Phantom_Stranger: 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.
Good solid western adventure. Good acting and action. Nothing classic just a fine movie.
Just watched Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story, because it was on Netflix.
Trace Adkins, the country singer, plays Texas Jack who gets married and tries to go straight but an unhinged US Marshal is coming after his old gang. I like Helena Marie who plays the Marshalās tough side-kick.
Not a top western but watchable.
āMan from Del Rioā (1956), with Anthony Quinn, Katy Jurado, Douglas Fowley and Peter Whitney. A small film but I really liked it.
āThe Texas Rangersā (1951), with George Montgomery, Jerome Courtland, William Bishop, Noah Beery Jr, John Litel, Douglas Kennedy, John Dehner, directed by Phil Karlson. This is probably the kind of American western most of you hate, but I really liked it. Great color. Fun. A kiddĆ®e western for sure.
And the highest-rated SW Iāve never seen before-- Colizziās āGod Forgives, I Donāt.ā I found it boring so I turned the channel to an episode of āThe Fugitive.ā It was probably my mood since I like the director and actors.
God Forgives was an instant favourite for me. I canāt remember Ace High very well but I did enjoy it at the time. I remember thinking Boot Hill was okay but I only watched it on VHS ages ago. Iāll have to give the Retro DVD a watch.
The great (and tall) Clint Walker died earlier this week. Purely by coincidence, I was working on a review of one of his least known westerns, More Dead than Alive (yes, sounds like a spaghetti western title)
Today I watched Ferdinando Baldiās Django Prepare A Coffin (AKA Viva Django) which I very much enjoyed. Baldi was a very clean and stable director, visually; his style seems more in the American Western tradition than the messier chaotic and operatic Italian genre style. But he certainly knew how to film a fist fight or a brawl. And the wagon ambush sequence on horse back is superb. It is well timed and edited.
Baldi also gave the audience a clear indication of the good guy and the bad guy. Terrence Hillās Django is an altogether good guy and a very likeable character (as was Neroās character in Texas Addio). A very enjoyable film.
Hostiles.
A grim, melancholy, cynical and brutally realistic reflection on the west and what hostility means. A blood soaked painting without even a hint of comic relief, an utterly bitter experience, but really really well made.
I went to see it on the cinema and was quite disappointed simply because Iām fed up with apologetic westerns. Still thought it was well made though. Nothing wrong with films that are sympathetic but itās obvious they were going out of their way to be PC when the soldiers referred to the Indians as āNativesā and the subtitles had a capital N. Just didnāt feel authentic even if it was impossible to be authentic since the dates were all wrong but they should have tried to capture the spirit of the American West and I think it was far from it.
Iāve noticed that filmmakers feel obligated to insert references to the plight of the Indian in every western that involves them. Take The Revenant as an example. In reality, the American army never attacked Pawnee villages. They were one of a handful of tribes to be brought into an alliance with the expanding United States since the army found most opposition coming from the enemies of the Pawnee, i.e. Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, etc. Rather than stay true to history, the Pawnee were portrayed as victims of American aggression in order for them to represent American Indians as a whole.
The film also portrays the Arikara arguing with the French trappers that the āwhite menā have taken everything from them. At the time The Revenant is set, the expansion to the West had not yet taken place, so they wouldnāt have felt so under threat at that point, and far from having negative feelings, the Arikara had a positive relationship with the French. The characters end up sounding more contemporary and the problem lies with the fact that filmmakers have gone out of their way to create the antithesis to the classic westerns, which portrayed Indians in a negative light. What we end up with is not the desirable balance but the same thing in reverse.
Although it received negative reviews, I feel like the miniseries, Comanche Moon, was probably one the finest depictions of how things really were. Neither the Texans nor Comanches were depicted as good or bad but simply different cultures in conflict.
Regarding āHostilesā , I still havenāt seen it yet, and I suppose an āun- PCā joke would be to say, I have my reservations ! ā¦ ya see ā¦ you canāt say anything without getting in trouble.
If film makers are going to pussyfoot around with language and attitudes in period dramas, for fear of causing offence, shouldnāt they just steer away from such material or make a documentary instead ā¦ much greater were the offences that occurred than a few derogatory names being used - wake up Hollywood
Weāre talking about 150 years ago, a time period with attitudes and traditions so alien to the majority of us, that perhaps a dramatized version of these events, warts and all, would be so unpalatable to most contemporary audiences.
What I want from a western film primarily is good escapist adventure ā¦ not some wrap it up in cotton wool bullshit.
I will have to check this movie out now, and see just how irritated it makes me ā¦ to be continued.
This is the last western i watched , I liked it , What can I say iām a Jim Brown fan , Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds were great , It did its job and entertained me .
He was also great in Rio Conchos , I agree i wish he would have gotten some more leading roles, Thank you btw Iāve never seen El Condor , now thats on my list .
That scene was basically a remake of the shower scene in 100 Rifles taken to the next level. I donāt mind Hill. Her performance in El Condor isnāt very good. Her delivery of the dialogue is actually quite bad but she didnāt have to do much. Brown established himself as a leading man and Lee Van Cleef showed that he had a wide range as an actor. His performance was very good in El Condor, a film Iām very fond of. Just a pity they didnāt re-write the ending to fit the mood of the film better.