The Last Western You Watched ?

[Phantom Stranger]

Howdy Everyone,

Nice new site you have here, so I think I'll move this thread over here from the old place. So, plain and simple what was the last western movie you watched? Here's mine:

"Appaloosa"(2008)
-Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen

Plot Synopsis: IMDB

New Mexico.Territory.1882. Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are itinerant lawmen, hired by desperate towns as marshal and deputy. The city fathers of Appaloosa hire them after Randall Bragg, a newly-arrived rancher with money and a gang of thugs, disrupts commerce and kills three local lawmen. Cole and Hitch contrive to arrest Bragg and bring him to trial, but hanging him proves difficult. Meanwhile, a widow has arrived in town, Allison French, pretty, refined, and good-natured. Virgil falls hard, and it seems mutual, but there may be more to Allie than meets the eye.

Phantom's Review: I loved this movie ! Great acting from all the stars, beautifully filmed and a nice balance of action and humor. A wonderful western.

[Two-Step]

The last western I watched was Chino, staring Charles Bronson.
It is a good move, but I was a little disappointed with the end.

[Phantom Stranger]

Stagecoach (1939)

A group of disparate passengers battle personal demons and each other while racing through Indian country.

Phantoms Review: One of the few nearly perfect films ever made. A simple plot elevated by great acting, direction, scenery and characters. Brilliant from start to finish. A film that truly deserves the term "classic"
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[Duke_Wayne]

Watched Cimarron Strip. Set it to record on the DVR every Saturday!

[Stan H]

Just watched two;

"Barbarosa"
Willie Nelson and Gary Busey

Fairly authentic costumes and weapons. Cheesy story. Poor acting.

"A time to live, a time to die"
James Coburn and Telly Savalis

Belongs in the "worst" catagory. Wrong clothes, wrong weapons, poor story, poor acting.

[Tom McKey]

The Mountain Men with Charlton Heston and Brian Keith.Very entertaining. Keith is a hoot. Only real downer is Heston's noticeably bad wig.

[Jim Holden]

Watched "The Unforgiven" in HD this weekend. It's not the Eastwood film, but the 1960 John Huston directed film with Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn and Audie Murphy (among others). Texas family is plagued by an old man who claims that their sister (Hepburn) is really Kiowa who was taken from a camp during a raid by whites. The movie depicts real extreme racism against Indians in general, and it's a little offensive in today's environment.

When their friends desert them because it's proven that Hepburn is really an Indian, they must stand off a band of Kiowas alone, led by her real Indian brother. There's a lot of good and bad in this movie, but it's probably the best "acting" Audie Murphy ever displayed. I have mixed feeling about this Western, but I do watch it when it's available. The Whites are depicted as incredibly racist against the Indians, while the Indians are portrayed pretty well. Perhaps Huston was trying, in 1960, to emphasize the differences that existed between whites and Indians in that era of history. Maybe it's really an "anti-racist" movie?

Anyway, it's from a book by Alan LeMay who also wrote "The Searchers".

[Jim Catalano]

The Searchers also had the same message has "The Unforgiven".

[Jim Holden]

Last evening I watched "Red River" because I had recorded it in HD off the MGM HD Channel. Always enjoy the classics, but the theme song "Settle Down Little Dogies" by Dimitri Tiompkin just sounded very familiar. After some research it turns out that he also used the same tune in "Rio Bravo" for the Dean Martin/Ricky Nelson song "My Rifle, My Pony and Me".

Anyway, it's always enjoyable to watch this classic movie with all the "usual suspects" in character actor roles, and John Wayne playing older than he actually was. The Hank Worden character quote always tickles me: "Sims Reeves: Plantin' and readin', plantin' and readin'. Fill a man full o' lead, stick him in the ground an' then read words on him. Why, when you've killed a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job?"

[Phantom Stranger]

"The Man From Laramie"
-James Stewart

A stranger out to avenge his brothers murder finds agang selling rifles to the Apaches,

Phantoms Review: Along with "Winchester'73", this is my favorite James Stewart western. Great action. story and acting. A classic.

[Ruben J. Cogburn]

Been watching the Gunsmoke marathon on Encore Westerns. My all-time favorite Western TV series.

[Wild Bill]

The Proud Ones (1956)
A MAN OF FIERCE PRIDE...and six-guns to match!

Robert Ryan, Virginia Mayo, Jeffrey Hunter & the usual cast of characters...
A fearless marshal clashes with a misguided cowboy, a ruthless saloonkeeper, and the indifferent citizenry as he struggles to maintain law and order in a quiet Kansas frontier town which is transformed into a riotous boomtown with the arrival of the first trail herds from Texas on the newly-completed railroad.

Wild Bill's Review - A fine movie, interesting plot, nice acting, hooky theme song that plays whenever the Marshal tries to explain things to the misguided cowboy. Rip roaring action and nice blood splatter for a '56 movie. The Pan/Scan drove me crazy - would liek to see a nice letterbox version.

[Jim Holden]

Bill, I've always thought Robert Ryan didn't get the credit he deserved as an actor. He made many fine films, but is often overlooked. His performances in Classics like "The Wild Bunch" and "The Professionals" were good. They have just released "Day of the Outlaw" starring Ryan and it's a very good movie to watch. Also a great little performance by Burl Ives, and a lot of character actors you'll recognize. Look for David Nelson in a rare movie appearance. Synopsis from IMDB:

In the end of the Nineteenth Century, the tough cowboy Blaise Starrett arrives in the snowing village of Bitters with his foreman Dan with the intention of killing the farmer Hal Crane using the pretext of the barbed wire he is running around his farm. However, Blaise really wants his wife Helen with whom he had a love affair. During the showdown between the cowboys and ranchers in the saloon, the violent gang of outlaws led by Captain Jack Bruhn appears out of the blue interrupting their quarrel. Jack Bruhn, who is a notorious captain of the army responsible for the massacre of a village of Mormons, disarms the men and explains that they have robbed the payment of the army and a cavalry is chasing them. He is wounded and wants to spend the night in the village and he gives his word to the locals that his gunners will not touch the women. Further he orders the barman to hide the booze from his men. When the local veterinary removes the bullet from the chest of Jack Bruhn, he realizes that he might have an internal bleeding and not survive. Blaise decides to lure the criminals and lead them in a journey with no return.