Return of the Seven (UA, 1966)
The not quite so magnificent seven return . . 1966 was rather the year, as far as Westerns go, of remakes and sequels. Originality seemed to be in short supply. The Magnificent Seven six years before had been such a hit (eventually: it was a slow starter) that a follow-up was inevitable. There was a […]
In a Valley of Violence (Focus World/Universal, 2016)
Mildly amusing . . A post-spaghetti or faux-spaghetti or neo-spaghetti (take your pick), In a Valley of Violence opens with cheesy 60s cartoony titles and jangly music, and proceeds with a vengeance plot that is not a million miles away from that of High Plains Drifter, with one semi-jokey difference. . . 21st century spaghetti […]
Review of the year 2019
Farewell, the 2010s Well, as the year trickles to a close, and the decade with it, let’s have a brief look back over what tickled our Western fancy in 2019. Which were the most popular posts on Jeff Arnold’s West? Numbers of readers have continued to increase. There have been […]
Slow West (Lionsgate/A24, 2015)
As opposed to Fast West . I was going to review for you today The Fighting Lawman, the second Wayne Morris oater of 1953, and I know millions of you were hanging on with bated breath to read that, but I am sorry to disappoint you. The DVD wouldn’t work. It barely loaded the […]
The Marksman (AA, 1953)
Wayne is a crack shot . . I found Wayne Morris to be quite good in The Desperado (1954), I would almost say surprisingly good, as a hard-bitten gunfighter. So I thought I’d have a look at another couple of his oaters and see if I need to re-evaluate his trail-cred – for I […]
Wildwood Boys by James Carlos Blake
Bloody Bill James Carlos Blake writes very well. There is a ‘literary’ tone to his prose, and while he is not Cormac McCarthy, he can perhaps be compared to, say, Charles Frazier, with a dash of Larry McMurtry thrown in. The trouble with his books is not the writing. It’s that his […]
The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday (AIP, 1976)
Comedy Westerns are very hard to get right A not-very-funny comedy Western from the mid-70s, this picture is saved only by Lee Marvin. One might think Mr Marvin obvious casting for the lead, after Cat Ballo (1965) and Paint Your Wagon (1969) but in fact he was not first choice: the role was written […]
The Gatling Gun (Broadway/Ellman, 1971)
Mowing down Apaches . . Richard Gatling (left), a North Carolina inventor and doctor (though he never practiced medicine), was living in Indianapolis at the outbreak of the Civil War and devoted himself to improving firearms. In 1861 he invented the Gatling gun and a year later he founded the Gatling Gun Company. Later […]
Conquest of Cheyenne (Republic, 1946)
. Red strikes oil . . The outing of Wild Bill Elliott as Red Ryder Conquest of Cheyenne followed hard on the hooves of Sun Valley Cyclone (Cyclone was released in May 1946 and Conquest in July). You might think from the title that this one would be about some cowboys taking over a Wyoming town […]
Sun Valley Cyclone (Republic, 1946)
Red Ryder aids the US war effort About a month ago on this blog we were looking at a couple of Red Ryder movies starring Allan ‘Rocky’ Lane that Republic put out in the late 1940s. I thought it only fair to watch another pair, ones with Bill Elliott in the lead. Today […]