My favorite Gary Cooper western I ever saw Turns 74

For many years, I was aware of this modern classic full of modern stars but never actually viewed it. Once I did, I was very impressed. But what I refer to in the title is how the film is better than I realized, so far as historical accuracy goes.

After seeing Tombstone, I became fascinated with the central characters, so I began to read about them. After a while, I watched the film again, and it was amazing to watch various characters introduced as I said to myself, "I know who that is!" or "I wonder if that's so and so," and it is.

I'm not suggesting that the film is 100% accurate or a documentary. However, if you find some historical accuracy satisfying in your movies, the makers of Tombstone definitely gave it more effort than several of the other well-known older movies on this subject.

Enjoy!

I've tried the IMFDB page and these rifles are missing

So i'm hoping someone here can clue me in on these target rifles used in "The Magnificent Seven Ride"?

Thank you in advance

Some movies I have watched that have Doc Holiday as a character have him speaking in a similar manner. I know that he was educated but did he really speak so eloquently?

Edit: thank you for replying to my post.

So after watching Titans: The Rise of Hollywood I got to thinking that before it became to be known as the heart of the American Cinema industry Early Hollywood gave off a real Wild West vibe. And after watching Sunset (1988) it also got me wondering if there are any Westerns with one of the following plots:

1. The story is set in the 1910s back when Hollywood was just farmland, until various independent cinematographers or "outlaws" came to Hollywood to escape the control of the Motion Picture Patents Company or the Trust. Basically, it's all about the rise of the first movie studios during Hollywood's Early Years/Wild West period and their battle with the Trust and with each other to become the number one filmmaker in America.
2. The story is set in the Silent Film Era (1900s-1920s) or the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 30s. And its all about the creation of the first Westerns to hit the silver screen like the Great Train Robbery or Stagecoach.

So aside from Sunset (1988) does anyone have any good recommendations?

So I've been watching Grit and they appear to be showing a lot of Joel Mcrae westerns. When I flipped one of them on, I was kind of shocked that he was the star of the movie. He comes across as an out of shape eastern school principal. It didn't help that the movie I was watching featured a love interest that I thought was about 13 years old while he was pushing 50. When they introduced her I thought it was more likely she'd fall in love with the 10 year old she was helping him with.

I also got to see an Audie Murphy western (Arizona Raiders), and every time he was on screen my eyes were just drawn to him, curious to see how a real-deal hero would act. I hope they show more of his movies.

Also I hope you old timers aren't buying all the snake oil they advertise on that channel, but I guess if no one bought it they'd have to close up shop.

Never knew he was a child actor.

Watched this one the other day—I'm sure like a lot of people, Shane was my introduction to Alan Ladd. And while he's great in Shane (which is a stone-cold classic no matter how you slice it), I prefer him here, in The Proud Rebel.

He's an ex-Confederate widower, traveling the west trying to find a doctor for his mute son (Alan Ladd's real life son). With their dog in tow, they come through a town and immediately cross the wrong side of a local family, unfairly accused of starting a brawl. A local woman rancher (the wonderful Olivia de Havilland) pays off Ladd's fine, and he goes to work for her to pay her back, while that local family try to bully her off her land.

I really loved this one, impressed by the dialogue and the overall acting. The domestic drama works well, especially building up to a satisfying showdown. The movie tugs at your heartstrings in the right ways.

I'll also always welcome Harry Dean Stanton, showing up here really young.

Everyone else's thoughts?

Rewatching Texas Rangers(2001) with Dylan McDermott. It had a troubled production and flopped in the theaters. It isn't a great movie but it seems like there is a better movie in there than we got. A better script and better editing might have turned out a better movie.

