A Stetson, a Duster and a Henry Rifle

[poliphilo]

Judy says we should write an outlaw ballad together. I have a brief anxiety attack, then crank out the first verse and a chorus and email them to her. I grew up on westerns. It was Britain in the 1950s and I wanted to be out there riding the purple sage.

No actual western is ever quite as good as the western in my head. Those that come closest? Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, The Searchers, 3.10 to Yuma, The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Unforgiven.

Comments

[beentothemoon.livejournal.com]

I think that's charming. What about Hondo? The Magnificent Seven? Rio Grande? The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? Also, why an outlaw song, rather than say, a train song?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Rio Grande is fine, but it didn't get under my skin the way the others did. Liberty Valance is a great film, but it's largely studio-bound and you don't get the landscapes. I might have listed Cheyenne Autumn, which is one of the most beautiful movies ever made, only the script is weak.

The Magnificent Seven is OK but I always think of it as a copy. And the original is better. Hondo I have to confess I haven't seen.

I do like train songs. City of New Orleans- that's a favourite of mine. But I think I know more about bad men than I know about trains. In my inner western landscape the train is whistling sorrowfully in the distance while in the foreground two guys amble slowly towards one another down a dusty street.....

[beentothemoon.livejournal.com]

Have you seen The Hired Hand? It's a beautiful epic western, directed by Peter Fonda...it's breathtaking.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't. I'll watch out for it

[beentothemoon.livejournal.com]

I think it was released in 1971. The DVD reissue came out last year. I remember because Peter Fonda came to my film festival and looked down my top.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued.

Fonda is a good actor. Loved him in Ullee's Gold and The Limey.

[balirus.livejournal.com]

My grandfather lived all his life just a few miles away from the Chisholm Trail. I grew up just down the road from him and I remember as a child when he took me to pastures nearby to see some of the deep cattle ruts that still survived.

As for cowboys, he said almost all the trail riders carried guns on their hips. He only ever saw one street gunfight as a young child and it was in a nearby cattle town that dried up in the 30's. Quick and terrifying is how he remembered it, but it was a legal fight and the winner walked away.

You've got some good movies listed. I would also add Rio Bravo, High Noon, Red River, and The Cowboys (about young men on a cattle drive). And we can't forget Shane, one of the best cowboy movies there is.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating. It's a mythic time and yet it's almost within living memory.

Those are all good films. The only one of them I have doubts about is Shane. Those fist fights are so unrealistic.