Posts by B5Erik

This is one of my all time favorite Westerns, and it features a fantastic cast -

WARLOCK

Starring Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, DeForest Kelley, and Dorothy Malone. Directed by Eward Dmytryk.

You can see the full specs on this page:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...g=UTF8&v=glance

(Actually, the specs listed are missing some info at present, but within a few weeks all the details will be there. You can also look the movie up on http://www.imdb.com)

If you haven't seen this one (or even if you have) I highly recommend this one as one of your "must-buy" DVD's for 2005!

(The release date for the DVD is 5/24/05.)

See a couple of posts below for news on The Naked Spur....

I'm rooting for the Eagles in this one. I'd be more confident of their chances if T.O. were 100%, but it looks like he'll only have a limited role in the game - but I'm still rooting for them. I've just gotten tired of seeing the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Like a lot of other people I'm just hoping for a good game - and if the Eagles win it will just be the icing on the cake.

There are so many different Western TV shows that I've never seen, but of the ones that I've seen I'd have to say that my favorites are...

Bonanza
Rawhide
Maverick
The Big Valley
Wild, Wild West

I've never really liked Gunsmoke all that much - but most of the episodes I've seen came from the mid to late years, so I have no idea if the show was better earlier on or not. The episodes that I've seen were never bad, but just not up to the quality of the shows above, IMO. It may just be that I haven't seen the show at it's best, but at this point it doesn't make my list (short as that list may be).

I have never seen a bad, or even mediocre, episode of Rawhide. I've only seen about 20 episodes, but they have all been very good or great. That's a show I'd love to get on DVD.

My favorite NON-John Wayne Western?

Open Range. Just a GREAT movie, and when you watch the "making of" feature you can see just what a labor of love that movie was - and what a challenge it was just getting it made!

CLOSE behind that one would be movies like Winchester '73, Warlock (another great, but largely forgotten western), Tombstone, The Magnificent Seven, The Man From Laramie, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, and.... aww, hell - I could just go on and on and on and on....

I have become a Western FANATIC! (And John Wayne was a big contributing factor in my becoming a Western fanatic....)

Winchester '73 is excellent. One of my favorites. I've only seen 10 minutes of Lonesome Dove, but it's supposed to be really good. I haven't heard much about The Tin Star.

I'll tell you, though - the Western I want most on DVD that isn't on DVD yet is Warlock (with Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinnk, Richard Widmark, and DeForest Kelley) - very similar in theme and tone to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

I've been picking up a lot of Westerns on DVD lately, and for the most part they've been really good.

Bite the Bullet (1975) - I got this one for $5.50 at Wal Mart. It looked halfway interesting and features Gene Hackman and James Coburn (not to mention Ben Johnson), so I picked it up. Turns out this is a really good "modern" Western, with a different type of story (a 700 mile horseback race). Very well filmed with a solid script and some excellent performances. I'm glad I bought it.

Law and Order (1953)- Ronald Reagan, Dorothy Malone (I loved her brief part in The Big Sleep), Preston Foster, and Russell "The Professor" Johnson. Good cast, good script, some nice scenery and good action. Not a great Western, but a good one, and well worth the $10 I paid for it. Reagan gives an almost John Wayne-esque performance in this one. A fun, entertaining movie.

The Indian Fighter (1956) - Kirk Douglas, Walter Matthau (!), Lon Chaney Jr (!!), Alan "Skipper" Hale (Jr) - another good cast, and a very strong script with some serious sympathies shown to the Indians' side. Some more beautiful scenery, and some great action sequences. A very good Western.

Five Card Stud (1968) - Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Roddy McDowall - Slightly different twist on the Western: A Western "Whodunit." Dean Martin is strong as a professional gambler, and Mitchum is very good as a gun toting preacher. An above average script and good acting make this well directed movie quite entertaining. From the same team that brought you True Grit.

I also got Bend of the River, but I haven't watched it yet. I've still got Chisum and Rooster Cogburn on deck as well. Good stuff...

I haven't read anything bad about Delta.

