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Post by london777 on Aug 18, 2018 1:51:20 GMT
... being an ornery cuss (as they say out West) I shall start this thread for reviews and comments on decent minor westerns that may not merit a thread on their own, so no High Noons or Shanes here. Feel free to post your own additions. Just watched Decision at Sundown (1957) directed by Budd Boetticher in his usual brisk, no-nonsense style (it's all over in 77 minutes). Never much liked Randolph Scott (my father used to call him "Old Creakin' Joints"). He was 59 when he made this, and looks every year of it. He looks stiff and seriously saddle sore. Nor was I impressed with John Carroll (a new name to me) as the baddie. I don't care for plump, oily, moustached baddies in frilly shirts, though this one amazingly did not appear to run a saloon as such types usually do. I did like Noah Beery, Jr, who has more chance than usual to show his acting skills. And I lusted after Valerie French, who had a sparse career in genre movies. She was English born and educated and married into the Pertwee acting clan. What I mainly liked about this movie was the story, which had an unusual resolution, without being contrived, riffing on western tropes, and altering our perception of the main characters.   |
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Post by petrolino on Aug 18, 2018 2:01:29 GMT
No actor's hipper in the western sphere than Randolph Scott & no director's hipper than Budd Boetticher. I think you're onto to a winner.  |
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Post by wmcclain on Aug 18, 2018 2:16:41 GMT
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Post by mikef6 on Aug 18, 2018 2:33:25 GMT
The Guns Of Fort Petticoat / George Marshall (1957). Top-of-the-line Audie Murphy western. Murph is a Union soldier in the waning days of the Civil War. He deserts his post to try to rescue several families whose menfolk are off fighting in the war from attack by Native Americans. He runs into a little resistance because the women all live in Texas, a state in the Confederacy. Eventually, he and the women have to hold an old mission to stay alive. Kathryn Grant co-stars as the young woman who falls in love with Murphy. Hope Emerson is the natural leader who Murphy makes his top sergeant. A surprisingly small amount of female stereotyping for its time. A tough little picture with some disturbing deaths.  Three Hours To Kill / Alfred L. Werker (1954). The plot prefigures a couple of more well-known films that came along a little later. There are the frightened townspeople when a killer returns for revenge as in “High Noon” (1958) and the innocent man who comes near death by lynching and then seeks justice, a theme explored in “Hang ‘Em High” (1968). Dana Andrews is the almost-hanging victim. He wanted to marry Donna Reed but her controlling brother wouldn’t allow it. After brother knocks Andrews unconscious in a fist fight, the brother is shot to death. A mob quickly forms and attempts to string Andrews up, but he gets away with just a wicked rope burn when Reed helps him escape. Now, three years later and tired of running, he returns to find the Real Killer. An old friend of his who has become sheriff allows him three hours, until sundown, to accomplish his task or leave forever lest he be arrested for murder. Suspects abound and, to be honest, I picked the wrong person as the killer. Donna Reed, coming off her Oscar win, is fine as the ingénue in the flashback and as the disillusioned lady with the drawn features in the “present” time. There is some top-notch supporting work from Dianne Foster, Richard Coogan, James Westerfield, and Whit Bissell.  One Foot In Hell / James B. Clark (1960). Even more rare than the Western murder mystery is the Western crime caper, but this film is one of two where Alan Ladd headed the cast (the other being The Badlanders four years earlier). And speaking of four years, after “One Foot In Hell” Ladd had only four years to live and three more movies to appear in. The movie opens with Ladd and his pregnant but sick wife arriving at a Arizona town. The hotel clerk makes him pony up two dollars before he can take his sick wife to their room. The pharmacist won’t give him the medicine the wife needs because of a $1.87 bill. After Ladd takes the medicine at gun point, the sheriff delays him so that the wife dies. But Ladd stays on in the town, makes friends, and even becomes a deputy to the sheriff. He seems happy and contented, until…his real sinister agenda is revealed in a shocking scene. Ladd then puts together a team to bankrupt and ruin the town. Don Murray, Dan O'Herlihy, Barry Coe, and Dolores Michaels (an actress who is impressive here but didn’t have much of a movie career) round out the cast. Unusual. 
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Post by mikef6 on Aug 18, 2018 2:35:56 GMT
wmcclainHere is a second for "Fort Bravo."
