So You Want to Start Watching Westerns, an Introduction

So You Want to Start Watching _______is an occasional feature here at Riku Writes. It is a guide to anyone unfamiliar with a particular star, director, genre, or time period in films. After a brief introduction, I will provide a sampling of films to watch. Although I will always strive to include the best possible films for each chapter in the series, I will also look to present representative work. I'll say a little bit about each film, all of which will be provided in chronological order. This is the third of the series. In the first I provided an introduction to the films of Humphrey Bogart the second was an intro to screwball comedies and in the third I introduced films of the 1970s.

Howdy Pardner. Y'all new to this here genre? No need to saddle up or tote your shootin iron, just mosey on over to yer Netflix queue or rustle up a DVD from the local livery stable or saloon.

Westerns, as the following list will help prove, span the entire history of cinema. Like any other genre there are within it classics, stinkers and the utterly average. A Western is generally agreed to be a story set in the area that constitutes the present day U.S. Usually from west of the Appalachians to east of the Sierra Nevadas. Sometimes spilling south into Mexico and north into Canada. The time period depicted is usually between Lewis & Clark (1806) and the end of WWI (1918), though most are in the post Civil War pre 20th century period.

Because there are a seemingly infinite number of Westerns that have basic stories of good guys and bad guys that are plainly told, the Western has gotten a bad rap with many snooty types like yours truly. Except yours truly appreciates movies of all stripes so long as they're good -- and boy howdy they's some Westerns that are doozies.

Westerns make for good cinema in large part because a director can paint his story across a grand canvass. Most good Westerns embody some aspects of the great length and breadth that was the America West of bygone times. While the wildness of the wild west has been greatly exaggerated, there was a fair amount of colorful outlaws (colorful so long as you didn't cross their paths) and heroic figures. And the west really did feature all manner of what we call characters. Odd, quirky, "touched" and sadistic. There was also the added element of the Native tribes who, as you may well know, where there first. For the most part they were done dirty in Westerns for the first 70 or so years of films. Stereotypical "ugh" spouting savages were convenient villains and foils. There has been a corrective to that over the years and depicting Native tribes in a more sympathetic light has added dimension to their stories and thus to the genre. Truly, the West is a setting that practically begs for myth making.

I set myself the ridiculous challenge of coming up with a starter set of only ten. I failed. Here are 12 films to wet your appetite. This is not a compilation of the greatest Westerns ever made nor a list of my favorites. This is designed to give the novice a broad sample of what's out there. I've attempted to  spread the choices out to represent various time periods in film (over 100 years) with a variety of directors and stars. This meant the inclusion of only two John Ford films on the list. He was the grand master of the genre. John Wayne also makes only two appearances.

I list plenty of other choices at the conclusion of this writing.

The Great Train Robbery (1903). Why not start at the beginning with a western made when the west was still wild? It was innovative, influential but only 12 minutes long. Still a fun film, not to mention a relic from the past.

The Big Trail (1930). A fairly early talkie and a much neglected film that finally was masterfully restored on DVD three years ago. Raoul Walsh directed this epic story of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. It is replete with the requisite good guys, bad guys and romance. It was shot in wide screen well ahead of its time. This is a great Western to start with, containing, as it does, all the classic elements, including John Wayne.

Stagecoach (1939). The film that brought the Western back into fashion and helped revolutionize film making in the process. Orson Welles watched it repeatedly as he prepared to make a little film called Citizen Kane (1941). Ford masterfully contrasts the claustrophobic interiors of the stagecoach and other dwellings, with the wide open spaces.

The Westerner (1940). Yup, Even William Wyler directed a Western. Course it didn't hurt none that he had Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan in the cast, two old and future hands at Cow Poke stories. This is the best of the many cinematic tellings of the story of Jude Roy Bean, with Brennan playing the ole cuss.

Westward the Women (1951). Women as western heroes? Yup. From director William Wellman comes the story about a wagon train of women and one fella (Robert Taylor) making their way west to marry up with some lonely settlers. It's chock full of adventure and human drama. Also features fine performances from a relatively anonymous cast, Taylor aside. If you ain't a seen it, do so, pronto.

