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Best Western — Open Thread

by

No, this is not about a hotel chain.

The western as a film genre has all but died out, but the motion picture canon includes a number of westerns. Until I saw The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Shane and Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven were my two favorites. Now I have three, but I know those aren’t the only great ones. There are many others, including flicks featuring the great John Wayne and even a few with the Gipper.

So, today’s open thread–what’s your favorite western?

Comments

  7. Stagecoach and The Searchers, both directed by John Ford. Both films were ahead of their time, both in terms of technique and content. The opening and closing shots in Searchers, for example, still give me chills.

    Bruce, you’re a phillistine. 😉

    Eric in Hollywood

  9. I can never remember titles.

    I liked Quigly Down Under.

    I’ve been reading Louis L’Amour novels lately (re-reading… I must have read all but two or three when I was 13-14 years old.) A western is really a morality play… or what I think of when I think of a morality play. The lack of societal control means that every individual has to stand, or not, on the strength of their own character. It’s very powerful.

  11. I’ll second The Quick and the Dead and certainly Stagecoach (as well as several others already mentioned. High Noon is a classic. A Big Hand for the Little Lady is great, but not your typical western I suppose.

    One film that I loved as a kid was The Cowboys with John Wayne forced to lead a group of young boys (8-16) on a cattle drive across the southwest because his usual team of cowboys is off fighting the Civil War. I wanted so badly to be part of that group. They accepted each other as compadres, even the nerdy kids. It wasn’t until years later that I realized the film appealed to my nascent homosexuality.

  15. Comanche Station — the last hurrah of Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher. (It’s also sort of a farewell to the old Western “programmer” — those quick, cheap films starring Lash Larue, Ken Maynard, the Three Mesquiteers, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and the like, where the movie Western found its largest popular audience.)

  18. My favorite western has always been The Big Country. Stars Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston. Great story and great music. Would Seven Brides for Seven Brothers count in this category?

  22. Did anyone mention the paraody remake of The Magnificent Seven yet; the Three Amigos?

    Oxbow Incident?

    The Wild Bunch?

    McClintock with John Wayne and Maureen OHara?

    The Good, the Bad, the Ugly?

    I can’t believe no one mentioned James Dean’s Giant?

  26. I’m not a big Western fan, but I did like SHANE very much.

    Also, SILVERADO.

    And, anything with Barbara Stanwyck or Maureen O’Hara. Or Mary Stuart Masterson (no matter how bad the rest of the movie).

    *Sigh*

    Julie the Jarhead

  29. I also have to name Lonesome Dove and Kung Fu as my favorite TV Westerns. My favorite movie western (and there are too many to mention) has to be Tombstone. Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday was awesome. I’m your huckleberry.

  34. Does anyone remember the name of a movie starring Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart, who inherit property in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that turns out to be a whore house. Next to “Cat Ballou,” one of the funniest westerns I ever saw.

  40. Hard choice!
    Either The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance! or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, runners up Ford’s another Cavalry Trilogy Fort Apache. Sentimental favorite The Shootist (1976) with John Wayne (his last film) as a dying gunfighter and Jimmy Stuart as the “Doc” that tells him he has cancer.
    Wayne died of lung cancer in 1979.

  41. 32: Scott, I’m curious. How is Brokeback representative of a Western subgenre, and could you name other films of its ilk? Since I don’t see stylistic or thematic affinities between Brokeback and the Italian-Spanish “spaghetti westerns,” I don’t quite understand why you’ve referred to the film as a fettucine Fra Diavolo western (except for the film’s appeal to urban, affluent arthouse crowds — the people who would prefer fettucine to spaghetti). Was this comment meant seriously, or was it a flippant Maureen Dowd-ish dismissal?

  45. McClintock
    Magnificent Seven
    Stagecoach
    Blazing Saddles
    True Grit
    Rooster Cogburn
    Quigley Down Under, even though it’s more cowboy than “western”.
    The Shootist
    Tombstone
    The Cowboys
    The War Wagon
    Fort Apache
    Geronimo
    The Alamo
    Cahill U.S. Marshall
    Big Jake
    Chisum
    Rio Lobo
    The Sons of Katie Elder
    McLintock
    Hondo
    Rio Grande
    King of Texas
    etc.

  46. You listed McLintock twice, TGC. Understandable, though — it’s a good movie.

    By the way, if you have the chance, be sure to see Tommy Lee Jones’s new Western The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. It’ll be on the classics list someday.

  48. Rarely a good western after the 50’s. The best are John Ford & John Wayne- Stagecoach, The Searchers and the calvery trilogy- Ft. Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon & Rio Grande. No comparison with the 60’s and 70’s westerns. Also Red River by Howard Hawks with John Wayne and Walter Brennan and Monty Clift. Bend of the River and The Far Country with Jimmy Stewart. The Big Country, The Gunfighter, and the Bravados with Gregory Peck . Dark Command isn’t bad and They Died with Their Boots on with Errol Flynn as Custer is way over the top but great. Will Penny with Charlton Heston is good and for blood and gore( not Al) try the Wildbunch by Sam Peckinpah

  53. He had to piss so bad he could almost taste it and so he stepped out behind the bar and noisily relieved himself. Clarence was the local drunk, and had little use for anything but a full bottle of Mad Dog and a quiet place to drink it. When his funds ran low, he would help the local residents with their yard work, and was a darn fine landscaper if he could stay sober long enough to complete the job. But most of the time he would return to his bottle as soon as he got some spare change, and had unfinished projects all over the small community that was supported primarily by the large nuclear plant just up the road. Clarence had spent many cold winter nights sleeping next to the cooling towers that generated more than enough heat to keep him warm. Tonight he would probably head back there, as there was a definite chill in the air, and he could see steam rising from the puddle he had just created. With best intent and a noisy belch, he headed off towards the tall white towers, but became entangled in some wild blackberries and fell face first into a small drainage ditch several hundred yards from his destination. A small trickle of water flowing from the plants’ water system grazed his lips as he slept noisily.

  54. The morning dawned clear and crisp on the countryside, and Clarence awoke to the day with blurry vision and a throbbing headache. Checking his cash reserves, he realized he was down to his last few coins, and decided to head over to Ms. Walkers place to finish the garden there. She was a loving spirit and always gave him money when he would ask. As he stood up, he noticed the patch of blackberries behind the bar were almost covering the roof. Funny, he thought, they hadn’t been that way when he leaked there last night, and as he watched, he could see them gradually engulf the entire roof and grow down the opposite side. A hoarse whisper nex to his shoulder instantly broke his concentration. It was Zelda, his counterpart in female form who was always trying to get him to “do the nasty” at her small cardboard dwelling on the other side of town. She too had seen the blackberries growing at an unbelievable rate, while she was on her way to the landfill on her never ending quest for aluminum cans. They both continued to stare for quite some time until she wrapped her arm around his waist, and he made a hasty retreat for Ms. Walkers place.