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Post by london777 on Aug 18, 2018 2:40:13 GMT
I also recently watched The Furies (1950) dir: Anthony Mann. It boasts Barbara Stanwyck in the lead. I am not a big fan of Stanwyck, but she carries this picture, acting against Walter Huston (hamming it up) and the ever insipid Wendell Corey, who is great at playing assistant D.A.s or the hero's sardonic best friend, but a bit under-powered to master the wildcat Stanwyck, as he is required to do here. It is a cattle-baron movie, but the family are not called the Furies, so I do not know how their ranch got that name. It is appropriate though, as the drama is more Greek Tragedy than a usual western. This is a more "arty" and melodramatic film than the pragmatic Budd Boetticher effort described previously, with a stirring score by Franz Waxman and some striking b&w cinematography. **** SPOILERS ****I liked Decision at Sundown because the characters actions at the end did not adhere to western tropes, as they (and we) are coaxed into thinking differently, yet it all seemed believable. The Furies follows the opposite path. As in Greek tragedy, we know what is fated to happen, but some of the character transitions seemed abrupt. For example, the cattle-baron's daughter has a close, but not intimate, friendship since childhood with a Mexican (so-called) squatter. We know this will end badly, and it does. But a few hours after her father breaks his promise to her and lynches her best friend, she is all smiles and flirting with Wendell Corey. I guess Mexicans did not count for much in the USA in those days. (Thank goodness that has all changed!). I also did not understand why Huston was obliged to exchange his ranch for a mountain of the worthless credit notes he has been issuing. A matter of honor perhaps, but as the previous paragraph shows, he sets little store by that. Finally, I cannot understand why the ostensibly rich, and still very macho, Huston, would have been so infatuated with ugly old Judith Anderson when he has a ranchful of pretty young latinas to service his needs, including Movita (Marlon Brando's wife). Another western I liked. What is happening to me?  _05.jpg) |
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Post by london777 on Aug 18, 2018 2:48:30 GMT
No actor's hipper in the western sphere than Randolph Scott ... Sorry, when I think of Randolph Scott I don't think "hip". I think "hip replacement". |
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biker1
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Post by biker1 on Aug 18, 2018 4:52:11 GMT
Midst the stampede of color western productions in the 1950s, the odd black and white movie with a creative edge stands out.
Joseph h. Lewis - terror in a texas town (1958)
Andre De Toth - day of the outlaw
man with a gun (1955) with Robert Mitchum as town tamer isn't too bad either.
I like the Boetticher / Scott westerns but do get wary about them being overrated, ride lonesome (1959), for example. the Tall T (1957) is my favorite of the series.
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Post by jeffersoncody on Aug 18, 2018 5:45:22 GMT
No actor's hipper in the western sphere than Randolph Scott ... Sorry, when I think of Randolph Scott I don't think "hip". I think "hip replacement". The lean and leathery Randolph Scott lived a long and healthy life london. He retired at 62 and died - a very wealthy man - at the age of 89. |
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Post by jeffersoncody on Aug 18, 2018 5:54:22 GMT
... being an ornery cuss (as they say out West) I shall start this thread for reviews and comments on decent minor westerns that may not merit a thread on their own, so no High Noons or Shanes here. Feel free to post your own additions. Just watched Decision at Sundown (1957) directed by Budd Boetticher in his usual brisk, no-nonsense style (it's all over in 77 minutes). Never much liked Randolph Scott (my father used to call him "Old Creakin' Joints"). He was 59 when he made this, and looks every year of it. He looks stiff and seriously saddle sore. Nor was I impressed with John Carroll (a new name to me) as the baddie. I don't care for plump, oily, moustached baddies in frilly shirts, though this one amazingly did not appear to run a saloon as such types usually do. I did like Noah Beery, Jr, who has more chance than usual to show his acting skills. And I lusted after Valerie French, who had a sparse career in genre movies. She was English born and educated and married into the Pertwee acting clan. What I mainly liked about this movie was the story, which took an unusual path without being contrived, riffing on western tropes, and changing our evaluation of the main characters. Check out FOUR FACES WEST, an absolute gem. Joel McCrea plays arguably the kindest, most compassionate outlaw in the history of the genre, and this is one of the more original B oaters.  |
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 18, 2018 8:34:24 GMT
Good recommendation there, Cody. Not a single shot is even fired in FOUR FACES WEST -- and we don't mind at all.
McCrea made another gem the year before -- the Noirish Western RAMROD. He's reunited with SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS co-star Veronica Lake who plays a frontier femme fatale (her husband Andre De Toth directed). The real find is the performance of Don DeFore who rises above his usual lightweight, genial and good-natured characters to play Joel's tough, morally conflicted pal 'Bill Schell.' The stalking sequence that leads to his demise is the film's highlight. There's also a short but vicious bar-room brawl between McCrea and Lloyd Bridges.
