Why aren't Westerns popular anymore?

I love a good Western. Even though it was just loaded with trite statements, I loved "Open Range".

And I think that Dances With Wolves is the best western of my life.

My favorite western was






Seven Samurai!

:wink:

In my biased opinion of Mo boys being the baddest sum bitches to ever strap on six guns....

"Unforgiven", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", and "The Long Riders" are on the top of my list.

"Open Range" was an all around fine film. The main thing I didn't like about that one, is the character of Mose {Abraham Benrubi} being killed...always liked that kid, but it worked for me as a plot device...I wanted some serious revenge, and I got it. "The Missing", a remake of "The Searchers" was pretty good, my wife actually set through the entire movie without getting bored, or falling asleep, which is rare for her concerning a western.

I also like both Wyatt Earp movies, "Tombstone", Kurt Russell and Sam Elliot...you just can't beat that.....Costners version was more biographical, but still enjoyable.

Westerns tend to be slow paced, with little dialog, that does not bode well with what is "in" at the moment in our "instant fix" society. A few years ago they tried to revamp the Jesse James story in "American Outlaws" but I honestly remember nothing about the movie.

Sam Elliott must be one of the best actors ever! Never saw a picture with him in it that I didn't enjoy - that even includes Sibling Rivalry - he out-acted everyone in that film - and he was dead. Good bloke!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Favourite Western - Mag Seven!

(which you probably know was based on Seven Samurai..)

I remember liking Bad Day at Black Rock, but not why... so very long ago. '59, I think.

I have a tape of 3:10 to Yuma, the Glenn Ford movie. I can tell by the trailer, they sought to instill far more action into the new version. I buy every Glenn Ford movie I see. Not all are jewels, but I love his persona. In westerns, he always wears the same old hat, big, dirty looking. "Yuma" illustrates one aspect of the western (gangster movies, too) that irks me. In one early scene, Ford is robbing a stagecoach. When one of the victims tries to use one of the outlaws as a shield, Ford shoots his own man to get the resister. It is a heinous act. But, from that point onward, Ford is portrayed as loveable and heroic, and even helps out the sherriff, in the end. I just think film makers ought to be consistent. Either one is honorable, or one is not. They shouldn't have it both ways.

I guess I should have read this thread before I posted my last one, seems you folks already payed respects to Open Range . I only critocize it for use of phrases like "Ill ruastle up some grub", .
However, Ive got a real contribution thats been ooverlooked (IMHO), and its a fairly recent western (2006) Its a A deeply textured movie about death and redemption in the border lands of modern day Texas titled "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada". This movie , with Tommy Lee Jones , *(Who did NOT phone this one in) adapted a modern day version of a promise kept by a good friend , somewhat reminiscent of "Lonesome Doves" final 20%.

I forgot about that one , it slipped by quietly, but I think it wond something somewhere.

Lonely are the Brave.

Coming of off directing "Walk the Line," James Mangold is offering a remake of "3:10 to Yuma" with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. There is already a buzz that Crowe has turned in another Oscar worthy performance.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381849/

When I was a kid, Roy Rogers was very popular. I never understood why I never saw any of his movies on TV. I thought that there might have been a problem with his estate, or some such thing.

Recently I was in Wal-Mart, (yes Virginia, Phoenix does shop in Wal-Mart) and I saw a display of DVDs that were selling for 5 bucks. One of them was a compilation of a number of Roy Rogers films. Go figure.

cheaper than clay pigeons. Whose this Roy Rogers fella? He wear some piece of white fringed leather shirt and pants set with open ass cheeks?

I never understood why westerns were popular in the first place. A few, a handful, had interesting presentations of old, old themes, such as Shane--but mostly, they were examples of a ridiculously unrealistic presentation of a period in our past. Like the trappers who preceded them, and the pirates who preceded them and have existed for thousands of years, so-called "cowboys" were basically the dregs of society. A pirate was an ordinary seaman who had no other skills, and no other prospect of making a good living other than by murder and theft. They were people who were sufficiently dissatisfied with life not to accept the place they had in society, and who were therefore willing to murder and steal. The trappers who preceded the cowboys onto the plains were little better. Their only skills were common skills that just about any boy learned in childhood--they had no prospects in life beyond sticking their necks out in dangerous regions. Many of the trappers were likely sociopathic or even psychopathic, and the woods and the mountains offered a place in which they could commit their crimes with relative impunity--they just had to survive the vengeance of the aboriginal inhabitants. Of course, if they didn't survive that, no one much grieved.

