Western – The Magnificent 60s

A Man Called Sledge (1970) ***

It’s a risky business for an established star to change their screen persona. The only reason they’ve achieved stardom is because there’s something appealing and even comforting about the persona they’ve adopted. Audiences queue up to see a screen favorite because they know what they’re getting. That still leaves room for chameleons like Dustin Hoffman, whose appeal is the exact opposite, moviegoers don’t know what they’re going to get from one movie to the next.

James Garner (Buddwing, 1966) had a curious screen persona. Sure, he was laid-back and his delivery involved a drawl but his persona, drawn from the scallywag Maverick (1957-1962), also included an element of the sneaky. He wasn’t always as straightforward or heroic (The Americanization of Emily, 1964) as you might expect, but that made him comfortably different.

But it’s one thing to make minor changes to your screen persona, it’s another to dump it completely. Even his combed-back hairstyle is gone as well as the rest of his screen persona as he leans into the sneaky part. He’s an outlaw. And not charming like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and not hawking around a code of honor like The Wild Bunch (1969) and not a bad guy doing good for whatever reason. His only one redemptive feature is that he’s fallen in love.

On the other hand, if you’re going to play a villain, you better be a smart one, capable of shooting your way out of tricky situations, clever enough to outfox the authorities and able to come up with a plan to steal $300,000 in gold dust from the biggest and most secure safe ever build in the strongest stronghold you could find.

In short order, we are introduced to Luther Sledge (James Garner) robbing a stage, meeting up with girlfriend Ria (Laura Antonelli) and being ambushed in a saloon by gamblers who don’t like losing. Making good his escape, he comes across the Old Man (John Marley) who suggests the unthinkable, stealing the gold. The obvious method would be taking the gold when it’s being transported from the gold mine to the safe.

But it travels with a heck of a guard, more or less a small army, drilled to perfection, armed to the teeth. So, Sledge resorts to the inside job routine. Only problem is the stronghold is actually a prison with 500 prisoners and the safe is inside the maximum security section. Even so, the Old Man, whose done time there, reckons he has listened often enough to the tumblers on the safe being turned that they won’t need to resort to dynamite and the like.

Sledge gets his buddy Erwin Ward (Dennis Weaver) to act as sheriff taking him in as a prisoner, then once inside he plans to free all the prisoners to create a diversion and tie down the guards.

As you might expect this is achieved with a little hitch here and there to ratchet up the tension. But then when we expect an army of guards in hot pursuit and a massive shootout or Sledge to come up with some other clever way of escaping, it turns into The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and the tension just drains away, hampered by a cute unbelievable ending where Sledge chooses love over gold.

Somehow the third act robs it of what it had going for it, a tough guy devoid of sentimentality, in the vein of the Lee Marvin of Point Blank (1967). You might as well have inserted an old lady or a kid and be done with it as the reason for Sledge to change his ways and, unfortunately, it just kills off interest in the character. Redemption isn’t what we came for. You can get that any day of the week at the movies. But, ruthlessness, that’s a different story and you’d be surprised how well that can play.

Maybe there’s some unseen Hollywood code. If you’re a proper star, you can only be a tough guy if you don’t kill people (i.e. Butch Cassidy though not The Sundance Kid) or if your toughness is in pursuit of bad guys (True Grit, 1969).

There are some other interesting elements. There’s a second ambush, a street shoot-out, a la The Wild Bunch. There’s a banjo-playing deputy sheriff and a keen-eyed Sheriff (Wayde Preston) who can suss out a wrong ‘un. Dead men earn their keep, either on horseback providing cover or lying on the ground where their pistols come in handy. A small town is emptied by people attending a funeral, masked faces and all.

And there’s a good bit of sense – a Derringer has such a short range that a prison guard with the necessary keys for escape has to be passed cell by cell down a row until he can come within shooting distance for the gun to achieve its threat.

James Garner is indeed excellent in his new disguise, drawl gone, hair flopping all over the place, not a quip in sight. There’s not much room for anyone else though Claude Akins (Return of the Seven, 1966) deserves a nod. Italian Laura Antonelli (The Innocent, 1976) as the hooker in love sparkles though I’m guessing she was dubbed. John Marley (The Godfather, 1972) is a scene-stealing role does his best to steal the movie from Garner.

Actor Victor Morrow directed this, his sophomore effort. He had a hand in the screenplay, too. He parlayed the fame he’s achieved from long-running television series Combat (1962-1967) in attempting to shift him from being cast as the bad guy on the big screen but, unfortunately, he’s best remembered not for this but for his tragic ending, when he died on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Which is a shame because this is a decent enough effort.

Engaging enough when in heist mode, less so when it disappears down the Sierra Madre rabbit hole.

Blue (1968) *****

Easily the most underrated western of all time. Few people saw it on release and precious few since. If remembered at all, it’s for reasons of movie trivia. Robert Redford got into a legal fight with Paramount when he pulled out of the starring role. And it was what was being shot in the background of the Burt Reynolds movie Fade In (1968).

Decades before cultural appropriation was a major no-no, Americans didn’t take too kindly to Brits taking on top-billed roles in westerns. Audiences sniggered at Dirk Bogarde as a Mexican bandit in The Singer Not the Song (1960), John Mills proved an obstacle to audience acceptance of Chuka (1967) and Shalako (1969) starring Sean Connery, the world’s biggest box office draw at the time, would become a huge flop Stateside.

Yet there are some extraordinary moments here. Some, frankly, I’m astonished never rated a mention at the time nor since. The director’s use of natural sound is ground-breaking. For a start, there’s very little music, none of the triumphal brass that generally accompanies hordes of cowboys racing across plains. Often, here, all we get is hoofbeats. In terms of the aural Hitchcock would have applauded one scene, where a man is hunted through tall grass. All we hear is the crackling sound of the pursuers as they stalk him through the dried-out terrain.

Most times when in other films we see a bunch of cowboys charging along, it’s filmed from the front or the side. Reason being, shoot it from the back and you’ve got to deal with all the dust churned up by the hooves. Not so, here, bring on the dust. Let’s have something new.

