. The other Ford . . Francis Ford (1881 – 1953) was John Ford’s elder brother. In another, parallel universe, we might have explained who

. A bit ho-hum, this one . . Treasure of Ruby Hills is an ultra-low-budget black & white Allied Artists B-Western of the mid-50s, directed

. Joel goes back to Frisco . . I don’t usually care all that much for pre-Civil War San Francisco stories. They tend to be

. Dymtryk’s first Western . . The Hawk, re-released by Jay-Dee-Kay Productions in 1939 as Trail of the Hawk, was an unexceptional and unexceptionable 55-minute

. That was the year that was   The New Year dawns and it’s time to look back over 2016, as it lies dead out

. Tough cavalry Western . . In 1953 (a vintage year for oaters) there were two good, gritty cavalry Westerns filmed in Death Valley. The

. Pat Garrett, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Buffalo Bill gun down the Wild Bunch . . I bet you didn’t know that in the

. Wild Bill, badman . . This Christmastide, let us reflect that in the 953rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 53rd year of the

. Small and Nazarro ride again . . Cripple Creek was another of the Westerns starring George Montgomery that Edward Small produced and Ray Nazarro

. Plastic bats . . Only marginally a Western (for 18th century musket-and-tricorn frontier flicks are really a genre on their own), Fort Ti is

. Another Hollywood hero brings in Geronimo . . I own to not considering George Montgomery to be the most fluid of actors in Westerns.

. Pretty bad . . Another lurid and historically silly Apache story came from the team that would the following year give us an equally

. Better than it ought to have been . . American Releasing Corporation (ARC) was the forerunner of American International Pictures (AIP), and both released

. Cads and crinolines . . Only a Western by a stretch of the definition, The Mississippi Gambler is a romantic costume-drama which is quite

. Worth seeing for Chill and Jack . . High Lonesome ought really to have been a very good Western. Made in color with quite

. Rory rides again – in Spain . . In 1965 Rory Calhoun led in three big-screen Westerns. He was nearing the end of his

. Really rather good! . . Rory Calhoun’s seventeenth Western (the ninth as lead) was a black & white Columbia mid-budgeter but it was really

. Bob Steele gets his man . . North-of-the-border tales of how red-coated Mounties got their man are not really Westerns, even if they are

. Action-packed . . With a title like that there are no prizes for guessing what the climax of this modest oater will be, and

. Weak . . Rod Cameron made three Westerns with fellow Canadian Yvonne De Carlo. River Lady was the best of them (Salome Where She

. Rory rides the pampas . . 20th Century-Fox deserved credit for taking a cast and crew to Argentina and engaging Jacques Tourneur to direct

. Rory Calhoun, Indian scout . . The Yellow Tomahawk was another of those 1950s Bel-Air Productions Westerns released through United Artists. Bel-Air made quite

. Slow and bloody . . The Duel is a new Western from Lionsgate, and very good it is too that they are still making

. A mildly entertaining anti-Western . . Rancho Deluxe is a contemporary Western, a semi-cultish 70s anti-establishment outlaw comedy.   Set around Livingston, Montana, it

. Rod on the Outlaw Trail . . Republic’s The Plunderers is no relation to Allied Artists’ 1960 picture of the same name, the last

. John Dehner holds the fort . . Bel-Air Productions, the company of Howard Koch and Aubrey Schenck, produced quite a few mid-budget Westerns in

. Fred croons on the range . . In 1939 the big studios decided that Westerns weren’t just juvenile programmers; they could be big box-office

. Tom Horn, secret service agent . . Dakota Lil is another 50s Western with a slightly minor line-up, George Montgomery, Rod Cameron and Marie

. Oddball . . I learn a lot from my readers, and I much enjoy it when they leave comments. Reader John Knight, commenting on

. The man in black . . Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage is probably the most famous Western novel of them all. It

