Which westerns list should we add?

[Yoda]

It goes without saying that we want to keep adding lists to the Lists (http://www.movieforums.com/lists) area, and one of the next logical areas to branch out into would be genre-specific lists. This can be a bit tricky, however, as there are less "official" lists, so deciding what to use as a source is a bit of a judgment call.

I looked around a bit, and the most prominent list of westerns I could find was the "100 Best Westerns Ever Made (http://www.americaone.com/cni/westerns)" list from Cowboys & Indians magazine.

Now, there are two potential hiccups with choosing this one. The first, which is small, is that a list of 100 is pretty daunting when you're talking about a specific genre. This would apply to any future genre-based lists, of course.

The second, which is significant, is that some of the "films" listed are actually television series'. It's not really clear how one would decide whether they've "seen" a series; is viewing every single episode required, for example? And there's the simple fact that these are intended to be movie lists, and not TV lists. However, most of those on the list are films, so I'm open to making an exception.

There are some alternative lists; for example, Images (http://www.imagesjournal.com) has a "30 Great Westerns (http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/infocus)" list. However, they're not a publication; just a website. There's a list by Doug Nye that's supposed to be pretty good, but I've been unable to track it down so far.

What do you guys think?

[Memnon]

There is also this one (http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Western/average-vote) from IMDB based on the votes from the site.

I'm not sure I'd agree with the list as it stands though personally... there seem to be some missing that I would think belong, particularly a few other Eastwood flicks...

As for the 100 greatest from the magazine... what about just taking out the TV shows? It looked offhand like there were 10 of them. Granted, it wouldn't be 100 films then, but if you wanted to go with sets of 25, then drop the lowest ones in addition to the TV shows to get to 75...

just a few thoughts

[Yoda]

IMDB seems like the natural place to look, but it's not static; the rankings fluctuate based on user votes, so unfortunately we can't use any from there.

[7thson]

Making a "favs" list based on a single genre should be a "cut the gristle and fat out" kinda thing.

[mark f]

I like both lists. I'm going to vote 100% either way, just because I checked their lists and I believe it's accurate, but I'm not really up on what significant lists are floating around. You may not believe this, but I rarely spend time at sites that are so moviecentric. :modest:

(That means this site is super!)

[Tacitus]

Making a "favs" list based on a single genre should be a "cut the gristle and fat out" kinda thing.

Indeed...

For something that genre specific I'd personally poll a few veteran MoFos for their thoughts. Hang officialdom! Lists by the people for the people! :D

[Holden Pike]

Well if you want to keep with the AFI/BFI level of criteria, the BFI did publish a book called 100 Westerns (2006), in their BFI Screen Guides series. It lists the movies alphabetically. I'd be happy to type them all out. Overall it's a very good mix, including all the Fords and Hawks and Peckinpahs and Leones you'd expect, plus some only harder core Western fans will know, from Silents to Hollywood to Spaghettis to the Avant-Garde.

20260

[Caitlyn]

In keeping with the existing lists, Holden's suggestion sounds like the way to go… and after reading Tatty’s post… I'd kinda like to see a top 100 list included that was all MoFo…

[Yoda]

That sounds great, Holden. Odd that the list isn't available online already, but if you're sure it's not too much trouble, that sounds like the best fit.

[Holden Pike]

That sounds great, Holden. Odd that the list isn't available online already, but if you're sure it's not too much trouble, that sounds like the best fit.

Yeah, I couldn't find the list anywhere or even the table of contents on Amazon. I'll PM you the list in the next few days. Gotta jump in the shower and out to work right now.

[rufnek]

It goes without saying that we want to keep adding lists to the Lists (http://www.movieforums.com/lists) area, and one of the next logical areas to branch out into would be genre-specific lists. This can be a bit tricky, however, as there are less "official" lists, so deciding what to use as a source is a bit of a judgment call.

I looked around a bit, and the most prominent list of westerns I could find was the "100 Best Westerns Ever Made (http://www.americaone.com/cni/westerns)" list from Cowboys & Indians magazine.

Now, there are two potential hiccups with choosing this one. The first, which is small, is that a list of 100 is pretty daunting when you're talking about a specific genre. This would apply to any future genre-based lists, of course.

The second, which is significant, is that some of the "films" listed are actually television series'. It's not really clear how one would decide whether they've "seen" a series; is viewing every single episode required, for example? And there's the simple fact that these are intended to be movie lists, and not TV lists. However, most of those on the list are films, so I'm open to making an exception.

There are some alternative lists; for example, Images (http://www.imagesjournal.com) has a "30 Great Westerns (http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/infocus)" list. However, they're not a publication; just a website. There's a list by Doug Nye that's supposed to be pretty good, but I've been unable to track it down so far.

What do you guys think?
Pike's offer sounds best.

The problem with any recently published best movie list is that it's always top heavy with recent films that more readers have seen and totally ignores older movies that for various reasons may have been better or even advanced the genre but that are rarely shown today. For instance, I recently had the opportunity to see a couple of old Tom Mix silent films that had more derring-do than any of the Die Hard films of Bruce Willis (who actually played Tom Mix in Sunset). One thing I like best about the older films is that you see some real horsemanship on the screen. The old studio system had riding schools for their contract players, so they didn't look on screen like they were mounting a horse for the first time. Also, a lot of the early Western stars and stuntmen actually grew up on ranches--Gary Cooper and Ben Johnson, for example.

[Sedai]

Kudos to Ruf for mentioning Tom Mix. I used to live near the stretch of highway in Arizona where he died. There is a somber old monument at the spot on the road. Ol' Tom had been a gamblin, and he had an aluminum case with some winnings in it on the seat behind him. He had to brake suddenly when he came up on some construction, and he couldn't stop in time. He jerked the wheel, sending his car into a gully, and sending the case up over his seat where it contacted the base of his skull. He was killed instantly. My Grandmother was a BIG fan, and we would drive out to pay tribute every summer while she was alive. RIP 'ol Tom.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Tommixportrait.jpg/220px-Tommixportrait.jpg

Anyway, back on topic. I like Holden's idea, just fine.

[Holden Pike]

Odd that the list isn't available online already...

Well, this isn't a "BFI" list like the other you've used so far, in that it wasn't compiled by gathering lists from critics and filmmakers and whittling it down from there. These are author Edward Buscome's choices. Buscome has written extensively on film, especially Westerns.

Once the list is up I think even the biggest Western fan would have to agree it's a very good, very balanced list. If it's top heavy at all, by Buscome's own admission, it is of movies from the '30s through the '60s, when the genre was a staple in Hollywood and A-list stars and directors were cranking them out. Buscome does take into account its influence on foreign cinema and does have most of the so-called Revisionist classics from the late '60s and '70s, but does have Westerns from every decade of its existence (generally accepted as 1903 as its birth), up to I believe Kevin Costner's Open Range (2003) as the latest entry of the hundred. And since they are presented alphabetically, there can't be any complaints about where The Searchers placed in regards to The Outlaw Josey Wales or what have you, it's just 100 Westerns deemed worth seeing and the best he could do at representing all facets and history of the genre. I'd quote Buscome's introduction, but it's a few pages long and much too involved to transcribe in total.

While any fan of any genre will be able to find two or three movies on such a list, even a a hundred titles, that are personally shocking in their exclusion and two or three head-scratchers you wouldn't put on a personal top five-hundred list, by in large this is the best, most balanced Westerns list I've come across. It will suit the MoFo Lists nicely, I think.