I haven't read anything good, either. It's not like Madacy where there is a ton of info out there about just how consistently bad they are - but that may be more of a reflection on bad distribution and sales (if hardly anyone is buying their DVD's then you won't have too many negative comments).

Read the reviews on Amazon - sometimes you can get good info on the print quality for specific DVD releases.

So over the weekend I picked up a couple DVDs, The Fighting Seabees (a great movie) and Will Penny.

I liked what I had read about Will Penny, and how "authentic" and "realistic" it was. I like Charlton Heston, and I thought I'd give it a shot. I liked Heston and the rest of the cast - except for Donald Pleasance. It wasn't his fault, really - he was just horribly miscast and his character was the main problem with the movie.

I thought that all of the characters and situations in the movie were authentic, except the pshycho "preacher" and his family. Those characters were like something out of a bad TV show, and didn't really fit in the movie. If they had just been another bunch of outlaws the movie would have been better - the scenes with the psycho family just had something of a cartoonish atmosphere instead of the gritty realism of the rest of the movie.

Will Penny wasn't bad, just undermined by a cartoonish band of "villains" that don't really fit in. That's too bad. It could have been one of the all time best with more realistic "bad guys."

At least The Fighting Seabees was really good - REALLY good, and I finally got around to watching True Grit (for the first time). Now THAT was a great western.

Unfortunately, in the end, Will Penny won't make my top 10 westerns list, or even my top 50. It was really close to being that good, but sometimes a movie really is only as good as the villain.

Hey, Stumpy - don't feel constrained to keep it to 10 if you can't! I didn't (well, I did and I didn't - I also listed a bunch of movies that could very well have made the list depending on what day it is).

It's great that your "favorite westerns" list is different - hell, I wish that I could get caught up on all the great westerns of the last 75 years in just a couple of months, but truth be told it's probably going to take me the better part of a decade!

Ah - but what a great decade that will be.

I do love these lists - it helps me pick out new movies to buy on DVD!

There was a topic about this a year ago, but since a GREAT western was released since then (and most people tend to skip over old threads when bumped back up) I thought I'd start a new thread for you.

What are your 10 favorite Westerns NOT starring John Wayne (go ahead and list one if he's got a small part such as in How The West Was Won).

I haven't seen nearly as many Westerns as many of you, but here's my list....

1. Tombstone
2. Winchester '73
3. Open Range
4. Young Guns 2
5. Shane
6. Silverado
7. The Man From Laramie
8. Young Guns
9. The Magnificent Seven
10. Unforgiven

Close - Destry Rides Again, Support Your Local Sheriff, Return of the Magnificent Seven, Maverick (I liked that one, it was fun - kind of like Support Your Local Sheriff in a way), and The Quick and the Dead.

I need to see more classic Westerns. I'm working on it...

So which movies make your list?

Quote

Originally posted by arthurarnell@Apr 15 2004, 02:43 AM
Hi B5Erik and Hondo

I agree with you Jimmy Stewarts westerns were very good (I also liked Harvey but were not all perfect)

When your watching Winchester 73 look out for Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis in what must have been for both actors among their earliest appearances both play cavalrymen.

Regards

Arthur

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Actually, Rock Hudson doesn't play a cavalryman - he plays the Indian Chief! Odd casting, but it worked.

Winchester '73 is easily one of the 10 best westerns that I've ever seen.

And you really should check out Jimmy Stewarts radio show, "The Six Shooter." You can find it on ebay - just make sure you buy a version in a format that you can play (Audio CD, MP3, Windows Media, etc). It was a GREAT radio show, and it really showed off Jimmy's talent.

With so many westerns coming out on DVD over the last couple of years I finally got around to picking up a couple of Jimmy Stewart's westerns. I was VERY familiar with his old radio show, "The Six Shooter," in which he played Brit Ponset - a drifter in the old west well known for having a fast gun and a sharp intellect. It was a great show, and Stewart was absolutely fantastic (I would highly recommend it to you if you can find it on ebay).

So I picked up The Man From Laramie first, and really liked that one, but found myself wanting more.

