"Chocolat" (2000)

How is it possible that Chocolat (2000) is twenty-five years old now?  Wow.  I remember hanging a magazine ad for it on my dorm room wall.  I didn't manage to see it in the theater, but some college friends and I rented it as soon as it came to video, and if I hadn't already been a Johnny Depp fan before that, boy howdy, I would have been by the end of that viewing.  And same goes for Judi Dench.  They're both absolutely perfect in this movie -- honestly, everyone is!  

At its core, Chocolat is about finding a balance between discipline and indulgence.  If you are all discipline like the rigid Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), or all indulgence like the abusive Serge Muscat (Peter Stormare), you're going to bring a lot of grief to others and yourself.  Even the heroine, Vianne (Juliette Binoche) swings from one to the other too much before finding her balance by the end.  The same goes for all the other main characters.  You have to stand on both feet to balance, knowing when to be disciplined and when to indulge in something fun or enjoyable.

I really love how Chocolate is framed as almost a sort of fairy tale.  Once upon a time, a woman named Vianne and her daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) blow into a sleepy little French village on the earliest wings of springtime.  Vianne rents a vacant shop and revitalizes it with paint and love.  The locals are excited by having something new in town, even if it's just a new patisserie (aka bakery).  

But it's not a new patisserie.  It's a chocolaterie.  Opening just at the beginning of Lent, the forty days that lead up to Easter which Roman Catholics traditionally observe by "giving something up," or abstaining from some specific enjoyable thing (often meat, sometimes sweets -- it really depends on the person).  "Giving something up for Lent" is supposed to be a way to help a believer focus throughout the day on what Jesus gave up in order to win their eternal salvation from sin, death, and Hell.  But, too often, it gets turned into a pietistic outward act to make a person look good in the eyes of their friends and neighbors (or their local judgey minor aristocrat).  In this little village, everyone is expected to give up all sweets, it seems.  And yet, Vianne does a pretty good business.

This village is governed by the Comte de Reynaud, who makes it his business to know everything about everyone, or so he thinks.  He knows everything about the outward appearances of everyone's lives, anyway.  He's a one-man morality police, and even writes sermons for Pere Henri (Hugh O'Conor), the mild-mannered local priest.  

The Comte instructs Pere Henri to tell everyone in the village not to patronize Vianne's store.  Not only is she flouting convention by trying to sell delicious sweets during Lent, she has a daughter and has never been married.  She's a ruined woman who's going to ruin the whole town.  Repentance is a word the Comte likes to throw around, but he's very fuzzy on the ideas of forgiveness and living a renewed life.  

Vianne makes a few friends, like crusty old Armand (Judi Dench) and troubled Josephine Muscat (Lena Olin), as well as a sweet old widow (Leslie Caron) and her devoted would-be suitor (John Wood).  But her daughter Anouk is bullied at school and struggles to make new friends, relying on her imaginary kangaroo to keep her company.  

The last straw for the Comte comes in the form of a band of gypsies, among them a roguish musician and handyman called Roux (Johnny Depp).  Vianne befriends the gypsies.  The gypsies are even more Suspiciously Different than Vianne.  A careless comment dropped by the Comte in the hearing of a desperate and angry man leads to a dangerous and almost deadly crime, and the Comte suddenly begins to see that perhaps he's been terribly wrong about a good many things.  At the same time, Vianne realizes that her too-indulgent parenting and lifestyle comes with a potentially terrible price.

An epic (and comic) fall from grace puts the Comte back on the level with all the ordinary people of the village, particularly in his own eyes.  And Vianne has learned that indulging her whims and wishes, and relying only on herself instead of allowing others to truly befriend and help her, is also an unbalanced way to live.  

The movie closes with the whole village celebrating Easter, which is absolutely fitting in every way since Easter is the celebration of the day when Jesus rose from the dead, proving that he had balanced God's scales of justice and mercy for all time.