Stay tuned, cowpokes!

[Powdered Water]

It goes without saying that we want to keep adding lists to the Lists (http://www.movieforums.com/lists) area, and one of the next logical areas to branch out into would be genre-specific lists. This can be a bit tricky, however, as there are less "official" lists, so deciding what to use as a source is a bit of a judgment call.

I looked around a bit, and the most prominent list of westerns I could find was the "100 Best Westerns Ever Made (http://www.americaone.com/cni/westerns)" list from Cowboys & Indians magazine.

Now, there are two potential hiccups with choosing this one. The first, which is small, is that a list of 100 is pretty daunting when you're talking about a specific genre. This would apply to any future genre-based lists, of course.

I not sure if a hundred is enough actually, just from reviewing that list of 100 there, I imagine that a lot of folks may start off with a good chunk of that list already done. Perhaps an Idea could be to start with 100 and then add more to it as the months go by and some members lists start to get filled. We could do it similar to an awards show and give nominations or votes to particular films that we want to add to the lists. Anyway Holden's list sounds pretty good too. Perhaps that's the best way to go.

Either way though this is such a great idea, I've got about 10 movies on deck here at home that I haven't watched yet that are on some of the lists and I can't wait to get to them.

The second, which is significant, is that some of the "films" listed are actually television series'. It's not really clear how one would decide whether they've "seen" a series; is viewing every single episode required, for example? And there's the simple fact that these are intended to be movie lists, and not TV lists. However, most of those on the list are films, so I'm open to making an exception.

I personally would love it if at some point perhaps we could have a list of T.V. shows by itself, I know this is primarily a movie forum, but there are some very good shows on the small screen as well that are really worth seeing. Several of them on that list you just posted are pretty good, I already own a couple of them in fact. I mean their mostly for a reference point for me, I'm always looking for stuff that's good that I haven't seen yet.

[Thursday Next]

I not sure if a hundred is enough actually, just from reviewing that list of 100 there, I imagine that a lot of folks may start off with a good chunk of that list already done. Perhaps an Idea could be to start with 100 and then add more to it as the months go by

You may be right as far as some mofos go...but personally if I've seen five of the Westerns on whichever list is used I'll be surprised! :laugh:

[Powdered Water]

You may be right as far as some mofos go...but personally if I've seen five of the Westerns on whichever list is used I'll be surprised! :laugh:

LOL, I take it you didn't receive your copy of The John Wayne Hand book when you were born?

[nebbit]

Me, I'm easy :yup: whatever people decide :yup:

[Tacitus]

Does HP own a scanner?

Tell you what, if he doesn't then he can handwrite the list, email it to me and I can scan it and send it to Chris. Just trying to be helpful! :D

[Caitlyn]

The list appears to be on there now but I can't update anything on mine...

[Tacitus]

I'm listing to the left as we speak.

What are we gonna do with all these lists apart from sneering that MoFo X is better than MoFo Y and that MoFo Z should take no part in a serious discussion on, say, The importance of signet rings in Film Noir because he's only scored 53% in 'Sight & Sound's 100 Greatest Film Noir Signet Rings'? Serious question.

I guess. :)

[Yoda]

What are we gonna do with all these lists apart from sneering that MoFo X is better than MoFo Y and that MoFo Z should take no part in a serious discussion on, say, The importance of signet rings in Film Noir because he's only scored 53% in 'Sight & Sound's 100 Greatest Film Noir Signet Rings'? Serious question.

I guess. :)
I joked in the original announcement that the Lists would stigmatize people into seeing more movies. That was only half-joking, though, because it appears to be happening. May sound goofy, but if it gets people watching classics they might not have seen otherwise, hey, why not? That kind of thing directly leads to more discussion, and more intelligent discussion, at that.

It's also for each member individually. If they want to make their lists private, they can, but it lets each of us know where we stand, and where the gaps in our viewing might be. And it's always satisfying to cross an item off a list. I think it gives people a more tangible feeling of accomplishment than scattered posts can.

All that said, sure, there'll be some sneering. I daresay we have that already, though; who among us hasn't scoffed at a new member's opinion, and then considered ourselves justified when we see 300 on their Favorites list? ;)

But, I do agree that none of this is quite enough. I have plans for more technically useful features. Some people have already guessed a few of them, and they're probably not hard to figure out. The one thing they all have in common, though, is that they'll all increase the focus on what MoFos like. That's the theme with User Reviews, with Favorite Movies, and (eventually) with the Lists.

I'd better stop here, as I'm getting the urge to give some sort of speech about communities, interconnectedness, and things of that nature. :)

[Tacitus]

I dig that, Chris, really I do. But the sheer amount of lists?

I don't want to come across as Captain Luddite but I'm concerned that the proliferation of 50s and 100s might overwhelm the very people you're/we're targeting and dilute the overall oeuvre . ;)

[Holden Pike]

Does HP own a scanner?

Tell you what, if he doesn't then he can handwrite the list, email it to me and I can scan it and send it to Chris. Just trying to be helpful!

I already typed it up and sent it to Yoder. I've never "learned" to type, I'm just a hunt-and-peck kinda guy (not just in typing, but dating, too!). In the last couple years I've come to realize I'm actually fairly proficient using just a couple fingers (and again, in dating, too!).


For a preview of how varied it is, this is the list of directors who have at least three films each in the hundred: there are nine by John Ford, five by Delmer Daves, four each by Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood, and three a piece by Raoul Walsh, Budd Boetticher, John Sturges and Robert Aldrich. I think any serious Westerns list that has that kind of foundation is legit.

As far some of the genre's stars, there are ten John Wayne movies, eight Clint Eastwood, seven Jimmy Stewart, and four each for Randolph Scott, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster.

Here are some bits of Edward Buscombe's introduction. I'm not going to even try and do the whole thing as it's about seven pages long. So skipping around a lot...


For many decades the Western occupied a central position within the American film industry. From around 1910 until the beginning of the 1960s, films in the Western genre made up at least a fifth of all titles released. No other genre has ever occupied anything like such a dominant position.

Within such a large body of material (maybe about 7,000 Westerns in all), there were bound to be great variations, both in the nature of the films and their quality...

These hundred are not necessarily my favorite films, the ones which I should most like to see again. That's not to say I haven't enjoyed seeing all of them very much, but there are probably another hundred films I would enjoy equally, or nearly so. Given that fact I have tried to make a representative selection...

I have tried, within the limits of space, to give some sense of the history of the genre. While the great majority of films are from the 1940s, '50s and '60s, undoubtedly its heyday, there is at least one film from every decade of the Westerns existence. I don't pretend that there is an adequate representation from the silent period, because many films from that era no longer exist, and even the ones that do are not always generally available. Nor have I chosen many films from the series or B-feature Western, despite its overwhelming presence in terms of sheer numbers produced. But in drawing attention to such titles as Oh, Susanna! (1936) and Terror in a Texas Town (1958) I have tried to indicate that the Western amounts to more than John Ford and Sam Peckinpah...

Part of the fun of canon-formation, the making of lists of who or what is most significant, is in comparing one's own selection with those of others. I would be surprised if many people would come up with a hundred Western titles that would exactly match my own. That is as it should be. This list makes no pretensions to authority. I have seen each of these films again in the course of writing this book and I stand by my selections as all eminently worth ninety minutes or so of anyone's time. But there are many excellent and significant films that did not squeeze in, and it is not my intention to exclude them from future recognition, only to bring my selections to the reader's attention...

