Western Movie Rambles

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}

> Robert Taylor took on several unlikable roles in his later years, but scarcely ever gets much

> credit for even trying and I find it rather puzzling. They always say, "oh, Coop just played

> Coop and Gable just played Gable" and here was Taylor doing all these difficult parts and

> no one says anything about even the fact he made that effort to break out of the romantic

> leading man persona and into more character-type stuff. Not that I don't prefer him as the

> good guy, but I do enjoy his forays into darker territory, especially *Johnny Eager*, I just

> love him in that.

 

That's a very good point. He probably doesn't get enough credit for his range as an actor, to this day.

[rohanaka]

Wow! Little Butterscotch...Miss G...Movieman..FF--great discussions.

 

I looked up both the Law and Jake Wade and The Fastest Gun Alive...both look like great stories. I remember saying somewhere on here some time ago that if I could be locked in a room full of movies and have as much time as I wanted to watch them all again and again, that I would watch all the westerns first...and you folks would keep me so bogged down in titles...I may not live long enough to see anything else.

 

My poor "wanna see list" is never going to get whittled down to size at the rate I am going. I still am trying to decide whether or not to post the stupid thing and get some further recommendations from everybody as to ones they would see first and ones they would wait on. But there are so many titles...I would probably need to sort them by genre and/or actor/and or director....too much work.

[FrankGrimes]

I still am trying to decide whether or not to post the stupid thing and get some further recommendations from everybody as to ones they would see first and ones they would

wait on.

 

You should post it here, Joanie Appleseed. Movieman is an expert on westerns and

Miss G and Butterscotch have seen most everything. All three of them can guide

you. And all three have your sensibilities.

[rohanaka]

Thanks Mr. Grey...I would value everyones' opinions...(put yourself on that list along with a few others)....but..you folks may not have the time to wander through my mess...Seriously..it is a bit "lengthy" though maybe not compared to others. :-)

[MissGoddess]

I'd enjoy to see your list, Kathy!

[FrankGrimes]

but..you folks may not have the time to wander through my mess...Seriously..it is a bit "lengthy" though maybe not compared to others.

 

I'm positive of Movieman and Miss G wanting to help you out with your list. They love

to talk movies, especially westerns.

 

If you wanted to contain the "mess," just list the westerns on your list. You seem to be

in a westerns mood anyways. And once you present your list, we can check to see how

many are coming up on TCM.

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=rohanaka wrote:}{quote}

> Wow! Little Butterscotch...Miss G...Movieman..FF--great discussions.

> My poor "wanna see list" is never going to get whittled down to size at the rate I am going. I still am trying to decide whether or not to post the stupid thing and get some further recommendations from everybody as to ones they would see first and ones they would wait on. But there are so many titles...I would probably need to sort them by genre and/or actor/and or director....too much work.

 

I agree with the others - you really should post it. I'm sure you'll get some good feedback here.

[Film_Fatale]

Thought I'd pass this story along for the Duke fans:

 

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-wayne26-2008sep26,0,930325.story

 

*John Wayne, the man inside the myth*

A film series and exhibit at USC examine 'Actor, Star, Icon, Trojan.'

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 26, 2008

John Wayne was larger than life. An unabashed conservative. Two-fisted. Macho.

 

He was also a superb craftsman who worked with some of the landmark directors of the 20th century, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, William Wellman and Don Siegel. Though he died in 1979 at age 72, his legacy looms large.

 

So large that USC's School of Cinematic Arts, collaborating with Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative, is offering a three-day scholarly examination of the Duke titled "John Wayne: Actor, Star, Icon, Trojan."

 

"When you have a conversation with people about John Wayne, the feeling is, 'Ah, well, he wasn't that much of an actor,' " says USC film professor Rick Jewell. "But if you have really seen most of his work, you know that is far from the case. He was an extraordinary actor."

 

"The icon has overtaken the actor in many people's eyes, I think," says film historian Leonard Maltin. "So it's high time the actor was reevaluated. There is nothing stupider than saying he was playing himself because I don't know what the real himself was like, but from what I gathered it wasn't that guy we saw on screen."