Is this movie family friendly?  Not exactly.  Some characters use double entendres.  We see the evidence of a man's physical abuse of his wife.  There are several suggestive moments and a fade-to-black love scene.  There's one scene of fairly intense physical violence and a scary fire.  An old woman dies, and a child finds her body.  And there are a handful of cuss words.  Not to mention a chocolate sculpture of a naked woman, although it's got a classic art sort of thing going on, it's not meant to be erotic.  I've told my teens they can watch it after they graduate from high school.

This is my contribution to the Food and Film Blogathon hosted this week by 18 Cinema Lane.  Check out Sally's blog for all the other delicious contributions.

Ten Favorite American Civil War Movies

Every week, I watch a movie with my teens over lunch.  During the school year, they take turns picking the movie to watch each week, but during the summer, I get to choose them.  This summer, I chose to have us watch all kinds of movies set during the American Civil War.  I realized while out at the Manassas Battlefield on a field trip last spring that, when I was a kid and teen, I had a really great grasp of the major events of the American Civil War because I had seen quite a few movies set during it, particularly the mini-series The Blue and the Gray (1982), which encompasses the whole war.  And my kids didn't have that because we simply hadn't watched those movies yet.  Sure, we had studied the war repeatedly during school over the years, but it's harder to envision how everything fits together when you are reading about it.

So, we spent the whole summer watching movies set during that war, plus a few that take place shortly after it but are strongly influenced by it.  I eventually added a couple more to the list above as we went, and we didn't manage to watch quite all of them, but my teens now have a good grasp of the basic sequence of events in the American Civil War.  

Inspired by our summer viewing, I decided to share my list of my Top Ten Favorite American Civil War movies.  Here they are!

1. The Blue and the Gray (1982) Yeah, yeah, technically a miniseries.  Anyway!  This is a masterful piece of storytelling that focuses on a young Virginia artist (John Hammond) who has abolitionist leanings and family on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.  He and his extended family and friends end up mixed up in just about every major piece of the war, from John Brown's execution to the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.  It delves thoroughly and entertainingly into the difficulty of a war fought between brothers, cousins, and friends.  I grew up watching it every year or two, and I absolutely credit it with giving me a thorough grasp of the main sequence of events of the war.  Also, nobody but Gregory Peck should ever be allowed to play President Lincoln.

2. Gettysburg (1993)  A talented ensemble cast shows many of the events leading up to and during the battle that is now considered the turning point of the American Civil War. Jeff Daniels turns in a particularly wonderful performance as Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of my personal heroes.

3. Little Women (1994)  Four sisters grow up in New England under their mother's guidance while their father is away with the Union Army.  People don't tend to think of this as a Civil War story, but the war influences everything in their daily lives, sometimes more overtly and sometimes subtly.

4. How the West was Won (1962)  A sprawling saga tracing the lives of two sisters (Debbie Reynolds and Carroll Baker) who move west as young women, and the lives of their husbands and children.  The Civil War is technically only shown onscreen briefly, but its echoes sound out across the rest of the movie as it follows the son of one sister, a veteran who heads west and uses his experiences in the war to inform his decisions from then on.

5. Shenandoah (1965)  A Virginia farmer (James Stewart) insists on his large family never getting involved in the Civil War that rages around them, but there is no way for him to keep them isolated from it forever. 

6. Friendly Persuasion (1956)  A Quaker family tries to remain neutral during the Civil War, but there is no way for them to remain uninvolved forever.  Anthony Perkins is so likeable in this.

7. The Horse Soldiers (1969)  A Union Cavalry colonel (John Wayne) sneaks his troops deep into Confederate territory to destroy the railroads and hasten Union victory, but he has this pesky medical officer (William Holden) along who keeps causing problems.

8. Harriet (2019)  Biopic of Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo) that portrays her escape from slavery and courageous rescue of so many others.  I ended up not watching this one with my teens this summer because it is pretty stern stuff and I think my youngest won't be ready for it for another year or so, but it's an excellent movie.