A significant number of the best films ever made in Hollywood were Westerns, and there has never been a better time for appreciating them. If this book has one single ambition, it is to provide a helpful guide, both for those who know the Western and those who do not, suggesting which films will most repay viewing or re-viewing in my opinion.

from Edward Buscome's introduction to 100 Westerns (BFI Screen Guides), 2006


Once the list is up, if anybody wants to know some of Buscombe's reasoning behind any of his choices, I'll pull out passages that may shed some light (each of the hundred movies gets a page or two write-up). Or you can go to your local library, bookstore or the internets and get a copy for yourselves.

20261

[Yoda]

I dig that, Chris, really I do. But the sheer amount of lists?

I don't want to come across as Captain Luddite but I'm concerned that the proliferation of 50s and 100s might overwhelm the very people you're/we're targeting and dilute the overall oeuvre . ;)
That's a perfectly fair point; too many lists could become a bit overwhelming. I've tried to compensate for this in what I think is an important way; namely, keeping more "official" lists (AFI, BFI, Sight & Sound, etc) somewhat separate from the less formal ones. I'd like to keep the ones produced by actual Film Institutes front-and-center, and shunt the others off to the side a bit. I can't think of any other way to avoid dilution, other than putting a limit on the number of lists involved, which could put a cramp on some of the things I've got planned.

Also, the mere existence of this thread would, I hope, indicate that I want to be fairly careful about which lists are added. Though I do usually have some general framework about where I want the site and its various sections to go, don't think I don't make some of it up as I go along. ;) So, I'm definitely always open to ideas.

[Ðèstîñy]

who among us hasn't scoffed at a new member's opinion, and then considered ourselves justified when we see 300 on their Favorites list? ;)

Um, me! I'm such a sweetie. Sugar coated! :D

What are we gonna do with all these lists apart from sneering that MoFo X is better than MoFo Y and that MoFo Z should take no part in a serious discussion on, say, The importance of signet rings in Film Noir because he's only scored 53% in 'Sight & Sound's 100 Greatest Film Noir Signet Rings'? Serious question.

I plan to view all of them, except for Titanic. I'll never watch that movie. Hopefully these lists will inspire everyone to do the same. It's the western movies list that will be mostly unchecked for me. For the most part, if it wasn't Clint, I didn't check into it. Oops!

[Holden Pike]

If you don't have the book you'll have to wait a day or three until Yoda adds it to the MoFo Lists, but these are some of the films I would have definitely made room for on my own one hundred list (no, I haven't compiled one, I'm just saying...).

20271
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943 - William Wellman)
"Justice? What do you care about justice? You don't even care whether you've got
the right men or not. All you know is you've lost something and somebody's got
to be punished. "

This to me is the most egregious omission. Wellman's adaptation of the Walter Van Tilburg Clark novel starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, Harry Morgan and Frank Conroy about the mentality and danger of lynch mobs is a great film, Western or otherwise. This morality play on the dark plains is Wild Bill Wellman's best overall movie, I think, with an almost Noirish expressionistic use of black & white photography and some great performances. Two other Wellman movies did make Buscombe's list: Yellow Sky and Across the Wide Missouri. Both are good films and I don't argue with their inclusion in such an exercise, but putting them ahead of Ox-Bow is a bit baffling to me.


20272
The Big Country (1958 - William Wyler)
"This is the west, Jim, a man is still expected to defend himself. If he allows
people to think he won't, he's in trouble. Bad trouble."

Wyler is a director who didn't make the list at all, and while the Gary Cooper vehicle The Westerner (1940) is his only other true Western (among his sound pictures, anyway) and it has iconic performances from Coop and Walter Brennan (who won his third Oscar for the role), the bigger exclusion for me is The Big Country - though I would probably make room for both if composing a list of a hundred. Big Country is a sprawling frontier epic with an amazing cast: Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Burl Ives, Charlton Heston, Charles Bickford, Chuck Connors, Carroll Baker, Alfonso Bedoya...all gathered for a tale of a smart and philosophically peaceful man coming into a bitter range war over water rights. It's got to be one of the best of the genre in the 1950s, and certainly there's room for it on a list of one hundred must-see Westerns.


20273
Blood on the Moon (1948 - Robert Wise)
"I always wanted to shoot one of you. He was the handiest."

This one isn't as glaring as Ox-Bow or Big Country, but it's a damn fine film from Robert Wise, who seemed to master so many genres often in his first and only attempt (the Civil War era Two Flags West is his only other picture that could be called a Western). It stars Robert Mitchum with Robert Preston, Barbara Bel Geddes, Charles McGraw and Walter Brennan. This is another range war, though with a smaller scope. Mitchum is brought in by his friend as a hired gun (unknowingly at first, for Mitchum) to make some quick money...until he realizes he's on the wrong side of the fight. A standard plot, but so very well executed by all involved. I suppose it's not a striking as Pursued, another good Mitchum Western directed by Raoul Walsh that did make the cut, but it's terrific. It also has a nice female role for Bel Geddes.


20274
Hombre (1967 - Martin Ritt)
"Hey. I got a question: How are you planning to get back down that hill?"

OK, so Paul Newman may be a bit miscast, physically anyway, as a half-breed Indian. But as the lead in this great ensemble that includes Richard Boone, Fredric March, Martin Balsam, Diane Cilento and Barbara Rush, he's perfect as the bitter and reluctant hero who begrudgingly does his best to save a stagecoach full of folks who don't like or respect him...until they need him, of course. Boone is fantastic doing his joyously slimy villain thing, and the finale at the abandoned silver mine is worthy of the build-up. Like 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and The Tall T (1957), this one is adapted from an Elmore Leonard story. The other two films made Buscombe's cut.



So, those are four of them that I think are missing. But don't let that dissuade you. Overall it's a very strong list. But all such lists are flawed, and those are some of the blind-spots I noticed. But that's part of what these things are for, to stir up debate among us cinema nerds! I'll look forward to your own thoughts about omissions once the list is up.

.

[nebbit]

Where is the westerns list? :goof: I love lists :laugh: sorry Tatty :kiss:

[mark f]

I have plenty to say about what Holden listed as exclusions (I probably watch The Big Country once or twice a year, if only to hear the soundtrack), but I have to wait to see the inclusions first.

[Tacitus]

Where is the westerns list? :goof: I love lists :laugh: sorry Tatty :kiss:

No need to apologise, hon, it's just my inner Devil's advocate coming out so pay me no heed. I don't even listen to me, most of the time...

I guess I was just a subscriber to Empire for so long that I saw how daft an over-proliferation of lists was. :)

[Holden Pike]

And a few others that didn't make Buscombe's list but I love...

20268
Jeremiah Johnson (1972 - Sydney Pollack)
"Just where is it I could find bear, beaver, and other critters worth cash money when skinned?"

Robert Redford as the inexperienced trapper who through luck and determination becomes a legendary mountain man, respected and feared by even the Indians who live in the high country. Just some amazing shots of the Utah Wilderness, including Zion National Park. Talk about location work - yowza. Just glorious stuff, and adds so many layers of authenticity to everything about the production. Redford's quiet and mostly stoic performance is just right, and the scenes with Will Greer as a grizzled old timer and the makeshift family he acquires (while they last) are terrific. There aren't many action scenes, but what's there are exciting and realistic. But in the end it's the lone man in the grandeur and danger of nature stuff that elevates this yarn.


