The Shootist

There are so many movies about old gunslingers that it seems like a contradiction: you wouldn’t expect that many tales of old gunslingers, because you figure not too many of them make it to be old, given the nature of their pursuits. Yet, here’s another one, featuring that oldest of old pistol packers, John Wayne, who is perfectly believable as a veteran of the range who is dying of cancer. (He would succumb to the disease in real life not long afterwards.) Lauren Bacall is a bit frosty as the widow who provides the outlaw with room and board and a bit of sympathy. Able support comes from another veteran of the genre, James Stewart, in a small but meaningful role as a doctor. Meanwhile, the real star of the film may be Harry Morgan, who is an absolute hoot as the local lawman who gives Wayne’s character a regular earful. The weak link here may be Ron Howard as the impressionable youth who takes a shine to the old gunslinger; let’s say it’s a good thing that directing worked out for him. This movie was late-period Western storytelling, both in when it came out (1976) and in setting (1901 in Carson City, well after the frontier had been officially closed). That gives the production an interesting feel, one that conveys a sense of change—of, indeed, things passing away—more so than what you get in the traditional oater full of horses, wide open spaces, and black and white morality. Nevertheless, the film still delivers its share of shootouts, old-time Americana, and the presence of one of the genre’s legends—still delivering the goods even at the end of the ride. As ways to go go, this one hits the target. 

Hud

See there, jerks can be entertaining—so long as you’re not living with them. That’s the big takeaway here, as Paul Newman’s title character spends two hours making an ass of himself and tries the patience of Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal and Brandon De Wilde as Hud's father, housekeeper and nephew, respectively. Newman is exceptional in the role, maintaining a level of charm that belies the bastard underneath and never letting the viewer get disgusted enough to look away. The script is based on a Larry McMurtry story, and that writer’s skill at weaving a tale comes strongly through in this narrative. The movie also gets a big helping hand from the black and white cinematography, which looks gorgeous throughout and comes across as most appropriate for a story with so many shades of gray. Lastly, one can’t help but admire, of all things, the costumes—mostly, standard issue head-to-toe Levi’s—which are as common as what you’d expect in a tale of West Texas ranchers but which these days hit the eyes as absolute classic Americana. Yeah, some guys are jerks for little particular reason—and that makes it all the more remarkable when you’re riveted by their actions. Where's the beef? It’s right here—and it’s definitely worth a watch.

Shane

Kudos to the set designer. It’s been 44 years since I visited the Tetons, yet the range that serves as the backdrop for this story is immediately and unmistakably recognizable. The grand scale of the Jackson Hole valley gives epic dimensions to a story that is about the intersection of the many different forces that shaped the west, yet it is also a tale of the personal and intimate. There is a slow build to the plot throughout as Alan Ladd's title character forges his relationships with each member of his host family, while at the same time the overarching theme—homesteaders versus ranchers—works its inevitable way towards the grave consequences that only Shane himself can resolve. The elements of friendship, subtle forbidden romance, and hero worship blend into a strong mix that makes the movie’s climax into a high stakes and evocative affair (not to mention coming to a close that prefigures Unforgiven by four decades). The leads —Ladd, Jean Arthur and Van Heflin—all give terrific performances (though Brandon De Wilde as the kid is, frankly, a little weird), and a young Jack Palance does a memorable turn in a small but important supporting role. The mix all comes together to deliver a viewing experience that runs from inviting to engaging to downright gripping in the end. Now that’s some straight shootin’.

Angel and the Badman

What often sets a John Wayne movie apart from your average oater is that there’s often a twist to the tale that you don’t find in the usual western flick. Here, it’s about Wayne’s morally ambiguous cowpoke falling in with a family of Quakers. The setup gives the story a base layer of philosophizing in its narrative, which provides a sense of something different and intriguing to what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill story. Wayne provides his standard self as the reluctant good guy, while costar Gail Russell is charming throughout as his mildly naïve but otherwise patient and wise would be love interest. Don’t worry—the romance only partly gets in the way of familiar horse opera tropes, such as galloping mounts, guns, grand vistas, cattle rustling, outbursts of violence, etc. Mostly, this work is about a mood, a friendly (pun intended) charm that wins you over and leaves you grinning through much of the running time. It’s a film worth watching, I tell thee true. 