9. Gone with the Wind (1939)  Eating radishes straight out of the ground after drinking whiskey on an empty stomach convinces a spoiled Southern belle (Vivien Leigh) that she will do anything necessary to avoid repeating that sensation.

10. The Undefeated (1969)  A former Union cavalryman (John Wayne) teams up with a former Confederate officer (Rock Hudson) to get a herd of horses and a wagon train of people safely to Mexico.  Technically takes place just after the war, but the war echoes all through the film, so I say it counts, and it's my list, so there ;-)

Have you seen any of these?  Do you have other favorite Civil War movies?  Are you aghast that I left Gods and Generals (2003) off this list?  Do tell!

Free Book Shipping for National Day of the Cowgirl

Today is National Day of the Cowgirl!  AND I got my author copies of Follow the Lonesome Trail, which means I can start selling signed copies.

Since it happens to be such a cool day, I am offering FREE shipping (to US addresses only) on ALL of my books ordered directly from me!  This offer is only valid on September 15, 2025, and only on books ordered via this order form.  

This could be a great chance to pick up some Christmas presents for readers in your life :-D

Alan Ladd and My Writing

It's Alan Ladd's birthday today :-D 

This year, to celebrate, I'm going to share about the ways that Alan Ladd has shaped my writing and my books.

When I write fiction, I see and hear the story in my head like a movie.  I can replay scenes, move the camera angles, rewrite lines, and so on -- I see and hear it all in my imagination, and I write it down from there.  Because I love movies, I tend to use actors and actresses as a kind of jumpstart for my imagination, and often "cast" specific stars in different roles.  Eventually, the characters step a bit away from who I have cast as them and come to life in their own ways, but it's a good way to get a book started, for me.

(If you're ever curious about exactly whom I have cast as different characters in my books, I have Pinterest boards for all my books with character choices, pictures of setting and clothing and objects that I have saved as I research, and so on.)

I fell for Alan Ladd hard back in February of 2016.  At that time, I was working on rewrites for my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse, which had won a contest and was to be published in the anthology Five Magic Spindles.  I didn't actually recast any of the characters as him, since they were all very much themselves by that point, but he did help me out with one scene.

One of the changes the editors had me make after I won the contest was to give my "handsome prince" character, the gunfighter Luke Palmer, a backstory.  And I needed to write a scene where Palmer explains his past to Miss Emma, my "fairy godmother" character.  I banged my head against that scene for the longest time because Palmer Did Not Want To Share His Trauma.  At all.  Not a bit.  And I finally threw my hands up in disgust, booted my usual actor for him out the door, and tried running the scene in my head with Alan Ladd in the character instead.

And the character sat down, got a little quiet, and then reeled off this heartfelt speech about how his experiences as a Civil War surgeon had led to his present job as a gunfighter for hire.  One writing session.  Bam.  Whole scene, perfect and complete.  And, when I reread that book (because, yes, I do reread my books -- I write them because I want to read them!), I see and hear Palmer as his tall, dark self... except for that scene, where he flips into quiet and fair Alan Ladd.

Well, I had such a good time working with an imaginary Alan Ladd in my head while rewriting The Man on the Buckskin Horse, I knew I wanted to write him again.  So, when I was casting my Little Red Riding Hood retelling, Cloaked, I put him in as the woodcutter character, Hauer.  And Hauer absolutely stole my heart.  This is Alan Ladd in his 50s, which he never quite reached in real life, and I loved getting to imagine him a bit older and with a lot of life ahead yet, even if only as a fictional character.  (Hauer would obviously be a bit older than in the photo above, but it captures the Hauerness of Hauer too well to use something else.)

I even dedicated Cloaked to Alan's memory, and a tradition of dedicating my Once Upon a Western books to a Classic Hollywood actor or actress was born.

It's pretty easy to know which character I cast Alan Ladd as in my Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling, Dancing and Doughnuts, if you know his full name is Alan Walbridge Ladd.  I gave Sheriff Gideon Walbridge that last name as a placeholder because I didn't have a name for him initially, and it stuck.  Sheriff Walbridge is Alan in his 40s, wise and starting to mellow, but still sharp and ready for trouble if it comes his way.

I was so giddy when I realized that Hauer could show up again in One Bad Apple, my Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs retelling.  It takes place a decade before Cloaked, and I spent a long time scrutinizing the personal history I have for Hauer to make sure he could be there in Missouri in 1873.  I tried not to tell too many people ahead of time that he was going to show up again in it so he would be a fun surprise for initial readers, and the reactions I got to his return were everything I hoped for.  

Because I love Hauer dearly, I am especially pleased that he got to be the first character to show up in more than one Once Upon a Western book.  The little ties and crossovers will keep coming as the series lengthens, I promise!

Dan McLeod in my Beauty and the Beast retelling My Rock and My Refuge is the kind of friend we all should have.  He's had so many sad things happen in his life, but he never lets them get in the way of being a good friend to those around him.  I love his quiet dignity, his determination to do anything rather than lose another son, and the fact that he is both soft and resilient.  I want to write more characters like that.  

I have loved the last name McLeod since I was a kid and first saw the movie El Dorado (1966), in which John Wayne's character has a frenemy named McLeod.  I only heard it pronounced, I didn't see it spelled, and thought it must be spelled McCloud, which seemed to me like the absolute coolest name ever.  I even gave it to a character in a story I was writing at the time.  I was super disappointed to later learn how it is actually spelled... but I still love the way the name sounds, so I used it here for a character with lofty ideals and a high moral character, who lives high in the mountains.  Like a cloud.

If you look at the Pinterest board for A Noble Companion, my Ugly Duckling retelling, you'll see lots of photos of a young Ewan McGregor, and not one of Alan Ladd.  That's because Alan was my original casting for Javier Moncada, the love interest.  I wrote the first couple of drafts with him in mind, but then switched Javier to Ewan McGregor because he was a better physical fit for what the character as I was writing him.  But I still hear all of Javier's dialog in Alan's voice when I reread the book.  I loved finally getting to write him as a younger character!  

And then I went right back to writing him older in my short story "Safekeeping," which is in the anthology Follow the Lonesome Trail.  He just has a bit part, and barely any lines, as the weary Dr. Masterson who drinks too much.  In a way, that's me kind of addressing Alan Ladd's own struggles with alcohol, which is also something a lot of people I know have dealt with.  It's not a big focus of the story, but it's there, and my own headcanon involves Dr. Masterson eventually moving away from town and getting (and staying) sober with the help of his daughter-in-law.  

Those last two books are not part of my Once Upon a Western series, but the book I'm about to start writing is!  It's a retelling of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, it involves a Civil War veteran amputee, and Alan Ladd is once again playing a supporting character in it.  I think his character is in his late twenties, a bit older than the main character, and again something of a mentor, because I just really love writing him that way, I guess!

Beyond that?  Who knows!  Will I one day write a book without Alan Ladd in it?  I mean, yeah, it could happen.  It probably will, one day.  But for now, you can expect to keep seeing characters show up in my books who look, sound, and behave like characters he often played.  Because my imagination isn't tired of him yet :-)

"The Journey of Natty Gann" (1985)

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) is one of the first movies I remember my parents renting when our tiny Michigan town got a video rental store.  I don't actually have a clear memory of the first time I watched it, just that I did -- I remember really loving "that movie with the girl and the wolf," and asking my mom repeatedly what it was called, but she usually didn't remember.  

We rented it again a few years later, when my brother had a stomach bug, and he ended up getting so sick that my parents left me alone to watch the movie while they took him to the emergency room.  I was probably 8 or 9, and it was the first time I got to stay home all by myself.  (Don't worry, our town was 5 minutes away, I knew how to use the phone, and I knew how to call the neighbors who lived a quarter of a mile away if I had an emergency.  The '80s were a good time to grow up.)  