The Naked Spur (1953). James Stewart as you've never seen him before. Or rarely anyway. He's one tough, borderline mean hombre, pushed by desperation to extrememe measures. Robert Ryan is the real bad guy here (there's someone who could really play mean) and Stewart wants to bring him in for the reward. He just might get the scrumptious Janet Leigh as a boobie prize (watch it!)

The Searchers (1956). Is this the best Western ever made or is Stagecoach? I'll call it a toss up. John Ford directed both. This is a beautifully told story with many layers. And it includes Wayne's best performance. For more on this masterpiece, see this post of mine from two years ago.

Ride the High Country (1962). Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott were veterans of Westerns when they co-starred in this Sam Peckinpah directed film. It seems at first a rescue story (Mariette Hartley is the damsel in distress) but turns into a morality tale. Gorgeous scenery and two leads at the essentially finishing their careers playing men finishing their careers.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Will wonders never cease, Henry Fonda playing a low down dirty snake of a bad guy. In a spagehetti western no less. The director was Sergio Leone who was a master of the Pasta Oater. Fonda was an actor first and so had no trouble convincing audiences he was a rat. Charles Bronson is the hero.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971). Yes there's even a Western film with 1970's cinema sensibilities and it was directed by the iconclastic Robert Altman and starred, of all people, Warren Beatty. I told you that Westerns come in all shapes and sizes. Beatty is the McCabe of the title and the delicious Julie Christie is Mrs. Miller. At the very least its an intersesting Western and to many its superb film making.

Dances With Wolves (1990). If it hadn't gone an beaten out the vastly superior Goodfellas for the best picture Oscar, this sprawling Western from Kevin Costner wouldn't suffer the bad rap that plagues it today. It's got action, romance, wide vistas and the "Indians" as good guys. I unashamedly showed it as part of my US History curriculum for the zillion years I taught and the young us loved it. So did I.

True Grit (2010). Hokey smokes even the Coen Brothers made a Western.  And by gum they did a bang up job. It's a classic revenge story. Jeff Bridges is an ideal old west crumudgeon lawman and Haillee Steinfeld adds a twist as the super precocious teen seeking justice for Pa's murder. They didn't make Westerns like they used to it, until of all people, the Coens came along. Let's hope it brings the genre roaring back.

Lookey here for what other Westerns are worth a look or 12. Red River (1948), Shane (1953), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Wild Bunch (1969), Little Big Man (1970), The Iron Horse (1924), The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Man From Laramie (1955), The Ox Bow Incident (1943), My Darling Clementine (1946), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Dodge City (1939), Destry Rides Again (1939), Winchester 73 (1950),  Unforgiven (1992), High Noon (1952), Fort Apache (1948),The Long Riders (1980) and a bunch of others that I'm sure I'll catch hell for leavin' out.

In Honor of Today Being 10/10/10 I Offer 10 Lists of 10

The last time the date was 10/10/10 I did not have this film blog so this is the first such post I've ever done.  Yes when the calender last featured a trio of tens times were different indeed. The Kaiser ruled Germany, Babe Ruth had not yet debuted with the Red Sox and movies were still more than a decade from fully incorporating sound. The internet was in its infancy....But I digress.

Today I offer what I couldn't 100 years ago in recognition of the date. Ten film lists of ten films apiece. Please note that not all are in order and none are annotated.

Ten Great Films From Italy
1. Amarcord (1973)
2. 8/12 (1963)
3. Open City (1945)
4. Nights of Cabiria (1957)
5. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
6. Paisan (1946)
7. Umberto D. (1952)
8. Two Women (1960)
9. La Dolce Vita (1960)
10. La notti bianche (1957)

Ten Terrific Westerns
1. The Searchers (1956)
2. Stagecoach (1939)
3. Red River (1948)
4. The Wild Bunch (1969)
5. Westward the Women (1951)
6. Ride the High Country (1962)
7. The Naked Spur (1953)
8. The Big Trail (1930)
9. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1960)
10. The Westerner (1940)

