Rio Bravo (1959)

A game-legged old man and a drunk. That’s all you got? In the American west, small-town sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) enlists the help of Stumpy, a cripple (Walter Brennan), Dude, a drunk (Dean Martin), and Colorado Ryan, a young gunfighter (Ricky Nelson) in his efforts to hold in jail the brother Jack (Claude Akins) of the local bad guy, Nathan Burdette (John Russell) until the marshal arrives, while dealing with card sharp Feathers (Angie Dickinson) who swears she’s leaving town on the next stage. Then the outlaws arrive … Let’s get this straight. You don’t like? I don’t like a lot of things. I don’t like your men sittin’ on the road bottling up this town. I don’t like your men watching us, trying to catch us with our backs turned. And I don’t like it when a friend of mine offers to help and twenty minutes later he’s dead! And i don’t like you, Burdette, because you set it up. Producer/director Howard Hawks had been in Europe for four years and came back to find that US TV now boasted several filmed TV series each night, mostly westerns, one even starring The Thing (James Arness), Gunsmoke. He didn’t like the politics of High Noon or 3.10 to Yuma so took the scenes he disliked and turned them around, inverting their meaning and attitude, in this story starring a man called Chance (named for the 20 year old Chanel model Hawks met in Paris and who would remain with him until his death twenty years later). Written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, this is one of the most relaxed yet keenly felt chamber westerns, so laid back and laconic in its reversals you nearly don’t notice how little people say, because what they do, even the simplest gesture, is replete with meaning, especially when it involves cigarettes. Furthman and Brackett had both worked on The Big Sleep but never actually met. He had more or less retired and she had become a sci-fi novelist. He didn’t like to do any writing per se so he and Hawks would discuss ideas while Brackett would type them up, rework them and make her own contributions, so that the first draft screenplay bore her name alone. Furthman was on set and helped Hawks rewrite while the director encouraged the cast to improvise, a speciality of Brennan’s; Wayne preferred to have his lines given to him and he was a quick study. Nelson was given some of Montgomery Clift’s tics from Red River so he would have something to do with his hands. Hawks was so in tune with what the TV audience wanted that he cast Ward Bond (from Wagon Train) in his final role as Chance’s friend Pat Wheeler, Russell (Lawman), Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez as hotel proprietor Carlos Robante (from You Bet Your Life), Dickinson had recently appeared in a Perry Mason episode directed by Christian Nyby and of course Brennan (The McCoys). Hawks noticed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was hugely popular and cast 17-year old Nelson, believing he could do the kind of box office numbers that Elvis was doing.  His 18th birthday happened on set and the hard-drinking Big Guy cast (all the principals plus Hawks himself stood over six feet)  gave him 300lbs of steer manure which they duly threw him into. Hawks trusted Martin to produce the goods when the singer arrived for a meeting at 8.30AM on the lot in LA after performing a midnight show in Vegas because he wanted the part so badly. The script reworked several ideas, characters, relationships and plot points from Hawks’ previous films (mainly with Furthman) in recycling Underworld, Gunga Din, To Have and Have Not and Red River. And what an entrance Dickinson has – inviting Wayne to disrobe her when he suspects her of hiding three missing cards after fleecing a friend of his at the table. Their sparring is really something, her teasing leaving him at sixes and sevens. Brennan is simply adorable as Stumpy, the ol’ toothless guy that can, while hotshot Nelson and cleaned up drunk Martin even get to sing a couple of songs in between firing off those six-shooters – music is particularly important here with Dimitri Tiomkin (hired despite working on High Noon!) reworking De Guello as the haunting melody from the Alamo (and Wayne would use it in his own take on The Alamo the following year). Wayne is more himself than ever, ambling through the sequences, always doing the right thing, taking care of people, using that pump action rifle to even the score as he walks back and forth up and down the main street of the Old Tucson set (from Arizona) to see to things in the jail and see to his girl in the hotel, back and forth, back and forth. Sheer genius. A hugely influential American classic that is not just expressive filmmaking, it is also entertainment of the highest order. If I ever saw a man holdin’ a bull by the tail, you’re it. MM#2900

Showdown (1963)

Aka The Iron Collar. You can’t do this to a man. Not to a man! Two drifters, cowpoke Chris Foster (Audie Murphy) and veterinarian Bert Pickett (Charles Drake) go into the border town of Adonde. Bert gets in a fight after getting drunk and punches out the local sheriff during a card game and he and Chris are put in iron collars, chained to an outlaw and famed killer, LaValle (Harold J. Stone) at a post in the town square. He is there with his gang members Foray (L.Q. Jones) and Caslon (Skip Homeier). They manage to escape but La Valle wants them to rob a bank and they try to buy their way to freedom with some stolen bonds … The man who said he could never be caught. He’s collared now. Written by Bronson Howitzer (aka Ric Hardman) and directed by western stalwart R.G. Springsteen, this is standard genre fodder, albeit with appropriately noir overtones for this monochrome affair. Murphy acquits himself well, Stone is a convincing villain, Kathleen Crowley makes for an admirably cynical kind of femme fatale with a sympathetic backstory and Lone Pine stands in for New Mexico with well mounted if small-scale action. When I call you come or I put you back on the leash!

