Uncontrollable (The Wild Bunch, 1969)

Pike Bishop and his gang are hoping to retire. They plan a last big score, but are betrayed by ex-partner Deke Thorton. The last remaining survivors of the gang make the run to Mexico.

Staying in the hometown of gang member Angel, they find the town ruled by the cruel and brutal General Mapache. Their planned heist goes wrong and they run afoul of Mapache.

The over arching theme of the Wild Bunch is the death of the time of Outlaws. None of our characters are “heroes”. Holden’s Pike is a man who has lived outside of the law, and has reached a point where he has grown tired of it. But the reality is, the life of an outlaw is not one that allows you to exit gracefully.

The Wild Bunch is vicious and violent, but also an absolutely memorable western. Holden turns in a great world weary performance. He wants out, but getting out is not an easy road.

Visually, Peckinpah and his team built the film around rapid fire edits that combined normal and slow motion footage. This makes for a visually compelling technique.

March 8, 2018 0

The Haunting Past (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962)

Senator Ransom Stoddard and his wife have come back to their home town to pay respects to his late friend Tom Doniphon. Some wonder why a famous senator is attending the funeral of a man who seems not to really be of any note.

A persistent reporter convinces the reluctant senator to give him an interview. Stoddard made his name by killing the notorious Liberty Valance years earlier. But there is a dark secret hidden away and Stoddard is ready to put it on the record.

Buoyed by strong performances from Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, the Man Who shot Liberty Valance explores living a life on the foundation of a lie. Stewart’s Stoddard carries guilt over the circumstances involving Tom and Valance.

Valance is a pretty straight forward thug who wants to amass power, the film makes no real effort to get the audience on his side. You see Stoddard’s actions as fairly heroic, but information he learns later eats away at him as the years go by.

This is a terrific film and a classic of the genre. I say this as one who has never been a huge fan of John Wayne. Admittedly, some of that is annoyance with narratives about “where have the real men gone”. But I appreciate Wayne in this film. Tom is a sympathetic character, who finds Stoddard, in some ways, really interfered with his life.

March 4, 2018 0

On a Pale Horse (Pale Rider, 1985)

An itinerant Preacher rides into a mining town facing pressure from a greedy mining company. He ends up helping the town stand up to the owner of the mining company and his thugs.

The simple story is a throwback to earlier Eastwood westerns, with Clint’s character having no name other than “Preacher”. I suspect Pale Rider has had the greatest influence on the perception of Eastwood’s western history. He is almost supernatural in his fighting and shooting (and Eastwood has suggested that the Preacher is literally a ghost).

It feels like the film is transitioning away from heroic glorification of violence, but not entirely. The bad guys are bad and never all that sympathetic.

Pale Rider draws from the Classic Shane very heavily in it’s story that you cannot help but compare the two…some have claimed the film is a remake, but Pale Rider gives no such credit to Shane. I suspect more that Eastwood wanted to explore those themes. And the key plot points are, at this point, such a trope of westerns that it is possible they did not even realize how close they were following Shane.

Pale Rider is, overall, a pretty strong Eastwood film, even though it brings little knew to westerns or even Eastwood westerns.

The movie had a beautiful poster too.

March 1, 2018 0

Inevitability (Shane, 1953)

A quiet stranger rides onto the land of Joe Starrett and his family. After initially trying to rush him off (believing him to be trouble), the stranger backs him up with a local rancher tries to strong-arm the Starretts off their land. Only giving the name Shane, the stranger starts to work for Joe in exchange for a place to sleep.

Shane finds that the Starretts and several other families are struggling to hold onto their land. Local cattleman Ryker wants all the land for himself and with his employs muscle, is constantly pushing against them. Shane finds himself dealing with Stryker’s men, and after a fist fight, things escalate.

Alan Ladd’s performance is a classic of the western genre. Shane is polite, but tough. He is secretive, but still bonds with the Starrett family. At one point, young Joey Starrett claims to love Shane almost as much as his own father.

Jack Palance, who would become famous for his villainous roles in the years to come, is almost like Shane’s dark mirror. He does not talk a lot, he is highly skilled with a gun, making him an ominous threat.

Ryker, on the other hand is kind of an interesting bad guy. He works hard to seem like the good guy in all the proceedings. He offers Joe good money for his land and a job. He also is impressed by Shane’s fighting skills and offers him a job. But when he cannot have his way, he resorts to threats, violence and murder.

While the film seems to be a good versus evil tale, there is an undercurrent of cynicism. Shane is trying to flee from his past as a gunslinger…and we are left with a moral of “You cannot change.” Shane tries to live a life outside of violence, but it follows him around.

Probably my only real problem with Shane is one that, truthfully, I have with all films of this era. I feel like the music of films from the fifties is often not that distinctive. And the music of Shane feels heavily generic…and at times even works against the mood of a given scene.

But, still, Shane has shaped one of the western genre’s most popular and iconic archetypal stories. The mysterious stranger who helps the down trodden citizens oppressed by a powerful villain (usually a business man or corrupt lawman). It has earned it’s place as a true classic.

February 28, 2018 0

Western Expansion

I apologize for going silent the past week. Everyone has genres that they kind of get “burnt out” on. While I enjoy westerns, it is the one genre where I can hit a wall, and need a break. So I took a bit of a breather from watching westerns.

Due to this, I am going to continue my reviews of westerns into March. I have several that I still want to get to, including the films that inspired me to want to do a review of westerns in the first place.

Still to come are reviews of films such as Shane, Tombstone and Pale Rider.

February 27, 2018 0

Streets Run Red (Cassidy Red, 2017)

A young prostitute who appears to have had a very bad day starts to talk with a saloon (brothel?) piano player…an older man named Cricket, who tells her a tale of heartache and revenge.

