The Bravados (Fox, 1958)
Revenge at all costs Henry King started as an actor in silent movies, for example topping the (limited) cast list in The Apache Kid (1913), then got into directing silent Westerns. Later, in other genres, he would be nominated twice for the Best Director Oscar and he directed seven films nominated for […]
Buy your own Western town
Be a crooked saloon owner or mayor – for real The Guardian in Britain reports that a Wild West town is for sale if you want it, and a snip at only $11.6m. The only slight snag is that it’s in New Zealand. Mellonsfolly Ranch, established 2006, is said to be “a […]
The Jack Bull (HBO, 1999)
Now listen to me: somebody steps on your rights, go after him. Never give up – never. Just be smarter than I was. . . I rather enjoyed HBO’s 1999 offering The Jack Bull, aka Wyoming Story. It’s a straight ‘arrogant rancher vs. decent homesteader’ plot, and we’ve seen that very many times, but when […]
Playbill Western typeface
WANTED – DEAD OR ALIVE! The Western is the only genre to have its own typeface. Its distinctive characteristic is that the serifs (“serif: any of the short lines stemming from and at an angle to the upper and lower ends of the strokes of a letter”) are stronger than the main strokes. […]
Stagecoaches
In a scene early in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) who has come back as an old man to the town of his youth, Shinbone, somewhere in the West, enters a shed and sees an old stagecoach, cobwebbed and up on blocks. The railroad has […]
The Warrant (INSP/Imagicomm, 2020)
Not bad On June 20 INSP (for Europeans who don’t know, a Hallmarkish Conservative TV channel) will screen a new Western, The Warrant. . . . Its greatest strength is the cast-list-topping Neal McDonough, whom you will certainly recognize and who, for me, is the creepy Quarles in Justified. He’s good as Sheriff […]
Welcome to Hard Times (MGM, 1967)
Fonda still had it . . . Burt Kennedy (above) had two Westerns he directed released in May 1967, The War Wagon with John Wayne, at Universal, and a smaller picture but also with a great Western star, Welcome to Hard Times at MGM. Curiously, Burt hardly mentions Hard […]
The Tall Men (Fox, 1955)
Too long and slow Clark Gable didn’t really do Westerns, rather surprisingly. He starred in several semi-Westerns or Westernish movies, notably Across the Wide Missouri, but true ‘Western’ Westerns were quite a rarity with him in his MGM heyday. However, once he had left Metro he did make two proper Westerns directed by Raoul […]
Across the Wide Missouri (MGM, 1951)
“They come from beyond maps” It’s a funny thing about Clark Gable’s Westerns: they weren’t. . . . You’d think that MGM’s biggest star, the King of Hollywood, would have climbed into the saddle a lot. He liked Westerns, apparently, his period of fame coincided with the […]
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Paramount, 1962)
“A poignant, mournful, dying fall” Like many people, I am not a huge fan of John Ford’s late Westerns. The Searchers was the last really good one he made, I think, and that was in 1956. The Horse Soldiers in 1959 was really very ordinary (despite a fine performance from William Holden). Sergeant […]