Favourite Western's

[Schwarzweiss]

Ride with the Devil
The Long Riders
Ulzana´s Raid
Unforgiven
Barquero

[victor meldrew]

Ulzana's Raid
Stagecoach (Wayne)
Geronimo (Hackman)
Quick and the Dead (Hackman)
Searchers
Duel at Diablo
Once Upon A Time in the West
Bad Girls
Tombstone
Last Train From Gun Hill
My Darling Clementine
Two Rode Together
Last of His Tribe
Major Dundee
Long Riders
High Plains Drifter

[imracerx]

Originally Posted by jch48

I'm interested in finding out what you regard as your favourite Western movie,nothing better(apart from porn)in watching a classic western,so people let's find out your favourites.No limits on amount,but mine are the following.
1.High Noon
2.The Good,The Bad,The Ugly
3.Dances with Wolves
4.The Wild Bunch
5.The Searchers

1. Shane

2. The Magnificent Seven

[TripleM]

A Man Called Horse
High Plains Drifter
The Shooting
Silverado
Tombstone
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Magnificent Seven
Once Upon A Time in the West
The Big Valley
Unforgiven
Jeremiah Johnson
Fistful of Dollars
For A Few More Dollars
3:10 to Yuma (original)
The Long Riders

[Spanner]

The Quick and the Dead (with Sharon Stone)

[penfold007]

I'm going to be terribly conventional and agree with most of the other posts

Unforgiven
Fistful of dollars / for a few dollars more / the good, the bad and the ugly
High Noon

[scoundrel]

This film is rich in layers of meaning, a darkly ironic take on the hero’s journey, a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress soaked in a bath of sulphuric acid. As well as being a superb action adventure, The Outlaw Josey Wales is a subversive and revisionist western which looks cynically at the standard western conventions and invites us to re-consider who was really good or bad in the wild west during and after the American Civil War. It inverts the mythology of the outlaw in westerns. In fact all the stereo-types of classic western are satirically inverted. The most evil villains, Captain Tirrell and his murdering, rapist, arsonist gang of psychopathic criminals are pro-Union militia, wearing blue uniforms and officially on the side of the Union and the law. Their quarry, Josey Wales, is an outlaw with a price on his head because he fought back and drew blood instead of meekly allowing them to murder him.

In this film the villains are co-opted by the authorities and the establishment and the good guys are victimised and hunted for daring to resist oppression. The usual heroes, Union soldiers, bounty hunters, lawmen, frontier pioneers, all present themselves as vicious, predatory scum: Josey is marginalised and outlawed because he serves these people out exactly the way they try and fail to serve him. The good people of the film tend to be the usual villains of westerns: the fellow “outlaw”, Josey’s stalwart war comrade who dies of wounds after days of agony, never complaining; the aged Indian chief Lone Watie (played magnificently by Chief Dan George) who cannot even sneak up on a white man but explains drily: “My tribe is called the civilised tribe: white men have been sneaking up on us for years.” Then there is the wandering Indian woman whose face is scarred as a tribal punishment of her lost sexual honour, who was about to be gang-raped by white fur traders when Josey decided to spoil their party, shooting them dead to show what he thought of their idea of fun.

Josey’s journey and his motives are ambiguous until close to the end. His betrayer and enemy, Captain Fletcher (John Vernon) dreads Josey’s revenge and hunts him because he dares not wait until Josey hides, bides his time and then comes looking for revenge. The Redlegs, the original murderers of Josey's wife and child, are driven in the hunt purely by hatred of Wales, malice and greed for the price on his head. Others who cross Wales’ path react to him with fear and loathing because the propaganda machine is at work, painting him as a mad dog killer on the loose. But why is Josey running, other than to survive? Is he driven by revenge, by his innate sense of justice, or is he searching for something?

One of the strange ironies of The Outlaw Josey Wales is that the quest of a reviled outlaw is a search for peace with honour, for community, justice, friendship and even love. The west is in turmoil after the violence of the civil war; men have turned on one another like beasts in an almost cannibalistic Darwinian struggle to seize property and fatten on the suffering of innocent victims. Josey is a marked man but he is also in a silent rebellion against the vileness of this fallen, ruined world. He himself asserts that he will stick his neck out for nobody but his entire conduct throughout the action gives the lie to this version of himself. He does all he can for his wounded fellow fugitive, at no small risk to himself. When the Indian woman is being attacked by rapists, he rescues her and slays her attackers. In varying degrees he metes out lethal or minor, petty punishment to the wrongdoers he encounters in the lawless chaotic world he passes through, not because he has any agenda, but because when things happen he instinctively deals with them in a consistent, direct way. He cannot cure himself of the need to stand up for honour, decency and fair play, even though he thinks he knows that he is wasting his time.

