A Chat About Great Westerns

The following email exchanges, written in the 2015-2016 school year, were with a former colleague.  Henryk Hoffman is a gifted Latin Teacher, a native of Poland, who not only loves Western movies, he also writes about them.  His Amazon page features such titles as Western Movie References in American Literature and ‘A’ Western Filmmakers: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers, Directors, Cinematographers, Composers, Actors and Actresses.  His most recent book is Ironies, Coincidences and Absurdities in My Ordinary Life on Both Sides of the Atlantic.

Henry worked in the same boys dormitory in which I lived, and our many conversations about films, history, travel, writing, education—especially in independent boarding schools (what a former head of school called “the last bastion of feudalism”)—culminated in this exercise, written as a sequential email exchange on spec for publication in the school’s monthly magazine.  Graciously, Henry shared his digital copy when mine was lost in a technological black hole, created by one of those barons of feudalism.

Henry,

Having batted around this idea for long enough, we should take an opportunity to “try this out”; to write in a dialogue format some commentary on our personal selections of the three best Western films ever made.  I think we will not be disappointed in each other’s listing, but the differences may prompt some interesting observations.  If no one else is amused, at least we can be.

So, limiting ourselves to your suggestion of three films, you really force the issue: there is no room for the guilty pleasure in the traditional ten-best or “baker’s dozen” list.  Clearly, we would both agree that certain directors must be included, but doing that where the task is picking three films…well, that is a tall order, one even Randolph Scott would be hard-pressed to accomplish (an aside: Just how many of Scott’s films have “Tall” in the title?).

So, for the first of my three:

I went back and forth between this one and my second choice, switching them in my mind several times, but in the end was carried to the sophistication and ambiguities of its ending: The Searchers (d. John Ford – 1956).  The bookend scenes of John Wayne’s arrival and departure are a perfect marriage of design and execution.  There are a number of paired events/characters/ideas in the film: a.) the massacre that sets the story in motion of Ethan Edwards (Wayne) and Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) —the searchers of the title for Edwards’ nieces—and the raid on the Comanche village that comes near the film’s ending.  That sequence seems to be an inspiration for George Lucas in the first Star Wars: A New Hope film when Luke Skywalker’s family is killed; like for Ethan, the deaths of Luke’s extended family occur off-screen, a classic feature of Greek tragedy.

b.) The characters of Ethan and the Comanche leader, Scar.  Seemingly opposite at first, as Scar has taken Ethan’s niece (Debbie) as a captive.  Ethan searches for her, presumably to rescue her.  It soon becomes clear that there is far more that unites them than separates them.

c.) The larger theme of civilization and untamed wilderness.  This is not just literal, but also lies within the interior geography of the characters and in time period.  Ethan’s inner world and the demons he carries leave him living in the past (his most repeated phrase: “That’ll be the day,” was the inspiration for Buddy Holly’s song).  Ethan broods about the past, one that cannot be recovered, one he cannot leave.  Martin sees the future in all of its terrible and beautiful possibilities.  His challenging of Ethan is an underrated aspect of his character, but this is Wayne’s film…and John Ford’s.  Their partnership will continue to be studied and written about a century from now.  

John Wayne (Ethan Edwards). Source: <https://the-take.com/watch/is-the-searchers-portrayal-of-native-americans-problematic>.

In Ethan Edwards, Ford takes a mythic American character—a man of action, resilient and persevering, brave and certain—and turns it on its head.  He is a man to be admired in some ways, but also feared (just as he fears parts of his character).  There is a shot, one of many, that I love in this film:  Ford has the camera move in for a close-up of Wayne as he turns to face the camera, his eyes hooded in the shadow of his hat.  It is a terrifying image; in part, that is because of Wayne’s portrayal of Ethan.  Few American films have been so willing to confront the dark heart of the American character.  This is done by making Ethan Edwards the hero, but he is not a man anyone would want his or her son to emulate.  He has plenty of gold, “fresh minted” he says; but how much and how he obtained it remains unknown.  He is clearly a loner and hard, an archetype for the American man who acts decisively with an absolute commitment to his deeds and beliefs.  He knows what it takes to survive.  He has fought on the losing (and wrong side) of the Civil War, a war that ended three years earlier.  Only now is Ethan returning to something that resembles home in the family of his brother’s frontier homestead.  The home accepts Martin, who is part-Indian, a “half-breed” in Ethan’s matter-of-fact, but insulting voice.  There is tenderness in Ethan’s barely acknowledged, deeply-rooted love for his sister-in-law, one that is reciprocated, made clear by her gestures when Ethan returns.  And yet, they barely speak to each other.

