Why aren't Westerns popular anymore?

I read a McMurtry book once, but for the life of me can't recall which was it. I loved him a first, but soon realized one had to be selective with him. Buffalo Gals (TV production) lost me in ten minutes.

Same thing with "Telegraph Days". McMurtry is quite prolific so , I think, he just cranks em out and hopes that some will stick to the wall.
Lots of his books (Anything For Billy) he just cobbled together and phoned it in. Others, (His history of te Plains Indians) is alost scholarly, go figure.

McMurtry is a very uneven writer and one can help but wonder if he wrote the popular works with the purpose in mind and then the deeper, more profound works for the literary hierarchy. Actually, I don't think he received many bad critical reviews on anything.

I'm still stickin' to "The Big Country" as the last of the super-wide screen western epics. Burl Ives did deserve his Oscar, but I can't get the image out of my mind on the confrontation between Greg Peck and Charlton Heston in the "Brokeback Mountain" lampoon at the beginning of the 2006 Oscars. Again, hilarious. Like "Johnny Guitar," did William Wyler cleverly insert the sexual tension before the fight scene when Peck strolls into the Charlton Heston (shirtless, of course) bedroom to "pick a fight?"

Which was the love interest, really?

"3/10 to Yuma" is looking really good -- 86%" on Rotten Tomatoes of the cream-of-the-crop film critics liked it.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/310_to_yuma/

I was like 8 years old when the Big Country opened at the Boardwalk Strand Theater in ATlantic City, so I didnt catch the homo-erotica (I was , after all, in Catholic SChool). The Strand was an old style movie palace and I went in with my Dad to see the movie. The soundtrack is what blew me away. I actually was able to sit through all 14 hours of that movie

Burl Ives was getting up there and I remember his scary face was like one of those bug-eyed statues of Samurai warriors they used to have in dioramas in the museums. He always looked like his boiler was about to burst.
I remember such phrases as " I want to buy The Big Muddy" and "your bones ll be bleachin in Blanco Canyon".

There's some great quotable quotes in that script, and most of them given to Ives who made the character iconic in Western film history.

The Jerome Moross score I finally found on CD -- now I have to look for it. Of course, highly inspired by Aaron Copland's music, it was the cap on the quality of the production. I remember seeing it on a huge CinemaScope screen, one of the largest in California and that could be why I still love that movie. Since I set up my 23" Dell monitor in the home office, I'll have to watch it to get maybe the same effect (okay, I was a kid and thought sitting about ten rows up was the only way to view CinemaScope!)

Actually it was in Technirama, Technicolor's process before Panavision.

Film negative format (mm/video inches)
35 mm

Cinematographic process
Technirama

Printed film format
35 mm

Aspect ratio
2.35 : 1

Which close to retained on the DVD with letterboxing. "Ben Hur" was
MGM Camera 65, 65 mm in a 2:76 : 1 aspect ratio. There is a Hi-Def DVD and/or Blue Ray on the way of that film from a re-strike of the 65 mm.

I saw The Big Country while it was still new, and watched it again last year. I still love it, although I have better (to me) favorites.

On the subject of homo-erotic, a very funny blogger review of "3:10 to Yuma:" (not the only one who noticed).

LINK



3:10 to Yuma: Not as Good as Brokeback Mountain, but Easily as Gay

Posted September 10, 2007 | 07:38 PM (EST)=


I was bored to hell by 3:10 to Yuma and I can't understand why a lot of people are really enthusiastic about it. I liked the first forty seconds or so -- the title credits are cool, and I felt the anguish and fear of Christian Bale's character (Bale's a great actor, but even he and Peter Fonda can't save this thing) as he watched his barn burn. But then the shitty script took over. The only thing I thought was pretty interesting was the persistent gay subtext (more on that later).

As you probably know, the movie's about a poor rancher (Christian Bale) who joins an ad hoc convoy of lawmen escorting a vicious stagecoach robber and gang leader (Russell Crowe) to a train station from which he'll be taken to Yuma prison.

Nothing makes sense in this movie. The filmmakers have made a ton of bad choices. (SPOILERS AHEAD.) Why give Bale's character a peg leg and then never show it or have it factor into the action (and don't get me started on how he jumps across rooftops at the end)? Why have Russell Crowe stick around town after robbing the stagecoach? He'd have been home free if he hadn't done that. How come Bale and Fonda and the other guys taking Crowe to the prison train just sort of let Crowe suddenly kill some of their number from time to time? He's stabbing guys in the neck, throwing them off cliffs...nobody does much about it. They just sort of grit their teeth and keep on going. And would Crowe really just shoot all his men at the end? And are we expected to believe that Crowe's horse can hear his very quiet little whistle from a hundred feet away outside a loudly chugging train? And why is Luke Wilson in the movie?

Also, everyone looks too pretty (particularly Crowe, the kid playing Bale's son, and the two women in the movie -- who are both clearly wearing lots of lipstick and makeup). If I'm going to watch guys in funny hats fighting each other, I better be embedded in the film's reality, because otherwise I'm laughing. In 3:10 to Yuma, the violence doesn't stick and neither does the grit. (It's rated R but should be PG-13. The violence is bloodless and the one naked barmaid is tastefully covered up by a sheet. What the ****?) For a grimy, bloody, authentic-looking Western with depth to match, rent John Hillcoat's amazing The Proposition instead.

