re: What are you favorite Westerns?

I've always liked this movie.

It's remembered, if at all, b/c Dean Martin plays the (charming) villain. George Peppard's the hero - maybe, like 3:10 To Yuma (original version!!), the casting was originally reversed?

Amusing dialogue - even the trailer's funny



Blog entry on RNIJ

True Grit
Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
The Ox-Bow Incident
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
Day Of The Outlaw
Jeremiah Johnson
Many Many others.

Good, Bad the Ugly

High Plains Drifter

Tombstone

Did I seriously only see one person mention The Gunfighter?

It ain’t my favorite western (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is top and it ain’t even close) but it’s pretty foundational for the shift of cynicism westerns moved towards

Extremely underrated from the golden age of westerns:

1) The Undefeated (1969)
2) Nevada Smith (1966)

All my other favorites have already been mentioned. Love Josey Wales and Two Mules for Sister Sara, and Sons of Katie Elder

Tons of good ones already listed but I add:

Ride Lonesome with Randolph Scott
No Name on the Bullet and Ride Clear of Diablo, both Audie Murphy
Winchester 73 with Jimmy Stewart
Rawhide with Susan Hayward and Tyrone Power

"Three Bad Men" (1926-Fox) isn't really related to the 3 Godfathers tale, but it has some stark, memorable imagery. I liked seeing Priscilla Bonner in it, who I met one time. "Hell's Heroes" (1930-Univ) is indeed the 3 Godfathers tale, but unlike the other versions, this one is hard as nails and completely unsentimental. I regard it as an essential. Ditto "Rider of Death Valley" (1932), with Tom Mix. Read the Greenbriar Picture Show blog post on it. I have a copy of Mix's "Destry Rides Again" (1932), but like all copies I've seen it runs only about 50 minutes, and seems way too abbreviated. I always assumed this was a 'cut' print made available for tv-syndication in the early-1950s, and there was some scuttlebutt about it having originally more like a 70-minute running time. Don't know how true this is, but I'm hoping some longer version still exists somewhere in the Universal vaults.

Buck Jones' b-westerns are often some of the best, if one doesn't mind early-talkie creakiness. "Desert Vengeance" (1931) ends with a really apocalyptic finale, with dead bodies strewn along the street of a ghost town run by outlows. In "Unknown Valley" (1933), Jones goes out into the desert to look for his lost father, and runs into a weird religious cult, which takes him captive for slave labor. Jones' westerns tended to alternate between tough tales one time, then lightweight, jokey ones the next time. They were a bit more 'adult' than the usual matinee westerns. Same with George O'Brien, especially his Fox features, like that "Mystery Ranch" (1932). That one involves a ranch baron whose desire is to kill any and every single living thing that steps onto his land, animal or human. Even the comic sidekick gets killed in this one. The finale is a lulu.

"To the Last Man" (1933-Par), a Zane Grey tale, with Randolph Scott, lives up to its title. Starts very slow, but turns into a really brutal affair, with a rather startling climax that has the vilian (the always sleazoid Jack LaRue) in a physical brawl with the leading lady, while hero Scott is incapacitated! Randolph Scott was also in an earlier version of "Heritage of the Desert" (1932), which I like almost just as much as the 1939 one, especially due to Sally Blane's sexy child-of-nature performance.

Some of the films I list are also just because of fun, nostalgic memories of late-show viewings, as opposed to me making some kind of 'greatest' list. "Lust for Gold," "Saddle Tramp," and many others figure in this. I found myself needing to list one Gene Autry and one Roy Rogers western, but it's actually hard to really single out one standout, as each had over a dozen rather even-keeled winners that could equally fit the top spot. The best Hopalong, however, might very well be "Hopalong Cassidy Returns" (1936), due to Evelyn Brent's bad-girl villain, and Morris Ankrum playing a practically psycho gunman in her employ.

quote:

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Although I’ve seen some people say it’s not a western. Which makes no sense to me

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“Film” people trying to sniff their own farts. It’s a great western.