20269
The Professionals (1966 - Richard Brooks)
"Maybe there's only been one revolution since the beginning - the good
guys versus the bad guys. The question is, who are the good guys? "

A perfect blend of action and humor in a Western wrapper, Richard Brooks' The Professionals is a ton of fun. A wealthy man (Ralph Bellamy) hires four mercenaries (Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode) to go into Mexico after his young bride (Claudia Cardinale), who has been kidnapped by the notorious bandit and Revolutionary Jesus Raza (Jack Palance). True it doesn't really do anything to advance the genre, and in retrospect it kind of plays like The Wild Bunch minus the poetry and nihilism, but the on-screen chemistry of that phenomenal cast and the well choreographed action by Richard Brooks plus great cinematography from Connie Hall and a playful score by Maurice Jarre adds up to an infinitely fun picture. It also has one of the best final lines in cinema history. Yeah, this one is a must-see...in my book anyway.


20270
Lonely are the Brave (1962 - David Miller)
"Know what a loner is? He's a born cripple. He's a cripple because the
only person he can live with is himself. It's his life, the way he wants
to live. It's all for him."

Now in Buscombe's defense, it seems he made a conscious decision not to include "modern" Westerns. By that I don't mean those movies made after a certain cut-off, but rather those set in the modern world - or at least well past about the turn of the twentieth century. I know some purists may indeed have issues with those set in more present-day and it can become problematic when already facing the difficult task of limiting yourself to only a hundred films of such a well-traveled genre. But if you do include them, Lonely are the Brave has to be near the tops among the modern Western.

In the film that Kirk Douglas has often called the favorite of his entire career he plays Jack Burns, an old-style cowboy in a world where he simply doesn't fit. He hates the fences that now divide what used to be the wide open spaces of America, and he often finds it treacherous just to get from place to place on his trusty horse across a couple lanes of high-speed traffic. In a great scene he intentionally picks a fight in a bar just so he can get thrown in the local jail to visit an old friend. He tries to get his buddy to escape with him and head for the hills, but he goes alone. He's pursued by the sympathetic local Sheriff (Walter Matthau), but what John W. Burns is trying to outrun is impossible: progress and reality. It's adapted from the Edward Abbey novel by Dalton Trumbo, and with a supporting cast that includes George Kennedy, Gena Rowlands, William Shallert, Carroll O'Connor and a young Bill Bixby, this is a damn fine film that has been continually underseen since its release forty-five years ago.

.

[Holden Pike]

I have plenty to say about what Holden listed as exclusions (I probably watch The Big Country once or twice a year, if only to hear the soundtrack), but I have to wait to see the inclusions first.

OK, here's the list...

Across the Wide Missouri (1950)
Antonio das Mortes (1969)
Apache (1954)
The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913)
The Beguiled (1970)
The Big Sky (1952)
The Big Trail (1930)
Broken Arrow (1950)
A Bullet for the General (1966)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Calamity Jane (1953)
Comanche Station (1960)
Cowboy (1958)
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Day of the Outlaw (1959)
Dead Man (1995)
Destry Rides Again (1939)
Django (1966)
Dodge City (1939)
Duel in the Sun (1946)
El Dorado (1966)
Face to Face (1967)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Fort Apache (1948)
Forty Guns (1957)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Go West (1925)
Great Day in the Morning (1956)
The Great K&A Train Robbery (1926)
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
The Grey Fox (1982)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1956)
The Gunfighter (1950)
The Hanging Tree (1959)
Heaven's Gate (1980)
Heller in Pink Tights (1960)
Hell's Hinges (1916)
High Noon (1952)
High Plains Drifter (1972)
The Iron Horse (1924)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
The Last Sunset (1961)
The Last Wagon (1956)
The Law and Jake Wade (1958)
Little Big Man (1970)
Lonesome Cowboys (1968)
The Long Riders (1980)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Major Dundee (1964)
The Man from Laramie (1955)
Man of the West (1958)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
Monte Walsh (1970)
My Darling Clementine (1946)
The Naked Spur (1952)
Oh, Susanna! (1936)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
One-Eyed Jacks (1960)
Open Range (2004)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
The Paleface (1948)
Pale Rider (1985)
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
Pursued (1947)
Ramrod (1947)
Rancho Notorious (1952)
Red River (1947)
Ride Lonesome (1959)
Ride the High Country (1962)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Rio Conchos (1964)
Run of the Arrow (1957)
The Searchers (1956)
Shane (1953)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
The Shooting (1966)
The Shootist (1976)
Stagecoach (1939)
Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)
The Tall Men (1955)
The Tall T (1956)
Tears of the Black Tiger (2001)
Terror in a Texas Town (1958)
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Two Rode Together (1961)
Ulzana's Raid (1972)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Unforgiven (1960)
Viva Maria! (1965)
Wagon Master (1950)
Warlock (1959)
Way Out West (1936)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Winchester '73 (1950)
The Wonderful Country (1959)
Yellow Sky (1948)

[Holden Pike]

OK, now as for what I'm very happy did make the list.

There are probably at least sixty of those that I reckon any Western fan would easily and quickly agree with. We can argue forever about the edges of the genre's canon, but there are some true automatic inclusions, and with the exception of The Ox-Bow Incident and The Big Country from my list in particular, I'd say just about all of them are on there. He included a couple avant garde flicks and some foreign-language ones where I think maybe he's trying a little too hard to show the breadth of the genre's influence. But again, I'll be happy to relay his reasoning on any or all of his choices.

A couple I'm very happy he selected that might have been left off of another Westerns list are...


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The Grey Fox (1982 - Phillip Borsos)
"You're not worth killin', but if you come at me again I'll put a window through your head, so help me."

Richard Farnsworth was a real-life cowboy who made an extremely successful career as a stuntman in Hollywood for decades, including in some of the greatest Westerns ever made (Red River, Duel in the Sun, Fort Apache). By the 1970s he was starting to move into small background and supporting roles and he even got an Oscar nod as supporting actor in the Jane Fonda Western Comes a Horseman (1978). That all lead up to the excellent Canadian film The Grey Fox, where at the tender age of sixty-two Farnsworth finally became a leading man. Based on a true story he plays Bill Miner, a "gentleman bandit" who was put in prison for much of his life for robbing stagecoaches. When he is released after serving his thirty-some year sentence, it's 1901 and he's in his late sixties. He tries to adapt to the new world, but ultimately he returns to what he knows...and since the stages are all gone, he commits Canada's first ever train robbery. Very good, quiet, character-driven piece with a charming and excellent performance from Farnsworth, who gained a whole second career in its wake. The Grey Fox was the big winner at the Genie Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar), and rightly so. It had a nice life in the U.S. on VHS and cable TV, but as great as it is could just as easily have been missed. It should not be missed.


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Support Your Local Sheriff (1969 - Burt Kennedy)
"What would I want with a reputation? That's a good way to get yourself killed."

