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Wagons East

2009-11-25T02:51:26-05:00

Comedian John Candy, who died during the making of this poorly received comic western, plays James Harlow, a 19th century wagon master who is heading back east with a wagon train full of oddball characters who have had their fill of Western life. They include ex-doctor Phil Taylor (Richard Lewis), kind-hearted prostitute Belle (Ellen Greene), and a bookseller, Julian (John C. McGinley). Harlow is a drunken, washed-up leader who frequently gets lost. The travelers eventually discover that he was a member of the famous Donner party, which resorted to cannibalism when stranded in the mountains. Railroad magnates try to turn back the party, figuring it's bad publicity for people out East to learn that the West is not really a paradise. The tycoons hire gunfighters and villains to stop the expedition, but local Indians protect the wagons, because they are glad to see disgruntled white settlers leaving their lands. This "backwards" western was based on a story by Jerry Abrahamson. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Once Upon a Time in the West

2009-11-24T23:00:13-05:00

In Sergio Leone's epic Western, shot partly in Monument Valley, a revenge story becomes an epic contemplation of the Western past. To get his hands on prime railroad land in Sweetwater, crippled railroad baron Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) hires killers, led by blue-eyed sadist Frank (Henry Fonda), who wipe out property owner Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his family. McBain's newly arrived bride, Jill (Claudia Cardinale), however, inherits it instead. Both outlaw Cheyenne (Jason Robards) and lethally mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) take it upon themselves to look after Jill and thwart Frank's plans to seize her land. As alliances and betrayals mutate, it soon becomes clear that Harmonica wants to get Frank for another reason -- it has "something to do with death." As in his "Dollars" trilogy, Leone transforms the standard Western plot through the visual impact of widescreen landscapes and the figures therein. At its full length, Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's operatic masterwork, worthy of its legend-making title. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

310 to Yuma Widescreen

2009-11-24T22:53:39-05:00

Russell Crowe plays a desperado whose accomplices stage an ambush after he is taken into custody by a determined local sheriff in this remake of the 1957 film starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. James Mangold directs a script based on the Elmore Leonard short story and penned by Stuart Beattie, Michael Brandt, and Derek Haas. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Death Rides a Horse

2009-11-24T21:21:57-05:00

Bill (John Phillip Law) grows up to seek revenge on the gang that killed his parents. He meets up with Ryan (Lee Van Cleef), a veteran gunslinger seeking his own revenge for the ones who put him in prison. The two proceed to shoot everything that moves in this violent spaghetti western. Bill eventually discovers Ryan was there when his parents were killed and is torn between killing Ryan and letting him ride off into the sunset. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Quick and the Dead Widescreen

2009-11-24T10:45:57-05:00

Director Sam Raimi brings his trademark comic book-influenced visual panache to this post-modern Western. Sharon Stone stars as Ellen, a mysterious female gunslinger who arrives in the frontier hamlet of Redemption for a contest pitting quick-draw artists against each other. The event is the brainchild of Redemption's evil, corrupt mayor, Herod (Gene Hackman), a criminal who has taken over the town and charges a 50% tax on local businesses. The pot for Herod's deadly game has swollen, attracting numerous colorful gunfighters from around the territory. As each battle thins the ranks of players, the pasts of several participants are revealed. Ellen is seeking revenge on Herod for a heinous past injustice. The fast-talking braggart known as "The Kid" (Leonardo DiCaprio) may in fact be Herod's son. The pacifist Reverend Cort (Russell Crowe), who refuses to participate in the bloodshed, is the fastest draw in the West and a former colleague of Herod's. After several spectacular slayings, Ellen and Herod stage a final showdown, but not before he has made her an unexpected proposal. The Quick and the Dead (1995) is dedicated to veteran Western actor Woody Strode, who appears in a cameo as Redemption's coffin maker, his final performance. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Open Range

2009-11-24T10:23:59-05:00

Kevin Costner stars in and directs the Western Open Range. Robert Duvall stars as Boss Spearman, a rugged old-timer who free-grazes cattle. He and Charley Waite (Costner) have been partners for ten years. As the film opens in the 1880s, the pair and their employees -- the beefy, rugged, likable Mose (Abraham Benrubi) and the impetuous Mexican teenager Buttons (Diego Luna) -- are driving cattle across the West. Mose is attacked and thrown in jail during a visit to a town. The local cattle rancher Baxter (Michael Gambon) wants the free grazers off his land and warns Charley and Boss when they retrieve Mose that they have until the next day to be out of the area. Boss decides to fight back, especially after Baxter's men do harm to the foursome. Charley confesses his past as a killer during the Civil War and strikes up a tentative romance with Sue Barlow -- the sister of the town doctor. The film's centerpiece is an extended gunfight between the duo (with some assistance from sympathetic townsfolk) and Baxter's hired gunmen. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

