Western Movies: Now Disc. "Unforgiven"

Robert Ryan was such a good actor. If you ever get a chance to see him in "Caught", don't miss it. And in his last movie, "The Iceman Cometh" (1973), he quite literally goes out in glory.

 

I'll keep looking, I am usually eyeballing the television guide making sure I don't miss anything. Haven't seen either.

BTW, wasn't he great in The Naked Spur? Manipulative, yet played it off like someone's lost puppy dog.

 

Yes, he was great. I really liked him "The Wild Bunch", too.

 

Still haven't seen The Naked Spur, but The Man from Laramie, another Mann/Stewart collaboration is tragically underrated and forgotten. He's got Arthur Kennedy in that one and, though Stewart himself is less complex than usual (in fact, he's really only the catalyst, much more the observer than usual), the plot is more Shakespeare than sagebrush.

Okay, yeah, I admit, I stole that list comparison from Amazon.com.

 

Continuing with the James Stewart/Anthony Mann Westerns.

"The Naked Spur" (1953)

The Naked Spur is a 1953 American western movie directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in their third collaboration.

Plot

Howard Kemp (James Stewart) tracks murderer Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) for the $5000 reward. His ex-fiancée had sold his ranch while he was serving in the army and he is determined to buy it back. Grizzled old miner Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell) and discharged Union soldier Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker) join the hunt. Ben is caught along with a companion, Lina Patch (Janet Leigh), the daughter of one of his friends.

On the way back, Ben tries to turn his captors against each other. Meanwhile, Lina is torn between loyalty to Ben and a growing attraction to Howard. Ben convinces Jesse into sneaking off with him and Lina; Ben later gets the drop on the old man and kills him in cold blood, alienating the young woman. The other two track him down and a shootout ensues. Ben is eventually shot by Roy and his body falls into the nearby river, where it becomes entangled in the roots of a tree. When Roy goes to retrieve it, he is crushed by another tree floating down the river. Lina pleads with Howard not to take blood money for bringing Ben in; his love for her makes him reluctantly agree.

Reception

The film was a box office hit when first released, ensuring three more Stewart-Mann collaborations, including two more westerns. Screenwriters Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom were nominated for the 1954 Best Screenplay Academy Award. In the years since its release, the film has achieved continued success, gaining more critical acclaim now than upon first release. The film was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation by the federally funded United States National Film Registry in 1997.

Although the film generally receives credit for teaming James Stewart with Anthony Mann for several films, Robert Ryan also teamed with Mann in The Naked Spur, Men In War, and God's Little Acre. Leonard Maltin has lauded The Naked Spur as "one of the best westerns ever made."

Cast
James Stewart as Howard Kemp
Janet Leigh as Lina Patch
Robert Ryan as Ben Vandergroat
Ralph Meeker as Roy Anderson
Millard Mitchell as Jesse Tate

Discuss.

 

The plot doesn't quite have the appeal of the gun roundelay in "Wincester 73" but it is mercifully minus Shelly Winters, has a great, appealing villain in Robert Ryan, and Stewart is more morally ambiguous. A very, very interesting movie.

 

Next up is another classic western from the early 50's.

Shane (1953)

Shane (1953) is a timeless, classic western tale - a very familiar and highly regarded seminal western and the most successful Western of the 1950s. The film's rich color cinematography captures the beautiful environment of the legendary frontier (filmed on location in Jackson Hole, Wyoming) with its gray-blue Grand Tetons as a backdrop.

The screenplay was based on Jack Schaefer's successful 1949 book of the same name. The film received six Academy Awards nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Brandon de Wilde), Best Supporting Actor (Jack Palance), Best Director, Best Screenplay (by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.), and Best Color Cinematography, and won its sole Oscar award for photographer Loyal Griggs. Unbelievably, star Alan Ladd in probably his best known and realized performance, was un-nominated. Director/actor Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider (1985) paid homage to Stevens' film with a similar storyline.

Veteran director/producer George Stevens' film is often considered the second film of his "American trilogy," positioned between A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956). Stevens self-consciously fashioned this simple western into a wide-screen, Technicolored panoramic masterpiece to create a symbolic myth: the age-old story of the duel between good and evil, the advent of civilization (with families, law and order, and homesteaders) and progress into the wilderness (a world of roaming cattlemen, lawless gunslingers, and loners on horseback), a land-dispute conflict between a homesteader and cattle baron, and the coming of age of a young boy. The film is dotted with classic sequences - the uprooting of the stubborn stump in the yard, Torrey's murder in the muddy street and his hilltop funeral, and the climactic finale.

