Of course, tastes change over the years, but for The Stalking Moon I was surprised, cause I had watched that one more than once.
The other way round I enjoyed in the last years some classics like Rio Bravo or The Searchers more than before. I mean Rio Bravo was always a great one, but now I saw stylistic touches
I never noticed before. So, apart from taste we also sharpen our perception of films. Some lose by that, some win.
Young Guns USA 1988.
At the end of the 1980s, there were several attempts to revive the western. Young Guns is a classic revenge story with a cast of young actors who were very well-known at the time.
Farmer John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) takes young drifters under his wing to educate them and give them work. His protĂ©gĂ©s are the hotshot William H. Bonney (Emilio Estevez), the poet Josiah Gordon âDocâ Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland), the level-headed Richard Brewer (Charlie Sheen), the Mexican Indian Jose Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), the somewhat timid Charley Bowdre (Casey Siemaszko) and Dirty Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney). Tunstall has the problem of every honest farmer: dishonest competition. It comes in the form of shady cattle baron Lawrence G. Murphy (Jack Palance), who wants to force John to sell his farm. John and his young gunslingers refuse, of course, but Murphy has his competitor driven into the ground by a corrupt sheriff and equally corrupt deputies. This gives us the ever-popular reason for our heroes to start their vendetta.
This movie was very successful in Germany and enjoys cult status today.
2 years later there was a sequel with Young Guns2 Blaze of Glory.
I love both of the âYoung Gunsâ filmsâŠrollicking good entertainment!
Last night, I treated myself to Steve McQueenâs penultimate filmâŠthe excellent âTom Hornâ (1980).
I have always loved this Western, which carries with it a huge dose of poignancy, because McQueen would die of cancer a short while after - his last film being âThe Hunterâ, in which he was teamed up again with his âMagnificent Sevenâ (1960) co-star, Eli Wallach.
Although ravaged by the effects of battling his illness, I think that Steve gives a heart-felt, sterling performance here; and I believe that it was his own personal love letter to the genre that helped enormously to kick-start his relatively brief, yet memorable career.
When I attended the âLeone Exhibitionâ at the Autry Museum, Los Angeles, in 2005, I checked out the movie memorabilia on display from other Western films and TV series. One of the outfits was the costume used by Steve in âTom HornââŠ
I think you are wrong about that.
It seems it was a total flop theatrically. There are no data on Inside Kino, so it most likely sold beneath 100 000 tickets, maybe way beneath, I wanted to watch it theatrically, but it wasnât shown in any theatre nearby.
Also not sure if it became a cult film since then, at least not amongst the film fans I know.
Actually apart from Dances with Wolves no western was successful in the 80s and 90s in Germany. Not even Unforgiven compared to other countries.
In cinema? Maybe. In my memory after more than 35 years, there was a waiting list for the video cassette in the video store back then, many films in the 80s and 90s were often a hit on video first. I agree with you that cult film status is debatable.
Part 3 of Young guns is in progress as I understood
