Adventures in Silverado (Columbia, 1948)
An OK Columbia B-Western I don’t know whose bright idea it was to take Robert Louis Stevenson’s memoir or travelogue The Silverado Squatters
The blog of a Western fan, for other Western fans
“Each man has a song and this is my song.” (Leonard Cohen)
An OK Columbia B-Western I don’t know whose bright idea it was to take Robert Louis Stevenson’s memoir or travelogue The Silverado Squatters
A writer in the Old West When the present writer [viz Jeff] was what Robert Louis Stevenson would Scottishly have called a halfling,
Nazi-hunting in the Old West The concept of the war crime seems to us quite recent, I suppose, and before the Nuremberg trials
A fun 50s B-Western The Phantom Stagecoach was another of those Wallace MacDonald-produced second feature oaters made for Columbia in the late 1950s,
I was saddened to hear of the death of Cormac McCarthy, in my view one of America’s greatest ever writers. According to his publishers,
Sam Elliott’s favorite role I think you have to give credit to Turner for some of the made-for-television pictures produced in the 1990s.
The book of the film 1990s editions of Louis L’Amour’s 1969 novel Conagher naturally featured Sam Elliott on the cover but in fact
Slightly Boetticheresque You can always rely on Walter Hill. He once said that all the films he made were Westerns, really. When you
Pretty well done As Jeff Shaara, author of the enjoyable The Old Lion: A Novel of Theodore Roosevelt, says in a conversation with
A tidy little oater with a slightly unusual plot Like our last review, Montana Territory, this picture was a mid-budget 1950s Columbia second
Plummer and the vigilantes Montana Territory was a one-hour Columbia Western shot up at the Iverson Ranch with a modest budget but was
More spaghetti? Not for me, thanks. I’ve had enough. There’s a generation of people who were teenagers or young adults in the
We’ll review it anyway Jeff Arnold’s West is not really the place to review The Red Pony at all because a Western it
Sam is Bill Continuing our Sam Elliott thread for a moment, after our post on 1883, in 1999 TNT screened a picture Elliott
Westward the women Continuing our current thread of wagon-train Westerns, today we’ll look at a recent contribution to the sub-genre, the 2010 feature
A decent enough wagon-train Western Last time, reviewing 1883, I said that wagon-train Westerns were among the most common type, and all through
We’ve kinda seen it all before Americans do so love the ‘family saga’. Long tales of the adventures of different generations of a
Doggone it We shall now pause (or dare I say paws) in our study of the Westerns of our favorite actors (see under
Often laughably bad On the ‘bonus’ part of the Sidonis Calysta DVD of When the Redskins Rode, Patrick Brion, waffling even more than
Billy rides again Last year Epix, the premium cable and satellite television network owned by MGM+, joined the throng of those who since
A Dern good movie Harry Tracy is said by some (though without evidence) to have been the last member of the Wild Bunch.
Quentin on the Western Quentin Tarantino is a movie-buff’s movie buff, in fact the buffest buff I know of. His passion for film
Willie’s first Western The first lustrum of the 1980s was a wasteland for the Western movie, Cimino’s monumental flop Heaven’s Gate having almost
The Gambler gets ruthless There is a whole sub-genre of country-singer Westerns, featuring among others Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Kenny Rogers, Travis Tritt
The original Hopalong Cassidy Clarence Mulford (1883 – 1956) is best remembered for his Hopalong Cassidy character, which he created in 1904 with
Give Jim Warren a try As we were saying when talking recently about the Westerns made by RKO (click the link for those
Not to be dismissed Livelinks will take you to our articles on those people or movies. Only three months after the release
Interesting chap Writer and producer Robert Buckner was born in Virginia and would die in Mexico but in between he wandered far and
Pretty trashy When we were looking the other day at the 1950s Westerns that Paramount put out (click the link for that) I
He made some pretty good oaters Film titles with live links will take you to our reviews of those pictures. Nat Holt
Ho-hum A Bullet is Waiting is a movie that hovers on the edges of the Western genre. It stars Stephen McNally as a
He made a Small fortune Edward Small had a long history in the movie business, ‘presenting’ his first film, a First National silent,
Mouse Pass I think I’ve been guilty of neglecting Dennis Morgan on this blog. I only talked of him when he was Cole
Monogram gets delusions of grandeur The last of the studios were are examining in this current series (you can catch our other articles,
From Cimarron to The Big Sky RKO had been one of the major Hollywood studios but after eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes took control
Slow starters, UA came good The history of United Artists is long and complex, with many different ownership structures over the years, many
They liked the Western Republic may be thought of as one of the ‘lesser’ studios but it certainly favored the Western, like Columbia
Harry Cohn liked an oater Columbia, like Universal, rather specialized in the Western. In 1953, one of our sample years, the
Uncle Carl Universal was another outfit that favored the Western – and had done from the start. The heyday 1953,
Warner Westerns We’re looking at different studios’ contributions to our noble genre. In 1953, as an example, Warner Bros released 28 pictures, six of
Tom Mix and John Ford In 1953 Fox released 37 films, three of which, c 8%, were Westerns, The Silver Whip, Powder River
The oater wasn’t always paramount Continuing our look at the different studios’ Westerns, concentrating on the early 1950s, Paramount put out 25
The studios and the Western We’ve looked, in our The Westerns of… series, at the series of oaters made by many directors, producers,
Pretty good We’ve been looking at the Western career of Forrest Tucker (click the link for our Forrestscape). California Passage dates from his
A great Western bad guy Many people will think first of Forrest Tucker as Sergeant Morgan O’Rourke in ABC’s md-60s Western sitcom F
Anti-Shane For most of the history of the Western movie, the range war has been a central theme. Big ranchers using thousands of
The Rangers are the good guys (again) Today we’ll continue our current mini-season of Wild Bill Elliott oaters with a picture similar in
Bill Elliott rides again I like a Wild Bill Elliott oater now and then. This one dates from his Republic period,
US Marshal Morris unmasks the bad guys Big, beefy and blond Wayne Morris started in the 1930s as a “sunny juvenile”, as the
Amateur There’s a little sub-genre of Western that might be described as a family film. Not a family film in the usual sense
The Aussie Jesse James The Australian Western, or ‘Western’, has a long history, and we on this blog have already looked at Westerns
Point ‘em north Fox’s 1955 movie The Tall Men (click the link for our review) was a great letdown, especially for a fine
Allison has a showdown with Wyatt Earp Accounts of the life of the noted gunman Clay Allison (click the link for our article
Clay Allison on TV Republic’s first television production, Stories of the Century, which ran for two seasons, 1954/55, was a popular show and
Clay Allison shot to death, again The third feature Western (that I know of) to feature the disreputable Western character Clay Allison (click
Clay Allison’s the villain again We’ve been looking at the nefarious career of Clay Allison (click the link for our article on him)
Hoppy rides again Back in July 2021 I wrote an article on this blog about the somewhat less than salubrious denizen of the
Early conspiracy theory Old men who claimed to be notable figures of history, in spite of the fact that history records the earlier
Innocuous More of a family/adventure film really, this picture nevertheless taps into the mountain man sub-genre of Western, and a sprinkling of gunplay
The rather unmagnificent seven Journey to Shiloh was a theatrical release but by 1968 the Western film had become pretty debased, frankly, and