This is why the supposed lone-wolf outlaw, whose hand should be against every man’s and every man’s hand against his, attracts a band of loyal and devoted followers, despite every attempt to indicate that he would prefer to be left alone. He is a mobile fortress, enforcing the common law and defending the innocent everywhere he goes, the most grimly ironic super-hero dealing out death and destruction to lawless oppressors. It is hardly surprising that those who he rescues from Commancheroes , bandits and assorted scum gather around to shelter under his guns, escorted towards a nebulous destination of safety by a pocket battleship of a man. Josey himself did not invite them but he accepts their comradeship with dry, ironic humour. One character meekly asks to accompany him west and Josey shows that he understands how absurd it would be to refuse permission:

“Can I follow along, Mr Wales?”
“Why the Hell not? Everybody else is.”

In the end, it isn’t quite clear how far Josey was ever driven by revenge, although it is a highly understandable desire after all the wrongs inflicted on him. He was press-ganged into war and violence to begin with. For all his consummate skill as a gunman and irregular soldier, he emerges very impressively as a man of peace, a man who can and will defend himself and defend those dear to him, but who is absolutely not in love with death. His confrontation with Chief Ten Bears, when he offers to settle matters between them in peace or war, but either way for ever and right now, is a pivotal moment which finally defines Josey’s quest as a quest for peace, honour and justice and not a quest for vengeance.

Josey- You'll be Ten Bears?
Ten Bears- I am Ten Bears
J- I'm Josey Wales.
TB- I have heard. You're the Grey Rider. You would not make peace with the Blue Coats; You may go in peace.
J- I reckon not. 'have no where to go.
TB- Then you will die.
J- I came here to die with you... or to live with you. Dying ain't so hard for men like you an' me, it's livin' that's hard. When all you've ever cared about's been butchered and raped... Governments don't live together; people live together... Governments don't always give you a fair word or a fair fight. Well, I've come to give you either one. Or get either one from ya. I came here like this so you know my word of death is true; and my word of life is then true... The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche, and so will we. We'll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does. Now every Spring when the grass turns green and the Comanche moves north, we can rest here in peace. Butcher some of our cattle and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the Comanche, that will be on our lodge. That's my word of life.
TB- And your word of death?
J- Here in my pistols, there in your rifles, I'm here for either one.
TB- These things you say we will have, we already have.
J- This is true. I ain't promisin' you nothin' extra. You're just givin' me life and I'm givin' you life. And I'm sayin' men can live together without butcherin' one another.
TB- It's sad that governments are cheaped by the double tongue. And there is iron in your word of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that two warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life.

This is a wonderful scene which captures the whole essence of Josey Wales’s character and condenses the entire message of the film. It makes the ending, in which Wales and Fletcher tacitly make a truce with one another credible, inevitable and totally satisfying. As between Josey and Ten Bears, so between Josey and Fletcher: there is iron in their words of peace. In fact there is iron in this entire film: it is a really great western.

[cabclive]

the horse soldiers

[scoundrel]

City Slickers is a real oddity as westerns go. Rather than an allegory or a morality play or a fantasy action-adventure, it is a comedy about modern angst, but set in the not-quite-so-wild contemporary western wilderness of 1990s New Mexico. Though seemingly superficial and lightweight, it is thought-provoking, smart and funny. As well as being an ironic take on classic western story themes in a modern setting, the film is a rather dark satire. The dehumanising nature of 1990s corporate America is exposed by contrast with the simplicity and honour of the old West. The film explores perennial western themes of self-discovery, friendship, courage and resolve, but in a modern context. The major players are all excellent, investing the story with a surprising depth of meaning.

Jack Palance gave this film its’ real heart. He plays Curly Washburn, the veteran trail boss whose job is to look after the eponymous city slickers and stop them hurting either the cattle or themselves though their inexperience and folly. It is a classic Palance performance, in which sparse dialogue is merely the skeleton for a potent wealth of non-verbal communication. Curly is the strong, silent type, feared and respected because he is full of latent menace, a potentially violent man under strong self-control. The early scene where he disciplines the drunkard cowhands who were sexually harassing Helen Slater’s character is grimly funny, but establishes Curly as an intimidating man, not through what he does, but through what he might have done and clearly was willing to do if these men had not had the good sense to back off.

Curly is the voice of the Old West in this film, imparting the simple truths about life which modern living has concealed from his city slicker wards. Although he is ostensibly there to look after the cattle, he is really the belated guide and mentor to the slickers, Mitch (Crystal) in particular, helping them to reassess their lives and find new strength, confidence and a new sense of purpose. Curly is actually a good guy, not a bad guy, a slightly unusual role for Jack Palance, but one in which he really excelled and for which he well deserved his Oscar.

As I say, it’s an oddity. It’s also a wise and amusing film, worth the run time.

[Mal Hombre]

I have to confess a liking for"The Quick and the Dead."1995,despite the presence of Russell crowe.Gene Hackman is predictably good as the villain John Herod and Sharon Stone is very good as well easy on the eye.The action scenes are good and there is a slightly steamy love scene(sadly Stone vetoed a nude bathing sequence early in the film).