Ten Movies That Crack Me Up
1. Animal House (1978)
2. Duck Soup (1933)
3. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
4. Stripes (1981)
5. Some Like it Hot (1959)
6. Trading Places (1983)
7. Safety Last (1923)
8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
9. Bananas (1971)
10. The Gold Rush (1925)

My Ten Favorite Hitchcock films
1. Vertigo (1958)
2. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
3. Shadow of a Doubt (1942)
4. Psycho (1960)
5. Strangers on a Train (1951)
6. The 39 Steps (1935)
7. Notorious (1946)
8. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
9. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
10. I Confess (1953)

Ten Films I Like a Lot That Have A Person's Name For the Title
1. Annie Hall (1977)
2. Rebecca (1940)
3. Barry Lyndon (1975)
4. Arthur (1981)
5. Ninochka (1939)
6. Ed Wood (1994)
7. Ali (2001)
8. Vera Drake (2004)
9. Milk (2008)
10. Mildred Pierce (1945)

Ten Best American Films From the First Half of the 1970s
1. The Godfather (1972)
2. Cabaret (1972)
3. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
4. The Exorcist (1973)
5. The Godfather Part II (1974)
6. The Sting (1973)
7. Mean Streets (1973)
8. The Last Picture Show (1971)
9. The Conversation (1974)
10. Little Big Man (1970)

Ten Fantastic French Films From the 1960s
1. Shoot the Piano Player (1960)
2. Le Samouri (1967)
3. Band of Outsiders (1964)
4. Jules et Jim (1962)
5. Breathless (1960)
6. Vivre Sa Vie (1962)
7. Army of Shadows (1969)
8. The Two of Us (1967)
9. The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)
10. The Fire Within (1963)

Ten Great Films Based on Actual Events
1. Goodfellas (1990)
2. Raging Bull (1980)
3. Schindler's List (1993)
4. The Great Escape (1963)
5. JFK (1991)
6. Zodiac (2007)
7. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
8. Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
9. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
10. The Social Network (2010)

Ten Movies With Trial Scenes
1. The Verdict (1982)
2. Inherit the Wind (1960)
3. Paths of Glory (1957)
4. Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
6. Midnight Mary (1933)
7. Philadelphia (1993)
8. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
9. Two Seconds (1932)
10. Amistad (1997)

Ten Films in Which People Watch a Film
1. Cinema Paradiso (1988)
2. Vivre Sa Vie (1962)
3. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
4. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
5. Shoe-Shine (1946)
6. The Last Picture Show (1971)
7. Gods & Monsters (1998)
8. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
9. The Aviator (2004)
10. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Can I Help You Find Something?

"A film is -- or should be -- more like music than fiction. It should be a progression of mood and feelings." -Stanley Kubrick.

By the dictates of narratives, a story, whether on paper or film, needs to have a certain basic structure. There must be characters at least some of whom should be fully drawn and three dimensional. There is generally a beginning in which a situation and one or more characters are introduced. There is usually a middle in which the story's central conflict is played out. And there is a climax in which a resolution is reached. But that is not the be all and and all of a story. As Kubrick suggests, how the story is told can reveal as much even more than plot points.

Kubrick's quote refers to some of the better films ever made, including a few of his own directorial efforts. Like lyrics to a beautiful song, a film's story line can serve as an accompaniment to a great film.

A really good director can take an ordinary story and make it into a compelling movie. Give him a ripping good yarn and you may have yourself a masterpiece. Like let's say, John Ford's The Searchers (1956).

I watched it yesterday and the degree to which it gets better with each viewing suggests that some day it will crack my top ten.

The Searchers is a multi layered story that explores such themes as racism, revenge and obsession. I once heard someone dismiss it as a 'western' which is like saying that The Godfather (1972) is a "gangster flick."

The visual style of The Searchers is a rather clear case of Ford at his best. Filmed in Vista Vision. To not watch it in wide screen would be like listening to The London Philharmonic on a transistor radio. The Searchers was filmed at Ford's home away from home, Monument Valley and it is utterly gorgeous. If they shot it on back lot it would have been a B picture. In The Searches scenery is story -- especially as it contrasts to Ford's trademark claustrophobic interiors.

