My Ten Favorite Alan Ladd Westerns

Today is my sixth Alaniversary :-)  To celebrate six years of loving Alan Ladd, I am sharing my list of my ten favorite western movies he starred in.  (I did a list of my 10 favorite movies of his from all genres a couple years ago, which you can check out here.)  He's best known today for westerns because of Shane (1953), but for most of his career, he was mostly known for action and film noir movies! But you know I have a special soft spot for his westerns.

All titles are linked to my reviews if I've done a review of that film :-)

1. Branded (1950) A conman (Robert Keith) persuades a drifting loner (Alan Ladd) to impersonate the long-lost son of a wealthy rancher (Charles Bickford) to acquire his fortune. But the drifter comes to care about the family and sets out to find their real son for them. It's unlike any other western I've ever seen, and I mean that in the best way possible. Refreshingly non-usual! 

2. Shane (1953) A stubborn farmer (Van Heflin) hires a drifting stranger (Alan Ladd) to work on his farm. The stranger turns out to be a gunman who uses his deadly prowess to protect the farmer and his family from a bullying rancher who wants to push them off their land. This is probably Ladd's most famous movie now, and with good reason -- he fits the role with a comfortable grace seldom equaled. 

3. Whispering Smith (1948) A railroad detective (Alan Ladd) discovers that his longtime best friend (Robert Preston) is stealing from the railroad. To complicate matters, he used to be in love with the woman (Brenda Marshall) who ended up marrying this friend instead. This is the movie that made me fall in love with Alan Ladd. 

4. The Proud Rebel (1958) A widowed father (Alan Ladd) with a mute son (David Ladd) gets hired by a farmer (Olivia de Havilland) to help repair her run-down farm and keep a greedy rancher (Dean Jagger) from seizing her land. When he learns of a possible cure for his son's muteness, he sells the boy's beloved dog to raise the money for the operation, with heart-breaking results. But it all turns out okay.  I love the scenes between Alan and his son David -- they're very sweet and natural together. 

5. Red Mountain (1951) Near the end of the American Civil War, a Confederate officer (Alan Ladd) is sent to Colorado to aid General Quantrill, but ends up involved in a murder, a rebellion, and a love triangle. It's a totally different movie than I was expecting, but not in a bad way.  Another atypical western for Ladd.

6. Saskatchewan (1954) A member of the RCMP (Alan Ladd) rescues a woman in distress (Shelley Winters), leads his troop to safety when local natives rise up against them, and stops an invasion.  All with absolutely breathtaking Canadian scenery.  One of the few westerns I've seen that are set in Canada!

7. The Iron Mistress (1952) Highly fictionalized and adventuresome portrayal of the live of frontiersman James Bowie (Alan Ladd).  Bowie falls in love with a sophisticated New Orleans woman (Virginia Mayo), fights a bunch of duels, and finally forges the perfect frontier knife.

8. Drum Beat (1954) A former Indian fighter (Alan Ladd) is sent to make a peace treaty with the Modoc tribe of northern California.  This involves him having to guard a wagon train, make quite a few speeches, and fight one unwilling-to-make-peace Modoc played by a very young Charles Bronson.

9. The Big Land (1957) After the Civil War, former Texas Confederates are still battling former Yankees, especially in Missouri.  When one Texan (Alan Ladd) saves one Yankee (Edmond O'Brien) from a lynching, the two decide to work together to help the railroad reach Kansas so the Texans can drive their cattle there for shipment instead of to embattled Missouri.  The Yankee has a pretty sister (Virginia Mayo) to complicate matters.

10.  Guns of the Timberland (1960) A group of lumberjacks (led by Alan Ladd) arrives in town to cut down a bunch of timber nearby, and the people of the town (led by Jeanne Crain) object.  Loggers had clear-cut an area not far away and destroyed a town in the process, and these townsfolk don't want the same thing to happen to them.  Interestingly, while on set, Alan Ladd became friends with Louis L'Amour (who wrote the book this is vaguely based on), and L'Amour later dedicated his book The Broken Gun to Alan Ladd and his best friend William Bendix after they had both died.

Okay, there you have it!  My ten favorite Ladd westerns :-)  Want to guess which one I'm planning to watch tonight?