Your favorite CLINT EASTWOOD western ?

You should do a USA WESTERN film thread poll.

 

Although not nearly as many as Clint did, Tommy Lee Jones has both on the small and the big screens.

 

Tommy Lee Jones is known for turning down every western offered
to him. After Lonesome Dove mini-series in 1989, he directed
The Good Ol' Boys (1995) for television and Three Burials of
Melquaides Estrada (2005) for theaters. Then he did The
Homesman in 2014 which many people thought should have
embarrassed him it was so bad. That's 4 westerns in his career.

No one does. A number of movie stars have expressed interest in making
westerns but the studios have turned their backs on the genre. Once in a
while a western sneaks out, but usually has some twisted political agenda
to justify itself, and then no one likes it. The recent The Homesman and
Hostiles for example.

Clint Eastwood hasn't made a western since Unforgiven in 1991, released
in 1992. That was 26 years ago. Altogether he made 11 westerns including
the TV series Rawhide plus 3 spags for a total of 14. That's not very many
westerns, in fact it's less than most big stars made in one decade. Some of
his westerns like Pale Rider, Bronco Billy and Joe Kidd did not do well
at the box-office.

In Italy and Spain, in the 1960s and 1970s, several Euro actors starred in
more spags than Clint would make westerns in his entire career.

Robert Redford made three significant westerns and then walked away
from the genre. He returned for two contemporary westerns.

Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck both made a number of TV westerns and some
theatrical westerns. Elliott walked away from the genre when he got older.
Selleck kept trying but couldn't get his films financed. He's about 75 now
and is not likely to make another. Kevin Costner made three significant
westerns -- Silverado in 1979 and two with his own money, the Academy
Award winning Dances With Wolves which was a blockbuster hit and
Open Range in 2003. Open Range was a hit but Costner was badly
screwed on the distribution and never saw any money from it. He's trying
to make other westerns but has been unable to secure the finance.

 

Soldier Blue was pretty controversial in its day.

 

Top ten from the poll list.

The Good the Bad & The Ugly
Unforgiven
Josey Wales
High Plains Drifter
For A few Dollars More
Pale Rider
Fistful
Bronco Billy
Hang em High
Joe Kidd

 

High Plains Drifter, followed by Pale Rider.

 

Sounds like a tasty menu dish.

 

The ending in the full uncut version of the film is by far the most disturbing/disgusting thing i've ever seen. Knowing now that the whole thing actually happened as portrayed only makes it worse. I've never forgotten it, and never re-watched it .

 

That post was meant for another thread. Never seen the uncut version.

 

Well, he is always spitting. But he only gets the dog once.

 

Always felt that was cruel.

 

It's fair to say that all westerns are fantasies. Hollywood stars playing cowboys, white men playing indians, not an actual Native American to be found in 99% of westerns up until the 1980s or so. Stereotypes galore. You're putting forth a false narrative about these movies - they weren't documentaries or serious intellectual studies of a culture. They were cheaply produced and quickly churned out mass entertainment.

Lastly, there isn't a single movie genre or any other art form that isn't built upon the construct of stealing ideas from those before you. Not a single one.

 

Support Your Local Gunfighter ?
The western mirth.
Jack Elam filmed this around the time of ONce Upon A Time In The West.

 

Well, the only true westerns must be the silent movies, I guess. I think many of the stylish and beautiful looking ‘50s westerns were re-tellings of myths too. Leone (and later Peckinpah, Eastwood himself) updated the stylings and the moral. If you take issue with stealing intellectual property than the movies are a treasure chest of stolen ideas and scenes....It’s a miracle the Leone estate hasn’t called Tarantino’s lawyer yet....

 

Or a busy night at a bordello...

 

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly trumps them all for me but that's down to good old Sergio more than anything else.

 

Much prefer to Once upon a time in the West.( Sergio western that is).

 

Nonsense. The above demonstrates how little you know. No one postulated that westerns were
documentaries or serious studies of a culture. Although sometimes they were. I could recite
chapter and verse, but it would be wasted on you. You'd need a more sophisticated
understanding to hold up your end of the discussion.

If you seriously believe that American westerns did not come out of a way of life and reflect a
way of life and a culture that exists, you can't be reasoned with. For you to mis characterize
American westerns as total fantasies with no underpinning in reality is total ignorance. Your
narrative is the false one.

Not all writing and filmmaking is imitative. There has been as much originality as imagination in
the movies, and in westerns, too. Westerns have always been acknowledged as an American
invention that grew out of our culture and way of life.

Which do you think is fantasy in The Covered Wagon (1925) and The Way West (1967) -- the
landscape the Conestoga wagons are crossing, or the wagons?

Start with these, all available:

1915 Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws -- Sheriff Bill Tilghman's film about tracking down and arresting the Al Jennings gang.
1921 Jesse James Under the Black Flag -- Jesse Jr plays himself and his father in this eyewitness account of how things were.
1922 Lady of the Dugout -- outlaw Al Jenning's film about survival on the prairie. Al J. Jennings - IMDb
1951 Westward the Women --
1969 Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here -- Abraham Polonsky's film reconstructing an actual manhunt.
1975 I Will Fight No More Forever -- docudrama western about Chief Joseph's flight to Canada.
1979 Heartland -- dry film of mail-order bride's Elinore Pruitt Stewart's letters to The Atlantic Monthly April 1909 to November 1913.
1980 The Long Riders -- factual dramatization, the best film ever made on the James and Younger gang.
1982 The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez -- factual dramatization, in a class of its own.

That's just a beginning.

 

Someone voted for Paint Your wagon.

 

Westward The Woman surprised Hollywood hasn’t remade it. One of Robert Taylor‘s great films.

 

Not me but I was thinking of it. Big Lee Marvin fan. Kinda underrated.

 

Lee Marvin--Big Red One. wow, what a performance

 

Thanks for your answer and interesting suggestions! Despite the constant grumpiness very informative; I’ll check out some of the movies you mention!

 

The Last Hunt ( 1956).

 

I've only seen "Support You Local Sheriff" and "Support You Local Gunfighter" once each but remember liking them a lot... I'm still kicking myself for not buying the "double feature" DVD containing both movies when I had the chance... I thought "I'll pick it up next time", well next came and it was gone...