For fans of westerns...

[sandeano]

It may be appropriate that tumbleweeds billow past this thread, but for those of you that are fans of the classic Hollywood western or those that are looking to explore the genre, the past couple of weeks have seen some terrific films released on DVD in Australia, mostly at dirt-cheap prices.

Firstly, in my humble opinion, the finest western ever made, "Ride the High Country" (1962) has hit the shelves this week. Starring the greatest western star of all, Randolph Scott, alongside the always reliable Joel McRea, this is Sam Peckinpah's second completed feature and to my mind, still his best (although I do love "The Wild Bunch" so this praise is pretty strong). A beautiful eulogy for the American West and the American western, it is gorgeously shot and performed piece, tinged with equal sadness and respect for a passing era. Finally available in widescreen, it is complemented with some fine commentary and a doco excerpt. For under a tenner, it is one of the buys of the year.

Talking of Randolph Scott, you can also pick up the superb "Seven Men From Now" (1956)featuring Scott as a bounty hunter tracking down the seven men who were responsible for the death of his wife. Featuring Lee Marvin in one of his early scene-stealing support roles, this nifty, beautifully plotted flick was one of a number of now legendary westerns Scott did for director Budd Boetticher. All incredible films, this is often considered the best, although I would count "The Tall T" as up there with it. There are docos and commentaries on this fine, restored edition that is also available cheaply.

Sadly there are not too many extras on "No Name on the Bullet" (1959) which stars Audie Murphy as a notorious hired killer arriving in a western town for no apparent reason. However everyone believes he is here for them due to their past sins. The town is gripped in paranoia and tears itself apart. Murphy (the baby-faced star who was the most decorated soldier in WW2) was never better as the cold-eyed killer and Jack Arnold (best known for his sci-fi flicks) keeps the tension at boiling point. For those looking for such things, there are numerous subtexts to the the HUAC witchhunts of the period.

A number of other fine westerns have hit the shelves recently, including many starring John Wayne, but these three are especially worth a look.

[Wallaby]

I'm still after a proper wide-screen digitaly re-mastered copy of 'The Searchers'. The video thats been out for years is the TV version - which is complete rubbish considering the cinematography of the original. If you see one, let me know (can't even find it from the States via the web).

We could have a good, friendly discussion re the best Western ever made.

'Fill yore hands, you son-of-a-bitch!"

[sandeano]

I'm still after a proper wide-screen digitaly re-mastered copy of 'The Searchers'. The video thats been out for years is the TV version - which is complete rubbish considering the cinematography of the original. If you see one, let me know (can't even find it from the States via the web).

We could have a good, friendly discussion re the best Western ever made.

'Fill yore hands, you son-of-a-bitch!"

The two-disc edition that came out a few months ago was in the correct widescreen ratio although the colour (apparently) was just a tad too heavy on the yellow. Otherwise, it is a pretty fine edition and good value at around $13.

[Wallaby]

Cool, I will check it out, although there have been several different versions floating around before - because of it's length, it used to brutally cut for TV. And they'd always cut the funny bits!

I'll have a look...

[Dry Rot]

I'm still after a proper wide-screen digitaly re-mastered copy of 'The Searchers'. The video thats been out for years is the TV version - which is complete rubbish considering the cinematography of the original. If you see one, let me know (can't even find it from the States via the web).

We could have a good, friendly discussion re the best Western ever made.

'Fill yore hands, you son-of-a-bitch!"

Great film and one to watch if you don't think that John Wayne made any great films.

I must admit that westerns changed for me forever after I saw El Topo......

[DEVO]

My parents have a couple of hundred Hollywood westerns on DVD or video and I have seen a number of them, some of them I don't mind (The Searchers, High Noon, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Texas Across the River), but one thing that annoys me about the Hollywood westerns is how Black & White the characters are, especially the ones made before Sergio Leone revolutionised the genre. It is obvious from the moment you first see the character whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, and the female characters are for the most part secondary to the story.
I suppose this 'issue' I have with Hollywood western stems from the fact that the first westerns I remember seeing were "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" and "Once Upon a Time in the West". I like the ambiguity of the characters, the leasurely pace of the story, interrupted with brief moments of violence. The more modern hollywood westerns have this (Unforgiven), but for me the best westerns will always be Spaghetti Westerns. Even the terrible ones have some entertainment value.
Now, after dishing out on your favourite films I'll try and be more positive.:) My parents have already purchased these, plus a dozen or so John Wayne films (my mother loves John Wayne), and I am interested in seeing "No Name on the Bullet", I've heard a few good things about it, and there is another one as well, which has been released recently, I think it starred Barbara Stanwyck.

[SunKing]

If you want to see a western,albeit modern,that does away with the black/white nature of classic westerns then watch The Unforgiven.

Not a big fan of John Wayne or classic westerns but love Shane,IMO the best classic western ever made. I remember High Noon being excellent as well.

I'm mainly a fan of Eastwood westerns such as High Plains Drifter..Pale Rider (decent remake of Shane)..The Outlaw Josey Wales.

[year of the roo]

Just picked up the Clint Eastwood collection DVD for $40. 'The Good, The Bad, The Ugly', 'Fistful of Dollars' and 'A Few Dollars More' - excellent!

[sandeano]

My parents have a couple of hundred Hollywood westerns on DVD or video and I have seen a number of them, some of them I don't mind (The Searchers, High Noon, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Texas Across the River), but one thing that annoys me about the Hollywood westerns is how Black & White the characters are, especially the ones made before Sergio Leone revolutionised the genre. It is obvious from the moment you first see the character whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, and the female characters are for the most part secondary to the story.
I suppose this 'issue' I have with Hollywood western stems from the fact that the first westerns I remember seeing were "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" and "Once Upon a Time in the West". I like the ambiguity of the characters, the leasurely pace of the story, interrupted with brief moments of violence. The more modern hollywood westerns have this (Unforgiven), but for me the best westerns will always be Spaghetti Westerns. Even the terrible ones have some entertainment value.
Now, after dishing out on your favourite films I'll try and be more positive.:) My parents have already purchased these, plus a dozen or so John Wayne films (my mother loves John Wayne), and I am interested in seeing "No Name on the Bullet", I've heard a few good things about it, and there is another one as well, which has been released recently, I think it starred Barbara Stanwyck.


The Stanwyck film would be (I assume) "Forty Guns". Just this week it was released in a four pack of Sam Fuller flicks including "The Naked Kiss", "Pickup on South Street" and "Shock Corridor" - terrific films all and splendid value for under $40.

Devo, I can understand your viewpoint, although I sorta take a different tack. The American westerns - at least until the 1950s - were almost always basic morality plays, using the Manichean forces of good and evil to tell some pretty simple truths against a backdrop of how the modern America was built. Invariably the villains were quashed the hero won and got the girl and the various small western towns could then prosper to become the grand cities they are today. Sure there is a lot of horseshit in that ideology, but the whole 'western myth' was an important backbone of the American ethos and character.

In accepting that, it becomes quite fascinating to look for the smallest deviation in these films and they did happen, even if rarely. For example there was a strain of film noir westerns in the 1940s and 1950s in which things were far less clearcut than they would appear to be and the protagonists certainly divided in their morality and psychological state. "Pursued", starring Robert Mitchum is the best of these an "Canyon Passage is another to look for in this group. But even going further back the Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns of the 30s had a lot of strong political point scoring to make.

Bu the change did come in the 1950s and the direct link to the Leone films can been seen in "Vera Cruz" a super-western starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. This story of a couple of mercenaries traveling into Mexico was an obvious influence on the Italian westerns in both style and blurred morality. Also, the Scott westerns of the 1950s were some of the darkest made and - to that degree - on an equal par with anything to come out of Europe.

I suppose it could be said that the Italian westerns, rather than being the ripoffs that they were often accused of, simply took the template to explore their own myths and concerns of Italian history society and character. They are completely different beasts, working to absolutely different rules....just with similar clothes (and even they were usually grubbier).

[Dry Rot]

Just this week it was released in a four pack of Sam Fuller flicks including "The Naked Kiss", "Pickup on South Street" and "Shock Corridor" - terrific films all and splendid value for under $40.

.

He was a genuis - deserves his own thread about those movies, if not a board devoted to him.

[sandeano]

He was a genuis - deserves his own thread about those movies, if not a board devoted to him.

Never was a truer word spoken.

(I'm amazed I can type at the moment...second bottle of red finished and onto the third after the Tigers win:D).

[jacqui9]

The Wild Bunch is on tomorrow morning (very early), one of my favourites that tried to get a rise back into the Western genre in the late 1960s.

One of my favourite underrated Westerns is Canyon Passage with Dana Andrews and Susan Hayward. The Naked Spur (even though I am not a great fan of Jimmy Stewart) is one western I love.

Others I like are;

The Searchers
Stagecoach
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Hombre
My Darling Clementine
The Ox-Bow Incident
They Came to Cordurra
High Noon
Yellow Sky
The Hanging Tree (no DVD release - criminal!!)
Jesse James
The Return of Frank James
3 Bad Men
3 Godfathers
The Big Country
Broken Lance
Forty Guns
California
High Noon
The Sons of Katie Elders
Pocket Money
Union Pacific
Blood on the Moon
Fort Apache
Rachel and the Stranger
The Tall Men
Tell Them Willie Boy is Here
Decision at Dawn
Vera Cruz
Annie Oakley (to be released as part of a Stanwyck Collection this year - Yah!!)

Hell; there are too many to mention. John Ford/John Wayne collaborations are just magnificent.

It is very interesting to see how the western developed over the years.

In the 1930s and 1940s Hollywood westerns developed a romantic mythology under Ford, Wayne, Cooper, Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Henry Fonda etc. Then of course, you had the tough heroines in Gene Tierney, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth amongst many others. As mentioned, the heroes were black and white, the baddies got a bullet, the heroes, well they got the girl.

As the 1950s rolled around a new breed of actors (The Method Actor) took hold and the Western genre in Hollywood certainly began to take on different definitions. The Hays Production Code was breaking down to experimentation.You had westerns such as The Left Handed Gun, written by Gore Vidal. The Left Handed Gun was the first film to make Billy the Kid look like a misunderstood youth rather than a cold blooded killer. The film flopped in the U.S, but won many awards overseas and was a smash hit in many European countries. Soon European westerns would have an incredible influence on the direction the western would take.

Now, actors such as Wayne, Cooper, Flynn and Stewart were appearing less and less.

The Hays Production Code died in 1968 and so did the limitations on directors, screen writers and actors.

Modern westerns such as Hud (neo-western) and Hombre explored social Americana issues such as racism towards the Apache Indians and the conflicts between father and son.

Clint Eastwood and Serge Leone introduced the violence of the spaghetti western to Hollywood and you had A Fist Full of Dollars, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and A Few Dollars More amongst others. Then of course Pekinpah's Ride The High Country and The Wild Bunch were box office hits.

Then William Goldman penned the highest grossing western in history, and one of the more unusual westerns - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which really got a rise out of Western purists who claimed it killed the genre entirely. Critics panned it because George Roy Hill exploited the fact that it was really the first film (apart from Midnight Cowboy of the same year), that really explored the subject of male friendship - hence the 'Buddy Picture" was born. It was funny, had two handsome and very likeable leads. Parallels were drawn between Butch, Sundance and the posse that came after them, and the kids being conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War. Butch and Sundance became heroes for young people.

Then the western became spoof and comedy. Blazing Saddles arrived as did, Support Your Local Sheriff! , The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Buffalo Bill and the Indians and Pocket Money. The fundamental,"traditional" western revived during the 70s with True Grit (1969), The McCabe and Mrs Miller, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Little Big Man, The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Wow, what a genre!!

[DEVO]

The Stanwyck film would be (I assume) "Forty Guns". Just this week it was released in a four pack of Sam Fuller flicks including "The Naked Kiss", "Pickup on South Street" and "Shock Corridor" - terrific films all and splendid value for under $40.

Devo, I can understand your viewpoint, although I sorta take a different tack. The American westerns - at least until the 1950s - were almost always basic morality plays, using the Manichean forces of good and evil to tell some pretty simple truths against a backdrop of how the modern America was built. Invariably the villains were quashed the hero won and got the girl and the various small western towns could then prosper to become the grand cities they are today. Sure there is a lot of horseshit in that ideology, but the whole 'western myth' was an important backbone of the American ethos and character.

In accepting that, it becomes quite fascinating to look for the smallest deviation in these films and they did happen, even if rarely. For example there was a strain of film noir westerns in the 1940s and 1950s in which things were far less clearcut than they would appear to be and the protagonists certainly divided in their morality and psychological state. "Pursued", starring Robert Mitchum is the best of these an "Canyon Passage is another to look for in this group. But even going further back the Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns of the 30s had a lot of strong political point scoring to make.

Bu the change did come in the 1950s and the direct link to the Leone films can been seen in "Vera Cruz" a super-western starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. This story of a couple of mercenaries traveling into Mexico was an obvious influence on the Italian westerns in both style and blurred morality. Also, the Scott westerns of the 1950s were some of the darkest made and - to that degree - on an equal par with anything to come out of Europe.

I suppose it could be said that the Italian westerns, rather than being the ripoffs that they were often accused of, simply took the template to explore their own myths and concerns of Italian history society and character. They are completely different beasts, working to absolutely different rules....just with similar clothes (and even they were usually grubbier).

I know the argument well, I have it with my parents nearly every weekend, when the family gets together for the Saturday night roast. About 8-10people sitting at the dinner table every Saturday Night talking politics (a bit of a no-no at the moment with my mum being the only Liberal), football, family, but always the discussion somehow ends up on film or more specifically, westerns. Mum & Dad on the side of the Hollywood westerns, and myself and my sister on the side of the Spaghetti western, with my brother and our extended family members sitting on the fence or laughing in amusement. John Ford v Sergio Leone, John Wayne v Clint Eastwood, Morality v Ambiguity. All good fun.

"Forty Guns" is the Stanwyck film I was think of, a great film starring one of my favourite Hollywood actresses of the Golden era. "Naked Kiss" and "Shock Corridor" are classics, so that DVD looks like excellent value.

[jacqui9]

"Forty Guns" is the Stanwyck film I was think of, a great film starring one of my favourite Hollywood actresses of the Golden era. "Naked Kiss" and "Shock Corridor" are classics, so that DVD looks like excellent value.


Devo, you are lucky. My family wouldn't know classic film if it hit them in the gob, let alont the difference between spaghetti westerns and Hollywood westerns. I received my Myrna Loy/William Powell digipack the other day and showed it to my mum who asked who they were!! :(

Not sure if you know, but Warner Bros a releasing a Barbara Stanwyck Signature Collection on October 30.

The 6 discs, 5 titles will include;

Annie Oakley
East Side, West Side
Executive Suite
My Reputation
To Please a Lady
Jeopardy

I have pre-ordered it along with a new Burt Lancaster Collection :D