Jeremiah Johnson

They don’t make them like this anymore. Really, they didn’t make them like this back then, either. Or anytime. I suspect this flick is an example of the impact of star power. Take an actor with megawatt power—like, say, Robert Redford in the early 1970s—and he can pretty much make whatever movie he wants, even if it has a razor thin storyline, pretentious script structure (complete with overture, unnecessary intermission, and a goofy, balladeering countrified chorus), and virtually no other recognizable beings in it. Beyond Redford’s desire to make a movie about a mountain man, there seems to be little point to this exercise in western mythmaking, though one must appreciate the splendor of the scenery that serves as the backdrop for the action. Also, kudos go to said action, which provides doses of satisfying violence to punctuate the long ruminations in the narrative (if you generously call it that). This one certainly works better if you’re in a mood for contemplating life back in the day and above a certain elevation, but if you prefer something a bit more standard in your night of cinematic entertainment, you might want to consider just staying down in your valley. 

Kit Carson

A piece of heavy duty balderdash about the frontiersman and his supposed exploits in blazing trails to California, and in prying said chunk of real estate away from Mexico. I’m quite fuzzy on the details of that era, but then again so is this bit of fluff filmed a hundred years on (1940) from the events it purports to relate, so that's pretty much a wash. I have severe doubts that any of it happened as shown here. That’s possibly good news for actual history, as this telling is rather banal and not especially interesting, except when the proceedings are punctuated by large scale acts of violence. Jon Hall is OK as the titular frontiersman, while Dana Andrews is kind of a dishrag as John C. Fremont. Their mutual romantic interest--in the same chick, not each other--is mostly dreary and adds little to the tale. I’ve taken to Westerns as I’ve grown older; something about recapturing the past seems to be part of the appeal. But in this case, here’s proof positive that even old shoot ‘em ups can be boring. I recommend finding a path away from this one. 

Hondo

What have I consistently learned from watching Westerns? That the us cavalry in the Old West were a bunch of damn fools. Invariably they wind up blundering into some sort of trap or cluster and are only extricated by the fact that someone like John Wayne is around to save the day. Well, maybe it wasn’t entirely like that, but it might have been something close. Or so this horse opera would have you believe. Yet again we see the schizophrenic take on the natives that was so prevalent in these old oaters: viewing them as worthy of respect, but also ultimately as targets for elimination, or at least as a problem to be overcome, usually in a hail of bullets. In this case, Wayne supplies a heavy dose of the fusillade in his role as a half-Apache scout who roams through the plot as a kind of Western paladin, noble to a fault, tougher than nails, and yet with enough heart to win over the woman at the story’s core—even after killing her husband no less. I guess the outlook really was a lot different back then. I wouldn’t say this outing quite lives up to the standard of the best of the genre—for one thing, Geraldine Page, while a fine actress, isn’t quite the beauty you usually find at the center of one of these flicks—but overall the film provides a good amount of action, a solid story, and enough of the vibe that you get from these movies that the full package stands as good enough entertainment. 

The Outlaw

What a weird movie. The film was directed by both Howard Hughes and Howard Hawkes, and it’s pretty apparent where the direction came from the amateur and where it came from the pro. Many scenes are oddly paced and strangely cut—editing may more accurately be called the issue, rather than directing—while the script sort of meanders through a story that has little real narrative and careens wildly between overly dramatic and jarringly comedic. In short, the piece is something of a mess. Yet, it is a relatively entertaining mess at that. Though the writing may be idiosyncratic in terms of narrative, there’s some good, snappy dialogue in many of the scenes. Meanwhile, the actors mostly acquit themselves well; Walter Huston in particular stands out, while Jane Russell lets it all hang out (metaphorically, of course; this was made in the 1940s, after all). As for historical veracity, your guess is as good as mine. Probably little to none, but that hardly detracts from the entertainment value. All in all, it’s not a great movie, but it isn’t a bad one, either. Nor is it really as scandalous as the reputation may have it. A curiosity, but hardly an outlaw production. 