The straight-forward narrative is told and seen mostly through the eyes of the young impressionable hero, who idolizes a mysterious, gunslinging hero from the wilderness who appears from nowhere - a man without a past or a future. The theme song of the film "The Call of the Faraway Hills" parallels the backdrop of the entire story. To heighten the effects of the violence (numerous fistfights and gunfights) and provide a striking contrast to the taciturn silence of the former gunslinger, director Stevens magnified the sounds of punches and gunshots on the soundtrack, but he never glorified violence for its own sake.

A gunfighter named Shane(Alan Ladd) attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but things get in the way when a man named Ryker tries to get the family's land. Shane tries and protects them, beating up one of Ryker's henchmen, only making things worse.

Being one of my favorite Westerns of all-time, "Shane" is a true Western masterpiece. Powerful and touching, this is entertaining throughout its entire run. With brilliant acting, a wonderful screenplay, and great directing, this is an excellent movie that is a classic of its genre.

I have never seen any of Alan Ladd's work before, but this movie makes me want to see them. He plays the role of Shane perfectly, never overdoing it, and having great chemistry with the rest of the cast members. No one could have done a better job than Ladd - he fits and plays his role perfectly, not failing to disappoint.

The dialogue is brilliant, and isn't this very dramatic, OTT dialogue that sounds like the movie is trying too hard to be good. It is excellent, with one of the best lines being the famous last line that gives a powerful ending to the movie. (Plus, just for a bit of trivia, there is a scene that involves a conversation that inspires the famous scene in "Taxi Driver", where Robert De Niro says, "You talking to me?" into a mirror.)

In my opinion, this is one of the greatest Westerns to be made (although my all-time favorite Western is the famous "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"). It has brilliant dialogue, acting, and directing, and is a very powerful movie. Director George Stevens does an excel

 

I'm probably going to be in the minority on this one, but having read Schafers novel before watching the film, I felt that they butchered it.

 

I was actually underwhelmed by Schaefer's novel. The film is all about the visuals; the striking tableau of the funeral, the muddy street going in and out of shadow, Jack Palance walking his horse into town.

Heflin and Arthur are both very good and Ladd is perfect for Shane. Brandon De Wilde is, um, annoying, but hilarious at the same time; I think we've all known a kid like that at least once that just. will. not. shut. up.

It's a solid movie, but not in my personal top ten westerns or anything. Beautifully shot, but a bit stoic.

 

George Stevens used to be a terrific, lively director, but somewhere along the line, he got delusions of David Lean. His 50's movies often seem terribly bloated, though this one isn't as bad as "Giant."

 

Now I will start discussing Clint Eastwood's Western Films, starting with his first 'Spaghetti Western'.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari in Italy, and officially on-screen in the United States as simply Fistful of Dollars) is a 1964 film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood. Released in the United States in 1967, it initiated the popularity of the Spaghetti western film genre. It was followed by For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, also starring Eastwood. Collectively, the films are commonly known as "The Dollar(s) Trilogy". In the United States, the United Artists publicity campaign referred to Eastwood's character in all three films as The Man With No Name.

The plot of the film involves Eastwood as a gunman (referred to as "Joe" twice by an old man in the town) who arrives in a small town on the frontier and plays the town's two rival factions, the Rojos and the Baxters, against each other in order to make money off both sides and save a family caught in the crossfire.

Although the film was advertised in trailers as "the first film of its kind", the plot and even the cinematography was based almost entirely on Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo (written by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima). Yojimbo itself is believed to have been based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest, although Kurosawa never credited the author, despite acknowledging the source. Kurosawa himself reportedly liked Leone's film, but remained insistent that he receive compensation. He wrote Leone: "It is a very fine film, but it is my film."[1] The producers of Yojimbo successfully sued the production of A Fistful of Dollars for copyright infringement, and gained an apology, $100,000 dollars and 15% of the box office totals in Asia to the movie in compensation. Kurosawa later admitted he quite liked A Fistful of Dollars and considered it a worthy remake.