John Wayne and the under appreciated Jeffrey Hunter are the two searchers. Other than playing some guy named Jesus in The King of Kings (1961), Hunter never had either a role in any way comparable. And other than The Longest Day (1962) was never in another particularly noteworthy film. It's a shame because he gives a solid performance. The surprise is Wayne who tended to saunter and bluff and gruff his way through most roles. His Ethan Edwards is uber macho but ultimately a vulnerable and redeemable bigot. Wayne gives Edwards equal parts ugliness and redemption.

Like most classics, The Searchers is chock full of wonderful supporting players. Ward Bond, who showed up in a couple dozen of America's best films, gives his best performance as Reverend Captain Samuel Johnston Clayton. Usually strong and silent, here he's strong and noisy as hell. Hank Worden is wonderfully eccentric as Mose Harper, the man who thanked people for telling him to shut up and just wanted a rocking chair out of life. John Qualen, another regular in some terrific films, is on hand along with Vera Miles, Olive Carey and of course, the object of the search, Natalie Wood. Wood improved any film she was in just by showing that lovely puss of hers.

The Searchers is wonderfully bookended by the opening and the closing of a door. In both instances the camera looks out the door from within the house onto John Wayne. Behind Wayne is that scenery. My God the whole movie is like that. Shot after shot that tells the story better than any words could.

The first time I watched the Searchers I wasn't all that impressed probably because I listened to it more than watched it. It was probably a full screen version that compresses and veritably blurs the picture. Now I've got one of those digitally remastered DVD versions that is sumptuous. Some day I hope to see it on the big screen (any theater owner want to screen it for me?).

The Indians in The Searchers are Comanches and are not depicted much better by Ford than any other Hollywood director ever did. They're murderous bastards (the truth of the matter is that there were Native Americans in previous centuries who would just a soon massacre you as look at you, then again, sometimes maybe whitey had it coming). But this time the whites are hardly any better, particularly the iconic Wayne. What a notion! Wayne's bigotry (or at least that of his character, Ethan Edwards) is right out there in plain sight and its not pretty nor meant to me. He'd kill a white woman in cold blood who'd been "ruined" by "laying with" a native. Even if she's his niece. This was in 1956 when movies in particular and American culture in general were many years away from acknowledging their racism.

While this story line is right out there in the open, there are subtleties and nuances to the film as well. Take for instance the relationship between Ethan and his sister-in-law. Those are pretty telling glances they exchange. And what's with all that money he's got, and just where the hell was he for the three years between the end of the Civil War and the start of our story?

Plenty of talking points and its all worth watching because of the manner, as Kubrick put it, the moods and feelings progress. I don't know if The Searchers influenced him but it did many other great directors from Scorsese to Spielberg.

I think I'll go watch it again.

No Escaping Politics, Not Even in a Classic Western

There is no escaping conservative gasbags railing about government meddling and high taxes.

I thought I was safe watching a John Ford film today. Safe from crybaby Republicans yammering about government regulations while secretly picking our pockets. No such luck.

Stagecoach (1939) is the story of nine very disparate characters riding on a stagecoach into the teeth of Geronimo's war party. You've got such characters as Dallas (Claire Trevor) the shamed prostitute booted out of town. Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell the shamed town drunk similarly asked to hit the road. The Ringo Kid (John Wayne) a fugitive from justice. Hatfield (John Carradine) the gentleman gambler. Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek) the mild mannered whiskey salesman returning to his family. And then there's Henry Gatewood (Berton Churchill) the bank president absconding with the payroll. If you guessed that the crooked businessman is our blustering reactionary, you win the Kewpie doll. (He's pictured above getting busted.)

My oh, oh my you should hear this self righteous, bloviating pompous swindler go on. He complains of taxes. He complains of government regulations. He insists on this and demands that. He looks down on drunks, whores, Indians and Mexicans and anyone else not up to his lofty standards. All the while there's a bag full of ill gotten loot sitting on his lap. Here are his own words:

I don't know what the government is coming to. Instead of protecting businessmen, it pokes its nose into business! Why, they're even talking now about having *bank* examiners. As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks! Why, at home I have a letter from a popinjay official saying they were going to inspect my books. I have a slogan that should be blazoned on every newspaper in this country: America for the Americans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking. Over one billion dollars a year! What this country needs is a businessman for president!

Sound like a certain political "philosophy"?

Director John Ford was known as a bit of a conservative himself but at a time when the right wing, as dead wrong as they were, gave respectable arguments for their positions not laced in hyperbole and hypocrisy. Ford often had corrupt characters such as Gatewood who got their comeuppance. Indeed the FDR years were not only unkind to practitioners of rapacious capitalists in business, the films of those years also made their ample girths a target. (Looks like I've set myself up for a future post, movies versus the super rich in the FDR years...coming soon?)

Despite the reminder of the government-loathing right wingers, I thoroughly enjoyed today's viewing of Stagecoach, one of my all time favorites films.

Ford's camera work during the indoor scenes is particularly noteworthy, especially how he contrasts those cramped scenes with the wide open paces of Monument Valley. The cast is exceptional, especially Mitchell and Trevor though I think George Bancroft as the Marshall gives an underrated performance. He is actual the strong center of the nine travelers. Not stained by scandal, not weak, not quirky. A man determined to do what's right, even if it means stretching the law. He's essential to the success of the film and Bancroft couldn't be better.

Look here, if you've never seen Stagecoach, you've got an assignment for the weekend. if you've enjoyed it, re-visit this extraordinary film. Just beware you may be reminded of those noxious conservative blowhards.

Riding the High Country With McCrea, Scott and Mariette Hartley (sigh!)

In June the AFI released its ten best films in ten various genres. The omissions were as numerous and obvious as fleas on white cat. One that particularly stuck in my craw was their top ten Westerns. Yesterday I enjoyed Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962) and was reminded that this classic did not make the AFI's list.

If you've never seen it, don't hesitate to rent it or catch it next time it's on TCM. Thank me later. If you have seen it you likely agree it belongs in any discussion of great Westerns. It has all the best elements of a good Western. Scenery, action, moral dilemmas, awful villains and complicated heroes. Ride the High Country boasts two great aging actors playing two aging relics of the old west, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. Mariette Hartley made her film debut as "the girl." Hartley would gain her greatest fame for the Polaroid commercials she did opposite James Garner. But she certainly deserved acclaim for her performance here. Not incidentally, the then 22 year old Hartley was absolutely gorgeous.

The requisite bad guys were as bad as they come with John Anderson, Warren Oates and L.Q Jones leading the way. Oates and Jones would appear numerous times for Peckinpah. A newcomer named Ron Starr was Heck Longtree the young buck with a lot to learn from McCrea and Scott, who fell for Hartley's Elsa Knudsen. Surprisingly Starr had a very brief career. He was far and away the second most famous R. Starr of the early 1960's.

McCrea played Steve Judd an old lawman hired by a bank for the seemingly impossible task of delivering gold from a mining camp through country riddled with outlaws. He hires an old compadre, Gill Westrum (Scott) and his young protege Longtree to help him. Westrum and Longtree have other ideas for the gold. Along the way they come across Ms. Knudsen and her Holy Roller father. Elsie desperately wants to escape her father's farm and his repressive ways, especially since she has a beau at the mining camp. Off go the four with their different goals. Once they arrive at the camp, further complications ensue.

This was only Peckinpah's second feature film. The film's violence lacks the spurts of blood that would be a trademark but it is harsh and real nonetheless The villains are appropriately menacing and just as ugly mean as rattlers.

Ride the High Country works on a number of levels. Perhaps most of all as a morality tale. But it is also about the ending of an era. When McCrea rides into town at the beginning for the film people are lining the streets in great excitement, he doffs his camp in appreciation. However a cop shoos him away, the people are there to watch a race between a camel and two horses. There are also those new fangled horseless carriages about. It's a great beginning to a great film.

Also look for a fine performances by Edgar Buchannan (uncle Joe on Petticoat junction) as a drunken justice of the peace, Byron Foulger as the bank president and Jenie Jackson whose performance as a madam cannot be topped.

