Answers and Scores for the Western Film Poster Game

I hope you had fun with this game!  Here are the full posters.  Everyone's scores are below.

1 My Darling Clementine (1946)

2 Unforgiven (1992)

3 Destry Rides Again (1939)

4 Hondo (1953)

5 A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

6 Calamity Jane (1953)

7 The Magnificent Seven (2016)

8 Angel and the Badman (1947)

9 Open Range (2003)

10 How the West was Won (1962)

Scores

Heidi -- 9

Chloe the Movie Critic -- 8

Answers and Scores for the Titular TV Cowboys Game

Here are the answers to my second game for Legends of Western Cinema Week, and scores below. Well, score.  Seems this was a lot harder game than I thought, and scared a lot of people off!  Oops!

The Answers

1. The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993-94) -- Bruce Campbell

2. The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock (1955-58) -- Guy Madison

3. Annie Oakley (1954-57) -- Gail Davis

4. Bat Masterson (1958-61) -- Gene Barry

5. Cheyenne (1955-62) -- Clint Walker

6. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993-98) -- Jane Seymour

7. The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967-69) -- Walter Brennan

8. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-62) -- Hugh O'Brian

9. The Lone Ranger (1949-57) -- Clayton Moore

10. The Loner (1965-66) -- Lloyd Bridges

11. The Rifleman (1958-63) -- Chuck Connors

12. Shane (1966) -- David Carradine

13. The Virginian (1962-71) -- James Drury

14. Whispering Smith (1961) -- Audie Murphy

15. Zorro (1957-59) -- Guy Williams

The two extra names I put on the list were Alan Ladd (who played the title characters in the films Whispering Smith [1948] and Shane [1953]) and Barbara Stanwyck (who played the title character in the film Annie Oakley [1935]).

Scores

Chloe the Movie Critic -- 1

My 2026 Legends of Western Cinema Week Tag Answers

I can't believe this week is almost over!  Well, at least there's time enough left for me to fill in the official tag quick.  I'll post game answers and scores this weekend :-)  So you still have time to play those if you haven't yet!

Legends of Western Cinema Week 2026 Tag

I'm not wracking my brains to figure out my exact favorite character for each of these roles, but rather going with characters I love who fit into them.  Might I have some other cavalryman or cowboy I love more?  Possibly, but that's okay.  These are all beloved, for sure.

I've linked movie titles to my reviews, where applicable.

1. Cavalryman -- Sgt. Major Thomas Riordon (Michael Rooker) in Horizon: An American Saga -- Chapter One (2024) immediately comes to mind.  He's my favorite character in the whole film, even though he's really a side character.  He's that perfect blustery old sweetheart, and he makes me laugh and cry both, which is always a really good mix for me.

Riordon is kindness itself, and possesses a lot of hard-earned wisdom, but also you can tell he is a seasoned officer who will fight fiercely when need be.  And yet, he is hilariously terrified of his formidable wife, whom he also clearly adores.  He's only got a few minutes of screen time here and there, but he has so much complexity even so!

2. Stagecoach driver -- Conway Madigan (Jay Kerr) on Five Mile Creek (1983-85), always and forever.

Con is a Texan who moves to Australia after the American Civil War to set up a stagecoach line there with an Aussie partner.  His occasional revelations about his involvement in the Civil War are definitely what got me interested in how the Civil War affected the West, even at a very young age.  Con was always my favorite character, so laid-back and soft-spoken, so tall and lanky and kind of awkward around womenfolk, but so kind.  And yet, with a little spark of hidden darkness that shows once in a while, when he lets himself get riled.

We watched the entire series of Five Mile Creek over and over when I was a kid, and it's definitely become a part of me in a lot of very formative ways.  It's the show that I first daydreamed myself into, in fact.  

3. Doctor -- Doc Isdell (Karl Swenson) in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) absolutely has to be my answer here.  Doc Isdell is a teeny tiny little role in my favorite John Wayne movie, but he's very important because he gets to save the life of one of the Elder brothers.  Whenever I'm naming a doctor character in a western book or story I'm writing, I always instinctively want to name them Doc Isdell.  I never have, but I always want to.  

