Very disappointing . . When you get a modern Western with an estimated $25m budget, famous actors and it’s ballyhooed as a fine

  Audie and Brod ride for (almost) the last time   By the late 1960s Audie Murphy, though still in his early 40s, was reaching

  Rather unconvincing conversion to liberalism   “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never melted.”   This well-known

  Kris’s last ride   The country-singer Western, which had quite a history, was still going strong in 2016. Well, going anyway. Kris Kristofferson was

  Ryan at his best (and that’s saying a lot)   One of the best of the mid-1950s Westerns, The Proud Ones benefits from a

  Aussie Western   There is a long and laudable tradition of the Australian Western that goes back well before Quigley Down Unde (1990). The

  Farewell, Lesley Selander, and thanks . . One of my favorites of the Westerns that producer AC Lyles made in the 1960s, the ones

  Not Mickey’s finest hour   My Outlaw Brother was also known as My Brother, the Outlaw, a name I prefer because the movie starred

  We’re in Zorro country . . The slightly lurid title might have applied to any torrid romance but this is in fact an early

  Old guys rule . . We’ve been reviewing recently some of those Westerns that producer AC Lyles (right) made for Paramount in the 1960s,

  Another of those geezer Westerns . . You probably know the story of AC Lyles (1918 – 2013), pictured left: he began at Paramount

. . 70s Western with little to say . . You get the feeling sometimes that in the 1970s the Western didn’t really know where

. . Creepy crawlies in the Everglades . . We sometimes review on this blog – how can I put it? – oaters of a

  Another ‘Fort’ Western   How Hollywood loved ‘Fort’ titles! On this blog alone we have reviewed Fort Apache, Fort Bowie, Fort Defiance, Fort Dobbs,

  Monte Hellman and Warren Oates bid adieu to the Western . . I don’t like spaghetti westerns but I thought I’d better review this

  A pilot that didn’t make it   In 1964 Don Siegel directed a listless and frankly dull (non-Western) picture said to be only the

. Another Bel-Air low-budget oater. Not bad, though. . . The other day we were looking at a Western from Bel-Air Productions, Quincannon, Frontier Scout, which

  Lesley Selander does his thing – again   A Bel-Air production sometimes billed as just Frontier Scout, put together by Aubrey Schenck and Howard

  Jim in Canada . . It’s a contemporary Western (set in the 1950s) but it’s a Western alright. Reader John Knight mentioned it in

  Jack Perrin rides again   In a comment on Apache Warrior, a Jim Davis Western about the Apache Kid, reader Walter S. told me about

. Jim frees California . . Reader Jerry Entract and I were agreeing the other day that we were fans of Jim Davis Westerns. So

  This is a red-letter day, e-pards, for the following review is the one thousandth Western that has been discussed on this blog. Round numbers

  Jamie makes it to the big screen . . I never really followed The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters when it came out. It was

  A 1940 John Wayne Western (sort of) . . I’m cheating a bit today. I’m reviewing a movie that isn’t a Western. Well, they

. . Gothic melodrama goes West . . The Baron of Arizona starred Vincent Price. Price is better known to film buffs for the horror

  The other Clint . . I was always a fan of Clint Walker (left) because as a small boy I was a great follower

. The Cisco Kid rides (yet) again . . The other day I was blathering on about Cisco Kid movies. I thought I might move

  No Pancho yet   OK, yes, I know that Cisco Kid movies are a dime a dozen. And they all have the same plot

. No more Mr Nice Guy . . A revenge/whodunnit drama with a punning title, one of Columbia’s Western offerings for 1954 starred Dana Andrews

  Custer’s Last Stand in all but name   The Glory Guys was supposed to be part of the Sam Peckinpah oeuvre. Peckinpah (left) wrote

  Move over, Dad, it’s our turn   By the early 1960s the Western movie was still alive and people still bought theater tickets to

  OK if you’re desperate for a Western   Waco was an AC Lyles production. Andrew Craddock Lyles, Jr (1918 – 2013), pictured left, was,

  Yvonne beats the tough guys . . I’m afraid I’m not the greatest fan of Yvonne De Carlo (left). Famous for being Sephora in

. Stick to the original . . The Jackals, released in the US by Fox, is a straight remake of the same studio’s fine 1948

  Jock solves the crime   Jock Mahoney was a great hero of mine when I was a small boy because I was an avid

. Coming of age on the prairie . . Embassy Pictures, you probably know, was an American independent film production and distribution company. In the

. Sam Elliott does his thing . . The Quick and the Dead is a gem of a title for a Western, what with its

  Dreary I’m glad to review Zandy’s Bride because it begins with Z and I can say I have reviewed Westerns from A to Z,

  Late Glenn Ford   Santee was a late Glenn Ford Western, when he was, if truth be told (and on this blog the truth

. Difficult to follow . . You might expect a movie with the title The Legend of Hell’s Gate to tell the story of the

  Cagney’s last ride . . In 1956, the year after Bad Day at Black Rock, MGM wanted to put its big star Spencer Tracy

. Coffeyville again . . The Dalton brothers rode across our screens – big ones and small – several times. Their name has a ‘Jesse

  Sidney as grizzled old gun hand   The other day I was reviewing Duel at Diablo and I said that Diablo and Buck and the Preacher

. The other face of Maverick . James Garner (left) was of course best known to 1960s Western lovers as the entertaining Bret Maverick, the

  A hard film to watch   I don’t like Soldier Blue as a Western or as a film but there is no denying that

  Gangsters on the prairie   We have discussed the differences and similarities between the Western and the gangster movie. Certain gangster flicks were virtually

  Good old Joseph Kane rides again   There’s no thunder and it was shot in California. Never mind, I thought it was a lot

  Angst – on screen and off   In January 1961 there was, in Reno, Nevada, the première of a picture produced by John Huston

  Disappointing   Gun Street is a low-budget black & white Western with an unstellar cast and all the appearance of a TV show. It’s

  Dull . In 1961 producer Robert E Kent put together two low-budget Westerns released by United Artists and starring James Brown: Gun Fight, released

  Hostages at the stage station . . William F Claxton was principally a director of TV Westerns; he helmed especially Yancy Derringer episodes and

. An interesting minor Western . . I really like The Quiet Gun. On one level just a minor black & white Western made on

  Murieta saves the day   In 1969 Ricardo Montalban’s Montalban Enterprises put together a project to produce a TV movie with Fox, and The

  Blaxploitation spaghetti: is that a thing? . . Take a Hard Ride is really a late spaghetti western. Produced by three European companies, shot

  Sixties cult Westerns     Monte Hellman, born 1932, partnered up with the B-movie maestro Roger Corman in the late 1950s, worked on cheap

. Camus with six-guns . . Monte Hellman, born 1932, partnered up with the B-movie maestro Roger Corman in the late 1950s, worked on cheap

. Sub-Tarantino . . If you make a movie in which every single character is repellent, you won’t find many viewers finding the picture appealing.

  You could certainly do worse   In 1954 Fox was moving to an all-CinemaScope production schedule and it contracted out its lesser efforts such

  There’s actually hardly a gunfight at all . . A 2013 straight-to-video effort, The Sorrow is a low-budget and rather amateurish Western about a

  An unconvincing Wild Bill   Very sorry to tell you this but Hickok isn’t very good.     Not that I blame it for