The Good, The Bad and The Ugly vs. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, vs. The Magnificent Seven

[James Steven Beverly]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly vs. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, vs. The Magnificent Seven, which IS the fastest gun in Western cinema? I LOVE AAALLLLLL these films and can't decide which one deserves the badge, Now I KNOW some of you will say PSHAW (....OK, maybe not pshaw but something like that), the tallest in the saddle is The Searchers OR High Noon, perhaps True Grit, MAYBE Unforgiven or Tombstone, or EVEN PERHAPS The Paleface, Evil Roy Slade or The Shakiest Gun in the West....OK Hombre, fine, I reckon you're entitled to yer O-pinion, but fer ME, I'm gonna go with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly because it has more Testosterone than a Rugby match played on a moto cross course during October fest and more Italian style than Monica Belluci sitting a Ferrari Testarossa with Gucci ostrich skin seats. It also has THEEE BEEST Mexican bandit EVER in Eli Wallach's Tuco and if Eastwood were any cooler, he go into hypothermia.

 

YES I LOVE Newman and Redford as Butch and Sundance and Yul and McQueen.....and Coburn.....and Bronson.....and Vaughn.....AND Wallach AGAIN as a Mexican Bandit in The Magnificent Seven which also has TTHHEEE best Western movie theme music hands down but The Good The Bad and The Ugly JUST edges them out.

 

'Course if'n yer a gonna' draw down on me, then slap leather, ya tenderfoot and let's hear what tale of cowboys and gunslingers is better and WHY it should be branded the greatest Western Ever Made!!! B)

Edited November 27, 2010 by James Steven Beverly

[Mark Dunn]

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.

[David Mullen ASC]

I have a hard time making any personal lists titled "the greatest" rather than "my favorite"... but the western genre in particular is hard to boil down to one movie when there is so much variety in style, theme, scale, etc.

 

I love the Leone westerns, particularly "The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, "For a Few Dollars More", and "Once Upon a Time in the West". I also love John Ford westerns, particularly "The Searchers", "My Darling Clementine", "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", "Stagecoach".

 

There is also "The Wild Bunch", a movie more to love for its style than for its story.

 

I also love lighter fare like "Destry Rides Again","Blazing Saddles", and "Dodge City", and overblown movies like "How the West Was Won" and "The Big Country".

 

And then there are fun Howard Hawks westerns like "Rio Bravo" and "Red River".

 

I also like Sam Fuller's "Forty Guns" and Anthony Mann's "Winchester '73".

[Tom Jensen]

Blazing Saddles

[James Steven Beverly]

AAAAHHHH!! I FORGOT about The Wild Bunch!! I was dropped a lot as a child. OK, let's make it The Good, The Bad and The Ugly vs. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, vs. The Magnificent Seven vs. The Wild Bunch!! (BTW, G,B & U still wins...at least today) :D I WOULDA included Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia but I'm goin' with period westerns this time. B)

[David Mullen ASC]

I forgot about "Shane", another important western.

 

It's hard to beat the end of "Once Upon A Time in the West" as a visual encapsulation of most of the themes of westerns, the coming of civilization, the loss of wild spaces, etc.

 

Of the modern westerns, post 1970 (to be arbitrary), I really like "Outlaw Jose Wales", "Jeremiah Johnson", "Return of a Man Called Horse", "Heaven's Gate", "Silverado", "Dances with Wolves", "The Unforgiven". "The Proposal", though set in Australia, is also a good western, and "The Road Warrior" as practically a western.

 

And there is a post-WW2 western like "Bad Day at Black Rock".

 

But I think I've probably seen the Leone westerns the most, followed by "Butch Cassidy", and then "The Searchers" and "My Darling Clementine."

 

Being such a fan of "Seven Samurai", it's actually been hard for me to get behind "The Magnificent Seven" for some reason.

[Tom Jensen]

So many good Westerns. I liked The Cowboys, True Grit, The Shootist. I did a movie with Robert Carradine and he was telling me that he was on the set of the Cowboys and was worrying about his 'motivation" and John Wayne yelled something like, "Jesus Christ, you're just like your effin father."

[James Steven Beverly]

SSSHHHHAAANNNEEEE!!!! Damn it, OK The Good, The Bad and The Ugly vs. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, vs. The Magnificent Seven vs. The Wild Bunch vs. Shane.