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

You must fight. Fight! A poor Mexican village is regularly raid by a gang of bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach). When Calvera kills a villager, the leaders decide they have had enough and one of the elders (Vladimir Sokoloff) advises them to fight back. Taking their few objects of value, three of them ride to a town just inside the US hoping to barter for weapons. Instead they they are impressed by Cajun gunslighter Chris Adams (Yul Brynner) who suggests they instead hiregunfighters to defend the village, and he eventually decides to lead the group. Despite the meager pay offered, he finds five willing gunmen:  gunfighter Vin Tanner (Steve McQueen) broke after a round from gambling;  Harry Luck (Brad Dexter) who thinks his old friend Chris is hiding a much bigger reward for the work; half Irish, half Mexican Bernardo O’Reilly (Charles Bronson) who has fallen on hard times; knife and gun expert Britt (James Coburn) who relishes the challenge; and Lee (Robert Vaughn) the well-attired gunman on the run who is burdened by nightmares about the men he has killed. On their way to the village they are followed by aspiring gunfighter, hotheaded Chico (Horst Buchholz) whose previous attempts to join the group were spurned by Chris but he impresses the villagers with his passion and Chris asks him to be part of what is now a group of seven.  Chico then encounters Petra (Rosenda Materos) and the men realise the farmers had hidden their women to protect them from being raped by the bandits. Three of Calvera’s men are dispatched to recce the village; the seven kill all three. Calvera and his bandits arrive in force and another eight of them are killed. The villagers celebrate, thinking Calvera won’t return and ask the men to leave. But Chico infiltrates Calvera’s camp and learns that Calvera must return, as his men are short of food and the seven have to prepare for a final encounter … I’ve been offered a lot of money – but never everything. A film so perfectly archetypal it feels like it’s been inscribed in our collective consciousness since the dawn of time. Screenwriter Walter Newman said that the success of a film always commences with the premise and everyone concerned knew they had a good one because Akira Kurosawa had already made it in Japan. Newman and the blacklisted Walter Bernstein did an uncredited rewrite of the screenplay The Seven Samurai which had been adapted by William Roberts from the work by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Each character has his own arc, with his flaws, luck and skills underwriting his destiny. The story of the youngster Chico earning his stripes and finding love with Petra (Rosenda Monteros) gives the story a bedrock as a rites of passage experience but it’s the camaraderie, solidarity and the good intentions that make this a human interest story – the willingness to fight for a cause, putting the good of the group over selfish needs. The cast? How can you even begin to describe the charisma pouring off the screen? Inimitable. The set pieces by director John Sturges are matched by the more intimate episodes and the dialogue is never less than whip smart. Elmer Bernstein’s score is another essential part of the film’s rich mythology – an unforgettable, urgent, rousing call to action that heralds bravery, sacrifice and tragedy. Simply great. I have never had this kind of courage

The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972)

Aka The Magnificent Seven 4.  Seven’s always been my lucky number. Former gunslinger Chris Adams (Lee Van Cleef) has put his rowdy days behind him, settling down with new wife Arrilla (Mariette Hartley) and serving as the sheriff of his town in the Arizona territory. When his old pal Jim Mackay (Ralph Waite) asks for help defending the border town of Magdalena, Mexico, from a marauding bandit named Juan De Toro (Ron Stein) and his 50-strong band of outlaws, Chris refuses. Arrilla persuades him to reluctantly release teenage bankrobber Shelly Donovan (Darrell Larson) but Donovan and his gang kidnap and hang her after they rob another bank and wound Chris in the getaway. He then enlists a cutthroat gang of prisoners led by Mark Skinner (Luke Askew) to help him get revenge, pursuing De Toro into Mexican territory and helping a town of women who’ve been raped by the marauding men, including widowed mother Laurie Gunn (Stefanie Powers), while newspaper reporter Noah Forbes (Michael Callan) accompanies him to document the latest events in his storied career out West as he kidnaps De Toro’s woman (Rita Rogers) setting up a shootout to even the score … There sure has been a lot of killing since I met you. With Lee Van Cleef in the saddle as the redoubtable Chris, you know you’re in good hands. If it never feels exciting, exactly, there’s a decent plot by Arthur Crowe that turns the screws more than once, it has pretty good roles for two of my favourite actresses and it’s all set up well visually by director George McCowan and cinematographer Fred Koenekamp. And there’s still the variation on that legendary score by Elmer Bernstein anchoring the action which is pretty much nonstop. Don’t die just ridin’, that’d be a real anti-climax