Leone also referenced numerous American Westerns in the film, most notably Shane and My Darling Clementine. Stephen King has credited the trilogy with inspiring the atmosphere of his novel The Gunslinger.

References
A Fistful of Dollars, as the initiator of the 'spaghetti western', is referenced elsewhere in popular culture:

Back to the Future trilogy: in Back to the Future Part II, a short scene is seen where Joe survives the final gunfight which foreshadows the scene in Back to the Future Part III where Marty does the same thing (in the same costume, and after having told locals his name was 'Clint Eastwood').
Star Trek: The Next Generation: in the episode "A Fistful of Datas", Worf and Troi are trapped in a holodeck western until they play it out to the end of the story. Meanwhile, each of the characters is being replaced by a likeness of Data.
The movie was parodied in the Futurama episode "A Fishful of Dollars"
In one of the Halloween episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander Harris wore a costume similar to, and based on, the attire that Clint Eastwood's "man with no name" wore in the spaghetti westerns in which he starred.
After a number of saves in MGS3 Para-Medic talks to Naked Snake about the movie, as the game is set in 1964.
The band The Mars Volta uses themes from A Fistful of Dollars at their live shows.
The band Gorillaz released a song called 'Clint Eastwood'.
The movie Last Man Standing starring Bruce Willis is a remake of both Yojimbo and "A Fistful of Dollars".
The American version of the videogame Ape Escape 3 features a stage set in a Wild West town, and the movie the monkeys are filming there is called "A Fistful Of Bananas".

Discuss.

 

Apparently Eastwood recognized the source when he read the script, not back for the early 60's.

 

I love movies like this. It always makes me wish I was that clever. The final shootout when The Man with No Name keeps telling Ramon to "aim for the heart" is incredible! The look on Ramon's face is priceless.

 

My least favorite of the trilogy but still a great film. Tarantino took some fantastic scores from this one in particular and did a very nice job of composing them into new scenes in Kill Bill 2.

Speaking of the other entries, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly and For A Few Dollars More are running neck and neck. Frankly, El Indio (Gian Marie Volonte) is a excellent villian. The pocketwatch, the melody, the duel contribute to two of the very best scenes in the whole trilogy.

 

It is, I think, the least of the Dollars trilogy, but it's indicative of how great the trilogy as a whole is that it is still a great film. Eastwood's superstardom really begins to take form here.

It is a crib from Yojimbo, in some places so incredibly obviously that it couldn't have been accidental (the 'rescue' of the prostitute in the cramped room, the massacre at the fire, the recuperation of the nearly beaten to death hero). But Yojimbo was, in its own way, a pastiche on Ford's old westerns, so I think it's all in good form.

The elements are all here; the overt direction, Morricone's bizarre score, Eastwood squint, the sharp flashing violence, the long, long silences . . . they haven't reached a pinaccle yet, but it's very definitely a spaghetti western from word go.

 

Next up is the second movie in the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood "Man With No Name" Trilogy.

For a Few Dollors More (1965)

For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più) is a 1965 film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Gian Maria Volonté. German actor Klaus Kinski also plays a supporting role as a secondary villain. The film was released in the United States in 1967 and is the second part of what is commonly known as the Leone/Eastwood "Dollars" trilogy.

Production

After the box-office success of A Fistful of Dollars in Italy, director Sergio Leone and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, wanted to begin production on a sequel. In order to do this, they would have to get Clint Eastwood to agree to star in it. However, Eastwood had not even seen the first movie at this time, and was not ready to do another until he had. So Leone gave him an Italian print (an English version had not yet been made) and Eastwood brought some friends to screen the film with him at the CBS Production Center. The reaction was positive, and Eastwood agreed to do a sequel.

The film was shot in Almeria, Spain, with interiors done at Rome's Cinecittà Studios.

Plot

Eastwood (as an unnamed bounty hunter with the nickname of "Monco"[1]), and Van Cleef (Colonel Douglas Mortimer) portray two paid killers in pursuit of "El Indio" (Volontè), one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang (one of whom is played by Kinski). El Indio is a ruthless, intelligent man addicted to what is apparently marijuana; his drug-induced craziness is emphasized via closeups and flashback sequences. Van Cleef's character has a personal motive for his actions: his sister, we learned at the film's end, killed herself while being raped by El Indio. Eastwood is, as in the other "Man with No Name" films, motivated mainly by money, but also by a sense of justice towards those he likes.