The possibility of alternate pasts and different futures is ever-present through Ethan.  But, his hatreds are many and they threaten to devour him as the question arises through his obsessive five-year search for Debbie: does he want to rescue her or kill her?  He seems to be the American male equivalent of Medea, a tragic figure so victimized and filled with hate that she kills her own children as an act of vengeance against her husband.  Even though there is a happy ending (for some people) in The Searchers, Ethan’s ending is not yet written or known.  The door literally closes on him.  He shows the possibility of his redemption, but I do not think he will fully embrace it.  Whatever is good or pure in Ethan lies in the past.  Just like Medea, he “is what he is”: he searches, but does not always see (an interesting commentary in American Heritage notes this, adding that in the figure of Mose is the one character who sees without having to search).  Ethan is a necessary part of the civilization process.  When he is no longer needed, he is casually discarded on the trash heap of history, an act he invites.  I would argue that Ethan Edwards is not very far from the heart of the American experience.  The racism that is in Ethan’s soul is a consequence of his experiences and values, just as Scar mirrors this in his beliefs and choices.  When Ethan shoots the eyes out of a dead Comanche, knowing that in their beliefs he will wander sightless, “without peace or rest, forever,” Ethan is the God of the Old Testament.  Still, he does not need or want religion.  He says to the Reverend Captain Clayton, the religious and militia leader (Texas Rangers, I believe) of the community that “I don’t need you for what I gotta do.”  Someone has to do the deed, and Ethan is willing to do it based on his understanding of the greater good and his own motives, which are forever entangled.  Where the line exists between the greater good and Ethan’s personal motives remains an open question.  For those critics who have no vision beyond their prejudices that John Wayne could not act, The Searchers is exhibit A in my case that they are wrong. 

I was lucky enough to see this film on the big screen in all of its Technicolour majesty.  It should be seen that way, but in the end, it does not really matter, except that it should be seen.  Its power has not diminished, its stature has continued to grow.  It arrived when audiences and critics did not fully understand the genius of what they were witnessing.  Ford belongs not only on any list of great Western filmmakers, but on any list of great filmmakers (The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man, They Were Expendable, and others).  The Western is the genre with which he is most identified, and the genre returns the compliment.  I never read the Alan LeMay novel on which the film is based, but am reading the recent Glenn Frankel book about this film.  All of this is making clear that I need to watch this film again.

* * * * * 

Randy,

Thank you for initiating this original idea, which—I predict—will bring a lot of satisfaction and fun mainly to the two of us. You’ve written a lot about The Searchers; thus, I am afraid that, if we keep writing at that rate, schools’ magazine will not be able to find enough space for us.  Consequently, I’ll try to be brief.

Since you chose to start with The Searchers (1956, Western #6 on my list), I will reply with my ideas about Stagecoach (#2 on my list), a film also directed by John Ford (and also starring John Wayne), but released seventeen years earlier.  Seventeen years is a long time in the history of film, which is evident in the ways the two films look today, and Stagecoach (shot in black and white) definitely seems to have aged much more and lost some of its appeal especially to the younger audiences.  Regardless of those minor age-related flaws, however, Stagecoach, with its stunning cinematography by Bert Glennon and wonderful, Oscar-winning musical score credited to four composers, is still an absolutely rewarding spectacle.  John Wayne, for whom this was the first major appearance after ten years of making “B” productions (as a result of the box-office disaster of Walsh’s The Big Trail) gave a great performance, but the remaining cast is equally impressive: Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell (Academy Award!), John Carradine, George Bancroft, Andy Devine, Louise Platt, Berton Churchill, Tim Holt, Chris-Pin Martin and a handful of other players.                                                                                                                                       

John Wayne (Ringo Kid). Source: <https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-stagecoach-1939>.