The Old Corral

2009-11-23T21:37:53-05:00

A typical Gene Autry everything-but-the-kitchen-sink musical Western, The Old Corral featured the spectacle of Autry getting robbed at gunpoint by his future rival, Roy Rogers. Rogers, who was then known as Dick Weston, and his fellow highwaymen (the singing group The Sons of the Pioneers) go about their illegal activities like true gentlemen, of course, refusing to rob female passengers Nora Cecil and Hope Manning. The latter, playing Eleanor Spencer, is wanted by both the authorities and the Chicago mob after witnessing gangster Mike Scarlotti (John Bradford) murder rival Tony Pearl (Buddy Roosevelt). En route to Los Angeles by Greyhound bus, she hooks up with small town saloon owner Martin Simms (Cornelius Keefe) who offers her a job singing in his Turquoise City establishment. Both Simms and Turquoise City sheriff Gene Autry, however, recognize Eleanor as the key witness in the Pearl murder case and the former is quick to notify Scarlotti. Arriving to silence the girl for good, the Chicago mobsters are met by Sheriff Autry, Deputy Frog Millhouse (Smiley Burnette), and their erstwhile prisoners, the O'Keefe brothers (Rogers, Bob Nolan, and The Sons of the Pioneers, the brothers having taken a break from harmonizing in their cell). The outcome, of course, is a given and the entire gang is soon behind bars. Milburn Morante, a veteran silent screen comedian who was rarely very funny, is actually amusing this time around as a farmer with car troubles, and Lon Chaney Jr. is well cast as Simms' lumbering henchman. Leading lady Hope Manning later signed with Warner Bros., changed her name to Irene Manning, and starred as Fay Templeton opposite James Cagney's George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Aside from all the aforementioned pleasures, The Old Corral is probably the only chance to see silent screen cowboy star Buddy Roosevelt playing a tuxedo-clad mobster. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

John Wayne The Dawn Rider

2009-11-23T21:37:23-05:00

An average entry in the otherwise above-average Monogram/"Lone Star" Western series starring John Wayne, this film is noteworthy for containing one of the last screen appearances of Joseph De Grasse, a major silent screen actor-director, who -- with his screenwriter wife Ida May Park -- created scores of well-received Universal melodramas in the 1910s. De Grasse appears all too briefly here as Wayne's father, murdered during a robbery of his express office. Wayne, playing John Mason, chases after the killer, an outlaw whose face is hidden behind a polka dot neckerchief. Mason is injured during the chase and brought to the home of Alice Gordon (Marion Burns) by newfound friend Ben McClure (Reed Howes). Nursed back to health by Alice, with whom he is falling in love, Mason sets a trap for the killer and his gang by announcing that he is guarding a valuable gold shipment. The killer is revealed to be Rudd, Alice's brother (Dennis Moore, here billed "Denny Meadow"), whom John challenges to a duel. Feeling betrayed by Mason's love for Alice, Ben secretly substitutes the bullets in his former friend's gun with blanks. Persuaded by Alice that John has done nothing untoward, a repentant Ben arrives just in time to save his friend from certain death but is himself felled by a bullet fired by villainous barkeep Yakima Canutt in a final, well-staged, shootout. What there is of comic relief in this rather dour Western is provided by gangly Nelson McDowell, an actor seemingly born to portray comic undertakers, which is exactly what he plays here. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Quick and the Dead

2009-11-23T21:27:55-05:00

Based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, this made-for-HBO western stars Sam Elliott, an enigmatic gunslinger who comes to the aid of a family traveling through the wilderness. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The Missing

2009-11-23T18:20:16-05:00

Director Ron Howard turns to the Western genre in this tale of a father and daughter who are brought together under difficult circumstances. Samuel Jones (Tommy Lee Jones) is a man living in New Mexico in the 1880s. He had abandoned his family years before to live and travel with a band of Apaches, but his conscience has finally gotten the better of him and he's decided to return home. Jones, however, does not receive a warm welcome upon arrival -- his wife has died and his daughter Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett), now grown and raising two children with her husband Brake (Aaron Eckhart), has no desire to see the man who left her mother to fend for herself. As Jones prepares to depart on a note of bitterness, a band of ruthless bandits, let by Army deserter Chidin (Eric Schweig), descends upon the homestead, murdering Brake and kidnapping his 15-year-old daughter Lily (Evan Rachel Wood). While Maggie feels no desire to forgive her father, she realizes he's her best hope to track down the criminals who took her child, and Jones and Maggie team up to find the bandits before they can disappear into Mexico. The Missing was based on the novel -The Last Ride by Thomas Eidson. Val Kilmer and Jenna Boyd highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Wild Wild West

