The Good, The Bad, and The Official Western Thread

[C. Lee]

Today I watched -

GUN FURY (1954) starring Rock Hudson, Donna Reed, Philip Carey, Leo Gordon, Lee Marvin, Neville Brand, and Roberta Haynes.

A stagecoach is held up, girl dragged off by the outlaws, her fiancée goes after them. Sounds like, and basically is, a standard "seen it before" plot....except for some nice casting against type choices made by the film makers.

If you watch a lot of old westerns (and movies in general) actor Philip Carey was mostly cast as the hero. Here he is the double crossing, his own men killing, evil designs on the innocent women he meets, outlaw. Actor Leo Gordon played that part in 99% of the movies he made....so when in this he is the guy who saves Reed from being raped by Carey and gets thrown out of the gang (tied up in the desert and left to die) because he doesn't want the girl to come to any harm, I was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected turn of events. Hudson who was knocked unconscious during the holdup, finds Gordon tied up, they join forces to hunt down Carey's gang and save the girl. Like I said....plot is nothing new, just nice to see some actors playing roles you don't expect.

 

[Thundarr]

Some of my favorites:

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

High Plains Drifter is such a damned great movie. You could see it as though Clint had taken the lessons he learned from both Seigel and Leone and had combined them.

 

[Assassin32]

I watched Martin Ritt's Hombre (1967) last week and was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful a film it is.

Coincidentally, I had just finished reading Elmore Leonard's Valdez Is Coming the day before. Now I'll keep an eye out for that film adaptation on Encore's western channel, too, though I don't expect it to live up to Hombre.

 

[signalman]

Today I watched -

GUN FURY (1954) starring Rock Hudson, Donna Reed, Philip Carey, Leo Gordon, Lee Marvin, Neville Brand, and Roberta Haynes.

A stagecoach is held up, girl dragged off by the outlaws, her fiancée goes after them. Sounds like, and basically is, a standard "seen it before" plot....except for some nice casting against type choices made by the film makers.

If you watch a lot of old westerns (and movies in general) actor Philip Carey was mostly cast as the hero. Here he is the double crossing, his own men killing, evil designs on the innocent women he meets, outlaw. Actor Leo Gordon played that part in 99% of the movies he made....so when in this he is the guy who saves Reed from being raped by Carey and gets thrown out of the gang (tied up in the desert and left to die) because he doesn't want the girl to come to any harm, I was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected turn of events. Hudson who was knocked unconscious during the holdup, finds Gordon tied up, they join forces to hunt down Carey's gang and save the girl. Like I said....plot is nothing new, just nice to see some actors playing roles you don't expect.

GUN FURY was a nice little movie.
I also recently saw Donna Reed with Dana Andrews in "Three Hours to Kill".
Andrews is accused of killing Reed's brother. He is almost hanged but escapes and returns 3-4 years later to seek out the real killer while the town shuns him.
Carolyn Jones has a small part.
and western staples Whit Bissle and James Westerfield are in the supporting cast.
All the other actors well mostly unknown to me.

Other little talk about westerns that I like:
Day of the Outlaw with Robert Ryan and Burl Ives.
The Good Guys and The Bad Guys with Robert Mitchum and George Kennedy.
The Law and Jake Wade with Robert Taylor and Richard Widmark.

 

[Loki882]

I've always been rather fond of The Ox-Bow Incident.

Also, I recently rewatched The Shootist. How fitting that John Wayne's last film would be one of his best, imo.

 

[Thundarr]

These two are a lot of fun, both funny and action packed.

 

[StarLord]

Watched The Salvation last night, which stars Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jonathan Pryce and ... Eric Cantona of all people.

Digital looks horrible in western movies, I'll say that. This looked like some funky Sin City type deal and it didn't work, especially the night scenes. It's VERY European. Mikkelsen is a star. Eva Green's character was a mute - no lines at all. I'd give it a 6/10.

 

[C. Lee]

Today I watched -

AN EYE FOR AN EYE (1966) starring Robert Lansing, Pat Wayne, Slim Pickens, Gloria Talbot, Paul Fix, Clint Howard, and Strother Martin.

Ex bounty hunter Talion (Lansing) lives on a ranch with his wife and son. One day while he is away hunting, outlaw Ike Slant (Pickens) and the Beeson brothers show up, kill his wife and son, and burn down his cabin. Talion sets out tracking them and meets young bounty hunter Benny Wallace (Wayne)....they decide to team up in the hunt for Slant and the Beesons. They follow their tracks to a dusty small town where kindly Brian Quince (Fix) is everything from the Justice of the Peace to storekeeper. They also meet Quince's 30 something daughter (Talbot) and 7 year old son (Howard). The next day they follow the trail out of town and find the outlaws. After a shootout, the Beesons are dead, Slant is wounded and on the run, Wallace is blind, and Talion has his gun hand shot up and useless. Talion and Wallace decide to continue hunting for Slant and start practicing with blind Wallace acting like he is the center of a clock shooting at the numbers that Talion calls out. Sleazebag cowboy Trumball (Martin) tells Slant of their wounds. [BLACKOUT]They meet Slant in the street in town, and kill Slant with their system....but Wallace is shot in the back and killed by Trumball who is killed by Talion. Talion then rides off into the sunset.[/BLACKOUT]