The main reason, however, why I love Stagecoach (and have chosen it over The Searchers) is its economy.  Based on a superior short story by Ernest Haycox (great western writer!!!), who in turn (allegedly) borrowed the premise from Guy de Maupassant (another short story, Boule de Suif), the film does not have any scene that we could easily get rid of without losing the major idea.  Nothing is redundant or optional; everything serves the character development and the story.  The viewer remains captivated or almost hypnotized for the whole duration of the film (about 100 minutes).    

The same cannot be said about The Searchers, where—we have to admit it—there are several slapstick scenes definitely belonging somewhere else, and where John Wayne’s characterization (despite being unique in many respects) seems to lack consistency mostly due to those scenes (but also because the ending—different from that of the book—does not offer enough explanation of Ethan’s changed attitude toward the fate of his niece).  Thus, Stagecoach, being a more rigorous and consistent masterpiece, wins the comparison, and its further assets include the complex and intellectual screenplay by Dudley Nichols (who further enriched the story by adding a number of characters we do care about) and the masterful staging by Ford.  Intellectually, though, the script of The Searchers is not less impressive (its symbolism may be even more complex), and, visually, the latter picture is probably somewhat more rewarding (color does help here!).

To conclude this brief review, let me just mention three facts that convincingly testify to the significance /superiority of Ford’s first talking western:

1. The critics, quite unanimously, praise Stagecoach for being the first modern film in the sense of how it is narrated and staged.
2. Orson Welles admitted viewing it about twenty times and in this way getting inspired prior to and while working on Citizen Kane (e.g., you can see ceilings in Stagecoach, though this kind of novelty is generally attributed to Welles; that is only one example of several areas where Ford antecedes Welles and other great directors).
3. French director Christian-Jacque also used Stagecoach as his inspiration when working on the screen adaptation of de Maupassant short story Boule de Suif, a movie known as Angel and Sinner (1945).

With all this said—and all you had said about The Searchers is obviously true (quite a comprehensive analysis)—both Stagecoach and The Searchers are two outstanding western films, both based on remarkable literary works, both cashing on the unusual director-actor relationship and both filmed in the spectacular Monument Valley.  One black and white and one shot in color, they also illustrate how the film language and the audiences’ tastes changed between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s.

P.S. I don’t remember how many films Randy Scott made with the adjective ‘tall’ in the title.  A couple of pictures come to my mind: The Tall T and Tall Man Riding.  Besides, I recall two other relatively memorable westerns with that word: Tall in the Saddle (starring John Wayne) and The Tall Men (with Clark Gable and Robert Ryan).

Henry

* * * * *

Henry,

Without any reluctance I must confess you are correct about the excessive elements in The Searchers.  

There is a polished perfection in Stagecoach that is absolutely true to the story and characters.  One of Ford’s flaws: his penchant for “manly” humour marks many of his films (Donovan's Reef is an entire film made from this perspective).  It mars his cavalry trilogy as well.  And yet, perhaps as a history teacher, I still rank The Searchers higher.  Stagecoach makes my top ten every time.  I did not know Welles was so taken by Stagecoach.

I also admire your ability to say in fewer words what takes me many more to express!  Let’s hope for good editing…by someone.  (Spoke with [the magazine’s editor] and told her what we were doing.  “Good,” she said.  “You may not think so once you have seen it,” I said.  She laughed.)

If Ford rightly defined himself as a director who made westerns, then this is also true of Sam Peckinpah.  Film critic William Bayer claimed the two films of the 1960s that most shaped contemporary filmmaking were Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969) and Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969).  The topic is best expressed in the poster’s tagline: “Nine men who came too late and stayed too long.”  It’s a western set in the “modern” era of 1914 along the Texas-Mexico border when Mexico was in revolution, with aging outlaws (a favourite topic for Peckinpah) at its centre.  Its first full line of meaningful dialogue (other than the Bible verses) is spoken by a minor character, a manager in the railway office the Wild Bunch enters to rob, dressed as U.S. Army soldiers.  This line states its thesis: “I don’t care what you meant to do—it's what you did that I don’t like.”  The entire film is about good intentions undermined by bad deeds and unintended consequences.  The Wild Bunch lives by a code of honour; Pike Bishop (William Holden—his last great performance) is its author and enforcer, but its moral centre is the only Mexican member of the Bunch, Angel (Jaime Sánchez).  Pike and the Bunch are pursued by his former friend/partner, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan, equally great) who reluctantly leads a gang of the scummiest of Bounty Hunters.  Their journey takes them to a dangerous alliance with a leader in the Revolution, General Mapache (Emilio Fernández), while being pursued by Thornton and the U.S. Army.

