The blog of a Western fan, for other Western fans
“Each man has a song and this is my song.” (Leonard Cohen)
Jeff Arnold has already written about Law and Order, a 1932 picture presenting a fictionalized take on the famous conflict between Wyatt Earp, Ike
Dick Cavett and the Duke In our recent Ballad of Cable Hogue post, we mentioned that Jeff Arnold’s West was accepted as a member of
“Don’t make a move or you’re a gone goose.” Of all the B-movie cowboys, Wild Bill Elliott is this writer’s personal favorite and honestly, a
Back to the Desert After his last day of filming The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah’s life was very different than it was after his last
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
“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
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,
“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
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
“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,
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,
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.
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
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,
They bore the mark of Satan, they bore the mark of Cain So says the title song of The Three Outlaws, a yarn about the
The Erratic Mr. Aldrich When it came to his series of profiles of Western filmmakers Robert Aldrich wasn’t top of Jeff Arnold’s list. The output
Jousting with Jeff… The time has come, the walrus said… to publish our first post devoted to a dissent from one published by
“That’s what it takes to make peace in the west” The Arizonian was not a film known to this writer prior to recently spotting it
For a Fistful of Dollars, an Old West Movie Set Can Be Yours In October, the New York Times published an article with the above
When asked, Joel McCrea proudly named his occupation as ‘rancher’. His first ranch was purchased in 1933 and he lived on that same land for
The greatest oaters according to critics, filmmakers, and… As dedicated readers will know, Jeff Arnold didn’t particularly go for ‘best-of’ or ‘favourites’ lists until the
In 2023, the University of New Mexico Press launched a series of newly-written books covering the (noble) genre of Western cinema. Branded as Reel West,
Cult director Samuel Fuller was not one of the more prolific exponents of our noble genre – he directed just four big-screen Westerns. But he
This post is part of Legends of Western Cinema Week 2024, hosted by the fine folks at Along the Brandywine Hamlette’s Soliloquy Meanwhile, in Rivendell… While
A remembrance from a member of Jeff’s family To all the e-pards and westernistas out there, a very warm “Hello”. My name is James
Dear e-pards (as Jeff would say), Jeff Arnold referring to ‘The Big C’ seemed apt to some of his blog’s loyal readers. No less a
The end of the trail Well, e-pards, I’m sorry to tell you that this is the end of the trail. The Big C,
Howdy, regular readers. Just to say I shall be offline for a bit, for health reasons. I’ll be posting again as soon
Don The next in our The Westerns of… series is Don Siegel. He didn’t direct a great number of feature oaters, with full
An excellent introduction to the genre I like Edward Buscombe’s writing on Westerns. I have already reviewed The BFI Companion to the Western,
Pineapple cowboys Personally speaking, Disney live-action Westerns are not really my thing. They have always been quite popular, I’m sure, and many people
Very good I’ve wanted to see Old Henry for some time. It’s been up on Amazon Prime but unfortunately Amazon is too mean
Disappointing I was talking the other day about Will Rogers Jr, and how much I enjoyed his light-hearted 1954 movie The Boy from
Delightful The Boy from Oklahoma was Michael Curtiz’s last Western at Warners, and it has often been regarded as a minor, even disappointing
Not much thunder and I didn’t hear any drums I would say that A Thunder of Drums is a John Ford cavalry western
One of the great Western novels Thomas Calloway Lea III (1907 – 2001) was a son of El Paso – in fact his
The play within the play Last time on this blog we looked at a 1948 picture made by Robert L Lippert’s company Screen
Yet another capture-the-wild-stallion Western Maker of low-budget fare Robert Lippert made the first film for his company Screen Guild in 1945. It was
A round-up We’ve looked, over the past few weeks, at big-screen (in the case of the 1988 IMAX film a very big screen)
The last big picture – for the moment The next Alamo film in a long line was the 37-minute IMAX docudrama Alamo… The
Derringers galore I really like The Outlaw’s Daughter for one principal reason: it’s derringer-rich. The little guns, with which, regular readers will know,
Harry Carey rides again In a deliberate allusion to ‘the law west of the Pecos’, in RKO’s 1938 picture The Law West of
Gripping stuff In my recent article on American Indians in the Western (click here for that) I suggested that many of the earliest
American Indians in the movies We have been looking at the way American Indians were represented in Western movies (click here for Part
The beginnings Back in 2020 I wrote an article on this blog, American Indians and the Western, but I’d like to revise it
The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (NBC TV, 1987) The next Alamo film after John Wayne’s was really Viva Max in 1969, but
Quite fun A Disney live-action comedy Western from the late 60s, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, based on the book By the Great
Familiar face One of the most reliable Western character actors, on the big screen and small, was Harry Lauter – especially when you
The Alamo (United Artists, 1960) The big one Poor John Wayne. He tried so hard and invested so much in The Alamo
The Last Command (Republic, 1955) While Davy Crockett was all the rage, and Disney’s version of the Alamo was hitting the headlines (see
Another heroic Houston Slightly peripheral to our Alamo season, as I was saying the other day in The Celluloid Alamo: 4, is the
Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (Buena Vista, 1955) An earlier Alamo film, in 1926, which we looked at in The Celluloid
Bob Lippert has a stab at directing Back in 2022 we looked at the career of Robert L Lippert (click the link for
Pretty bad Land Raiders was a late-60s Western that has all the look of a spaghetti. It was shot in Spain (with a
The Man from the Alamo (Universal, 1953) Last time, in our Celluloid Alamo 3, we looked at the first talkie featuring the defense
Revd. Bill Hart The other 1915 William S Hart Western that we have (see out earlier post on The Darkening Trail) was again
Melodrama in the Yukon We were lamenting the other day, in our article on Lost Westerns, how many silent movies have decomposed, been
Heroes of the Alamo (Sunset Productions, 1937 and Columbia, 1938) In the last episode of The Celluloid Alamo (click the link for that)
Routine costume drama There have been many Westerns, or pre-Westerns perhaps we should call them, frontier stories anyway, set in eighteenth-century colonial and