As Patrick F. McManus wrote in one of his books: As a young lad, he knew that the “B” stood for BEST.
But I’ve never been able to get through the “singing cowboy” and similar “serial” westerns.
Do you have a “B” western that you enjoy watching again and again?
Do the Spaghetti Westerns count?
A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) are the most famous and form the “Dollars Trilogy”
ETA: I can’t stand the B Westerns of the 30s and 40s. But I like the 60s B Westerns.
Rio Bravo is my favorite pre-Spaghetti Western but I don’t think it can possibly count as a B with John Wayne in his prime plus Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson starring. Supported by Angie Dickinson & Walter Brennan. I suspect it was A level budget.
Gene Autry.
I won’t say that it’s not a B Western if it wasn’t made by Republic, but they did make the best ones. TV killed the cheap Saturday matinee Western genre, after the mid-50s the Westerns made for the big screens were made to complete with it. They were big budget spectaculars, or had sex and violence that couldn’t be shown on TV, or they dealt with contemporary issues like juvenile delinquency. Not bad Westerns, but not B Westerns.
I once watched Angel and the Bad Man with a bunch of theater major roomates (because college kids couldn’t afford cable), and they were all over it from their perspective. The classic story of the individual conflicted between his dark and bright sides, Harry Carey sneaking up and acting as his conscience and relating off-stage action like a Greek chorus.
Rustler’s Rhapsody
As for Rio Bravo, I actually prefer the second version:
Garden of Eden – Susan Hayward offers Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark and Cameron Mitchell a bunch of money to help rescue her husband who is trapped in a remote gold mine.
Outside the box suggestion: Rango. No singing cowboys, but it does have singing owls.
Look for the seven Randolph Scott movies directed by Budd " Boetticher.
Boetticher was unusually talented for a B movie director. He did a lot on limited budgets.
Tall T and Comanche Station are my two favorites.
All the movies in the Ranown cycle are very good.
Though I think the Randolph Scott movies are exactly the garbage movies that you won’t be able to make it through Bonum_Legatum.
Scott made a few movies I wouldn’t watch a 2nd time. Primarily because of limited budgets and bad directors.
The Boetticher films are more ambitious and get into real emotion and consequences of violence.
I found the acting style very stilted and hard to watch. But that is true of a lot of 30s acting. One of the reasons William Powell & Myrna Loy stood out with the Thin Man series is they had a more natural acting style which was unusual for the 30s. Frank Morgan was good for a less stilted style also in his films even before Oz.
I’m not aware of any early western stars that did act naturally.
Ride the High Country. Randolph Scott’s last film. Co-starred Joel McRae and some piece of fluff named Mariette Hartley. Directed by some clown named Peckinpah. Bridges the span between “B” westerns and a more modern approach.
The challenge is “name a Western for people who don’t like Westerns?” I can craft my answer accordingly if that is the question.
If you do like Westerns (and frankly, I do. I can watch Roy Rogers and the Lone Ranger because they contain the same thematic elements of complex Westerns), you’d look and find that are still good, even with Randolph Scott (Ride the High Country), as well Audie Murphy (Walk the Proud Land) or Rory Calhoun (Raw Edge).
I can’t watch the 1930’s serial Westerns. Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and other stars. You know its bad when the hero is identified by the white hat and villian black.
The earliest Westerns I’ll watch is Stagecoach with John Wayne and Destry Rides Again with Jimmy Stewart. Both released in 1939.
William S. Hart wore a black hat, and sometimes he shot the bad guys in the back.
Try The Plainsman from 1936. The part where the Sioux kidnap Jean Arthur and then Gary Cooper rescues her is one of the best parts of any Western.
Thanks all. I’d consider some of the suggestions “better than B”, but I appreciate all of them.
Special thanks. This would be precisely what I was thinking of for a B film. Something made to be shown at a Saturday matinee. I’ll have to try some. Do any particular ones stand out?
For recommendations of authentic b westerns of the ’30s and ‘40s, some of these guys seem to know what they’re talking about: The Greatest B Western Ever Made - NitrateVille.com
The Phantom Empire (1935) - Intolerable singing cowboy Gene Autry discovers the lost city of Mu beneath his ranch. Campy sci-fi/b western/musical serial with great props/sets. “Entertainment” like this is why we have a fast-forward button.
NOTE: This is not an actual recommendation. I had a list of, let us say, lesser well-known westerns to recommend, but it is clear from your additional comments that none of them are what you are actually looking for.
Word on Westerns youtube channel is primarily interviews with old actors.
They have started posting full B movies.
Classic Roy Rogers. There’s No charge.
1:06:00 is typical of movies intended for the Sat afternoon matinee that featured several movies.
I get curious or nostalgic about an old western now and then. I don’t ever want to watch any of them over and over if they’re “B” grade movies. Not that many “A” rated westerns ever appealed to me that much either.
The original True Grit might be called an “A-” or “B+” a stellar performance from the Duke, but mediocre performances by his costars. They still do the job well enough to make this worth watching. The remake is very good as well.
Silverado was a wonderful homage to the classic western themes. This movie has a star studded cast and contains several stories using familiar western plots. There are horses, gunfighters, gamblers, a jailbreak, a posse, a love story, revenge, and no western would be complete with a pure of heart good guy and a purely evil bad guy. Anyone who loves westerns will want to see it.
Shootout in a One-Dog Town was a made-for-TV movie that was much like an old B movie.
Produced by Hanna-Barbera, BTW, but not a cartoon.
By all means, please add your list. I didn’t mean to restrict this to The Phantom Empire genre.