There’s even a nod to The Searchers (1956), the famous doorway scenes, but here the main character is neither coming nor coming but cannot make up his mind whether to do either and so slouches against the doorframe.

The opening sequence is The Wild Bunch (1969) in reverse. It’s the good guys in the town, and the bandits who create the ambush and, minus Peckinpah’s obsession with bloodletting, treat their captives ever bit as brutally. Even here, there are two notable scenes. In the first, our hero Blue (Terence Stamp) has been sitting napping under his hat when a troop of Mexican soldiers arrive. Once they hunker down inside the saloon he throws a huge red scarf in the hair, signal to the watching bandits. Then, after the soldiers have been routed, and their leader is still trying to make a stand, Blue races up behind and whips away first his upraised gun, then his hat, then the man himself.

And these are not ordinary bandits. You might think they are given our post-action introduction to them shows them whoring, gambling and fighting. But actually they are revolutionaries and leader Ortega (Ricardo Montalban) has a strategic brain and realizes that they have to take the fight across the river to the Americans – on their most important day of the year, July 4^th, Independence Day – and get them so riled up they do something about the inequities in Mexico.

And he has his work cut out to rein in his rebellious son and the concerns raised by his number two that the life, hiding out in the hills and sleeping in caves, is losing its appeal to his followers. So, intelligent bandits.

The Americans might not be particularly bothered by their neighbors, but still they’ve got a stuffed mannikin hanging from a noose with the word “Greasers” written upon its chest. The bandits break up the party, rob the Yanks, but for some reason leave the enemy with all their weapons, allowing the farmers to form an immediate posse and set off in pursuit.

Blue is shot but makes his way to a farmhouse where, luckily for him, he is tended by farmer’s daughter Joanne (Joanna Pettet) whom he previously saved from rape. It’s a bit of a tip-off that the fugitive goes by the name Azul (the Spanish word for “blue”) to the Mexicans given, I’m assuming, all Mexicans are brown-eyed. So he must be an outlander. And so he is, brought up by the Mexican bandits.

At first he appears to be of the Clint Eastwood persuasion, monosyllabic to the point of dumbness, but, eventually, in a quite brilliant scene, forced to utter a word before Joanna cuts his throat with a razor, an idea that found its way, as I recall, into Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning (1988).

And if ever action carries more meaning than words, it’s in the scene where Joanne discovers Blue has apparently fled only to spy him ploughing the fields. As you might expect, whether an American male or female is brought up by Native Americans (Hombre, 1967) or as here Mexicans, they find it hard to be accepted. The issue is forced upon his new countrymen when the bandits return, and Blue has to choose a side.

Blue was an orphan thanks to racism against his American parents when they settled in Mexico. And he suffers, unfairly you would say given he was born in the U.S., from racism again when he crosses the border.

The sex scene is brilliantly handled, relying both on sight and sound. It’s Joanna who has to instigate it, instinctively knowing that he won’t make any move in case it is wrongly interpreted. The father, noting her bedroom is empty, begins to walk along the corridor to Blue’s room. Hearing his footsteps, Joanna turns out the light. Seeing the light go out, the father retreats – on tiptoe.

There’s also the best demonstration of pistol shooting this side of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the following year. And without taking anything away from the Robert Redford scene, it’s remarkably similar.

And Blue proves himself to be a brilliant tactician. He sets up a stunning ambush and the bandits are slaughtered from both sides of the river when they attempt to cross. His leadership, unusually, sets up emotional issues. When Joanne reacts against this new tough side of him, it’s her father that calms her. But that isn’t the peach. Blue confesses that he enjoys killing, it “pleasures” him.

I’m afraid to say the ending of Butch Cassidy also has remarkable similarities to this. There it’s the freeze frame that encapsulates the death of the heroes. Here, the camera draws back and back into the sky as Joanne holds her dead lover in the river.

Terence Stamp (The Collector, 1965) doesn’t quite have enough going on behind the eyes to become a top-class actor so sensibly director Silvio Narrazino (Georgy Girl, 1966) avoids going in too close on the baby blues and allows the actor freedom of movement to reveal his feelings, the slouching in the doorway one example, another being Blue’s slow realization that much of what he sees in the farmer’s house is familiar. Stamp acquits himself well in the action scenes.

But Joanna Pettet (The Best House in London, 1969) is the revelation. We’re quite used to spunky or feisty females in westerns. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one who takes control with subtlety. Her father Doc Morton (Karl Malden) can’t get a word out of Blue no matter the threats uttered and violence threatened. But when Joanna takes up a cut-throat razor for the first time in her life and begins to trim his stubble, deliberately making a hash of it, that’s as novel a meet-cute as you’re going to find as well as one of the best definitions of female character that you’ll see in a western.

Written by Meade Roberts (The Stripper, 1963) and Ronald M. Cohen (The Good Guys and the Bad Guys, 1969).

One of the most stylish and innovative westerns you’ll ever see and you need to watch it with your ears attuned to sound.

A true find.

Death Rides A Horse (1967/1969) ****

Although Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) is my all-time favorite western and although the first X-certificate movie I sneaked into as a teenager was The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966/1968), I never had much interest in spaghetti westerns. For a start, by the time I started my serious cinemagoing – bear in mind I grew up in towns without picture houses – the spaghetti western sub-genre was long gone.

So I was surprised to find how stylish and intriguing this little number was. People had odd ideas about style: they think it’s about capturing a vista at sunset or the way a director moves the camera or some effect gained from the cinematography. But there are other, as important, aspects. And two, perhaps the smallest of the effective ingredients, are on show here.

The first comes with the opening shot. Some cowboys are braving torrential rain. Now movie rain doesn’t behave the same way as real rain. It’s directed and its force depends on something else beyond nature. It’s too consistent in the way that real rain isn’t. So to convince us that these dudes are enduring a storm, director Giulio Petroni has set up on the very edge of the screen a lamp that moves, twisting one way and the other as the wind shifts direction, flaring up and flickering down depending on the position it holds. That little thing was what it took to convince me this was a storm.