 

The retrospective, which kicks off tonight and continues through Sunday at USC's Norris Cinema Theatre/Frank Sinatra Hall, celebrates the famed USC alum through a series of classic films and discussions. The event also heralds the opening Sunday of a three-month exhibit of Wayne's life and career in the David L. Wolper Center, in the lower level of USC's Doheny Memorial Library, which features artifacts and memorabilia culled from Batjac Productions -- Wayne's production company -- the USC Film Archives and private collectors.

 

This evening's program features two of Wayne's landmark westerns: 1939's "Stagecoach," the John Ford classic that made Wayne a star, and 1948's sagebrush saga "Red River," directed by Howard Hawks.

 

"He had a marvelous range," Jewell maintains. "In certain roles, like in 'The Searchers' and "Red River,' he is just absolutely powerful. He commands the screen, and you can't imagine anybody else playing those roles. They are just the most captivating and powerful jobs of acting in screen history."

 

Jewell admits that Wayne's commanding presence does come through in roles so strongly that "you kind of fall back on that position that he never stretched. But he did stretch himself. He did play characters who weren't just the white-hat heroes he started out playing in the movies. He played characters who had depth to them and psychological angst inside of them and who were not that admirable in so many ways."

 

Wayne was careful about protecting his image, Maltin says. "He was a very canny fellow. He wasn't a talk show regular, so we rarely got to see the real John Wayne. He did develop a kind of persona, a screen persona that he returned to more than once, but that was a creation -- and a damn good one too."

 

Maltin will be moderating a panel discussion Sunday with Wayne's daughter-in-law, Gretchen Wayne, who now heads up Batjac; Mark Rydell, who directed Wayne in 1972's "The Cowboys," and others.

 

The 1953 3-D western "Hondo," in which Wayne plays a dispatch rider for the cavalry who meets a woman (Geraldine Page) living alone with her young son in the middle of hostile Apache territory, screens Sunday evening. Maltin believes it's one of Wayne's finest performances.

 

"There's one long scene early on when he is talking to her while hammering some horseshoes. He has to hammer them, he has to fire them with the bellows, cool them in the water and hang them to dry on a rack. He has important dialogue through the entire scene where he is establishing his relationship with her while he performs all of these tasks. It's like choreography. And he pulls it off flawlessly and seemingly effortlessly -- Olivier couldn't have done it better."

 

Gretchen Wayne is thrilled at USC's tribute to her father-in-law because it "defines him as more than a movie star. There was more to him, and certainly he loved being a student at USC. He loved education."

 

The Duke possessed a "terrific sense of humor," says Wayne. "He didn't like vulgarity. He certainly didn't like it around women."

 

And he was well loved in Hollywood. She recalls going to the first screening of 1969's "True Grit," for which Wayne won his only Oscar, with the Duke and her husband, Michael, who ran Batjac for 41 years.

 

"The audience went nuts when he did the scene where he puts the reins in his teeth and takes both guns. Lee Marvin jumped up in the middle of the audience and yelled, 'Go get 'em, Duke!' The whole audience burst into laughter. It was such a spontaneous moment."

 

The accompanying exhibition, says curator Sandra Garcia-Myers, has more than 200 posters and lobby cards, believed to be the largest Wayne poster collection ever displayed. "We have the hat from 'Hondo,' shirts he wore in different movies like 'Rio Bravo' and 'The Searchers,' " she adds.

 

"We also have his director's chair that he took to different film sets. It's something that traveled with him. We have the hat from 'The Green Berets' and the eye patch from 'True Grit.' We are trying to show sort of a parallel vision of John Wayne -- who he was as an icon and who he was behind the scenes."

 

Jewell, who will introduce each screening, chose all the films in the festival, including 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima," for which Wayne received his first best actor nomination; 1972's "The Cowboys"; his last film, 1976's "The Shootist"; and two of the early B-movie serials that were Wayne's bread and butter in the 1930s until he hit it big with "Stagecoach."

 

"I wanted to show him at his best," Jewell says.

 

susan.king@latimes.com

[rohanaka]

we can check to see how many are coming up on TCM.

