Minor Mann maybe but still good The number of Westerns Anthony Mann made (often quoted as eleven) will depend on your definition of a Western.

Jimmy Stewart gets tough At the very end of the 1940s film director Anthony Mann made a big decision, to turn away from the gritty

The second of Anthony Mann’s Westerns and again very good As we have seen, with the new decade of the 1950s dawning, Anthony Mann moved

Anthony Mann’s first Western Through the 1940s Anthony Mann (click the link for our essay on him) made his name directing noir thrillers, and very

Mann of the West I began my recent essay on the Westerns of Delmer Daves (click the link for that) with this paragraph: If I

Delmer Daves’s last Western The Hanging Tree was Delmer Daves’s last Western as director. In fact he only directed it between June 17 and July

A rather ordinary Western heist movie The Badlanders was a remake of the 1950 picture The Asphalt Jungle, transposed to the West. I love the

Lemmon becomes Ford Most so-called cowboy movies aren’t that. But occasionally you do get one which actually deals with cattle drovers, and Delmer Daves’s follow-up

In many ways a ‘typical’ Daves Western Delmer Daves directed seven Westerns between 1954 and ’59, only the war drama Kings Go Forth in 1958

Othello of the Plains It has to be said that part of Glenn Ford’s success in playing Jubal Troop in Jubal, his eleventh Western, and

It moves at a stately pace This movie is best viewed as the last part of a Delmer Daves trilogy. In 1950 Daves directed, for

A weaker Daves Western It’s a rather curious thing that Delmer Daves, who directed a film as good – and as influential – as Broken

An influential Western We’ve been talking about the Western career of Delmer Daves (click the link for that). Well, with his first Western as director,

A great Western director If I described to you a noted film director who was born in the first decade of the twentieth century in

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 Stories of

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

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

A classic gambler-gunfighter of the old WestYesterday I was waxing lyrical, or waxing anyway, about Luke Short the writer, real name Frederick Glidden, 1908 –

The writer of novels, short stories and screenplays Luke Short (1908 – 1975) specialized in Westerns, and very good his tales were too. I first

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

The term B-Western seems to get people quite exercised these days. I think some folk find it rather demeaning, suggesting low quality and production values.

The revenge Western We’ve been comparing some Western novels with their movie versions recently, for example Luke Short’s Ambush and the 1950 film of it,

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

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

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

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

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 so many

The black sergeant Let us continue with our thread of cavalry Westerns. Very soon after the solid but non-great example The Horse Soldiers (1959), which

A Fordian cavalry Western Since we are on the subject of cavalry Westerns at the moment, here’s one that I am inordinately fond of. At

Space Western I’ll come back to Ernest Haycox stories and the movies made from them (I’m reading Trail Town at the mo) but today I’m

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

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

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

One of the best of all Western writers It is clear that for most of his life Ernest Haycox (pictured left), born 1899, died 1950,

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

John Henry Holliday (1851 – 1887), known in the West as Doc, lived in the shadow of his friend Wyatt Earp. If it had not

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 (click the

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

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

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

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

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

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

Print the legend We’ve been looking lately on this blog at some of the truly great Westerns. We’ve reviewed superb ones such as Stagecoach, Fort

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

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

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

‘The’ Western Many regard Shane as a monumental film and talk of it in the same breath as High Noon or The Searchers, for example,

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

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

Jesse and Frank ride again It is perhaps difficult for us at this remove to appreciate just how popular movie serials were in the 1940s.

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

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

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 day –

Jesse James on the screen 2: The talkies I find it quite curious that after the (now lost) silent Paramount Jesse James of 1927, with

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

Randy rides alone A Man Alone, Lone Rider, Lonely Are the Brave, Lonesome Dove, Randy Rides Alone, The Lone Gun, The Lonely Man, The Lonesome

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

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

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