1. The Searchers: deserving of any and all praise lavished upon it.
2. High Noon: well-crafted, well-acted movie. Continually entertaining.
3. Shane: my personal favourite.
4. Unforgiven: perhaps worthy, but I would consider bumping for "My Darling Clementine" or "The Ox Bow Incident".
5. Red River: gets better with age (or is that me?). Good choice.
6. The Wild Bunch: I would bump for the superior Peckinpah, "Ride the High Country".
7. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: puhleeze! Even Strother Martin can't make up for "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". Replace with "Will Penny".
8. McCabe and Mrs. Miller: pales next to William Wyler's "The Big Country".
9. Stagecoach: excellent. Would place higher.
10. Cat Ballou: not even the best comedy-western (which would be "Support Your Local Sheriff", which wasn't on the short list). Begone in favour of Boetticher's "The Tall T".
Lookee here, folks. The opening is better than half the movies up there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6vREiRNMFc
I know. I know. Let it go, caftanwoman. Let it go.
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I can't live without watching Cat Ballou once a year but I never think of it as a Western. It's a comedy with horses, much like Blazing Saddles (though nowhere near as funny as Blazing Saddles). I'm no longer speaking to the good folks at the AFI because Dances With Wolves is not on the top ten list. I'm spurned.
ReplyDeleteI love, love, love Nat & Stubby troubadouring through "Cat Ballou". It's a stylish and fun flick. However, if your goal is to make a list of the top ten westerns - well, it just ain't there. There are enough comedy-westerns for their own category. No "Dances With Wolves" was a surprise to me, but I think sometimes they are serious about the lists and sometimes they just want to start a ruckus.
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