. Slow, and not very compelling   Wyatt Earp, released six months after the rival movie Tombstone, was an even bigger picture. At 3 hours

. Wyatt leads the posse   Wyatt Earp’s Revenge is of little discernible merit, really, though mildly entertaining.     The Darren Benjamin Shepherd screenplay

. The best Wyatt Earp telling yet   After all the years of Wyatt Earp movies that bore remarkably little resemblance to the historical truth,

. The Sunset of Wyatt Earp   In this tale of Wyatt’s later years, before riding off into the sunset (well, actually, he rides off

. Sadie tells it from her side   After all the adulation of the 1950s, when Wyatt Earp was the screen Western lawman nonpareil, brave,

. The anti-Wyatt   By the start of the 1970s the full force of revisionism had fallen upon the Western movie. Former goodies were recast

. Wyatt redux   We have already reviewed the Wyatt Earp picture John Sturges directed in 1957, the hugely successful Gunfight at the OK Corral.

. Another clean-up-the-town Earpish marshal   JAW reader JG Entract left a comment on our recent post on the 40s Wyatt Earp picture Tombstone, The

. More Earpery   We’ve seen recently on this blog how by the mid-1950s Wyatt Earp had pretty well achieved mythic status, as Hollywood icon

. Wyatt cleans up the town – but not Tombstone   As we have seen in recent posts, by the mid-1950s the Wyatt Earp of

  Another chapter in the legend of Wyatt Earp   Next in our series of films featuring Wyatt Earp – the mythical Wyatt Earp, town-taming

  Early Wyatt Earp   Following on from our two-part post on Wyatt Earp on the screen (click here and here for that) I thought

    For part 1 of this article, click here.   Part 2   As we have seen, My Darling Clementine in 1946 made Wyatt

    Part 1   This post is in two parts. Part 2 here.   There are certain men and women of the old West

  “The best behaved gent this side of Snake River”   Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts was one of seven one-hour Westerns that Tex

  Of all the American Indian peoples who featured in Western films, often referred to as cowboy-and-Indian movies, the Apache were the favorites. OK, yes,

  Renegade Apaches on the rampage     In a long and varied acting career that spanned 45 years, 1946 to 1991, Burt Lancaster only

  Fine Western actor   Richard Jaeckel (1926 – 1997), shortish, stocky, great bad guy, was a stalwart character actor of Western movies, from 1950

  Durango saves the day – yet again   1948 was an epic year for the Western. But it is easy to forget, in the

  Death and angst in the cold north   Alder Gulch is an Ernest Haycox novel from the year after Trail Town (click for our

  Creepy killer   When reviewing the Westerns of director Gordon Douglas back in February (click the link for that) we of course mentioned The

  Western meets Southern Gothic   Inhabiting that shadowy territory between the genres of 70s Western and gothic horror, The Beguiled, which Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso

  Unsold pilot for NBC series, 1955   Among the many TV shows that might have been – but never were – was an entertaining

  No matter how fast you are, there’s always somebody faster   The essay I wrote last month about the quick-on-the-draw hooey in Hollywood Westerns

  Down in the west Texas town of El Paso   Since we are on the subject of gunmen-peace officers, here’s another one. He’ll be

  Another Texas gunman   We were talking recently about old West lawmen (click the link for that) who operated on both sides of the

  The Wolf of the Washita   Clay Allison was one of the most violent gunmen of the old West. There may have been a

  Say cheese   There were some wonderful photographers of the old West, dating right back to the birth of the art, or science as

  A real pro   We have been looking at the Westerns of such classy directors as Delmer Daves and Anthony Mann, and other luminaries

  Stand aside, boys   Allan Dwan was one of the most prolific movie directors of them all. He himself reckoned he had made over

  Novel by Oakley Hall and Fox movie, 1959   Warlock was a Pulitzer-shortlisted novel published in 1958 which later the same year was made

  The tin star   Further to the subject of law ‘n’ order in the West, we have already established that the law in the

  It’s a hangin’ matter   Since we are on the subject of the law in Westerns, both juridical and, ahem, extra-legal, I thought we

  Colorful rogue   After our post on scurrilous judges in Western movies, and they are legion, I thought we’d take a look at perhaps

  The law west of the Pecos   It’s a generalization, but the law in Westerns tends to be a peace officer: town marshal, county

  A really nice little ‘North-Western’   Ezra Allen Miner, known as Bill Miner and by a number of aliases, was born in Michigan about

  Apart from some early scenes, a bore   In Anthony Mann, her survey of that director’s films, Jeanine Basinger does not include Cimarron among

  Mann of the West   Man of the West, shot in February 1958 and premièred in September of that year, has an unusually ‘generic’

  The apprentice   Director Anthony Mann said, “It’s quite a simple story, a lesson in apprenticeship.” And that’s about right, as experienced gunman tutors

  A weaker Anthony Mann Western   Without Anthony Mann as director, the Westerns James Stewart starred in dipped in quality. After the disappointing Night

  Disappointing   A 1950s James Stewart Western at Universal written by Borden Chase, produced by Aaron Rosenberg, shot by William H Daniels, that tells

  Danger was this man’s specialty   After The Far Country, Anthony Mann and James Stewart again took a Western break, and made Strategic Air

  Classic Mann/Stewart   The Far Country was the fourth Anthony Mann/James Stewart Western, and back at Universal – The Naked Spur having been made

  Corrupting greed   In 1953 audiences were treated to Part 3 of the Anthony Mann/James Stewart Western cycle, and The Naked Spur was so

. Turning-point . By 1952, two years on from Winchester ‘73, Universal’s Anthony Mann/James Stewart collaboration (I nearly said franchise) had progressed. Stewart has the

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

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

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

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

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

  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

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

  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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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