Western Hall of Fame II

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So for now, don’t plan on watching Butch Cassidy until we get further clarification, I’ll wait to remove it.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
I've seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid several times, so here's my past review just for fun.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
"Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid is a kick in the pants western. Yahoo!"

E--XACTLY!
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Women will be your undoing, Pépé



The Oxbow Incident

Major Tetley: This is only slightly any of your business, my friend. Remember that.
Gil Carter: Hangin' is any man's business that's around.

Considered one of Henry Fonda's favorite films and only one of two he enjoyed doing (along with Grapes of Wrath) while contracted by 20th Century-Fox. He was so keen to do it he did it for scale. Partly due to having witnessed, at age 14, the lynching of Will Brown in Omaha, NE, on September 28, 1919.

While moral dilemmas aren't a sole commodity for Westerns, they do figure very prominently in many of them. In some, they are the very essence; and this is one of them. Specifically mob justice aka lynchings. Supplying a great list of characters to argue it out as the film clips along in a very short run time. Filling in so much without ever feeling convoluted or overabundant, we get a large group of folks hellbent on prairie justice as well as trying to preserve actual justice.
And the cast is excellent on all fronts. Along with the main cast of Henry Fonda, Harry Morgan, and as two of the three men caught by the posse, Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn, the secondary cast is where the true butting of ideals come into play.
Much of which is great fodder for both discussion and celebrating, to speak of any of it would ruin anyone's first time watching this.
So I'll have to keep quiet about all of that.

Knowing this as such a well-revered Western - I chuckle at the thought that this was actually a flop when it first came out.
Yet a another example of being realized for something great well after the fact, I suppose.

This IS a definite nomination for those who haven't and should see this prior to the Western Countdown.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
So for now, don’t plan on watching Butch Cassidy until we get further clarification, I’ll wait to remove it.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might be out of this HoF, but it's a great movie, so anyone who hasn't seen it should still watch it for the MoFo Westerns List.
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might be out of this HoF, but it's a great movie, so anyone who hasn't seen it should still watch it for the MoFo Westerns List.
Yup! very true. Have you seen Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson? I just watched that and thought it was pretty darn good, different that's for sure.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I've seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid several times, so here's my past review just for fun.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Review: The movie poster for this says, 'just for fun' and that's the way to watch this film, for fun. Paul Newman and Robert Redford have legendary chemistry as the pair of infamous and fun loving outlaws. I suspect a lot of their on screen chemistry is due to the fact that they got along well in real life and also, the light hearted script, gave them a chance to relax and have fun. And their fun comes through the screen in oodles.



Paul Newman talked about the possibility of doing another movie with Robert Redford in his interview for "Inside the Actors Studio". It was right after the clip from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and it's very funny.

The part about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starts at about 26 minutes into this video, (but the whole interview is worth watching). Watch after the video clip of the movie for his comments about another team-up of these two actors.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvti44

(NOTE: It's NOT about a sequel to Butch and Sundance, but it's definitely worth hearing about what was suggested to him, and both his and Redford's replies. )



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
Yup! very true. Have you seen Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson? I just watched that and thought it was pretty darn good, different that's for sure.

I haven't seen Jeremiah Johnson yet, but it's on my watchlist for the Westerns List. I watched Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) a few days ago. It was a pretty good movie, but it probably won't make my list.



So for now, don’t plan on watching Butch Cassidy until we get further clarification, I’ll wait to remove it.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might be out of this HoF, but it's a great movie, so anyone who hasn't seen it should still watch it for the MoFo Westerns List.
Agreed, it’ll certainly make my list.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Paul Newman talked about the possibility of doing another movie with Robert Redford in his interview for "Inside the Actors Studio". It was right after the clip from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and it's very funny.

The part about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starts at about 26 minutes into this video, (but the whole interview is worth watching). Watch after the video clip of the movie for his comments about another team-up of these two actors.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvti44

(NOTE: It's NOT about a sequel to Butch and Sundance, but it's definitely worth hearing about what was suggested to him, and both his and Redford's replies. )
"Not enough"
That was pretty d@mn funny.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Yup! very true. Have you seen Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson? I just watched that and thought it was pretty darn good, different that's for sure.
I haven't seen Jeremiah Johnson yet, but it's on my watchlist for the Westerns List. I watched Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) a few days ago. It was a pretty good movie, but it probably won't make my list.
I haven't seen Jeremiah Johnson since I was a kid, on TV. Hopefully I find the time to watch it before I send in my List.




The Great Silence

Is it better to be Great or Loco? A mute bounty hunter of bounty hunters is getting revenge on some bounty hunters in the snowy west. This was a neat movie and I loved the look of it. The interior shots were all really cramped, dingy, probably stunk and then you have the outdoor shots of vast expanses and pure white snow. It worked really well. Just my opinion but more westerns should be filmed in the snow. Jean-Louis Trintignant is the mute gunfighter, Silence, total crack shot, who has a deep hatred of bounty hunters and a strong moral code (never draws first). Klaus Kinski is Loco, a less moral bounty hunter who has zero interest in the alive part of the wanted poster. I would go so far as to say he's a cold blooded killer, scattering dead bodies in the snow and getting paid well to do it. Loco has taken up residence in a town where there happens to be a quite a few wanted men living on the outskirts thanks to some crooked politics. It's a turkey shoot for Loco but one of the women he turned into a widow wants Silence to avenge her husband's death.

This isn't a by the books western and nobody does crazy as well as Klaus because, well, Klaus is crazy. But Loco is crazy-cool. He knows what he's up against, Silence has a well earned reputation, so Loco is going to have to use every bit of knowledge he has about Silence to his advantage but will it be enough? Great ending.



