One classic, one good   The short story Three-Ten to Yuma by Elmore Leonard, an excellent little read (it’s collected in The Complete Western

  Who are those guys?   Men (and occasionally women) of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency played a big part in Western movies. They played

  Both to be enjoyed – but I prefer the book   Ernest Haycox’s 1941 novel Trail Town is a dark and somber affair. Its

  A classic gambler-gunfighter of the old West   Yesterday I was waxing lyrical, or waxing anyway, about Luke Short the writer, real name Frederick

  Excellent Western novelist   The writer of novels, short stories and screenplays Luke Short (1908 – 1975) specialized in Westerns, and very good his

  Next time you point a gun at me, shoot   We are in the throes of looking at Western novels and the movies made

  What is a B-Western anyway?   The term B-Western seems to get people quite exercised these days. I think some folk find it rather

  The fastest gun in the West   They said my speed was next to none But my lightning draw had just begun When I

  Hmmm…   I caught this show, alternatively titled The American West, on a British TV channel I pick up by satellite here in France.

  Not too bad   After the huge success of Shane in 1953, Alan Ladd fancied himself a big Western star and set up a

  Seriously good   Here’s a cavalry Western I like a lot, to finish our current thread. It’s a classy picture.     It’s an

  Not a dud but not top-drawer Ford either   I’m just going to do two more cavalry Westerns, for the moment anyway. There are

  The black sergeant   Let us continue with our thread of cavalry Westerns. Very soon after the solid but non-great example The Horse Soldiers

  Space Western   There was always more than a little Western about Star Wars, and the notion of the ‘space Western’, while it may

  A rather ordinary cavalry Western   “A listless and shabby insult to a splendid book.” (Brian Garfield). Well, that may be a bit harsh.

  A fine Western novel   My edition of Bugles in the Afternoon (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003) has a foreword by Richard Etulain and

  A great Western   Last time we were looking at the career of the fine Western writer Ernest Haycox (click the link for that).

  One of the best of all Western writers   It is clear that for most of his life Ernest Haycox (pictured left), born 1899,

. The real beginning of the cinematic mythic Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday   Our last post was on Doc Holliday (click the link for

  Doc   John Henry Holliday (1851 – 1887), known in the West as Doc, lived in the shadow of his friend Wyatt Earp. If

  Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (Fox, 1979)   Such was the enormity of Fox’s 1969 box-office hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

  Butch Cassidy lives!   Of course Butch Cassidy, about whom we were talking the other day (click the link for that), didn’t die in

  It doesn’t do it for me   In our last post we were looking at the career of the outlaws Butch Cassidy and the

  Popular outlaws   Few figures of the old West have exercised such a fascination on the public imagination as those of the outlaws Butch

  “Sometimes too much drink is barely enough” (Mark Twain)   At one moment in the excellent 1985 Western Silverado, Paden (Kevin Kline) enters a

. Folksy charm, poetic beauty   Before leaving John Ford for a bit (we’ll be back on him for sure) I want to say a

. One of the greats   You may argue whether John Ford’s The Searchers is the greatest Western of them all. Western buffs, certainly, will

. Print the legend     After the war, says Michael Coyne in his book The Crowded Prairie, “the Western could conceivably have become –

  Hawks’s Western masterwork   Red River was the only Western in which Howard Hawks matched the artistry of John Ford. It is a mighty

  Wyatt’s Colt   We were talking the other day about the ubiquity of the Colt .45 in Westerns (click the link for that). Well,

. “All in all, it’s been exciting, a very interesting trip. Has it not?”   Since we are on the subject of famous Westerns that

  Ride ‘im, cowboy!   A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi-yo Silver” – the Lone

  Jesse James on the screen 7: Samuel Fuller   We’ve been looking recently at portrayals on the screen of Jesse James in the 1940s.

  Jesse and Frank ride again   It is perhaps difficult for us at this remove to appreciate just how popular movie serials were in

  Jesse gets ride-on parts   In addition to Frank and Jesse James leading in Westerns, such as we have been seeing recently on this

  Jesse James on the screen 4: the 1940s B-movies – Roy Rogers   We’ve been looking at portrayals of Jesse and Frank James on

  Jesse James on the screen 3: Frank’s back   Fox’s first ‘adult’ Western for years, Jesse James in 1939 (which we reviewed the other

  Jesse James on the screen 2: The talkies     I find it quite curious that after the (now lost) silent Paramount Jesse James

  The American Robin Hood   He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor, He’d a hand and a heart and a

  Randy rides alone   “Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides

  Or do they?   Every Western-lover knows that besieged whites are not in danger once darkness falls, for Indians do not attack at night.

. The Rio Grande as 38th Parallel   The success of John Ford’s two cavalry Westerns at RKO, Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a

. Ford at his majestic best.   John Ford and his partner Meriam Cooper wanted to recoup the fortunes of their company Argosy Productions after

. A key work of mythography   Today I thought we might pass, as you could say, from the ridiculous to the sublime. We have

. Art drecko   After A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More (click the links for our reviews of those), the last

. The best of the three     Spaghetti buffs reckon this second part of the Dollars threesome to be the best of Leone’s work.

. Many of them were only made for a fistful of dollars. But Leone loved the Western.   As we were talking recently about the

    “Whatever success I’ve had is due to a lot of instinct and a little luck.”   Publishers Weekly, discussing Richard Schikel’s 1996 biography

  The hero is ‘foiled’ again   What do Dr Watson, Sancho Panza, Donald Duck, Leporello, Robin, Booboo, Barney Rubble and Shrek’s donkey have in

  Peacemaker   “The good people in this world are very far from being satisfied with each other and my arms are the best peacemaker.”

  Rather good   Netflix is currently showing here in France, and perhaps where you live too, a Universal Western released on Christmas Day 2020,

. Not the greatest Ford Western but still classy   The last John Ford silent Western we’ll look at in this series of posts, before

. John Ford’s first great Western   When Paramount came out with The Covered Wagon, in 1923, things changed. For years Westerns had been one-

. Lyrical and charming   In 1920 Jack Ford and Harry Carey had some kind of falling out, and they never made a Western again

  Unassuming authenticity   I’ll come back to early John Ford Westerns but today I want to mosey on down a side-trail and look at

. John Ford’s first feature Western   Straight Shooting is a Western that true fans of the genre really ought to see.     Providentially

. Early John Ford   For a long time it was thought that Bucking Broadway was lost, like so many other early John Ford silent

. Harry Carey and John Ford   Today I’d like to return to the early days of the Western, and in particular to two great

  From knifeman Britt to Pat Garrett   James Coburn came quite late to the Western. Only two of his appearances in oaters were in

  Interesting   As a kind of post scriptum to our recent examination of the Western careers of Budd Boetticher and Burt Kennedy, and especially