The Wild Bunch
The Outlaw Josie Wales
True Grit (Original Version)
My Little Chickadee
The Unforgiven
The Trap (Frontier Canada)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Once upon a Time in the West
4: 10 to Yuma
Posted on 10/08/2013 9:00:31 AM PDT by nanetteclaret
After many long days of painful, maddening, and sickening news, our family has been enjoying evening trips back to the thrilling days of yesteryear via the DVD time machine. Old TV shows have reinforced our remembrance of how America used to be, both during the times the shows were made and the stories of the wild west and America's "Manifest Destiny." It's been wonderful to go back in time, to re-visit stories of men who were for the most part valiant, courageous, honorable, full of integrity, law-abiding, and steadfast, and of women who were for the most part gracious, kind, gentle, motherly, and sweet. Of course, both sexes were honest, strong, capable, independent, and courageous.
The shows we have been watching have reminded us of just how free we used to be, before political-correctness ruined everything. Most of them seem to be set in the 1870s, after the Civil War, when people moved westward to start fresh, to homestead, and to make something of themselves by hard work and perseverance. No matter the series, most all of the stories have some sort of moral, and the good guys always win. They are good lessons, reinforcing the vallues that made America GREAT!
This thread is about American Westerns, by Americans and for Americans, celebrating American virtues and gumption.
It is not about Communist westerns.
ME tv has all of these westerns - plus, one of my favorites: F Troop.
Then again, both were color by that time.
OBFav: Wild, Wild West.
The Wild Bunch
The Outlaw Josie Wales
True Grit (Original Version)
My Little Chickadee
The Unforgiven
The Trap (Frontier Canada)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Once upon a Time in the West
4: 10 to Yuma
Yeah you could see Rawhide on the weekend on ME TV
While watching these old western TV shows, one might notice the PC stuff being worked in gently during the early 1960s, and getting more heavy handed by the late 1960s.
How about Wild Wild west with Robert Conrad
Love them all!
And read the “Little House” books for an amazing documentary of the courage of those sturdy pioneers.
The books are really NOTHING like that sappy TV show supposedly taken from them.
I’m reading through the whole series again just to clear my mind of all the rot of these days. If we all had the knowledge Ma and Pa Ingalls had of just basic survival,farming, gardening, animal husbandry, sewing, cooking, smoking meats, cheesemaking, on and on— and just the cheerful acceptance of the good with the bad, plus courage and persistence to keep working, we could remake this country into what it once was!
Ma and Pa Ingalls knew the basics of survival because they had been taught those lessons as children. It was second nature to them. Most of us don’t have those skills because we have not had to have them in our lives (up until now). The future may be a different story.
“4: 10 to Yuma”
LOL.....I think you missed the train. An hour late!
My fav:
The Big Country. Gregory Peck, Charleton Heston, Burl Ives, Chuck Conners. What it means to be a man is the lesson, here.
Best. Western. Ever.
‘Cheyenne’ and ‘Have Gun Will’ Travel are my only two real favorite old time TV westerns. Some of the early Gunsmoke and Bonanza’s were good, but then they went of in the vane of the Big Valley and became soap operas (I said SOAP Opera not Horse Opera! Example is for a women falling in love with a Cartwright was a DEATH SENTANCE!) set in the old west.
One newer Western that I also rank high is AMC’s Hell on Wheels. The grittiness and the authenticity of everything from clothing, setting, living condidtions is spot on and makes me a cowboy dreamer glad I didn’t live then.
But of all the fictional Western Men that were ever portrayed on the big screen or the small these are the ones I wish I could me and would be men that I would respect and would honored to have met:
Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) Open Range
Charley Waite (Kevin Costner) Open Range
Prentice Ritter (Robert Duvall) Broken Trail
Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church) Broken Trail
Hondo Lane (John Wayne) Hondo
J.B. Books (John Wayne) The Shootist
Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker) Cheyenne
Sam Burgade (Charlton Heston) The Last Hard Men
Samuel Jones (Tommy Lee Jones) The Missing
Con Vallian (Sam Elliott) The Quick and the Dead
Capt. Nathan Cutting Brittles (John Wayne) She wore a Yellow Ribbon
Sgt. Tyree (Ben Johnson) She wore a Yellow Ribbon
Captain Stephen Maddocks (Richard Boone) A Thunder of Drums
Dan Evans (Van Heflin) 3:10 to Yuma
Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) 3:10 to Yuma
Probably more of a frontier show than a western.
-PJ
Thanks for mentioning “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”. In my opinion, the best of the “John Ford Stock Company” pictures, and the one I will watch over and over. I’ve tried to locate a short story by James Warner Bellah which apparently contributed to the script. I read somewhere that “Mr Cohill” was “Flintridge Cohill” in the original story,but I never heard that mentioned in the movie. And the funeral of “Trooper Smith” , ex-Confederate General Rome Clay - - Bellah was a genius with names!
Shane...
Last gunfight. Alan Ladd v Walter (Jack) Palance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1l3TboL5MI
And this scene.. watch to the end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ternps0JFwo
I seem to enjoy the vintage western genre more and more with each passing year. As America continues its rapid descent into utter cultural decay and moral degeneration, going back to these old shows which reflect my values and sensibilities, at very least, offer a welcome respite. Like fresh oxygen to someone suffocating.
I’ve collected on dvd just about all the old tv-series that have been made available. “Have Gun Will Travel,” “Wagon Train,” “Gunsmoke,” and dozens of others. Lately I’ve even been delving further back into the era of silent westerns... Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, Jack Hoxie, and the like. All of it fascinating americana.
I have watched Big Valley for a number of years, cince I don’t have pay TV.
I am fascinated with the outstanding quality & beauty of the clothing for Barbara Stanwyck. Her wardrobe person was a man- Jack Mohs, and everything she wore was top notch. I realize she was petite, and that is an easier body to clothe, but the colors, materials & such are really beautiful.
Makes me wish I had a reason to sew again & A place to wear such.
A really great, but short-lived, western tv-series was “The Dakotas,” from around 1963. Starred Jack Elam, Larry Ward, and Chad Everett. Got axed for basically being too violent and too hard-edged, with a rather shocking episode involving a shootout inside a church causing the final blow. The episode was entitled “Sanctuary at Crystal Springs,” and has an archly ANTI-liberal message about criminals and their eradication.
Orson Welles I believe.
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