 

Umm yeah, the Seven Samurai was good, nay, great BUT it didn't have Steve McQueen, Yul Brenner, KICK ASS theme music and a BUNCH of GUNS!! 'Course that one guy gettin' shot to Hell with about 20 arrows was cool.

 

Seriously though, Shane is the most beautifully photographed westerns...well let's say movies, I've ever seen. I'm kind surprised more people don't mention the cinematography, it's stunning. I grew up in Wyoming and my favorite spot on earth is the Grand Tetons around Jackson Hole and this film reminds me of that every time I see it. B)

Edited November 28, 2010 by James Steven Beverly

[James Steven Beverly]

I did a movie with Robert Carradine and he was telling me that he was on the set of the Cowboys and was worrying about his 'motivation" and John Wayne yelled something like, "Jesus Christ, you're just like your effin father."

 

:lol: What did you do on the film?

[Tom Jensen]

:lol: What did you do on the film?

 

I was the camera operator on a TV movie called Attack of the Sabre Tooth or Night of the Sabre Tooth. Something like that.

[Stephen Floyd]

Once Upon a Time in the West

[James Steven Beverly]

Once Upon a Time in the West

Magnificent picture, Claudia Cardinale was STUNNINGLY HOT!!, Charlie Bronson kicked ass and Henry Fonda was SO GOOD as the very embodiment of PURE evil!!! HOWEVER, though I am a HUGE Leone fan, this was not his masterpiece. In my opinion, that spot is STILL reserved for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!! B)

Edited December 22, 2010 by James Steven Beverly

[Mitch Gross]

What about "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance"? Sort of a commentary on all Westerns and a coda/companion piece to "Stagecoach."

 

To me the genre of Westerns is best when it serves grand operatic themes and statements on the human condition. After all a Western naturally is about a lack of society, or a simple society, or the formation of society. It is much akin to ancient mythology like Homer's The Odyssey. That's why the themes ring so true and why one can remake Samurai movies into Westerns so well (and one can transform Shakespeare into Samurai movies).

 

My taste goes to "The Searchers" and "Unforgiven."

 

When the door closes on Ethan (John Wayne) at the end of "The Searchers" it's like Ford was closing the door on an entire era of American history.

 

Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) says, "It's a hell of a thing killin' a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have." The Schofield Kid responds, "Yeah, well, he had it coming," and Munny replies "We all got it coming, kid." Could there be a much more profound statement on the human condition and on the genre of Westerns?

 

Of course, take this to its logical extreme and I'd say the greatest Western of all time is in fact "Star Wars."

[David Mullen ASC]

What about "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance"? Sort of a commentary on all Westerns and a coda/companion piece to "Stagecoach."

 

I put that movie in the same category as "The Ox-Bow Incident" and "High Noon", b&w character dramas where The West is more of a backdrop rather than the landscape taking a prominent role, hence being shot on backlots and interior sets, and usually being b&w. Which is why I think Ford chose to shoot "Liberty Vallance" in that way, rather than in a widescreen color process, to keep it intimate and small. Either that or he was getting older, tired, and just didn't want to spend a lot of time on a distant location, plus had to work with a limited budget. But it's a great movie nonetheless.

 

Martin Scorsese said recently in an interview that his favorite blu-ray was "The Searchers", it was a movie he could just watch over and over again for the way it was shot, directed.

[Stuart Brereton]

The Professionals has always been a favorite of mine. A great cast, including an effortlessly cool Burt Lancaster, and some great work from Conrad Hall.

[Mitch Gross]

I think Ford could have shot Liberty Vallance in color & widescreen if he wanted. The two other films he directed that year were both in color, one of them being The Civil War segment from How The West Was Won.

 

I think B&W was a definite artistic choice, as the film was in many ways a commentary on older Westerns, including numerous direct references to Ford's own "Stagecoach" (the actual vehicle makes an appearance in the film). And in certain ways the film adheres to the original short story and in important ways it diverges. I think the film also shows Ford's influence and appreciation of Kurosawa.

 

And yes, I could watch The Searchers repeatedly.

[Stephen Floyd]

I think Django should have been in B&W, given how brutal it was.