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Friday, July 29, 2022

My Answers to This Year's LOWCW Tag

Every year, Olivia and Heidi and I have a lot of fun coming up with the questions for our tag.  Every year, I look forward to answering them myself.  And, every year, there's at least one question that stumps me or makes me have to think really hard about my answer.  Which is all part of the fun!  (This year it was question #9 that I struggled with.  Now you know.)

You can find the original tag here, on my kick-off post.  Also, don't forget that today is the LAST DAY to enter my giveaway!

If I've reviewed a movie I talk about here, I've linked its title to my full review, in case you're curious to read more about a particular film.

1) Favorite western focused on a lone hero? 

That would be 3:10 to Yuma (1957), in which struggling rancher Dan Evers (Van Heflin) singlehandedly stands up against an entire outlaw gang to take its leader, notorious Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) to the train that will transport him to prison.  It is a moody, atmospheric, aesthetically pleasing masterpiece of tension.



2) Favorite western focused on a group of compadres? 

The Magnificent Seven (1960), no contest.  It truly is magnificent.  The acting is superb, the writing is taut and masterful, and the score by Elmer Bernstein is one of the finest movie scores ever written.  I never, ever get tired of this movie.



3) Favorite western with a female main character? 

The Rare Breed (1966).  It's about a British widow (Maureen O'Hara) and her daughter (Juliet Mills) who bring a prize Hereford bull to the St. Louis stockyards to auction off.  They get worried that something terrible will befall the bull while it's being shipped to its new owner (Brian Keith) in Texas, so they insist on accompanying the man (James Stewart) tasked with delivering him.  It's a pretty unusual western in a lot of ways, and really enjoyable.



4) Favorite western with a POC main character? 

That would be Silverado (1985).  It has three main characters: Emmett (Scott Glenn), Paden (Kevin Kline), and Mal (Danny Glover), who join forces to take down a common enemy.  Mal's trying to save his family's homestead and convince his sister to abandon some questionable life choices she's been more or less forced to make.


Now, since Silverado is an ensemble piece, I'm going to answer this question twice so I can also mention Buck and the Preacher (1972) , which Sidney Poitier starred in and directed.  It's about African American pioneers seeking new homes in Kansas after the Civil War.  I highly recommend it to older teens and adults.  It probably hits a little too heavy for kids.



5) Favorite western with kids in it? 

Shane (1953) is told through the eyes of a boy (Brandon de Wilde) who idolizes the gunfighter (Alan Ladd) that his father (Van Heflin) and mother (Jean Arthur) have befriended and hired to work on their farm.  It's a beautiful meditation on what happens when a child idolizes an adult, and the kind of influence that idolization can have on the adult in question.  Shane works as hard as he can not to let that little boy down, but he works even harder to convince the boy that his own father is the real hero of the story.



6) Favorite western set somewhere other than the United States? 

The Man from Snowy River (1982).  It's also my favorite movie of all time, and it's all about a young man coming of age in Australia, finding work and falling in love and generally proving himself.  I saw this in the theater when I was two years old and fell in love with horses, Australia, and westerns all in one fell swoop.  It's been my favorite ever since.



7) Favorite "western" that doesn't fit the genre's dictionary definition? 

Well, The Proud Rebel (1958) takes place in Illinois, and so it's not technically a western.  But it feels like a western, so I call it one anyway.  It's about a man (Alan Ladd) searching for a doctor who can cure his mute son (David Ladd).  They end up working for a farmer (Olivia de Havilland) who's being harassed by some neighbors that want to buy her land, or force her off it if she won't sell.  And they have to overcome a bunch of problems, but they also form a nice little family in the process.



8) Favorite funny western? 

Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), always and forever.  A quirky, clever drifter (James Garner) takes the job as sheriff in a lawless goldrush town, makes a deputy out of the town drunk (Jack Elam), falls in love with the mayor's daughter (Joan Hackett), and dispatches a family of ne'erdowells, all in the most unconventional ways possible.  It's a spoof of western tropes, but such a loving spoof that its humor completely works.



9) Favorite tragic/sad western? 

The Alamo (1960).  Almost every single character dies.  Gloriously, yes, but still!  Tragic.  And yet, I watch it over and over.



10) Favorite western TV show?

The Big Valley (1965-69).  I love every member of the Barkley family, most especially Heath (Lee Majors) and Victoria (Barbara Stanwyck).  I want to be friends with them and hang out with them and go on adventures with them and just... can I either get adopted into or marry into that family already?  Please?


