I've got a busy couple days of work coming up, so while I have a minute here are Wednesday and Thursday's reveals.I'll be back on Friday with #60 and #59.
The next Spaghetti Western to make the cut is Sergio Corbucci’s infamous Django. As with Leone’s breakthrough this one is also a sort of riff on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. Franco Nero stars as the title character, a square-jawed ex-Union soldier dragging around a coffin who becomes embroiled in a territorial war between a former Confederate Officer and a Mexican General who use one muddy little town as the (mostly) neutral ground of their hate-filled power grab. Django was notorious at the time for its violence and carnage. Made on a shoestring budget it was the full unleashing of Corbucci and it made him a bit of a star on the international stage, if forever in the shadow of Leone. Django’s success spawned a couple dozen copycat knockoffs all using the Django name, but none of them are related to Corbucci’s film. Franco Nero finally reprised his most famous character in 1987’s Django Strikes Again directed by Nello Rossati, and superfan Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained features a cameo from Nero as well as the original theme song making it at least a spiritual successor. Bloody Django and his machine gun were on only four ballots, but three of those were top tens with a fourth, a fifth, and an eighth place vote.
Sam Peckinpah’s fourth film on the countdown was his second feature film after five years of writing and directing Westerns for the small screen including ”Gunsmoke”, “Have Gun – Will Travel”, “The Rifleman”, and creating the short-lived series ”The Westerner”. Ride the High Country would examine some of the same themes he would revisit for his masterpiece The Wild Bunch, including old timers outliving their guns, lost honor, and the old West beginning to make way for the changes of the 20th century. This one stars Joel McRae, probably best remembered for his two comedies with Preston Sturges The Palm Beach Story and Sullivan’s Travels, and screen legend Randolph Scott in his final film role, having starred in over sixty Westerns going back to 1929’s The Virginian. McRae and Scott play two aging former lawmen who are hired to guard and transport gold from a California mining camp into town. Miners have been getting ambushed and murdered along the trail so they pool their resources and hire these trustworthy gunmen to handle the job. Along the way they meet a religious zealot and his daughter (R.G. Armstrong & Mariette Hartley in her debut) as well as the scuzzy Hammond Brothers including L.Q. Jones and Warren Oates. Double crosses and shootouts fill the brisk 92-minutes, though minus the slow-motion carnage Peckinpah would become famous for by the end of the decade. The relationship between Scott and McRae and the lament of wanting “to enter my house justified” are among the elements that lead to this often being identified as Sam’s first great movie. Ride the High Country was on six ballots with three top ten votes in a fourth, a sixth, and a tenth.
City Slickers was a huge hit, a comedy smash about three Baby Boomers (Billy Crystal, Bruno Kirby, and Daniel Stern) who try and head their midlife crises off at the pass by living out the dream of playing cowboys, signing up for a real cattle drive that takes on amateurs for vacations. The trail boss is played by grizzled Western legend Jack Palance in the role that won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Friendships are strengthened and life lessons learned with plenty of character-based humor and a gooey newly born calf. It was popular enough to spawn a sequel, but the charm of the original didn’t quite transfer (and Bruno Kirby passed on returning for the second round up). City Slickers finished with the same number of points as Ride the High Country but was on one more ballot. It took in seven votes including a sixth place nod.
The second version of the Billy the Kid legend to make the countdown is less Peckinpah and more St. Elmo's Fire but it does at least cast somebody closer to the age of the infamous killer in Emilio Estevez. Young Guns also casts Jack Palance – though without any awards attention – as well as Terence Stamp, Brian Keith, and Patrick Wayne. But not one of those veterans was the selling point. Joining Estevez as the titular underage weapons in this version of the Lincoln County War are his real-life brother Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko. The good-looking headliners led to the flick being branded a Brat Pack Western. While perhaps not entirely fair this was clearly marketed at the teens and pre-teens of the late 1980s. It did finish in the top twenty for domestic box office take that year (at #19 between Colors and Biloxi Blues) which was enough to justify a Bon Jovi-fueled sequel two years later, so if it was a calculated effort the calculations were close enough. Here at MoFo Young Guns appeared on five ballots including as somebody’s tippy top pick.