It is a great screenplay, filled with memorable lines of dialogue that reveal the rich lives lived be these before the film even starts (David Simon and his writing partners on the HBO series The Wire, arguably the finest television series ever made, stuffed as many lines as they could from the screenplay of The Wild Bunch into their bleak stories of Baltimore's mean streets).  An example: Pike and Dutch Engstrom (his right-hand in the Bunch) see Deke Thornton through binoculars following their trail.

Dutch Engstrom: Damn that Deke Thornton!

Pike Bishop: What would you do in his place?  He gave his word.

Dutch Engstrom: To a railroad!

Pike Bishop: It's his word!

Dutch Engstrom: That ain't what counts!  It's who you give it to! 

The film is not for the faint-hearted, noted for its meditation on violence and human nature (children are portrayed as observers of violence, repulsed by it, and at play, until finally a child joins in the killing).  Its “blood ballets” of slow-motion violence and rapid cutting—deemed excessive and infamous by some critics—create a terrible beauty that is almost physically exhausting for an audience.  It is a film of excessive qualities, but serves Peckinpah’s vision of these men.  Given that film is projected at 24 frames per second and that some of the shots in this film are only six frames long, they barely register on our conscious understanding, but they are felt.  The action sequences are so impressively staged (including the fateful train robbery at Mapache’s bidding) and photographed that they can overwhelm one’s appreciation for the quieter, reflective moments.  These give resonance to the characters’ pasts and their present circumstances.  The acting is uniformly excellent (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson as the Gorch brothers; Edmond O'Brien as Freddie Sykes, the crusty man who remembers the old ways, and rode with Bishop and Thornton; Albert Dekker, L.Q. Jones, Strother Martin, etc.; all are sharply defined).  Lucien Ballard’s cinematography is superb and the score by Jerry Fielding is perfect in underlining the story. 

The Bunch: Ben Johnson (Tector Gorch), Warren Oates (Lyle Gorch), William Holden (Pike Bishop), and Ernest Borgnine (Dutch Engstrom). Source: <http://www.stevenbenedict.ie/2012/06/the-wild-bunch/>.

The children in the opening sequence are seemingly innocent, but they happily watch the battle of a pair of scorpions amid a sea of red ants, imprisoned in a corral made of sticks.  The moral universe we are about to enter is seriously flawed.  It may have the veneer of civilization, but power and the enjoyment of using it are its engines.  The Bunch, trapped in their lives and times, have little imagination beyond their mantra of “Let’s go,” inevitably followed by the response “Why not.”  It is not a question to be answered, and yet there is something noble and dark in their code.   It reminds me of a line from The Magnificent Seven, a very different kind of film made nine years earlier, when one character explains another's incomprehensible action: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  In The Wild Bunch, the accumulation of those good ideas, bad deeds, and unintended consequences forge a savage climax and an elegy to a mythic past.

* * * * *

Randy,

It all reads like the best fiction, I mean in terms of how captivating it is.  Yes, all you said about The Wild Bunch is absolutely true, and I love the film probably as much as you do.  But I still need to defend my list, and it is not easy since you have just introduced the most colorful and most untamed filmmaker known as Sam Peckinpah (definitely one of the top three directors of the genre), while my western #1, High Noon (1952), was directed by Fred Zinnemann, a European by birth (from Austria), who never even specialized in westerns.  Another drawback for some purists among western aficionados may be the fact that the musical score for my film was composed by another European, Dimitri Tiomkin (from Russia). 

Anyway, High Noon, another black-and-white movie at the top of my list, won as many as four Academy Awards—for best actor (Gary Cooper), best music and song (both by Tiomkin) and best editing—a record absolutely unprecedented for any western (subsequently repeated by George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, and beat only by Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves).  While the Oscar for editing (deserved here more than in any other movie I know) may explain my obsession with economy (in film), the Oscars for the music and song may indicate my weakness for European, or even Slavic, tunes. 

While all of this is probably true (but I like Gershwin, Bacharach and Johnny Cash, too), the main reason why I am so fascinated with the picture is the protagonist, a middle-aged man fighting alone for law and order in a town of insensitive, ungrateful and cowardly citizens.  And, while Marshal Will Kane’s struggle to protect the town, and save his own life and integrity is impressively presented in Carl Foreman’s script, it is certainly enhanced, made more convincing and more powerful, through Cooper’s first-rate performance.  No wonder the actor won his second Oscar, which happens to be another significant fact, being his second and one of only four Academy Awards (in history) won by anyone ever for a leading role in a western film.  Because of Cooper’s performance, where his own persona is completely fused with the character, Kane’s drama is reminiscent of a classical tragedy, an affinity further illustrated by the classical unities, which some critics rightly discovered in the film: the onscreen time almost perfectly coincides with the off-screen time, about 90 minutes.

To prove the higher intellectual aspirations of the picture even further, some critics often refer to its political allegory of the McCarthy-era witch hunt in Hollywood, some notice the allusion to Mark Twain (Hadleyville derived from Hadleyburg); others emphasize the purposefully unromantic, stark photography (the cloudless sky, for instance) and the recurrent shots of the clock to enhance the suspense resulting from the diminishing time till twelve (the arrival of Frank Miller, the main villain).  With all of this being undoubtedly true, I still insist that it is Coop, above all, that makes the movie work; it is his performance that allowed me to experience in full what is referred to in film theory as the “projection-identification” process.  I was him and he was me when I watched the film for the first time at the age of twelve, in a small movie theater in Poznań, Poland.  Over fifty years and some thirty viewings later, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, High Noon is still my favorite western, and my favorite film!, and Gary Cooper never lost his position as my #1 actor of all time.

Gary Cooper (Marshall Will Kane). Source: <https://visithillsboroughnc.com/event/hillsborough-classic-film-society-presents-high-noon-1952/>.

Since High Noon was envisioned by Zinnemann as an important item in his prestigious series of movies dealing with serious and universal issues (following The Men and Teresa and preceding From Here to Eternity), one may argue that, okay, it is a great film, but is it also necessarily a great western?  Despite the overwhelming contribution of the Europeans, however, High Noon does have a remarkably realistic flavor of the American West of the second half of the 19th century.  It is manifested in the minutely selected details in the area of locale, costumes, props, cinematography, language and the faces of the players, actors who either had been working in the genre for some time then—Cooper (first of all, with over a dozen westerns to his credit, including such classics as The Virginian, The Plainsman and The Westerner), Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney, Jr., James Millican, Ian MacDonald, Sheb Wooley—or actors that would subsequently become famous in the genre, such as Robert J. Wilke, Jack Elam and, above all, Lee Van Cleef, whose threatening silhouette is used as the background for the credit sequence.  Philadelphian Grace Kelly, in whose short film career it is the only western, does not contribute in the same way, but, because of marrying the Prince of Monaco several years later, she helps the film hold one more record: High Noon is probably the only western with a real princess in the cast!

While I always enjoy watching Pike Bishop’s wild bunch having, for the last time, the time of their lives, even though I admire their honor code and cheer to their final suicidal statement in search of their identity, I have a hard time (occasionally) accepting the countless innocent victims slaughtered in the opening sequence (masterfully staged, by the way) of Peckinpah’s movie.  Consequently, I feel morally obligated to rate the film somewhat below High Noon (but please don’t accuse me of cheap didacticism!!!).  And, despite the visual appeal I find in every scene of most of Peckinpah’s films, here the economy factor is also valid, to a lesser degree, as one of my few other reservations.