The second thing was the editing. Again, critics intend to focus on some unusual aspect. Fast-cutting, for example, as in The Wild Bunch (1969) or cutting between a match and a sunrise (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962)) or from one pillow to another in separate households (Zee & Co, X Y & Zee, 1972). But actually the biggest benefit of good editing is to keep the story moving and not waste time

So here we cut from our blue-eyed anti-hero Bill (John Philip Law) being told to meet a bad guy in his office. Next thing, Bill is entering a darkened room. Automatically, you think this is a trap, that he’s going into villainous saloon owner Cavanaugh’s (Anthony Dawson) office. Instead, he confronts the other anti-hero, criminal Ryan (Lee Van Cleef), just released from prison after 15 years. And without any dialog to otherwise explain the situation, we understand immediately from previous interaction that Bill has been hired by the bad guy to kill Ryan.

There’s countless examples of this kind of editing where action sets the tone rather than dialog, although in the latter regard some of the lines are filled with edge.

Bill and Ryan really should be working as a team. They both want revenge on the same gang of outlaws, Bill because, as a child, he witnessed the gang murder his family and rape his mother and sister, and Ryan because he was fitted up for the robbery the gang committed. But both want the sole satisfaction of carrying out the revenge.

Ryan is something of a mentor to the greenhorn, a skilled gunslinger without the smarts necessary to hold his own. Ryan constantly shows Bill how much he still has to learn about looking after himself and the teaching comes with sharp consequence, Bill left horseless on two occasions and having to tramp miles into the nearest town.

So they get in each other’s way. Bill kills Cavanaugh without realizing that the only reason the businessman is still alive is that Ryan wants reparation from him of $15,000 – $1,000 for each of the years he spent in prison. And now he saddles Bill with that debt.

Ryan knows exactly who he’s hunting down but Bill has to do it the hard way, following a series of clues, personal elements of the masked guys who slaughtered his family, someone who wears distinctive spurs, another with a tattoo on his chest and so on.

This proves a particularly good twist on the older guy-younger guy narrative device so often used in Hollywood. The rivalry rarely cools, Bill taking simple revenge on Ryan at any opportunity.

Eventually, they do agree to work together after Bill works out that Ryan was one of the gang, except that the older man arrived too late to take part in the massacre but just in time to save Bill from being consumed by a raging fire.

The last twist is saved for the climax.

United Artists waited until Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy had opened the box office doors in America before pushing this out in 1969 (hence the odd dating). Lee Van Cleeef essays a more considered version of his Man in Black persona from For a few Dollars More (1965/1967). John Philip Law (Barbarella, 1969) would never work out, unlike George Peppard, say, that the intensity of his gaze and the blueness of his eyes distracted from his acting.

Put me in mind to check out some of the other spaghetti westerns directed by Guilio Petroni such as A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof (1968). Written by Luciano Vincenzoni (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly).

Well worth a look.

Law of the Lawless (1964) ***

I’m rescuing another low-budget western from critical oblivion. While this can’t boast existentialism to boost its credentials or claim to belong to the cult fraternity and, technically, doesn’t belong to the revisionist sub-genre which was beginning to gather pace, and while you won’t go to this for visual style or striking composition, there is more than enough going on for it to be worthy of reassessment.

For a start it majors on remorse. You might come across a western hero who bitterly regrets the woman cast aside or the family abandoned (though more likely such actions will sit lightly), but you’ll virtually never find anyone who regrets using the gun, whether for righteous reasons or not. But here you’ve got the two main characters, one on the side of the law and the other of a criminal disposition, who both show remorse for their actions. And had the director been more disposed to the visual he would have made a great deal more of the scene where the black-garbed widows arrive in town, victims of both gunslingers who killed their husbands and of the judges who pronounced the death sentence on their gunslinging husbands.

And there’s considerable pause to imagine what happens to such widows. Unless they can find a benefactor, perhaps an older unmarried rancher or a widower, they are going to end up working in saloons and selling their bodies. On top of that we have a cracker of a courtroom drama where the exceptionally clever lawyer can twist the facts to suit his client.

This could also have been another kind of western altogether, the one where the hero is constantly beset by a variety of enemies, and the narrative therefore one of tension. But Judge Clem Rogers (Dale Robertson) has four separate outfits baying for his blood and still director William F. Claxton manages to also fit in all these ideas about remorse, the law, widows, conniving lawyers, the entitled of that era, and failed romance.

Rogers is in town for the trial of former friend Pete (John Agar), son of Tom (Barton McClane) the biggest rancher around, for killing someone in cold blood. Tom, a piece of work, has various plans to tilt the odds in his favor, first planning to blackmail Rogers over being caught in a honeytrap with Pete’s fiancée Ellie Irish (Yvonne DeCarlo) and whichever way the trial goes he has hired gunslinger Joe Rile (Bruce Cabot) at a fee of $10,000 to kill the judge. Rile and Clem have history, the gunslinger killed the judge’s father. And it’s Tom who hits on the scheme of embarrassing the judge by flooding the town with widows, many of whom are widows thanks to Rogers.

And there are four other dudes, three brothers and an outsider, also intent on killing Rogers. While Sheriff Ed Tanner (Wiliam Bendix) isn’t inept he lacks the force of personality to keep the bad guys in check and when he’s wounded his inexperienced deputy Tim (Rod Lauren) foolishly steps up to the plate.

You can’t help but feel sorry for Ellie, forced to play the part of the lure to dupe Rogers, especially when it’s clear she has more feelings for him than she does for Pete, whom she admits she doesn’t love but needs his security. There’s an interesting power struggle between Tom and Rile with the gunslinger refusing to kowtow to his employer. The court case is riveting because it turns on various twists. And climax is a knockout that you won’t see coming.

This isn’t one like The Shooting (1966), rescued from oblivion by critics and cultists – Paramount issued it as a second feature so it’s not unseen – and it’s not trying to rewrite the Hollywood history of Native Americans, and as I said it’s not distinguished visually, but it does pack an awfully thoughtful punch, tackling areas that the bulk of western film directors have ignored.

Dale Robertson (Coast of Skeletons, 1965) heads a good B-picture cast with veterans William Bendix (Oscar-nominated for Wake Island, 1943), Yvonne De Carlo (career revived by The Munsters, 1964-1966), Lon Chaney Jr (The Wolf Man, 1941) and Bruce Cabot (King Kong, 1933).

