Weirdest Western

[Mike D.]

Saw an ad about Cowboys and Aliens the other day, and it made me think about weird westerns. What is your favorite weird western? Mine would have to be "Dead Man" with Johnny Depp. Filmed entirely in black and white, it has a certain gritty 'feel' to it. I am a Depp fan, so that might be why I like it. Has any one else seen this one?

[David Lambert]

El Topo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3joYVNyyi5w

[Unkle Sherman]

Lust In The Dust

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

I'm currently doing, in my weekly newspaper column, a series on old Western movie stars.  In the late '60s Al LaRue, who was known as 'Lash LaRue' to those my age & a little younger--but not much younger--was offered a part in an indie movie, a Western, where he'd play the bad guy but get to use his bullwhip.  He was billed as 'Al "Lash" LaRue' in the credits.

 

By this time Al LaRue had become a born-again Christian & was doing testimony all over the South, having finally shaken off the bottle.  What the producers didn't tell Al was the movie was a porno flick titled HARD ON THE TRAIL.  He didn't find out about it until the movie went into release. He was NOT happy about that.  It was later re-released as HARD TRAIL with the porno scenes deleted, but it never really went anywhere.

 

Incidentally, if you watched the old Wyatt Earp series with Hugh O'Brien, Al LaRue--Lash LaRue--had a continuing role on that as Johnny Behan.  He's billed in the credits as Al LaRue.  Alfred LaRue was his real name.  He was from Gretna, in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, & his parents were Cajuns.  He had that peculiar accent that's from that part of Louisiana--sounds like somebody mixed Brooklynese with the deep South.  I have cousins there who have the same accent.

[Buck Grizzly]

That's messed up Charley. Not telling somebody they are the star of a porn.

 

Read the TV Guide review and they call it trash. Did he find out as he watched it like at a premier, or just readin reviews after it came out?

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

I don't know exactly when he found out about it, but it wasn't until after the movie was released.  Of course, if he'd known what the movie was, he wouldn't have gotten in 100 miles of it!  The man was a born-again Christian doing testimony all over the South at the time. 

 

Incidentally, he was also one heck of a guitar player.  He used to sit in with the house band at the Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans.  That's an all-Black jazz club & White folks usually aren't made to feel welcome there, but he was.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

I don't know if you'd consider it a 'weird western' or not, but it was Al 'Lash' LaRue's last time to be billed as 'Lash LaRue.'  He was contracted to play a bad guy, but he would use his bullwhip.  What they didn't tell him was the film would be released as a porno movie.  The title was Hard on the Trail, & the porno scenes were cut in after the main film was completed.  When LaRue found out he'd been conned into appearing in a porno movie--this was after he became a born-again Christian & quit drinking--he was furious.  Apparently the thing didn't do too well as a porno film, because it was later released as Hard Trail with the porno scenes removed, but it didn't go anywhere.

[Robert E Lee Hyde]

Hi Folks,

   I'm new to the forum and enjoying what all you come up with about the old west.  Having read thru all the answers to Mike D's posting I didn't find anything about Sergio Leone's blockbuster -- ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.  I was fascinated with it from the start, but still regard it as one of the wierdest westerns ever made.  Incredible cast -- Henry Fonda, Jason Robards Jr, and that guy who went around killing all the bad muggers in New York, Charles Bronson.  I'll never forget that haunting hamoncia throughout the moviel.  Anyone else have comments?

[anthony martin]

  Robert,

     Seems like folks either love or hate spaghetti westerns and I have been hooked on them since I was a kid.This one and The Good,The Bad And The Ugly are my two favorites.The composer for most of Leone's work is Ennio Morricone and the man with the harmonica theme is one of his most memorable.It was also terrific seeing Henry Fonda playing an out and out baddie with no redeeming qualities!

  Awhile back some friends and I filmed a parody of the long cemetery  stare down from T G,T B &T U.where after the camera cuts back and forth to the mounting tension and emotions on our faces you see one playing with a yo-yo.another sitting at a cafe table eating a steak and another reading a newspaper with the same tense scrutinizing expressions right up to the moment of gun play!People who love the movie get a real kick out of this silliness.

[Dirtrider]

Got to agree with Anthony.  TG, TB, &TU is the best of the bunch, followed closely by Few Dollars More, Once upon a Time in the West, and others.  Even have redone to dvd many of the old spaghetti jobs.  Love 'em

[Dave McGowan]

Years ago I saw a late, late, movie on CTV entitled, "Buffalo Bill does something or other". It was filmed sometime in the '40s and as Bil rode away into the sunset and the credits came up, a big "Buy War Bonds" came up on the screne. The acting was as bad as it ever gets and still manages to make it onto film. The story was awful ... BB did things he would never, or even thought of doing and did it all badly. The director was probably somebody with my experience at the task.

Perhaps not the weirdest ever made but very weird that it was.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

I remember, when I was a kid, seeing a movie in which Buffalo Bill, Pat Garrett, & somebody else--I forget who--were 'together in one movie.'  It's amazing what Poverty Row got away with in the '30s, '40s, & early '50s--but we loved it then.

[William E. Shaw]

Pat Garrett was killed in 1908.