Search - The Outlaw Josey Wales on DVD

Paula Trueman - Grandma Sarah
Samuel Bottoms - Jamie
Geraldine Keams - Little Moonlight
Woodrow Parfrey - Carpetbagger
Joyce Jameson - Rose
Sheb Wooley - Cobb
Royal Dano - Ten Spot
John Verros - Chato
Will Sampson - Ten Bears
John Quade - Comanchero Leader
John Mitchum - Al
L. William O'Connell - Sim Carstairs
Cissy Wellman - Josey's Wife
John Chandler - First Bounty Hunter
Bob Hoy - Second Texas Ranger
John Russell - Bloody Bill Anderson
Matt Clark - Kelly
Bruce M. Fischer - Yoke
Charles Tyner - Zukie Limmer
Erik Holland - Union Army Sergeant
Clay Tanner - First Texas Ranger
Buck Kartalian - Shopkeeper
Len Lesser - Abe
Doug McGrath - Lige
Danny Green - Lemuel

The Outlaw Josey Wales is considered by some to be the greatest western. I agree.

A great western should have a collection of strong key elements, and Josey Wales has them all. The setting is the savage Civil War in Missouri and Kansas where atrocities and outrages were perpetrated by irregulars of both sides. Folks at the time called these criminals and guerrillas "bushwackers". The fighting in this theater of the Civil War is not commonly known and was particularly ugly and violent. Most actions were small unit affairs, with people who were well known to one another before the war fighting under opposing flags. Violence and crimes against civilians was common as both legitimate armies used irregulars to terrorize the civilian population. The massacre at Centralia, Missouri, September 27, 1864 was perpetrated by Bloody Bill Anderson and his men. There is no mention of this event in the film, of course, as there could be no sympathy for anyone who had had a part in that abomination.

Josey Wales captures the ugliness and horror of those times and provides a motivator to the title character when his family is murdered by Kansas Union irregulars. Wales is enraged and joins Bloody Bill Anderson's Confederate guerrilla outfit. When the War ends, they are one of the last organized Confederate units to surrender (at least according to the film). Wales' comrades surrender themselves at a Union camp, but Josey refuses. But everything is not as it seems and as the men surrender their arms and take the Oath of Allegiance to the Union, they are viciously murdered in cold blood. It turns out that the same unit that has just killed his fellow Confederates is the very same that had killed his family several years before. And so the chase begins... Wales is now the "Outlaw Josey Wales" running from bounty hunters and every male in the territory with a gun not to mention the Union army.

Josey Wales is played by Clint Eastwood in one his best performances. The character is very much like the "Man with no name" from his Spaghetti Western days. Closer to "Blondie" in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly than the silent gunslinger of "Pale Rider", Wales is essentially a good man driven to revenge and violence by circumstances. He is the everyman of the Civil War dragged into the maelstrom of events. As he runs from his pursuers he picks up a ragtag crew of fascinating characters who ride with him, eventually heading for southern Texas. Along the way there are gunfights, suspense, and lots of action.

A great western should have certain components including:

* beautiful desert scenery
* a good story line
* small ramshackle frontier towns
* a hero or anti-hero with strong and understandable motivations
* guns, ideally pistols
* cool hats
* indians
* lots of horses
* rotten villains

Outlaw Josey Wales was directed by Eastwood, too. Sandra Locke, Chief Dan George, and John Vernon co-star.

Wales is an avenger as he rides across deserts and through broken down frontier towns. He has no options, but to find a place to hide, or just keep on riding forever. Every shooting that involve him is self-defense or in the defense of others who cannot defend themselves. He is a hero, an unsurrendered Confederate partisan, haunted by the senseless murder of his family.

Josey Wales has beautiful scenery, lots of horses and pistols, rotten villains who deserve to get shot (and generally do), suffering innocents who need protection, and one of the coolest hats in American cinema history.

Josey Wales' hat is stained with sweat, it's a deep Confederate Gray with a wide and slightly upturned brim. Eastwood hides his eyes under the brim of this hat, and when he slightly lifts his head to look at someone - they know quickly that Wales is not a man to be trifled with. He has a sense of honor and obligation to others, but has no compunction in shooting those who are hunting him or are fixin' to hurt his friends.

There is a touching moment after Eastwood and his friends have arrived at their Texas destination. Sondra Locke, dressed in a fine white dress, talks about how beautiful the clouds look. She represents the stability, and happiness of his pre-war life and the look of sadness and dissociation that Eastwood delivers is a fine and sad one. After all of his war-fighting, his losses, and the personal toll that the War has taken, Josey Wales must try very hard to find a place for himself in a peaceful and stable post-war environment. Killing is easy now for him; it's living without violence that will be so challenging. One of the more powerful aspects of his character is that he so wants to try.