There you have it!  I can't believe that today is the last official day of Legends of Western Cinema Week already!  Like I said, if you haven't entered my giveaway yet, do that here.  And if you haven't made your guesses about my movie poster game yet, do that here.

16 comments:

  1. The Magnificent Seven is such a superb Western. So fantastic.

    I can't wait to watch Silverado and Support Your Local Sherrif!

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    1. Olivia, it IS. Practically perfect in every way. I love it so much.

      I think you would get a kick out of both of those! If we make you coming over this summer happen, you could watch either of them with meeeeeeeee :-D

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  2. I'd like to try reading Shane. I don't know why I haven't yet, since I love classic Western novels...

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    1. Katie, oh, you should! Mmmmmmmmmm, I could just drop everything right now and reread it. For like the sixth time.

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  3. I didn't do the tag this year because I was just too burnt-out from working on multiple projects this month to do more than one post, but I do love going around and getting in on the good discussions on everybody else's posts! It's funny, you picked some of the same movies I would have, but in different categories—I would have put The Proud Rebel as my favorite female-centric Western, and Shane as my "loner" pick.

    I have been slowly realizing that my tastes lean more toward "group of compadres" than "loner" stories, and I now wonder if that's why I've always liked John Ford's Westerns so much. Stagecoach, the cavalry movies, Wagon Master, The Searchers, etc.—there's so many groups of friends, families, communities, troops, ensembles of every kind. Even when there is a defined main character, the whole cast is important.

    I think Shane is really the quintessential loner story of the genre. Even though my #1 Western pet peeve is the "super-powerful hero rescues cowardly, helpless ordinary folk" trope, I've always given more credit to Shane because Schaefer gives us Starrett, the ordinary farmer and family man who is by no means helpless or cowardly—as you touched on a little bit here! My appreciation for Schaefer has been growing lately as I've read some of his other books; I think I'd like to revisit Shane the novel and see how it strikes me this time.

    100% in agreement on The Man From Snowy River! I caught part of Support Your Local Sheriff on TV recently, and my absolute favorite thing about it was Bruce Dern and Walter Brennan so perfectly spoofing the characters they usually played straight. "He lies to me about when my gun's loaded!" And the reference to Red River with the false teeth bit at the end! :)

    I was thinking I would have put The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in the non-traditional category, but after seeing how creative other people were being with this, I realized that Northwest Frontier would be a great choice: it's basically Stagecoach in India (John Ford's son actually was a co-writer of the story concept, so that makes even more sense).

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    1. Elisabeth, that makes sense! July was really hectic for me too.

      I do tend to love "found family" stories the most, and a story where a loner finds a family tend to be my favorites. I could have put Shane as my favorite tragic western instead too, as Shane has to leave his family behind and it breaks my heart every time.

      "Your life? Who cares about your life! What'm I supposed to eat with from now on?!?!?" Oh man, Support Your Local Sheriff is just the best! Burt Kennedy, who directed it, also directed some of my absolute favorite Combat! episodes, and he really just nails how to get an ensemble cast to shine.

      I have not seen Northwest Frontier, but that sounds like an excellent choice!

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  4. Just reading what you said about The Magnificent Seven made me want to re-watch it right away. So, yep, I don't think I'll ever get tired of it either. ;)

    Support Your Local Sheriff for the win!

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    1. Eva, I have been thinking of showing Mag7 to my kids this summer. My son has seen it, but my girls haven't, and Cowboy and I reference in All The Time, so they really do need to see it.

      Mmmm, SYLS is just so perfect!

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  5. Lee Majors again, he turns up in the most unlikely places...perhaps a blogathon is in order! And with such a good cast too.. thanks for those recommendations. I hoped to enter this but thanks to you seen more but still not enough Western movies...looking forward to your next tag /blogathon

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    1. Gill, lol! Lee Majors is always a good time :-) I would totally contribute to a blogathon dedicated to him!

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  6. I'm trying to convince my older sister to watch Mag7 because I LOVE ITand I think she'd love the character dynamics. The problem is, she hates westerns. When I showed it to my younger sister she actually fell asleep! She claims it was too boring. So, I guess it's just my dad and me.

    The Proud Rebel is set in Illinois? I wasn’t paying attention, I guess!

    Can't wait to watch The Rare Breed!

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    1. Chloe, well, I hope you can convince her at some point! My brother doesn't really dig westerns either, but he willingly watches Mag7 from time to time. It's an exceptional movie!

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