THE ESSENTIALS #2: THE GREATEST WESTERNS EVER MADE

This post originally appeared on my personal site but since I have been called upon to lead Vaulting Sky I take up the challenge of facing ridicule and exposing myself to bodily harm on this, our feature blog. Alone and shivering I creep forth, compelled by some dark force to step out and proclaim that the films listed at the end of this post are the greatest westerns ever made.

What prompted this seedy daring? Our need for lists and cataloging, foolish ego and the plain old fact that if one has a blog it might as well be an interesting and occasionally hilarious read. Without this what is the point of blogging? The very fact that we are here in the blogging universe says to the world, “Hey, look at me. I may not be pretty but, darn it, I exist!

Then there is the fact of the Western. It is an invented art form and perhaps, along with jazz, the only art forms to be almost wholly formed on American soil.

The Old West as it comes down to us in the movie art form called “The Western,” is mostly myth. We all know or have caught hints that Wyatt Earp was considerably less than his self-generating reviews which were ripe for the pickings for an America hungry for heroes (When isn’t America hungry for heroes?), and the horrors of the Native American ordeal in this country are now widely known fact.

Yet Hollywood found a way to express itself most powerfully by taking the dime-store myths of quick-draw, gun-slingers and Indian Fighting he-men and blowing them up into epic heroes while burying beneath the vast landscapes and sun-blasted exteriors the fears, the desperate hopes, and the yearning for role models that might teach us how to be good people in a world gone gray from compromise.

A man could walk alone in a movie western and declare the hard truths of black and white though, beneath this gritty, rock hard exterior lay a man wrestling with fears and doubts just like the rest of us.

And no movie star did this better than the much maligned, much hated, much under-rated John Wayne an actor whom, in his element, was as great an artist as Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Burt Lancaster, Anthony Hopkins, Kirk Douglas, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Al Pacino, and Robert Ryan.

In Wayne we have an actor that carried the whole world in his eyes and much of that world contained all the hurt and pain that would subdue any thousand men, let alone one, lone hero. But more on Wayne, later.

You will note the presence of Eastwood, Bronson and Scott, but neither Cooper, Flynn nor Ladd made the list. Their Westerns are certainly interesting but they lack that complete package that would put them on such a list as this. Script, direction, and acting must all combine to make a memorable western and while I do enjoy “Shane,” “They Died With Their Boots On,” and “High Noon,” they are not works of art, or those works that repay careful attention and grow richer upon repeat visits.

An aesthetic statement?

Yes.

A shabby one?

Yes.

Scary?

I scare myself!

Thus, without further ado here are, in my throttled, beaten down, kicked and cudgeled opinion, the greatest westerns ever made (and below the list an attempt at commentary on each of the films):

1. “The Searchers”

2. “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

3. “Ride the High Country / “The Wild Bunch”

4. “Red River”

5. “My Darling Clementine”

6. “Once Upon a Time in the West”

7. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”

8. “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”

9. “Rio Bravo”

10. “Stagecoach”

Hang on, a commentary, for what its worth, follows:

1. “The Searchers”

(Ford Dir., Wayne, Hunter, Miles)

Stop. I know the rage. I know the blows. I understand the frustration. But stop.

There is one thing we have to understand. There will never be an answer for John Wayne the creature, the man, the symbol, the poster boy, the devotee, the siren, the patriot, the loon, the lunk-head, the icon. There can only be a serious appraisal of John Wayne’s movies by serious people. Wayne was said to be a bore, a racist, a misogynist, a goon, a coward, and a draft dodger. It is known that he escaped service from not one but two “patriotic” wars. (I understand the need to fight WWII but WWI?) At any rate, this small aside simply shows us the baggage that already attends to the Duke even before we might consider Wayne as Donposa has, rightly in my opinion, called him: one of the very greatest artists that America has ever produced.

Wait I have just taken a huge guzzle of Trader Joe’s excellent Harris Tawny Port the better to ward of the cudgeling I suspect is my due for having uttered, for some, such profound nonsense. No, I am not drinking straight from the bottle. Besides the bottle is not even in a brown bag which, as we all know, is the only proper way to bottle-guzzle. And I am not “snifting” from a big fat jar passing as a glass. You John Wayne haters will stop at nothing. Nothing!