 

I actually did that a while back... which if memory serves led to--(at least in part)--our whole vcr wild goose chase this past weekend. :-) The ones I know are playing soon I am already keeping a lookout for. I even asked for a "TCM reminder" on a few of them because they were playing at times when I might actually be able to watch. But the ones that will be showing at weird hours of the day and night I will likely have to pass by unless I can find a second "cheap" vcr to record on. All the ones I can't catch--or the ones that aren't scheduled soon--I will likely have to either seek out at the library or perhaps break down and buy someday. (HA--I can feel my fist already start to tighten up!) So that is why I want to get some recommendations...so I can get an idea for the "cream of the crop" so to speak.

 

Maybe I will see what I can do to post at least a parial list....and then bug everybody again another time with the rest.

 

Thanks everybody....

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=rohanaka wrote:}{quote}

> Maybe I will see what I can do to post at least a parial list....and then bug everybody again another time with the rest.

>

> Thanks everybody....

 

I do hope you'll give it a try, when you get a chance. Have you thought about perhaps getting a DVD recorder? They've come down in price quite drastically the last few years. If not, do you have Netflix?

[FrankGrimes]

All the ones I can't catch--or the ones that aren't scheduled soon--I will likely have

to either seek out at the library or perhaps break down and buy someday. (HA--I can

feel my fist already start to tighten up!) So that is why I want to get some

recommendations...so I can get an idea for the "cream of the crop" so to speak.

 

No need to buy them. Maybe you can see what titles are at your local library and

we can go from there.

 

How many of Fordy Guns' top 100 westerns have you seen? The gal has horrendous

taste, but at least she likes to list her horrendous taste. I'll give her that.

 

And if your answer is, "I think I saw it but I'm not sure," that doesn't count. If you are

saying that, you need to revisit the film. So what are the "for sures" for you?

 

1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (terrible)

2. The Searchers (blech)

3. Man of the West (pathetic)

4. 3 Bad Men (awful)

5. The Hanging Tree (yuck)

6. Rio Grande (double yuck)

7. The Far Country

8. My Darling Clementine (so-so)

9. Shane

10.Angel and the Bad Man (dreck)

11.Fort Apache (blah)

12.Stagecoach (appalling)

13.High Noon (horrific)

14.Winchester '73

15.Hondo (dreadful)

16.Rio Bravo (poor)

17.The Lusty Men

18.The Tall Men

19.The Proud Ones

20.The Man from Laramie

21.Shenandoah

22.She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (disagreeable)

23.Wagon Master (horrid)

24.The Horse Soldiers (revolting)

25.Sergeant Rutledge (terrible)

26.Cheyenne Autumn (worse)

27.Broken Arrow

28.Broken Lance

29.Destry Rides Again

30.Support Your Local Sherrif

31.Rancho Notorious

32.Commanche Station

33.River of No Return

34.The Last Hunt

35.Devil's Doorway

36.Pursued

37.Blood on the Moon

38.The Big Country

39.The Commancheros (ghastly)

40.The Bravados

41.Will Penny

42.Canyon Passage

43.Stars in My Crown

44.Tribute to a Bad Man

45.3:10 to Yuma (original!)

46.The Furies

47.Bend of the River

48.Dallas (very bad)

49.Lone Star

50.Vera Cruz (frightful)

51.Garden of Evil (stinky)

52.Rawhide

53.Brigham Young

54.Jesse James

55.The Return of Frank James

56.The Tin Star

57.North to Alaska (horrible)

58.Westward the Women

59.The Ox Bow Incident

60.Secret of Convict Lake

61.The Wonderful Country

62.Seven Men from Now

63.Escape from Fort Bravo

64.The Gunfighter

65.McLintock! (unpleasant)

66.They Came to Codura (rotten)

67.The Westerner (?pouvantable)

68.The Virginian (1929)

69.The Iron Horse (horrendo)

70.Bad Day at Black Rock

71. The Hallelujah Trail

72.The Violent Men

73.The Wild Bunch

74.The Desperadoes (1943)

75.The Deadly Companions

76.Forty Guns

77.Lonely Are the Brave

78.Last Train from Gun Hill

79.The Alamo

80.El Dorado (****)

81.Red River

82.Man in the Shadow

83.Night Passage

84.The Badlanders

85.They Died with Their Boots On

86.San Antonio

87.The Santa Fe Trail

88.Boom Town

89.A Lady Takes a Chance (gruesome)

90.The Cowboy and the Lady (putrid)

91.**** Tonk

92. Vengeance Valley

93.One-Eyed Jacks

94.Apache

95.Union Pacific

96.The Kentuckian

97. Three Faces West (foul)

98. The Dark Command

99. The Shepherd of the Hills (rancid)

100.The Proud Rebel

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=FrankGrimes wrote:}{quote}

> How many of Fordy Guns' top 100 westerns have you seen? The gal has horrendous

> taste, but at least she likes to list her horrendous taste. I'll give her that.

