# Westerns with the strangest plots **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2013, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050 "2013-04-07T01:28:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/41 "2013-04-08T18:56:52Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I was gonna mention it, but I figured I’d already used up my allowance of samurai westerns. If there is a whole category of “samurai westerns”, then an particular movie can’t be “strangest” just by being a samurai western. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/42 "2013-04-08T20:15:02Z")
Forty-one posts and no one’s mentioned _Lust in the Dust_? In which a gay cowboy has to haul Divine all over in search of her twin sister so he can put their butt-cheeks together to read the tattooed treasure map? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/43 "2013-04-08T20:20:10Z")
:smack: One of Lainie Kazan’s finest and I forgot to list it! \ ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/44 "2013-04-08T20:20:17Z")
Since the OP didn’t explicitly specify Western _films_, how about [Custer’s Revenge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer%27s_Revenge)? Link NSFW if your work thinks 8-bit is smut. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/45 "2013-04-08T20:30:38Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Then there’s [The Valley of Gwangi](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065163/) which is about a cowboy who captures a T. Rex in the Forbidden Valley and then puts it on display in a Mexican Circus. I was a big fan of Ray Harryhausen as a kid, and he did the special effects. The first time I saw this was on a Saturday morning on WPIX and I remember loving the hell out of it. Noooo! It was an allosaurus! (I love this movie.) ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/46 "2013-04-08T21:31:09Z")
I submit the Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland movie; [From Noon Til Three.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Noon_till_Three) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/47 "2013-04-09T04:37:37Z")
Does anybody recognize the movie I mentioned? I can’t remember the title or much else about it, but I’d like to know. Kind of a\*\* Dark Shadows\*\* meets **Gunsmoke** thing. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/48 "2013-04-09T05:28:42Z")
Sorry, I must have skipped over your post somehow. The movie you saw was 1959’s [Curse of the Undead](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052718/). It’s actually a pretty cool flick; I think I first saw it as part of “Big” Wilson’s Night Owl Movies back in the late '70s or early '80s on WCIX in South Florida. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/49 "2013-04-09T05:28:44Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Does anybody recognize the movie I mentioned? I can’t remember the title or much else about it, but I’d like to know. Kind of a\*\* Dark Shadows\*\* meets **Gunsmoke** thing. Yes, I remember it, barely. I remember a cowboy shooting somebody with a bullet that had a cross notched across the tip. The guy who got shot disappeared, leaving just his clothes behind. B&W. Putting some of that in Google led me to [Curse of the Undead - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Undead) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/50 "2013-04-09T06:39:21Z")
You guys are so cool! ETA too bad netflix isn’t \*that \*cool ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/51 "2013-04-09T09:54:29Z")
No mention of Lemonade Joe yet? It’s a Czechoslovakian musical comedy parody acid western propaganda film, apparently. I need to find and watch it sometime. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/52 "2013-04-09T11:54:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Then there’s The Valley of Gwangi which is about a cowboy who captures a T. Rex in the Forbidden Valley and then puts it on display in a Mexican Circus. I was a big fan of Ray Harryhausen as a kid, and he did the special effects. The first time I saw this was on a Saturday morning on WPIX and I remember loving the hell out of it. _Gwangi_ (the original name, or _The Valley of Mist_) was a project promoted by Harryhausen’s inspiration and mentor, willis O’Brien (animator of \*King Kong[/i}0 that he never got to make. There are photos of his neve-to-be-used Gwangi models existing. Surprisingly, there is an even _earlier_ cowboy-vs-dinosaur movie based on an O’Brien idea than _Valley of Gwangi_. It’s the 1950s color film _The Beast of Hollow Mountain_, and it’s surprisingly good, with an animated T. Rex, although O’Brien didn’t do it. (Neither did Harryhausen – it was done by a guy named Edward Nassour, who apparently also did the animated dinosaurs in the Caesar Romero-starring _the Lost Continent_) 0 'Brien wrote the original screen treatment under a pseudonym, and was set to do the animation, but for some reason no one seems to know, didn’t do it. One of O’Brien’s first films to combine stop-motion with libve action was _The Ghost of Slumber Mountain_, which also involved a T. Rex. The whole thing used to be on YouTube, but I can only find the end right now: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isY39VD7ijY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isY39VD7ijY) ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/53 "2013-04-09T14:15:57Z")
The plot is indeed strange for a Western. A laconic cowboy gets a whore house in the will of his brother and he and his best buddy set about to first civilize it, then to run it and finally to defend it. They then retire from it. However, in the hands of Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, _Cheyenne Social Club_ makes complete sense as a Western and seems the most natural thing in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/54 "2013-04-09T15:48:40Z")
Kung-Fu. The pilot movie and the later TV series were set in the Old West. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/55 "2013-04-09T16:11:36Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > I submit the Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland movie; [From Noon Til Three.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Noon_till_Three) I was coming here to mention that one. The hero doesn’t usually end up happy in an insane asylum,and the heroine doesn’t usually die. ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/56 "2013-04-09T16:30:13Z")
Wow. Just read this [attempt to explain the plot and characters](http://www.badmovies.org/movies/greasers/) of Greaser’s Paradise. Holy cow. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/57 "2013-04-09T17:08:41Z")
It’s a book, not a film, but Trevanian’s _Incident at 20 Mile_ is pretty weird - IIRC, the main character is a mentally ill young man and much of the plot swirls around how he interacts with a late Western setting. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2013, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050/58 "2013-04-19T18:09:20Z")
Well, **El Topo** was on the shelf at my local video store so I grabbed. That was one wierd movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westerns-with-the-strangest-plots/655050.md?page=2)