Showdown (1963)

Aka The Iron Collar. Maybe together you might make one good man. Chris Foster (Audie Murphy) has to get $12,000  in stolen bonds from the ex-girlfriend Estelle (Kathleen Crowley) of his partner Bert Pickett (Charles Drake), or the gang holding him hostage led by wanted outlaw Lavalle (Harold Stone) will kill him. When Chris tracks Estelle down singing her last song in a saloon before catching the stage out of town it seems she has other plans for the money … Seems to me you’re more cat than kitten. An efficient tale dressed up with some unusual levels of violence and occasionally ripe dialogue – Stone gets to expound on his love of oysters which might put you in mind of a certain monologue authored by Gore Vidal in a rather different setting. Strother Martin has a good role as the town drunk while Crowley looks great and gives some odd line readings in a story that is piquant and threatening, with some nice black and white shooting done around Lone Pine, CA.  Written by Bronson Howitzer (aka TV western scribe Ric Hardman) and directed by R.G. Springsteen.  Most of his friends grow well in the dark

Kansas Raiders (1950)

He’s a real man is all I know. In Missouri after their parents are killed by Union soldiers, Jesse James (Audie Murphy) and his brother Frank (Richard Long) with the rest of their gang Cole Younger (James Best), James Younger (Dewey Martin) and Kit Dalton (Tony Curtis) ride into Kansas looking for William Clarke Quantrill (Brian Donlevy). Seeking revenge against the Union, Jesse wants to join Quantrill’s Raiders, who are plotting to claim Kansas for the Confederacy. The more time Jesse spends with Quantrill, however, the more he realises Quantrill isn’t a hero fighting for the South, but a murderous madman and the boys earn their stripes the hard way during a raid on Lawrence … In border country you’re either a Union man or a spy. Perhaps there’s a certain inevitability to America’s greatest WWII hero playing its greatest anti-hero but as well as being a Civil War story this is also a kind of rites of passage tale. The emphasis is on colourful fast-moving ride and revenge action and it’s hardly history even though it’s inspired by the Kansas-Missouri Border War:  the raid on Lawrence wasn’t so much a gun battle as a straight up massacre.  Donlevy is too old but is certainly vicious enough in his role as the notoriously maniacal Quantrill. However the sentiments are true and Audie’s neophyte acting fits the part neatly in his fifth film. This is all about youthfulness and finding your place in the world, albeit with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. An early highlight is a ‘handkerchief fight’ between him and Quantrill’s third in command Tate (David Wolfe); and Marguerite Chapman has an apposite role as a woman in a man’s world. And as for Curtis’ accent! Written by Robert L. Richards and directed by Ray Enright in locations that do not suggest their setting. More recruits for the butcher brigade

Seven Ways From Sundown (1960)

You know, you’d make a fair to middling bad man if you ever gave yourself half a chance. Assigned to capture the charming but deadly outlaw Jim Flood (Barry Sullivan) following a murder in a saloon, inexperienced Texas Ranger Seven (Ways From Sundown) Jones (Audie Murphy) and his veteran partner, Sgt. Henessey (John McIntire), set out to bring down the wanted man. After finding his trail, Jones and Henessey are caught in an ambush set by Flood. Henessey is killed in the action, but Jones continues the mission. When he finally apprehends Flood, Jones doesn’t expect to become friends with the outrageous outlaw but then he doesn’t know who he really is ... A man just can’t do the things you do. Adapted by Clair Huffaker from his novel, this is a bright outing for Audie and one of seven films he made with producer Gordon Kay. It’s great to see Sullivan as the flamboyant villain and there are nice scenes with love interest Venetia Stevenson (Audie’s offscreen love interest at the time) as well as some interesting work for Teddy Rooney (offspring of Mickey and Martha Vickers) in the supporting cast in the role of Jody. Kenneth Tobey has an outrageous ginger dye job as Lt. Herly. Audie gets his name here from being the seventh son in his family;  in real life he was also the seventh child, in a family of 12. There’s a lively score by William Lava and Irving Gertz and it all moves like the clappers in nicely shot Utah landscapes by cinematographer Ellis W. Carter. Directed by Harry Keller but only after Audie threatened to kill original director George Sherman following a disagreement over a line reading. I didn’t expect you to miss like that

The Wild Bunch (1969)

