Top Ten Tuesday: Best Westerns (Not Motels)

Six-shooters and horses, brothels and saloons… the western film is as American as apple pie. Back in the early days, the hero and the villain was always clearly defined, the good guy always won and got the gal, and nobody ever bled when they got shot. Oh, have things have changed over the years. In the sixties and seventies, all that changed when filmmakers such as Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone decided the genre needed a reality check, stepping up the violence and pursuing more authentic westerns. In the last 20-30 years, the western has suffered a slow decline, but it’s not dead yet. Today, the western is as diverse as the American culture, and albeit a rare treat, the genre has become a creative playground for talented filmmakers to experiment and honor the classics at the same time, resulting in some very unique films including Jim Jarmusch’s DEAD MAN and Takashi Miike’s SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO. Another unique vision of the western genre, adapted from the popular DC Comics title JONAH HEX, opens in theaters nationwide this Friday, June 18th and stars Josh Brolin, Megan Fox and John Malkovich. In keeping with the mood, we’ve compiled our top ten list of the best westerns.

Honorable Mention: PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID

When it comes to westerns and war flicks, no one really captured them the same way as director Sam Peckinpah realized his stories in a unique light unlike any other. PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID is a great example of that unusual combination of gritty reality and poignant sentimentalism that Peckinpah embodied. The film tells the story of an aging Pat Garrett, played by James Coburn, who is hired as a lawman to track down his old friend and outlaw Billy the Kid, played by Kris Kristofferson. This isn’t your typical western, especially since Bob Dylan not only plays a nearly speechless supporting role and provides the non-traditional but extremely effective soundtrack.

10. TOMBSTONE

When it comes to westerns, some of the most memorable films are those that address a real-life legend. Wyatt Earp is one of those legends, a lawman of the old west and one not to be tussled with. Of the numerous films that depict his story, none are quite as entertaining and successful as 1993’s TOMBSTONE. Directed by George P. Cosmatos, this dramatic albeit Hollywood style western captures the essence of the legend, more than the man himself. Kurt Russell protrays Wyatt Earp, accompanied by his posse that included Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan (Bill Paxton) Earp and Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer). The cast as a whole was fabulous, but Kilmer was especially engaging as the enigmatic, somewhat unstable Doc Holliday. The supporting cast also deserves praise, featuring Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Jason Priestly, Thomas Haden Church and Charlton Heston.

09. THE PROPOSITION

While it is the most recent western of this list, DO NOT negate this film. It takes the Good vs. Bad story skeleton and put a small twist on it. Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his younger brother, Mike, have been captured by lawman in Australia by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone). Stanley gives a proposition to Charlie to find his older brother, Arthur (Danny Huston), and kill him in order to stop the havoc that Arthur and his family gang are causing. What unfolds is a harsh landscape that doesn’t mimic Leone but definitely feels like a film Leone would do today. Gritty, unapologetic and accompanied by a score from Nick Cave, THE PROPOSITION should be a film that every Western film fan should check out.

08. HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER

The barbershop scene near the beginning of HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER sets the tone for the entire film. Clint Eastwood takes on the role of “The Stranger” — a crack shot who’s capable of taking out the trash, but not totally a good guy and we never know his reasons as to why this mysterious gunfighter rode into town. Throughout, the usual dead-eye shooting “Stranger” does the dirty work for a town of gutless pansies (with blood on their hands) and kills all the bad-asses. Directed by Eastwood, it’s only at the end of the film that you realize what you’ve been watching — an old western ghost story.

07. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

We could simply tell you that THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) is one of our favorites because it’s a western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI, but that’s merely part of the brilliance of this classic. The film, directed by John Sturges, holds water in it’s own right, filled with action, suspense in the classic western tradition and iconic acting. Having curiously become a sort of transition film between the old school western of the 50’s and the new school of the spaghetti western which would arrive in the 60’s, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN boasts a star-studded cast including Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Eli Wallach, James Coburn and Robert Vaughn. For newbies to the western genre, this is a great starter film that melds the old with the new, provides and interesting story at an engaging pace!

06. HIGH NOON

HIGH NOON is the quintessential Western saturated with a landscape of nervous townspeople, a former girlfriend, a loving wife, and a scared deputy. Gary Cooper’s “Sheriff Kane” (for which he won the Oscar) is the archetypal American hero, bound by duty and honor, to make a solo stand against a gang of outlaws arriving on the Noon train looking to gun him down. Effectively making the audience anxious, the film happens in real time and the ever-present town’s clock serves as the harbinger of the sheriff’s destiny. Devoid of any gunfights until the conclusion of the film, the lack of action and virtuous script is nonetheless engrossing. In 90 minutes, director Fred Zinnemann transforms the once frightened Kane into a marshal who’s through taking everyone’s crap. As Kane says, “I’m tired of being shoved.”

05. THE WILD BUNCH

Dying in a hail of bullets whilst taking out scores of people never looked so cool as it did in Sam Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH (1968). Peckinpah was an expert in violence. It was his medium. In a classic western like SHANE, violence is viewed as a necessary evil only to be employed as a last resort, and killing is depicted as fast and pure. In THE WILD BUNCH violence is presented with applause, and the killing is prolonged, tormented, and bloody. Appropriately, THE WILD BUNCH is about the passing of one generation who kill for honor to another generation who murder for fun and games.

04. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID is still as fresh today as it was when it came out 41 years ago. Paul Newman and Robert Redford look as though they are having a great time and their interaction is a key factor in the movies success. It’s always been a lightweight romp with just enough action and violent to add grit but it’s also a real product of its time. The fading glory of Butch and Sundance and the end of their outlaw era nicely mirrors the end of the wild sixties. The scene where Butch and Sundance, although mortally wounded still find the courage to dare to dream about a future is really what fine writing and performing is all about.

03. THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

“The Man With No Name” — The trilogy that started it all, bringing the spaghetti western to the forefront of cinema, didn’t begin but ended with THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. The third and final film in the trilogy starring Clint Eastwood is commonly considered the best, the crescendo of the three-part epic. Eastwood’s calm, collect performance as the fast draw gunslinger whose most deadly weapon is his cunning to outsmart both sides of a quarrel to his own benefit. Superbly directed by Sergio Leone, the film moves abruptly away from the shyness to violence of the typical Hollywood western of the 50’s and is accompanied by an absolutely brilliant, genius original score by Ennio Morricone, which has forever immortalized Leone’s trilogy beyond any other single element of the production.

02. UNFORGIVEN

After Sheriff Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) is gunned down by William Munny (Clint Eastwood) at the climax of UNFORGIVEN his dying words are “I don’t deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house.” In his last western, Eastwood turned genre conventions profoundly upside down. The old Hollywood westerns would end with John Wayne killing the outlaw, getting the girl and then building a church or building a house. What Daggett was really saying was: “I’m the Sheriff. You’re the outlaw. I’m supposed to shoot you. This isn’t how westerns are supposed to end” After UNFORGIVEN, Clint turned his back on the genre with good reason. It’s the final word on westerns. “I was building a house.”

01. ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

While the majority of western fans and Leone fans praise THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY as the best western of all time, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST seems more epic than the former. From a story co-written by Italian horror director Dario Argento, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST stars Jason Robards, Henry Fonda, and an un-mustached Charles Bronson. The opening scene will grip viewers in a very tense standoff that will make you realize you are watching a scene that could only be pulled off by Leone. Bronson plays a character named “Harmonica” who ends up protecting a woman named Jill (Claudia Cardinale) from Fonda’s Frank who is trying to get to her first to kill her and take over land that a railroad tycoon is interested in.