I think the reason I've put off watching this movie for forty years is because of a misunderstanding about what the term "spaghetti western" meant. I was under the impression that the term implied a sort of cheap tribute made by foreign directors who really didn't understand the American west. Don't ask me where I got this idea-probably dating from a time when any western was looked upon as cheesy. There was a time, my young friends, that westerns, sports and war movies were looked upon as militaristic war mongering. Okay, it was the sixties and I was caught up in it.
How wrong I was and how glad I am I finally watched this great, great movie. It is pointless for me to sum it up here because I know everyone has seen it. But a few impressions. So much of this movie is conveyed through close-ups of faces and especially eyes. I wonder if Leone didn't hire actors on the basis of unusual eyes. The bright blue of Fonda's eyes, the indeterminate color of Bronson's, the deep pools of brown rimmed with black of Cardinale's.
Every shot is a masterpiece of lighting, shadow, choreography, texture, music. I think you could watch this movie without dialog and still come away satisfied. The swishing of the dusters' as the men strode around was artful in itself. The cinematography is thrilling. I have never seen that landscape look more gorgeous yet arduous, barren.
A few more impressions: Henry Fonda's walk, Cardinale's tumbling hair, the hints that Robards has been wounded, the scenes of the railroad going up as almost a background chorus to the action, the Chinese workers, the significance, finally revealed, of a harmonica, the slow, slow pacing, the willingness to linger, Cardinale's hands going through the drawers, the pilings of wood taking shape. Couldn't you smell that freshly cut wood? Couldn't you see the sweat on the faces of the men swinging iron.
These are all the directorial decisions of a master film-maker. And I could listen to Morricone's music forever.
Is this the best western of them all--or just the most artful one? What Western do you rank#1?
66 comments:
Years ago my husband and I were trying to remember the title of this movie. But all we could remember was that Charles Bronson was in it and played the harmonica. I finally found the title when Parade Magazine listed this movie as one of the top ten Horror films at the time.
A Western as horror, and yet it fit!
As for favorites, mine is Red River.
Oh boy, I can only imagine the gems that will come out of that question. I love Westerns (especially this one), but I know that so many of your other readers have much bigger knowledge of the genre than I.
I love the Howard Hawks Westerns as well - "Rio Bravo" is terrific. People mention it all the time, but "The Searchers" really is great. And if you're a Robert Mitchum fan, something like "Blood on the Moon" or "Pursued" are quite wonderful. I wouldn't say they're the best Westerns of all time, but quite enjoyable.
I recently saw Maggie Greenwald's "The Ballad of Little Jo" from 1993, which is also really good. About a woman who dresses as a man to escape her pursuers, and then decides to permanently adopt the masculine persona in order to survive on her own back in the Old West. It is on DVD.
Haven't seen Red River since I was a kid. I came from a family of western lovers, perhaps what kept me away.
THE SEARCHERS was my favorite until this. I need to rent RIO BRAVO next.
Hey, I saw that Little Jo, I had forgotten it until now. Really interesting movie.
My favorite western is THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. I'm also very fond of TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA, a very underrated movie.
I'm glad you watched this, Patti. It's one of my all-time favorites. As for best Western, I'd put it right up there with THE SEARCHERS, RIO BRAVO, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. By the way, after you've watched RIO BRAVO, remind me to tell you a story told to me by a writer friend of mine who was an extra in that movie.
Now give Anthony Mann's western a try. His work certainly showed the way for Leone and others.
"in other Stewart-Mann westerns, the psychosis is symptomatic of masculine insufficiency, a malaise associated with film noir, in the '50s reaching its baroque phase. Indeed, film noir resonates here at the level of both content and iconography. If Mann's moral universe seems fraught, shades of grey rather than complexions we can root for, its faces look across generic fault-lines. In two years' time, Meeker will become Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955). In five years, Leigh will be Susan Vargas in Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958), two key film noirs. While Mann himself was briefly associated with film noir – Desperate, Railroaded, T-Men, Raw Deal (1947-48) – Robert Ryan's casual violence plotted the genre's bitter wartime legacy."
I'd say start with The Naked Spur and Winchester 73. He had a five picture run with James Stewart. Then they had a falling out that neither man would ever talk about. It remains unexplained.
Here is my single nominee for best western: SHANE.
Here is my runner-up: STAGECOACH.
If I could choose a third-place candidate: HIGH NOON.
I loved Leone's westerns when they originally came out, but liked the Eastwood trilogy more than this one. But honestly, I don't think any of them hold up well. I've seen all of Leone's movies again in the last couple of years, and the one that holds up best is his Jewish gangster movie, "Once Upon a Time in America". As for favorite westerns, call me a traditionalist along with most of the other commenters here. No telling how many times I've seen my two favorites, "Rio Bravo" and "The Searchers", but I feel quite certain at this point that I'll never tire of them.
I've seen some of these. I also enjoyed UNFORGIVEN, MAG. SEVEN, 3:10 to YUMA, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON. But haven't seen any of the Leone's or the Mann's. We watched APPALOOSA last night and although it was not exciting visually, I thought the plot was unpredictable and surprising. Mortensen made it for me though. He's a keeper. I don't always like Rene Z. but she was pretty good at playing a complicated and annoying woman.
MP-I guess what I liked most, more than the plot, was the care he used on framing every shot. It was like watching an artist paint. Plot-wise there are probably more interesting westerns-less self-conscious ones. I doubt if there are any better scored or filmed though.
Oh, I just realized when I went to Netflix and looked at my list, I saw RIO BRAVO last year--and I loved it. It was truly profound. About how a sheriff uses four people who appear powerless to accomplish something he can't do on his own-how the turn over all his prejudices. Fabulous. Oh to be thirty and remember everything. But I added a bunch of the others to my lineup.
Once Upon A Time...certainly ranks among my favorite westerns. Possibly #1. There are so many good ones out there.
Oh, and spaghetti western was originally intended as a derogatory term by critics, but fans of the genre adopted it as the perfect description for a group of films, some good, some bad, some really ugly(pun intended), that was distinctly different in style from what Hollywood was doing at the time.
So I'm not as crazy as I thought.
Jeez, looks like I can't stop. Favorite of all time would depend on which actor one talks about. The two biggest icons for me are John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.
Each has a couple(or more) of films I would rank in my top ten.
No particular order.
The Searchers
The Shootist
True Grit
Big Jake
Unforgiven
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Once Upon A Time In The West
Silverado
Tombstone
I haven't seen ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST yet, but it's on my NetFlix queue.
I divide Westerns into two groups: tradition and modern. My favorite traditionals are SHANE, MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, RIO BRAVO, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, TOMBSTONE, and a few more that aren't coming to mind right away.
The best "modern" Westerns, to me, are THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES, UNFORGIVEN, OPEN RANGE, and a few more that aren't coming to mind.
Plus, of course, DEADWOOD.
I'm a big fan of many of the flicks already mentioned but for me The Wild Bunch changed my view of westerns in the same way that Ginsberg's Howl changed my view of poetry...
[Damn, looked at the clock, running late, just as well, I could ramble on about that movie for hundreds of words..]
John McAuley
I have seen more of these than I thought. I do need to watch DEADWOOD now. I've always been afraid of THE WILD BUNCH. Peckinpah scared me with STRAWDOGS.
This is my favorite western too, and I rank it number 1 for style, content, and everything else you can think of.
I have never seen Deadwood and I thought the Unforgiven and Silverado were both a bit overdone, but I loved the others that had been mentioned. Rio Bravo is very near the top of my list. I grew up with Gene, Roy, Cisco and Hoppy, so they also are near the top. (Mystery File recently reviewed The Phantom Empire and I realized how much that serial had meant to me as a kid. No accounting for taste.)
I agree about SILVERADO epecially. Kevin Kline, wasn't it? Not my idea of a cowboy.
A couple not mentioned:
Hondo (1953)
Hombre (1967)
The Professionals (1966)
3:10 to Yuma (1957 with Glenn Ford)
Seven Men From Now (1956)
Ooh, I've never even heard of Seven Men From Now. Thanks.
What about Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?
No surprise here, but I recently read Elmore Leonard's Complete Western Stories anthology and many of them were very, very good. One story, "The Captives," became the movie The Tall T which I've never seen but am keen to now, the story is excellent.