I think since Blazing Saddles and Cat Ballou didn't make the list we can assume Buscombe generally decided to leave comedies out of the running. But I'm glad he did make room for Support Your Local Sheriff. It's as funny as most any comedy you'll ever see, but it isn't full of the kind of anachronistic humor and non-genre gags that you'll find in Blazing Saddles, which throws so much craziness against the wall to see what'll stick that somewhere along the way it stops being a parody of Westerns and is just a comedy for comedy's sake (and thank goodness for it!). In that sense, Local Sheriff still plays by and with the established genre rules, and since it is populated with some classic veteran Western character actors including Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, Gene Evans and most especially the great Walter Brennan, it's a comic Western that's still a Western...if you catch my distinction. And with James Garner in the lead it plays more like a belated and unofficial movie version of his Bret Maverick character. The post-"Maverick" pre-"Rockford" Jim Garner is effortlessly funny and charming, and Bruce Dern just about steals the picture form everybody as one of the outlaws the reluctant new Sheriff must jail. Great stuff. In in that same vein, I'm glad the Bob Hope vehicle The Paleface (1948) made the list too, as well as the Jimmy Stewart/Marlene Dietrich version of Destry Rides Again (1939).


I still say overall it's a fine list...even if each of us Western fans would probably tweak it this way and that.

[uconjack]

I agree with Holden about The Big Country, The Ox-Bow Incident, Jeremiah Johnson and Lonely are the Brave.

I think they also missed Rio Grande, The Three Burials of Melquides Estrada, and Lone Star.

And I would have fit Lonesome Dove in there too. It is just too good to leave out.

As far as movies I would have left out, I would start with The Beguiled, Cowboy, Rio Conchos, Major Dundee, Two Rode Together and The Wondeful Country.

Movies I was a little suprised, but happy to see, included Dead Man, The Hanging Tree, The Missouri Breaks and One Eyed Jacks.

Movie I most want to see off this list : Run of the Arrow

"You may be a one eyed jack around here, but I've seen the other side of your face."

[Holden Pike]

I agree with Holden about The Big Country, The Ox-Bow Incident, Jeremiah Johnson and Lonely are the Brave. I think they also missed Rio Grande, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and Lone Star.

Well, Melquiades would have only been out for at most a couple months, maybe, depending on when he turned in his manuscript. The book was released in early 2006, so depending on his deadline and when they had to start the process to get all the photo rights and such, there's a chance Melquiades hadn't been seen by anybody yet when the list was finalized, certainly not Buscombe. But as far as quality, yeah, I think it's a great film, and if you are going to include modern Westerns this is another one that would be way up there, on my list (and yours) for sure.

As for Lone Star, as big a John Sayles fan as I am and as much as I love that movie, this is one that's a little too far afield of the genre to include in such a list. For me, anyway. If it was just the '50s stuff and the battle between Charlie Wade and Buddy Deeds, I'd see calling it a modern Western. But with the present-day stuff, going back and forth in timelines, the military base and the forbidden affair.... It's a great movie, I definitely encourage anybody who hasn't seen it to watch it ASAP, but while it has elements of and nods to the Western, I wouldn't classify it as one.

As for Rio Grande, there are nine other John Ford films on the list, and I rather like that he chose his other Western from 1950, Wagon Master, which doesn't have a "movie star" in the lead, instead using one of his usual supporting players in the great Ben Johnson. And though it's less polished than Rio Grande, it is a good flick and shows even more of Ford's range, just within Western framework.

But I understand, I mean if you're going to include two-thirds of the Cavalry trilogy, then why not all three?


And I would have fit "Lonesome Dove" in there too. It is just too good to leave out.

I hear you. I usually include it in my own person top ten. Television mini-series or not, it's such a great, towering piece with one of the all-time greatest Western performances and characters in Bobby Duvall as Agustus McRae. On the other hand I certainly understand limiting the list to theatrical releases only and not making the exception, even for something as magnificent and singular as "Lonesome Dove". They may not rent pigs, but they did make a great Western.


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And speaking of "Dove", if you're a superfan like me you should know there's a brand new book out called simply A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove, and the title says it all. There's a forward by Larry McMurtry and an introduction, but other than that it's just over a hundred photographs taken during the shoot, stuff from behind-the-scenes and as they were filming. It's a big ol' coffee table type book, about 12"x12", and very nicely done. It does retail for $45, so if you want to tell Santa what you want for Christmas or Hanukkah Harry what you want during the Festival of Lights....

.

[Powdered Water]

Thanks for that Holden and I totally agree with you about Doves, my Dad brought that home awhile back and in my ignorance I scoffed and said "What's this crap!" of course once I started watching it I didn't stop and it was finished to soon as most of the good ones are. What's your opinion of the next one they put out. If you've seen it. Which I imagine you have or at least maybe watched some of it.

[Holden Pike]

Movie I most want to see off this list : Run of the Arrow

I'm a huge Sam Fuller fan. Like all of his stuff it's an interesting piece that's trying to say something, but I agree it's pretty light and awkward and shouldn't be on a list of a hundred must-see Westerns. The oddball casting is a bit too distracting, though I do like Rod Steiger and Brian Keith's performances. The top two-hundred, sure, but not even at #99 or #100 should it make a top one hundred list. Now Sam's Forty Guns is a better fit (it is on the list) I can happily support, even with the forced neutered ending. If I had to pick a second Fuller Western over Run of the Arrow I'd go with Vincent Price in The Baron of Arizona. But even that I wouldn't be able to find room for in only hundred films, definitely not in place of The Ox-Bow Incident or The Big Country or Jeremiah Johnson....

As for some of what Buscombe says about Run of the Arrow, I think you'll see he chose it for its message and themes in a 1957 movie and not necessarily in its execution...

Sam Fuller's Sioux Indians are a singularly unconvincing bunch: Jay C. Flippen as the garrulous Walking Coyote, Spanish starlet Sarita Montiel as Yellow Moccasin sexy in a tight deerskin dress slit up the thigh, and stony-faced Charles Bronson as Blue Buffalo, the Chief. But ethnographic realism is not the point. Fuller is more interested in his highly schematic but daring analysis of nationalism and ethnic identity...

At the end Fuller deliberately leaves the question of O'Meara's allegiance open. Given a U.S. flag by Yellow Moccasin, he rides off with the soldiers, but significantly he takes her with him, and also the Indian child they have adopted. On screen appear the words: "The end of this story can only be written by you". One implication is that racism is something which requires all of us to take a stand. But there is another: blood may be thicker than water, but nevertheless we can all choose our allegiances, at least to an extent.

Edward Buscombe, 100 Westerns (BFI Screen Guides), pages 177 and 178.

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[Holden Pike]

What's your opinion of the next one they put out. If you've seen it. Which I imagine you have or at least maybe watched some of it.
20263

None of the subsequent "Lonesome Dove" projects are anywhere near the same class. In the "sequel", "Return to Lonesome Dove", only Rick Schroeder and Chris Cooper return to reprise roles among the main cast, and Jon Voight is no Tommy Lee Jones. It's all pretty unnecessary. The briefly-lived television series was weak, the couple of episodes I bothered to sit through. "Dead Man's Walk", with Jonny Lee Miller and David Arquette as a young Woodrow and Gus, simply doesn't cut it. The only one really worth spending some time with is "Streets of Laredo" with James Garner as Woodrow Call. It does have a good cast that also includes Sissy Spacek, Ned Beatty, Sam Shepard, Charles Martin Smith, Randy Quaid and Wes Studi. But while it outclasses "Return to Lonesome Dove" and "Dead Man's Walk", it's nowhere near the masterpiece of the original.

