Hi-Yo Silver -- Away!: The Western Film

Shane

I've always been partial to "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "Stagecoach".

the shootist

The cinematography by Winton Hoch of "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" has to be one the most incredible ever done of Monument Valley. The film was restored about ten years ago as it had really faded and the latest DVD is spectacular.

"Sons of Katie Elder"
"How The West Was Won"
"The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly"
"Hang 'em high"
"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

I could go on and on and on

Well, it's not a Western in the traditional sense, but "The Last Picture Show" gets my vote. Great film based on a great novel by Larry McMurtry, who grew up among cowboys and knows the truth behind the legend...

I've always liked teh old black and white westerns better but that's really more an issue of nostalgia than anything else. My dad used to tune them in every Saturday afternoon on the old B&W TV.

The scenery in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon is great though. I need to expand my collection of Westerns on DVD. I've got 20 or so of the older John Wayne flicks and a bunch of Clint Eastwood stuff on VHS.

It's not a wide screen film but still magnificent. I don't suppose stretching it on a 16.9 TV would be bad.

(Bearing in mind that the stretch mode loses some resolution).

My favorite 15 minutes of western genre film is the opening scene in "Once Upon a Time in the West". The rest of the movie can be discarded. Three gunslingers (Jack Elam, Woody Strode among them) are waiting at a train station, presumably for someone they intend to kill (we don't know yet, but it's Charles Bronson). There are very few words, and the three spend their time posturing in silence, showing off how tough they are. Strode is too tough to step out of the way of a roof leak, and winds up drinking the water out of his hat when it fills up. Elam catches a fly in the barrel of his gun.

Big Country YES

Searchers YES

Winchester 73-a dark version of The Twenty Dollar Bill as a western. It follows the path of a rifle as it gets passed and stolen from hand to hand. One of Jimmie Stewarts darker roles. i could be wrong

Cat Ballou


Goin South

Just the Jerome Moross score for "The Big Country" is worth seeing the film (of course, I have it on CD). Very Aaron Copland.
The Burl Ives Oscar winning performance is a stunner.

"Winchester 73" is also high on my list -- it's a well thought out story and you're right, farmerman, that Stewart is kind of an anti-hero. The rifle itself is almost one of the actors as it seems to have a life of its own. At least on some sort of metaphysical level.

Shane
High Noon
Red River with Clift and Wayne
Pursued (Robert Mitchum, a psychological Western)
The Unforgiven with Burt Lancaster and a stellar cast except for Audrey Hepburn miscast as an Indian
Jubal with Glenn Ford
My Darling Clementine

Oh, and Peckinpah's Ride the High Country with Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott
and one that was a take off on Bogart's High Sierra in which Joel McCrea dies. I can never remember the title of that one. And I'm determined to recall the name without researching.

I am such a lover of western films that I have favorites stretching from the 40s through the present. It is hard to choose favorites. All of John Wayne's from the 50s are great. Good Bad Ugly. The gunfighter (Greg Peck). High Noon. Last Train From Gun Hill. Warlock. High Noon. The Big Country. Jesse James and the Return of Frank James. The Last Posse. The Unforgiven. The Hopalong Cassidy series. Oxbow Incident. Cowboy (Lemmon/Ford). Broken Arrow. Jeremiah Johnson. Man Called Horse. Darling Clementine. etc etc etc

The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

I'm with Fea . . . Shane, to which i would add She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, soley for the cinematography