2009-11-23T09:40:29-05:00

Yet another TV series is revived for the big screen, as Will Smith and Kevin Kline join forces as James T. West and Artemus Gordon, the most sophisticated government agents of the 1860's, in the film adaptation of The Wild Wild West. West and Gordon represent two opposite ends of the personality scale: West is a smooth-talking charmer and man of action who prefers to shoot first and ask questions much, much later; while Gordon is intensely methodical and cerebral, with a genius for gadgets and mechanical innovations. They're brought together by no less an authority than the President of the United States to track down an evil genius named Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh). Loveless was once an honored military leader and inventor until one of his schemes went awry and left him paralyzed from the waist down. Driven mad by the experience, Loveless is determined to get revenge on the United States by assassinating the President, using a 60-foot tall mechanical spider. Assisting Loveless is a team of beautiful female criminals, Miss East (Bai Ling), Amazonia (Frederique Van Der Wal), Munitia (Musetta Vander) and Miss Lippenreider (Sofia Eng). As the initially suspicious West and Gordon learn to work together, they also find themselves helped by an attractive woman, Rita Escobar (Salma Hayek), who has her own bone to pick with Loveless. Wild Wild West reunites star Will Smith with director Barry Sonnenfeld, who previously worked together on the hit Men In Black (1997). Wild Wild West features a hip-hop theme song from one-time Fresh Prince Smith, along with a more traditional Western score from composer Elmer Bernstein. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ned Kelly

2009-11-22T20:35:01-05:00

Ned Kelly (Mick Jagger) is the legendary outlaw of the Australian outback sought by authorities for stealing horses. At age 20, Ned has already served a three-year prison term at hard labor. When Ned's mother (Clarissa Kaye) is arrested and jailed on a bogus murder charge, Ned offers to surrender in exchange for his mother's freedom. When the authorities refuse, the Kelly brothers go on a robbing rampage. Cornered by the law in a saloon, Ned's brothers commit suicide rather than be taken alive. Shel Silverstein wrote the music performed by Waylon Jennings, Jagger and Glen Tomasetti. Australian folk songs are also included in this story taken from a popular 19th-century ballad. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

2009-11-22T20:00:22-05:00

In the last and the best installment of his so-called "Dollars" trilogy of Sergio Leone-directed "spaghetti westerns," Clint Eastwood reprised the role of a taciturn, enigmatic loner. Here he searches for a cache of stolen gold against rivals the Bad (Lee Van Cleef), a ruthless bounty hunter, and the Ugly (Eli Wallach), a Mexican bandit. Though dubbed "the Good," Eastwood's character is not much better than his opponents -- he is just smarter and shoots faster. The film's title reveals its ironic attitude toward the canonized heroes of the classical western. "The real West was the world of violence, fear, and brutal instincts," claimed Leone. "In pursuit of profit there is no such thing as good and evil, generosity or deviousness; everything depends on chance, and not the best wins but the luckiest." Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive "spaghetti western," rivaled only by Leone's own Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). The main musical theme by Ennio Morricone hit #1 on the British pop charts. Originally released in Italy at 177 minutes, the movie was later cut for its international release. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide

Rockwell

2009-11-22T19:14:25-05:00

The feature-film debut from writer/director Richard Lloyd Dewey, this Western stars Randy Gleave as Porter Rockwell, an outlaw looking to go straight. After landing on the right side of the law as a deputy, Rockwell assembles a team and takes on the dangerous task of bringing down a corrupt business owner. Rockwell also stars NBA superstar Karl Malone and George Sullivan. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The Ballad of Little Jo

2009-11-22T19:04:47-05:00

The Ballad of Little Jo is based on a true story -- several true stories, in fact. Suzy Amis plays demure young Josephine Monagan, who in 1866 is run out of her home town after bearing an illegitimate child. Fleeing westward, Josephine is terrified by stories of how treacherous the frontier can be for a woman alone. As a result, upon arriving in the muddy burg of Ruby City, she disguises herself as a man, going so far as to scar her face to suggest that she's been in a few scrapes. In this guise, "Little Jo" does just fine by herself for nearly 30 years! Almost as good as Suzy Amis is Bo Hopkins as gunslinger Frank Badger, Little Jo's best buddy (if only he knew....) Written and directed by Maggie Greenwald, The Ballad of Little Jo does a marvelous job conveying the people and places of its period; and, unlike Bad Girls (which was released around the same time), we aren't bludgeoned to death by feminist revisionism. Unfortunately ignored when it went out to theatres in the fall of 1993, The Ballad of Little Jo has fared rather better on video. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide