Ten Deep 05.27.09: 50 Great Westerns - #42-#32!

Posted by Lucas Huddleston on 05.27.2009

In this week's edition of Ten Deep, 411's Lucas Huddleston begins the second week of his Great Westerns list. And I promise that there's no Young Guns this week...only Young Guns 2...at Number One.

Hello, and welcome to Ten Deep: Week 32! I've gone a little long this week, so there's not much room to get into comments...

50 GREAT WESTERNS: #42-#32

42. I Will Fight No More Forever (1975)



Within the long, sordid history of the relations between the United States government and the Native Americans, there are a few happenings that really stand-out as being particularly…well, awful, really. We think of the ‘Battle' of Wounded Knee, where a squad of Army soldiers fired upon a group of Native Americans on a reservation, slaughtering the unarmed people that were mostly made up of women, children, and the elderly (twenty Medals of Honor were awarded to U.S. soldiers for the ‘battle'). You think of the Trail of Tears, where various tribes where relocated to reservations in Oklahoma; many of the Indians forced upon the trail died of exposure, starvation, or disease. Of course, if that wasn't already despicable enough, consider the fact that the United States Army handed out blankets to the Native Americans…blankets that were infested with small-pox and the like. For myself, I think of those things, to be sure. I also think of Chief Joseph.

Chief Joseph was the chief of a tribe of the Nez Perce Indians situated in much of the Pacific Northwest (specifically Oregon), and is, arguably, one of the most famous and eternally respected Native Americans in the history of the United States. Before Joseph would rise to be head of his tribe, his father, of course, was the chief before him (his father was also named Joseph). It was during his father's time as head of the tribe that the Nez Perce people begin to see a steady and ever-growing influx of white settlers into the tribe's native lands, and when the settlers began to raze the land for purposes of farming and grazing livestock, Joseph the First began to be troubled. As such, the United States government would approach Joseph the First with a treaty, one that sought to separate and distinguish the ancestral Nez Perce lands from those lands that the tribe would concede to the settlers. The treaty left the Nez Perce with a reservation that contained 7.7 million square miles within its borders, an enormous reservation that encompassed parts of Oregon, Wyoming, and Idaho, a reservation that left much of the ancestral lands of the Nez Perce with its native peoples, and everyone was happy. Happy, that is, until gold was discovered in the area, at which point there naturally came a veritable flood of whites to Nez Perce land in search of riches; as such, the federal government would again approach Joseph the First with a new treaty…one that offered the Nez Perce a much smaller piece of land in Idaho, and one that didn't include the tribe's ancestral home. Some of the Nez Perce agreed to the treaty, and relocated to Idaho; others, including Joseph the First, refused the treaty, and remained in their home. When Joseph the Second took his father's place, tensions between the Nez Perce and the white folk were at a boiling point; however, Chief Joseph refused to allow his people to strike back with violence, preferring instead to mend things peacefully. Of course, such a thing was seemingly impossible in those times, and after constant hassling from both settlers and the government to move to the reservation in Idaho, Chief Joseph instead decided that, in order to avoid more bloodshed, it was best if his people leave the United States, and thus, he chose to relocate his people to Canada. And why not? Was he not a free man, with the same God-granted freedom of choice that the whites had? Apparently not, for as the 800 members of the Nez Perce was being led by Joseph towards Canada, the United States Army, with a contingent of over 2,000 troops, hounded them relentlessly in order to prevent the tribe from leaving the States and force them onto the reservation. After numerous battles and skirmishes, Chief Joseph finally surrendered to the Army forty miles from the Canadian border, citing that he was tired of the killing and the suffering that his people had endured during the trek for his reasoning. As he surrendered, Chief Joseph would utter that now famous line, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

As it is (and perhaps a bit obvious), 1975's I Will Fight No More Forever is a made-for-television film that depicts these same events. While the film is most definitely a bit aged by today's standards (i.e. you can tell the film is a made-for-TV picture from the ‘70's), the film should be applauded for attempting to relate the story of the Nez Perce as accurately as possible. While the tragedies of the plot of the film is the strongest and most appealing aspect of the film, it should also be said that there are more-than-a-few strong performances in the film, including Ned Romero doing an excellent and noble portrayal of the vaunted Chief Joseph, and an early Sam Elliott appearance in a somewhat minor role. I first watched I Will Fight No More Forever years ago with my grandfather, and it had a rather profound affect on me afterwards. Due to my watching this film at a relatively young age, I personally learned that there were more to Native Americans in Westerns rather than being mere barbarians, and for that, this movie has always been one of my favorites and I hold no qualms in giving IWFNMF its spot on my list. It's well-deserved.

41. Son of the Morning Star (1991)



There have been fewer personalities from the Old West that have been ridiculed or despised to any certain degree than General George Armstrong Custer, and there have been undoubtedly fewer still that have received as many polarizing depictions as that particular man as well. In case you don't know, Custer is quite the notable figure in the history of the United States armed forces, as he was (and still remains to be) the youngest gentleman to have ever been granted with the rank of General in the United States Army, and though he graduated last in his class at West Point, he would serve in the Civil War and assemble quite the distinguished military record for his service; however, it was the man's last days that makes him TRULY notable in the minds of the large majority – The Battle of the Little Big Horn, and, subsequently, his death at said battle. After making a name for himself for his part in the ‘Indian Wars', Custer was on the hunt for Sitting Bull (who had previously led a large number of Indians off their reservations), and marched his 7th Cavalry towards the Little Big Horn River, where his Crow scouts had indicated that a large coalition of Native American Plains Tribes (mostly Sioux) were encamped. Before entering the battle, Custer split his squadron of some 700 soldiers into separate groups, with the plan to encircle and smother out the warriors of the tribe. However, what Custer didn't know (or, at least, didn't bother to really care or think about) was that there were nearly two-thousand Indian warriors at the tribes' coalition, and, when Custer came to the decision to split his forces, he unwittingly sealed the fate of himself and his men, as the Indians overran Custer and his regiment, killing all of the men that were accompanying Custer's regiment save for one. The battle would go down as being perhaps the greatest victory that the Native Americans saw in the ‘Indian Wars'…though it would also undoubtedly play a part in the final push of the US Army. You see, in his own time, Custer was what we would call nowadays a celebrity, a man that saw reporters and journalists follow him about everywhere he went, including into the field. As such, news spread quickly of the popular general's demise at the hands of the Indians; Custer would be mourned as a tragic, fallen hero, and the hearts and minds of the white folk and the military would gather ‘round the memory of ‘Custer's Last Stand' as a kind of rallying tool, and within a few short years after the event, the ‘wild' and free Native Americans would be no more. The battle also made icons of two other figures of that time, two Sioux warriors: Sitting Bull, Lakota holy man, who had a vision of the tribes' victory over the US Army before the battle, which, in my mind, has always lent him a bit of a mystical slant; and Crazy Horse, a fierce warrior and war chieftain that led the Indians into battle at the Little Big Horn, and, perhaps outside of Geronimo, the most famous Native American to have ever lived.

Of course, in the years since that time, Custer's star would fall as America came to the realization of just what had been done and encroached upon the Native American people. As such, Custer would go from being portrayed as a ‘tragic hero', and would be more commonly depicted as being: either a lunatic who, for all intents and purposes, was bat-sh*t crazy; or as a supreme narcissist, who led his men to their doom for the sole reason that he couldn't possibly comprehend that 2,000 armed warriors were a real threat…or that he only did so to further his own career and, by proxy, his celebrity. As such, one could presume that had this film been created in the Golden Age of Westerns, Custer would have been portrayed as a saint, and if the film had been produced from the late-60's to the 1970's, Custer would've undoubtedly been depicted as being that said madman, such as in 1941's They Died with Their Boots On (where Custer is a tragic hero), and in 1970's Little Big Man (where Custer is a lunatic), respectively. However, in the case of the 1991 television mini-series Son of the Morning Star, it was produced after another certain film took the film world by storm, a movie which ushered in a new era of the Western and how certain parties were to be (at least mostly) accurately portrayed. That film was, of course, 1990's Dances with Wolves, and one would have to believe that Son of the Morning Star owes much of its existence to the success of Kevin Costner's film. Had Dances with Wolves not been the massive success that it was, it seems doubtful that this film would have ever been greenlit even for television production…let alone be granted the money to be produced with the excellent production values that SotMS has.

However, apart from more technical aspects that this film is indebted to from Dances with Wolves' overwhelming successes, I'd also like to think that it also owes much of its adherence to presenting the events and the peoples surrounding it in a mostly historically accurate light to Dances, as well. There were a lot of cogs moving and pieces being set in motion in the months leading up to the big battle, and the film tries its damnedest to cover as many of those occurrences as accurately as it can, and given that the film is around the four hour mark, it has plenty of time in its attempt to properly build the intrigue and posturing of the event itself and its participants…and it's overwhelmingly successful in those attempts. Here, George Armstrong Custer isn't a caricature of either the fallen hero or the oblivious and crazed madman; Son of the Morning Star depicts him probably as he truly was – as a young and ambitious man that, while indeed a bit of a glory-hound, was also doing as he was told and following orders. Yet, what really sets Son of the Morning Star apart from most other films that have been crafted that deal with Custer and his famous end, is the film's attempts to paint the Native Americans part in the event with a certain level of matter-of-factness, without giving in to making the tribes as savages nor as the PC, ever-shining ultimate good-guys that some would have them be either. We see episodes dealing not only with Custer's rise through the ranks of life on his way to the battle, but also that of the mysterious Crazy Horse, both of whom are presented as being equals, bound by fate to meet at the Little Big Horn. And it all works wonderfully, and while there may be some who would be turned off by the movie's length, Son of the Morning Star never really drags as one might suspect. Bolstered by great sweeping cinematography, high production values, an ever-lastingly intriguing tale, and great acting from all involved, Son of the Morning Star adds up to being undoubtedly one of the finest mini-series' ever produced for American television, and, in many ways, it would have been far more suitable for the epic film to have seen a theatrical release.

40. Silverado (1985)



As I've stated earlier, in both my brief history piece on the Western genre two weeks ago as well as my write-up for Young Guns last week, the 1980's were a particularly lean period for Westerns overall. By the time the 1980's had come about, the ‘great' minds of the Hollywood production companies had come to the conclusion that the Western had more-or-less run its course, that the American movie-going public was no longer interested in the long-standing genre of film depicting the Old West. Perhaps they came to this conclusion for the reason that the studios began to market films more towards the sprawling urban areas between the coasts, and that a Western held little by way of relation to those people and the lives that they led in such places; perhaps still their decision rested in the releases of Blazing Saddles, which parodied the Western genre to the point that Westerns looked particularly foolish, and in Heaven's Gate, which was the veritable ‘bomb to end all bombs'…and a Western, to boot. For whatever the reason, it remains that American cinema of the 1980's was a particularly harsh scene for Westerns, and as such, with the exception of a few notable theatrical releases, most Westerns were relegated to being made-for-television productions. In the mid-80's however, two of those ‘notable theatrical releases' were able to grace theater screens across the nation, perhaps against the studios' better judgment…and, of course, Silverado was one of those two film that took that major stab at being a commercial success in the midst of the film industry turning its back on the Western during the 1980's (the other being the Eastwood-helmed Pale Rider).

The writer and director of Silverado, Lawrence Kasdan, was a life-long fan of Westerns, having grown up loving them as a child during the peak years for the Western genre as it pertained to film. As such, it was only natural that Kasdan would want to write and direct a Western…yet, the 1980's being what they were in relation to the Western genre, Kasdan's opportunity to be granted with a big-budget production of a Western by a studio seemed like an unlikely happening. However, with his first two films, Kasdan would churn out two substantially successful pictures, both critically and commercially: Body Heat and The Big Chill. The acclaim that those two films offered up at Kasdan granted him a bit of leeway in what projects he could take in the future, and, using that same leeway, Kasdan chose his next project – Silverado, a Western that was to be written and directed by himself. No doubt that, despite how ‘dead' and irrelevant the Western genre seemed to be in the mid-80's, Kasdan's past successes with his first two films was enough for the studio to place faith in the director that he could take a Western and turn it into quite the profitable venture, as Westerns had been in the 1930's through the 1970's. As such, Kasdan was able to compile and secure a more-than-worthy cast through which to relate a ‘good vs. evil' plot that harkened back to the Golden Age of Westerns, a decent budget, high production values, and a nationwide theatrical release in order to (hopefully) mark the return of the Western to cinematic relevance with a bang. Yet, despite all the signs seemingly being aligned to ensure that Silverado would be a box-office smash, the film disappointed, as it was a commercial failure and failed to bring relevance back to the Western genre…at least, at that particular point in time.