Oh and here's a baker's dozen of the best Westerns I've ever seen.

The Wild Bunch (1969) Peckinpah
The Searchers (1958) Ford
Stagecoach (1939) Ford
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Hill
Dances With Wolves (1990) Costner
The Big Trail (1930) Walsh
Westward the Women (1951) Wellman
Ride the High Country (1962) Peckinpah
My Darling Clementine (1946) Ford
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Ford
Little Big Man (1970) Penn
The Naked Spur (1953) Mann
The Westerner (1940) Wyler

On the Road With the Naked Spur

One of the most successful formulas for film is to have a disparate group of characters on a journey. If their trip is fraught with peril, and the travelers have conflicting agendas, all the better. This has worked wonderfully in such classic films as Stagecoach and Shanghai Express, earlier discussed on this blog. It also worked in Anthony Mann's Western, The Naked Spur (1953).

This journey is made up of:
A court marshaled reprobate officer played by Ralph Meeker;
A wise but luckless old prospector played by Millard Mitchell;
A tempestuous young beauty played by Janet Leigh (who better?);
A sociopathic killer played by Robert Ryan;
An honest but troubled farmer played magnificently by Jimmy Stewart.

Calling The Naked Spur a Western is like saying Casablanca is war picture. It is a taught psychological drama with compelling, nuanced characters. To write The Naked Spur off as a Western is to a trivialize a film of unique depth and complexity.

Stewart roams far from his home Abeline, Kansas to capture a wanted murderer in order to collect reward money. (Why he needs the money should not be revealed in advance of viewing it).

Ryan often played very convincing villains (see Clash By Night) but never better than here. He is Stewart's prey and the fact that he is captured early in the film does nothing to lessen his menace. The prospector and disgraced soldier get in on the capture and want in the reward. Leigh is Ryan's girl but her loyalty to him has its boundaries; ones that are tested by Stewart.

Jimmy Stewart's love in The Naked Spur resembles the desperate, passion of Vertigo. It is as unsentimental as the movie's violence and action. Indeed, the fight scenes in The Naked Spur are not the burlesque barroom brawl variety of traditional Westerns. These fights are clutching, grabbing kicking affairs with palpable anger.

As played by Stewart, Howard Kemp could have it no other way. This is a scarred human being who believes his redemption lies in a $5,000 reward and will go to any lengths to get it.

Ryan's Ben Vandergroat, so diabolical a fiend, presents a truly troubling challenge. Mitchell's Jesse Tate and Meeker (who in my mind left film for TV prematurely) as Roy Anderson serve both as impediments and allies. But Lina Patch as portrayed by Leigh is the real wild card. Leigh gave depth to a character who could have been shrill and transparent.

The Naked Spur is unpredictable. The beauty of the journey movie is that its cast of character are liable to take it in various directions. But more importantly, it is the journey and not the destination that make it an exceptional film.

The Naked Spur is such an exceptional film.

In technicolor and now on DVD.

No Country For Nice Men

On the plus side: Jimmy Stewart stars, Anthony Mann directs, it's shot in Cinemascope. On the minus side: plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Final score, a seven out of ten. A few lousy plot holes are not enough to trip up The Man From Laramie (1955), the sixth and final Mann-Stewart collaboration. Though not on a par with their fine work in The Naked Spur, this is a fine film, benefitting from wondrous wide angle looks at the rugged countryside of New Mexico.

A good cast was along for the ride featuring the ubiquitous Donald Crisp, Arthur Kennedy, Wallace Ford and Aline MacMahon. (Ms. MacMahon is most familiar to me for films made 20 year previous, notably Gold Diggers of 1933 and Heroes For Sale.)  Here she's about as far out of the hard knock city life as you can get, being a ranch owner in 19th century New Mexico.

As in many of his Westerns, Stewart is not the affable bloke we're more familiar with from such films as Harvey, You Can't Take it With You or The Shop Around the Corner. No, this Stewart is a tough hombre with a dark past. Though he'll not hesitate to use a gun, Stewart, as always, remains on the right side of the law.