* * * * *

Henry,

I thoroughly understand your choice.  I really like the term “untamed” for Peckinpah, although I do not believe he wants us to accept the “innocents slaughtered” in that opening sequence.  It is bravura film-making, and given the story, I cannot imagine another director at that time who could have offered a different take that would be nearly as bracing.  It is not shock for shock’s effect, but it is shocking how the sequence unfolds: the nasty details Peckinpah includes in his unsparing view of the attraction of violence.  The shot of the two children holding each other in the street, amidst the carnage, are his own children.  Children mimic the love of cruelty or casual violence of adults, no matter the presence of the Temperance Union marchers; a child gleefully participates in the shoot-out at the end.  It occurs to me that you get to know these men of the Wild Bunch more intimately than you get to know Ethan Edwards—they are similar in a number of ways—but that Peckinpah loves them is something I can almost understand, while Edwards stays an outsider, literally and figuratively.  That is not a decisive point in my ranking of these films; it is just an observation sparked by your response.

I may have tipped my hand earlier to my third choice.  It is one of the most popular western ever made.  It spawned a series of sequels of diminishing pleasures, but features one of the most iconic film scores for any film, much less a western: The Magnificent Seven (d. John Sturges – 1960).  The film is legendary for the amount of testosterone of its younger cast: Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and the horribly miscast Horst Buchholz (a German actor playing a Mexican???  And Sturges even thought he would be the breakout performer of the younger cast???).  Later, as you know so well, Sturges would craft possibly his finest and most successful film with McQueen, Coburn, Bronson (and Richard Attenborough and James Garner) in 1963’s The Great Escape, a film also scored by the great Elmer Bernstein.  Bernstein broke into film composing in the 1950s as a protégé of Aaron Copland’s with such varied scores as The Man With the Golden Arm (d. Otto Preminger—1955), The Ten Commandments (d. Cecil B. de Mile—1956), The Sweet Smell of Success (d. Alexander Mackendrick—1955), To Kill A Mockingbird (d. Robert Mulligan—1962), Airplane (ds. Jim Abrahams and David Zucker—1980), The Age of Innocence (d. Martin Scorcese—1994), and perhaps the score more of our students may recognize: Ghostbusters (d.  Ivan Reitman—1984).  Bernstein’s main theme for The Magnificent Seven is an iconic, muscular piece, associated for too long with the “Marlboro Man,” and Marlboro cigarettes when it was still permissible to advertise them on television.  

As an exercise in understanding the power of music to improve a film, watch any number of scenes from The Magnificent Seven without sound; then, re-watch them with the sound on.  There are impressive action sequences in the film, but there are also long scenes of the seven hired guns slowly riding to their destination.  The music adds energy, even urgency to those scenes; it punctuates the dialogue at other times, emphasizing the power of few words with powerful chords.  And it colours the worlds of the film—the border lands of the southwest where hired guns are not so often hired anymore—and the small Mexican village that wants protection from a bandit-warlord (the very good Eli Wallach).  The full score serves the film but also can stand alone as orchestral music.  It is a major factor in my love of this film.

The Seven: Yul Brynner (Chris), Steve McQueen (Vin), Horst Bucholz (Chico), Charles Bronson Bernardo O’Reilly), Robert Vaughn (Lee), Brad Dexter (Harry), and James Coburn (Britt). Source: <http://www.ifccenter.com/films/the-magnificent-seven/>.

The other factors are these: the story, borrowed from the Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai (1954); the cinematography (Charles Lang, Jr.); the intentional and unintentional humour of the screenplay: at one point, James Coburn’s character (Britt) takes careful aim with his pistol on a bandit riding away—a long ways away—fires, and the bandit topples over.  Chico (Buchholz) admiringly stammers, “Ah, that was the greatest shot I've ever seen!”  Britt explodes: “The worst!  I was aiming at the horse.”  Funny stuff!  But the main pleasure remains with the seven, led by gunfighter Yul Brynner (Chris—no last name) who is recruited to the mission of defending the village against 40 bandits (Bernardo, played by Charles Bronson, says: “I admire your notion of fair odds, mister.”).  Dressed in black, he is the good guy, semi-redeemed by the mission, noting when looking at the paltry gold and coins from the villagers —“Everything that we have”—that “I have been offered a lot for my work, but never everything.”  The film is full of terrific lines and visually striking scenes.  It is hard to take one’s eyes off Steve McQueen (Vin), who consciously sought to steal the film from Yul Brynner.  His hands are always doing something, from shading his eyes to check out the direction of glare to shaking shotgun shells to hear the pellets rattle before loading them into a double-barreled shotgun.  It made Brynner pretty angry; he had his own form of diverting attention back to him whenever he took off his hat.  Brynner had famously shaved his head when he starred on Broadway in the musical The King and I, and he never grew his hair back.  Still, on film, their growing friendship seems genuine.  