There was also a Canadin movie called The Grey Fox that was quite good and though not technically a western (it takes place in the twenties but is about westerns), the TV adaptation of The Englishman's Boy is pretty good.
If you'd like to see a Peckinpah western that won't scare the crap out of you, try "Ride the High Country". It's a great movie with Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott.
One of my favorites along with The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Rio Bravo has never won me over. Ricky Nelson can't act and dean Martin just seems out of place to me in a western. Hear the Coen Bros are remaking True Grit(Great Book)the first one was terribly cast with Glen Campbell giving one of the worst performances ever in a major movie. Now you need to watch a great Korean film called The Good, the Bad and the Weird-a tribute to Leone taking place in 20's Manchuria.
SEVEN MEN FROM NOW is the first in a great series of Westerns directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott (also among them was THE TALL T, based on that Elmore Leonard short story). Five of them - TALL T, DECISION AT SUNDOWN, BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE, RIDE LONESOME and COMANCHE STATION - were released in a box set last year, along with a documentary on Boetticher. SEVEN MEN - which was produced by John Wayne's company - came out separately. They're all excellent - terse and compact (they were written by Burt Kennedy) and filled with great character actors, sometimes early in their careers. Lee Marvin's the villain in SEVEN MEN, Richard Boone and Henry Silva in TALL T, James Coburn and Lee Van Cleef in RIDE LONESOME.
Among those not already mentioned:
The best Morricone score: FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (the second Eastwood/Leone). Good cast, horrible and distracting dubbing (remember what other and I have written about Italian films of the '60s, particularly with international casts), but the score that made me instantly love Morricone, and the way it resolves to the chimes of a musical watch is only one of its ingenious moments.
Best Cold War metaphor as western: THE BIG COUNTRY
Best Peckinpah film of any kind: As Sandra Seamans notes, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY. His maturbatory bullshit kept to a minimum, his strengths allowed to shine, and another great cast.
Best western film I haven't seen that's a key plot point in THE MIDDLEMAN television series: RIDE LONESOME, another Randolph Scott film (I'll be seeing it soonish). I see Wstroby cited this one as I was writing.
Older:
THE OX-BOW INCIDENT
THE NAKED SPUR, which Ed doesn't quite name
favorite of childhood among older westerns: SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, rather ahead of the stagy but good STAGECOACH.
Best recent western tv series aside from DEADWOOD, which is visible on Hulu: PEACEKEEPERS; best contemporary western series set in Australia: MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS
Well, Patti, it's good that you're overcoming a whole lot of nonsense you've been fed over the years (the notion that the Serious is somehow iheerenly separate and diffrernt from what is mislabled Genre, that all spaghet' westerns are by nature crap, etc.)...keep up the good work thus!
Or even iherently different. Where you got the notion the Serious was iheerenly diffrernt from the "Generic," I don't know.
Inherently. Hm.
Best (contemporary) western horror: TREMORS
Best radio drama: GUNSMOKE, though James Stewart's series THE SIX-SHOOTER wasn't too shabby
My favourite western movies are: Stagecoah (1939) with John Wayne, True Grit, The War Wagon and Paint Your Wagon.
Patti, You would love the thought provoking and adult western called The Gunfighter starring Gregory Peck.
My pick is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Also, Rio Bravo, The Searchers and The Wild Bunch.
Haven't heard of any of that series, Wallace, but I'll put them on netflix.
I loved Grey Fox.
Never seen War Wagon.
Tremors is on all the time yet it always makes me laugh.
TRUE GRIT-whatever happened to Kim Darby?
THE GUNFIGHTER. Thanks, guys. I may never watch anything but westerns again.
At a conference once, I met a guy who was the expert on GUNSMOKE, the radio show. What an area of expertise in the 21st century.
The best of the Scott/Boetticher movies is probably TALL T, followed closely by SEVEN MEN, RIDE LONESOME and COMANCHE STATION. They're all about 80 mins. too.
Well, GUNSMOKE the radio series was one of the first adult-oriented dramatic series on electronic media in the US...moreso than the tv version was ever able to be. Quite a few items owe their existence to it, directly, and vast amounts of our favorite material owe that indirectly.
You should have been a cultural historian. Well, I guess you are come to think of it.
