What’s with all the Silverado love? I consider it an enjoyable cheesefest but not a great movie.
In no particular order: My Darling Clementine Fort Apache Unforgiven Shane (Could anyone explain choosing Pale Rider over the original? Maybe I’m missing something important about the Eastwood version.) Red River
I’m awarding a Special Jury Prize to Little Big Man. I love it and it is technically a western, but somehow it’s meta that it belongs to its own category.
Also, a special shout-out to Barbarossa. It may not be a great movie but it’s quirky and a hell of a lot of fun.
I can try to explain the different levels of appeal. I was a kid when Shane came out so I wasn’t able to see the subtext and all that. I was mostly impressed with Shane’s outfit and I was scared of Wilson. As the years went by and I saw it again and again, I began to understand that Shane was a lot different from the John Wayne type cowboy/gunslinger and that he was somehow a small (not Alan Ladd short) person in a big setting but managing to get by.
All that is to try to say that Shane broke ground that continues to be plowed and planted. Maybe Red River dealt with similar themes with the Monty Clift character and the realism of the relationships, but Shane was bigger, in color and more direct.
In the decades to follow, many experiments in making the West more accessible were tried and things got more brutal (not that Shane wasn’t – that was another ground-breaking thing with that movie) and the good guy - bad guy distinctions blurred.
I see Pale Rider as an appreciation of Shane’s influence, but with the brutality and grittiness raised way higher. The bad guys were clearly bad and the good guys mostly so, and “Preacher” added the elusive ghost-like avenger tone to the simple Shane “savior in buckskins” thing.
For level of violence, compared side by side, I put Shane at an 8 and Pale Rider at a 9. (If there’s been a 10, it’s The Wild Bunch). The depth of theme/issue part goes to Shane since Pale Rider relies on the spooky aspect of Preacher and his past and whether anybody could survive those wounds.
I’d love to hear another take on it, because mine is really simplistic. Shane introduced an idea and Pale Rider copied it with improvements.
I thought that the begining of the Wild Bunch was sheer genius at all levels ,the ending pretty good but the middle a little dull.
Enjoyed Deadwood(The series)to start off with but it jumped the shark quite early on.
Silverado is by far my favorite I think the Kasdans did a great job of distilling what is great about westerns. I really enjoy the story of Winchester '73 and it is pretty solid in there at number 2 but after that things get hazy. I think Fist full of dollars is the best of the spaghetti westerns which need to be represented in any top westerns list. Similarly She wore a Yellow ribbon is the best John Wayne movie and while I probably watch El Dorado more often I think SWAYR is a better movie and a John Wayne movie has to make the list. High Noon is the movie I’m most iffy about which is why it’s #5 I think it is a great movie but not necessarily a fun movie and there are lots of westerns that I watch much more frequently but I think it’s a good choice to round out a top 5 list.
I share your concern over High Noon. It’s another of those I saw as a kid. In fact, I saw it the night I graduated from sixth grade. Like Shane it broke ground and became the standard for the Adult Western.
But I saw it again after a long time just the other day. It’s a weak movie as movies go, and like so many of “the classics” you just had to be there at the time, or have a strong background in movie history, to elevate it above the so-so level.
I think the problem with High Noon is the lack of action. It’s in that category that I think of as psychological westerns where it’s more about the emotions of the characters then where they are or what they are doing.
Personally I don’t find these movies as very enjoyable but I recognize that High Noon does a great job of explaining why the citizens are doing what they are and why Gary Cooper feel he must act to save people who won’t save themselves. Because of the portrayals I think it deserves to be rated as highly as it is but it still doesn’t make it an enjoyable movies.
Of course being as young as I am probably hurts a bit too since the movies that have come out during my lifetime (I’m 27) have trended to more action and less plot overall so I don’t think I’m used to movies that are so heavily story driven. But that is a different thread.
IMO, the problem with High Noon was Grace Kelly. She was annoying and whiny, and it’s why the film didn’t make my list, despite the fine acting by Cooper.
Another movie I have to add from my childhood is the 1955 Davy Crockett, King of The Wild Frontier, with Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen and the rest of the crew.
The Magnificent Seven (just watched this again a few nights ago. The scene with Yul and Steve driving the hearse is just one of the best things ever put on film).
The War Wagon
El Dorado
Rio Bravo
Support your Local Sheriff
The Shootist
I have started a separate thread Some Issues with Cafe Society Pollswhere we can discuss methods for dealing with this large number of candidate movies in a poll or polls. Please contribute ideas if you have some – in that thread. Thanks.
It appears that they wrote Silverado by listing every single Western movie cliche they could think of, and then casting the movie with actors who would have a great time playing them up (while not minding looking a little goofy sometimes). It’s certainly not ‘great’ in the auteur sense, but it’s definitely great entertainment.
I forgot The Magnificent Seven…that should have been on my list.
1.) No Country For Old Men - Come one, no one’s mentioned this? It’s a modern western!
2.) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - The scene with Tuco assembling a new gun and the Mexican standoff at the end were both just awesome. Also- how can you not love cigarillos? If I were to ever smoke tobacco, it’d be out of a cigarillo.
3.) 3:10 to Yuma (the new one) - “Even bad men love their mothers.”