As a young girl, my interest in this movie was mainly centered on how cool it would be to have a wolf for a friend.  When I got to my tweens, my attention switched more to how gutsy Natty Gann herself is.  And in my teens and twenties, I focused more on how cute John Cusack is in this.  And, now that I'm in my mid-40s, I kind of just love the whole package!  And the music!  We'll circle back to that.

The Journey of Natty Gann takes place during the Great Depression, almost a hundred years ago now.  Natty Gann (Meredith Salenger) is a tomboy living in Chicago with her widowed father Sol (Ray Wise).  Sol has trouble finding work, like so many others, and when he hears about plentiful jobs in the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest, he decides he can't pass the opportunity up, even though he doesn't have time to explain to Natty that he is leaving.  He leaves her a letter and convinces their landlady to look after Natty, and then he has to leave.

The landlady is a bully and a thief, as it turns out.  As soon as Sol is gone, she decides to put Natty in an orphanage and pocket whatever money Sol sends for Natty's care.  She hits Natty and tries to keep her locked up until someone can take her to an orphanage, but Natty cleverly escapes and sets off for Washington State to find her dad.

The bulk of the movie is about Natty's journey, as you might expect, given the title.  She helps a caged wolf escape from someone who has trapped him to sell to a dog-fighting ring, and the wolf becomes her traveling companion.  Natty and Wolf (Jed) help each other out, sharing food and shelter.  Wolf also protects Natty from a man who offers them a ride when they are hitchhiking, but then tries to molest Natty.

Natty stumbles into a hobo camp and acquires another protector in Harry (John Cusack), a young hobo a few years older than she is.  Harry helps Natty and Wolf learn safe ways to ride the rails and avoid railroad enforcers.  

Natty's dad Sol is devastated when he calls the boarding house and learns that Natty has run away.  Even worse, her wallet is found under a train wreck, and he has no way of knowing Natty escaped the wreck unharmed.  Assuming his daughter died, he throws himself into doing the most dangerous logging jobs, obviously trying to work until something happens to end his pain.

I won't totally ruin the ending for you, but you do know it's going to end happily, right?  This is a Disney movie for kids!  From the '80s!  Obviously going to end well.

Also, Wolf doesn't die.  I'll spoil that for you.  He's fine at the end.  The dog who plays him, Jed, was a Northwestern wolf-Alaskan malamute mix who also starred in the 1991 version of White Fang opposite Ethan Hawke.  

Anyway, I said I would talk a bit about the soundtrack.  The score used in the movie is by James Horner, one of my BFF's favorite film composers.  But there is another complete score for this film that was recorded but not used, which is by Elmer Bernstein, who is my favorite film composer!  I have both soundtracks on CD, and they are both amazing.  I listened to Bernstein's on repeat while writing my book A Noble Companion because it was just exactly the jaunty outdoor adventure sound I needed.  You can listen to the James Horner soundtrack here on YouTube, and you can listen to a suite from Bernstein's rejected score here on YouTube.  

Is this movie family friendly?  I mean, it IS a Disney movie meant for kids.  It actually has a handful of cuss words, and there's some pretty dangerous stuff here and there.  Like I mentioned, there is some physical and emotional abuse toward Natty, and a grown man does try to molest her, though that takes the form of him trying to scoot her toward him in the cab of the truck he is driving while saying things about just wanting to be friendly.  His meaning is clear to an adult and teens/tweens, but smaller kids might not understand anything more than that he's trying to make her do something and she is struggling against him.  It's rated PG.  

This is my contribution to the Hit the Road Blogathon hosted this weekend by Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In :-)

Giveaway Winners and Wrap-Up for Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025

All good things must come to an end, alas, even blog parties as fun as this.  In this wrap-up post, you'll find the giveaway winners and a final copy of the post-gathering widget, in case you have any last-minute posts to contribute or are (like me) still catching up on all the amazing things people brought to the party this year!