The Man form Laramie is unflinching in its look at the men of the Old West and the means by which they survived and prospered. Treachery, murder and vengeance trump civility, legalities and negotiation. Love is hard won, not given freely, but can be returned quickly and easily. The land is just as precious and just as fickle. 

Stewart portrays a man looking for a mix of justice and vengeance who'll not be bought nor forced to back down. Stewart played such characters as convincingly as anyone in Hollywood. Mann's direction is as always good and his use of the landscape as a central theme to a the story evokes John Ford. Besides black hat wearing bad guys, there are those darn "Injuns," too. This time:  Apaches, a favorite whipping boy of Hollywood.

There are incidents in the movie that don't make sense, characters whose motivations and actions are left unexplained, and one character who's ultimately left unaccounted for. But the central themes and the manner the story is told more than make up for these defects.

The Man From Laramie is what you’d expect from Mann and Stewart, a darn good Western.

Visiting Shinbone

Meet some of my old friends: Dutton Peabody, Cassisus Starbuckle, Link Appleyard, Doc Willoughby, Pompey, Ransom Stoddard and Tom Doniphon. I like to hang out with them for a couple of hours every so often. They all live in a movie called The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. Mr. Valance is there too but doesn't make for such good company.
This 1962 John Ford film is peopled with colorful characters, all given free reign by the director to emote, evoke and elucidate. It's a damn entertaining story with themes aplenty ranging from the civilizing of the old west to the preeminence of legend in Americana. In the person of the title character there was one of cinema's most starkly drawn villains. You'll find no nuance to Lee Marvin's performance, he is pure black-hat-wearing bad guy and audiences just can't wait for the varmint to be shot deader than a mackerel.
There is far more subtlety and ambiguity to, of all people, John Wayne's performance as Doniphon. He's a wise cracking good guy who believes that justice should be administered from the barrel of a gun and never mind your fancy law books, pilgrim. He's also a man in love whose heart is easily broken. Clearly Doniphon wants to believe in the better angels of our nature but knows to believe in his rifle. Jimmy Stewart as Stoddard is the story's sane and sober centerpiece he bookends the movie as a highly respected politician most recently of the US Senate but at its core is an idealistic young lawyer trying to introduce -- more like force -- civilization into the west.
Edmund O'Brien who played a lot of lot drab middle aged white men in his time, is a revelation as the editor of Shinbone Star (what a great name for a newspaper!) and a grandiloquent drunk (O'Brien was similarly wonderful seven years later in The Wild Bunch). Drunk too is the town doctor, Doc Willoughby regally realized by Ken Murray. Andy Devine is the cowardly marshall, Link Appleyard (what a great name for a law man!). The cast also includes Denver Pyle, Strother Martin, Lee Van Clef, John Qualen, the lovely Vera Miles and Woody Storde as Pompey. Strode was a fine actor as evidenced in this film and as the heroic but doomed gladiator in Spartacus. Yes it is an amazing cast and it proves there are are no small parts only small actors.
What's it about? If you have to ask you need to rent this fine film soonest and enjoy!
I had the pleasure of spending two hours with this amazing group of people out in Shinbone today. As always I enjoyed it very much. I appreciate the story they have to tell, the morals to be learned from them, the history of the old west they relate but mostly just being around them is a delight (except for that bastard Valance -- hate him). I thank John Ford for bringing them together. I already look forward to my next visit.

The Five W's

Director William Wellman's Westward the Women is wonderful.
According to TCM host Robert Osborne this film has been called the best example in a Hollywood production of "overt sisterhood." It concerns 140 women being taken west to California by wagon train in the early 1850s to serve as wives for the all male residents of a recently settled valley. Such goings on did go on in the old west and Westward the Women does a remarkable job of imaging such a journey.
The leader of the wagon train is played by Robert Taylor, perhaps Hollywood's prototypical handsome leading men of filmdom's golden age. Here he exercises his acting chops a bit more than usual and comes through with flying colors. He is as a hard-bitten, tough and unflinching as much of the land that must be traversed. It is a relatively anonymous group playing the women but they are nonetheless an exemplary ensemble cast.
Though director Wellman was nearing the end of his great career with this 1951 film, Westward the Women belongs on any list of his best films. There is here, as with many great westerns, a wonderful melding of character study set against the backdrop of a harsh conditions and hostile natives. Of course in this case we have the novelty of women, lots of them. This truly must be the feminists' dream. Strong, independent women, as tough as any man, banding together successfully. Sisterhood is powerful and it's a shame American films haven't explored that theme enough.
As a bonus attraction there is a Japanese character, played by Henry Nakamura, where one was not necessarily called for. While Nakamura is in the sidekick role, he is not presented as an unflattering stereotype.
Westward the Women is not only one of Wellman's best but ranks among the best westerns ever made.