And another McCrea winner was COLORADO TERRITORY, made the year after FACES. He played the Bogart role in this Western remake of HIGH SIERRA -- with both films made by the same director (Raoul Walsh).
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Post by petrolino on Aug 18, 2018 9:53:31 GMT
I recommend Arthur Lubin's comedy western 'The First Traveling Saleslady' (1956) for big fun out west, produced by Arthur Lubin Productions. It's a Mae West vehicle that became a Ginger Rogers vehicle.
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Post by wmcclain on Aug 18, 2018 12:45:21 GMT
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Post by wmcclain on Aug 18, 2018 12:46:19 GMT
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Post by kijii on Aug 18, 2018 15:17:35 GMT
I'm surprised that no one had mentioned The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). This is not only a western but the classic novella by Walter Van Tilburg Clark too. My problem for Westerns is that they rarely have strong scenes for women and children; usually occur in bars or saloons or forts and almost always have shooting. Surely the early west was made up of more than these elements. Were all women in the old west school marms and saloon keepers?  Were all children in the old west just props for schools and street scenes? But, having said this, Shane is my favorite movie anyway. The Proud Rebel (1958) is another that stays in my mind. Interestingly, Alan Ladd was in both of these movies. Another western I recently discovered is a John Ford movie within John Wayne is Sergeant Rutledge (1960) in which Woody Strode has a strong role as a black (Buffalo Soldier) on trial for a double murder. |
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Post by politicidal on Aug 18, 2018 15:34:43 GMT
Garden of Evil (1954): Starring Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward, and Richard Widmark who all decide to go treasure hunting for a remote gold mine in Mexico, guarded by vicious Apaches because of course it is.  The key relationship is not between Cooper and Hayward but Cooper's friendship with Widmark. Great scenery. THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950) One of Vincent Price's best lead roles as a conniving con man in the Old West. ![]()
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Post by kijii on Aug 18, 2018 17:16:44 GMT
Many people think... (sounds like orange-faced Trump)...that Katy Jurado received her Oscar nomination for High Noon, but she got it for playing Spencer Tracy's wife in Broken Lance (1954).  |
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Post by vegalyra on Aug 18, 2018 17:46:56 GMT
Seven Men From Now (another Boetticher/Scott film)  Lots of atmosphere and the gradual tension that builds between Scott and Lee Marvin is amazing. It opens in the rain with Scott coming across two men and a campfire in a cave and has lots of wonderful scenery. Another just about forgotten Western is A Distant Trumpet with Troy Donahue.  I believe it was Raoul Walsh's last film and it also cameos rising country star Bobby Bare in his one and only film appearance. It was filmed in the Red Rocks area of New Mexico and the Painted Desert of Arizona. It's a pretty typical cavalry vs. indian film but it does involve setting a treaty and Donahue's character making sure it is enforced unlike a lot of our so called treaties with the native americans during the Indian wars. The critics were really harsh with this film but I really enjoy it. |
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 18, 2018 18:16:49 GMT
Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott ended or wound down their Western film career and went out with a real winner -- RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY in 1962, directed by Sam Peckinpah.
Commenting on their walk-up to the climactic shootout with the primitive Hammond brothers, director Peckinpah said: "Those two guys had the best 'walks' in Westerns!"
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Post by manfromplanetx on Aug 18, 2018 21:50:21 GMT
Die Söhne der großen Bärin , The Sons of Great Bear is an excellent 1966 East German Western film, directed by the Czechoslovak filmmaker Josef Mach and starring the rugged Yugoslav actor Gojko Mitić . A wonderful western adventure the film was adapted from her own series of novels by the author and Native American historian Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich. She places much emphases on the positive portrayal of Native Americans, while presenting the White settlers as ruthless antagonists.  Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera, Lemonade Joe (1964) Czechoslovakia Oldrich Lipský Straight shooting Lemonade Joe cleans up Stetson City, in this highly innovative absolutely wonderfully entertaining musical parody of early Westerns, a marvellous satire of capitalism... 
Man of the West (1958) Mann's masterpiece ; I Shot Jesse James (1949) Fuller's remarkable debut : Station West (1948) tough noir western ; Whispering Smith (1948) Great Alan Ladd western ; Devil's Doorway (1950) social conscious Mann ; Posse from Hell (1961) Tough little Audie western ; Carson City (1952) another exciting adventurous western from André De Toth 
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