Although the film's theatrical run is often labeled as a ‘failure', Silverado had no right to be as such, in my opinion. The cast is great, with the four main leads being played by Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Scott Glenn, and Kevin Costner (Costner received this role due to the fact that his scenes in Kasdan's The Big Chill had been completely cut from the film, and Kasdan gave him the role of Jake in Silverado in order to make up for Costner's being cut from his prior film all together), all four men taking on the roles of members of a group of ‘outlaws with hearts of gold'. Kline and Glover are quite good in their roles of a free-wheeler and a black man, respectively (I mean no offense by that, either…consider the Old West and the roles of black men during that time, and then how Glover's character opens the door to dealing with prejudice and acceptance); however, the real standouts of the four leads are Glenn and Costner. Scott Glenn is perfectly cast in the role of the stoic gunfighter on a quest for vengeance, and is so good in the role I've often wondered how he didn't end up with parts in more Westerns since (probably because it was the 1980's); Costner, on the other hand, proves me wrong when I refer to his acting as always being stiff and dry. Of course, by and large, Costner IS stiff and dry in his acting more often than not, but in Silverado, we see a different side of the man and his talents, as for his portrayal of the young Jake (brother to Glenn's character), Costner is loose and relaxed, giving a performance that's EASILY the most energetic of the picture. The supporting cast works just as well as the leads…even those of the cast that are a bit more – shall we say – off-beat and not usually imagined as being in a Western, such as Jeff Goldblum as a sleazy gambler, and John Cleese as an Old West sheriff. At any rate, despite the film's poor box-office showing, the film would find its deserving success and popularity in the then-burgeoning home video markets. Since then, Silverado has been embraced for what it is, and not what it could be – a fun and energetic return to form for the Western during a period when the genre was left for dead, and one that lovingly harkens back to the Golden Age of the genre.

39. Broken Arrow (1950)



As stated earlier, there was an unofficial yet clear-cut line that cleaved down in the middle of the 1960's, a schism that effectively separated the two major periods of styles and themes within the Western genre of film. On the half before the mid-60's, you have the traditional Westerns of the Golden Age, where the good guys always wore white hats and were strong and courageous and always got the girl, where the bad guys always lost, the Indians were always savages, and the Union Army (especially during the Civil War) was always the guardian angel of the populace and could do no wrong; on the other half of the mid-60's, you have the Revisionist Westerns, and were typically Westerns that challenged the ideas of good and bad that were found in traditional Westerns, as well as the place of the Native Americans, and the portrayal of the Union Army. However, while the division of fundamental change in the genre is primarily found in the mid-60's upon the coming of Leone, Peckinpah, Eastwood, and their films, it's not as if the IDEA of challenging the norm in the once-super popular Western genre first came about in the 1960's. In fact, the very first of the Revisionist Western films came about well-over a decade earlier…almost twenty years earlier than the generally accepted ‘birthing' of the Revisionist period of the 1960's. Of course, those earlier Revisionist films didn't refer to themselves as being ‘Revisionist Westerns'; in the challenging of certain aspects of the accepted norms in Westerns, however, they were ahead of their time. Within the ranks of the earliest Revisionist Westerns are a few stalwarts of the genre, films that are almost so ingrained in their own time that it's hard to imagine them as anything BUT being a part of the Golden Age of Westerns – films such as 1952's High Noon, 1953's Shane, and 1956's The Searchers. As you may have already guessed, 1950's Broken Arrow was also one of these early Revisionist Westerns; it also may very well be one of the very first.

Broken Arrow, directed by Delmer Daves, is loosely based on actual events and stars Jimmy Stewart as Tom Jeffords, a man who, one day while searching in Apache land for gold, comes across an injured Apache boy. Despite the fact that the Apache and the local whites and their government are essentially at war with one another, Jeffords doesn't kill the boy; instead, he takes care of the boy's wound (he was shot in the back) and heals the young Apache back to health. However, a group of Apaches on the warpath happen upon, and while they don't kill Jeffords out of gratitude for his helping the boy, he's forced to watch as they torture and kill other white men that were found with Apache scalps in their bags. Jeffords learned a valuable lesson that night, however – the Apache weren't animalistic savages…they could be fair and reasonable. As such, Jeffords, who plays a part in the Southwest's mail courier service that had been rendered defunct due to constant Apache attack, learns to speak Apache and as much of their ways as he can, before he sets out on a mission to hammer out a peace treaty with Apache chief Cochise, a treaty which would allow the mail to pass unharmed through Apache lands. Cochise is impressed with Jeffords' bravery and honesty, and thus grants him his wish – the first steps toward a peace between the Indians and the whites, where Cochise ultimately breaks an arrow in half in a show of peace. Of course, both Jeffords and Cochise face resistance and hatred from not only their opponents, but of men from their own respective races, as there are unfortunately parties in both the Apache and white cultures that don't wish to see the peace through; there are, at the same time, those that do…but, as we know, things don't necessarily end happily for everyone involved. That's what happens in Broken Arrow in a nutshell, and while the performances are all very well done and the film hits on all technical aspects wonderfully, that all takes a backseat to what the film stood as being back in 1950. It was, quite simply, the very first Western (perhaps even one of the very first films PERIOD) to deal with race relations with a good sight of maturity, exploring the mistreatment and exploitation of the Native Americans by the whites of the 19th Century. Here, the Indians aren't portrayed as being blood-thirsty barbarians; Cochise is portrayed as being a very wise man, far wiser than most white men. Here, both sides are to blame for the bloodshed that washes the Apache lands of the Southwest, and both are guilty of being ignorant of the other's ways and rights. Such a depiction was uncommon in Westerns at the time, and for Broken Arrow to say ‘hey, the Indians were just like the white man, all they wanted was to be free and live on their own lands' during the time when most other Westerns were content to say that Indians were ‘evil' is a great, and historic, thing.

