Cheyenne Social Club was great. Jimmy Stewart inherits a brothel.
Big Hand for the Little Lady is my personal all time favorite. Joanne Woodward holding her own at a poker table.
Silverado. John Cleese in the old west. 'Nuff said.
Support Your Local Gunfighter & Support Your Local Sherriff
Maverick
McClintock!(don’t know if you love or hate the duke; there is no in between)
I’m sure I’ll remember another half dozen or so by morning.
As long as you’re doing off-center westerns, I’d have to include The Brothers O’Toole in that category. A broad farce that features the town of Molly-Be-Damn (as the unwashed masses call the purported mining municipality of Molybdenum). You get John “Adams Family” Astin in a dual role (shades of Cat Ballou!) and two outstanding character actors, Hans Conreid and Jesse White, rest both their souls. As one fan said,
Crank up the popcorn and have fun.
We should also note that Astin appeared as Professer Albert Wickwire in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr
And for us really old geezers, he was part of the one-season gem “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster” with Marty Ingels.
I was also shocked to discover he appeared as a social worker in 1961’s West Side Story. Love the IMDB. Along with the AMG, it ranks just below the SDMB
Oh, and of course there is Paint Your Wagon with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin.
And they sing.
Radio Ranch , also known as The Phantom Empire --Hidden Underground Cities! Cattle Stampledes! Ray Guns vs Six Shooters! Kid Sidekicks! Starring Roy Rogers!
The Valley Of Gwangi --Cowboys & Dinosaurs, YEE-HA! Possibly the best cowboy/sci fi/giant monster/circus movie ever made.
Billy The Kid Meets Dracula --I can’t describe how bad this is. It’s Manos-bad, that’s how bad it is.
Gene Autry, you mean.
My first thought was Support Your Local Sheriff, but others have beat me to it.
Not all that off-beat, but Fort Apache is notable since it has Henry Fonda as a villain, the Indians as the good guys, and the same message that director John Ford used years later in “Liberty Valance.”
“Social worker”? Kind of an odd way to credit that role; “Glad Hand” is more of a generic Bandstand-era Dick Clark.
As promised, back with more. No pie.
Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday
Alias Smith & Jones - it was a t.v. series, but still pretty good.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Two Mules for Sister Sarah
The 1½-hour pilot is on video but I’d suggest going through eBay instead of paying $75 for it.
There Was A Crooked Man.
Henry Fonda plays a warden trying to reform a Western prison.
Kirk Douglas plays an inmate who tries to milk the reforms for everything he can get out of them.
The Villain.
Basically a live-action roadrunner cartoon.
Kirk Douglas plays Cactus Jack Slater (the coyote).
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Handsome Stranger (the roadrunner).
Ann-Margaret plays Miss Charming Jones.
Schwarzenegger: I’m Handsome Stranger.
Ann-Margaret: You certainly are.
Schwarzenegger: That’s my name. I was named after my father.
Ann-Margaret: He must have been quite a man.
Schwarzenegger: I never knew him.
The Oxbow Incident is one of the best westerns ever made. A very dark film about mob violence, starring Henry Fonda at his best.
Very off-center Western period, but I love “The 7 Faces of Dr Lao”…
A couple more “off center” Westerns,
Dirty Dingus McGee starring Frank Sinatra and George Kennedy. Definitely weird and pretty badly done.
Go West with the Marx Brothers - It has the distinction of being the first time the joke, “Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped,” was used on film.
Yes, he runs the dance where Tony and Maria meet. He is the one who tries to get the kids to dance together. Really it’s his fault the kids die.
Anyway you missed John Astin’s best off center western.
Evil Roy Slade
Basically it just the pilot episode for a proposed tv series. It’s also one of the funniest western spoofs ever made.