Westerns HOF

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I haven't started yet but I only need to watch 7. The other 7, including my own noms, are fresh in my mind.
Your usually done by now. I may beat you this round.
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I'm the epitome of slow lately. I haven't seen any of these yet (I have SEEN some technically, but like to watch them in the time period). Heck, I'm only 6/15 in the 9th HOF and have one 50s watch to complete.



Day Of The Outlaw: Very uneven film for me. I was much more interested in the plot when I thought it was going to revolve around the first fifteen minutes of the film. Once the Outlaws show up it got much less interesting for me but still had its moments. The biggest problem is outside of the main two characters no one else is developed much at all. Most of the outlaw crew are caricatures and it definitely leaves them less than imposing for me when it is time for them to be. For every scene I enjoyed there was a scene that equally grated on my nerves. The dance scene in the bar was the biggest offender, but the way the men acted in this scene was very emblematic of the problems I had. All that said, the last twenty minutes is pretty darn good and probably why people who love the film do.



Seanc, don't take this the wrong way, but every time I see your avatar, I see John Kerry looking like a really tough Secretary of State with a cigarette and a gun!



Seanc, don't take this the wrong way, but every time I see your avatar, I see John Kerry looking like a really tough Secretary of State with a cigarette and a gun!
John Kerry wishes he could pull off that character.



John Kerry wishes he could pull off that character.
I had to look it up in your profile and see it's Elliot Gould from The Long Goodbye, but all this time it looked to me like John Kerry!

If only he'd entered the Iran negotiations with the cigarette and the gun!



The Sons Of Katie Elder

This Was a pretty good western all around only thing less attractive was John Wayne being a dead beat Son seemed well less a good roll. It was a good story about a character you never even saw and Katie only real connection was her old Rocking Chair.
Good Performances by Dean Martin and Paul Fix.




Red River



This was great, thanks Raul for nominating it. Unexpectedly this reminded me of one of my favourite movies; The Treasure of The Sierra Madre which is actually from the same year, mostly because of the themes of madness and paranoia and even Walter Brennan’s character reminded me of John Huston’s. So far this is my favourite John Wayne role, I felt it was really interesting seeing him as the villain now I haven’t seen much Wayne movies so this could be pretty common but to me it was like seeing Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West. Surprisingly I could actually kind of relate to his character since I tend to be a pretty stubborn person myself, I think it allowed me to sympathize with him a lot more than I normally would. I know some people don’t think much of Wayne as an actor, personally i like him mostly because of his strong screen presence which is why I think the film managed his screen time perfectly; it could have been a little overwhelming having him In most scenes which I know must have been tempting since he was a pretty big draw.

Oddly i thought the least interesting main character was Matt even though i think Clift possibly gave the best performance. My biggest disappointment with Matt was that the potential rivalry with Cherry Valance basically went nowhere, i felt the can shooting scene was a good way to build it up then nothing. His romance was pretty rushed too which is not actually a complaint since it wasn't what i wanted the film to focus on; was pretty weird that i felt Joanne Dru had more chemistry with John Wayne though. The most interesting part of Clifts character was easily the father-son, changing of the guard dynamic he had going with Wayne. Now the best thing this film introduced me to was probably the genius of Walter Brennan . I don't think i've ever seen him in anything, i was aware that he won a bunch of Supporting Actor Oscars and was known as a Western Sidekick. If he is like this in every film then i may have found a new favourite, he was hilarious even the weird "teeth bet" mini subplot was entertaining; the perfect comic relief for a pretty serious film. My only regret is that he didn't get more scenes.

The movie played the calm and exciting scenes so well i loved how it quickly switched from one to the other. The biggest example probably being the amazing stampede scene which started off with the camp very calm the mood was perfectly set so you felt the characters were getting ready to sleep, then the jump to the clumsy guy to the actual stampede helped by the amazing score set up a very exciting albeit short scene.

Anyway i'm going to cut this short because i watched it two days ago and things keep popping into my head which is getting annoying haha. Again i thought this was excellent, if it holds up to a rewatch this could become a new favourite. Next i think i'm going to watch Calamity Jane.



Strange Thing Is It is A Howard Hawks movie and yet it did not match up with Waynes other 3 Films Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo. Too be clear really I dont think Eldorado is a copy of Rio Bravo. Its a completely different tale where really Eldorado is more action packed really. while Rio Bravo is more Acting Driven.



That's the only Hawks Western i've seen so far and only the third of his overall. His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby are well established favourites i've seen a few times so i'd need to rewatch Red River to compare them. So far Hawks is a great director, from the same amount of films i like him more than Ford even though that means nothing since i haven't made a dent in eithers filmography.



Strange Thing Is It is A Howard Hawks movie and yet it did not match up with Waynes other 3 Films Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo. Too be clear really I dont think Eldorado is a copy of Rio Bravo. Its a completely different tale where really Eldorado is more action packed really. while Rio Bravo is more Acting Driven.
I thought Red River was better than all 3 of those.



Rio Bravo > El Dorado > Red River > Rio Lobo

And El Dorado pretty much is a Rio Bravo remake after the first 40 minutes (same as Rio Lobo). Obviously there's differences, and I love both.



El Topo: Not quite as good as Eraserhead but better than Hausa. Every so often one of these films comes along in the HOF that is obviously just not for me so I feel bad rating them, and especially commenting. I will just sat it does get a star from me because it looks goid. There is nothing else that appeals to me unfortunately. I will give credit to movies like this for making me want to hear more from the directors in real life, simply because you het no sense of who they are from movies like this in my opinion. I know there is an element of cinephiles who love film that is so surreal and impenetrable, so I am glad these films exist for them.



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The Day of the Outlaw

Finally kicked off my Western watching with this one. The first thing I noticed was that the person who voiced Sam the Snowman from Rudolph was in this movie. I really liked the films score and I thought it was shot really well. The acting as a whole was kind of disappointing for me. I didn't care about any of the characters enough, so what happened throughout the film really didn't give off any sense of emotion. At points I liked where the story went but it just didn't feel like that epic of a journey to me. With Westerns, I really like a fun and adventurous ride or a lot of action or solid dialogue. This one left me wanting more. Not a terrible movie, but Its not a western that has all the elements of what my favorite westerns have.

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