Winchester '73 was next and MAN, what a GREAT movie! Winchester '73 is credited as turning the fortunes of westerns around in 1950 (westerns were on the wane a little at that point), and Winchester '73 was the 2nd part of a 2 film deal Stewart made with Universal. It was a throw in - a movie that Universal thought would flop (the other film in the deal was Harvey, which they were banking on being a big hit). It turned out that Winchester '73 did even better at the box office than Harvey!

It's a great episodic movie as Jimmy Stewart's character wins a new Winchester rifle in a shooting contest, but has it stolen by the man who killed his father. The movie follows the rifle as it changes hands until the final showdown.

The DVD also features an audio commentary track which is really an interview with Jimmy Stewart himself! It was recorded in 1989 for the laserdisc version, and is a great inclusion on the DVD.

If you haven't seen this one yet, I highly recommend the DVD.

I LOVED Open Range! It was a great movie, not just a great western.

I rented it a couple of months ago, and I'm looking to buy it when I can find it for under $15.

I thought it was well written, well acted (VERY well acted) and Costner did a great job directing it. Even people who dislike Kevin Costner will like this one if they like westerns at all. I'm betting this one goes down as one of the all time classic westerns in years to come.

And I'm really disappointed at the revisionist/deconstructionist history of the new Alamo movie. I was listening to a radio talk show the other night and a historian was on saying how the new movie was more historically accurate than John Wayne's version, but that they made Davy Crockett wimpier than he actually was (after all, the guy was a bear hunter, congressman, etc). I'm gonna skip this one.

Thanks for the kind welcome messages. I'm a DVD addict, and since there are so many John Wayne movies on DVD it just kind of feeds that addiction - in this case it's a good addiction!

It's funny, I saw most of The Quiet Man on TV in my late teens, and I thought it was pretty good, but nothing I'd want to buy. I haven't seen it since. I was a little surprised to see it on top of the list over movies like The Searchers and The Shootist. I'm going to have to re-examine that one - some of my co-workers also had very good things to say about The Quiet Man!

True Grit is next on my "to watch" list, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Oh, yeah - I already knew about Deep Discount DVD - that is a great source for DVDs! Low prices, free shipping - you can't go wrong! (OK, their free shipping is slow, but at their prices who cares?)

I hope to have about 30 or so John Wayne DVDs in my collection by the end of the year.

I hope to be a fairly regular contributor to this board, looks like a great bunch of John Wayne's fans!

I'm brand new to this board, and it looks like I'm a month and a half too late for the voting. That's OK, I'm not upset about it... The hell I'm not!

Then again, I haven't seen 25 John Wayne films - yet.

For years I tried to get all of Humphrey Bogarts movies, and with the exception of his early works (many of which are now lost) I've got almost all of them on tape, laserdisc, or DVD.

I always liked John Wayne, but I never saw anything as a teenager or young adult that really caught my attention (I liked the parts of The Green Berets that I saw, and I liked the parts of The War Wagon that I saw, but I never really saw an entire John Wayne movie until I was 30).

Now I'm on board - John Wayne really was something special, and there's a damn good reason that he became such a beloved figure. Now I feel like I really missed out - but, on the other hand, I'm REALLY enjoying discovering all of these movies on DVD!

So let me list my favorites so far....

1. The Shootist
2. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
3. The Searchers
4. Rio Bravo
5. El Dorado
6. The Alamo
7. Sands Of Iwo Jima
8. The Fighting Seabees
9. The War Wagon
10. The Longest Day
11. The Spoilers
12. The Cowboys
13. Rio Lobo (This one's just OK, a "by the numbers" John Wayne Western)

That's all that I've seen. I've got a lot to catch up on, don't I? I need to win the lottery so I can buy all the rest of the John Wayne movies currently available on DVD! Either that or get a second mortgage on my house!

Anyway, I'm glad that I found this board.

(Next on my "to watch" list is True Grit - I got that in a 3 pack with El Dorado and Rio Lobo and I saved it for last.)