when the train with the killer arrives, everyone seems to have an excuse not to help him. Not only that, his Quaker wife, opposed to all guns, says she’ll leave him if he stays. Talk about pressure (Grace Kelly!) The hit song, “Do Not Forsake Me,” that haunts the movie is one reason so many bad songs were planted on so many Westerns in the 1950’s.
Lesson: there’s a duty to stand up to evil even if you’re alone.
STAGECOACH
1939, dir. John Ford
Why this title for John Ford, and not, say, The Searchers or My Darling Clementine? Because I just like this better. It moves. It has heart and none of the clunky Ford humor that mars his “bigger” films. Yes, Ford deserves his accolades, especially for his framing of Western vistas, but when it comes to the West I don’t think he ever did it better than here. It’s the film that made John Wayne a star, of course, just as he was about to fade into obscurity as a C level serial actor. Thomas Mitchell (Oscar winner) and Claire Trevor deliver standout supporting performances.
We learn that sometimes it’s the outcasts who are the moral ones among us.
MONTE WALSH
1979, dir. William A. Fraker
It’s a bookend with Shane, taken from the novel by Shane‘s author, Jack Schaefer, and also featuring Jack Palance (in a very different role). It’s about the end of the West, the swan song of cowboying as a way of life. Lee Marvin stars in the title role and evokes a bittersweet rendering of what it once meant to be a man of honor. The theme song, sung by Mama Cass, is actually one of the few that is perfect for the film’s mood. Netflix this underappreciated classic. (The Tom Selleck remake for television is also excellent).
The lesson here is pure Americana: the only honorable way to live is by being true to yourself. That’s an essential lesson for writers, too.
Honorable Mention: Ride the High Country, The Magnificent Seven, 3:10 to Yuma (Glenn Ford/Van Heflin version).
So what about you? What are your favorite Westerns and — most especially — why?
UPDATE: Netflix apparently doesn’t have the original Monte Walsh available. However, it is due to be shown on Turner Classic Movies on March 27, 2010, 2 p.m. (Eastern). If you go here you can have them send you an email reminder and IMPORTANT: you can click to vote that it be released on DVD. Enter your vote today!
Always loved Silverado. The opening with Scott Glenn pinned down in the little shack, then having it expand to the wide openness of the wilderness around him.
Jim, I haven’t been a big fan of westerns in many year, mainly because I don’t think the few being produced each year are nearly as good as the ones you listed. But when I think of westerns, there’s one that always comes to mind as my favorite: BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. I won’t attempt to guess how many times I’ve seen it. It’s my first choice for many reasons. It produced a level of chemistry on screen that I had never seen before. Although it was set almost a hundred years previous, the mindset of the late 1960s was subtly captured including widespread paranoia (“Who are those guys?”) and expressive lifestyle (“Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”)
The mix of contemporary music (imitated so often in later films) was genius. And the unusual feeling of sitting in the audience an rooting for good bad guys, or bad good guys, however you look at it, was unique and exciting. There was also an amazing feeling of intimacy shared between the characters and the audience that I had never seen before in a western. In the end, we all knew that Butch and Sundance would meet a tragic end, but oh what a ride they took us on.
Jim,” Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was an entertaining film but it was about as accurate as “Heaven’s Gate.” I researched the Wild Bunch for ten years before I wrote ESCAPE: A WYOMING HISTORICAL NOVEL. Sundance was not the happy-go-lucky guy portrayed on screen. He was surly and intelligent, but wasn’t Butch’s best friend until not long before Harry “Sundance” Longabaugh and Ella Place sailed to Argentina for the first time. He died in prison as Hiram McBeebe in the U.S., not in South America.
Butch’s best friend was actually William McGinnis, aka Elzy Lay, who was imprisoned for train robbery just before the turn of the century. Butch then “hired” the Sundance Kid to replace Elzy in the gang. Butch died in Spokane in 1937, according to his younger sister.
SHANE has to be on any list. In fact, it’s resting on my DVR right now, waiting for me to find a couple of uninterrupted hours in the right frame of mind.
Thanks for the tip on MONTE WALSH.
I guess I tend to like the grittier, more “modern” Westerns. (MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and BUTCH CASSIDY aside. I don;t care that’s inaccurate. It’s too much fun.) THE WILD BUNCH, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, UNFORGIVEN, LONESOME DOVE, and the TV show DEADWOOD top my list, if for no other reason than I feel like the older Westerns had everyone too damn well groomed and polite. There was a grittiness and danger on the frontier that movies subject to the Hayes Office had a had time capturing. Another reason why SHANE and HIGH NOON are so great. There about something, not just Westerns.
Thanks for picking STAGECOACH instead of THE SEARCHERS, which I think might be the most overrated movie of all time.
I loved The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance–John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart were wonderful in a western that emphasized character over plot, and an unexpected twist. Also True Grit–a feisty 14-year old hires drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster J. Cogburn (John Wayne) to track down the man who killed her father.
Guess I just loved John Wayne.
Dana, you’re a man after my own heart. I feel the same way about The Searchers, which somehow got into the pantheon of holy writ for all film school grads. It’s not that it’s bad, but I don’t find it nearly so compelling as people make it out to be. Many of the shots are beautifully framed, a Ford trademark. But on the whole, give me Stagecoach.