First, the Giveaway Winners!

Prize 1:  The Man from Snowy River (1982) -- Crystan R.

Prize 2:  Australia (2008) -- Reid J.

Prize 3:  Quigley Down Under (1990) -- Crystan R.

Prize 4: a pair of wooden cactus earrings -- Cecilia

Prize 5: a set of "3D" cowboy stickers -- Daisy 

Prize 6:  a fridge magnet -- Gill J.

Check your email, winners!  I'll be emailing you in a few minutes to get your mailing info.

And here's that link-up widget one more time for your convenience:

Happy trails, my friends!  

Where in the West? Game Answers

Thanks for playing my party game!  Here are the answers:

1. The Mark of Zorro (1940) -- California

2. My Darling Clementine (1946) -- Arizona

3. Shane (1953) -- Wyoming

4. High Noon (1955) -- New Mexico

5. The Searchers (1956) -- Texas

6. Giant (1956) -- Texas

7. 3:10 to Yuma (1957 and 2007) -- Arizona

8. The Alamo (1960) -- Texas

9. The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) -- Texas

10. Chisum (1970) -- New Mexico

11. Pale Rider (1985) -- California

12. Young Guns (1988) -- New Mexico

13. Dances with Wolves (1990) -- Colorado

14. Open Range (2003) -- Montana

15. The Lone Ranger (2013) -- Texas

I know some of those were pretty hard!  Hopefully not all of them, though.  

Scores

VT Dorchester -- 8

Chloe the Movie Critic -- 5

Little Chronicler -- 2

It's Release Day for "Follow the Lonesome Trail"

Are you ready for some brand-new western fun?

I hope so, because today is release day for the wild west anthology Follow the Lonesome Trail!  This new collection boasts stories by Allison Tebo, Hannah Kaye, A. Hartley, Emily Hayse, Elisabeth Grace Foley, and Rachel Kovaciny (aka me).  My short story in this book is called "Safekeeping." 

When Allison Tebo first reached out a year or so ago and asked if I had any unpublished short western stories lying around looking for a home, I told her I didn't... but I had one in my head I would love to write.  The resulting story, "Safekeeping," is a story of second chances and hope.  A loner learns that he's inherited a poke of gold, but it's in the clutches of a greedy bartender, and he has to come up with a creative solution to get what's rightfully his.  Along the way, he helps out a whole lot of other people and just might find himself a place to belong.

Here's what one reader had to say about it:

You can buy Follow the Lonesome Trail as a paperback and ebook today!  It's also available for Kindle Unlimited readers.  And you can check out more reviews (and review it yourself once you've read it) right here on Goodreads.

If you're on Instagram, I invite you to join me there at 1pm (CST) for a live video chat where I will read the first scene from "Safekeeping" aloud to you -- and I might have time to answer a few questions, too.

If you want to know more about the other books I've written, you can check out this page on this blog or my author website.

(And if you're curious if we planned for Legends of Western Cinema Week to coincide with this book's release, the answer is no!  This book was originally slated to release in September, but it was ready early and we authors collectively agreed to release it early instead of making people wait for it.  So it's a coincidence, but I like it!)

My Tag Answers for Legends of Western Cinema Week 2025

Time for me to fill out our party tag!  

I'm going to put down the first western movie or TV show that comes to mind for these, and not agonize over whether they are the perfect example or not.  And I'll muse just a little on why each one came to mind for those prompts.

Cliff -- a tense cliffhanger Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One (2024)  The ending of this movie is a series of cliffhangers, and I have been hanging off those cliffs for a year now with NO word on when they are releasing chapter two!  This is so agonizing!