This is an average film with good and bad points. Good.....beautiful scenery. Shot in vibrant color in the high mountain deserts of California. Fine acting by Lansing and great perennial western actors Slim Pickens, Paul Fix, and Strother Martin. Bad....some of the story situations (within a week of his wife and son being murdered and him swearing revenge for it, Talion meets Bri Quince, falls in love and is kissing on her) or useless subplot of Wallace really being Pat Garrett Junior, who has ran off to become a bounty hunter because he doesn't like how little money his dad makes as a sheriff. Besides that plot being useless....the history is screwed up. The movie looks like it is set in the late 1880's....and Pat Garrett Junior wasn't born until 1896.

Robert Lansing was a well known character actor, He had previously starred in the TV series 12 O'CLOCK HIGH and 87th PRECINCT....would later co star in KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES.

This was the final film of Gloria Talbot (she starred in many western movies and TV series, several cult sci fi movies - DAUGHTER OF DR. JECKYLL, I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, and THE LEECH WOMAN and my personal favorite movie of hers WE'RE NO ANGELS with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, and Basil Rathbone).

Pat Wayne is the son of John Wayne. He co starred in many of his dad's movies and many other westerns. He also played Sinbad in Ray Harryhausen's SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER.

The movie was co written by actor Bing Russell who is the father of Kurt Russell.

 

[C. Lee]

Tonight I watched for the umpteenth time -

ULZANA'S RAID (1972)

Starring Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison, Jorge Luke, Richard Jaeckel and Joaquín Martinez.

Around the 1880s in Arizona.....Apache warrior Ulzana (Joaquín Martinez; Jeremiah Johnson, Joe Kidd) leads a group of other Apaches off of the reservation to (as one person puts it) kill, rape, steal, and destroy as many things as he can. Newly commissioned and new to the west Lt. Garnett DeBuin (Davison; XMen, XMen 2) is given command of a group of cavalrymen to bring him back in. Lead scout McIntosh (Lancaster; Valdez is Coming, Gunfight at the OK Corral) his Apache partner Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke; The Return of the Man Called Horse, Salvador) and the stalwart sergeant (Jaeckel) are among the troopers on the mission.

What follows is an R rated adventure that pulls few punches, The Apache's attack, kill, torture, rape, and burn their way across Arizona. Lt. Garnett, who starts off as a soft spoken Christian who believes that a lack of heartfelt dialogue between the whites and Apaches is the cause of any problems with them, slowly unravels as he sees one atrocity after another being done to the people he is there to protect. A cat and mouse game between Ulzana and McIntosh across the desert ensues. This movie is rough and raw, has intense action, and is a thoughtful commentary on guerilla warfare against an indigenous enemy.

 

[C. Lee]

Today I watched -

THE DARK VALLEY (2014)

Starring Sam Riley, Paula Beer, Tobias Moretti, and Thomas Schubert.

This is a German western....as in, it takes place in a remote part of Germany in the mountains...but it could have just as easily been in the mountains 0f California or Oregon. Except for them making mention of Germany and how one person had lived in America, it could have been late 1880's American west. This is a revenge story. A small village in a remote valley in the mountains is domineered by a cruel corrupt family. They lord it over the poor people who eke out a living there, even down to taking any new brides to their beds on the wedding night to prove who is boss. This comes back to haunt them 20 some years later when the son of a family they screwed over and got away comes back to get even. The movie is slow at first, but builds in suspense and action to a nice mountaintop shootout in the snow.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Today I watched -

THE DARK VALLEY (2014)

Starring Sam Riley, Paula Beer, Tobias Moretti, and Thomas Schubert.

This is a German western....as in, it takes place in a remote part of Germany in the mountains...but it could have just as easily been in the mountains 0f California or Oregon. Except for them making mention of Germany and how one person had lived in America, it could have been late 1880's American west. This is a revenge story. A small village in a remote valley in the mountains is domineered by a cruel corrupt family. They lord it over the poor people who eke out a living there, even down to taking any new brides to their beds on the wedding night to prove who is boss. This comes back to haunt them 20 some years later when the son of a family they screwed over and got away comes back to get even. The movie is slow at first, but builds in suspense and action to a nice mountaintop shootout in the snow.

You welcome.

On a third watch for me, I now really like the soundtrack.

I also rewatched the original Django. So great. Sergio Corbucci was mostly known as the ''other Sergio'' in Italy, but he did his own to stand up there with Sergio Leone, he was just a notch lower but still pretty damn great in his own right.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Slow West

I rewatched it again and it became one of my favorites of the year. This is a truly dark charming western. I don't know how else to describe it. It left me longing to see Fassbender in another western.

I liked it so much a second time that I will buy the bluray.

 

[C. Lee]

Yesterday I watched -

THE GLORY GUYS (1965)

Directed by Arnold Laven and Sam Peckinpah
Written by Hoffman Birney and Sam Peckinpah

Starring Tom Tryon, Harve Presnell, Senta Berger, James Caan, Andrew Duggan, Slim Pickens, and Michael Anderson Jr.

