The Western III Hall of Fame

I know I planned on reviewing a few films this past week. It didn’t happen. I’ve been exhausted lately due to work, but I plan on getting caught up starting tonight

There's not a whole lot to this movie as it has a short runtime yet the scenes go on for a while, but I really liked it. I agree with Siddon about Michael Pollard; strange to see him in the lead but it worked out well. Funny to also see Gary Busey and some other dude I recognized from television. Echoing Siddon again, the violence was exceptional. Not a great movie but a great nomination.

Watched Bone Tomahawk last night. Will write a review later on today or tonight.

Bone Tomahawk


Weird mix of western and horror elements that don’t mesh well. This doesn’t even feel or really look like a proper western.
With the exception of Russell, no one even looks the part.
And why for the love of god do they let the crippled man join them?! I know it’s his wife, but the sheriff should have said no and grabbed more men rather then 4. One of whom is crippled!
And you just think to yourself “Well that’s going to bite them in the ass.”
Spoilers......it does. Yet somehow the cripple is the most effective. Go figure. 🤷
The gore is dumb, Not over the top, just dumb. Maybe I’m just jaded. Idk.
And after the bandits steal the horses I’m wondering “why didn’t you leave someone awake to guard after the last confrontation?!” And what happened to his alarm system?!
Ugh. This movie made me wish I could reach in and punch them.
And then the ending arrives and I’m so elated but it’s also so disappointing.
So I’m torn. Because it should have ended a good 20 minutes earlier.

Is this HoF still going on? I plumb forgot about it.

It is as far as I’m aware of. Just watched Bone Tomahawk and plan on hitting The Grey Fox and maybe another this week

OK thanks. You'll probably like those two movies pretty well I'm guessing.

I was pretty harsh on Bone Tomahawk in my review above.
Have high hopes for The Grey Fox

Oh yeah, I'm so tired I'm not making sense today I had read your review of Bone Tomahawk too, so I don't know what the hell I'm talking about

I know I liked McCabe and ants Miller when I first saw it, which was 10 years ago or so. Looking forward to seeing that again as well.
Need to finish this one up and move onto Noir and the Personal Recc this month.

I'm trying to get in as many westerns as I can before the May 15th deadline for the MoFo Top Western Countdown. I've seen a lot...but I haven't run out of westerns to see yet

Ha! How do you avoid the burnout?

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules
I'm trying to get in as many westerns as I can before the May 15th deadline for the MoFo Top Western Countdown. I've seen a lot...but I haven't run out of westerns to see yet Burnout? I love westerns I throw in the occasional HoF movie or just something I want to see to keep it all fresh.

The Big Showdown aka The Grand Duel is an interesting western. Lee Van Cleef who I always thought was typecast as the bad guy got to play the Eastwoodesque scamp in this Spaghetti Western. He actually looks like he aged 20 years from his Good Bad and Ugly but that's neither here nor there. This is a by the books western with probably the most derivative plot in all westerns...a family is looking to get revenge for their dead dad.


The acting and the plotting was pretty bad but I still found myself enjoying it. Really the only thing to write home about with this one is it's flashbacks which reminded me of a Fellini film. The other thing I enjoyed about it was that the set pieces were especially well done.

I think you'll enjoy it: Farnsworth was superb, as was the music and cinematography.

The DVD quality of this felt more like a Laserdisc which definitely tainted my view of the film. I don't understand why companies release such junky transfers you put all this money into a massive western and it looks like garbage.


McCabe and Mrs Miller is a western but it plays almost like a documentary it's very slow scenes seemingly go nowhere you likely can't keep track of characters. It's also a very uneven story...it feels like the story is 80% McCabe and 20% Mrs Miller, if Miller wasn't in the film would it even matter? That another was a big problem I had with the film.


With Altman I have either a strong or strong hate for his work, I liked MASH, Gosford Park, Long Goodbye films that had a fairly cohesive plot but this much like Quintent really didn't have it.

You must have gotten hold of a boot leg DVD, unless you mean the frosted look? That was done intentionally by Altman for artistic reasons. Altman exposed the film negative to light which caused it to fog and lose some detail but gave it a misty window back into time feel.

That's a good point about Mrs Miller not mattering to the film's story. Altman does that in his movies, he populates them with characters that exist but don't seem to be plugged into the main story line. I guess that's both his strength or weakness depending on how one views it. I use to hate his film style, but I've warmed up to it more lately.

I believe this is version I rented from the Library and while it does have the frosted look it still feels like a Laserdisc transfer. Though even with the "frosted look" it gets to the problem I have with the film...you have all these beautiful sets and you shoot it to look like crap.

A couple of times from my library I got dvds, that I'm pretty sure was cheap Chinese made knock offs. It's almost impossible to tell them apart from the real thing.

Red River(1949)


After all the realistic westerns sometimes it's nice to just kick back and watch a classic. The great irony of John Wayne is that today he's thought of as a hero yet when one looks back at his oeuvre it's the villain roles where he excels at. John Wayne plays Dunsen though he's clearly channeling Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty a man running cattle and slowly losing his mind. Montgomery Clift plays Matt Garth the lieutenant of the operation. To me Hawks was always superior to Ford because he allowed for complicated stories. Clift is impressive taking over the lead performance and while the film isn't "realistic" it's executed well enough I was absorbed to the point where I didn't really mind. I mean do you mind when you think that at the end of JAWS no way could the survivors swim to shore?