Further:

I am not a member of the John Birch Society nor have I ever aspired to be.

And, finally, no I am not some vile, backseat goon screaming out “Bomb, bomb, bomb, / bomb, bomb Iran.”

I am a mere fan, perhaps soon to be an ex-fan but I warn you: the authorities have been alerted. If anything happens to me this blog will go dark–so there.

With such a safety net in place I can now, loudly, er, make that quietly but with some measure of conviction, proclaim that the greatest Western ever made is John Ford’s “The Searchers.” Wait. Ok it was the alarms but my security cameras only picked up a strange looking man in a hoodie rifling through my neighbor’s Infinity Q45. I will say this about that: “I’m glad it’s not me!”

Back. “The Searchers.” It is terrifying. No, not because John Wayne enters the frame, (Stop it haters!), but because it starts in mystery and ends in mystery and you cannot imagine an end for any of the main characters. What has gone on before the movie’s legendary final shot is mostly horror and the anticipation of horror. Even attempts at humor are bathed in a glow that breeds horror around the next bend. It is a movie of massacres and crushed young love and thwarted hearts that burn with rage at memories too painful to dwell on and too precious to totally still.

“The Searchers” is searing in the vile racism breathed by its main character, Wayne’s Ethan Edwards, the unreconstructed Confederate (Yes, a Johnny Reb!). But “The Searchers,” on the other hand, is unapologetic also about its stern condemnation of this same man’s hate, his sometimes boorish behavior and his eventual “turning.”

“The Searchers” is lurid in its great action scenes in that they are played out with hatred as their real base.

Wayne’s character is one of only three film roles where Wayne disappeared and a towering figure of world class art emerged, hideous warts and all. The other two film roles were: Tom Dunston in “Red River,” and Captain Nelson Brittles in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” Here are characters that rival Cagney’s Cody Jarrett and George M. Cohan; Bogart’s Fred C. Dobbs and Commander Phillip Francis Queeg; Brando’s Don Corleone; Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone; Russell Crowe’s Captain Jack Aubrey and John Nash; Denzel Washington’s Trip and Malcolm X; Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle, Johnny Boy, Jake LaMotta, Jimmy Conway, and young Don Corleone. In short Ethan is allowed to be himself without any interference from the “star” playing him.

“The Searchers” is screaming. It is a shout heard across endless deserts and lonely mountain-ringed plains. Ford’s eye misses nothing and the vast, glorious landscapes that he captures become, in themselves, characters and players in this greatest of American epics.

You know the plot. Some adore it; others scowl when they speak of it.

Mystery, unrequited lust, love never achieved, a life consigned to wandering, massive defeats, the greatest scene of impending doom ever captured on the screen. Desperate battles, Revenge–strangled. Burning passions. Seemingly unquenchable hatreds. Towering crescendo. Mystery again.

Max Steiner’s score is one of the greatest ever produced by Hollywood and Stan Jones’ title song, sung by the venerable Sons of the Pioneers (Roy Rogers’ old group), enters the memory and the heart like it is brain matter and heart tissue.

There are a few films that might equal “The Searchers” as the greatest film ever made but none, however, surpass it.

2. “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

No one begrudges “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” its towering status as one of the greatest movies of all time. Indeed it may be the second most outrageous “great” film ever made. If, to stray for a moment, “Chimes at Midnight,” where Orson Wells attempts to cram pieces of the two Henry IV plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Richard II, and Henry V into a tidy epic with a showpiece battle scene thrown in for good measure for a total package that runs just under two hours (The result: A stupendous triumph!), is the most bold and positively insanely outrageous of the great movies, then TGTBTU, with its epic Civil War backdrop and its characters lust for gold, is right up there in its class.

