What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

The Western Thread: Live from the Great Western Forum (1 Viewer)

Eephus said:
Coincidentally, I'm currently reading a Western novel.  It's not my favorite genre but I try to work the occasional one into my queue.

Tom Mix and Pancho Villa is a 1982 book by Clifford Irving.  Mix's Hollywood agent once claimed the cowboy once rode with the Villistas (he hadn't) so Irving conjured up a yarn based on the lie.  Irving gained notoriety a decade earlier for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes but in later life, he always insisted he'd rather be remembered as the author of Mix & Villa instead.

The book is pretty entertaining.  It's written in first person, past tense so the Mix character has a lifetime of perspective on his actions as a young man.  Irving was a prolific writer and he knows how to string a plot together.  Some of the supporting characters are obvious plot devices but he makes the title characters believable and three dimensional.  
Click to expand...
I've been to the Tom Mix Museum.

 
Not high art, but I like the Tom Selleck, made for TV, Westerns:

The Sacketts

The Shadow Riders

Last Stand at Saber River

Crossfire Trail

Monte Walsh

 
I've been on this strange kick with police procedurals/crime dramas. I literally watch nothing else other than sports. I think I'll switch to westerns. There's so many I haven't seen and so many worth watching again. 

 
Anyone have any insight on the "acid westerns" like The Shooter, The Dead Man, El Topo, Ride The Whirlwind, etc? I haven't seen any of them. 

 
Uruk-Hai said:
For some reason I despise Rio Lobo, which is surprising since - as someone noted above - it's the same movie as Rio Bravo and El Dorado
Click to expand...
Rio Bravo is superior with Dino & Ricky Nelson

 
I worked at the Century Plaza Hotel after college. It was called The Hotel of the Entertainment Industry back in the 80s. Getting an autograph was grounds for firing. So many celebs in and out of that place weekly. I've shared a few stories in a thread about meeting celebs. Not getting autographs is something that has always stuck with me. I have a collection of one. A signed picture of John Wayne. 

 
I enjoyed Pale Rider. Not an amazing movie, but nobody was really doing westerns at that time IIRC.

 
The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre

"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges".

 
Christo said:
Not high art, but I like the Tom Selleck, made for TV, Westerns:

The Sacketts

The Shadow Riders

Last Stand at Saber River

Crossfire Trail

Monte Walsh
Click to expand...
Don't forget Quigley Down Under - I love that movie for some reason and have seen it countless times. Alan Rickman was so good at being bad, and was always funny when he was doing it. 

 
joker said:
Don't forget Quigley Down Under - I love that movie for some reason and have seen it countless times. Alan Rickman was so good at being bad, and was always funny when he was doing it. 
Click to expand...
I didn't. I like it, too. But it was a theatrical release.

 
joker said:
Don't forget Quigley Down Under - I love that movie for some reason and have seen it countless times. Alan Rickman was so good at being bad, and was always funny when he was doing it. 
Click to expand...
In my top 20 alltime.

My father actually knows Tom Selleck and introduced me to him when I was in college...really nice guy, taller than I expected.

 
Some good ones today on TCM

The Magnificent Seven (1960 version) at 5:45 EDT followed by Hang 'Em High and The Ox-Bow Incident

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Eephus said:
The Ox-Bow Incident
Click to expand...
Oooh..... that's a good one
Click to expand...
Henry Fonda has as good a case as anyone to join Wayne, Stewart and Eastwood on the Mt. Rushmore of Western actors.  There's a big drop-off from the top three to number four but if you're avoiding supporting players like Walter Brennan and Andy Devine, I think it probably comes down to Gary Cooper or Fonda (whatever happened to Randolph Scott?)

Gary Cooper has him on quantity but Fonda's Western career includes more classics and ranges from the late 30s to a couple of excellent Spaghetti Westerns late in his career.  Fonda portrayed Wyatt Earp, Frank James (twice), good guys, bad guys and one of the genre's classic authority figures in Fort Apache.

 
Oh, it's Fonda easily if you're comparing him to Cooper. Cooper may have made the best movie, though.