There's yet another chapter coming to TV at the end of this year, and this is the first of the subsequent projects to be directed by Simon Wincer, who helmed the original. It's called "Comanche Moon", and it continues the prequel adventures following "Dead Man's Walk". This time Steve Zahn is Gus McRae and Karl Urban (Eomer in The Lord of the Rings) is Woodrow Call. It's got some good actors in it, including Val Kilmer, Adam Beach (as Blue Duck), Linda Cardellini (as Clara), Rachel Griffiths and Wes Studi, but I'd say the chances of it approaching "Lonesome Dove" status are pretty slim. But maybe they'll hit the "Streets of Laredo" mark, which would make it at least watchable. It's a three-part mini series scheduled to air on CBS on Sunday December 30, 2007 then Tuesday and Wednesday January 1st and 2nd, 2008. So I guess if you like Westerns but don't care for College Football Bowl Games, you'll have some original programming to check out.


Just re-watch the original over and over, that's my advice. :yup:

[Powdered Water]

"Streets of Laredo" with James Garner is the one I've seen a little of and I'm not sure if it's out on DVD or not but that would be the only other one that I may buy. "Comanche Moon" sounds pretty interesting I'll give that a look. Thanks.

[nebbit]

No need to apologise, hon, it's just my inner Devil's advocate coming out so pay me no heed. I don't even listen to me, most of the time...
Don't give up your inner Devil, I like it :goof:

[nebbit]

http://www.homevideos.com/freezeframes/SupportSheriff540.jpeg http://www.movieactors.com/freezeframes5/SupportSheriff637.jpeg
Support Your Local Sheriff (1969 - Burt Kennedy)
"What would I want with a reputation? That's a good way to get yourself killed."

I think since Blazing Saddles and Cat Ballou didn't make the list we can assume Buscombe generally decided to leave comedies out of the running. But I'm glad he did make room for Support Your Local Sheriff. It's as funny as most any comedy you'll ever see, but it isn't full of the kind of anachronistic humor and non-genre gags that you'll find in Blazing Saddles, which throws so much craziness against the wall to see what'll stick that somewhere along the way it stops being a parody of Westerns and is just a comedy for comedy's sake (and thank goodness for it!). In that sense, Local Sheriff still plays by and with the established genre rules, and since it is populated with some classic veteran Western character actors including Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, Gene Evans and most especially the great Walter Brennan, it's a comic Western that's still a Western...if you catch my distinction. And with James Garner in the lead it plays more like a belated and unofficial movie version of his Bret Maverick character. The post-"Maverick" pre-"Rockford" Jim Garner is effortlessly funny and charming, and Bruce Dern just about steals the picture form everybody as one of the outlaws the reluctant new Sheriff must jail. Great stuff..
I just bought a 5 DVD western package and support your local sherriff is in it, I loved it :yup:

[Holden Pike]

If you're a virtual Western movie neophyte, where should you start on such a daunting list of a hundred films? Well first I'd be surprised if just about any member here hasn't seen at least a few of these. Oscar winners Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven may have crossed your path over the years among the newer entries, and the Leones and Clint's others on the list (High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider) are all very often on TV, and Eastwood is an icon that even more casual and younger movie fans must have come across at least pieces of these movies on the tube.


20264

But assuming you've seen absolutely nothing or next to nothing, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid is a great place to start. The charming and timelessly incandescent star power of Newman and Redford coupled with William Goldman's incessantly amusing script should please any movie fan. And for all the reasons listed in my post above, Support Your Local Sheriff is a good starting point too - sort of ease your way into the genre by laughing a lot.

As for the films from the true classic era, I'd suggest High Noon. The story is so instantly compelling and relateable, and it's such a great film with a terrific song and the beauty of Grace Kelly for good measure. This is another one even somebody who is sure they aren't going to like Westerns will enjoy. When my little sister was about nineteen and getting more and more interested in film, this is the one I used to introduce her to the classic horse opera. She loved it. I wouldn't say it turned her into a rabid fan of the genre, but it's a classic she'll always remember.

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[Pyro Tramp]

Am i being dense not being able to find and update my Western list?

[Holden Pike]

Am i being dense not being able to find and update my Western list?

No, I think Yoda is probably just in the process of making it live. If it were ready to go, I'm sure he would have formally announced it. Let him savor the Steelers win a little bit. I'm sure he's on top of it.

[Pyro Tramp]

No, I think Yoda is probably just in the process of making it live. If it were ready to go, I'm sure he would have formally announced it. Let him savor the Steelers win a little bit. I'm sure he's on top of it.

Yeah, i thought that he would've too, just saw that in a few member drop down menus they'd started them already. Though considering you had 12% or something should have guessed something wasn't right.

[Holden Pike]

Yeah, i thought that he would've too, just saw that in a few member drop down menus they'd started them already. Though considering you had 12% or something should have guessed something wasn't right.

Well that one that's on there right this second isn't the correct list. That's the one from that magazine that included television series like the frippin' Soap Opera in Stetsons "Dallas". That list is going to be replaced by Buscombe's BFI Screen Guide list of a hundred.

I think.

I hope.

[Powdered Water]

Stop humming the theme song to Dallas guys...

[Yoda]

Holden's right; I had resigned myself to settling for the Cowboys & Indians list, and was working on adding it before Holden so graciously volunteered to transcribe the BFI book. I'm not sure how you guys found it; I thought I'd excluded it from displaying. Nonetheless, I'll be zapping it and adding the new one tomorrow.

[Powdered Water]

Click my little movie lists clicky and you'll see it. For some reason though it's not on yours though guess you left yourself out. That's why I was asking for help earlier I could see it under my lists but I had no access to it. ** Spoke to soon you just got rid of it... NEVER MIND!**

[mark f]

Having a little time to digest the BFI Book's List, I have a few brief comments to make. Maybe I'll go into more detail if anybody seems interested. The list is top-heavy in 1950s westerns. That's pretty obvious, and I don't know that I have a complaint about that, but it does lack two of my faves from the '50s, Jacques Tourneur's Stars in My Crown (1950) with Joel McCrea as a soldier-turned-small-town minister and Hondo (1953), a colorful John Wayne actioner which I enjoyed watching in 3-D.

Besides the films which Holden listed earlier, I have a few more which I'm sorry not to see on the list, although I'm certainly not surprised that they've been omitted.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), one of Peckinpah's most likable and enjoyable films, with one of Jason Robards' best performances.

My Name is Nobody (1973), a film produced by Sergio Leone, filled with his quirkiness and featuring Henry Fonda's final western performance.

Posse (1975), a highly-entertaining cat and mouse game between a politically-minded Marshal (director Kirk Douglas) and a railroad bandit (Bruce Dern).

Bite the Bullet (1975), another Richard Brooks crowd-pleaser about a long-distance endurance horse race, with a great cast including Gene Hackman, James Coburn, Candice Bergen and Ben Johnson.

From Noon Till Three (1976), an uncharacteristically charming, romantic and ironic Charles Bronson film where he and his real-life wife Jill Ireland seem to be really enjoying themselves.

Barbarosa (1982), a western fable with super performances by Willie Nelson and Gary Busey, a tight William D. Witliff script and naturalistic direction from Fred Schepisi.

Silverado (1985), a game attempt to make a super Saturday matinee western in the 1980s. It's a little bloated, but with some unusual casting, good action, a few funny situations, and nice photography, it's well worth your time.