4. Judge -- Judge Herman Spicer (William Schallert) in Hour of the Gun (1967) always pleases me because he is so fair.  He doesn't fall for any of Ike Clanton's (Robert Ryan) lies, but he also doesn't just believe everything Wyatt Earp (James Garner) says.  He's smart and wise, and exactly what a judge ought to be.

5. Sheriff -- U.S. Marshal Wistful McClintock (Harry Carey) in Angel and the Badman (1947) is such a great character.

Marshal McClintock suspects Quirt Evans (John Wayne) is planning to start some pretty big trouble, but he's super sympathetic about Quirt's reasons for it.  At the same time, he is sworn to uphold the law, so he's going to do that even if it means making legal trouble for Quirt.  

Harry Carey was an important mentor to John Wayne in the early days of Wayne's career, which also endears him to me.  This is my favorite of his western roles.

6. Cowboy -- Sam "Bulldog" Burnett (James Stewart) in The Rare Breed (1966) is such an interesting fella.  He starts out with pretty shaky morals, but gradually grows into a stubborn and helpful gent.  And he certainly knows his cattle!

7. Homesteader -- Joe and Marian Starrett (Van Heflin and Jean Arthur) in Shane (1953) are so dear to my heart.  They both have worked steadily to make their homestead successful, and they support and love and encourage each other in the best ways.  Even when emotions get a little tangled up because of Shane (Alan Ladd), they still always turn toward instead of away from each other.  Marian in particular works very hard to choose her husband above all else, repeatedly, while Joe's main aim in life is to be sure she is taken care of in every way she needs to be, above himself.  

8. Gambler -- Donavan (Bill Bixby) in The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) is another one of those characters I grew up with and love dearly partly because he is so familiar.  I love his character arc, growing from a selfish loner to a loving family man, with a lot of bumps along the way.  When I was a kid, I thought the three little kids were the main characters of the movie, but it's really Donavan, since he's the one who has to learn and grow and change over the course of the story.

9. Native American -- Tonto (Jay Silverheels) from The Lone Ranger (1949-1957) was one of my earliest heroes.  I loved him just as much as the Lone Ranger right from the first time I encountered them, which was when my parents brought home the movie The Lone Ranger (1956) on VHS from the library when I was maybe six or seven years old.  I remember my dad telling me, probably during my first viewing, that Tonto was special because he was played by a real American Indian, and that made a big impression on me.  I hadn't ever considered that Indians onscreen might not be played by actual Native Americans, and I decided right then and there that, clearly, Tonto was the gold standard.  I've measured not only Native American character portrayals against him ever since, but also sidekicks.  Because Tonto is so much more than the guy who gives the main character a confidence boost now and then. 

A few years later, someone gave my brother a VHS tape with the very first three episodes of the TV show on them, which we watched over and over and over and over.  And noticed pretty quickly that it's actually Tonto who has all the big and important ideas for forming the Lone Ranger's character.  It's Tonto who suggests he wear a mask.  It's Tonto who suggests he call himself the Lone Ranger.  It's even Tonto who kinda nudges his friend toward the idea of using silver bullets as a symbol of his quest to bring justice and order to the West.

Yup, he's the gold standard.

10. Outlaw -- Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) in 3:10 to Yuma (1957) is one of the few villains I like.  He's not the only outlaw I like, but he's the first one that popped into my mind, and I do love him a lot, so I will answer  with him.  Even though I talk about him a lot.

I have waxed eloquent about Ben Wade many times, so I'll just say here that I love how sidewindery he is, how cool and calculating, what a con artist he can be... and that he chooses to do one good thing.

