Posted on 06/30/2019 8:03:37 AM PDT by Rummyfan
I don't like Westerns.
Not just those creaky serials spoofed by SCTV's "Six Gun Justice." I mean the genre's purported masterpieces:
High Noon is coma-inducing — despite its "exciting" real-time gimmick, those 85 minutes feel like 200. Howard Hawk's "answer film," Rio Bravo, is a door-slamming farce without the jokes — five men running in and out, a simulacrum of "action." Shane? I don't get it. Stagecoach hasn't aged well, leading me to wonder, heretically, whether it was ever any good.
Besides today's movie, the only old Westerns that impressed me were The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and the operatic Douglas Sirk-meets-David-Lynch camp classic acid trip, Johnny Guitar.
But those don't really count as "old," because they're considered precursors to the revisionist anti-Western of the Little Big Man sub-species, which ham-fistedly allegorized the Vietnam War or some such. (Don't laugh: The Shooting is about the Kennedy assassination, which is perversely funny: the Zapruder film itself — history's most argued-about strip of celluloid — is somehow less ambiguous, plus a LOT shorter...)
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
I’ve been trying for about 20 min to think of some westerns I enjoyed.
So far just three, and the first two aren’t serious westerns.
Cat Ballou
Seven Faces of Dr. Lao
The Furies
And The Furies could have been better if Gilbert Roland hadn’t been executed. :(
But for the heavy-handed anti-racism message in the theme, I’d have loved The Unforgiven. Lillian Gish was in it, and Burt Lancaster. (It could have done without Audrey Hepburn, too.)
Fun article, but I don’t think I’ll go on a hunt for the movie.
Why, Miss M.....
You like those cowboys.
And here we thought you were going to the Westerns because you like popcorn.
The author of this piece is a woman, and since this was the best movie she could have found in the western genre, it screams that she is a leftist.
Furthermore, I’ve watched the movie and the accolades she throws at this movie while dismissing most of the rest of western genre screams she is a leftist.
I wouldn’t listen to a word she has to say, she is either ignorant, or a hardened leftist or both.
This was not written by Steyn but a woman.
Gracious mucho :)
De nada.
Guess Kathy Shaidle never saw Lust in the dust.
I like westerns but sort of agree with you about “High Noon”.
Wayne thought his best movie was “Red River” and I agree with him. He always wore that “Red River D” belt buckle after that.
Louis L’Amour also hated “High Noon”. He said most of those western town residents were veterans of the War Between The States and were not the kind to go hide when some bad guys rode into town.
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” was a close second as his best.
Can’t eat popcorn anymore!!!
But I do like handsome cowboys in movies with great stories. I also like gunslingers and farmers like Van Heflin in one of my favorites: 3:1O to Yuma. Actually, he also played a farmer in Shane.
I totally agree. The basic theme of westerns is that it is a lawless place and strong men are required to defeat evil and bring law and order. I think that is something missing in today's shows, which are too cynical and too much like reality.
I hate watching shows like Law and Order and its spinoffs in which horrible crimes are committed and the perp walks because of some legal technicality revealed during the trial (didn't read him his rights, lawyer wasn't there when he confessed, etc). In a Western, the perp almost always pays for his crime. The hero may even gun down the perp, which is allowed because the west does not have a gazillion ticky-tack laws on the books. I think entertainment should show these kinds of outcomes instead of what they do show. Westerns may not be realistic, but they at least show that good must stand up to and defeat evil. If I want to watch reality I'll just watch the news in which perps like Jussie Smollett walk.
I don’t really understand your post - Guys and Dolls is one of the greatest musicals - and I know it was outsourced. But he commissioned it.
Shane is selected by the Western Writers Association as the greatest Western film ever made. And this critic says she “doesn’t get it.” Shane is my favorite, too, and Westward the Women is good, as well. What is bad and I don’t get is this woman’s nonsensical review. She should stick to chick flicks.
My 67 year old hubby has started watching those western channels. He says it’s better than watching the news channels, even Fox, and keeps him away from them. In response I turned our living room into my room and just gave him the den. I can’t watch that crap.
ROFL!!!!
OK, you said it in a more blunt way than I was willing to.
I like some movies and Bonanza was ok. That’s about it :)
Great movie.
I wish they would have had Alan Ladd in black instead of buckskin.
I realize that Ladd wanted people to see him as a good guy and not a bad guy.
I think that really took away from the character.
In the book, when Shane rides up to the house, you feel the sense of danger from him.
He’s a man who knows how to kill.
I think the change in clothes takes away from sense that Shane is like a Doberman.
He’s just sitting there watching you, but turn him loose, and there’s going to be blood.
I did like Van Heflin, too. I thought he was great for that part.
I just saw the remake of "The Magnificent Seven" the other day and said basically the same thing to my wife. It seems like half of the westerns have that as a plot device - the helpless townsfolk.
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