William F. Claxton (Desire in the Dust, 1960) is to be commended for cramming in so much interest. Script by Steve Fisher (Rogue’s Gallery, 1968).

An unexpected treat.

Ride in the Whirlwind (1966) **

Lightning didn’t strike once never mind three times as with Monte Hellman’s predecessor The Shooting (1966) and all the flaws of that picture are multiplied without either the free pass of being classed as existential or a central performance such as that of Millie Perkins to give it an boost and, as importantly, to provide it with a contemporary edge.

All it proves is that Jack Nicholson should stick to acting rather than screenwriting. Most of the dialog in trying to be authentic just doesn’t ring true and the story is muddled with many too many characters. Calling this offbeat is doing it a favor.

And although, in any poster or copy of the picture you’re likely to see now, Jack Nicholson is top-billed, he’s far from the main act – though the movie dodges around so much it’s hard to find a central character to focus. And if you came to this expecting another acting tour de force from Millie Perkins, you had to wait a good hour before she appeared.

Theoretically, Monte Hellman was inheriting the Budd Boetticher mantle, but that only went as far as making do with a low budget. Though there’s the occasional striking visual, he can’t match Boetticher in terms of composition nor in clarity of narrative. But this was the era when the waters were being muddied between good guys and bad guys, so in a sense, taking Hellman as pre-empting that particular charge, he scores some points there.

Budget deficit led to the other element of authenticity to which this can lay claim. It’s noisy. I mean, noise of the wind – perhaps hence the title – constantly intrudes. Cinema verite perhaps but more likely lack of proper sound equipment.

A bunch of outlaws led by Blind Dick (Harry Dean Stanton) who’s only half-blind, patch over one eye, robs a stage and holes out in a cabin in the hills. A meandering trio of cowboys – Vern (Cameron Mitchell), Wes (Jack Nicholson) and Otis (Tom Filer) – looking for shelter encounter them. For a time it looks like the outlaws are just going to shoot them and be rid of the intruders. Instead, they feed them beans and biscuits and liquor.

Next morning a posse turns up and starts shooting at anyone in sight, including Vern and his buddies. They burn out the cabin and hang Blind Dick. Otis is shot but now, thanks to guilt by association, Vern and Wes are wanted fugitives. Requiring refuge, and although innocent they lean into guilt by commandeering the house of farmer Evan (George Mitchell), wife Catherine (Katherine Squire) and daughter Abigail (Millie Perkins) and hold them hostage.

Doesn’t take long for them to be rumbled by a member of the posse. They escape but Vern is wounded and Wes kills the farmer. Now they are reduced to one horse. The dying Vern does a self-sacrificial number and holds off the posse until Wes can escape on the horse.

Although I’m sure many an innocent person was killed in the Wild West, and it didn’t take much for people to cross over into criminality, especially when threatened (Wes would now be wanted for murder), and so it is interesting on that score, it’s just so muddled it lacks any real weight.

We are introduced to way too many characters as a result of lack of narrative cohesion. On this performance I doubt if you would have tagged Jack Nicholson as the breakthrough performer of Easy Rider (1969) and Millie Perkins is given nothing on which to build from what should have been her breakthrough turn in The Shooting.

In fact, most of the honors go to old-timer Cameron Mitchell (Blood and Black Lace, 1964) who’d had to head to Italy to get some decent top-billed work. If you were looking for the Jack Nicholson of the gleaming teeth and distinctive diction, then you’ll find him here but not much else. Monte Hellman would go on to find some mainstream credibility, though still erring on the offbeat, in the likes of Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and Cockfighter (1974). But this is embryo work.

File under disappointment.

The Shooting (1967) ****

Director Monte Hellman struck lucky three times. In the first place French critics took such a shining to this disjointed elliptical western that they tabbed it a work of existential genius. Then Jack Nicholson, who only has a small part, became a global star and it picked up a second head of steam. And now, with grief porn the latest craze thanks to the likes of Hamnet (2025) and Wuthering Heights (2026) I reckon it’s worth reassessment. But not for that wallowing in grief aspect so popular these days, but for the way genuine grief works its way out in cantankerous maddening fashion.

You’d have thought the performance of Millie Perkins would have been highlighted long before now for its feminism. Her un-named woman runs contrary to the notion of the female star in a western. She doesn’t come on all sexy in a Raquel Welch fashion, nor does she fall victim to a predatory male. But she is a heck of a creation.

She doesn’t play by any of the man-made rules in this male-dominated world. She gets what she wants by foul means and she doesn’t give a hang about whose feelings she tramples underfoot. She’s not interested in seduction, nor in finding a man, so strike out any thoughts of sex or romance, and she’s domineering, rude and contrary.

Given the western is weighted down with enigma, you have to work hard to find out what it’s all about and what’s she’s after. And her introduction tells you she’s trouble. She kills her own horse so she can appear to two cowboys running a defunct mine as a woman needing help. The younger Coley (Will Hutchins) would be easily duped by any woman with an ounce of the smarts. The older Willett Gashade (Warren Oates) is less easily led, though when the woman offers $500 if they help her reach the nearest town, they’re ready to oblige.

But she wants to make haste, while Willett wants to ensure they are equipped for the journey, so saddling up an extra mule to carry their supplies. But a mule slows them down, so she finds a way to stampede it off. And every now and then she lets off a random shot, Willett working out she’s trying to attract someone’s attention. The someone turns out to be gunslinger Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson). When she insists on going off-trail Gashade works out she’s hunting for someone.

That’s another elliptical moment. She’s hunting the killer of her son. Even though it was an accident, she wants revenge.

And that’s the grief spelled out in a variety of ways but never with the usual emotional baggage, not even a tear. Eventually, we’re in Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) territory where men are going mad. Here, they keep going after their horses die and trek over desolate merciless country until they find their quarry, who turns out to be Gashade’s brother.

Turns out, too, she hardly needs her entourage. She finishes off her nemesis while Spear and Gashade struggle behind. She only needed the men for their tracking skills.