The Westerner

Alcoholic sociopaths of the Ooooooollll’ West! I can’t tell if anything in this oater is true or accurate, but it is mostly a good watch. Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan make an amusing odd couple as a drifter and judge Roy Bean, respectively, who wind up friends, then enemies, and then frenemies on both sides of a range war between cattlemen and homesteaders. The story goes all over the place, from comedy to drama to action and violence to romance and probably a few things I’ve already forgotten, but it mostly holds together under the expert direction of William Wyler. The only quibble is that, even at a standard for its time (1940) length of an hour and forty, the show does run just a bit too long. Nevertheless, the movie delivers a classic quality Western experience, and as such it hits its mark with a sharpshooter's skill. That’s my ruling. 

McLintock!

Now I know where Mel Brooks got the idea for Blazing Saddles. This movie isn’t quite the laugh riot that Brooks' ultimate Western comedy is, but it does have moments when it rises above a level of general silliness and achieves some real comedy. The foundation of the humor comes largely from the characters, who are slightly warped versions of the standard Western tropes. John Wayne as the title character is largely the Wayne you always get in any oater; he is in many ways the straight man here. Maureen O’Hara is the major foil as McClintock's estranged harridan of a wife Katie; she’s a real pill throughout the proceedings. Perhaps she is frustrated by being outshone by Yvonne de Carlo in a supporting role. The story also features a surprisingly sympathetic take on the plight of the Comanches. I find this sort of take on the Indian question more frequently than expected when watching old horse operas—perhaps, contra the current fad, it all wasn’t entirely virulent racism back in the day. Mostly, though, this film is all about fights and arguments and wiseacre takes on various setups—a lot of which hit the mark, though not every shot nails the target. The major issue is that the movie runs a bit too long. Otherwise, it’s a fair diversion, nothing important but not a misstep either. Give this one a look when you can rustle up a couple of idle hours. 

True Grit (1969)

How the West was wiseass. A lot of the pleasure in watching this movie comes from the wry character of the dialogue—to be expected from a Charles Portis-penned script—particularly the sharp-tongued observations of John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn and Kim Darby’s Maddie Ross. Their performances, along with solid support from Glen Campbell, raise these proceedings above the level of your average Western. Also enjoyable is seeing all those vistas of the then-still-unspoiled landscape—Colorado in this case—splashed across the screen. It’s not exactly a deep story, but overall the tale provides enough to interest the viewer. I don’t know about grit, per se, but this one certainly has solid, traditional movie-making on its side—and usually that’s enough. 

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

How the West was, once. Like another sprawling epic about the nation’s expansion, this movie covers a lot of ground, figuratively and literally, but in this case it does so a bit more reflectively than the gung-ho epics of yesteryear. The story’s disparate threads are indeed so disparate that the viewer must wonder if all these people are ever going to come together, and it is only the promise of at least one more movie that offers hope that it will all eventually tie together. Indeed, it can be difficult to keep everyone straight while watching this flick, as there are so many characters scattered across the landscape—with few of them ever formally introduced—that the viewer must be forgiven for losing track. So clarity of story is not necessarily a strong suit here. Nevertheless, the tales that are being told do mostly make for compelling viewing, especially in the most harrowing scenes (quite a few characters die throughout, starting early on). Added to the stories that hold the interest is a visual feast; this film looks amazing all over. Put it all together and you wind up with a film that’s somewhat flawed, but also very much worth seeing. And one suspects the second chapter, unburdened of the need to perform any backstory, should really start to pull these stories together into a cohesive narrative. Building a cinema epic, much like building a nation, takes a lot of time and effort. 