TGTBTU is a Western that takes to the extreme the possibilities inherent in the genre. It is a film of lean, angular poses and sharp colors. Its dialogue is often terse and pointed so that lines ricochet around the memory for quite awhile before becoming spent. Eli Wallach’s Tuco is given some room to run gloriously around like a firecracker forever lit without igniting, but the film draws its strength from the iconic poses of Clint Eastwood’s Blondie and Lee Van Cleef’s Angel Eyes. They bookend Tuco’s nervous energy with their tall, rail thin frames. They are all about looks and poses and they both possess a serene languor that while quietly breathing menace it is yet a menace with verve and a real sense of style.

A quibble might break forth about which of the two Sergio Leone masterpieces might hold sway if put into a locked room with a bottle of Gran Patron on the table between them. I believe “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” would emerge from the room, bloodied but victorious.

The key is its entertainment value. TGTBTU repays countless viewings. One never tires of its mysteries. Its use of its hero Blondie is subtle and assured. Blondie may be a jackal but he is a jackal with a heart, not of gold, mind you, but a with a heart nevertheless. It is Blondie who sees Tuco’s humiliation at his priestly brother’s hands and wisely keeps this to himself; it is Blondie who has sympathy for the Union Captain forced into senseless battles for worthless objectives; and it is Blondie who covers the dying Confederate teen with a warm coat, offers him a smoke, and stays with him until he perishes.

But Blondie is not, by any means, soft and emotional. He is a thug and as greedy and as opportunistic as either Tuco or Angel Eyes. And from this stand Eastwood and Leone never yield (although there are rumors that Leone kept wanting to change the script on the set but Eastwood, wisely, refused) for a moment. Thus it is after the Confederate youth dies that Blondie coolly takes the same cigar that the youth sucked on and lights a canon that is calmly aimed at the fleeing Tuco!

“Once Upon a Time in the West,” is certainly Charles Bronson’s greatest film and he is as iconic as Eastwood in some ways. But Eastwood looks as if his whole persona was built for leans and poses. Bronson has a scrambler’s look–he’s Blondie in Tuco’s body and clothes. OUATITW is a tad more moving. I don’t know what it is but I get teary-eyed when Bronson looks at Claudia Cardinale and says: “Now I gotta go,” and he leaves with both of them knowing they will never see each other again.

Henry Fonda’s villain is sublime in OUATITW. It is a late triumph for the old time mega-star and he brings to the role of the wicked Frank the same conviction that he brought to his very best heroic films. He is relaxed, funny and wholly, and unapologetically, murderous.

But OUATITW falls off with the Cheyenne story line that features Jason Robards. Here the movie sags a bit and though Robards is his usual excellent self he isn’t given much to do. The witty lines, the cool poses, the sense of frame owning is denied his character. Is this a case of one star and story line too many? Perhaps.

Even Morricone’s superb soundtrack seems to meander with Cheyenne’s character and that is something unheard of on a Morricone score.

Finally, the OUATITW story of how the West was settled and the epic glory of the first Western railroads is a wonderful one but Leone makes much more use of the Civil War backdrop in TGTBTU. The throwaway scenes are downright jaw dropping. There is, for example, the magnificent scene where the retreating Rebs flow through town as canon shots boom all around them. Meanwhile the real action is the hunt for Blondie by Tuco and his men going on upstairs in a hotel. And what can one say about the great shot of Union soldiers shooting a deserter as Blondie and Angel Eyes ride into town looking for the buried gold that everyone wants. As the war swirls around them, Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes are reside in their own parallel universe

Enough! In the end taste will out and if someone prefers “Once Upon a Time in America” over “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” they are, in the end, on as equally a solid piece of ground as I believe I am.

Finally, there is the late, great Leone, the fabulous Italian filmmaker, the master of framing and a visual poet on par with Vidor, Mann and Scorsese. In his hands the Western was both poetry and music. Landscapes, characters, ideas all flow by, now in tumultuous riot, now in quiet concert and with Morricone’s head spinning scores accompanying his vision, Leone pulled off that rare thing that only great artists are able to pull off: he created two works that triumph both as crackling entertainment and as profound art.