So what we have instead of the existential is something considerably more solid and worth far more than falling in with some arthouse accolade. This is both an exceptional study of grief and an exceptional study of a woman, possibly the first in the feminist line if you discount Barbara Stanwyck who still, generally, was better off with a man at her side.

All her deriding of the men, her mental cruelty, her whimsical actions, make every bit of sense when you realize these are all expressions of grief. Except for her murderous intent, she’s almost stoical in her grief, never allowing wanton emotion to get in the way, and even when turning tearful might work in winning men over she doesn’t give in to the temptation. She can twist Coley round her little finger anyways and she knows how to handle Gashade, teaching him in no uncertain terms who’s boss.

In some respects Monte Hellman (Ride the Wild Whirlwind, 1966) is the inheritor of the Budd Boetticher mantle, purveyor of lean westerns short on running time with a principled hero, here read heroine. But Hellman lacks Boetticher’s compositional artistry and could do with putting some more work into the storytelling department.

If you’ve come looking for the Jack Nicholson of Chinatown (1973) you’ll be disappointed. He’s hardly in it, though he is an exemplar of that mantra in The Housemaid (2025) of teeth being a privilege. Warren Oates (The Wild Bunch, 1969) is a better bet, providing a foretaste of his grizzly characters to come.

But Millie Perkins (Wild in the Streets, 1968) tears up the screen. From her bold introduction to the savage conclusion she presents a vivid characterization of a woman expunging her grief with violence. Written by Carole Eastman (Five Easy Pieces, 1970).

Well worth a look.

Comanche Station (1960) ****

Randolph Scott went out on a high – or at least that was the plan, his intended retirement derailed when Sam Peckinpah made him an offer he couldn’t refuse for Ride the High Country / Guns in the Afternoon (1962). But if this was his planned final movie, he couldn’t have wished for a better last hurrah.

Director Budd Boetticher (A Time for Dying, 1969) became something of a cult item once the fashionista critics of the 1960s and 1970s got their hands on him, and pulled out the stops for low-budget pictures made with tight artistic vision in preference to an overload of bloated big budget efforts. This was the last of a western quintet starring Scott.

Boetticher exercises remarkable restraint throughout, very little in the way of emotion, or close-ups, and his use of widescreen follows the classic composition, relevant movement taking place to the side of the screen or in a corner or instead of left to right the action snakes top to bottom.

The story is exceptionally lean but in that simplicity carries enormous power. A man of principle Jefferson Cody (Randolph Scott) is up against the unscrupulous Ben Lane (Claude Akins), the situation complicated by the fact that the good guy isn’t going to make it out of Indian Territory without the help of the bad guy. At stake is a cool $5,000 (worth $125,000) today. Or put another way, a young woman’s life. There’s bad blood between Cody and Lane, the former court-martialing the latter while in the Army.

Cody has rescued kidnapped rancher’s wife Nancy (Nancy Gates), not by raiding the Comanche camp and pulling off the kind of action that used to take a well-practised team of experts (see The Professionals, 1966), but by hoving into view and offering to trade various goods, including a rifle, for the woman. She’s not as grateful as you might expect, fearing the reaction of her husband on her return (it’s unspoken but she would have been raped by her captors) and subsequent public humiliation.

When Comanches reappear, it looks like they’ve reneged on their deal. But they’ve not. They’ve been baited by Lane and his accomplices who, seeking the reward money, have gone in all guns blazing. Nancy turns against Cody because she imagines he, too, was after her for the money and not out of the goodness of his heart.

Lane fuels the fire by casting doubts on her husband not coming after her on his own, and pointing out that women thus rescued often rewarded their rescuer with sexual favors. Lane and his two younger buddies, Frank (Skip Homeier) and Dobie (Richard Rust), briefly discuss robbing Cody once he’s been handed the reward. But Lane has a better idea. Kill them both. The husband wants his wife back dead or alive.

Lane has the sense not to perve on the woman and the director resists the opportunity to pander to the audience by showing Nancy bathing naked in a river. Outside of the gunplay, the three outstanding scenes are smaller potatoes. One of the young lads proves he can read much to the amazement of his friend. When Frank is killed by an arrow he’s left to float down the river because nobody can afford the time to give him a proper burial. And when under attack, Cody dumps Nancy in a water trough to keep her hidden, from which she occasionally pops up sodden only to dive down again.

It’s pretty unusual for western to end on the kind of twist you’d find in film noir or a thriller. But this one is terrific. All the way through Nancy’s husband has been derided for not coming after her in person, but in the last scene we discover why. Her husband is, in fact, blind. Cody, who hasn’t been in it for the money anyway, turns away without taking a cent.

The running time is so lean – just 73 minutes – it would have been released as a supporting feature and it’s testament to the director’s principles that he didn’t try to puff out the length by sticking in some sub plots or encouraging romance.

Beautifully filmed and with a compact script by future director Burt Kennedy (The War Wagon, 1967). This was also the swansong for Nancy Gates. Claude Akins was cast by Kennedy for Return of the Seven (1966). Skip Homeier was the male lead in one of my low-budget faves Stark Fear (1962).

Compelling work and worth reassessment if you’ve not already climbed aboard the Boetticher/Scott bandwagon.

True Grit (1969) *****

An old-style western with a modernized anti-hero in Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne), nearly as “rapaciously brutal” as the same year’s The Wild Bunch, a script with language that captured the period, a heroine Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) who falls into the robust Barbara Stanwyck/Maureen O’Hara mold, humor and action in equal measure, and an unfussy director (Henry Hathaway) who loved the panorama even more than John Ford.

Although still critically rated as not as good as The Wild Bunch, and still mostly disdained by academics, I would argue that it has been grossly under-rated and fully deserving of a re-evaluation. In the first place, despite direction very much in the old school, Hathaway exhibits many stylistic flourishes, not least the very long shot which has rarely been used to such effect. He also utilizes the shaky-camera point-of-view in a much more effective manner than Mackenna’s Gold (1969) to record Cogburn’s charge at the outlaws and there is even a zoom, to pick out the villain Tom Chaney.