Of all three of my choices, this is probably the most entertaining.  Those critics who see a kind of Cold War statement in the story are not necessarily wrong in understanding The Magnificent Seven as a film about Anglos who arrive to a Third World nation to clean up its mess (think Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, or Vietnam in the 1950s), but that is not why the film was made.  First and foremost, it is an exciting and enjoyable film with engaging characters, most of whom are people you would want to know, people you come to care about: Chris, Vin, Bernardo, and Chico, in particular.

* * * * *

Randy,

Once again, I need to begin with my own approval for your choice, as I am also one of those movie fans that unconditionally love everything about The Magnificent Seven.  My third choice, however, introduces a new director, who, although he made only five westerns (being enormously successful in literally all genres), is definitely one of the top three western directors of all time.  He did direct a great deal of The Outlaw (a controversial film released in 1943), but the film was eventually credited to Howard Hughes, a man sharing the same first name and the same (alliterated) initials, but famous also outside the movie industry.  Thus, Hawks’s (officially) first western is Red River (1948), followed by The Big Sky (1952, starring Kirk Douglas), also shot in black and white, and by Rio Bravo (1959), a color movie and the first part of the town-bound triptych (the other two being El Dorado, 1967, and Rio Lobo, 1970, both also starring Wayne).

I am always hesitant when I need to decide which of Hawks’s westerns is best.  Is it Red River or is it Rio Bravo? They are both great pictures: both photographed by Russell Harlan, both use Dimitri Tiomkin’s music and both feature John Wayne and Walter Brennan.  While Rio Bravo (Hawks’s and Wayne’s response to High Noon) may be somewhat more entertaining and likeable (due to its warmer and more optimistic tone), Red River is probably somewhat superior from the artistic point of view.  Based on a remarkable, albeit underrated, novel by Borden Chase (borrowing some ideas from Mutiny on the Bounty), it is a complex story of an intense conflict between two men (an obsessive rancher and his adoptive son) told against the spectacularly filmed theme of an enormously dramatic cattle drive from Texas to Abilene.  Everything in the film seems to be perfect.  The other leading players are Montgomery Clift (a rising star at that time) and Joanne Dru, an actress who, just like some of the supporting actors—Harry Carey (Sr. and Jr.), Paul Fix, Hank Worden and several others—has become a part of John Ford’s impressive acting ensemble. 

While the only drawback of the film, according to some viewers only, may be its ending, again different

from that of the book, Red River remains a milestone in the history of the genre.  One fact about it that is seldom acknowledged is that the film redefined John Wayne as an actor: it expanded his range, enriching his persona with some new elements, some rather negative traits—such as arrogance, bigotry and obsession—which John Ford subsequently skillfully capitalized on in The Searchers.

John Wayne (Tom Dunson) and Montgomery Clift (Matt Garth). Source: <http://www.avalontheatregj.com/events/dinner-shopping-movie-red-river>.

The impact of all the western films we have been talking about has been confirmed in numerous references in American and foreign literature.  In my own research, which I have been conducting for many years, I have found references to High Noon in over eighty literary works, while the number of references to the other films varies between fifteen and thirty.  For example, a nice tribute to Red River was paid first by Texan-born writer Larry McMurtry in his novel The Last Picture Show, and then by screenwriter/director Peter Bogdanovich in his excellent screen adaptation of the book, under the same title (1970; starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd).

To conclude our chat, I am highly recommending all six movies that we took up in our chat, finishing with Red River but not excluding Rio Bravo (to make it a lucky number), which I have ranked as #4 western of all time.

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Henry, 

Allow me the last word: In any order, I would enjoy watching these films again, preferably in your company and at my favourite theatre (The Senator, in Baltimore), popcorn and soda in hand.  I also agree that “seven” is a lucky number; should it be no surprise that when offered a choice of classrooms, I chose [room] #107?  So, Rio Bravo it is, to make a lucky number.

Dean Martin as Dude (‘Borrachón’) and John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance. Source: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053221/>.

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