What a trip

I start with a confession: Until a few days ago I'd never heard of a movie called The Big Trail. Today I'm about ready to rank it among my all time favorites.
This hidden gem was only recently released on DVD. The Big Trail, directed by Raoul Walsh, was released in 1930 and promptly flopped at the box office.
The movie follows a mid 19th century wagon train heading west from Missouri. An impossibly young looking John Wayne is the head scout in his first starring role. The journey is peopled by a disparate group of settlers who add to the requisite color of great westerns. But the real star of this movie is the scenery. The Big Trail is vast in scope. Great horizons, majestic vistas, forbidding deserts, regal snow capped mountains and seemingly endless prairies. The Big Trail is simply gorgeous.
But how could such a film be made in 1930 so many years before even Vista Vision?
With the ill-fated grandeur process, that's how. ( Don't worry, I hadn't heard of it either.) The Big Trail was shot simultaneously in the standard 35mm of the time and a 70mm that is the equal of today's high definition process. Grandeur was ultimately the victim of the Great Depression as theaters couldn't afford to convert their projectors and projection rooms to suit the grandeur technology. What a shame.
As one of the talking heads on the DVD's making of featurette said, The Big Trail seems every bit as much a documentary as it does a rollicking tale of fiction. Indeed, the cast and crew lived the conditions they filmed in numerous locales covering seven different states. I've never seen a Western that seemed so authentic. Some movies make you feel as if you've been transported to a time and place, none more so than the Big Trail. Each shot tells numerous stories. The characters and their struggles, tragedies and triumphs, the animals, the wagons and mother nature.
I honestly didn't follow much of the story line with my first viewing, I just enjoyed the ride. Ands I'm quite certain I enjoyed it a darn sight better than people who actually embarked on such trips, whether to fulfill this country's Manifest Destiny, or to make a movie about it.
Now, I wonder what else is out there that I still haven't heard of.

A rollicking good time

It's not in my top 100 movies of all time but in some ways "Little Big Man" (directed by Arthur Penn, 1970) creates the ultimate film experience. You want drama? Check. How about pathos? Check. Care for a little humor? Check. Like epics? Check. Want history? Check. Brilliant acting interest you? Check. I could go on.
I remember seeing "Little Big Man" in a theater when it debuted when I was a teen and I was blown away. What a life for a young man-to-be to contemplate. The imagination of an all ready imaginative young man was enthralled. Today my middle age imagination is still taken in by "Little Big Man."
How to capsulize such a story? Not easy but here goes: All family but a sister wiped out by hostile Indians, taken in by Cheyenne to, in the main character Jack Crabb's words, not just play Indian but to be an Indian. Only to be subsequently taken back into white society after "rescue" in battle. Then to be given a bath by Faye Dunaway. (Mmmmmm.) From there to be a swindler, gun fighter, family man, mule skinner, Indian again and one with a family at that. Having the "chore" of making love to your wife's three young widowed sisters....Then tragedy at the hands of General Custer. THE Custer!
With dignity and life's meaning seemingly gone to be a gutter drunk. Dickensian re-encounters with earlier characters and all this against the backdrop of the Wild West. Then to be at Little Big Horn...
"Little Big Man" is by no means a perfect film but it is a perfectly wonderful way to tickle one's interest in U.S. History and have a rollicking good time. Hoffman is superb in the title role making the character at once an everyman and larger than life. Viewers can both relate to Crabb and wonder at his incredible life (as can readers of the marvelous book of the same name and its sequel).
What a lot of fun.