The cowboys were little different. All they required was a modicum of skill at riding a horse, something just about anyone in their time mastered while still a child. They had no other skills, few if any prospects. They could spend their lives working lawfully in one of the worst paid professions, and look forward to slow starvation or death from alcoholism in old age. Some turned to crime--to cattle rustling or bushwhacking, a few to more spectacular, and briefer careers, as notorious outlaws. Henry McCarty, a.k.a. Henry Antrim, a.k.a. William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, lasted a couple of years before he was shot down like a dog. And that was it, end of story. We should consider him to have been an heroic figure? Not for my money.

"Calico Jack" Rackham was a never very successful pirate until he hooked up with Anne Bonny and Mary Read. He'd likely never have been remembered as a pirate if he had not been associated with them. He was a quartermaster on a privateer, who had some small prospect of a modest career at sea, who gave it up to turn pirate. He wasn't very good at it. Anne Bonny was, though, a natural, and so was Mary Read when she was captured by them, and joined Anne Bonny in leading them on a notorious career which lasted less than two years from the time that Anne Bonny lead them into piracy in earnest.

I am fascinated by pirates, but only those who successfully engaged in piracy, and that because it did require a certain amount of skill and successful bravado for people like l'Olonnais or Henry Morgan to have succeeded as well and for as long as they did. In the end, though, with the possible exception of Morgan, who had the grudging countenance of the British, pirate leaders were failed ship's masters, or men or women of violent disposition, who lead crews of life's losers into unspeakable crime. The "cowboys" whom we idolize were little better, and usually possessed of even fewer skills and less intelligence than people like Anne Bonny or Henry Morgan.

What i do find interesting is that we make heroes of such people.

The best cowboy films were the ones which promoted the myths of the American West, movies about standing up against injustice and facing up to the challenges life brought you.

High Noon

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

Dancing with Wolves is perhaps the truest picture of the West before the white invasion.

Joe(and showed the toughness needed to survive day by day)Nation

When I was a kid of twelve, there was just one TV station in town. They ran Roy Rogers and The Three Mesquiteers westerns all afternoon, every day. It was five or ten minutes of movie to ten or twenty minutes of used car ads.

Edgar, on the whole I agree with you, but doesn't everyone have a good and bad side. Wasn't that the ethos of so-called 'adult' westerns - that the heroes don't always wear white; and to dispel the image that the good guys never kill the baddies (unless they were Indians), just shoot the guns out of their hands or floor them with one punch. Even villains can be honourable (in the right circumstances).

Sure reality is probably more like what Setanta wrote. But, even if the cowboys, like the pirates, were the dregs - were they like that because they were bad or was it truly a case of not having much choice?

If you were a kid in the west you wouldn't have much of a future to look forward to if your family didn't have money behind them. Little or no education, probably poor nutrition, harsh conditions, hard work - the thought of easy money from a bank, train or stage coach would be very tempting.

Similarly with the pirates - read or see Billy Budd for an idea of the joys of the life of an 'honest' sailor.

We have of course, romanticised these characters. Not just in the American West, but all over, eg. Scotland's Rob Roy, England's Robin Hood and in Australia we idolise Ned Kelly a bushranger, to name but a few. We love to endow these outlaws with larger-than-life auras making them brave rebels fighting to defend the poor and downtrodden rather than the crims and murderers they really were.

Contrary to what Tina Turner sang - we DO need heroes - as many as we can get - and we make heroes of villains because we are not always squeaky clean ourselves and we figure if they can come good, there must be hope for us, too. (At least, that's my theory.)

I read the story 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence' just a couple of weeks ago. The film had so little to do with that. I would love to see a true rendition of the book on film. (But thanks to the late, great, Gene Pitney for the wonderful song!)


Naturally! I was concurring with you.

I'll concur with your post too, Lezzles...

I mean, this last one.




Hey, I always like The Virginian. The book, that is.

It's one thing to have flaws (and possibly atone for them). To me, it's quite another to commit heinous acts and blithely slide into loveable, noble character, with no transition, no jolt of cognition. That's not being a complex character, with good and dark side, it's being an all purpose cut-out.

I know what you mean. Perhaps a better Director could have managed the segue a bit more convincingly.

Why someone would or would not be a part of the "dregs" of society was not my point. My point is the unreality of making a hero of someone who was in those circumstances.