Rio Grande

In a lot of ways, this is a really weird movie, and that’s even considering that it is a western from the olden days (1950) and reflects a philosophy and mores that are ever more alien to today’s society. The plot, such as it is, does a lot of meandering to ultimately make its point, which is ... well, that’s hard to pin down. A conflict with Apaches serves as the milieu for what is actually a family story of estrangement and internal conflict. That’s a clear through line of the film, though it sometimes gets lost in various and sundry other bits of rather superfluous subplots and story aspects. A B-story about a soldier on the lam trying to avoid prosecution for a crime works its way into the story, without being particularly interesting or necessary to driving the main storyline. That soldier is portrayed as a former rebel, a piece of the movie’s overarching element—I’m not sure it qualifies as a theme—that suggests that the U.S. army in the Indian wars days was loaded with unreconstructed Confederates, which would explain a lot. (One might surmise that that continues to be the case down to the present day—and, again, that explains a lot.) And speaking of loaded, Victor McLaglen does yeoman's work as a relentlessly boozing Irish sergeant, a character that might draw some viewer ire in a film made today. Ultimately, the film pays off its efforts at trying the audience’s patience with a typical climactic shoot-'em-up set piece. I guess it’s not a bad movie, but when John Ford and John Wayne are involved, you expect something a bit more impressive. The cavalry does arrive, eventually, but maybe not in time to save this movie’s day.

Cimarron (1960)

It tends to be a hard sell when your central characters are, pretty much, assholes. That seems to be a recurring theme in Ferber’s novels (witness the adaptation of Giant). This, like that other flick, is another epic of the west, with striking similarities (right down to the oil strikes), though with no one in the cast is as magnetic as James Dean. Glenn Ford tries to fill the gap, but doesn’t quite pull it off. Mostly, the lasting impressions here—part that hard sell—are representations of the generally flawed nature of the American character: people who are bigoted, inconstant, venal, and grasping. I guess that makes this film honest, if nothing else. Ultimately, it's just not as engaging as one would hope--and, as a remake, probably not as engaging as the original (which won Best Picture). Ultimately, it’s a movie that veers from overblown to downright silly, though it is somewhat redeemed by Maria Schell's performance as Sabra; she is, in somewhat stealth mode, the true focus of the tale. The up-and-down nature of the thing means it's hardly necessary to see, but you could do worse with your time, too.

The Wild Bunch

I have to admit, I'm not quite sure what to make of this flick. It is revered as a deconstruction of Western movies, but I found little in its content that really cuts to the core of what the old oaters were about and how they needed to be taken down a peg. Unforgiven does a much better job of that. This outing seems more interested in changing times--it did get made in times that were a-changin', after all--as embodied by the oldsters who embody the altered societal landscape, all of which has some interesting notes but is hardly the foundation of an all-time classic. There's also weirdness in the occasional scenes of the gang members going off on extended laughing jags, which I guess are supposed to exemplify how 'wild' they are, but mostly just comes across as disjointed oddness. (Given the film's '60s provenance, those scenes also come across as everyone being high, which may have been purposeful, too.) In a lot of ways, the story arc of Robert Ryan's character, a former fellow traveler of the bunch, is more interesting than the story of anyone in particular who is still in the gang. Nevertheless, judged simply as a Western story, the movie mostly works, with good action in several memorable scenes, and most of the principal actors acquit themselves well. I just think, looked at soberly through the lens of time, this film is not really the sensation it was viewed to be when it first arrived.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

A civics lesson masquerading as a western showdown movie. This one is not just well-acted and well-written, but interesting in director John Ford's storytelling technique, employing flashbacks and nonlinear plot the way many more recent movies have. Lead actors John Wayne, James Stewart and Lee Marvin portray complimentary and contrasting archetypes, while a number of excellent supporting players flesh out the cast very well. This flick adds to the growing body of evidence to be found in filmdom -- particularly westerns -- about just how important guns were, and therefore are, to this society; it's become clear to this viewer, at least, that understanding this country's explains continuing mania for firearms is impossible if you don't watch old movies. Nevertheless, the film also makes a strong case that law and a civil society must rest upon something greater than a hail of bullets. Finally, the story's climax satisfies, and then its ultimate end delivers a provocative final scent. Really excellent work, and better than many more revered westerns--it should be on everyone's watch list.