A cavalry story using Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn under different names as a backdrop with a love triangle thrown in for good measure. Captain Harrod (Tom Tryon) and Army scout Sol Rogers (Harve Presnell) both love widow Lou Woddard (Senta Berger) and get into fistfights over her. The fort is commanded by Gen. Frederick McCabe (Andrew Duggan)...a glory hungry dick who has it in for Captain Harrod. It seems that at a previous battle with hostile Indians, Mcabe used Harrod and his men as cannon fodder and they were massacred....except for Harrod. As luck would have it, the government want to round up the loose Indians in the area and send them back to the reservation, several forts are to make a coordinated movement meeting at a specified place and time. All commanders are specifically told not to engage anyone until they all meet up. Gen. McCabe pushes his men to get there early. The scout Rogers points out that a group of Indians riding off are a decoy from the main group, McCabe orders Harrod and his men to persue them and says if they encounter large resistance he will come and help out. They do encounter large resistance, but the General doesn't come because he is off attacking the main force before the other groups arrive for the glory. Rogers the scout rides in to help Harrod and his men....he even saves his life a couple of times before he is killed. After a huge day long battle, the attacking Indians leave, Harrod and his survivors go looking for the General and his troops....and find them all dead (this is like Custer's last stand....Custer was to coordinate with another cavalry unit, went in early against orders, sent Major Reno and a group of men off after a small group of Indians while he attacked the larger force, and was massacred. Reno and his men survived the battle).

An early look at some of Peckinpahs work. He started directing the movie and was replaced. Nothing great about the movie...has some good fights, there's a good role for old western veteran Slim Pickens as the loud but reliable sergeant, Senta Berger was a beautiful woman who didn't have mush to do but stand around and look beautiful.

 

[C. Lee]

Today I watched -

WINNETOU (1963)

Starring Lex Barker, Pierre Brice, Marie Versini, Mario Adorf, and Walter Barnes

The railroad is moving west....they plan on bypassing an area held by the Apaches, but construction supervisor Frederick Santer (Mario Adorf; Major Dundee, The Red Tent, The Tin Drum) is ignoring the plans and running it straight through their lands. The railroad sends their chief engineer (Lex Barker; Tarzan's Peril, The Return of Dr. Mabuse) to investigate...and he quickly earns the nickname "Old Shatterhand" for his knocking out of several men with one blow. Chief Winnetou (Pierre Brice; Invincible Masked Rider, Samson and the Slave Queen) goes on the warpath, is captured by Santer who turns him over to his Kiowa henchmen. While they have him staked out for torture the next day, Old Shatterhand sneaks in and releases him (but without Winnetou seeing who it was).....the next day Shatterhand and a group of railroad men confront Santer and his men in the town of Roswell. A major shootout occurs (that includes driving a train engine through the hotel) which is interrupted when Winnatou and his Apaches attack everyone. Shatterhand is wounded and captured. He eventually proves he is the one who saved Winnetou earlier....they become blood brothers and team up to stop Santer.


This is based upon a series of books written in the 1890's by German writer Karl May. The movie is a German production.

French actor Pierre Brice starred in 10 movies as Winnetou.

American actor Lex Barker starred in 7 movies as Old Shatterhand.

I watched this off of youtube. It was widescreen and a sharp clean picture and sound. This was a German production....so it is English dubbed....at least partially. Some minor characters speak only in German....and a couple will be speaking English, then say a line or two in the original German (in the original German actor's voice) then switch back to English in the dubber's voice.

 

[Blind_Lawyer]

My favorites have always been High Noon and The Cowboys. I also liked True Grit and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance quite a bit.

Outside of those obvious classics, I'd also have to say the Young Guns movies, Hannie Caulder, Tombstone, and, not sure this counts, but I always thought City Slickers really embodied the heart and soul of a western.

 

[ThePhantasm]

 

[StarLord]

Bone Tomahawk Trailer

No YouTube link just yet, but you can watch it on the EW video player there.

 

[ThePhantasm]

 

[Black Narcissus]

Bone Tomahawk Trailer

No YouTube link just yet, but you can watch it on the EW video player there.

I keep hearing great things about this movie. I will check it out soon.


I finally watched:

High Noon
My Darling Clementine
3:10 To Yuma (original)


The original 3:10 is so beautiful that I had to get the criterion.

 

[antsman41]

Bone Tomahawk was ****ing amazing.

 

[MurkeNyou]

Once Upon a time in the West is one of my favorite non-Eastwood Spagetti westerns. Between Henry Fonda playing a bad guy, Bronson being the hero, and the music. Just always stayed with me.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Bone Tomahawk

Kurt Russell vs. Cannibals

Do I need to say more?

 

[StarLord]

I thought it was okay. Richard Jenkins character was great.

The [BLACKOUT]guy being ripped down the middle[/BLACKOUT] tho. Yeesh. Straight up Mortal Kombat Fatality.

 

[StarLord]

Anyone see the trailer for Brimstone? Guy Pearce as a crazy Dutch preacher. Lawd.

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