Weirdest of all is the uncomfortable mix of homoeroticism and homophobia under the surface in 3:10 to Yuma. There's some serious sexual tension building between Crowe and Bale's characters. By the third act they share "the bridal suite" at the hotel. Crowe repeatedly says things like "I like this side of you, Dan" while suggestively tilting his head. Watch the scene where Bale cuts Crowe's meat for him: "Oh, cut off the gristle...I don't like the gristle...or the fat..." And by the end, Crowe likes Bale so much that he's crying "NOOO!" right as Bale gets shot in the back by Ben Foster's character.

Ben Foster -- right. Foster plays Crowe's psycho-killer right hand man who, with the rest of their stagecoach-robbing gang, has been trying to overtake and ambush the escort for the entire film. It's an atrocious performance, mostly because Foster was apparently told to play it as a superfabulous gay insane murderer. He rides and walks with exaggerated feyness, wearing a tight white leather jacket and what look like rust-red velvet pants that have, like, gold buttons all up the sides. His wrists are bent, his posture is effeminate, and his voice is high and nasal. And when he introduces himself ("You know who I am? I'm Charlie Prince") to Peter Fonda, Fonda replies, "Well, I once knew a whore named Charlie Princess -- is that you, Missy?"

(Even some of the advertising materials seem to be in tune with this aspect of this film -- as noted here and here.)

It's actually not that surprising that they've portrayed Foster's character this way -- Hollywood sometimes likes to make its psycho killer villains effeminate. Look at Dirty Harry, for example. Or Dressed to Kill. Or even Psycho. It's a way of imbuing them with an "other-ness"... a way of making them seem alien to mainstream audiences.

Anyway: Foster's character is totally infatuated with Crowe's character. He's loyal, obsequious, obsessed. And Crowe likes Foster back -- but not quite as much. So when the good feelings build between Crowe and Bale during the journey to Yuma, Crowe loses interest in Foster. During the final action sequence, Foster sees Crowe and Bale running the gunfire gauntlet together, like friends, and he gets jealous -- you can see the moment it happens. Maybe that's why he shoots Bale so many times when he kills him. And maybe that whole affection triangle thing is why Crowe then gets that pissed-off look and shoots Foster and his own entire gang before willingly getting back on the train that will take him to prison.

Or maybe it's just a bad movie where the characters are really inconsistent and poorly written.

"superfabulous gay insane murderer"

Never thought I would hear that phrase used in a review of a western.

They have been showing the original 3:10 on the western channel, but it's usually late at night when I happen across it. From what little I've seen, it seems ok...typical western, for the era/actors.

I didn't remember Heflin looking so....unusual.

You mean like this?



Is there a costume change 'cause this outfit looks like it's straight out of the Sears men's casual clothing department. Or maybe Kohl's or Mervyn's.

"No kidding? We first met at the Minneapolis Airport john?"

Well, specifically...his eyes....I don't remember them having so much character.

Have we forgotten just what those westerns projected socially beneath the surface?

Class warfare, of peasant sheep herders or poor homesteaders vs cattle barons or the sexual tensions of oedipus complexes or homosexuality?

I am sure just about anyone can name several that incorported each type of psychological back story.

"Heaven's Gate," "The Man Who Shoot Liberty Valence," "Cat Ballou" for illustrations of class warfare.

"Red River," "The Sons of Katie Elder" for the oedipal sexual dynamics (especially from the Dennis Hopper's weakling son portrayal),

"Hombre" with racism and bureaucratic greed and laissez-faire.

"Cheyenne Autumn" with racism and government treachery

Those psychological back stories don't need to be masked and hidden beneath the surfaces of Westerns anymore.

It is not so much that Westerns are not popular but that as a vehicle for presenting these topics other film genries are capable of presenting the topics.

There is not much difference between the film "Spartacus" and "The Man Who Shoot Liberty Valence," or "Heaven Gate" for their depictions of class struggle, or "Three Days of the Condor" versus "Cheyenne Autumn" for government treachery.

I never spent that much time analyzing most westerns - Just enjoyed good storytelling, in that setting. Probably expended more energy understanding Ox-Bow Incident, High Noon, The Gunfighter, and Good Bad and Ugly, than the rest.

Ditto EDgar, I enjoyed Winchester 73. I first saw this movie first time just about 2 or 3 years ago and was surprised at how that movie was the mold for a much later flick "The 2o Dollar Bill"

"Winchester 73" is one of my favorites. Couldn't find "The 20 Dollar Bill" in IMDb but seem to remember a movie.

The unique aspect of "Winchester 73" is the studio couldn't really afford Jimmy Stewart so offered him a profit sharing deal that was the first of its kind.

A western I thought was great fun was Cowboy, with Jack Lemon and Glenn Ford. Not the best, but okay with me.

I haven't seen that for years, but as I remember, it was my favorite Glenn Ford performance.

Of Glenn Ford westerns, I am minded of Jubal, with a cast of Ernest Borgnine, Valerie French, Felicia Farr, Noah Beery, Jr., Jack Elam, and Charles Bronson (in a totally throw-away part). Then, there is Rod Steiger, as Borgnine's ranch foreman, Pinky. He is so out of place, in that part of a psychotic cowboy, that it's hilarious. As I said before, I just enjoy Ford's on-screen persona, and also love westerns, enough that I still liked the film.