The next Spaghetti Western to make the cut is Sergio Corbucci’s infamous Django. As with Leone’s breakthrough this one is also a sort of riff on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. Franco Nero stars as the title character, a square-jawed ex-Union soldier dragging around a coffin who becomes embroiled in a territorial war between a former Confederate Officer and a Mexican General who use one muddy little town as the (mostly) neutral ground of their hate-filled power grab. Django was notorious at the time for its violence and carnage. Made on a shoestring budget it was the full unleashing of Corbucci and it made him a bit of a star on the international stage, if forever in the shadow of Leone. Django’s success spawned a couple dozen copycat knockoffs all using the Django name, but none of them are related to Corbucci’s film. Franco Nero finally reprised his most famous character in 1987’s Django Strikes Again directed by Nello Rossati, and superfan Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained features a cameo from Nero as well as the original theme song making it at least a spiritual successor. Bloody Django and his machine gun were on only four ballots, but three of those were top tens with a fourth, a fifth, and an eighth place vote.
Sam Peckinpah’s fourth film on the countdown was his second feature film after five years of writing and directing Westerns for the small screen including ”Gunsmoke”, “Have Gun – Will Travel”, “The Rifleman”, and creating the short-lived series ”The Westerner”. Ride the High Country would examine some of the same themes he would revisit for his masterpiece The Wild Bunch, including old timers outliving their guns, lost honor, and the old West beginning to make way for the changes of the 20th century. This one stars Joel McRae, probably best remembered for his two comedies with Preston Sturges The Palm Beach Story and Sullivan’s Travels, and screen legend Randolph Scott in his final film role, having starred in over sixty Westerns going back to 1929’s The Virginian. McRae and Scott play two aging former lawmen who are hired to guard and transport gold from a California mining camp into town. Miners have been getting ambushed and murdered along the trail so they pool their resources and hire these trustworthy gunmen to handle the job. Along the way they meet a religious zealot and his daughter (R.G. Armstrong & Mariette Hartley in her debut) as well as the scuzzy Hammond Brothers including L.Q. Jones and Warren Oates. Double crosses and shootouts fill the brisk 92-minutes, though minus the slow-motion carnage Peckinpah would become famous for by the end of the decade. The relationship between Scott and McRae and the lament of wanting “to enter my house justified” are among the elements that lead to this often being identified as Sam’s first great movie. Ride the High Country was on six ballots with three top ten votes in a fourth, a sixth, and a tenth.
City Slickers was a huge hit, a comedy smash about three Baby Boomers (Billy Crystal, Bruno Kirby, and Daniel Stern) who try and head their midlife crises off at the pass by living out the dream of playing cowboys, signing up for a real cattle drive that takes on amateurs for vacations. The trail boss is played by grizzled Western legend Jack Palance in the role that won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Friendships are strengthened and life lessons learned with plenty of character-based humor and a gooey newly born calf. It was popular enough to spawn a sequel, but the charm of the original didn’t quite transfer (and Bruno Kirby passed on returning for the second round up). City Slickers finished with the same number of points as Ride the High Country but was on one more ballot. It took in seven votes including a sixth place nod.
The second version of the Billy the Kid legend to make the countdown is less Peckinpah and more St. Elmo's Fire but it does at least cast somebody closer to the age of the infamous killer in Emilio Estevez. Young Guns also casts Jack Palance – though without any awards attention – as well as Terence Stamp, Brian Keith, and Patrick Wayne. But not one of those veterans was the selling point. Joining Estevez as the titular underage weapons in this version of the Lincoln County War are his real-life brother Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko. The good-looking headliners led to the flick being branded a Brat Pack Western. While perhaps not entirely fair this was clearly marketed at the teens and pre-teens of the late 1980s. It did finish in the top twenty for domestic box office take that year (at #19 between Colors and Biloxi Blues) which was enough to justify a Bon Jovi-fueled sequel two years later, so if it was a calculated effort the calculations were close enough. Here at MoFo Young Guns appeared on five ballots including as somebody’s tippy top pick.
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"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
"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
Last edited by Holden Pike; 06-03-20 at 02:06 PM.