Also, you know exactly where you are in a Hathaway picture, not just in the narrative sense, but in terms of how people lived and where the towns and farms were in relation to each other (the Ross farm is 70 miles from Fort Smith, the hamlet of McAllister 60 miles from the villains’ hideout). He liked to show many aspects of a town, so we see where the courthouse is in relation to the jail and the stable by the simple expedient of having the characters walk past them. And the movie is littered with sound effects of the most ordinary kind (blacksmith’s hammer, train whistle, footsteps). The film is as much about progress as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Wild Bunch, the name of the town, Fort Smith, where much of the initial action takes place, indicates it was once a frontier town.

Rooster Cogburn feels crowded out by a new generation of lawyers challenging swift justice, and Mattie Ross, hunting the killers of her father, is well schooled in argument, winning many a confrontation with apparently more experienced and wily men by being more adept at negotiation and like a chess player always one move ahead. The aftermath of the Civil War lingers in the background, demonstrated by Mattie’s weapon and Cogburn’s antipathy to Texas Ranger LaBeef (Glen Campbell). But the story strikes an even balance, no matter how assured Mattie Ross comes across in civilization she almost comes apart in the wilds and without the protection of Cogburn would have met the kind of fate at the hands of men undergone by female characters in The Stalking Moon (1969), Mackenna’s Gold and The Wild Bunch.

It should be said here that the movie is full of audience direction, we are always told where Mattie will go next or where Cogburn is intending to go, with accompanying plausible reason, especially when later Cogburn calls off the hunt for the outlaws. There is no exploration of mystery, the characters are always upfront, and where characters express regret is it minus the self-pitying of The Wild Bunch. Nobody is defined by something they should have done instead, so, in that respect, the narrative is as clear as the overall direction.

We hear Cogburn’s voice before we see him, as if the director is preparing us for a different John Wayne. This is the actor in a new timbre, the usual slow drawl replaced by a raucous bark. And it is a different Wayne, one eye covered in a black patch, giving him a piratical look. He hustles the prisoners out, kicking one straggler viciously in the butt. Wayne walks differently, too. Instead of the famous slow walk, Cogburn is a man in a hurry, pushing forward with purposeful stride, ignoring Mattie as she comes racing after him, slamming the basement door in her face.

LeBeef is another dreamer, “nobody yet” but aiming to “marry well”, in this case “a well-placed young lady in Waco” who would “look with favor” on him for bringing back Chaney who has also killed a senator. His charm fails to convince Mattie to join forces. She sees right through him: “I have no regard for you but I’m sure you have enough for yourself to go around.”

Then comes a four-minute Mattie tour de force as she confronts Col Stonehill (Strother Martin) and demands $300 in reparation for the loss of her father’s saddle and for selling him dodgy horses. She threatens him with the law in the shape of Daggett, her secret weapon, and she knows enough about legality to beat Stonehill at his own game. Even better, this is no meek woman. It is one thing to be able to score points off an old lawman like Cogburn, who would have been putty in the hands of any capable woman of the Stanwyck/O’Hara variety, but another to outwit a wily old horse-dealer like Stonehill (his title a hangover from the Civil War and one which ensures a measure of respect). Even better again, she knows she will win, so confident that she has already drawn up the papers to sign.

Now neither Cogburn nor LeBeef are witness to this demonstration of her capability, so they will, naturally, treat her as a young girl, “baby sister” in Cogburn’s dismissive term. But Hathaway is setting a trap for the audience. Having witnessed this display, we think she will be able to hold her own in the wilderness, mistaking her willfulness for sagacity, and so are on her side in her attempts to win over the two men, when, in fact, she will prove to be so out of her depth as to endanger herself and others.

The pursuit is dogged, and everyone at some point is found wanting. Cogburn smokes the villains out from their cabin and would kill the others without warning except LaBeef objects out of principle and Mattie wants Chaney alive.

At Mattie’s prompting, we hear Cogburn’s mostly unvarnished, but never maudlin, history, he lost his eye in the war, committed a robbery to fund the purchase of an eating place that had a billiard table, married a grass widow, until she left him for her first husband, taking their son, Horace, hiding his sorrow at the boy’s departure in a grumpy “he never liked me anyway” and berating him as “clumsy.” When she lies down to sleep, he gazes at her fondly for the first time, perhaps prompted by memory of his loss.

In the climactic shoot-out, in the most famous John Wayne image since his character’s introduction in Stagecoach (1969), first in long shot then from his point-of-view with a shaky camera, he grasps the reins in his teeth and fires two-handed. He kills two but Pepper shoots his horse from under him and Cogburn, in a sign of his age when otherwise traditionally cowboys leap free of a falling horse, is trapped on the ground under the weight of the animal, unable to reach his gun or to shift. The wounded Pepper advances. He towers over Cogburn until LaBeef, whose marksmanship had previously been in question, saves his life.

And that should pretty much have been the end of the picture, roll credits with Chaney being hung, but there is still nearly 15 minutes to go. Returning to collect Chaney, LaBeef is ambushed, cracked on the head by a rock. Mattie shoots Chaney but the recoil sends her into the snake pit. Cogburn arrives in time to kill the wanted man, also sending him into the pit. She has damaged her shoulder and cannot pull herself up on a rope so Cogburn has to descend. He shoots a rattlesnake but another bites her.

She still had enough presence of mind to demand he first collect her fallen gun and her father’s gold piece from Chaney’s corpse. As he hauls himself up, a dazed LaBeef, mounted on a horse, pulls on the tope to ease their ascent, but the effort is too much, and he keels over and dies.

Mattie strokes his head, the first sign of her changed feelings towards him. Alternatively, this could be guilt because it was her wrong-headedness that caused his death, but that seems unlikely, she is not one to covet regret. Cogburn slaps saliva on the wound (rather than, as we might expect from watching other westerns, sucking out the poison), puts her arm in a sling, and sticks her on Blackie, her horse, despite her protests about the little horse carrying such a weight. Cogburn is ruthless, riding the horse so hard it dies. Then he carries her and finally steals a buggy.

Where previously most of the journey had been rendered in long shot, now Hathaway reverts to medium shot and close up of the haggard Cogburn racing desperately to save the girl’s life. When we cut to Cogburn and Chen Lee instinctively we know she has been saved. The lawyer Daggett appears to pay Cogburn what he is owed plus $200 for saving her life, though, typically, she has prepared a receipt for him to sign.