Unfortunately, though the film itself may have tried its damnedest to be fair to a long-dismissed and misinterpreted people in the Western genre, the film was also created in 1950 in the REAL world. As such, all of the actors playing the parts of the Apaches were all white men, including the man who plays the part of Cochise (Jeff Chandler, who does a fantastic job, by the way). There were, however, a handful of actual Native Americans that were given roles in the film, not the least of which was one Jay Silverheels, who had the speaking part of Geronimo; Silverheels was a decently sized star at the time, as he played the role of Tonto of The Lone Ranger fame. However, while Geronimo was a speaking role and was somewhat pivotal during the final third of the film, Jay Silverheels, well-known actor, goes uncredited for his part in the film. I can't really say for sure why that is, but, obviously, I'm inclined to believe that it may have had something to do with him being an actual Native American…though maybe not, but who knows? What's more is that the film's screenwriter, Albert Maltz, would find himself as a member of the ‘Hollywood Ten' shortly after the release of Broken Arrow – the Hollywood Ten being, of course, those in the film industry who were blacklisted during McCarthyism under suspicion of being, or associating with, communists. As such, Michael Blankfort would receive screen-credit for writing the picture (Maltz' name wouldn't be cleared and finally granted screen-credit until 1997…post-humously, of course). It's funnily ironic, isn't it? A man writes a screenplay preaching love, peace, and goodwill between all men, regardless of race and culture…and ends up being blacklisted as an ‘evil commie'? At any rate, regardless of the real world crap that surrounds the picture, Broken Arrow is a great Western, and a truly classy film that had the guts to do something and go somewhere than most other films of the time didn't. For having the nerve to do such a thing, Broken Arrow automatically became much more relevant than ninety-percent of those films that didn't.

38. The Tall T (1957)



When I first began to compile this list, I just knew that I'd have to clear a spot for this movie, for personal reasons. I knew that I'd just simply HAVE to include The Tall T somewhere on this here list of 50 Great Westerns for no more than two reasons: 1.), it was one of my grandfather's absolute favorite Westerns of all-time; and 2.), it stars my Grandpa Joe's favorite Western star ever, that being the great Randolph Scott. Randolph Scott had a large and successful career in films, as he was a leading man in every film he was in with the exception of those produced within his first three years in the film business. Scott also had quite the diverse career, taking roles in films that ranged from Dramas to Comedies, to War and Horror films. However, Scott would go on to most closely associated with Westerns when his career was all said and done; his close association with the genre no doubt hinged not only on his tall and lanky physique or on his verbal drawl, but on his looks as well, with a chin seemingly carved out of granite and tough, leathery-looking skin. In short, he looked just as how most people of the time (even now, perhaps) imagined a great hero in a Western SHOULD look. However, while a consistent draw throughout his career, Scott, if he existed in today's world and cinema landscape, would probably be considered a ‘B'-movie star. Not that his filmography was peppered throughout his career with bad films, or anything of the like; most of his films, particularly his Westerns, were low-budget compared to others that were being produced (his films were usually part of a double bill that played before a ‘feature' film), and he produced a LOT of these during his career. With that being said, it should also be noted that, for all intents and purposes, The Tall T would probably also be considered a B-movie in today's world. But that's not necessarily a bad thing; in this case, it's a great thing, since The Tall T is a great movie.

Based on a story by Elmore Leonard, The Tall T came about in the late-50's, at a time when Scott was nearing sixty years of age. Now, of course we all have been bred to know that when a man is getting ready to eclipse the age of 60 and, thus, truly enter into ‘old-manhood', that it's time for that man's life to start winding down. For Scott, however, he was beginning to enter into what's considered today to be his most highly acclaimed period…a period in which he WOULDN'T surrender his role of leading man, surprisingly enough. It was in the late-50's that Scott would enter into a partnership of sorts with director Budd Boetticher, beginning with a role in a film titled Seven Men from Now in 1956. Originally, John Wayne himself (whose production company Batjac was scheduled to produce the picture) was approached to star in the film, but Wayne turned it down, and instead went on to work on The Searchers during the production of Seven Men from Now; however, Wayne would give Boetticher the name of the man that Wayne thought SHOULD star in the picture – Randolph Scott. The resulting film wouldn't be successful during its own time, but it would still lead to the partnership between Boetticher and Scott, a partnership that would go on through seven more films. The Tall T was the second of the Boetticher/Scott films to be produced by the two, and while I have as yet to see them all, The Tall T stands as being my favorite of those that I HAVE seen. The film starts out light-hearted enough, but after the first act, it quickly takes a turn towards a darker route, as Scott's character, after being picked up by a stagecoach, happens upon a group of outlaws lying in wait at the stage-station, where it's revealed that the outlaws recently killed the station manager and his young boy and threw them down the well. From then on, the film reverts to being a battle of wits between Scott's character and the main villain Richard Boone, who fancies himself as NOT being the murderous psychopath that he is, preferring instead to place the blame on the murders of his cohorts (though he did nothing to stop it). The plot's not really all that complex (in fact, the VHS copy that I own sums up the entire plot on the back cover – even the climax, where it out-and-out states that Scott kills the bad guys and gets the girl), but it doesn't need to be. The plot is tight and well-structured, the film has a brisk pace (78 minutes long) and that time is well-used to engage the watcher, and Scott, of course, turns in a great performance. As I said, this was my grandfather's favorite Western starring his favorite Western performer, and as such, The Tall T earns its spot on this list easily. It may be a somewhat hard to find film nowadays, but you should. It's the perfect jumping on point to find out what Randolph Scott is all about, in my opinion.

