The Western List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[Nothing]

My only previous Western list contained 40 films

Mmm, I'm struggling to make 50 too, being loathe to include films I don't really like (Boetticher westerns outside The Tall T, Mann-Stewart westerns outside The Far Country, Eastwood westerns outside The Outlaw Josey Wales, Ford cavalry pictures, etc) just to make up the numbers... Just ordered a second-hand copy of Open Range, and some Michael Winner titles, so must be desparate

Re: the protagonists of Days of Heaven being eastern city dwellers brought by circumstance to the west, this is quite a well-established western trope.

knives - Jason Statham? huh?

[Cold Bishop]

Certainly, but by the time we get to Malick, Texas is simply the south central, but not The West, and the protagonists are simply migrant workers, not pioneers.

[Yojimbo]

My only previous Western list contained 40 films

Mmm, I'm struggling to make 50 too, being loathe to include films I don't really like (Boetticher westerns outside The Tall T, Mann-Stewart westerns outside The Far Country, Eastwood westerns outside The Outlaw Josey Wales, Ford cavalry pictures, etc) just to make up the numbers... Just ordered a second-hand copy of Open Range, and some Michael Winner titles, so must be desparate

well, I haven't actually tried to make a larger list, it was only that 40 was the limit of the list I was contributing to.
But, since then I've seen 'Dead Man', 'Open Range', 'Seven Men From Now', 'The Tall T', 'Cowboy', 'The Assassination of Jesse James,...etc, etc', to name but 6, off the top of my head, so that guarantees I can easily make 46.
Somehow I don't think I'm that desperate that I'll be watching Michael Winner titles, though!
:-s

[Nothing]

The popularity of The Assassination of Jesse James (and, in particular, the comparison to Malick) is a mystery to me...

Are there any more decent Hawks westerns beyond Red River and the Rio Bravo trilogy?

[Yojimbo]

The popularity of The Assassination of Jesse James (and, in particular, the comparison to Malick) is a mystery to me...

Are there any more decent Hawks westerns beyond Red River and the Rio Bravo trilogy?

Well, if you asked the French they'd say 'The Big Sky', but that's a blindspot with me, and I'm a Hawks fan

[domino harvey]

I got that crazy French edition of the Big Sky director's cut that comes in a 10" record case and thought it was an interesting film, but not one in much danger of making my list

[domino harvey]

Also, and this is pure speculation, but I have a strong suspicion that this might be the first list project to not have a full hundred eligible films, as, speaking from my own list, I anticipate half if not more of my own selections being orphans, and I doubt I'm a special case. We'll see, of course, but this will be an interesting tallying process regardless

[Yojimbo]

Also, and this is pure speculation, but I have a strong suspicion that this might be the first list project to not have a full hundred eligible films, as, speaking from my own list, I anticipate half if not more of my own selections being orphans, and I doubt I'm a special case. We'll see, of course, but this will be an interesting tallying process regardless

to become eligible does it need to have two or more votes?

[domino harvey]

Yep

[zedz]

It wouldn't be the first, though. I think the first iteration (waaay back when) of the Silent Era list - and maybe the 30s too - didn' reach 100.

[domino harvey]

the Last Sunset (Robert Aldrich 1961) This tremendous western works in a series of constantly elevated plot machinations that ensure the pic starts with an intriguing premise and constantly piles more and more complications into the mix until it moves from a very good film to a great one. The more acclimated a viewer is to the mores and codes of classical studio-era Hollywood, the more shocking the eventual outcome of the film is. I went in knowing nothing, which is how you anyone should go in-- even knowing something shocking happens is in itself a spoiler, but one I have to risk. I can't emphasize enough, avoid Wikipedia, plot descriptions, my spoiler below etc if you're at all interested in this film. Reveal at your own peril:

Spoiler

The hint of incest is always very strong, but once Kirk Douglas actively pursues the romantic relationship with Carol Lynley, complete with full-on, on-screen makeout sesh, that possibility seems to fly out the window. Oh, it must merely be a sick kind of projection of Dorothy Malone's past image onto her present youthful incarnation, I thought. And then the film goes there. I roll my eyes when people describe moments in a film as "jaw-dropping" as much as the next person, but my mouth was literally agape at the film's revelation that Douglas has been necking (and almost surely more) with his actual blood daughter. Douglas' subsequent suicide is beyond tragic in its implications, and one final shock to the studio era system that produced this. I mean, holy shit.