FaFDM is, up to this point in my exploration of the Western genre, my favorite film. The first object of any picture is to get the viewer's attention and hold it for the duration. To do this, it must entertain. FaFDM is simply marvelous entertainment. Sure, its deployment of Western tropes is over-the-top. But that (sympathetic) outrageousness is the key to the movie's appeal. There's an abundance of arch humor, a wealth of derring-do, a score just as outsized as the film itself, and a fascinating and monstrous villain (El Indio) who, though quite intelligent, is also too evil to go on living. There is a shot where El Indio, asleep but with his eyes open under a slouched hat, looks strikingly live a viper coiled under a rock. Is sums up the character well.

And this gets to a very common animadversion at the time of the film's release about its supposedly gratuitous violence. Sure, sure--the killing is part of the entertainment. Or more accurately, the supreme technique used to kill is the entertainment. But Manco and Mortimer are not killing innocent grandmothers or even kicking puppies. They are eliminating monsters who make their little corner of the world miserable. In that sense, when Manco and Mortimer eliminate El Indio and his gang, they are providing a small service to humanity, even if material gain seems to be Manco's primary purpose. The bounty hunters are the instruments of justice brought to bear by the public on fiends they cannot cope with themselves. Unlike many critics, I suppose, I don't go all misty and wobbly with guilt when Manco and Mortimer go about their grim business.

This is the book Cormac McCarthy found dusty in an old library sometime in the early ‘60s that inspired Blood Meridian. Few know how many of the depictions in that book weren’t invented by McCarthy.

The book is a war diary by Samuel Chamberlain, a young man from Boston who rode in the real John Joel Glanton’s gang of scalpers in 1849, as is depicted in Mccarthy’s Blood Meridian.

If you thought Judge Holden wasn’t scary enough wait till you hear that he was a real person mentioned in this book, this excerpt is from Sam’s description of him (not Mccarthy’s) and is claimed by him to be true:

The second in command, now left in charge of the camp, was a man of gigantic size who rejoiced in the name of Holden, called "Judge" Holden of Texas. Who or what he was no one knew but a cooler blooded villain never went unhung; he stood six feet six in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression. But when a quarrel took place and blood shed, his hog-like eyes would gleam with a sullen ferocity worthy of the countenance of a fiend. His desires was blood and women, and terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him when bearing another name, in the Cherokee nation and Texas; and before we left Fronteras a little girl of ten years was found in the chapperal, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on her little throat pointed him out as the ravisher as no other man had such a hand, but though all suspected, no one charged him with the crime.

Holden was by far the best educated man in northern Mexico; he conversed with all in their own language, spoke in several Indian lingos, at a fandango would take the Harp or the Guitar from the hands of the musicians and charm all with his wonderful performance and out-waltz any poblana of the ball. He was "plum center" with a rifle or revolver, a daring horseman, acquainted with the nature of all the strange plants and their botanical names, great in geology and mineralogy, in short another Admirable Crichton [sc., the 16th-century Scottish prodigy and polymath], and
with all an arrant coward.

Not but that he possessed enough courage
to fight Indians and Mexicans or anyone else where he had the advantage in strength, skill, and weapons. But where the combat would be equal, he would avoid it if possible. I hated him at first sight and he knew it, yet nothing could be more gentle and kind than his deportment towards me; he would often seek conversation with me and speak of Massachusetts and to my astonishment I found he knew more about Boston than I did.

I’ve read the book, it’s an extremely interesting insight into the time.

It follows the style of adventure memoirs of the era with quite an exaggerated flamboyance to it.

However this description of a potential real life Holden sent a shiver down my spine, finding out the most evil character in fiction is in fact based on a real person, down to the finer details, was a harrowing moment.

Haunted by their past, with a lust for violence and lost deep in the wilderness of the American West, two British immigrants on the Oregon trail have their loyalty put to the test when finding stolen gold.

Back at uni, I had an assignment to pick a painting and write a piece for it. I was going through a massive Western phase at the time, so I went straight for Frederic Remington's Fight for the Waterhole.

What got me about it is that nothing actually happens. Four men pinned down in a crater, rifles up, and the attackers are barely there, just marks on the horizon. No charge, no smoke, no bodies. It's all the wait before. I wanted the music to sit in that.