Shane
Quigley Down Under. (Alan Rickman always plays such a great villan.)
The Man from Snowy River (Unbelievable horseriding)
I apparently have a thing for Australian westerns.
Sure makes a pretty landscape. I don't think I've seen Quigly but I did see THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER.
Yeah, Chuck, you should see SHAME some time...a female contemporary-era Shane-analog. Not an exact one. (The US remake decided it needed the divine Amanda Donohoe to take on the role.)
Kate Laity shames me into mentioning THE ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY, JR., that fine steampunk tv series (the child of that other fine, if more campy yet, steampunk series THE WILD WILD WEST)...for that matter, along with UNFORGIVEN, the other big-budget tribute to Leone, THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (both with Gene Hackman as villain, no less), is one of the few good films for Sharon Stone or Leonardo Di Caprio, and the last good one so far for Sam Raimi.
(Word verification: whorre)
What about EL TOPO?! Metaphysical westerns are the best.
Then again, the first film I recall seeing at the drive in as a wee one was TRUE GRIT. Westerns and war pictures seemed to be all that was on TV then.
I love BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. Great script -- and SILVERADO, the distillation of all that was fun about westerns. Scott Glenn was the perfect perfect cowboy. More taciturn than Eastwood's Man with No Name. All those samurai remakes: no comparison to Mifune. Pity no one ever got him in a Stetson.
Oh, and duh! THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE which a colleague used to teach Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which was a stroke of utter genius. Men dealing with reputations they don't think they deserve, driven to match up to the reputation they've got. Of course SGGK devolved into out-of-left-field misogyny at the end, but the comparison proves surprisingly fruitful.
Off to bed -- the semester begins in the morning.
This is a difficult question, but I think my favourite is the bleak and snowy DAY OF THE OUTLAW.
DAY OF THE OUTLAW-another new one. I think I may have only seen one MIFUNE movie-Picture Bride.
Is there anyone who deesn't love BUTCH CASSIDY. It was so lovely. Able to sustain its sense of humor to the last frozen shot.
Oddly enough, although I like William Goldman, George Roy Hill, and all usually, the one time I gave BC&TSK a real try, it didn't do much for me. Shall have to give it another go someday.
Want another top ten.
Dances With Wolves
Open Range
Lonesome Dove
The Long Riders
Hang 'Em High
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
Young Guns
3:10 To Yuma(Glen Ford)
The Big Country
Stagecoach
Let me think more and I might give you another list. As I said earlier, there are so many good ones out there.
Did I miss it or has no one mentioned THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN?
Lots of other great ideas here. I could have a whole weekend western film festival...
It fascinates me that High Noon is scarcely mentioned in all this comment. It's about a sheriff who's abandoned by his town in a moment of extreme danger. It was penned by Carl Foreman, about when he was blacklisted. Of all the actors who played western heroes, Gary Cooper shone the brightest. the film once ranked very high among film historians, but times change. For me, the film is truth and art.
I would add that Dimitri Tiompkin's theme music for High Noon, built around the ballad, "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling," may the most moving in any western film. During the clock scene, which runs eight minutes without dialogue, the music carries the entire story.
I think High Noon was mentioned by RT. It's hard to sort through this list. And it is certainly one of the greatest of movies. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Depends on your definition of western, but my 10 favorites are:
1) McCabe & Mrs. Miller
2) Man Who Shot Libetry Valance
3) Good, Bad & Ugly
4) High Noon
5) Little Big Man
6) Jeremiah Johnson
7) High Plains Drifter
8) Bad Day at Black Rock
9) For a Few Dollars More
10 ) Unforgiven
Only 4 for 10 in DZ's list. Is there anyway to ask TCM if they will be playing some of these soon? I'll go check.
I've always thought that Leone's film - ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, I mean - is just too grandiose for its actual content. "I'm just a man", says Fonda and that's about to explain his behaviour? Shooting down men and children in cold blood? I've never gotten over that - but it's great visually, sure, just maybe too great. I've always preferred THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY. But western as horror? Sure - one of the screenwriters is Dario Argento, who's best known for his horror movies.