Trivia

The production designer, Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almeria desert: it still exists, as a tourist attraction. The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, is Albaricoces, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Nijar plain.
In the U.S., the United Artists publicity campaign referred to Eastwood's character in all three films as The Man With No Name.

Lee Van Cleef's character was mentioned in the tagline as "The Man in Black."

Discuss.

 

I'm generally a fan of Leone, but there's no doubt at all that there are longeurs in this movie. Don't care, really. It's a very good movie, with a good casting director.

 

This is the least talked about of the Dollars trilogy, but I think it's better than Fistful of Dollars really.

Van Cleef is brilliant and it's very cool to watch this back to back with Good, the Bad and the Ugly to get a picture of one actor playing two directly opposed roles and playing them absolutely brilliantly.

Volonte is not subtle, but I'm past caring. I think Morricone's score is better than Fistful's too; the way it weaves in the watch that is a major part of the plot is very cool and the final showdown is a real winner.

 

I thought this was Leones best collaboration with Eastwood but its really Van Cleef that owns the film - hands down his best work.

 

Great movie, I like it better than Fistful. VanCleef is brilliant, as others have said. And the ending rocks, Clint counting the bodies, realizing he'S coming up a few dollars short ...

 

This film made Lee Van Cleef a star. He became a hot property in spaghetti westerns & thanks to Leone he proved he could carry a film as a heroic lead or villain. Although he never achieved the same success in the US as he did in Italy he made some good films outside of the Leone films. "The Big Gundown" is a must for any fans of Van Cleef, spaghetti westerns or Ennio Morricone.

 

Next up is the last movie in the "Dollars" Trilogy and also my favorite Western movie of all.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)

Released in 1966, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) is one of the most widely-known Western films [citation needed]. Considered by some critics as the greatest western movie ever made [citation needed], it is often cited as the quintessential film of the "Spaghetti Western" genre [citation needed]. The film was directed by Sergio Leone and stars Clint Eastwood (Blondie, the Man with No Name, or "The Good"), Lee Van Cleef ("Angel Eyes", Sentenza, or "The Bad"), and Eli Wallach (Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, "The Rat", or "The Ugly").

Overview

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly tells of three men seeking a fortune in buried gold, the catch being that each of them know part of the puzzle but need each other to find the prize. The film is set in 1862 New Mexico (USA) during the New Mexico campaign of General Henry Hopkins Sibley, an officer of the army of the Confederate States of America (CSA), in the American Civil War.

The movie is particularly known for its original music score, created by Ennio Morricone. The main title theme is considered by many to be the most recognized music affiliated with the western genre [citation needed] (along with the William Tell Overture finale as used by the Lone Ranger). Morricone combined in his score a series of riffs and even unusual pieces of music like gunfire and whistling. Morricone has said the main theme was meant to resemble coyotes howling. The strains of the mournful "La Storia Di un Soldato" ("The Story of a Soldier") haunt the aftermaths of the Civil War battle scenes. The music of the film's climactic sequence in the graveyard is especially noteworthy, as the scenes are first accompanied with the enormously popular sounds of "L'Estasi Dell'Oro" ("The Ecstasy Of Gold"), and then by "Il Triello" ("The Triple Duel") for the famous three-way showdown. This epic showdown with the three participants is considered to be one of the most electrifying climaxes ever filmed, and the music is a huge part of the power of this scene. Quentin Tarantino has stated that this scene is the best one ever shot in film history, according to his own personal criteria.

The film is also notable for several Leone trademarks - namely, the sparse dialogue, long scenes that slowly build to a climax (for this film, in the form of a Mexican standoff) and contrasts between sweeping long camera shots and extremely tight close-ups on eyes and fingers. The first ten minutes of the film have no dialogue, and the only character who frequently talks is Eli Wallach's character, who far and away has the most lines.

The film is part of a loose trilogy with Leone's earlier films A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Eastwood stars in all three, with the same clothing and mannerisms, so the role is popularly dubbed "The Man With No Name." In lieu of a "name," the character is addressed by three different monikers: "Joe," by one character in the first movie; "Monco" (Italian for "man with only one hand")[1] only twice in the second movie; and "Blondie," regularly in the third. These monikers have misled some people to state that the "Man With No Name" was in fact named, but all three of these names served merely as placeholders and nicknames. "Joe", for example, is used in a similar fashion to "Mack," as a way to address a stranger, and "Blondie" is Tuco Ramirez's nickname for his fair-haired partner.

Some fans see The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as a prequel to the earlier two movies, as Eastwood's character acquires his trademark poncho toward the end of the movie. This is left to speculation, as although Angel Eyes dies, Lee Van Cleef plays a completely different character (Colonel Mortimer) in For a Few Dollars More. However, there is no solid continuity between the movies to deduce an absolute link or order. Christopher Frayling

 

For the restored footage on the DVD Clint Eastwood & Eli Wallach were brought in to dub their lines. Unfortunately their voices don't sound the same.

 

Also, there is no spoken dialogue for the first 10 minutes of the movie

 

Here is some more information about this great film from www.clinteastwood.net

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the third and most accomplished of the Dollars trilogy; Sergio Leone created his film on an epic scale, and it stands today as one of the greatest westerns made. The increased budget allowed for scenes of war on a massive scale, and the film serves as a condemnation of the futility of war, summed up by Eastwood's character when he says, "I've never seen so many men wasted so badly." This is motivated in part by Leone's childhood in Italy during the Second World War - he identified the prison camp with Nazi concentration camps with their Jewish orchestras - but the message was also very significant for the American public when it was released in the US in 1969.

The film is set chronologically before the previous two films, and it implies the development of the character of the Man With No Name. We see him despairing at the war, and we are also shown a compassion which is absent from the other films. He is shown stroking a kitten at one stage, and later he gives the dying soldier a puff of his cigar; then symbolically he removes his trench coat and replaces it with the familiar poncho, showing he has become the character of the earlier movies.

Technically the film is superbly crafted. Leone's camerawork is very striking, most notably with the tension built up when Blondie is struggling to load his gun before Tuco's assassins burst in; also the final shootout scene, where the wide shots of all three protagonists (which has to be seen in widescreen format to be truly appreciated) gives way to extreme close ups of eyes and hands moving towards guns. The cross-cutting is made all the more effective by the difference between the three lead actors' eyes: Eastwood's are narrowed in a squint, Van Cleef's are also narrow but older, and Eli Wallach's are wide-open and shifty. The superb pictures are perfectly complemented by one of the finest and most memorable film scores ever, again supplied by the ever-improving Morricone.

The film came at a turning point in Clint's life: in addition to the $250,000 and percentage he received for making the film, he also had the $119,000 he was paid by CBS when Rawhide was cancelled after its 7-year run. This made Clint a wealthy man: that year he set up his own production company, Malpaso, and has never looked back.

More Trivia

The working title for the film was "The Magnificent Rogues".
The film's budget was a massive $1.2 million.
Charles Bronson was again approached, this time for the role of Tuco, and would have taken the role, but was already committed to The Dirty Dozen. A few years later Bronson appeared in Leone's epic Once Upon A Time In The West and proved his instincts right.
Leone approached Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach to be the gunfighters Charles Bronson shoots down at the start of Once Upon A Time In The West. The others agreed, but Clint turned it down.
Some early European versions of the film include a scene between Clint's character and a Mexican prostitute.

The Man with No Name. . . Clint Eastwood
Sentenza (Angel Eyes). . . Lee Van Cleef
Tuco . . . Eli Wallach
also starring
Aldo Giuffre
Mario Brega
Luigi Pistilli
Rada Rassimov
Enzo Petito
Claudio Scarchilli
John Bartho
Livio Lorenzon
Antonio Casale
Sandro Scarchilli
Benito Stefanelli
Angelo Novi
Antonio Casas
Aldo Sambrell
Al Mulloch
Sergio Mendizabal
Molino Rocho
Lorenzo Robledo

Producer . . . Alberto Grimaldi
Director . . . Sergio Leone
Screenplay . . Luciano Vincenzoli, Sergio Leone
Director of Photography . . . Tonino Delli Colli
Editors . . . Nino Baragli, Eugeno Alabiso
Music . . . Ennio Morricone

And yes, it as noted above did not have any spoken dialogue within the first ten minutes of the opening sequence.