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Westward the Women
Steyn Online ^ | 29 June 2019 | Kathy Shaidle

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 ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: movies; westerns
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To: sparklite2

“SYLS”

What?

I really hate this modern tendency to reduce everything to obscure acronyms.


81 posted on 06/30/2019 11:03:46 AM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: dsc

Come on, man we were discussing Support You Local Sheriff.
This ain’t hard. ;)


82 posted on 06/30/2019 11:06:05 AM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

“Come on, man we were discussing Support You Local Sheriff.
This ain’t hard.;)”

The title appeared once, in post #54. Easy for old people to overlook.

You are, of course, at liberty to do whatever you want. I am at liberty to be grumpy about it.


83 posted on 06/30/2019 11:32:51 AM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: dsc

To help in future ...

GFY means good for you.
GMTA means good morning to all.
LOL means lots of luck.

Hope that helps. ;)


84 posted on 06/30/2019 11:35:42 AM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: sparklite2

“GFY means good for you.
GMTA means good morning to all.
LOL means lots of luck.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

My sides are splitting.


85 posted on 06/30/2019 11:39:15 AM PDT by dsc (Our system of government cannot survive one-party control of communications.)
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To: Hardastarboard

I got into an argument with my Son’s English Teacher over Shane.

He went to a small, Christian high school. I’d be very surprised if Shane was taught anymore in public schools.

She was teaching that Shane was all about the little guys standing up to the big guy.

I told her that she was missing a lot of “the flavor” of the book.

Shane’s clothes are an integral part of the book.

He comes from the East, dark, mysterious and deadly.

He buys work clothes and becomes more relaxed.

He puts back on his black clothes to go into town and kill.

Great imagery.


86 posted on 06/30/2019 11:58:19 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6
I can never remember the name of the actor who played Chris.

Ben Jonson. He was a real cowboy from Oklahoma who stumbled into acting. He appeared in many John Ford flicks alongside John Wayne and late in his career won an Oscar in The Last Picture Show.

87 posted on 06/30/2019 12:03:50 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: miss marmelstein
DeWilde was a wonderful child actor - a real boy, none of this faggy stuff. He’s very good as a young adult actor in Hud.

Died in his late twenties resulting from a vehicle accident.

88 posted on 06/30/2019 12:05:35 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: yarddog
Johnson supposedly said 'there are a lot of actors better than me. But no one can play Ben Johnson better'.

One of his last best roles was as Tector Gorch in The Wild Bunch.

89 posted on 06/30/2019 12:08:01 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: mad_as_he$$

I don’t think that I have. It’s a long movie anyway, I can’t imagine the director’s cut. Does it differ significantly?


90 posted on 06/30/2019 12:17:36 PM PDT by punknpuss
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To: Rummyfan

Yep.

Corporal Tyree?


91 posted on 06/30/2019 12:23:29 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: punknpuss

I think it adds about 15 minutes.


92 posted on 06/30/2019 1:23:04 PM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: miss marmelstein

Shane! Come back, Shane!

One of my all time favorite movies.

The waltz. Goodbye Old Paint—I’m Leaving Cheyenne.

I had to look it up, and found this wonderful review:
https://classicfilmobsessions.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-unexpected-beauty-in-shane-1953.html

It includes the opening sequence as the credits roll. I choke up every time I hear it.

How could Steyn’s writer overlook this observation:

“There is beauty in portrayal of the chaste relationship between Shane and Marian. Not a single word or touch passes between them beyond what is necessary, but rather, only looks, and later, motivations for action, can convey the depth of their feelings.”


93 posted on 06/30/2019 1:46:01 PM PDT by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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To: JohnnyP

It’s a great film and one of my personal favorites. The violence is quite vehement because George Stevens, who recorded the European theater of war during WWII, wanted to show what real violence was like. So the two major fight sequences - particularly the one near the barn between Shane and Joe - are staged with brutal realism. I always wince at the poor horses straining to get away from them.

And the three-way relationship of the adults in the film is handled with wonderful sympathy. What a movie!


94 posted on 06/30/2019 2:16:21 PM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: miss marmelstein

Yes, Joe knows.

Little Joey’s voice echoing at the end “And Mother wants you.”


95 posted on 06/30/2019 2:24:32 PM PDT by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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To: sparklite2

Gene Rodinberry actually directed a couple Wagon Train episodes.


96 posted on 06/30/2019 2:30:51 PM PDT by mware (RETIRED)
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To: Rummyfan

Love this movie.


97 posted on 06/30/2019 2:33:20 PM PDT by TianaHighrider (God bless our men with the bravery to be men.)
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To: mware

Hah. Did not know that.


98 posted on 06/30/2019 2:33:55 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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To: Rummyfan
Westward the Women is an excellent Western film, or film in general for that matter.
99 posted on 06/30/2019 2:36:41 PM PDT by af_vet_1981 (The bus came by and I got on, That's when it all began)
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To: dp0622

“We just like different things from OUR OWN generation.”

Technically, no generation has their OWN things.

Normally, songs, plays, stories,traditions etc. have been handed down through the generations and have been enjoyed until now, I suppose, when everyone is too cool for school.

I wonder if Shakespeare will survive the snowflakes.

I bet you don’t like Christmas music.


100 posted on 06/30/2019 2:40:48 PM PDT by odawg
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