I think Robert Duval was better than either in the westerns he was in.

My Western sidekick rankings:

1. Elam

2. Brennan

3. Devine

4. Strode

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Oh, it's Fonda easily if you're comparing him to Cooper. Cooper may have made the best movie, though.

I think Robert Duval was better than either in the westerns he was in.

My Western sidekick rankings:

1. Elam

2. Brennan

3. Devine

4. Strode
Click to expand...
Gabby Hayes

Arthur Hunnicutt

Ward Bond

Ben Johnson

 
rustycolts said:
Guess I would rate my top 5 as

Searchers

My darling Clementine

Ft. Apache

Man who shot Liberty Valance

Outlaw Josey Wales
Click to expand...
Watching it now- what a loaded cast: Fonda, Linda Darnell, Ward Bond, Tim Holt, Walter Brennan, Vic Mature. John Ireland.

 
TripItUp said:
How about underrated Westerns

Last of the Dogmen

Also, one about a Canadian outlaw that is relatively new that I really enjoyed.  Can't recall the name.
Click to expand...
Last of the Dog men is an outstanding movie.Watching it rite now.I had forgotten about that movie thanks for reminding me.

 
Eephus said:
  1. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  2. Red River
  3. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
  4. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
  5. The Long Riders
the list might be different tomorrow
Click to expand...
Nobody ever filmed the American West as beautifully than Ford and SWaYR might be the most beautiful.

 
Ilov80s said:
Nobody ever filmed the American West as beautifully than Ford and SWaYR might be the most beautiful.
Click to expand...
no matter how much money and technology modern movies throw up on the screen, the old three-strip Technicolor process has never been bettered.

 
I've watched a couple of Westerns in the past couple of weeks.

Warlock an interesting movie from 1959 starring Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark and Anthony Quinn.  Warlock is the name of the town where Fonda is a Marshall hired by the citizens and Widmark is the sheriff.  It seems like a transitional film from the classic Westerns of Ford and Hawks towards the more psychological Westerns of the 60s and 70s.  It was based on a novel by Oakley Hall which was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize and admired by Thomas Pynchon of all people.  The cast also includes Dorothy Malone, DeForest Kelley and Frank Gorshin.  The relationship between Fonda and Quinn's characters is really bizarre and Widmark at times seems more like a modern cop than a sheriff in the old west.  It comes up on TCM every now and then and is worth a watch.

I talked about The Shootist in post #2 but finally got around to re-watching it.  It wasn't as good as I remembered it and it's definitely not as good as Warlock.  Wayne and the rest of the cast are excellent but the story drags toward its inevitable eligiac climax.  The incidental music and hairstyles are unmistakably 70s.  Director Don Siegel and Cinematographer Bruce "Prince of Darkness" Surtees were frequent collaborators with Ciint Eastwood but The Shootist has a sentimentality that makes it very different from say High Plains Drifter.

 
Eephus said:
I talked about The Shootist in post #2 but finally got around to re-watching it.  It wasn't as good as I remembered it and it's definitely not as good as Warlock.  Wayne and the rest of the cast are excellent but the story drags toward its inevitable eligiac climax.  The incidental music and hairstyles are unmistakably 70s.  Director Don Siegel and Cinematographer Bruce "Prince of Darkness" Surtees were frequent collaborators with Ciint Eastwood but The Shootist has a sentimentality that makes it very different from say High Plains Drifter.
Click to expand...
The Shootist always reminded me more of a play than a movie, which is interesting when you consider the director. It's very slow, but I enjoy watching it every 5 or 10 years just to see Wayne/Stewart/Bacall play off of one another. Ronnie Howard's performance annoys the hell out of me, though (maybe that's the point).

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Sigmund Bloom
Visiting New Orleans Thread
Replies
29
Views
940
Sigmund Bloom
Sigmund Bloom
jdoggydogg
Finally writing music and playing with a band...
Replies
24
Views
895
jdoggydogg
jdoggydogg
Todem
Official Rush “Fifty Something Tour” Thread
2
Replies
93
Views
2K
Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top