. . The Westerns of Sam Peckinpah . . . Most Western fans would agree that David Samuel Peckinpah (1925 – 1984) was one of

. . The nearest movies got to the truth about the Daltons (though it still wasn’t near) . . The Dalton brothers, who had been

. . A whole lotta fun . . Now it’s the turn of the Dalton brothers to be glamorous criminals. A classic, straight-down-the-line early 40s

. Bob, Grat and Emmett . Bob Dalton . Grat Dalton . Emmett Dalton . The Daltons are famous outlaws of the old West, and

. . Rather charming . . James Stewart made two Westerns in the 1970s, The Cheyenne Social Club in 1970, when he was 62, and

. . A real clunker . . The Rare Breed ought certainly to have had a parental guidance warning (to stop parents going).   Oh,

. . A family saga . . Shenandoah was more a Western than Gone with the Wind is but it’s still really only a family

. . One of the great Western actors . . I don’t want to get into top tens and all that. A league table of

. One of the best Westerns of the 1960s . . John Ford’s Stagecoach in 1939 is a very famous Western and was hugely influential,

  . Tarantino makes a Western . . Well, it’s spectacular, I’ll give it that. And long. Actually, at 2 hours 45 minutes, it’s too

. I knew a fella once… . .   . This celebrated film, very loosely based on the Max Brand novella Twelve Peers, was the first

. . It has its admirers . . High Plains Drifter was the fourth Western that Clint Eastwood starred in after the Dollars European ones

. . Frontier woman . .   . This film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones, has a lot

. . Homage to Shane . And I looked, and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell

. Huge fun . . The comedy Western is hard to get right but when it does hit the right notes, it can be a

. A great Western actor  .   . What a great Western actor Slim Pickens was.   Mr Louis Burton Lindley Jr (slim pickings were

. Did he or didn’t he? . . Thomas Horn Jr (1860 – 1903) is a very interesting figure to anyone who reads about the

. . The Song of Jesse . . Jesse James passed into folk song almost immediately. The Ballad of Jesse James, supposedly written by a

. . The Book of Jesse . . There have been hundreds, if not thousands of books written about Jesse James, from scholarly analysis to

. . Jesse’s mother . . Zerelda Elizabeth Cole James Simms Samuel (let’s call her Ma James; we can’t go on giving her that full

Another in the occasional series on Western cinematographers . A Western master . . Another of the great Western cinematographers was Luciezn Ballard ASC (1908

. . I wouldn’t have it any other way . . We can’t do justice to this great movie in a short blogpost. It would

. A Western-lover’s Western . . In a post-Heaven’s Gate period of drought when A-Westerns weren’t being made (Cimino had almost sunk the genre single-handed),

. . Clint’s masterpiece . . Only the third Western to win an Oscar for Best Picture – Cimarron (RKO, 1931) and Dances with Wolves

. The high noon of the Western motion picture . . Right, here’s the situation: you are on a sinking ship with a full cargo

. Next in an occasional series on Western cinematographers . .         . Master of light and shadow . . James Wong

. Rooster Cogburn, no grit? Not much! . . The 1969 filming of the great Charles Portis novel True Grit was a perfectly splendid Western.

. . It gives you that buzz . . One huge benefit of modern times has been that we can travel. Only the other day,

. . First in a series of posts on Western cinematographers . .   The eye behind the lens . . Robert Surtees (1906 –

. If it weren’t for the acting, direction and writing, September Dawn might be alright . . Films which deal with Mormons and Mormonism have,

. . Attack that fort! . . Last night there was a pretty average but quite enjoyable Western on French TV, Fort Yuma. It stars

. . Howdy, everyone. . . I’m back. . Sorry to have been away for so long. . But in the next few days I’ll

. His name was Somebody . . 1973. Henry Fonda is 68. He accepts a part in what turns out to be his last Western.

. . Pretty awful . .  Sadly, Henry Fonda’s last two Westerns were pretty awful and that was very unfortunate after such a fine career.

. . A big hand for Firecreek . . Although the direction and editing of Firecreek could have been tighter and the pace of this

. . A favorite of aficionados . . This is a delightful light Western in which Henry Fonda (Howdy) and Glenn Ford (Ben) shine as

The mysterious stanger   Although far from my favorite Western and flawed in many ways, Shane still stands as an iconic example of the genre. Every

. . More shepherd’s pie . . Once you get over the bemusement of an entire 1950s Mexican village speaking with British accents (and, shockingly,

. Well worth it . . What a great Western actor Gregory Peck was.   In some ways, perhaps, he was the wrong choice for

. . Gobble, gobble . . This picture reminds me a bit of the turkey How the West Was Won with its bloated budget, its

. A rare thing – a mediocre Gregory Peck . . After the considerable and deserved success of True Grit (Paramount, 1969), Universal must have wanted

. . A fine Western actor . . Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) came from a Roman Catholic San Diego family

. . Commercial Batjac – but that’s OK . . The War Wagon was another 60s Western in which Wayne, in exactly the same costume

  The end of the buffalo   Brit Stewart Granger (born in posh Kensington, London in 1913; died in rich Santa Monica in 1993) had

. . Shepherd’s pie . . In the tradition of the ‘shepherd’s pie’ western (what I call British oaters; European westerns have to be named

I’ve just been in the Netherlands for a few days and what did I come across in the small town of Delft, famous for Vermeer

. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons… .  . Anything for Billy (Simon & Schuster, 1988) is in many ways the exact

. Splendid . . It was a magnificent achievement in 1969 to make such a fine film, the John Wayne True Grit, from such a great

  A confused adolescent   Another Billy book. So many have been written, I know, but this one can be kept in the top drawer.

. Grim, dark, stark, this film still has the power to shock . . Westerns that have little action, a lot of talking and are

. . What a spaghetti western ought to have been . . Sixties and seventies Eurowesterns have their fans (I am not one) and the

. . A box-office break-even only, it has quality . . . This film is directed by Robert Altman and it shows. It has the

. Not my cup of tea – and not a Western (the two things are related) . . By some accounts this movie is a

. I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man! . . The novel True Grit (Simon & Schuster, 1968) by Charles McColl Portis

. The Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid: the truth behind the fiction . .   . The book   Robert M. Utley’s book

. . Well-constructed, professional and also fun . . . The Big Trail was not the springboard to megastardom that Wayne must have hoped. All

. . It’s all rather turgid, really . . One-Eyed Jacks is a rather second-rate Western which is supposed (but often you wouldn’t know it)

. It’s real . . For those interested in the history as well as the myth of the West, few places repay visiting more than

. . This Western ticks a lot of the boxes . . Smaller Billy the Kid movies from minor studios don’t have to be junk.

. Mud, murder and mayhem . . The famed HBO series created by David Milch which ran from 2004 to 2006 and too suddenly stopped