The Salvation

There was something so fake about this one that I just couldn't get into. It wasn't a bad movie, and it was more of a me problem than the movie's, but it didn't feel authentic, even emotionally authentic. I didn't like any of the characters, the script was pretty bland, and most of the intense shooting scenes just left me rolling my eyes. These are some of the main reasons I'm not too fond of Westerns. But I can definitely appreciate this one. The cinematography at times was gorgeous, the acting was excellent, and there were some cool moments. But overall not really my thing.

+
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The Shooting

Not a huge fan of this one, either. To me, this Western had a lot of potential. Jack Nicholson is actually pretty bad in this movie, as is most of the acting, which is a surprise. I don't really like any of the characters, and the whole thing feels like it could have worked much better as a short film or maybe at 30-40 minute run time. There were way too many shots of them walking in the desert, which got tiresome.

But it was still a very original and interesting Western, I can't say it was bad.

+



The Salvation

In contrast to ahwell's rating, I thought it was an incredibly intense movie. Honestly, The Salvation was so powerful in execution that it was hard for me to continue watching it. Miraculously I managed to finish it. It was a decent story with excellent and perfectly slow execution despite its runtime, which helped bring out the excessive pain. The character development was occasionally lacking, and I wouldn't have minded an extra 20-30 minutes to dive into it. But I don't think the film needed that, because more character development might mean more reason to feel for the characters who are being put through hell for too many reasons. Good movie, and I love westerns a lot, but it hurt my eyes to watch because it lets you know what kind of movie your watching after the first ten minutes, and doesn't hold back.





Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)

What a great movie! And what an influential movie Rio Bravo was. It's so good that it was remade twice more and by the same director too, Howard Hawks. But it's Rio Bravo that's the 1st and best of the three....and it inspired the next wave of spaghetti westerns too.

I know a lot of people don't like John Wayne, why? Maybe because of his politics? I never was a fan of his, until I actually starting watching his movies! Then he just grew on me. Wayne is in top form here, doing the character he does best. BTW I've seen him do other roles and he was a much better actor than was ever given credit for. I almost nominated a Wayne film myself, well I'll save that for the Western HoF Part II

Dean Martin...I'm also a big fan of Dino and his 'drunk trying to go straight' is one of his plumb roles. I like the way they give him a rough and tumbled look with dirty & tattered clothes and Martin makes the most of it too. I like the way we follow Martin's struggle away from the bottle back to redemption and in that way the character's are more important than the plot. And that's by design, keep reading you'll see.

...And the rest: Angie Dickson: decent I could have seen a more gritty actress playing her role, but she's serviceable,. Ricky Nelson: for an actor turned pop star he did OK, no complaints here. Walter Brennan: what's a western without Walter Brennan? He provides the comic relief so that the serious moments can be, well, more serious. Shout out to Ward Bond too. This was his last film and he pairs very well with John Wayne.

I noticed the music score which had a trumpet playing a Mexican sounding melancholy melody. I stopped the film and said to my wife, 'the soundtrack sounds alot like the spaghetti westerns'. Then after watching the film I read the IMDB trivia and seen this:

The score includes the hauntingly ominous "El Degüello" theme, which is heard several times. Colorado identifies the tune as "The Cutthroat Song".... Composer Ennio Morricone recalled that Sergio Leone asked him to write "Dimitri Tiomkin music" for A Fistful of Dollars (1964). The trumpet theme is similar to Tiomkin's "Degüello" (the Italian title of Rio Bravo was Un dollaro d'onore, "A Dollar of Honor").
Then I also read this:
The film was a huge success in Italy, laying the groundwork for the following decade's Spaghetti Western boom.
But most importantly I read this trivia at IMDB:
Howard Hawks...saw how popular western TV shows had become, and realized that audiences cared more about the characters, than the plots to the shows... Rather than making a movie that centered around one main plot, he decided he wanted to make a completely character driven western with several story-lines running through it simultaneously...
And that's exactly what the film does, it gives us time with the characters as if we were part of the story. Such a good movie!
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Women will be your undoing, Pépé



Rio Bravo

Pat Wheeler: A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?
John T. Chance: That's WHAT I got.

Since it's nearly impossible not to discuss a film that is, or has a remake without a comparison, we'll get that outta the way, right out of the gate.
I've watched the remake, El Dorado quite a number of times throughout my life. Enjoying James Caan as the youngster who can't actually shoots so John Wayne's character gets him a shot-off shotgun to Robert Mitchum playing the Sheriff at the bottom of a bottle and d@mn reluctant to get back out of it.
I had scarcely remembered Rio Bravo since I have not seen it since my early teens and while it HAS been almost a decade since last since seeing El Dorado to make a true comparison, Rio Bravo may, very possibly, be the more grittier of the two.
In particularly with specific characters. Dean Martin's deputy is a far more tragic/humanistic character. Delving deeper into the realities of a drunkard trying to climb his way out of a bottle with all the fears embodied in it. And Martin really brings his best to this role. It's not a caricature, not the funny drunk, but a broken man searching for the courage he fully believes has left him.
And, like Martin, little teen idol Ricky Nelson does the quiet, wise, youngster that is not only good with his guns, but has a head on his shoulders far better than is expected.
And the movie has a number of solid shoot-out scenes supporting this where the upper hand is won by out-thinking an opponent instead of simply having the quicker hand.

Now, add Walter Brennan and John Wayne doing what they do best, this could very well be Howard Hawks best rendition before continually going back to remake it.