3. “Ride the High Country / “The Wild Bunch” (tie)

(Peckinpah Dir., Scott. McCrea [Country]; Holden, Ryan, Borgnine, Johnson, Oates, O’Brien [Bunch]:

Two towers from Peckinpah.

Both made in the 60’s. “Ride the High Country” could stand here alone and be fine. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea two of the old stars of Hollywood had moved on late in life when they were called upon by Sam Peckinpah to have one more last chance to star in a Western. It turns out that these mighty veterans knew the worth of the project they were getting into. McCrea is an old, epic lawman fallen on hard times who picks himself up and takes a dangerous job transporting gold from a mine to a bank. This job restores McCrea’s pride and confidence and we begin to a late flowering in the old, veteran lawman whose moral code has now been revived. Along the way he partners with his old buddy Scott who was also a lawman veteran but a one who has gone further to seed. Indeed Scott plans to rob his buddy and take the gold!

There may be no more moving Western, save one, than this. Scott and McCrea have never been more towering and Peckinpah’s relaxed storytelling and beautiful landscapes capture eloquently the poetry of shifting emotional landscapes. The dialogue is to die for and the movie is full of electrifying set pieces. Yes, it rocks!

By the way, there is only one other great Western ending in the movies that tops the one that ends this masterpiece. Once you watch “Ride the High Country” you will see that I do not speak falsely.

“The Wild Bunch” is the adventure of a gang of thieves whose days of glory are, as William Holden’s gang leader Pike says “closing fast.” Now, on the surface, the Bunch are mere murderous, thieving louts. They are ruthless. William Holden, Ernest Borgnine (yes, Mchale himself!), Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, play the core gang members. Sam Peckinpah, the director, sets up the gang’s M.O. early when the Bunch bursts into a bank at the start of the film and Holden tells his gang of the innocents gathered there:

“If they move–kill ‘em!”

On the surface this is not a bunch to take to heart. But Peckinpah keeps our attention on the Gang and as we learn that it functions like a family of outsiders taking their whacks against authority, they not onoy grow upon us but become, yes, endearing! Never lovable they are, nevertheless, men we come to admire for their own sense of right and wrong.

Of course they are also hunted. There is a relentless pursuit of this aging outlaw gang let by ex-Pike partner Robert Ryan’s Deke who clearly has not heard of the “stop snitching” campaign now currently littering our urban streets. Ryan’s Deke is a broken hood who just wants to lie down and rest. His only chance to escape prison for good is in corralling his old partner and as the weary bounty-hunter/betrayer Ryan is at his very best!

Holden the gang leader? Yes, the mighty Bill! The same William Holden of Billy Wilder’s excellent triumphs “Sunset Boulevard,” and “Stalag 17.” The same William Holden of “Born Yesterday.” The same William Holden of “Sabrina.” The same William Holden of “Bridge on the River Kwai.” Yes, that glorious William Holden.

And he is truly magnificent as one of those heroes who could care less about the outside world and the people in it, but grows towering and inspiring as the leader of his own little universe in which the gang revolves.

Along with Holden and Ryan, Peckinpah also stars. The now celebrated slow motion scenes of mayhem that Peckinpah submitted his audiences to were not properly appreciated in 1969 when the film came out. They are now. And the final walk to the Armageddon shootout must be seen, (I know this is a truly tiresome cliche but here it is gainfully employed), to be believed.

“Ride the High Country” and “The Wild Bunch” could, on their own, top any Greatest Westerns list. Sadly, they cannot here. They are towers. They are at the very highest heights of world cinema and modern art but, incredible as it may seem, two other works must, to this lone blogger at least, be ranked ahead of them.

It is a terrible case to make and I understand this full well. But I shall try to do just that over the coming few days. And I shall tremble all the way knowing that the only supports upon which I might rely are my own judgment and my own daring–shaky as both are.

4. “Red River”

(Hawks Dir., Wayne, Clift, Dru, Brennan, Ireland):

Hawks at his greatest. “Red River”s was John Wayne’s breakout film, the film that made Hollywood gasp. Wayne, when broken early, can be one of the very greatest of artists and Donposa is right to point this out. Here he has a tragedy early in life and it profoundly affects his desperation years later as he must move a sea of cattle to the North through Indian territory, drought areas, thieves, and bushwhackers, or else go broke and lose everything.