>

 

...and as you look at that list, rohanaka, don't forget that spaghetti westerns can be fun, too!

[rohanaka]

do you have Netflix

 

No..I've heard others talking about it, but I don't do any online shopping or ordering, so I haven't ever thought about checking into. (technophobia can such a debilitating condition sometimes.) :-)

 

My new VCR/DVD combo thingie plays tapes and dvd's really well...but doesn't have a tuner so you can't record (w/out hooking it up to something like a satellite or cable box or doing some sort of fancy wiring) ( I got some help from the grey guy figuring that out last week)

 

So now I think I am going to keep my eye out for a good used vcr at a garage sale or thrift store or something....or just keep looking at electronics stores and maybe will get lucky and find an old fashioned vcr that will record. I miss my old one...but I guess that sort of stuff doesn't last forever.

 

Although I did see a movie...I think it was Centennial Man?? Or maybe Bi-centennial Man?? with Robin Williams where he played a robot that eventually wants to become human. (not that great of a movie as I recall) But one thing I did remember was he spends a bunch of time down in the basement fixing all the old worn out electronics from years gone by. I wish he'd show up here and fix my old vcr...and maybe my old toaster too...but I am still keeping my fingers crossed on a new one of those. At least they haven't changed THAT technology so much that when you put the breadt in--it will do everything else BUT toast. (Oh--at least I hope not anyway!!) I can't imagine living in a world where you need a college degree just to fix breakfast! :-)

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=rohanaka wrote:}{quote}

> Although I did see a movie...I think it was Centennial Man?? Or maybe Bi-centennial Man?? with Robin Williams where he played a robot that eventually wants to become human. (not that great of a movie as I recall) But one thing I did remember was he spends a bunch of time down in the basement fixing all the old worn out electronics from years gone by. I wish he'd show up here and fix my old vcr...and maybe my old toaster too...but I am still keeping my fingers crossed on a new one of those. At least they haven't changed THAT technology so much that when you put the breadt in--it will do everything else BUT toast. (Oh--at least I hope not anyway!!) I can't imagine living in a world where you need a college degree just to fix breakfast! :-)

 

Oh, if I could get Bicentennial Man to come down to your place and fix that VCR of yours, I'd do it in a trice.

 

Do you ever look in craigslist or some other site for local garage sales? I know many people who have found good bargains on craigslist, although of course you have to be careful, just to be on the safe side.

[MissGoddess]

I'll go ahead and post this link here, since Duke was most comfortable in western surroundings.

 

This weekend USC is holding a panel discussion and screenings on John Wayne the actor,

and it will be moderated by Gretchen Wayne, his daughter-in-law, as well as Leonard Maltin

and Mark Rydell, who directed Duke in The Cowboys. Here is a nice article from

the L.A. Times about it below, and I personally am looking forward to hearing from our own Lynne

(lzcutter) who will be attending it:

 

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-wayne26-2008sep26,0,930325.story

 

P.S. Kathy---there's a nice "boost" about HONDO in the article...hint...hint..

[rohanaka]

Oh, if I could get Bicentennial Man to come down to your place and fix that VCR of yours, I'd do it in a trice

 

Let me know if you do, and I will have a MUCH longer list for him (than even my movie list) and he can get to work right away!! :-)

 

Do you ever look in craigslist or some other site for local garage sales

 

I have heard of craigslist, but had not thought of checking into it. I may give it a try. The school district I work in has A LOT of high dollar homes in it and they are forever having "neighborhood garage sales" in the Spring and Fall and most stuff is very nice--not too many "junk sales" like you sometimes will see at events like that. I wouldn't be surprised to find some of them listed on a site like craigslist...I may give them a looksee sometime. Thanks!

