Sylvia Durando
Jeff Arnold’s West was recently graced with comments by a person who performed in a movie beloved by readers (and others). The person is Sylvia Durando. Miss Durando worked off-and-on in film over a 30-year period as an extra, riding double, and stuntwoman. The movie is Comanche Station, the last of the pictures collectively known […]
The Sam Peckinpah Centenary 4 – The Wild Bunch
“Let’s Go.” From Mexico to Malibu Major Dundee was not a box office success, failing to recover even half of its considerable expense. The reviews certainly did not help. In 1962, Newsweek named Ride the High Country as its best picture of the year. For Peckinpah’s next film, the magazine wrote “Think of…streaking meteorites downward […]
Oklahoma Blues (Monogram, 1948)
Sam Peckinpah is well known for his ‘stock company’, a coterie of characters actors who repeatedly appeared in his films. Warren Oates, L. Q. Jones, R. G. Armstrong, Strother Martin… these actors and others appeared in multiple Peckinpah movies. The director’s centenary celebration here at JAW is broad enough to include posts about non-Peckinpah movies […]
The Sam Peckinpah Centenary 3 – Major Dundee
“We left a lot at the bottom of the river” Although the logistics of its US release were a mess, Ride the High Country was such a good movie that Sam Peckinpah’s name attracted a bit of buzz in the Hollywood community, leading to him being offered his first big budget picture. That’s the good […]
Charro! (National General Pictures, 1969)
And now, a brief pause in celebrating the Peckinpah centenary: as previously teased, please enjoy this guest post from overdrive1975, an energetic film enthusiast who frequently comments on JAW content. Caught in a Trap: Can He Walk Out? “It isn’t enough to tell us what a man did. You’ve got to tell us who he […]
The Sam Peckinpah Centenary 2 – Ride the High Country
“Salvation and Loneliness” Sam Peckinpah’s experience with The Deadly Companions had multiple impacts upon him and his subsequent directorial career. That irksome brother of Maureen O’Hara, Charles Fitzsimons, had refused to allow any changes to the script (not his finest decision in light of the released film and Sam’s later efforts). So Peckinpah resolved to never […]
The Sam Peckinpah Centenary 1 – The Deadly Companions
Troubled Genius February 21, 2025 marks one hundred years since director Sam Peckinpah was born. Peckinpah is a fascinating character: a filmmaker of overriding vision, a maverick who fought with producers and studios who attempted to subvert that vision, a tyrant and occasional bully on set, a substance abuser, a writer of brilliant dialogue, a […]
Return of the Search Box!
The Randolph Scott of webmasters, BetterCallChris, has sent that internet varmint packing *and* restored the site’s Search Box while doing so. Please recommence searching, e-pards. Thanks, Chris! An additional service announcement: when performing a search, the search engine returns its results in OLDEST to NEWEST order. When searching for a more common name or phrase, […]
Accessing Posts on Jeff Arnold’s West
Howdy, e-pards! Some of you may have noted (and a certain Jean-Marie certainly *did* note) that Jeff Arnold’s West was afflicted several hours ago by the Lee Van Cleef of internet errors : Fortunately, the site’s webmaster, BetterCallChris, galloped to the rescue… even though he is currently on holiday and without his full complement of […]
Kid Blue (Marvin Schwartz Productions / 20th Century Fox, 1973)
Hippie Western Kid Blue opens, pre-credits, in the middle of a train robbery. So far, so conventional but only for a few seconds. The robbers, we quickly realise, are incompetent, one falling off the train which speeds by, unscathed and unrobbed. Dennis Hopper, playing the Kid Blue of the title, announces to the gang over […]