the Texas Rangers (King Vidor 1936) As genial a western as I can recall, with grinning Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie turning good as they face off against their old partner, the always enjoyable Lloyd Nolan. This film has no auspices to be anything higher than entertainment, and on that level it succeeds wonderfully. Is this a great film? Nope. But it's greater than many so-called great ones. Such as
Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur 1946) I know for a fact that there are people on this very board and elsewhere who consider this one of the greatest westerns ever made. Had I not known that going in, I would never have guessed any such reaction while watching. This is a competently crafted film, with a couple briefly interesting moral queries, but it wasn't even the best film on the disc it shared with the previous bit of western marshmallow.
Kansas Raiders (Ray Enright 1950) An interesting take on the James Gang as filtered through their experience with Quantrill's Raiders. Tony Curtis is about the last name I think of when I think of Westerns, but Brian Donlevy is quite suited to the stiff villainy of the counterfeit commander.
the Lawless Breed (Raoul Walsh 1952) An epic tale told compactly and smartly by Walsh. Rock Hudson plays to his strengths, as per usual, but I think character actor John McIntire shines the brightest with his dual roles as John Wesley Hardin's father and uncle. Julie Adams makes a good stand-up gal too. Wrongfully accused films like this have an innate narrative worth for me, as these kind of movies just wind the viewer up and up with the injustice, and we keep watching for that release. Somewhat perversely, the catharsis here is so half-hearted and meek that the film continues its interest far after it ends by virtue of its continued injustices being played out in memory. This is, as far as I'm concerned, the only "classic" in Universal's Classic Westerns Box.
the New World (Terrence Malick 2005/8) While I'm still not 100% sold on Malick's general approach, this extended cut is to my eyes his best film yet by a country mile (have not yet seen
Tree of Life, so we'll see). I have some slight qualms about Malick's reduction of the indians to quasi-infantalism, but I can forgive this because I believe Malick's approach is one borne of naivete, not superiority. Indeed, said childlike naivete serves his heroine well, and her performance is ideally suited to the film and the role. If I'm not mistaken, is the name "Pocahontas" even mentioned in the film? I think too "indian" was only said once, in what sounded like an ad-lib by a child actor. I suppose some sticklers will argue that this one doesn't belong in a Westerns list, but isn't the story of the Virginia Colony literally one of the first tales of western expansion in America and its effects on the natives, the settlers, &c? It's got my vote.
Shalako (Edward Dmytryk 1968) Here's a great practical example of how something can sound great when pitched and utterly fail on delivery. A group of European bourgeoisie have gathered together on an Indian reservation under the protection of a US Senator to track and hunt big game. Only the senator didn't give much mind to the fact that they'd be breaking a treaty with the Apaches. Think about the possibilities, as these effete animal hunters must hunt the most dangerous animal, break out of their social barriers, and fend for their lives against insurmountable odds.
I want to see that movie!
But instead I saw this, a lousy Euro production starring Sean Connery as the ex-army knowitall that tries telling a bunch of Euro fops that their plan to just shoot at any savages who dare to interrupt their fun is pretty dumb. Speaking of dumb, every victim in this film operates under such childish arrogance that it's hard to muster up any energy in caring what happens to their little hunting party. The film also stumbles with its heavy-handed Marxist commentary-- one particularly tasteless example being the rich trophy wife who runs off with a gunslinger for protection, only to be raped by a band of indians, who end their fun by causing her to fellate her precious diamond jewelry until she suffocates. "Great." Brigitte Bardot's presence here, a few years past her sell-by-date, doesn't help anything.
Arrowhead (Charles Marquis Warren 1953) While watching this film, it occurred to me that despite the spate of colorful heavies I've seen in so many westerns lately, it's been a really long time since I've actually been unsettled by an onscreen villain. So I welcomed the sensation as I watched Jack Palance, an actor I have nearly as many qualms about as star Charlton Heston, walk away with one of the most unnerving and threatening villains in not only all of westerns, but cinema. I think one reason his portrayal of the diabolical indian Toriano hits so strongly is that while westerns will on very rare occasions (and usually in liberal westerns, which this is
definitely not-- but hold that thought) offer up a colored-in indian character, rarely are the villainous indians allowed to be anything more than just Evil Redmen. But here is a wholly disturbing character, a young Apache once-friendly with whites who arrives back from indian college looking every bit like Death himself, Palance's skeletal features jutting out to threaten all who look upon him. As his character positions himself among his people as a prophesied undefeatable leader destined to lead the Apaches, there's a growing sense of dread that is compounded by the remarkably negative tone of this film. The only other western that comes close in terms of almost unbearable bleakness of message is
Man of the West, though this earlier film cannot resist a "happy" ending, if you can call it that after all that happens.
A central crux of the film, and one that can't be discussed without spoiling key plot points, is the very brutal political message at the core of the film.
Here is a strongly anti-Communist film that actually manages to convince rather than elicit light mocking and chiding. Heston's character is, and I'm sure many here will automatically relate, a total asshole that the film refuses to make the least bit likable. Indeed, his very brusqueness against all in his path, and his unrelenting negativity towards all indians and indian sympathizers seems like a set-up for a rebuttal that never comes. Heston is convinced that all the "friendly" indians, such as Katy Jurado's sweet washerwoman and the Apache scout, are really dormant traitors lying in wait to strike against the good of the whites-- and in a truly horrifying series of events, he is proven correct. This is a nightmare come to life and this film makes real the Red Scare and how it could effect otherwise rational people better than any other film I've seen. And thus Heston's dickishness becomes analogous to Joseph McCarthy-- sure, the film argues, he may be unpleasant and unlikable, but that doesn't mean he isn't right!
A chilling ideology, for sure, but surprisingly effective in cinematic terms. This film is a key discovery from this project, and one that deserves to be reevaluated by all.
Man in the Saddle (Andre de Toth 1951) A lightweight Randolph Scott film that keeps hinting at darker possibilities that someone like Mann could have really done wonders with. Scott's rival, a fussy egotist who refuses to share anything with anyone, and youbettabelieve that means his wife's affections, could have been more than a one-dimensional plot necessity, but alas he isn't given much to do beyond the necessary.
the Stranger Wore a Gun (Andre de Toth 1953) Slightly better Scott/de Toth pairing, with Scott fleeing his mistaken participation in Quantrill's Raiders, the folly of which starts the film off with an appropriately morbid note. The plot mechanics of this one are pretty creaky as it struggles to stretch itself out to a-feature length (Hey, let's add
another stagecoach heist!), but it's not without its pleasures: the pic was originally filmed for 3-D, so we get great sights like a marauder throwing a torch at the screen, or Ernest Borgnine aiming his gun directly at the audience. Silly, sure, but it's something.