37. Will Penny (1968)



As I stated last week, the mid-to-late 1960's saw a period of relative upheaval in the realms of the Western film genre. During this period of time, certain names of long-time stalwarts in the genre began to fade into the past, names such as those of directors John Ford and Howard Hawks, and Western-film icon John Wayne. In their place rose new names, names at the heads of a new type of Western film called Revisionist Westerns, films that questioned long-held tropes and ‘clichés' that were found in the more traditional Westerns that were produced during the genre's Golden Age in cinema. The names of these new minds behind Westerns that ushered in a new era whilst at the same time pushing aside Ford, Hawks, and Wayne were the likes of directors Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, and soon-to-be new Western-film acting icon Clint Eastwood; there were, of course, more minds to be had at work in these new Revisionist Westerns, yet Leone, Peckinpah, and Eastwood were by far at the forefront of the movement (and are historically the most well-known of that period). Films such as the Dollars Trilogy (1964's A Fistful of Dollars, 1965's For a Few Dollars More, and 1966's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West, 1969's The Wild Bunch, 1962's Ride the High Country, and more were popular in their own time; yet, as time has moved on, these films (mostly all touched by the hands of Leone, Peckinpah, and Eastwood) have almost exclusively become the few movies that most fans of Westerns have come to primarily concern themselves with, as it pertains to Westerns of the late-60's. Undoubtedly, those certain films are deserving of the attention that they get. However, what's unfortunate is that there were, of course, a slew of other Westerns produced in the mid-to-late 1960's that WEREN'T crafted by the hands of those three icons; out of those certain films that have flown under the radar for so long, 1968's Will Penny. Much like the film's titular character, Will Penny is a quiet film, a bit shy, and, at times, rough around the edges. And yet, terms such as ‘quiet' and ‘shy' are hardly the types of words that one would use to describe the film's star and the large breadth of most of his more well-known work; I'm speaking, of course, of one Charlton Heston.

Instead, when most people think of legendary actor Charlton Heston and his particular style of acting, I'm sure that most would prefer to link the man's name with words that are a little more demeaning, like, say, something along the lines of ‘ham' or ‘over-actor'. As a long-time fan of Heston's, being essentially a fan of the man's since my childhood, I would never go so far as to belittle the man's work or his abilities with words like ‘ham' or ‘over-actor'; yet, obviously, I would never be so daft as to relate the words ‘quiet' or ‘shy' to the man's typical work, either. Instead, I prefer to call the man and his acting chops as being ‘larger-than-life'. And, when you think about it, ‘larger-than-life' was EXACTLY what Heston needed to be, considering the movies and roles that he starred in. Seeing as how ol' Chuck was typically cast in sprawling, mythic epics as the lead, Heston's ‘larger-than-life' acting skills, which gave way to his robust and powerful screen presence, was perfectly suited to the larger-than-life characters that he was given. However, from now on, anytime you hear someone refer to Charlton Heston as a scene-chewing, over-acting ham, you need only say two little words – Will Penny.

In Will Penny, Heston gives what has to be his most subtle and under-stated performance of his career. Playing the part of the titular Will Penny, Heston is a middle-aged cowboy who knows nothing else other than the drive and life on the range. After completing a job and traveling towards a new cattle-herding job with two friends, Penny runs afoul of a family of psychotic raw-hiders, led by Preacher Quint (Donald Pleasance), killing one of the villains. Not thinking much on it at all, Penny rides to his new job, along the way briefly running into a mother and her young boy on their way to Oregon; however, after discovering the mother and her child are squatting on his new boss' land, Penny leaves them for a few days so they can leave without any trouble, and, while he's gone, he's waylaid by the raw-hiders, who leave him for dead. However, he's found and nursed back to health by the mother and her young son, showing Will a glimpse into another life that he didn't even know existed…that of the family life. That's pretty much the plot of Will Penny in a nut-shell, and, if you couldn't tell, it's not exactly what one would call ‘action packed'. In fact, as I said earlier, much as the personality of the film's lead character is quiet and subdued, so too is the film Will Penny itself, as that's the best that I can describe it. However, the film works and is beautiful because, while the film doesn't allow much room for very many action sequences save for the finale, the film is carried along quite exquisitely by the characters and the performances of the actors involved. Will Penny isn't filled with larger-than-life characters; instead, it's riddled with characters that could actually seem as though they were real people living in a real world. In fact, the only real performance that doesn't come across as being subdued or awkward is that of Donald Pleasance, who does a great job as the insane leader of the villainous gang (even though his accent is a little…well, weird). However, as I said earlier, the major props for the performances in Will Penny goes to Charlton Heston himself, as he turns in what is undoubtedly his best and most ‘real' performance of his career; in fact, Heston would go on to say that, out of all the classic films that he was ever a part of, Will Penny stood as being his own personal favorite. It's my favorite Heston film, as well.

36. The Magnificent Seven (1960)



Even if you've never seen The Magnificent Seven, I'm sure you've heard of it, or at least know of it in its basest form…one way or another, perhaps even unknowingly. Even if you're a true film buff but not a fan of Westerns and thus have never seen this particular film, the basic plot of the thing will no doubt feel a bit familiar to you. In The Magnificent Seven, a small Mexican village is being oppressed by a group of bandits led by Eli Wallach, as the town periodically and yet consistently fall prey to the continuous raids of the bandits. In a fit of desperation, men from the village travel to another larger town where they buy a load of guns, happening upon a gunslinger (Yul Brynner) whilst in the town. The villagers ask the man to come to their aid, train them in the ways of the gun, and ultimately help to turn back the bandits before it is too late, but the man refuses, saying that one true fighter and a group of farmers would stand little chance against a bevy of conditioned gunmen. The villagers keep on him though, and, ultimately, the gunslinger gives in, and agrees to help train the villagers in how to defend themselves against the cruel bandits. However, the man doesn't come alone…instead, he recruits six other men – most of them seasoned gunslingers in their own right – and together, the seven make preparations for the oncoming assault by Wallach and his bandits, all the while bonding with the at-first fearful townspeople of the small village as the gunfighters train them for battle against the much-larger forces of the bandits…