Winchester '73

A complex narrative and circuitous storytelling collide with a host of genre standards in the Old West. In this case, that's a pretty good thing. I say 'standards' instead of cliches since many of the tropes present are so well done that this film ultimately serves as an exemplar of the style rather than as an exercise in eye-rolling contempt that a lesser effort would elicit. James Stewart plays against type (again--this is at least the second time I've seen him play a mostly ornery cowboy) as a revenge-seeking saddlehand, Shelley Winters looks good, and of all people both Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis (wet behind the ears in both cases) make appearances in small roles, while Stephen McNally and Dan Duryea make for effective and somewhat entertaining psychopaths (another staple of the Western genre). Those elements, plus some timely injections of humor and action, keep things interesting and lively for the duration. Those not as fond of the category might not like this one all that much, but as a (growing) Western aficionado, I found it worth my time. Oh, and it also shows that America's obsession with guns--in this flick, literally one particular, titular gun--is not a recent phenomenon.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

I keep trying. I keep hearing, from one source or another, how great Robert Altman films are. And I keep watching them, with the expectation that I will see a flick that will, at some point, help me see the light. But this isn’t that one, and at this point I’m drawing the inevitable conclusion that Altman’s oeuvre is way, way overrated. I’ve no doubt that the tone of this movie—dispassionate, disaffected, and distant—is meant to convey the seriousness of the artistry being presented, but it certainly doesn’t help viewers who simply want to watch a good movie. Most definitely, it does not serve the needs of those who want a good story. The telling of the tale lacks some of the most fundamental aspects of good storytelling; for instance, we never really see the Special Event that is supposed to make us care about what happens to McCabe, or Miller, or the whores and the whorehouse, or even the whole damn town. It’s easy to look down upon such standards as trite, or hackneyed, or even bourgeois, but there’s a reason that standards become standards: they work. What happens here doesn’t. Also, the performances are uneven; Beatty and Christie are, at times, nearly unintelligible by the manner in which they deliver their lines. That may reflect poor sound recording or editing, which further damns the director for not going to the trouble of doing the job technically right. As for the look of the thing, it’s fine, excepting perhaps the director and cinematographer’s deep fondness for the camera’s zoom feature (it really gets a workout—and wears out—here). It isn’t awful, but a new form that shook up the world of cinema? I’m not seeing it. Maybe, just maybe, this emperor had no clothes.

The Far Country

Like a study in white trash ethnology. You can't watch this film today, with today's frame of mind, without seeing it in those terms. When you see it that way, a lot of this country's history makes a certain amount of sense. There's a real "appeal to violence" that pervades the sensibility of this show. You see it throughtout, like in the character played by James Stewart. Much like in "The Man from Laramie," Stewart plays a guy far removed from the stammering charmer seen in various comedies, not to mention his public persona. He's a flinty son of a bitch who takes the entire running time to learn to stop being a total dick--maybe. And he's supposed to be the good guy. The rest of this crew is either complete knuckle-draggers or their victims. The movie is redeemed somewhat by the plenitude of postcard scenery; Canada's Jasper National Park, standing in for Alaska and the Yukon, never looked so good. Other than that, there isn't much here; the story, such as it is, starts off all right but eventually doesn't hold much interest. If this one gets lost in the wilderness, it's probably not worth sending a search party.

The Paleface

I guess Bob Hope was more than just a guy doing specials on NBC after all. He stars here as the hapless dentist who gets mixed up with Calamity Jane in some absurd investigative plot. She's played by Jane Russell, who's the real star here. She's stunning to look at, and more than capable as a comic actress. Some of the antics just come off as silly, though the barrage of jokes relentlessly thrown at the audience--mostly by Hope--does hit the mark once in a while. This is certainly a relic at this point, and not just for being a Western, but it retains some value as a mild amusement, worth seeing if you have the inclination--if for no other reason than for seeing the way it was done back in the day.