Fun Stuff > ENJOY

Off-beat westerns

<< < (2/2)

Ozymandias:
Paint Your Wagon is unexpectedly fun and hilarious.

Eastwood can sing, man.

Peet:
Serenity.

A cowboy film at heart.

Utopian:

--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 06 Jan 2007, 20:44 --- Also, you're probably going to want to avoid most things made before 1965.

--- End quote ---

That's mean. I love nearly every western I've ever seen, particularly older ones. Dunno why it's my favourite genre, probably the escapist nature of it as a middle class Brit. How can you not love John Wayne films, like Stagecoach and The Searchers? I also recently saw The Big Trail, his first big role, it was quite impressive.

James Stewart Westerns are often a bit different, and it helps that he's an oustanding actor. There's one called Broken Arrow about an ex-soldier developing respect for and gaining the respect of the Apache tribe - it's based on historical figures.

I do love Leone. Once Upon a Time in the West used to be my favourite western but these days I think it's Winchester '73 (James Stewart again) which a very classic western in terms of appearance, but similar to Leone in terms of story (revenge, revenge, revenge,) - I fail to see what makes spaghetti westerns so different. Another favourite, Day of the Outlaw, is visually outstanding and a thrilling story.

And High Plains Drifter is a lot of fun - very interesting. Dunno about "great" though.

The one that best fits your description is probably  Day of the Outlaw. It's so bleak and really blurs the lines between goody and baddie a great deal. I think Robert Ryan makes an ace anti-hero. Only problems are it's black and white and made in 1959. But watch it anyway, please :)

onewheelwizzard:
"The Man Without A Star" with Kirk Douglas is an interesting one.  It's full of moral ambiguities, has very few genuinely likable characters, and there's a good bit of violence, and manages to pass itself off as a comedy the whole time.  Unfortunately Douglas's costar is a painfully bad actor, but overall it's worthwhile.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page