This is the film that really understood the possibilities of the epic “dark” Western. The real key to this film is how Wayne bitter and despairing one moment can be heroic and epic the next. His Tom Dunston is one of the very greatest characters in the movies.

5. “My Darling Clementine”

(Ford dir., Fonda. Mature, Brennan):

The best of the “OK Corral” epics with Henry Fonda as a wonderful, laid back Earp, Victor Mature as the sick but deadly Doc Holiday, and Walter Brennan as the nasty and murderous Pa Clanton. The scene where Fonda and Cathy Downs, as “Clementine,” take their slow walk to the Sunday Dance as the bells clang and flags flap gently in the wind, is one of the greatest in all of the cinema. Girls? Don’t worry. You’ll see what I mean.The black and white photography is stupendous and Ford is totally on his game. Magnificent!One of the greatest lines in the cinema belongs to Brennan’s Pa Clanton:”If you pull a gun–kill a man!”

6. “Once Upon a Time in the West”

(Dir. Sergio Leone; Starring Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards).

This dark Leone masterpiece is languorous in its pacing and not for all tastes. But it never fails to move if you stay with it. Bronson has never been better and Fonda is absolutely lights out/bonkers as, guess what, one of the greatest movie villains ever! Bronson, a man not given to many words, rides into town to settle a score from long ago. Cardinale arrives from Italy as a mail order bride only to find her “husband” killed by the evil Fonda and his gang. Robards is an outlaw who gets pinned with the murder of Cardinale’s husband. Everything comes together in the end and everything, surprise, works gloriously. The great Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack is almost as towering as his kick-in-the door triumph of a score for “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

This is a towering work that, in a fair world, might even be considered a top five film. Alas in such a world where great Westerns used to be the norm and not the exception, “Once Upon a Time in the West” must be content with this: a second tier berth in a first rate list.

Cruel world!

7. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”

(Dir: John Ford; Starring John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, and Lee Marvin).

Late, glorious Ford. Wayne, the Old West, and Stewart, the New West, vie for Miles’s hand. Hovering over everything is Marvin’s superb Valance, a first rate thug to-end-all-thugs. Wayne, however, towers over all and reigns supreme not only as a hero, but as a desperate man who suddenly finds that the world has passed him by. Ford, now indoors, no longer has the majestic sweep of the land that so graced his other Westerns but, for all of that, he has crafted a most intense and highly rewarding drama.

This is a great film if for no other reason than the fact that John Ford with his wild interiors was already pointing to his final masterpiece “Seven Women.”

8. “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”

(Dir: John Ford; Starring: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson).

The greatest of all cavalry movies. Wayne is an old and grizzled veteran who must lead his men on one last dangerous patrol through hostile Indian territory. Ford brings his “A”-eye to the glorious landscape and Wayne is typically fine. Dru and Agar are the young lovers. The depiction of post-Civil War Cavalry life is fascinating with rifted brevet officers, once commanding hundreds of Civil War volunteer troops, now reduced in rank to Sergeants and Corporals. One ex-Confederate General has even joined up the new, smaller, U.S. Army as a private! Great fun.

9. “Rio Bravo”

(Dir: Howard Hawks; starring John Wayne, Angie Dickinson, Dean Martin and Walter Brennan).

The best of the late Hawks/Wayne Western combine which would yield box office hit after box office hit. Wayne, a drunken Martin, and a grizzled Brennan hold a killer for trial against various attempts to free him. A youthful Dickinson is Wayne’s love interest and she is glorious! She is the Helen of whom Marlowe wrote:

“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”

Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

10. “Stagecoach”

(Dir: John Ford; starring John Wayne).

Ford’s first iconic Western with Wayne making his first real impression as a star. A stagecoach, filled with colorful passengers, finds itself under Indian attack. Thrilling but only a hint of what was to come with the Ford/Wayne combo).