1FF's 71 favourite westerns.

[Craig]

I'm not drunk, like to register your interest.

 

[Craig]

Interest is slow, but it's a matter of quality over quantity, we will be having intermittent profiles of major players in the genre over the course of the thread.

 

[SALTIRE]

Seen quite a few over the years and could probably do a top twenty after looking at some lists!

 

[Craig]

It's settled then, my two favourite movie geeks (excluding Cas ) have registered their interest, send me a list of 20, 1st being worth 20 points and so on, and we'll do it. No deadline as of yet, we need to generate more interest than the 70's list. Discussion will go ahead regardless though.

 

[Freakyteeth]

If Lo chiamavano Trinità, Django, and Django Unchained don't win there is a major fucking conspiracy

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

^^^ comedy Spaghetti Westerns are a rabbit hole even I won't go down. Absolutely appalling.

 

[SALTIRE]

Yeah wondering if comedy ones would be valid or just choose dramatic films.

 

[Craig]

So long as it's a western you can vote for whatever you like.

 

[mowgli]

I would only vote for what i believe should win this poll - The Good,The Bad And The Ugly the only western i'd give 10/10.

 

[Benito]

The Wild Bunch
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
The Searchers
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Mcabe & Mrs Miller

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

I hate overrated/underrated convos, BUT... The Searchers is possibly the most egregiously overrated film ever. On a good day it scrapes in at the bottom of the top 10 John Ford films (which is praise enough, to be fair), but it's a staple at the sharp end of GOAT lists everywhere, from highbrow lists a la Sight and Sound to middlebrow stuff on IMDB etc. It's fucking everywhere, like Japanese Knotweed. I get that it's ostentatiously Important in its themes and wotnot, but its reputation is mystifying to me, and I suspect largely recursive and self-fulfilling... all the Empire noodles watching it and nodding because everyone knows this is the The One, but then never bothering with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, or whatever...

 

[Oaf]

I keep seeing this thread and thinking it says "50 favourite wrestlers" and thinking "oh good, somebody is finally doing another one of these threads". And then I get disappointed.

Somebody make a top wrestlers thread again.

Shotgun not me.

 

[Craig]

I've had 2 lists and one solo selection so far, I won't pretend I'm not disappointed.

 

[SALTIRE]

Will have mine done in the next few days.

 

[Craig]

Deadline for lists is set for Saturday, then we can crack on with it on Sunday. As of now it's Cas, Carel, Aber gas and myself discussing our fave cowboys and indians films.

 

[Craig]

We've had a spanner thrown in the works. Someone can't narrow their list down to 20, so this is a heads up for anyone who sent in a list that if you want to add another 10 to it you have until 23:59 tonight to do so.

 

[Aber gas]

We've had a spanner thrown in the works. Someone can't narrow their list down to 20, so this is a heads up for anyone who sent in a list that if you want to add another 10 to it you have until 23:59 tonight to do so.

Ffs not another 10 ? Looks like young guns is back in

 

[Craig]

Four proper lists and a couple of half arsed attempts. All contributions are appreciated tho.

71 films in total. Let's jump straight in.

36th - Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065051/

35th - Maverick (1994) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110478/

34th - Major Dundee (1965) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059418/

 

[Craig]

32nd - The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065542/

31st - Lonely Are The Brave (1962) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056195/

 

[Craig]

Joint 30th.
Young Guns (1988) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096487/

Blazing Saddles (1974) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/

 

[Craig]

Joint 29th
Shenandoah (1965) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059711/

Black Robe (1991) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101465/

Track of the Cat (1954) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047603/

The Missouri Breaks (1976) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074906/

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Big fan of Lonely Are the Brave but didnae quite make me list. Only had room for one tragic/melancholy man-out-of-time post-western and there are two I like better.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Joint 29th
Track of the Cat (1954) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047603/

Spoiler: TLDR

Mine #20. Snowbound psychological western with a bit of Poe and Moby Dick about it… Robert Mitchum hunting a quasi-mythical mega panther whilst a bleak family drama plays out back on the homestead. There aren't enough snowy Westerns, presumably because it makes for intolerably difficult shooting conditions and a continuity nightmare, but those that have been made are usually a bit odd, and this is a case in point. Wellman conceived it as black and white film shot in colour, w/ stark and v. stagy monochrome interiors, wild and wintry location shots, and occasional flashes of expressionistic colour. The result is very weird… Brechtian, Freudian, a wee bit mystical… it doesn't quite pull it off in truth, but I find the attempt fascinating. You'd have to go some way to find an odder picture coming out of Hollywood around the same time, I reckon…

 

[Craig]

It does look interesting, as do a few out so far that I haven't seen, Major Dundee, Lonely Are The Brave and Shenandoah namely. Getting ideas for westerns to watch was an ulterior motive in doing this though as my interest has really been piqued by my film viewing habits recently. Used to watch em all the time with my grandparents when I was a nipper but I'll be damned if I can remember most of them.

Black Robe was my first nomination, not really a western in the traditional sense I suppose as it's set on the frontier in Quebec in the 17th century, but it's a prime example of the fish out of water reluctantly coming to appreciate the culture of a foreign people type dealy that I enjoy (not the only one of this type I nominated). It's much more of a slow burner than that trailer suggests but is well worth the effort. The performances, scenery and music are all magnificent, and it can be as brutal and exciting as it is sombrely contemplative. I love how it manages to show the natives in a favourably sympathetic light without going over the top and presenting them as saintly beings being dispossessed by the demon white settlers, I mean they could be real bastards too.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

I was gonner ask about that one. I aint never even heard of it, I don't think.

 

[Craig]

I'd be happy to dig out the DVD and send it ya.

Joint 28th
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036244/

The Alamo (1960) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053580/

The Homesman (2014) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2398231/

How the West Was Won (1962) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056085/

 

[Craig]

Joint 27th
Django (1966) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060315/

3:10 to Yuma (2007) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381849/

The Salvation (2014) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2720680/

The Homesman and The Salvation were my picks. The former follows a spinster in her 30's played by Hilary Swank charged with taking three frontier women gone mad back to Iowa from Nebraska enlisting the help of Tommy Lee Jones' no good drifter along the way. It's quite upsetting and depressing as hell at times but also beautifully shot and funny at times too as well as being downright weird in places, I like the subject matter, I don't believe I've come across anything similar before. The Salvation follows Mads Mikkelsen's Danish former soldier who incurs the wrath of a sadistic former army colonel and his band of killers (including Eric Cantona) after he kills the colonel's brother who had murdered his wife and son.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

How the West Was Won (1962) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056085/

Mine #19. Completely absurd mega epic, a throw back and the last of its kind. Huge cast, massive score, bigger set ups, three directors, three hours, Cinerama, manifest destiny, the Civil War, the railroad, the whole lot of it wrapped up a cloyingly romantic and ideologically noxious package. But I cannot resist it. If you're gonna go big then go big. No half measures here.

Joint 27th
Django (1966) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060315/

#18. The best non Leone spaghetti western (probably). Nasty, morbid and nihilist, cutting to the quick of the cynicism at the heart of the Italian version of the genre. Man as brutal beast, venal, violent and racist, wallowing in the muck. An ugly film in the best possible sense. Brilliant score by Luis Bacalov. Since besmirched by gargoyle faced onanist Quentin Tarantino.

 

[SALTIRE]

My 3:10 To Yuma was the 1957 version not the remake, unless that's to come Craig?

Good lists so far, never fancied that Django however.

 

[Craig]

Well done Salty, you've ruined the countdown, I don't know why I bother.