Gulch -- a cool ambush scene The Professionals (1966) A set of professional gunfighters and adventurers are on a mission to rescue a kidnapped woman, only to get ambushed by her captors when they've almost got her back to her husband.  The gunfighters and the woman are stuck in a desert-mountain pass, and the only way to escape is if one of them stays behind to hold off their enemies... who used to actually be friends with a lot of them.  Lots of excitement and emotional impact.

Canyon -- a big gunfight A Fistful of Dollars (1964)  Oh, that finale, with the lone, nameless hero coolly facing down three evil brothers and their henchmen -- it's positively iconic.  Then you add in this brilliant trumpet theme by Ennio Morricone and the music swelling behind it, the dust in the street, the slow walk toward certain death, the quiet courage with a secret smile in front of it... oh my heart, I love the end of this movie so much.

Mountains -- high stakes The War Wagon (1967) An ex-con gathers a team to help him steal an armored wagon full of gold -- and help him get revenge on the man who had him unjustly accused and sentenced and thrown in jail.  High stakes indeed.

Valley -- a beautiful romance Angel and the Badman (1947)  It's like a Beauty and the Beast retelling where the Beast ends up at Beauty's family home instead.  And when I say the ending gives me goosebumps and brings tears to my eyes, I mean that in the best way possible!

Desert -- a suspenseful plot 3:10 to Yuma (1957)  A desperate rancher agrees to ensure a sly outlaw gets on the train headed for the Yuma Territorial Prison, the outlaw spends the next day doing everything in his considerable power to get free.  The tension just ratchets tighter and tighter --it's masterful.

Forest -- themes about renewal The Rare Breed (1966)  This is a movie about second chances.  A widow gets a second chance at love, a father and son get a second chance at understanding each other, a discontented cowhand gets a second chance at career choices... and it's all revolving around a big Hereford bull intended to bring new life and vitality into a Texas herd.

River -- traveling to a new home Buck and the Preacher (1972)  Black pioneers trying to get to Kansas to start new lives as farmers... but a lot of people seem to not want them to get to do that.  It's the only movie I know of that's set during the real-life Exoduster migration, too.

Plains -- characters who are farmers Shane (1953)  Even though the title character is a gunfighter, he befriends a farming family and gets semi-adopted by them.  If they weren't farmers, he wouldn't have to protect them from people trying to push them off their farm, so the whole plot really revolves around the fact that they are trying to raise crops and animals, not graze cattle.

Mesa -- an animal central to the story The Proud Rebel (1958)  A sweet, unassuming sheepdog is the heart inside this sweet story about family, love, and sacrifice.  And the dog doesn't die, which is a total bonus!

Have you seen any of these?

"The Shadow Riders" (1982)

My best friend and I like to say that Cowboys Make Everything Better, and that sure has been true of The Shadow Riders (1982) for me.  I first watched it on my own last fall while laid up with an upper respiratory infection when we got home from my dad's funeral, and it was just the right kind of hope-filled western to boost my spirits.  I watched it again this summer with my husband after a crushingly stressful week, and it once again both soothed me and perked me up.  It has such a flavor of insistent optimism.  None of the main characters ever frets that they won't succeed at what they need to do, so the viewer never does either.  And that is so much what I need, sometimes.  Determined and confident cowboys.  Such good medicine.

I had watched The Sacketts (1979) not long before seeing this the first time, and I was absolutely tickled to see Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, and Jeff Osterage playing brothers in a Louis L'Amour adaptation again.  Although I mightily enjoyed The Sacketts, most of my enjoyment there was due to having read all the Sackett books by L'Amour and liking how the characters were brought to life onscreen.  I haven't read the book The Shadow Riders yet, but man, do I like the movie!  (I'm not entirely clear which came first, actually -- the book or the movie?  I read somewhere that L'Amour wrote this story for Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott to star in, so did he write the book first, or just the storyline?  I haven't really dug around enough to find out.  If you know, please tell me!)  In some ways, I think this is a stronger movie than The Sacketts -- particularly in its ability to be enjoyed by people who don't know the storyline ahead of time.  I had to explain some backstory stuff and other things to my husband while watching The Sacketts because he got a bit confused by some of it, but such was never the case for The Shadow Riders.

Anyway, the story follows three brothers: Mac (Tom Selleck), Dal (Sam Elliott), and Jesse (Jeff Osterhage) Traven.  (Why does Jesse get a full name, but Mac and Dal only get what feel like half names?  Inquiring minds want to know.)  The film opens during the very end of the Civil War, with Confederate soldier Dal and Union soldier Dal just trying to get home to their Texas ranch again.  

I have to pause here and mention that my husband is a big fan of Sam Elliott.  And there's a moment when Mac and Dal first arrive home and are greeted by their father (Harry Carey, Jr.), but their mother (Jane Greer) isn't sure for a minute if Dal is who they say he is because a) he was reported dead during the war, and b) he's covered basically his whole face up with a bushy beard.  But when Dal says, "How're you doing, Mama?" she knows it's him because, as she says, "There's only one man in the world with that voice."  At that point, my husband completely busted up and was alternately laughing and crowing, "She's got that right!"  And he really loves to quote that moment now.

Anyway, as soon as they get home, they have to leave right away again because their two sisters and their brother Jesse have been kidnapped by white slavers, along with the woman Dal loves silently and deeply, Kate (Katharine Ross).  Off Mac and Dal go, determined to do whatever it takes to rescue their siblings and Dal's One True Love and whoever else might need rescuing.

Meanwhile, Kate is bound and determined to escape their captors and take all the rest of the kidnappees with her before they can be sold in Mexico.  And Kate is the sort of woman who doesn't get defeated easily.  I want to be friends with her.

Jesse gets free with Kate's help and joins back up with his brothers to plot how to rescue their sisters and Kate, and free the other captives -- the bad guys took a bunch of men like Jesse too to sell as slaves to Mexican silver mines.  (They're equal opportunity kidnappers, you see.)

The brothers enlist the help of their rascally Uncle "Black Jack" Traven (Ben Johnson), who steals every scene he's in.  I've been a Ben Johnson fan since I was 11 or 12, ever since I first saw Chisum (1970) -- I am always happy to see his name on the cast list for a movie, because I know I'll smile while watching it.  Even when he plays an antagonist, I still just want to hug him.

Of course there are lots of exciting altercations and narrow escapes and plot twists and such, including a sequence involving a micro-trope I love exceedingly much: people walking around on top of a moving train.  Even the first time I watched this, I was in no doubt of the outcome, though.  And that doesn't make this movie boring, it makes it comfortable and relaxing and downright fun.  For me, anyway!  It feels like a throwback to the westerns of the 1950s where everything is guaranteed to turn out all right in the end.  And I love that.

Maybe that old-fashioned vibe is partly due to The Shadow Riders being directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, who directed quite a few of my favorite old western movies, like The Rare Breed (1965) and Chisum (1970), plus episodes of so many great old TV westerns.  (He also directed The Blue and the Gray (1982), which I love very dearly, but that's not a western.  I still had to mention it, though.)

Is this movie family friendly?  Mostly.  Obviously, there's the whole human-trafficking plotline, but it's handled in a matter-of-fact way, shown to be a wrong thing that Must Be Stopped.  There's some mild cussing, consistent with a 1980s made-for-TV movie.  The violence is non-gory.  There's a bit of dialog innuendo about the fate the female kidnappees are headed for, and also a scene when we're introduced to Selleck's character where he's lying in bed kissing a woman and they get interrupted, but everyone is fully clothed and it is minimally suggestive.  I'd say it's fine for older kids and teens.

You can stream The Shadow Riders on Amazon, Tubi, and the Roku Channel, and also buy it on DVD and Blu-Ray.

This review is a contribution to this year's Legends of Western Cinema Week, which I'm co-hosting this week.