Joe Cassidy was the daughter of a prostitute. We then go back in time to learn how the two met. While young Jakob and Joe were drawn to each other, she ends up opting for a life of comfort with Tom Hayes. And affair begins and Joe leaves town (with Jakob planning to follow). Prostitute and friend Rowena tells her Tom killed Jakob and so she leaves, intent on getting revenge.

She returns to kill the man who killed her lover, only to discover that he is still alive and in prison.

Cassidy Red is focused on the romance between Joe and Jakob. It is a fairly standard “forbidden romance” tale. But the western elements are kept me entertained. First time writer and director Matt Knudsen seems to have a love of the genre that comes through.

I especially liked the performances by Gregory Zaragoza as the melancholy Cricket and Rick Kramer’s Cort Cassidy (Joe’s father).

The film’s opening credits are very memorable (evoking the animated open of Fistful of Dollars). Honestly, they put me right in the mood for a spaghetti western, and Cassidy Red works to deliver it. The focus on backstory can slow things down, but the core tale is pretty effective.

Supported with some strong performances, Cassidy Red should keep the attention of fans of westerns. And man, I really liked those animated titles.

February 20, 2018 0

Beat the Devil (Diablo, 2015)

I gotta say…if you were going to make a western about young Bill Munny, Scott Eastwood would be the guy you would hire to play him.

Jackson is a veteran of the Civil War whose young wife is kidnapped by Mexicans (the film is intentionally vague on this…other than they are Mexican). He sets out to find her. Along the journey he crosses paths with the cruel Ezra. Ezra keeps showing up at the worst times, leaving a path of bodies.

Diablo takes what could be an impediment, Scott Eastwood looks remarkably like his father Clint, and uses it to it’s advantage. The audience fills in the rather loose sketch of a character with what we expect from his father’s westerns. Jackson is a loose sketch of a character until about the last half hour of the film.

Eastwood does not quite have his father’s charisma (at least not yet), and so it benefits him that the film allows the viewer to fill in the blanks. Walton Goggins plays the mysterious Ezra with a real undercurrent of menace. Why is he following Jackson? Why is he so quick to kill with no remorse?

There is a moment late in the film that saves it from being a generic imitation of old Clint Eastwood films. Diablo is not perfect, but it is a decent western that seeks to subvert the expectations they audience brings with them.

February 19, 2018 0

On the Run (The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976)

At the end of the Civil War, Josey Wales just wanted to live in peace. When Union Soldiers burn his house and kill his wife, he takes up with a band of rebellious Confederate Soldiers. Eventually, their leader Fletcher convinces everyone to turn themselves in to the Union Army. Wales refuses to join his compatriots. Watching from afar, he starts to realize Fletcher has sold his men out and they are going to be killed.

After causing havoc, Josey only is able to save the life of one young man, Jamie. The two go on the run from Union Officer Terrill and Fletcher. Along the way, Josey starts to pick up other strays, such as the wise old Lone Wati, Laura Lee and her grandmother.

Wales is a remarkably sympathetic character. His whole motive for joining the Confederate rebels is the death of his wife at the hands of Union soldiers. He never seems to display any interest in the motives that drove the Confederacy, and it seems clear he would have never joined the group had he and his wife been left alone.

Chief Dan George’s Lone Watie is a rather thoughtful character. He is far more complex than the Native American representations of Hollywood westerns. This is actually true of the film’s outlook on the Native American community. They are not savages. They are educated men with traditions and beliefs. They don’t speak in choppy english.

The Outlaw Josie Wales is before Eastwood started to question the portrayal of violence, and so it is unquestionably seen as justified behavior anytime Wales gets brutal. But it is an entertaining film with a terrific cast.

February 19, 2018 0

The Wanderer (High Plains Drifter, 1973)

The small mining town of Lago is shaken by the arrival of a mysterious stranger who came from the desert. After he guns down three men harassing him, the town wants his help. The sheriff was killed by a gang, and they want him to help them deal the returning gang.

After agreeing, the Stranger discovers the town was actually complicit in the death of their sheriff, who had discovered important information about who owned the land the mine is on. However, they turned on the gang. This raises the question if the town will also turn on the Stranger.

To be honest, I have trouble rooting for the Stranger in this film. Very early on, there is a scene where one of the women of the town berates the Stranger. He drags her off and rapes her. And this is not a scene I can play off as “it was the times…” This is not presented as one of those outdated “she really wanted it, he just needed to overcome her frosty exterior” sequences. The film recognizes it is rape and treats it like she has it coming. It casts the Stranger in a very unpleasant light previous Eastwood leads did not have, even prior “scoundrels”.

This casts a long shadow over the story making the entire affair tough. The Stranger is clearly the hero of the story, but he commits an obscene act of cruelty that makes him impossible to see in the light of “hero”. Not even an anti-hero.

February 14, 2018 0

The Kidd Is Alright (Joe Kidd, 1972)

Ex-Bounty Hunter Joe Kidd is in jail. His opportunity for freedom comes when Frank Harlan wants to hire him to take out the revolutionary leader Luis Chuma. Reluctant at first, when he learns Chuma has raided his ranch (and hurt a worker), Kidd joins up.

Kidd vows to bring Chuma to actual justice, rather than to a lynch mob, putting him at odds with Harlan.

While Kidd is not a mysterious character, Joe Kidd leans more towards the violent tough guy of Eastwood’s western persona. Joe is a guy who would be happy to be neutral, and it really takes Chuma crossing a personal line. But his willingness to avoid violent revenge makes him stand out a bit in the westerns of Eastwood.

Written by Elmore Leonard, Joe Kidd is a good western, though not quite as distinctive as some of the westerns that Eastwood had yet to come.

February 13, 2018 0