Siege at Red River (Rudolph Mate 1954) Van Johnson plays a Southern soldier masquerading as a traveling medicine man (of course, because you gotta get the guy to sing somehow!) who attempts to smuggle a gatling gun across enemy lines. There's some fun North vs South head-buttings and I enjoyed the overall message that the only real villains in a Civil War piece are war profiteers who sell out both sides for personal profit. But the film could've been not just good but great had it not featured an entirely improbable last-minute change of heart act that sort of undermines the entire film. Richard Boone is occasionally very unnerving as the loathsome profiteer, and he has a good scene where he seduces a beautiful bar singer solely to dupe her into unknowingly delivering a coded message, then disposes of her as mere sexual object as soon as the deed is done (complete with "knock three times if you want me" booting)-- it's a fascinating couple minutes of a different movie.

Heller in Pink Tights (George Cukor 1960) I feared this would be a light-hearted camp romp with Cukor at the reins, but to my delight the end product is something closer to one of Bergman's "troupe of actors" tropes, transplanted onto the American West. Loren, who normally does nothing for me, is quite enchanting here as the constant flirt whose coquetry invariably lands her and her troupe in trouble. The film is ultimately more about the actions of actors than the west itself, but the setting is always butting into the beautiful artifice of the players-- when violence happens, it's brutal and quick, and all the more shocking for its intrusion. That said, I had to chuckle when some indians show up and even they too are stylish as hell!

[Yojimbo]

the Last Sunset (Robert Aldrich 1961) This tremendous western works in a series of constantly elevated plot machinations that ensure the pic starts with an intriguing premise and constantly piles more and more complications into the mix until it moves from a very good film to a great one. The more acclimated a viewer is to the mores and codes of classical studio-era Hollywood, the more shocking the eventual outcome of the film is. I went in knowing nothing, which is how you anyone should go in-- even knowing something shocking happens is in itself a spoiler, but one I have to risk. I can't emphasize enough, avoid Wikipedia, plot descriptions, my spoiler below etc if you're at all interested in this film. Reveal at your own peril:

I think I might have this one; I don't think I've watched it all the way through; with Aldrich, in the early 60's, it should at least be watchable

Heller in Pink Tights (George Cukor 1960) ........ That said, I had to chuckle when some indians show up and even they too are stylish as hell!

Clark Gable is probably rolling in his grave!

[domino harvey]

Anyone else feeling the crunch? I've got, no joke, about eighty westerns in the unwatched pile. I think all other projects gotta take a backseat to this one for the next month and a half!

[knives]

I've been leisurely about this (nonetheless increasing the number of westerns I've seen by about 50%) so I only have about ten or fifteen waiting in line.

[Yojimbo]

Anyone else feeling the crunch? I've got, no joke, about eighty westerns in the unwatched pile. I think all other projects gotta take a backseat to this one for the next month and a half!

are they all previously unwatched films, or are you re-watching films you haven't seen in years?

I've just watched 'Buchanan Rides Alone' which was a lot better than I'd remembered it to be, - will post in more detail at zedz' 'Boetticher' thread, buts its causing me to think I should re-watch some more long-unseen films, to see are they in need of a re-evaluation

[domino harvey]

Unwatched. Good lord, I can only imagine what a rewatch pile would look like!

[Yojimbo]

Unwatched. Good lord, I can only imagine what a rewatch pile would look like!

EIGHTY unwatched!!!!! :-s
I won't even be watching eighty, including re-watches, between now and poll closing.
At most it will be 50, but more than half of them will be rewatches, I suspect.
But since its probably over 30 years since I've seen any of the Trinity films, for example, I need to refresh my memory to see if I'm undervaluing any possible contenders

[domino harvey]

A Big Hand For the Little Lady (Fielder Cook 1966) Fielder Cook, a name that'd never entered my periphery before, delivers in a big way here-- in such a big way that I had to pause the film halfway through to look up his credits, because someone making a film this assured, I was sure I'd have crossed paths with him sooner. Unfortunately, it looks like most of his work was on the smaller screen. It's interesting that several of the interesting directors new to me in these genre projects got most of their employment in television work (Gerd Oswald, Felix E Feist). Even lazy direction couldn't have dinted the armor of the script's involving, mostly real-time poker game played with a wonderful collection of actors (Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward, Paul Ford, Kevin McCarthy, Charles Bickford, and Jason Robards!), but with Cook's intelligent blocking and set-ups, the movie is a total dream. Every actor plays up to their strengths, but Bickford (one of the unsung greats) turns in a real comic performance here as a misogynistic undertaker, and Robards is in total dick mode to great effect.

Spoiler

It's interesting that the film reminded me so much of David Mamet in the early passages, in that they both have in common the fascination with male braggadocio and emasculation as sparring tactic. How could I have foreseen that the film would indeed earn a much stronger David Mamet comparison with that insane twist ending?

the Outrage (Martin Ritt 1964) Well, I guess once you've made a film as good as Hud, you're allowed to dick around like this. This western remake of Rashomon is a pretty strange beast: Ritt's decided to go at this thing from a very European/New Wave arthouse approach. James Wong Howe's fulfillment of said approach, unfortunately, works less than it should. There were many times when the peculiar camera angle/movement choices distracted rather than liberated my viewing. It seemed to me that Howe was freed up to make some unusual choices, but wasn't very comfortable operating so far out of his comfort zone and the resultant effect is one of awkwardness. Paul Newman is better than I'd feared in one of his "let me pretend I'm not pretty" disappearing acts (see: Adventures of a Young Man), but still distracting. Speaking of, I could never decide which was more alienating, Claire Bloom's southern accent or her hair tracks.