. Old guys rule . . There is a genre of movie comedies which relies on the gag of lots of old-timers getting back together,

. Yul regret it . .  Adiós, Sabata, also known as Indio Black, sai che ti dico: Sei un gran figlio di…, which we might

. Bad Bat . . Bat Masterson has appeared many times in Western movies and TV shows, impersonated by a host of actors – Albert

. Rather good . . Some reviewers, even most reviewers, have been slighting of Ride Out for Revenge, dismissing it as an over-preachy B-Western, but

. Don’t tell anybody . .   From a tenth-billed part as a heavy in Border Patrol, a 60-minute Hopalong Cassidy oater of 1943, to eighth

. It’s become a cult movie – probably undeservedly . . On the surface Hannie Caulder was a very American movie: a Western, produced by

. An unsensational Wyatt . . Wyatt Earp was one of the excellent series of American Experience documentaries aired on PBS. . . Slightly sensational

  Howdy, e-pards.   I thought maybe you’d be interested to know  where readers of this blog come from. Here are the top ten countries by

. Interesting . . Despite the low budget and minor production company/theatrical release, Hannah Lee: An American Primitive is a high-quality 50s Western drama. It

. Franklyn Farnum rides the range . . This low-budget 30s programmer is introduced on the title screen as   Bobby Nelson in… THE GHOST

. Pal acts naturally anyway . . Pretty well indistinguishable from a thousand other 60-minute black & white programmer B-Westerns of the 30s, Outlaws of

. The Western movie as book . . I have been largely a stranger to the graphic novel. It is not a genre I have

. Chris is back . . It was perhaps strange that a Mongolian from Brooklyn should so love Western movies. Yuly Borisovich Briner, or Юлий

. Lives of an Arizona Lancer . . The Mescalero-Chricahua Apache Goyaałé, usually known as Geronimo, was played by many different actors on the big

. Yet another fort . . Ben Johnson was such a good Western actor, one of those stars who raised a mediocre picture and who

. Define oater . . It’s all very well writing a blog about Westerns (and this one has been going since 2010) but what is

. Cole & Hitch . . While the late and very great Robert B Parker was best known, like Elmore Leonard, for his crime novels,

. Rex plays it for laughs . . There were so many ‘programmer’ Westerns in the 1930s and so many screen cowboys, that it is

. Yet another fort . . How Hollywood loved forts! There were Westerns named Fort Apache, Fort Bowie, Fort Courageous, Fort Dobbs, Fort Massacre, Fort

. Western Post-Times: TRIGGER KIDNAPPED! . . Watching Roy Rogers movies today is not at that all easy. The word cheesy hovers dangerously in the

. Looks like a 50s TV show . . In 1957 – 58, producer/director Al Gannaway made a handful of low-budget black & white Westerns,

. A bit of a clunker . . Raiders of Old California is a pretty ropey black & white Republic Western of the late 50s,

. Victor Mature’s last Western . . Victor Mature’s last Western was not at all bad. He was an unlikely hero in a Stetson, matinée

. High eleven o’clock . . To me, there’s a difference between a bad man and a badman. While the former describes many (male) people,

. Jack Perrin rides for Poverty Row . . The other day we were talking about minor-studio B-Westerns of the 1930s, looking at a Bill

. Bill Cody rides again . . B-Western actor Bill Cody (43 Western appearances, 1924 to ’43) might be thought to have assumed that very

. A weaker Hart Western . . Blue Blazes Rawden was made in 1917 but not released until 1918. There may have been many reasons

. Luke Short rides again . . Saddle by Starlight was Luke Short’s 30th novel of 51, published in 1952. Unusually for Short, it doesn’t

. Trinity is back. Unfortunately. . . Doc West is a Western made for Italian TV and first shown in Italy in 2009 but filmed

. Mustang . . In Lonesome Dove, Gus McCrae says, “Ain’t nothing better than ridin’ a fine horse into a new country.” This, encouragingly, is