11. Storekeeper -- Alex McSween (Andrew Prine) in Chisum (1970) has my heart.  I mean, I love John Chisum (John Wayne) and Mr. Pepper (Ben Johnson) lots too, but man, Alex McSween.  Hits me right here.  Chisum is one of the first John Wayne movies I saw, and something about Andrew Prine's storekeeper really made me sit up and take notice.  I think because he is calm and polite, but really firm... I don't really know.  I just got very fond of him very fast, and I always get excited whenever Andrew Prine pops up in another movie or show.  This is one of those instances of a character making me a fan of an actor, not the other way around.

12. Schoolteacher -- Molly Stark (Diane Lane) in The Virginian (2000) is such a cool, spirited, adventurous, but fairly sensible woman.  I don't maybe love her deeply, but I like her a lot.

She's a great match for the Virginian (Bill Pullman), and they're one of those fictional couples I can really see being happy together for the rest of their lives.

And, that's all for me!  I haven't read anyone else's tag answers yet, so I didn't have their answers in my head, but now I'll be free to do so :-)

My Ten Favorite Kid-Friendly Westerns

I've been watching westerns for longer than I can remember.  Naturally, I've shared many westerns with my own kids (who are teens now!).  If you've got some youngsters in your life that you'd like to introduce to this genre, but aren't sure where to start, here are some ideas for you!  I've limited this list to western/frontier stories that are aimed at children or families.  Obviously, there are many, many other westerns that are wonderful for kids to watch!  But these are specifically excellent for kids.

(Please remember, this is listed in order of my favorites, not necessarily the best kid-friendly westerns!)

1. The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)  When three little swindlers kids show up in a slowly-declining California gold rush town, a gambler (Bill Bixby) just passing through winds up taking care of them. One gold strike, one marriage of convenience involving the local stagecoach driver (Susan Clark), one bank robbery by the bumblingest outlaws in the west (Don Knotts and Tim Conway), and one capture of a notorious outlaw (Slim Pickens) later, and they can finally live happily ever after!

2. The Sign of Zorro (1958)  Wealthy, sophisticated Diego de la Vega (Guy Williams) returns home to California from the university in Madrid to discover that his hometown has been taken over by the ruthless and greedy Captain Monastario (Britt Lomond).  Diego pretends to be a wimp while secretly fighting against tyranny disguised as Zorro.  This is the first 8 episodes of the Disney TV show cobbled together to make one adventure, and it's so delightful!

3. Across the Great Divide (1976)  Two orphans (Heather Rattray, Mark Edward Hall) team up with a gambler (Robert Logan) to cross the Rocky Mountains and claim the land their family owns in Oregon.  Nothing can stop them, not Native Americans, thieves, mountain men, or a grizzly bear.

4. Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955)  Davy Crockett (Fess Parker) fights in the Creek Indian War, gets elected to the U. S. Congress, and helps Texas win its freedom by defending the Alamo, all with his friend George Russell (Buddy Ebsen) at his side.  Some of the incidents are based in fact, and some are simply legends and tall tales.  This was originally a trio of episodes on the TV program Disneyland, and then it was put together and released as a movie.

5. Little House on the Prairie (1974)  Laura (Melissa Gilbert), Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson), Carrie (Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush) Ingalls move from Wisconsin to the prairie with their Pa (Michael Landon) and Ma (Karen Grassle).  This is a 90-minute TV movie that served as the pilot for the classic TV show by the same name, and it sticks a lot closer to things that happen in the original books by Laura Ingalls Wilder than the bulk of the show did.  I don't know that it was ever released to theaters, but it was released to VHS when I was a kid, and we watched it over and over and over.

6. Savage Sam (1963)  When two brothers (Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran) and their neighbor (Marta Kristen) are kidnapped by Native Americans, their dog Sam and their uncle (Brian Keith) track them to try to rescue them.  This is a sequel to Old Yeller (1957) and a much happier movie.

7. Rango (2011)  A chameleon (Johnny Depp) accidentally winds up in a middle-of-nowhere town that's in desperate need of some law and order. It's an animated spoof/homage to all the classic westerns, with tropes and archetypes at every turn, and such a loving homage that I can't help but find it both funny and charming.

