Clik here to view.
Celluloid Indians: Part 1 of 2
The beginnings Back in 2020 I wrote an article on this blog, American Indians and the Western, but I’d like to revise it now, having just, on reader Jean-Marie’s recommendation, finished Edward...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Celluloid Indians: Part 2 of 2
American Indians in the movies We have been looking at the way American Indians were represented in Western movies (click here for Part 1 of our story), and we have suggested that their principal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fighting Blood (Biograph, 1911)
Gripping stuff In my recent article on American Indians in the Western (click here for that) I suggested that many of the earliest silent movies were actually quite pro-Indian, and often showed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Law West of Tombstone (RKO, 1938)
Harry Carey rides again In a deliberate allusion to ‘the law west of the Pecos’, in RKO’s 1938 picture The Law West of Tombstone, Harry Carey plays a Judge Roy Bean-like figure, a blowhard who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Outlaw’s Daughter (Fox, 1954)
Derringers galore I really like The Outlaw’s Daughter for one principal reason: it’s derringer-rich. The little guns, with which, regular readers will know, I am pretty well obsessed (click here...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Celluloid Alamo: 9
The last big picture – for the moment The next Alamo film in a long line was the 37-minute IMAX docudrama Alamo… The Price of Freedom, made in 1988, and shown exclusively in a new theater specially...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Celluloid Alamo: 10
A round-up We’ve looked, over the past few weeks, at big-screen (in the case of the 1988 IMAX film a very big screen) depictions of the defense and fall of the Alamo in 1836. The whole subject has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Return of Wildfire (Screen Guild, 1948)
Yet another capture-the-wild-stallion Western Maker of low-budget fare Robert Lippert made the first film for his company Screen Guild in 1945. It was a capture-the-wild-stallion yarn called...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Grand Canyon (Screen Guild, 1949)
The play within the play Last time on this blog we looked at a 1948 picture made by Robert L Lippert’s company Screen Guild, The Return of Wildfire, which brought together Paul Landres, director,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea
One of the great Western novels Thomas Calloway Lea III (1907 – 2001) was a son of El Paso – in fact his namesake father was mayor in the 1910s, and made a public declaration that he would arrest...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Thunder of Drums (MGM, 1961)
Not much thunder and I didn’t hear any drums I would say that A Thunder of Drums is a John Ford cavalry western without the John Ford part. There wasn’t any thunder and I heard no drums. It’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Boy from Oklahoma (Warner Bros, 1954)
Delightful The Boy from Oklahoma was Michael Curtiz’s last Western at Warners, and it has often been regarded as a minor, even disappointing picture compared with the Errol Flynn ones, but unjustly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wild Heritage (Universal, 1958)
Disappointing I was talking the other day about Will Rogers Jr, and how much I enjoyed his light-hearted 1954 movie The Boy from Oklahoma, Michael Curtiz’s last Western at Warners. Rogers only did...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Old Henry (Shout! Factory, 2021)
Very good I’ve wanted to see Old Henry for some time. It’s been up on Amazon Prime but unfortunately Amazon is too mean or too lazy to offer it in the original language here in France where I live...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Castaway Cowboy (Buena Vista, 1974)
Pineapple cowboys Personally speaking, Disney live-action Westerns are not really my thing. They have always been quite popular, I’m sure, and many people still like them, especially perhaps young...
View ArticleClik here to view.
100 Westerns by Edward Buscombe
An excellent introduction to the genre I like Edward Buscombe’s writing on Westerns. I have already reviewed The BFI Companion to the Western, which he edited, and his book Injuns: Native Americans...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Westerns of Donald Siegel
Don The next in our The Westerns of… series is Don Siegel. He didn’t direct a great number of feature oaters, with full credit on only four – five if you count The Beguiled, six if you count...
View ArticleA bit of a pause
Howdy, regular readers. Just to say I shall be offline for a bit, for health reasons. I’ll be posting again as soon as I can. Meanwhile, don’t hesitate to plunder the index for back-numbers!...
View ArticleThe Last Post
The end of the trail Well, e-pards, I’m sorry to tell you that this is the end of the trail. The Big C, I’m afraid, and it’s spread and is inoperable. So I won’t be posting any more. I’ve enjoyed...
View ArticleJeff Arnold’s West Rides On…
Dear e-pards (as Jeff would say), Jeff Arnold referring to ‘The Big C’ seemed apt to some of his blog’s loyal readers. No less a Western luminary than John Wayne reputedly coined the term during his...
View Article