Then she is home. It is winter. Snow lies on the ground. Cogburn explains there was no woman waiting for LaBeef, though the marshal has collected the reward. She shows him her father’s grave and wants Cogburn, the father she has adopted, to be buried in the same burial ground. She gives him her father’s gun and in a final triumphant moment the “fat old man” gloriously rides over a four-bar fence waving his hat in the air.

John Wayne received just reward with his Oscar, Glen Campbell (The Cool Ones, 1967) does better than we might expect from a singer. Kim Darby (Bus Riley’s Back in Town, 1965) was ignored by Oscar voters but she certainly holds her own. Terrific direction by Henry Hathaway (5 Card Stud, 1968) from a script by Marguerite Roberts (5 Card Stud) based on the bestseller by Charles Portis (Norwood, 1970).

Unmissable.

The Way West (1967) ****

How this crispy-told beautifully-mounted character-driven western ever languished among the also-rans is beyond me. I suspect the specter of John Ford hung heavily over it in the eyes of critics at the time but it more correctly belongs to the cycle of Cecil B. DeMille westerns that told stories with a true historical bent. Often detrimentally compared to How the West Was Won (1963), which told a similar tale of endeavor, this movie deliberately lacks that movie’s inflated drama in which every incident was built up, not least influenced by the need for Cinerama effect, rather than seeking an authentic truth.

Plainly put, the difference is here there are no charges, no races, no fording of rivers in the wrong places. Native Americans are treated with respect. Above all, an epic crossing of the continent with fully-loaded wagons is necessarily going to be slow, risk avoided at all costs, and yet this is not without incident or character arc. In fact, the script is terrific, not just dialog that rings true, but among the elements brought into play are male rivalry, clash with authority, guilt, young love, revenge, vision, justice, America in embryo. That the movie maintains a stately pace, no fistfights descending into brawls, and a shock ending indicate a director in charge of his material.

Based on A.B. Guthrie’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in 1843, the first wagon train heads for Oregon under the iron rule of Senator William Tadlock (Kirk Douglas) and guided by a scout with failing eyesight in Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum), both men widowed and in emotional limbo, and in the cantankerous company of Lije Evans (Richard Widmark) and his glamorous wife Rebecca (Lola Albright). There’s a stowaway (Jack Elam), a preacher who can’t afford the price of transportation, an illicit love affair between the vibrant and lusty Mercy (Sally Field) who “hankers after any three-legged boy” but makes eyes at married man Johnnie Mack (Michael Witney), and enough obstacles to keep less determined settlers from reaching their promised land.

Tadlock is the visionary, a politician suffering from an overblown estimation of his self-worth, who “might have been President except for a woman,” ruthless, valuing only his own ideas. “Point the way,” he tells Summers, “don’t gall me with opinions.” For fear it might interfere with his role as commander, he hides his vulnerability. There’s a plaintive moment when he shares his vision of a city with Rebecca, on the one hand full of his own importance, on the other clearly needing the pat on the back. Later, an occasion of death sees him falling prostate with grief on a grave and on breaking his own laws demands to whipped. The over confident blustering individual is by the end almost suicidal. What is a leader if there is no one to lead?

Summers stoically accepts his infirmity, constantly dropping his head so his eyes are hidden from sight under his hat as if his ailment could be easily detected, mourning the loss of his Native American wife, and while full of Western lore as easily passing on gentle wisdom about love, and his “lucky necklace” to an unrequited lover, but still accused of unworldliness, “for a smart man you ain’t got a lick of sense.” Evans bristles at any authority, believing independence means he goes his own way, especially if that permits the freedom to get drunk at a time of his choosing, and especially once he realizes such lack of inhibition riles the repressed Tadlock. But his fondness for alcohol triggers an incident that almost costs his son his life.

Celebrations he started catch the attention of the nearby Sioux and in the communal drunkenness a Native American child is accidentally killed. In the best scene in the film battle Sioux seeking justice and intent on attack are thwarted only by the “sacrifice” of the killer.

The picture is packed full of incident, many characters coming alive in a single shot or with one line of dialog. A woman tramps on her husband’s foot to prevent him challenging Tadlock’s authority. A woman with a baby retorts that she is afraid when bolder settlers facing potential Native American attack assert the opposite. The bravest man in the camp, the first volunteer to be lowered down a canyon, dies when his rope snaps.

There are any number of reversals. Buffalo, instead of being a danger and prone to stampede, create a dust cloud to hide behind. Rivers are crossed at sensible points, rapids avoided. An African American whips a white man. A boy becomes a man through honor rather than violence. Stories, large and small, play out in a succinct script.

Kirk Douglas (The Arrangement, 1969) is superb as a man whose iron core deserts him. Robert Mitchum (Secret Ceremony, 1969), in almost a supporting role, excellent in full awareness that the sight on which his reputation and job depend will vanish, brings a subtlety to his performance that would be recognized as ideal for Ryan’s Daughter (1970). Richard Widmark (The Bedford Incident, 1965), who is generally simmering, gets to mix in a bit of fun in with the simmering.

Lola Albright (A Cold Wind in August, 1961) swaps seductiveness for sense. In her debut Sally Field (Smokey and the Bandit, 1977), filled with zip and zest, sparkles as the lusty young woman and it’s astonishing to realize she would not make another movie for nearly a decade while another debutante Katherine Justice (Five Card Stud, 1968) finds her inner fire when it’s too late. There’s supporting talent a plenty – Jack Elam (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968), Stubby Kaye (Cat Ballou, 1965), Harry Carey Jr. (The Undefeated, 1969) and William Lundigan (The Underwater City, 1962) in only his second film of the decade.

Director Andrew V. McLaglen (The Rare Breed, 1966) captures the correct tone for the film, making up for the essential slow pace with brilliant use of widescreen, coaxing great performances from all concerned. Screenwriters Ben Maddow (The Chairman, 1969) and Mitch Lindemann (The Careless Years, 1957) compress Guthrie’s tome with considerable skill.

Woefully underrated at the time and since, this deserves reassessment. This is a truer version of how the west was won. And I surely can’t be alone in demanding that McLaglen’s talent be more properly recognized.