Jean, I recently watch the four hour, uncut Heaven’s Gate, just to see if it was the disaster everyone said it was. This was the director’s cut. And I came to this conclusion: It is the disaster everyone said it was.
Too bad, because it is stunningly photographed. The skating rink sequence, for example. But the script! The story! Not there.
Shane, Stage Coach, and High Noon would be on my list. But what about “Who Killed Liberty Valance”, “Face of a Fugative”, and “The Three Godfathers”.
Joe, yes, the screenplay by William Goldman was just right for the time.
And Kathryn, John Wayne looks so “right” on a horse. The only other one who comes close is Randolph Scott.
Can’t agree on Shane, but absolutely love Stagecoach. Watched it recently and have more admiration for it than ever. 🙂
Tamera, may I recommend the original Three Godfathers? 1936, with Chester Morris. Hard to find, but watch for it on TV. Superb.
Deanna, you’ll come around. Quality will out, and how can you argue with the Western Writers of America? Some of them may pack heat.
Hmmm . . . don’t see it coming about “Shane,” but I will give props to one you haven’t mentioned because, I suspect, it may be “too girly” for you. However, I just love John Wayne in “Angel and the Badman.”
Don’t forget LITTLE BIG MAN, CAT BALLOU, and BLAZING SADDLES. 🙂
Netflix doesn’t have the 1979 version of “Monte Walsh.” Or if they do, I can’t find it.
I’ve always loved “Once Upon a Time in the West.” The sound is terrible, but I love the characterizations of Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, and (especially) Henry Fonda as the villain.
Sorry that Netflix doesn’t have the early Monte Walsh. The Selleck version is worth seeing, but keep your eye out for the original showing up on TCM. You really can’t beat Marvin and Palance.
Joe, your mention of Blazing Saddles reminds me that the great Frankie Laine did the theme song, as he did for Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He’s the exception to the “bad theme song” rule.
See my UPDATE at the end of the original post, re: Monte Walsh!
Jim, you set the bar pretty high, my friend. The films you selected all fall into the larger catagory of Important Movies (except, perhaps for “Monte Walsh”, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’d never hear of before your post). These are films that in their own ways changed the course of films that followed.
I love “High Noon” and “Stagecoach”, but I have to part company on “Shane”. I remember loving it when I saw it as a kid, but it just does not hold up well. Alan Ladd is great in one of the few well-drawn roles of the movie. Jack Palance is terrific in a cardboard role. He proves that you can actually overdo the Bad Guy thing. And with all respect, I think Brandon de Wilde’s performance is one of the most cloying, cavity-inducing characterizations in film history.
TRUE GRIT, THE COWBOYS and THE SHOOTIST are my favorite John Wayne movies, but all for different reasons. THE SHOOTIST is particularly poignant, I think, not just because it’s Duke’s last film, but because it tells a story about the end of an era by chronicling the end of an era.
Have you ever seen FIRECREEK, with Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda? (And Inger Stevens and Gary Lockwood and Dean Jagger.) It’s a modern, low-budget take on the HIGH NOON theme, but with a lot of heart. It’s one of my favorites.
THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES is another favorite of mine. I love everything about it, from the writing to the acting. Chief Dan George is brillaint in a role that could have made him into a clown, but which he turns into something really special. (I could have done without the heap big pow-wow scene where Josie and the Indian chief speak 1970s politics, but, hey, perfection is tough to achieve.)
John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com
This comment has been removed by the author.
I like The Shootist as well. Duke and Jimmy Stewart, together.
Ahh, westerns. Takes me back to the pre-cable days of Saturday afternoon reruns.
The Cowboys definitely.
And while not really a western, Quigly Down Under. It was the same time period, and had Tom Selleck as a cowboy/gunman.
Also while not a western at all, the inspiration for Magnificent Seven, Seven Samurai is one of my all time favourites.
Back onto westerns…
Has anyone else ever seen the “Trinity” series? That spaghetti western spoof was one of the bright spots of my youth.
A forgotten yet excellent Western is DUEL AT DIABLO. James Garner plays a weary scout caught between his friends in the army, a woman married to a wretched man, and a group of Apaches he respects but must fight.
The scenes of the desert are beautiful and the acting is solid. And the movie has something to say about the collision between a stone age Apache culture and an industrial age American culture.
Thanks for all those new titles. I just thought of another one: Walter Hill’s The Long Riders, starring the Carradine and Keach bros.
There’s some great additions here, but I must add Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West.” A beautifully haunting film (and Henry Fonda’s turn as a truly mean bad guy.
And also “The Naked Spur” with Jimmy Stewart, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan and Janet Leigh. Stewart plays a bounty hunter whose prisoner (Ryan) begins pitting his captors against one another. A great exercise in psychology thats very rarely found in Westerns. Both of these are two of my favorites.
Kevin, good on ya for adding an Anthony Mann to the list. He deserves it.
While I love all the ones JSB mentions, I’d include Once Upon a Time in the West as one of my favorites. Henry Fonda as one of the most evil men ever (Henry Fonda!)and music that soars and is integral to the story. The “surprise” scene where we learn why someone is “after” Henry Fonda had me sitting in the theatre where I saw it in France with my hand to my mouth and tears streaming down my face.