8. The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968)  A mild-mannered, hapless dentist (Don Knotts) gets involved in trying to stop gun-runners from using a wagon train as cover to transport their guns west.  It's basically a remake of The Paleface (1948), and I used to laugh so much while watching this that I cried.

9. An American Tail: Fievel goes West (1991)  A Russian-Jewish immigrant family moves to America's wild west, where their son Fievel (Phillip Glasser) gets separated from the rest of the family and is protected and mentored by an aging lawman (James Stewart).  The family just happen to be mice, and the lawman is a dog, and the bad guys are cats.

10. Old Yeller (1957)  Boy's little brother adopts dog.  Boy hates dog.  Dog saves boy's life.  Boy loves dog.  I don't even like to think about the ending.  But it's still a really good movie.

This has been another contribution to the 2026 Legends of Western Cinema Week party!

Titular TV Cowboys Game

Time for my second party game for Legends of Western Cinema Week!  Below is a list of TV westerns, all named after their main characters.  Your job is to tell me who starred as the that titular main character!  If you are bad at actor names, that's okay, because I have a whole bank at the bottom of this post for you to choose from... but there are a couple of extra names in there that don't get used, just to spice things up.

Please note that several of these shows were inspired by a movie, or led to one or more movies.  For the purposes of this game, please provide the name of the actor who played the character in the TV show.

Show Titles

1. The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993-94)

2. The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1955-58)

3. Annie Oakley (1954-57)

4. Bat Masterson (1958-61)

5. Cheyenne (1955-62)

6. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993-98)

7. The Guns of Will Sonnett (1967-69)

8. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-62)

9. The Lone Ranger (1949-57)

10. The Loner (1965-66)

11. The Rifleman (1958-63)

12. Shane (1966)

13. The Virginian (1962-71)

14. Whispering Smith (1961)

15. Zorro (1957-59)

Actor Names

Alan Ladd

Audie Murphy

Barbara Stanwyck

Bruce Campbell

Chuck Connors

Clayton Moore

Clint Walker

David Carradine

Gail Davis

Gene Barry

Guy Madison

Guy Williams

Hugh O'Brian

James Drury

Jane Seymour

Lloyd Bridges

Walter Brennan

Western Film Poster Game

My first game for Legends of Western Cinema Week!  We've played this a time or two before, and but I'll explain it just in case you missed the last round.

Here are ten western movie posters with their titles removed.  I think all ten of these should be things that western film fans should at least have heard of, even if you haven't seen them all.  Put your guesses in a comment, and I'll reveal the full posters at the end of the week, along with everyone's scores.

I'm putting comments on full moderation so you can't cheat off each other ;-)  I'll publish the comments with your game guesses at the end of the week once I tally up all the scores.

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10

Have fun! :-D

The 2026 Legends of Western Cinema Week Kick-Off and Tag

Check your cinch straps and refill your ammo stash, because it is Legends of Western Cinema Week once again, my friends!

It's time to celebrate all things on-screen westerns with me and my co-host Heidi at Along the Brandywine!  We both have some really fun stuff coming your way this week... and so do all of the party's participants!  This year's official Legends of Western Cinema Week Tag is below for you to copy and fill out if that's your pleasure.  

Whenever you post something for this party, whether it's your tag answers, a movie review, a list of favorites, a character sketch, or whatever you've got planned, please add the link to your post to this widget:

And don't forget to read everyone else's posts throughout the week!  That's what keeps the party going :-)

Here's the official 2026 Legends of Western Cinema Week Tag!

List a character that you found memorable for each role below (and include the name of the film or show they are from). Elaborate as much or little as you like! 

1. Cavalryman 

2. Stagecoach driver 

3. Doctor 

4. Judge 

5. Sheriff

6. Cowboy 

7. Homesteader 

8. Gambler 

9. Native American 

10. Outlaw 

11. Storekeeper 

12. Schoolteacher

It's your choice if you want to list your favorites, characters you think embody these kinds of people particularly well, the first ones that come to your mind, or something else entirely!  Up to you.

As always, have fun with this party!