The Ballad of Little Jo (1993), an unusual western, based on fact, about a young woman who's forced to pose as a man to keep from being taken advantage of. Suzy Amis, although she's hard to mistake for a guy, gives a credible performance and her unpredictable story leads to a strong conclusion.

[Holden Pike]

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:FrUJ_k3YrWz-_M:http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/protectedimage.php%3Fimage%3DMikeSutton/cable2.jpg http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:-qX2s6HmU7r_SM:http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/images/cd/large/Ballad_Cable_Hogue_VCL05021007.jpg http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:yPZAdSFH1jB-9M:http://www.hollywoodteenmovies.com/MyNameIsNobodyArtwork.jpg http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:5z_RIM3AndhnBM:http://www.criticsinc.com/photos/posters/b/balladoflittlejo.jpg

Yup, Pardner, I was going to list The Ballad of Cable Hogue, My Name is Nobody and The Ballad of Little Jo in my next trio of the worthy missing - you beat me to it! I was workin' my way up chronologically.

http://smilies.vidahost.com/otn/other/bandit.gif
DRAW,
TINHORN!

[cinemafan]

Well, I haven't seen these lists but here's some if they are not on the list and should be added: Jeremiah Johnnson, The Hunting Party, A Man Called Horse, The Deadly Trackers, Macho Callahan.
I'm sure the Wild Bunch, Lone Star, Tombstone, Once Uopn A Time In The West, "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly", and El Mariachi are allready included. Special mention goes to Solkdier Blue and Cheyenne Autumn.

[Holden Pike]

Well, I haven't seen these lists but here's some if they are not on the list and should be added: Jeremiah [Johnson], The Hunting Party, A Man Called Horse, The Deadly Trackers, Macho Callahan.
I'm sure the Wild Bunch, Lone Star, Tombstone, Once [Upon] a Time in the West, "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly", and El Mariachi are [already] included. Special mention goes to [Soldier] Blue and Cheyenne Autumn.

So you haven't bothered to read the thread.

The entire list of 100 Westerns from the BFI Screen Guides series is about midway down the second page of this thread. Lone Star is not on the list, as we've already discussed. The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad & the Ugly are on the list. El Mariachi is not. Neither are Soldier Blue or Cheyenne Autumn. If frippin' Tombstone were somehow on the list, I would have kept looking for another one.

[Holden Pike]

I still think the list is decent and good enough for our purposes, but continuing with what I think are some must-see Westerns not included by Buscombe...

20288
"Ain't had no water since yesterday, Lord. Gettin' a little thirsty.....Just thought I'd mention it. Amen."
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970 - Sam Peckinpah)

Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) is a two-bit roustabout who is left for dead in the middle of the unforgiving desert by his two unscrupulous riding partners (Strother Martin & L.Q. Jones). Rather than give up he keeps walking until he lucks upon a muddy little bit of a natural spring in the middle of sagebrush and punishing heat. The water saves his life that day, but then Hogue gets himself an enterprising idea: with no other water for miles and miles, he's stumbled upon the perfect location for a stagecoach stop. He meets a fallen, lascivious preacher (David Warner) who is also wandering the desert, and Cable goes about the task of getting a loan in town and starting his business. He also meets the genre's hooker with a heart of gold (Stella Stevens) who he treats with equal parts lust, love and non-judgment. And so Cable finds a little piece of paradise for himself on the plains.

This was Peckinpah's follow-up to his widely and rightfully praised masterpiece The Wild Bunch, and it's nearly as good...and completely different. There is a little bit of gunplay and some rattlesnakes, but this is not a mediation on violence but on redemption. It's essentially a character-based comedy with a bit of satire in a Western setting and definitely a great movie, with one of Robards' most endearing and memorable roles of his long career (which is saying a lot).


20289
"Folks that throw dirt on you aren't always trying to hurt you, and folks that pull you out of a jam aren't always trying to help you. But the main point is when you're up to your nose in *****, keep your mouth shut."
My Name is Nobody (1973 - Tonino Valerii)

This a funny parody of Spaghetti Westerns that's also fairly poignant. Yes Sergio Leone produced the film and co-wrote the story, which might explain why Henry Fonda is on board for such a low budget, odd little movie (Fonda said many times that Frank in Once Upon A Time in the West was the favorite role of his career). Fonda is Jack Beauregard, a legendary gunfighter nearing the end of his days. Terence Hill, best known for the silly Trinity comedy Spaghetti Western series, is the good-humored, smiling hotshot with no name referred to only as "Nobody". Nobody's plan is to have his hero, Beauregard, go out in an historic blaze of glory, single-handedly facing down the Wild Bunch, a mercenary gang of 150 blood-thirsty cutthroat sons-of-bitches. After all, it's the only exit fitting for such a mythic legend. What follows is a conscious parody of the subgenre Leone made famous: the long, slow camera shots, protracted showdowns, extreme close-ups, bursts of graphic violence and even the requisite Ennio Morricone score (actually one of his best). All the ingredients are here, and they're all used to perfection. If you know Leone's work, you will find many little references and in-jokes to keep you giggling. And not just Leone's films are used for fodder, but other great Westerns too, including Ford's and Peckinpah's, and even non-Westerns references like the funhouse mirror sequence from Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai. This is one of those movies for movie nuts, where the more you know going in, the more you will get out of the experience.

The humor is often quite broad, even resorting to sped-up Keystone Cops-type action in a few spots. But it all works. The tone is such that these sometimes very silly sidetracks all fit. Hill is a good comedian, naturally charming and good looking, and Fonda seems genuinely amused throughout. But if the intent was to have fun at the genre's expense, by the end, My Name Is Nobody very subtly increases its ambition and is a smart observation on Western mythology and a welcome addition to the ranks of the films it set out to poke fun at. Rather than easily dismiss it as a lark, it should be included more prominently at the end cycle of those great Revisionist Westerns from the late '60s and early '70s. The dignity and intelligence of Fonda and the script kind of sneak up on you, but through the gags and laughs there really is something to this story.

Along with Fonda and Hill are a few familiar Western faces in cameos, including R.G. Armstrong (a Peckinpah regular from Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and Ride the High Country), Leo Gordon (longtime Western vet, including films with Randolph Scott and John Wayne), Mario Brega, Piero Lulli and Jean Martin (from many a Spaghetti Western) and Geoffrey Lewis (who became a longtime Eastwood co-star and had just appeared as the villain in Clint's High Plains Drifter).

This is the Spaghetti Western parody I imagine Sam Raimi must have been trying to make but failed at miserably with The Quick & the Dead (1995), and the fun deconstruction of myth Robert Rodriguez attempted in the first half of Desperado (1995), but neither of those efforts succeeds as well or as deeply as this oft-forgotten film. Having Leone involved in the production lends credibility and maybe even a touch of magic to My Name is Nobody. Rumors persist that Leone might have had a more hands-on part of the production than the credits bare out, and while not as widely disputed as the Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks direction of The Thing from Another World, some still believe Sergio must have been calling at least some of the shots on the set. I think this rumor survives mostly because My Name is Nobody is so good, so Valerii isn't given the credit he probably deserves.


20290
"Little Jo, you are the unfriendliest fella I ever met, and frankly quite peculiar."
The Ballad of Little Jo (1993 - Maggie Greenwald)

After Josephine Monaghan (Suzy Amis) a young woman from a society family on the east coast is seduced, abandoned and left pregnant, her family disowns her and casts her off. It's the late 19th Century, so she leaves the child with her sister and decides to go west. She's not out on her own for very long before she realizes a woman, especially traveling alone, is in constant peril. Unless she wants to be vulnerable to rape or worse on the road, she has the two choices of the day: become either a wife or a whore. She decides to make an unusual third choice: disguise herself and live as a man, even going to the extreme of self-mutilation to give herself a facial scar. Since she isn't built like Angelina Jolie or Marylin Monroe, she can actually pull this living as a man thing off. As young prospector "Little Jo" she can move more freely and make her own way in the world. She's a quick study of male behavior, and it works for a while, until she starts a relationship with another outcast, a Chinaman (David Chung) she saves from the gallows. Theirs is a very honest and unusual affair, not just some hollow Hollywood subplot. Aided by a supporting cast that includes Ian McKellen, Bo Hopkins (The Wild Bunch), Heather Graham, Anthony Heald, Melissa Leo, Carrie Snodgress and Rene Auberjonois, writer-director Maggie Greenwald (Songcatcher) based her tale on a true story. It's a very good character piece and examines the gender and racial divides both of the day and the Western genre in an elegant and engaging way.

[Yoda]

Sorry for the delay, people. Here's the list:

BFI Screen Guide's 100 Westerns (http://www.movieforums.com/lists/bfi_screen_guides_100_westerns.html)

A big thanks, again, to Holden for taking the time to type these out. :)

[Holden Pike]

http://www.movieforums.com/community/attachment.php?attachmentid=12981&stc=1&d=1392164151
Giddyup, I reckon.

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.
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[Thursday Next]

Cool. The more lists the merrier. Alas, I, as predicted, have seen only 5. But when I've got done with all the 100 years...100 comedies, thrills, films etc and the inevitable Sci Fi list, I'll take a look at a few more of them.

I'll own up to not being a massive fan of the western genre...but having seen only 5 of the 100 best (according to this list), I'm well aware that I'm not really in a position to comment.

Of the ones I have seen, I really liked McCabe and Mrs. Miller, quite liked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and can't remember being overwhelmingly impressed by the others (even though I know it's considered heresy by some not to love The Searchers...).

My main problem with deciding which Western to watch is that some of them are mainly considered good because they are 'revisionist' or go against genre cliches...and if you haven't seen the 'normal' (if that's the right word) examples of the genre, can you really appreciate such films?

[Holden Pike]

My main problem with deciding which Western to watch is that some of them are mainly considered good because they are 'revisionist' or go against genre cliches...and if you haven't seen the 'normal' (if that's the right word) examples of the genre, can you really appreciate such films?

Yes, that is a bit of an issue. While something like Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a great movie no matter what, if you understand its place in the history of the genre and just how unusual it is in that sense and how different a "Western" it really is in just about every way, some of the additional layers of what it does may be lost. The violence of The Wild Bunch may still be obviously graphic, even nearly forty years later, but when you put it in the context of not only late '60s cinema and culture but that it starred the likes of William Holden and Robert Ryan, veterans of the classic era of filmmaking and Westerns, there's even more going on than the cinematic text itself. And until you've seen a bunch of bad and routine Westerns of the '40s and '50s, much less the acknowledged classics and not to mention the thousands of hours of television Westerns that were far and away the most popular genre on the airwaves in the first couple decades of that medium, you can't fully appreciate how different even the films of an Anthony Mann or Budd Boetticher are, forget Peckinpah and Leone!

Which isn't to say you must watch seven or eight hundred Western movies and a thousand episodes of series television to enjoy and appreciate most if not all of the hundred movies on this list. But yes, part of what canonizes a film is not just its own quality and watchability, but its place in cinematic history. And that doesn't just apply to Westerns, but all films. Citizen Kane is a great movie, no doubt about it, but part of why it is routinely cited as the best movie of all time is because of its remarkable backstory and how different it was from everything that came before it; narratively, visually and technically it was a daring movie. It still retains all of that specialness on the screen even if the only other movie you've ever seen is in your life is The Waterboy, but the understanding of just how different and how special it is hinges as much on the larger story and cinematic history as it does on the experience of actually watching it.


It's a trap. As soon as you start really getting into film, it fuels a desire to learn as much of that larger history and context as you can. Or at least, it does for me. Thus the quote from Capra in my signature, "As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film." If you want to get off of heroin, they can put you into a Methadone treatment, which is really more of the same and can be just as addictive. If you get hooked on Scorsese and Spielberg, they're really a gateway to Visconti and Hawks, which in turn leads to Welles and Kurosawa, which leads to Ford and Eisenstein, and Fellini and Lean, and Cassavetes and Ozu, and Herzog and Huston on and on and on.


So...yeah.

But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the Hell out of High Noon or Red River or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or Little Big Man right now, today. Give 'em a whirl, see what hooks you. :yup:

[Powdered Water]

What a great list, I'm glad I haven't seen that many of them. I got some watching to do. Got High Noon all ready to go now.

[Loner]

Omission

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0007PALJS.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The Bravados (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051433/)

[Loner]

Shouldn't be on the list

I found the entire list to be mediocore, but these films in particular.

Antonio das Mortes

Sergio Leone + Luis Buñuel < Ed Wood?

Is this suppose to be satire?

A woman stabs a man to death with what is obviously a fake plastic knife.

You can hear the spring of the blade retracting into the handle.

The actors and costumes seem like rejects from Shakespeare-in-the-Park.

An injured blind man is speared in the back, somehow this is suppose to relate to the story of St. George slaying a dragon.


If Lonesome Cowboys and the above "art-house" piece of crap is on the list, where is El Topo?


I also found Ulzana's Raid offensive.

1972 and you're trip-wiring horses.

[Dill-man]

Have you really seen every movie on the lists? (:rolleyes:)

[Loner]

Have you really seen every movie on the lists? (:rolleyes:)

Yes

[KasperKristensen]

Kind of unnecessary to neg-rep Dill-man on that one I think.

[Loner]

Kind of unnecessary to neg-rep Dill-man on that one I think.

First off, Dill-man is suggesting I'm lying.

Secondly, he has currently viewed six of the Westerns on the list.

Thirdly, you have seen two.

[KasperKristensen]

First off, Dill-man is suggesting I'm lying.

Or merely questioning you.

Secondly, he has currently viewed six of the Westerns on the list.

And that's a neg-repable offense? You might as well shower me in neg-rep then, I've watched one western.

Thirdly, you have scene two.

I don't follow?

[Yoda]

Neither do I. The "secondly" and "thirdly" parts don't have anything to do with anything, really, they're just swipes.

That said, I don't entirely fault him for giving Dill negative rep, because yes, Dill was suggesting that he was misrepresenting the number of films he's seen.

Regardless, I'd appreciate it if anyone who wanted to discuss this further took it to PMs, emails, or at least profile comments. Thank you. :)

[Loner]

Here are some of my favorites and recommendations not mentioned yet.

Two Mules for Sister Sara

No Name on the Bullet

Five Card Stud

The Sons of Katie Elder

Ride in the Whirlwind

Nevada Smith

Drums Along the Mohawk

Hang 'Em High

Joe Kidd

The Wind

Greed

There Was a Crooked Man...

Chato's Land

The Man from Snowy River

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

Drum Beat

Track of the Cat