Depending on just how familiar you are with the works of one Akira Kurosawa, legendary world-class film director, you might just read that brief synopsis for the plot of The Magnificent Seven and roll your eyes at the similarities between Kurosawa's 1954 classic The Seven Samurai and 1960's The Magnificent Seven. However, it should be noted that The Magnificent Seven is more than just a mere Hollywood rip-off of a noted and influential foreign film, created under the pretenses of taking an overseas film that a majority of the American movie-going public may or may not have been all that familiar with and pass it off as being totally unique; The Magnificent Seven is, in fact, a remake of Kurosawa's legendary samurai film, with, naturally, the setting displaced to the American Old West, the samurais replaced with gunfighters, and a few subtle changes in the plot (of course, I'm sure the fact that the film is a remake of a classic leads many to believe that TMS is indeed a rip-off, but regardless…both the original AND it's remake are classics, so I'll ignore any moaning and groaning). Ultimately, it seems rather fitting that a Kurosawa samurai picture would be taken by an American director (in this case, John Sturges) and formed into a Western, as there's a definite circular completion to such a thing…as in ‘going back to the beginning', so to speak. For you see, some of Akira Kurosawa's most profound influences on his own directorial style were the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks…both American directors that were deeply rooted within the Western genre, and thus, it could be said that Kurosawa's pictures were influenced by Westerns of those two men. When one thinks about it, you can definitely see similarities in themes and archetypes in both Samurai pictures and Westerns; perhaps that's why the two genres can be so seamlessly interchanged, in both the case of The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, as well as that of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars.

At any rate, despite that long shadow that one would presume to be cast over The Magnificent Seven due to the immense respect bestowed upon this film's source material as well as it's vaunted director, TMS is a great film in its own right. Armed with a great young cast that, at the time, was filled with a few future leading men for Westerns and beyond (including Yul Byrnner, who was already a star, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, and Eli Wallach, among others) and with a greatly intriguing and now-considered truly classic storyline, The Magnificent Seven was a huge success back when it was first released to the movie-going public. It was such a success, in fact, that it was one of the few Western films of that era to actually spawn its own true franchise, as the film saw the release of three sequels in the following years (even a television series was produced in the late-90's), though none of the sequels were ever as successful as this one. Hell, even Akira Kurosawa once met with John Sturges and commented on how much he enjoyed The Magnificent Seven (I'd assume that Sturges then died the happiest man alive, as it's not everyday that you receive a blessing AND accolades from one of the greatest filmmakers to have ever lived). Nowadays, it's a true classic of the Western genre, a truly entertaining and enjoyable exercise, and a great film from the past glory-days of the Western, when the genre was popular and profitable enough to draw a veritable bounty of great actors and production values to its cause. I highly recommend it to everyone that hasn't seen it…unless, of course, you're one of those dipshits that automatically hates a film entirely on the short-sighted basis that it's a remake. If that's the case, then to hell with you.

35. High Plains Drifter (1973)



A few weeks ago during my brief write-up for the film Eagle's Wing and its Honorable Mention, I related the fact that one of the reasons that I fell in love with that particular film during my childhood was because of the mystical horse and film's visuals, as the cinematography and overall ‘look' of the landscapes depicted in that movie gave everything a much more Fantasy-inspired slant than most other Westerns that have been produced…as though the Old West really WAS a place of myth and legend. Of course, note that I said ‘gave everything a much more Fantasy-inspired slant than MOST other Westerns that have been produced'; High Plains Drifter is one of the few Westerns that outshines Eagle's Wing in presenting the Old West truly as a Fantastical place, though not merely through unique and dream-washed landscapes as Eagle's Wing did. High Plains Drifter is a fairly unique film of it's time, as it embraces aspects of the supernatural that abound in Old West legend but rarely depicted in Western films, a theme set by the film's opening shot as Clint Eastwood's character seems to materialize out of the thick haze of the heat of the sun's rays striking the hard, earthen ground, though first time watchers may not realize that the tone has been set. In fact, I'd even say that HPD is almost a borderline supernatural Horror film; clearly, it's very pulpy and strange, and, in a written form, the story for the film would have undoubtedly been right at home in the pages of pulp magazines such as Weird Tales back in the day. High Plains Drifter also stands as being one of the few Clint Eastwood Westerns that my Grandpa Joe absolutely hated…and, unlike in MOST other cases, his hatred for this film didn't affect my feelings towards it in the least. I've always loved it.

High Plains Drifter stands as being Eastwood's second directorial effort (the first being 1971's Play Misty for Me), and the very first Western that Eastwood himself would direct (though obviously not the last). Much as how John Wayne put to good use his lessons learned from working with the likes of Ford and Hawks during his creation of The Alamo, here Eastwood likewise utilizes lessons from working with the great Sergio Leone; however, while Eastwood may indeed have better learned the craft of working behind the camera through his work with one of the all-time greats, Eastwood at the same time goes to great lengths to diverge High Plains Drifter from the fold of Leone's films as much as possible, as HPD stands as being a much, MUCH darker film than anything Leone put out in the Western genre. Nor does the film tell a basic revenge plot, or a bounty-hunter plot like the Dollars Trilogy did; sure, HPD is a revenge tale of a sort, though it also stands as being a bit more a philosophical take on what is right and what is wrong. Of course, though it is indeed a bit unlike Eastwood's films with Leone, at the same time High Plains Drifter is very much cut from the same cloth, offering up blurred lines of what is ‘black-and-white' or right and wrong…Eastwood himself even plays the part of the cigar-chomping Stranger that's never given a proper name in the film (until the end, at least), another Man with No Name of very few words and not-all-that-nice disposition.

To give you a clue as to just how dark the film is and as to just how much ‘anti' exists in Eastwood's anti-hero in High Plains Drifter, one need look only at the opening twenty minutes. Within those early stages of the film, the Stranger rides into the town of Lago, and, since he IS a stranger to the people of the town, he's treated a little coldly, though he's not actually threatened with bodily harm or death at any time. Regardless, the Stranger ends up gunning down three men, his gun hidden beneath a smock while he was getting a shave…and the men didn't have their guns pulled, nor did they even when the Stranger was gunning them down. Once he's done with that bit of business, he's accosted in the street by a woman who purposely blocks his way…at which point, the Stranger grabs her by the hand and leads her to the stable, where he rapes her. And THAT should give you a good idea of the type of character that Eastwood is playing here. However, as I said, the line between good and evil are blurred, and not everything in the town is as it seems, as the people of the village are murderers in their own right, guilty of committing a murder in order to ensure their own financial gain remained intact. The Stranger is privy to this through supernatural reasons, as he may or may not be the murdered man returned from the grave, and after the town realizes that the three men that the Stranger gunned down were gunfighters hired by the town to protect them from three former gunfighters of the town who are returning for their vengeance, the town promptly hires the Stranger as their new protector. The Stranger then proceeds to basically screw with everyone's minds, as he takes whatever he wants, sleeps with married women, plans to hold a picnic for the coming gunfighters (including put up a sign that says, ‘Welcome Home Boys'), orders the town to be painted blood-red, and renames Lago to Hell. As you can hopefully see, High Plains Drifter is far from being your typical Western from that, or any, era. Legend has it that, after completing work on High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood wrote a letter to John Wayne, stating that the two men should star together in a Western; in his response, the Duke angrily blasted Eastwood and denounced High Plains Drifter as being a mockery of the Old West and the Western films from which it spawned. Out of his respect for Wayne, Eastwood didn't reply to Wayne's letter, and, obviously, the ‘what would've no doubt been great' Western starring the two greatest Western Icons of all-time never materialized. That's a pity, but there's a lesson to be learned here: High Plains Drifter obviously isn't for everybody. If you're a lover of traditional Westerns, pass High Plains Drifter by. If you have a more open mind about things, then by all means check it out. It's a great, albeit unusual, Western.

34. The Shootist (1976)



The beginning of John Wayne's role of the aging, notorious gunslinger J.B. Books in The Shootist starts way back in 1950, nearly thirty years earlier, albeit in a more indirect fashion than you'd think. You see, in 1950, there was a Western created titled The Gunfighter; without talking too much about THAT particular movie at this time (*hinthint*), needless to say that the script for The Gunfighter caught John Wayne's eye. Wayne desperately wanted to play the lead role in that film, the role of an aging gunfighter named Jimmy Ringo, who wished to retire though his reputation prevented that from happening, and Wayne pushed as hard as he could to get the part. However, the problem with Wayne getting the role wasn't for the reason of Wayne being refused the part for someone else, and how could it? Wayne was riding what was undoubtedly his peak at the time. No, Wayne himself REFUSED the part that he so desperately wanted, for one reason and one reason only: a grudge. You see, the rights to The Gunfighter were initially owned by Columbia Pictures and it's president/production director, Harry Cohn…who reportedly bought the rights the to film for the sole reason of GIVING the part to John Wayne. However, Wayne held a great deal of contempt towards Cohn for perceived mistreatment of the actor from the days that Wayne was a bit-player in Columbia B-movies and such, and, thus, Wayne refused to work for Cohn and Columbia Pictures. Ultimately, Cohn would sell the movie rights to Twentieth Century Fox, and Gregory Peck would land the part of Jimmy Ringo…though Wayne would never forget ‘the one that got away'.

Flash forward to 1975, where a book is written by a man named Glendon Swarthout, a book titled ‘The Shootist'. The plot of ‘The Shootist' was somewhat similar to that of The Gunfighter's plot: in ‘The Shootist', aging gunfighter J.B. Books finds himself dying of stomach cancer. Upon discovering this, Books knows full well that his time in this world is now limited, and wants little more than to die with the dignity that he's retained his entire life through his gunfighting. Of course, his reputation as the West's greatest gunfighter precedes him, and he finds that everywhere he goes, young men who fancy themselves as gunfighters can't help but challenge Books to a duel, in an effort to further their own names. The book (and thus the film) chronicles pretty much the last week of Books' life, as he comes to terms with the fact that his death is imminent, more-than-likely coming at the hands of three certain men that rode into town upon hearing that Books was there, and, facing certain death either way, Books reflects on the thirty men that he killed, his high moral code (he never killed a man that didn't deserve it, as they all wronged him), and, as I said earlier, a way to die with dignity. After missing out on the role of Jimmy Ringo in The Gunfighter, you'd have to think that Wayne jumped all over the part of J.B. Books in The Shootist. However, once again it seemed as though it was not meant to be, as the film's producers initially refused to grant Wayne the role, preferring instead George C. Scott…though the film's producers' refusal to Wayne stemmed from an entirely different situation than that which had surrounded the casting dilemma Wayne faced for The Gunfighter.

You see, the producers of The Shootist didn't wish for Wayne to star in the film for the sole reason of health concerns surrounding the Duke. Now, there's some debate on whether or not it was known at the time (even to Wayne himself, though I'm sure his declining health was known to studios…just not the cause), but John Wayne was dying of stomach cancer at the time…just as character J.B. Books was. At any rate, Wayne lobbied as hard as he could to receive the part, and when he ultimately got his wish, the Duke would make it his mission for the remainder of his life to see The Shootist through to the end. While it IS debated as to whether or not anybody knew that the Duke was dying of stomach cancer, I'm inclined to believe that everyone involved with the production of The Shootist knew that this would ultimately be the legendary John Wayne's last film, before the great Western cinema icon would ride off into the sunset forever. As such, The Shootist feels less like your ‘usual' Wayne Western, and much more like a tribute to the man himself. When the movie opens up, we're granted with footage from previous Wayne films, showing the Duke as a healthy young man, which sets the somber and almost ominous tone for the remainder of the film…considering that you know what it actually is that you're watching. Wayne, of course, turns in one of the most poignant and heartfelt performances of his career as the dying actor playing the part of a dying man, as does Lauren Bacall, who twenty years earlier had dealt with suffering through her husband's death at the hands of cancer as well (Humphrey Bogart, of course), a memory which she no doubt pulled from to deliver her own great performance. Richard Boone, Ron Howard, Jimmy Stewart (reunited with Wayne in a Western for the first time since 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance)…EVERYONE in the film puts their best foot forward, though it's largely inconsequential. This is the Duke's movie through and through, and, while The Shootist stands as being a truly great Western, it also stands as being a fittingly perfect tribute to the long-time face of the Western genre before his passing. The Shootist would be Wayne's final film, before he succumbed to his cancer in 1979, ending a film career that ran for fifty years, from 1926 to 1976.

33. Jeremiah Johnson (1972)



[I apologize for how short and rough this write-up is; I began to run out of space, and was forced to do things this way.]One of the major themes for Westerns is that of ‘progression', usually depicted as a lawman or an outlaw being passed by the world, as well as time itself as the man refuses to change with the times. In those pictures, said lawman/outlaw deals with a world in which he no longer has a place, and the coming of the railroads and the telegraph stand as being symbols of the modern world being ushered into a primitive land. As it usually happens in those films, the soon-to-be-obsolete lawman/outlaw is usually slain, most often due in direct fashion to their refusal to bend with the coming tide. When it comes to mountain men, however, we are given what is undoubtedly the extreme side of this refusal to submit to the coming times. In mountain men, we have men who eschewed ‘progression' and ‘modern times' completely, men who freely choose to instead deal with the savage and oftentimes brutal reality of nature itself. Of these men, Jeremiah Johnson stands as being the greatest ‘mountain man' movie ever made…and one of the finest Westerns ever crafted, as well, though I should note that I was at first reluctant to include it for the reason that it doesn't really feel like a Western at all.

Jeremiah Johnson stars Robert Redford in one of his finest performances ever, and while there are indeed other cast members and characters in the story, the film itself features rather prominently on Redford and his struggles to survive in a harsh and unforgiving region. Becoming disillusioned with life in general after taking part in the Mexican War, Johnson moves out West to seek out solace and solitude…taking up the mantle of ‘mountain man' when he makes it out West. At first, Johnson heavily and clumsily struggles in the thick wilderness of which he's not accustomed to being in, unwittingly disrupting all manners of life in the forests, from the bears to the Indians to other mountain men. However, as time goes on, Johnson becomes a true man of the wilderness, even making a name and a legend for himself in those same woods that nearly overtook him. Jeremiah Johnson's strongest suit, other than the performance of Redford, lies in two areas that it does beautifully well. The landscapes and cinematography here are fantastic and most-times breathtaking. The story itself isn't really a story per se, but moreso an episodic tale depicting the struggles of Johnson; regardless, the story is intriguing and serves to draw the viewer in implicitly, despite the simplistic nature of it. Jeremiah Johnson, in my opinion, stands as being one of the greatest films to have ever captured the pioneering spirit of the American people of that time, and as such, marks it as a being a great Western.

32. A Fistful of Dynamite (1971)



For all intents and purposes, A Fistful of Dynamite stands as perhaps being one of the most misunderstood and neglected Westerns of all-time…which is almost a complete and total shock considering that the film is directed by one of the Western genre's most iconic figures – Sergio Leone, and the film most CERTAINLY stands as being the most misunderstood and neglected of Leone's works…and remember that every single one of Leone's other four Westerns are frequently placed on pedestals by Western fans (myself included). For those that haven't seen the film but have indeed heard of it, there seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding the movie. Take, for example, the title of the movie. Nowadays, the movie is most commonly known under the title of A Fistful of Dynamite. However, when the movie was originally released in theaters, the film was promoted and released as Duck, You Sucker, which was Leone's preferred title for the picture. So that's two somewhat common titles for the movie…and yet, the film has also been referred to as being titled Once Upon a Time…the Revolution, bringing the tally to no less than THREE titles of the movie. Of course, it doesn't take a fool to be aware of the fact that two of those titles try to tie the film into Leone's far more famous and recognized work of Western films: with the title A Fistful of Dynamite, it almost feels as if its being insinuated that the movie is tied into the Dollars Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars and such); under the title Once Upon a Time…the Revolution, it's implied that the movie is tied into Leone's ‘Once Upon a Time' films (Once Upon a Time in the West, and Once Upon a Time in America). Most seem to concede the film to be loosely tied to the ‘Upon a Time' films, but the A Fistful of Dynamite stands on its own entirely, in my opinion.

Hell, even the birthing days of the project were shrouded in confusion. After having completed his Dollars Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone was reluctant to return to the Western genre as a director, stating that he was tired of things that Western films entailed, such as horses and firearms. After writing the screenplay for A Fistful of Dynamite, he originally chose Peter Bogdanovich to direct the movie, and after Bogdanovich refused due to perceived ‘lack of creative control', Leone then sought none other than Sam Peckinpah to direct the film. Seemed too good to be true, and, ultimately, it was, as Peckinpah was forced to bow out due to a legal dispute with studio United Artists. However, Leone himself was forced to take the job after stars Rod Steiger and James Coburn refused to take part in the film UNLESS Leone directed. Upon it's release, the film bombed and was critiqued heavily. However, the film was badly cut by the studio prior to its release as they felt as though the film was too long, and what's more, the film was promoted as almost being a zany Western-Comedy, which no doubt confused audiences when they first saw the picture. A Fistful of Dynamite does indeed hold some truly funny moments in it; however, that's no different from any other Leone Western, and the film is far from being ‘zany'.

A Fistful of Dynamite is one of those few exceptions to the rule that I allowed on my list. IF you even read my guidelines from two weeks ago, you'll remember that I was mainly looking at Westerns that were set between the Battle of the Alamo and the turn of the 20th Century. This film, however, is set around 1910 during the Mexican Revolution, and features things like motorcycles and cars and such. However, it is indeed a Western, and, since the film is set during the Mexican Revolution, that's exactly what the film deals with. Rod Steiger stars as Juan, a poor Mexican bandito that is content to rob from the rich, is a leader of a gang of outlaws that mostly consists of his six young children (each from a different mother) and his elderly father. The group happens upon John (Coburn), an Irish Republican Army member and an explosives expert, who's on the run from the British by hiding in Mexico. After discovering John's talent with dynamite, Juan coerces him into helping him break into a certain bank in order to rob it; John goes along with it. However, John is duping Juan into freeing a gaggle of political prisoners that are being held in the bank, and Juan unwittingly and unwillingly becomes a hero of the Revolution. At its heart, A Fistful of Dynamite is about friendship, though there are obviously other themes at work here (such as Juan's rant about how ‘revolutions' don't matter, because there will inevitably be ANOTHER ‘revolution' to topple the first). But the film is completely driven by the intriguing characters of Juan and John, as there's really no certain ‘villain' in the movie (the villain is basically the corrupt government, which is faceless, save for its soldiers and one politician). Yes, the casting is strange at first, with Steiger as a Mexican and Coburn as an Irishman, but it all works beautifully, and A Fistful of Dynamite ends up being perhaps Leone's most heartfelt and loving film, in my opinion, and it's a shame that more people have yet to be introduced to it.

See you next week!