[movieman1957]

Kathy:

 

Sir Francis is right. I am happy to help any way I can with your list of westerns. I enjoy the discussions very much as well.

 

Chris

[rohanaka]

My Gosh My Golly--I blinked....and in between my posts about all my vcr woes (I know...you are all sick of hearing me whine by now) there I found all this other cool stuff!!

 

FF--I did not even see your earlier post (about the duke) until after I saw and read it on the link April posted. (more on that in a minute)

 

Chris...you and everyone on here....I appreciate you guys putting up with me...and I will be posting my list maybe this weekend...so get your reading glasses on. Once I seperate out just the westerns, it may not be such a long list..but then again...probably more than half on there ARE westerns...so there will be a lot to sort through.

 

Grey Guy..thanks for posting April's amazing list on here too. And for once I am way ahead of you...I already printed off both April's and YOUR list from last week several days ago...I don't think anyone else posted one recently...but just in case they did I will go back and look at that thread again too) .

 

Now...about the Duke article....WAY COOL!! I also remember reading earlier (maybe in movie rambles???) that Ms. Cutter was going to go to a film festival or something soon--is this the one she is going to?? I hadn't gotten back over there to read her post again, but was planning on telling her how jealous I am. :-)

 

April...the HONDO info makes me wish I had not been so "out of it" whenever it was I watched this film (I still think it was when I was on DRUGS after I had my surgery a couple years ago! HA! ) I can't believe my memory is so foggy about a movie that sounds so good. (I even asked the QT did he remember it and he said no...but he may not have been awake either. WHO KNOWS??)

 

'Go get 'em, Duke!'

 

HA!! I loved reading that....I have always said I thought old Lee Marvin was probably such a rotten guy in real life because he was so good at playing "bad", but my opinion of him as an alright guy just shot up at least 100% after reading this!! :-)

[MissGoddess]

'Go get 'em, Duke!'

 

HA!! I loved reading that....I have always said I thought old Lee Marvin was probably such a rotten guy in real life because he was so good at playing "bad", but my opinion of him as an alright guy just shot up at least 100% after reading this!!

 

Wasn't that the cutest thing? I just giggled when I read that.

 

 

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}

> This weekend USC is holding a panel discussion and screenings on John Wayne the actor

>

> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-wayne26-2008sep26,0,930325.story

>

 

How very original we are, just 2-3 posts after I posted the story!

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=rohanaka wrote:}{quote}

> My Gosh My Golly--I blinked....and in between my posts about all my vcr woes (I know...you are all sick of hearing me whine by now) there I found all this other cool stuff!!

>

> FF--I did not even see your earlier post (about the duke) until after I saw and read it on the link April posted. (more on that in a minute)

 

Yes, I am familiar with this, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

 

Just kidding!

 

Of course I knew Lynne was going to attend, but wasn't comfortable mentioning it just in case she wasn't OK with it.

[Film_Fatale]

> {quote:title=MissGoddess wrote:}{quote}

>

 

Ah, the great Lee Marvin. I think I'd seen this before but I'm not sure where. Glad to see so much good stuff popping up on YouTube. B-)

[rohanaka]

April--what a great interview! (although those eyebrows are going to haunt me worse than his creepy "Liberty" persona) HA!! I loved the story about the silver coins. Those little personal recollections are the things that I enjoy hearing about when people start talking about directors and actors and how they filmed certain scenes.

[lzcutter]

MissG,

 

Thanks for thinking of me! There are actually two panels over the weekend along with the films. The one on Saturday is made up mainly of scholars and the one on Sunday is mainly friends, family and co-workers.

 

It should be a fun weekend!

[rohanaka]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (terrible)

 

Wait just a minute there pilgrim!!!! Let's back this train up a bit...I just noticed something "Mr. Not-so-Grey-But-Leaning-Toward-the-Black"

 

The list I printed off from Miss Goddess's post...had NONE of your embellishments on it, as I recall. (Shepherd of the Hills....rancid????????) Now is that anyway to talk??? I am very disappointed in you!!

 

I don't know how I missed that the first time..Usually I am more observant....I must be slipping in my old age.

 

Maybe it's a sign I need to head for the bunkhouse. Time to hit the hay....hasta la vista, Westerners!