Wanted to keep this Woodward/Newman 1-2 going but to my horror, the copy of Count Three and Pray TCM aired last week was P+S of a CinemaScope film. I even thought for like fifteen seconds that I might try to rough it out, only to be greeted by the P+S zoom and track of fuzzy figures walking across a bridge. Oh well, it would have been nice to see Woodward's debut, but I'd rather not just see half of it.

[knives]

Well it looks like Cook directed a version of Why the Cage Bird Sings that was shown to me in about four different classes when I was in elementary and middle. If I remember correctly it was really good if not great with a handful of improvements over the original text (and a handful of less thans).

[domino harvey]

And hey, he's in the Criterion Collection too

[Cold Bishop]

the Outrage (Martin Ritt 1964)

This was also the second Western Rashomon, and not the best. (See: Gerd Oswald's Valerie)

[zedz]

James Wong Howe's fulfillment of said approach, unfortunately, works less than it should. There were many times when the peculiar camera angle/movement choices distracted rather than liberated my viewing. It seemed to me that Howe was freed up to make some unusual choices, but wasn't very comfortable operating so far out of his comfort zone

Uh, surely you're not talking about this James Wong Howe?

Stuff I watched:

Seminole - I'm with domino on this one. Some halfway decent set pieces aside, this was pretty poor, and just about as racist as Dances with Wolves. So - any recommendations at all for non-Scott Boetticher westerns?

The Spikes Gang - Lee Marvin + Richard Fleischer seems like a promising enough equation, but, oh dear, this starts out like an adaptation of a Young Adult novel (three plucky teens run away and get up to mischief) or, worse, the pilot for an abandoned 70s TV show. Marvin is fine, however, and after an hour or so things take a more interesting turn. It helps that Arthur Hunnicutt drops in for a brief scene with Marvin that shows up the callow leads. There's also a very well-staged hold-up and chase, and the denouement is surprisingly dark, if rather too hurried, but the film never completely shakes off the kidult tone. The transfer on the R2 disc is very nice indeed.

[domino harvey]

James Wong Howe's fulfillment of said approach, unfortunately, works less than it should. There were many times when the peculiar camera angle/movement choices distracted rather than liberated my viewing. It seemed to me that Howe was freed up to make some unusual choices, but wasn't very comfortable operating so far out of his comfort zone

Uh, surely you're not talking about this James Wong Howe?

Indeed I am! He's experimenting, and more often than not, failing in this one, though. I'm well-accustomed to his normally stellar work, but he's just adrift (literally, at times) in the Outrage

[knives]

I just want to step in and give a second hurrah to Dom's new favorite, A Big Hand For the Little Lady. The direction's really subtle and shows Cook's television origins while at the same time has the talent to mix up the pacing and emotions with a single edit. Some of the best uses of closeups I've seen. The acting of course is great, but like previously said even if the film wasn't filled with great performers (and even the littlest roles have some great acting to them) the scipt is so dynamic and filled with such great personalities that even under worse care it would be entertaining.

The one thing I want to bring up that wasn't before is that the score is great. I don't usually notice scores and when I do I tend to hate them, but this one sets up the importance of the game in a way that no amount of exposition or Fonda flop sweat could while being so sparsely used you almost forget it exists when it comes back to bunch you in the face at just the right moment. If this doesn't become the list dark horse I'll be disappointed in you lot.

[Yojimbo]

I just want to step in and give a second hurrah to Dom's new favorite, A Big Hand For the Little Lady. The direction's really subtle and shows Cook's television origins while at the same time has the talent to mix up the pacing and emotions with a single edit. Some of the best uses of closeups I've seen. The acting of course is great, but like previously said even if the film wasn't filled with great performers (and even the littlest roles have some great acting to them) the scipt is so dynamic and filled with such great personalities that even under worse care it would be entertaining.

The one thing I want to bring up that wasn't before is that the score is great. I don't usually notice scores and when I do I tend to hate them, but this one sets up the importance of the game in a way that no amount of exposition or Fonda flop sweat could while being so sparsely used you almost forget it exists when it comes back to bunch you in the face at just the right moment. If this doesn't become the list dark horse I'll be disappointed in you lot.

I'm not sure I saw the entire film but I'm sure I must have at least glanced at parts of it, and that at least 20 years ago, but I don't like the look of that cast
It just screams Ac-TORSSSSSSSSSSS!