The MoFo Top 100 Westerns: Countdown

The strongest light that, at times, casts a heavy shadow on the remaining cast is Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday in Tombstone.
The most recent watch of this was during the 19th HoF and, with a good five or more years since my last viewing of Wyatt Earp which causes me to turn off this film or just flat out skip it and put on my favorite; gave me the opportunity me to actually enjoy this popcorn munching salute to Western Mythos under the guise of looking to be historically correct. Though, admittedly, who CAN say what did or did not happen at this point of the game when it comes to such things.



It is said that, at the time with TV threatening the future of movie-goers spending their time at the theaters and drive-ins, film makers went BIG. And with an epic, archetypal story and Gregory Peck playing it stoic and un-moving between two warring factions over a watering stream, we have an immense and thoroughly enjoying film. Not to mention Burl F@ckin Ives as head of one of the factions, and what a job he did!
I did not see this film until the announcement of this Countdown and was so impressed that it made my list at #22.



I remember the first time seeing this at a late evening showing and leaving afterward, amazed, impressed, but very, very confused about it all. Feeling that there was a lot going on that my uneducated brain had no idea about.
Which, you would think would cause resentment, but there wasn't. Nor were there ever. Just amazement and appreciation for what I do understand and respect for all that I do not.



The Revenant is a truly beautifully shot film, framing the backdrop for some brutally ugly actions by those that betray DiCapro's Hugh Glass and his eventual revenge against them.
While it did not make my own list, I had my fingers crossed it would make it to a high position in this Countdown -- very glad to see it occur.




Movies Watched 52 out of 76 (68.42%)

John Wayne Films: Two
Clint Eastwood Films: One

MY LIST
1.
2. Open Range (#2)
3.
4.
5.
6. Ride The High Country (#63)
7. The Proposition (#46)
8.
9.
10. The Cowboys (#50)
11. The Grey Fox (#66)
12. The Great Silence (#34)
13. The Gunfighter (#40)
14. 3:10 To Yuma '07 (#29)
15.
16.
17.
18.
19. The Quick & The Dead (#42)
20. High Plains Drifter (#31)
21.
22. The Big Country (#27)
23.
24. Red River (#56)
25.


Rectification List (for my own old decrepit noodle)
1. Warlock (#94)
2. Naked Spur (#86)
3. The Great Train Robbery (#60)
4. Winchester '73 (#53)
5. 3:10 To Yuma ['57] (#48)
6. Jeremiah Johnson (#37)

__________________
What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

I watched Tombstone when it was nominated in the HoF, and I liked it, but not as much as most people seem to like it. It's a good movie, but I never considered it for my list.

I watched The Big Country for the 1950s countdown, and I remember it being a great movie,but I didn't get a chance to rewatch it for this countdown, so it didn't make my list. It might have made my list if I had been able to find the time to rewatch it.

I had no plans to watch Dead Man, but I found the DVD at a garage sale, and I bought it because I read a discussion on MoFo about it a while back, and I thought it might get nominated in a HoF someday. When this countdown was announced, I dug out the DVD and watched it. Truth be told, I thought the movie was only okay, and too slow, but at least I got my $1's worth by watching the disc.

I tried watching The Revenant around the time it was nominated for the Oscars, but it was so brutal that I couldn't get through it. If I remember correctly, I turned it off about 30 minutes into the movie, and I haven't had any desire to give it another chance.

__________________
.
If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

I'd watched The Big Country at least ten times before The Ren & Stimpy Show and didn't make a connection. Then I saw it again and finally got it. Now I can't watch the movie without thinking about the cartoon.

But what is cinematography without a story (or any broader sense of substance) to serve? Even if I compartmentalised The Revenant's cinematography away from the rest of the film and took it on its own merits, I'd still have a problem with how it never really manages to reconcile the beauty and hostility of the film's environments while struggling to come up with new ways to evoke either as the film drags on (how many shots are there where the camera is just pointed straight up at the sky?). The technical showiness is also very much at odds with how much the film purports to be a grim and gritty survival story - it makes sense for Lubezki to use swooping long takes or exaggerated wide angles when filming stories involving dreamlike memories (The Tree of Life) or an unreliable mental state (Birdman) or sci-fi (Children of Men/Gravity), but less so in this more grounded context. While I can concede the technical merits of Lubezki in general, that is why I specifically said that I don't think his skills are effectively used in The Revenant (much like how I think Roger Deakins is a good cinematographer in general but can also think that 1917 is not an effectively-shot film because the long-take approach does not play to either his strengths or the film's).