You might be interested to know there are two other articles on this film – a “Behind the Scenes” and a “Book into Film.”

The Rare Breed (1966) ****

Classic themes of hope, resilience and redemption influence director Andrew V. McLaglen’s follow-up to Shenandoah (1965). Add in a battle against widespread misogyny, thieves falling out, a brilliant stampede and a forlorn hunt that has echoes in the decade-old The Searchers. But other more serious issues are explored. At the film’s core is the question of how a nation built on innovation refuses to countenance change, in other words a country where hierarchy (inevitably male) has begun to impose its preference and how those who suggest alternatives must not just buckle to that collective will but admit they are wrong, a problem that in the half century since the film was made has not gone away.

Widow Martha (Maureen O’Hara) and daughter Hilary (Juliet Mills) bring to auction her white-face Hereford bull, a British institution, the first of its kind to be imported (for breeding purposes, you understand) to America where hardy longhorn cattle are the dominant species. Despite being insulted for her temerity in challenging the existing order, Martha is astonished to receive a winning bid of $2,000, only to realize this comes with conditions attached, the buyer assuming his largesse will also win her, a sharp elbow to the ribs dissuading him of this notion.

Determined to see the bull delivered to the Texan ranch, Martha decides to accompany the animal on its journey. Wrangler Sam (James Stewart), hired to transport it instead plans to steal it and to keep the dupe sweet until the time is ripe encourages her to develop romantic ideas towards him. When another cowboy, Simons (Jack Elam), with eyes on the same four-legged prize causes confrontation the game is up, though Sam sees the trip through.

Rancher Bowen (Brian Keith) belittles the Hereford bull although viewing Martha as a better proposition, but the only way to discover whether the beast can survive in the territory is to let it loose on the open range where it was likely to encounter blizzards (not so rare in Texas as you might think). Once the bull is set free, the movie shifts onto a question of endurance, not just of the animal, but of the mindset of Martha and Sam. Her faith in her insane idea is tested to the limit and, almost in compensation, a woman needing security/protection et al, she comes to appreciate the attentions of a less wild Bowen.

Both central characters have much to lose and much to face up to. Martha, in accepting she was wrong and letting Bowen into her life, will almost certainly be surrendering her independence (she can still be feisty but that’s not the same thing). It’s a testament to her acting that you can see that faith wilting. Sam, a conniving thief whichever way you cut it (although the storyline gives him something of a free pass), has to face up to the fact that he was planning to con a woman out of the precious possession on which her precarious future was built.

The scenes between Martha and Sam are superb, especially when he is grooming what he thinks will be an easy dupe. Sam, in a purgatory of his own making, almost certainly an outcast were the truth more widely broadcast, attempts to expiate his guilt.

James Stewart and Maureen O’Hara had worked together in Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and there is no denying their screen chemistry. But there’s an innocence that O’Hara rarely displays, the woman in love suppressing those emotions not denying them as perhaps in The Quiet Man (1952). She’s both independent and, if the right man comes along, happy to accept his protection (from the male predators of the West), while at the same time keeping him on the right track and sorting out his world of misshapen priorities. There are some brilliant scenes where something else is going on story-wise and O’Hara is internalizing some deeper emotion entirely. It’s an acting coup for an actress like Maureen O’Hara who would never give up to convey so well a character on the verge of surrender.

This is one of James Stewart’s best roles, far removed from the principled hero of Shenandoah (1965) and returning him closer to the shifty character of Vertigo (1958) adept at self-justification. In the scene where he is found out by O’Hara he is outstanding. It’s not a given that the character will find a way to turn things round and his efforts to redeem himself make the latter part of the picture emotionally involving, especially as this is countered by O’Hara’s own internal battle.

It’s worth pointing out that although the narrative mainly concerns the two main characters, the background is filled with ruthlessness. Not only does Sam feel no compunction about stealing a bull worth $2,000, we first encounter Bowen’s son Jamie (Don Galloway) when he is making off with a herd of his father’s longhorns. The cattle barons use their wealth to “buy” a classy woman and cheat cowboys. And there is further murder along the way.

I was going to mark this picture down for the comedy which seems to amount to endless brawls but I wondered if modern audiences, reared on the never-ending fistfights and wanton destruction that usually indicated the finale of a superhero picture, would accept it quite happily, perhaps even welcome it. While Brian Keith (The Deadly Companions, 1961) stands accused not only of one of the worst Scottish accents committed to the screen – and these days of cultural appropriation – that does not take away from a character who, behind the beard, transitions from loathsome father to something more approaching humanity, in other words wild man who realizes the benefits of civilization.

In fact, the broad comedy serves to obscure a film full of brilliant, cutting, funny lines, generally delivered in scathing tones by the woman. O’Hara to Stewart: “You may bulldog a steer but you can’t bulldog me.” Stewart to O’Hara: “Can I help you with that” and her response “No, they’re clean and I’d like to keep them that way.” And that’s not forgetting the sight of the cowboys whistling British national anthem “God Save the Queen” in order to bring the bull to heel.

I forgot to mention the romantic subplot involving Hilary – in case you were wondering what role she had in all this – and Bowen’s estranged son, Jamie. Juliet Mills (Avanti!, 1970), older sister of child star Hayley, is excellent as the sassy daughter of a feisty woman, Don Galloway (Rough Night in Jericho, 1967) less of a stand-out in his debut, in part because he has to subsume his rage against his father.

Jack Elam (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968) is good as always and you will spot in smaller parts Ben Johnson (The Undefeated, 1969), Harry Carey Jr. (The Undefeated), Barbara Werle (Krakatoa, East of Java, 1968) and David Brian (Castle of Evil, 1966). John Williams, masquerading as Johnny Williams, wrote the score.

Setting the comedy aside, this is a more intimate film from director Andrew V. McLaglen compared to the widescreen glory of The Undefeated and the intensity of Shenandoah and for that reason tends to be underrated. There are some wonderful images, not least Sam carrying the injured Jamie in the style of Michelangelo’s La Pieta – an idea stolen by Oliver Stone for Platoon (1986) – but mostly McLaglen concentrates on the actors.