If they move… kill ’em! In 1913, ageing outlaw Pike Bishop (William Holden) prepares to retire after one final botched robbery on the Mexican border. Joined by his gang, including Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine) and brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector Gorch (Ben Johnson), Bishop discovers the heist is a setup orchestrated in part by his old partner, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) now a ruthless mercenary. They’ve wound up with washers, not silver. As the remaining gang cross the Rio Grande and take refuge in Mexican territory, Thornton trails them, resulting in their taking on a suicide mission if ever there were one – as they are engaged by double-crossing Mexican General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) to hijack a stash of guns from a train while he fights Pancho Villa under the military guidance of a German Commander (Fernando Wagner) on the eve of WW1 … This was going to be my last.  Sublime filmmaking from one of the iconoclasts of American cinema, Sam Peckinpah, who wrote the screenplay with Walon Green, the writer of the original story with Roy N. Sickner.  The titles sequence with scorpions tells us that this will be so much more than your regular western:  it’s a meditation on masculinity, ageing, violence, warfare and revenge.  Like all of Peckinpah’s genre work its focus is on the male in a hostile environment and it abounds in visual style with Peckinpah and cinematographer Lucien Ballard using multiple camera setups and different film speeds to accentuate the conflict between the old and the new, mythology and modernity. They demonstrate that there can be honour among thieves, if it is of a singularly macho variety. There is also friendship, pragmatism, humour and resignation.  The final shootout is glorious. This is one of the crowning achievements in cinema. Walk softly, boys

Run for Cover (1955)

Do you think putting a gun in his hand will cure what is in his heart? After being mistaken for train robbers and shot and injured by a wrongheaded posse an ex-convict drifter Matt Dow (James Cagney) and his flawed young partner whom he’s just met Davey Bishop (John Derek) are made sheriff and deputy of a Western town. Bishop is deeply resentful of the people who’ve crippled him while Matt befriends and then romances the daughter Helga (Viveca Lindfors) of the recent Swedish emigrant Swenson (Jean Hersholt) who takes in the pair while Davey is getting medical treatment. Then the crime rate surges with the re-appearance of an outlaw who Matt knows from his time in prison where he did six years in a case of mistaken identity …  Winston Miller’s screenplay is from the story by Harriet Frank Jr and Irving Ravetch. It lacks the baroque weirdness of Nicholas Ray’s previous western, Johnny Guitar and the soaring emotionality of his forthcoming Rebel Without a Cause, but it is notable that in a script featuring a mentoring relationship of the father-son type that the focus is on the older man’s experiences with Derek becoming a substitute for Cagney’s son whose death ten years earlier is not explained. Derek plays a prototype of the aspiring juvenile delinquent character that would be front and centre of Rebel but here he’s the antagonist whose bitterness is supposedly because of being crippled courtesy of the town’s lynch mob but whom Cagney finally realises is rotten no matter what the cause. Not a classic but interesting to look at for Ray’s compositions in an evolving cinematic signature and for the contrasting performances. There are some nice lines too, such as when Matt asks Swenson for his daughter’s hand in marriage:  Ever since you leave she go round like lost heifer. Derek’s role is a pointer to many of the tropes in the JD cycle to come with Cagney very far from giving him soft soap treatment:  Why don’t you stop going round feeling sorry for yourself! Other people have it far worse!

 

Seven Men From Now (1956)

Isn’t that one of the best titles ever?! Burt Kennedy’s first film script was intended for John Wayne – and his company made it – but he did The Searchers instead and it wound up being Randolph Scott’s story:  that of Ben Stride, a sheriff who blames himself for his wife’s death during a Wells Fargo robbery who sets out to avenge her death, tracking down each of the men responsible. He hitches a ride with a married couple whose wagon is stuck in the mud and becomes intrigued by the husband’s story (Greer, played by Walter Reed) while falling for the wife Annie (Gail Russell). They encounter Stride’s former nemesis Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) and his sidekick Clete (Don Barry) who decide to make off with the gold haul from the robbery when Stride has accomplished his mission. There is an encounter with hungry Indians, an ambush and an admission that the haul transported by Greer is the takings from the robbery. Shot in the beautiful landscape of Lone Pine, this is an elemental revenge western. Marvin is a choice, charismatic villain and the tragic Russell is wonderfully vulnerable as Scott’s romantic foil. Scott would perfect this laconic, grimly righteous hero who always finds himself in a shootout in an empty arena at the film’s conclusion. He insisted on Budd Boetticher as director and this became the template for a further six films they would do under Scott’s own production slate with producer Harry Joe Brown. For more on this film you can read my essay on Offscreen:  http://offscreen.com/view/final-showdown.