I did hear that this film almost got made by Park Chan-wook with Samuel L. Jackson in the title role and, while I'm not necessarily certain that it would've been better, it certainly sounds more interesting. Guess I'll just have to settle for SLJ being in the superior snow Western from 2015.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

The Revenant was my #13. The bleak landscape was very well realised and it was well-acted. I really feel like I should see it again, actually, but from one watch I thought it was very good.

Dead Man was my #2, super quirky take on the Western. It's funny and horrible, surreal and contemplative all at once. The black and white cinematography makes it. I'm not sure I'll ever forgive Jarmusch for The Dead Don't Die, but Dead Man is great. Also, Michael Wincott is great.

Johnny Guitar was my #20. It took me a while to get used to the colours and the style of the film, but I really liked it for its theme of outsiders being hated by the jealous townfolk for nothing more than being outsiders and, in an undeniably male-dominated genre, having two major female parts who aren't love interests and/or kidnap victims. The lynching scene particularly I thought was good.

__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock #68) helmed this Hollywood reworking of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai with Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen leading a small band of hired guns (Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Brad Dexter, Robert Vaughn, and Horst Buchholz) working for cheap in defense of a small Mexican village from a local bandit named Calvera (Eli Wallach). A simple story, wonderful executed, and forever entertaining with one of the best film themes ever, composed by Elmer Bernstein. The original The Magnificent Seven was on sixteen ballots with a third, two fourth, a fifth, two sixth, a ninth, and a pair of tenth place votes.

Stagecoach is the movie that made John Wayne a bonafide movie star after thirteen years in Hollywood and several dozen pictures. If the set up for The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven is relatively simple the plot of Stagecoach is elemental. A coach full of diverse passengers take a dangerous route right through Monument Valley - Apache country - with Geronimo on the warpath. The coach includes Wayne’s captured outlaw The Ringo Kid, a prostitute (Claire Trevor), an alcoholic doctor (Thomas Mitchell, in his Oscar winning role), a gambler (John Carradine), a whiskey salesman, and a pregnant woman traveling to her cavalry officer husband, plus the driver (Andy Devine) and a Marshall (George Bancroft) riding shotgun. Will the passengers band together to survive? Will the outlaw help the others? This was John Ford’s first film shot in Monument Valley, where he would return again and again for his mythic tales of honor in the Old West.

The Magnificent Seven and Stagecoach both finished with 245 points, the final of sixteen numerical ties on the countdown. By appearing on two more ballots (eighteen) Stagecoach gallops one spot higher. It garnered an eighth, two seventh, three sixth, a fifth, a fourth, and a second place vote.

Magnificent Seven marks my #15, and 11th to make it.
Can't have a Western list without including it

__________________

I watched The Magnificent Seven once when I was a teenager and thought it was fine, but have had no compulsion whatsoever to revisit it. I never watch Seven Samurai and find myself thinking "man, I could really go for a cowboy version of this". Stagecoach was on my shortlist, but ultimately didn't make the cut.

I watched The Magnificent Seven for the first time in a very long time for this. As entertaining as it is, it was a late cut from my list.

I watched Stagecoach for the second time and got more out of it than the first. I'm probably going to need a third and a fourth.

I like Stagecoach and early John Wayne. Magnificent Seven meeh, perhaps I expected too much because of the seven samurai relation, also thought Yul was better in Westworld.

Seen list 48/78 + ranking on my personal list:

90. Duck, You Sucker! (#53)
85. The Big Gundown (#52)
82. ¡Three Amigos! (#50)
80. The Mercenary (#21)
79. My Name is Nobody (#13)
76. The Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean (#27)
75. Pale Rider (#60)
74. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (#58)
72. Maverick (#95)
69. Westworld (#65)
68. Bad Day at Black Rock (#62)
67. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (#18)
66. The Grey Fox (#85)
64. Django (#36)
63. Ride the High Country (#92)
62. City Slickers (#82)
61. Young Guns (#11)
58. Meek's Cutoff (#67)
57. The Shootist (#40)
56. Red River (#78)
55. Back to the Future Part III (#49)
54. Bone Tomahawk (#55)
53. Winchester '73 (#32)
52. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#54)
51. Giant (#53)
48. 3:10 to Yuma (#35)
47. El Dorado (#29)
46. The Proposition (#68)
45. The Professionals (#71)
44. My Darling Clementine (#78)
43. Shane (#90)
42. The Quick and the Dead (#88)
40. The Gunfighter (#8)
39. Little Big Man (#33)
37. Jeremiah Johnson (#4)
36. Open Range (#47)
35. Hell or High Water (#17)
34. The Great Silence (#22)
32. One-Eyed Jacks (#7)
31. High Plains Drifter (#48)
30. Johnny Guitar (#93)
29. 3:10 to Yuma (#57)
28. Tombstone (#12)
27. The Big Country (#15)
26. Dead Man (#24)
25. The Revenant (#26)
24. The Magnificent Seven (#77)
23. Stagecoach (#37)

My Ballot 12/25:

1. - Top 2, I think.
2. - Will probably end up in the top 5. (I hope)
3. - 1000%
4. Jeremiah Johnson 1972
5. - Will probably end up in the top 3.
6. - 100%
7. One-Eyed Jacks 1961
8. The Gunfighter 1950
9. - 100%
10. - 100%
11. Young Guns 1988
12. Tombstone 1993
13. My Name Is Nobody 1973
14. - 100%
15. The Big Country 1958
16. - 100% This was a very popular title around here in the weeks leading up to the countdown.
17. Hell or High Water 2016
18. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid 1973
19. - 75%
20. - 100%
21. The Mercenary 1968
22. The Great Silence 1968
23. - 100%
24. Dead Man 1995
25. - I don't think this one is going to show up..

Brand new (BETA) Western watch-list:


https://www.movieforums.com/lists/custom/135

__________________
Entertainment Log
Letterboxd profile

Both The Magnificent Seven and Stagecoach were on my ballot. One is a childhood favourite whilst the other is just a darned well made fillum imo.

Seen: 43/78

Faildictions (yee-haw version 1.10):
22. Four Faces West
21. The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

For fun and statistics, my top 5 'best' Western villains so far;

1. Klaus Kinski as Tigrero Loco / The Great Silence
2. Richard Boone as Cicero Grimes / Hombre
3. Mercedes McCambridge as Emma Small / Johnny Guitar
4. Alfonso Arau as El Guapo / ¡Three Amigos!
5. Stacy Keach as Bad Bob the Albino / The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

Sure i'm forgetting a few, feel free to ad..

Seen neither.

Never got around to researching or watching The Magnificent Seven. Stagecoach was one of the first films placed on my F*** You list of Westerns I intentionally avoided.

__________________

These were both on my list. The Magnificent Seven was my #10 while Stagecoach was my #7.

Really enjoyed Stagecoach, it just barely made my list.

Seen: 20/78
- Slow West (#95)
- The Big Gundown (#85)
- The Furies (#84)
- The Shooting (#71)
- The Grey Fox (#66)
- The Great Train Robbery (#60)
- Meek’s Cutoff (#58)
- Red River (#56)
- Bone Tomahawk (#54)
- The Cowboys (#50)
- Rango (#41)
- The Gunfighter (#40)
- Open Range (#36)
- Hell or High Water (#35)
- The Great Silence (#34)
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (#33)
- Johnny Guitar (#30)
- Tombstone (#28)
- The Revenant (#25)
- Stagecoach (#23)

My list:
12. Johnny Guitar
14. Hell or High Water
16. The Revenant
19. Red River
20. The Gunfighter
21. Bone Tomahawk
23. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
24. Stagecoach

Henry Fonda's Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West, Lee Marvin's Valance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Jack Palance's Jack Wilson in Shane, Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, DiCaprio's Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, Alan Rickman's Elliott Marsten in Quigley Down Under, Richard Mulligan's Custer in Little Big Man, Tom Hardy's Fitzgerald in The Revenant, Brando's Lee Clayton in The Missouri Breaks, Eli Wallach's Calvera in The Magnificent Seven, Emilio Fernández as Mapache in The Wild Bunch...

Nice add, three of them I was saving for after the movie showed up on the countdown.

Y'all forgot Sid James's The Rumpo Kid from Carry On Cowboy