Favorite western

[Stan H]

We have a long thread about what latest movie we watched and what the "top 10" are, but how about a simple one;

 

What is your one all time favorite western movie?

 

Mine would have to be Jermiah Johnson. I can watch that one over and over again.

 

 

 

[Jim Holden]

I think "The Gunfighter" is really a classic - overlooked by many.  It's said that the Studio Bosses blamed the poor box office on the moustache that Peck wore in the movie....hence that never happened again.

"Winchester 73" with James Stewart is also a classic of a movie with a lot of good lines. 

"Support your Local Gunfighter" is just as good as "Sheriff";  the James Garner/Jack Elam parts are just great, and the comedy is broad and funny.

[Benjamin Ross]

Despite the inaccuracies, discrepancies, etc., I have to go with Tombstone.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

The Searchers should have been the1st Western to win an Oscar.  It had a great script, very well adapted from the novel, a killer cast--including Natalie Wood, fresh from Rebel Without A Cause--& John Ford directing!  I think the academy hated Ford or something.  Both this & The Quiet Man were Oscar-worthy.  Somehow this damn' thing is stuck in italics!

[John Campbell]

My father was a huge western film fanatic, the first film I have cognizances of a family outing to  a film, was watching was Shane.  Shane is my favorite western, and film period regardless of the genre. Shane  should be required viewing for anyone setting out to make a film.The cinematography uses the Grand Teton Mountains as a scenic backdrop in framing a simple story of ranchers vs. homesteaders in early Wyoming. The good guys and bad guys are not just cardboard cutouts.  George Stevens compels us to understand that these men fought and tamed the land and are now being displaced by the homesteaders. What they want might not be fair, but it is not completely unreasonable either.Most of the scenes, even the simple ones, play in montage. It looks as though Stevens shot each scene from about 15 different angles and edited them together. The effect is striking.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

Shane was a good movie, but what really made it good was Stevens' directing.  Alan Ladd wasn't really that great an actor, but Stevens probably got the best acting of Ladd's career out of him in that movie.  Jack Palance really made the movie as one of the scariest bad guys in movie history.

The only scarier villain I ever saw in a Western was, believe it or not, Audie Murphy in No Name on the Bullet.  It's the only movie in which Murphy played an out-and-out bad guy.  He used a completely different approach than the typical Western bad guy.  His character, John Gant, was handsome, articulate, friendly, outgoing--and a completely cold-blooded killer for hire.  That's what made him so scary. 

[Adam Lid]

Hard choice but "The Cowboys" with John Wayne is up at the top. :-)

[Zane Smith]

Three way tie: "Rio Bravo", "El Dorado" and the original "True Grit"

[Bill]

HBO's Deadwood and I even bought the DVD set !

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

My Saturday night movie last week was the first installment of a 2 disc set--Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts.  I'll watch the rest of it this week.  Great cast--Sam Elliot & Tom Selleck, of course, Ben Johnson as the old non-comedy sidekick, Glen Ford, with Jack Elam & Slim Pickens as the head bad guys.  Elliot & Selleck have made at least 2 other Westerns together & Ben Johnson was in one of 'em.  Elliot made a made-for-TV called Gone to Texas.  He played Sam Houston in that one. 

 

Incidentally the original title of the Forrest Carter novel which was the basis for The Outlaw Josey Wales was GONE TO TEXAS.  He also wrote THE EDUCATION OF LITLE TREE, whch all the critics loved until they found out Forrest Carter was also known as Ace Carter, & he was George Wallace's head speechwriter.

[Reb]

ULZANA'S RAID (Burt Lancaster ~ 1972)

[anthony martin]

Charley-Ace Carter-guilt by association?That's just silly!One should take an artist by his talent,not his associations.You just gotta love all the left wing nitwits !Based on your above post I rented this and it's great.I bumped into Sam Elliot and chatted with him for about an hour and he is just what you'd expect,a smart, genuinely nice,down to earth kind of fellow.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

Believe it or not, George Wallace didn't start out as a rabid segregationist.  He first ran for Alabama Governor on a typical jobs/schools/roads Southern-governor platform.

John Patterson, who ran against him--he's the guy who, as Attorney General in Alabama, cleaned out Phenix City, which was a Hell-hole--ran on a rabid segregationist platform & wiped up the floor with George.  George gathered his team & told them John Patterson out-N-worded him & told them never to let him be out N-worded again.  From then on he ran as a rabid segregationist--& it worked.  I got that from Ace himself over a pitcher of beer in Montgomery back in the '70s.