Go for Anthony Mann and Boetticher, Patti, you might find the male neuroses therein entertaining. Try Sam Fuller's westerns, too, especially THE FORTY GUNS, which must be one of the most hardboiled western films of all time.
And, oh, I echo Todd's comments on TREMORS.
I can see what you're saying, Juri. And at times, I thought the same, but I eventually was won over and swept away by it. He was trying to create art and not just tell a story, I think.
Leone was always an artist. By ONCE, he had a budget.
Encore Westerns brings up a number of interesting items, as well, such as Genevieve Bujold's ANOTHER MAN, ANOTHER CHANCE, which I'd certainly never heard of previously.
Todd: in THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY he's the storyteller first. And yet he manages to convey something subtle about greed and lust and the effect of war.
There's no conflict between storytelling and art. There is a conflict between having to rush, as with A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and getting everything right...but they came pretty close with the first two films, anyway (and Morricone certainly helped). I like FOR A FEW better than THE GOOD, THE BAD, myself...the trinity at its heart is more engagingly perverse, and the Man with No Name, Eastwood's character, turns out to be the least important of them to the story.
WV: dewar (for your pro-file, Juri)
I've never really cared for the two earlier dollar films, for some reason or another. There's too much of stiffness or some such - "forcedness" might be the word, it there is such a word.
And, hey, Todd, I'm actually making a collection of verification words. We have a small bunch of people who've gathered them up - it will probably become an item to be sold via Lulu.
I'm with Juri about Leone's first dollar movie, it was little more than a competent remake of YOJIMBO. Good, but not great.
However, choosing between the following three is rather impossible. They are all required viewing. I'd also like to point out that the opening sequence of ONCE UPON is one of the greatest in cinema. Ever.
Oh, and a western that may not be thought of as a western: THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Saw this again a couple of weeks ago, and it really is as good as you remember it.
I'm also suprised nobody yet has mentioned Monte Hellman's two mid-sixties westerns; RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND and THE SHOOTING.
verification: ressning (sounds like Swedish, but really is not)
Didn't know about the Monte Hellman movies. I liked COCKFIGHT and TWO_LANE BLACKTOP so I'll look into them.
I think it was the fact that I was born in the west that kept me from the hatred of Westerns that permeated Ann Arbor when I was growing up. They were most commonly dismissed at glorifying violence, containing vile racial stereotypes and all of that other stuff. Of course this was in large part not true, and I have a feeling it was more the case that many boomer in the 60s were throwing off the culture of their parents.
Ok as for my faves:
there are really 5 Westerns that really sum up the genre for me:
Stage Coach
The Searchers
High Noon
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Shootist
(Note I haven't seen Shane yet).
Of these I think Liberty Valance is the one that I enjoy the most, Lee Marvin steals the film.
Which is the best of all time? I am going to have to go with The Searcher, which I recently saw on the big screen, amazing film.
Films that people should take a look at? I recently watched several of the the Randolph Scott/ Budd Boetticher film all of which were well worth rediscovering.
I will always love THE SEARCHERS for its heart.
Anders: I can't believe I missed mentioning Hellman's westerns. (But then again, I didn't make a list of best westerns, just commenting on Leone and seconding Ed's and others' opinions on Mann and Boetticher.) Hellman's two (or actually three, but CHINA 9, LIBERTY 38 just isn't as good as the earlier two, though not bad in any way) westerns are the closest equivalent of Beckett and Sartre in the history of Hollywood cinema. Yet they are not artsy. I especially like the way RIDE THE WHIRLWIND could be any mediocre B or drive-in western and then there's suddenly a piece of totally incomprehensible dialogue about a matter that a viewer can't know about. "What happened to that girl back there?" or some such, when there's never been a mention of any girl.
I've suggested elsewhere that Hellman's westerns are what Elmore Leonard's and Boetticher's westerns were going, but stopped at some point. See for example how Leonard's "The Captives" starts, with just a lonely man standing somewhere in the desert. It's an image worthy of Hellman.
Of course, what came later, in the revisionist westerns of the seventies, this legacy was somehow dropped and other stylistic and thematic concerns came to fore.
Oh, and one other western I haven't seen much commented, even though to my mind it beats the hell out of any Ford: Robert Aldrich's ULZANA'S RAID.
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