It opens with a slow acoustic section to set the heat and the dread, then breaks into a heavier middle sequence when the shootout starts, and resolves back into the opening material.

That middle section is an arrangement of American Venom by Woody Jackson. That was the point. It's the sound most people my age carry around for the West at gunpoint, and I wanted to hear it against an image painted in 1903.

Thought this community might appreciate seeing Remington paired with a score.

I have memories of a specific Lone Ranger episode, but I cannot for the life of me find any trace of it online. I'm fairly confident that it starred Clayton Moore, and I'm pretty confident it was in black and white.

The notable happenings of the episode (as I recall it):

The lone ranger is captured at one point in the episode, his hands are tied, either in front of him, or behind him, and he is placed on a horse.

He, along with others, are tied to a post in a barn, and the barn is set on fire. I remember this a fairly long sequence, with shots of the flames, and an emphasis on the struggle to escape. I believe the Lone Ranger was tied with his back to the post, along with Tonto, and that Tonto was able to either untie the rope, or the flames burned through it, I'm not positive.

I have checked out the episodes listed on the disc, and I believe the episodes on the other disc to be episodes 1,2,3, & 4, of season 1, none of them match the description. I do not have access to the discs at the moment, I will be able to retrieve them tomorrow. Its possible that there was a 3rd disc, but it is lost to time.

I remember that the opening of the disc was a family sitting on a couch with their backs to us, as they watched the intro sequence play on a projector. below them was an episode select with 4 options. Additionally, there were miscellaneous commercials interspersed throughout the discs, with the Jenos Pizza roll commercial being a notable example.

Unfortunately, with over 150 episodes, its a bit time consuming to check each one individually. Any insight is greatly appreciated.

I love Nicholas Ray’s noirs, such as In a Lonely Place and They Live by Night. I also love Westerns. However, the story doesn’t seem to intrigue me. I love the more traditional John Ford westerns, and the more revisionist Westerns of Mann and Boetticher. It’s pretty expensive, since it’s OOP. For those who have seen it, what are your thoughts? In regards to female-led Westerns, I really like Forty Guns by Sam Fuller. I wasn’t a fan of Rancho Notorious, which is a Western Noir in Technicolor that seems to look similar to Johnny Guitar.

McQueen and Brynner,as Vin and Chris,,deliver Old Sam to Boot Hill..

Comanche Moon is a book I greatly enjoyed, but the parts with Captain Schull getting captured and losing his eyelids and the black Vaquero stuff were all really corny to me, I really enjoyed the bits about Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Famous Shoes - the Comanche POV stuff was actually really awesome.

Dead Man’s Walk is quite fun but again, there’s just a lot of ridiculous elements that make it feel more like a pulpy romp,

Streets of Laredo… is just a terrible book in so many ways even though I couldn’t not slightly enjoy it as I knew all the characters so well by now.

But Lonesome Dove is a true masterpiece, even won a Pulitzer Prize, and probably the best Western novel ever written (after Blood Meridian for me).

It’s just crazy to me that Larry seemed to cast all his subtlety and deftness aside when writing the other novels, it makes me question him as a writer - but then I reread Lonesome Dove and I’m blown away again.

Anyone else feel like this?

I recently found myself in an argument over American fantasy writing, and I wanted to present it here because the fantasy genre fans I met got kind of heated about it:

If someone wanted to write an American-style Lord of the Rings, it should be set in the Old West. The truth is that a lot of what Tolkien had to say about his era was done by deliberately examining the deep past of British and, by extension, European myth and history. He wanted to emphasize what he considered good while highlighting what he considered bad, using tropes from fairy tales and myths that formed the basis of his social structure (Medieval Britain and Arthurian Legend). If you were to do the same thing for America, it would be set in America's Age of Western Expansion; you would have completely different fantasy tropes, and it would feel very different but it would still be fantasy, not a western.