Friday, August 21, 2020

Legends of Western Cinema Week 2020 Tag


It's Legends of Western Cinema Week, hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy and Along the Brandywine.

Here are their questions for this year's event.  I found some of these quite hard to answer, so it took me all week to figure out responses.



1. What's the last western you watched?
Custer of the West, (1967).  Still in the middle of it actually.  It's an interesting movie, but it's taking me awhile to work through cuz it's not that interesting.  Last completed western would be The Lone Ranger (2013).

2. A western of any stripe (happy or tragic) where you were highly satisfied by the ending?
I'm not quite sure what this question is looking for, cuz every single one of my favorite Westerns obviously meet this criteria.  A highly satisfactory ending is critical to me loving a Western (or any movie).  Let's go with For a Few Dollars More, because it's one I haven't really talked about, and the ending, both the finale and the wrap up are awesome.

3. The funniest western you've seen?
Cat Ballou or Rango, I guess?  Depends on my humor mood.  Both make me laugh throughout.

4. What similar elements/themes show up in your favorite westerns?
Ack, this question is too much like school work.  Okay, fine.  I like a lot of end-of-the-West movies, where the old-fashioned cowboy heroes/lawmen are outdated/no longer needed/wanted. Or just Westerns set in the early 1900s, like Big Jake, Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, The Professionals...  Lonely Are the Brave fits that theme too, even if it's set in more modern times. 

5. Favorite actress who made 1 or more westerns?
Barbara Stanwyck

6. Favorite western hero/sidekick pairing?
Sam Boone and Whit (Robert Pernell and James Coburn) in Ride Lonesome.(1959)Their relationship is my favorite part of this movie and I adore how Whit follows Boone around, always deferring to him. Their partnership conversation at the end is one of my favorite moments and never fails to make me grin in sheer delight.

7. Scariest villain/antagonist in a Western?
Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or Grimes (Richard Boone) in Hombre.

8. Favorite romance in a western?
None?  Romance isn't my thing.  None stand out to me.  Okay, one does:  Matthew Quigley and Cora in Quigley Down Under

9. Three of your favorite westerns?
Big Jake, Hour of the Gun, The Lone Ranger (2013)

10. Share one (or several!) of your favorite quotes from a western.
Since this was asked last year, I'm going to try to avoid repeating all my favorites already listed and try to find new ones, which is rather hard.  So, I'm going to cheat and go with my nephew's two favorite quotes from Westerns that the two of us say to each other constantly.

"What's that? NOTHING!" - John Reid, The Lone Ranger (2013)
"You son of a---*timely hawk screech interrupts* - Toad in Rango.

9 comments:

VT Dorch(ester) said...

So happy someone mentioned Rango!

Chloe the MovieCritic said...

I'm used to Richard Boone from the TV show Have Gun - Will Travel, but he makes a scary villain, too!

Hamlette (Rachel) said...

Haha! We both find Liberty Valance scary. I dig that cuz we usually vary so widely on who we find scary or mean or whatever.

Why have I not seen Ride Lonesome? I keep thinking I have, when actually it's Ride the High Country I've seen. Happily, I have it in a set of Randolph Scott movies, so maybe we should watch it together sometime? When we've finished Shogun? Or maybe I will just watch it next weekend if 7 Men from Now puts me in a Randolph Scott mood.

Hamlette (Rachel) said...

MC, I'm the opposite -- I'm so used to Richard Boone being a sneaky and evil villain that I can't ever bring myself to trust him fully in HG,WT!

DKoren said...

Rango is just so much fun. I love that movie so much.

DKoren said...

And I just love Richard Boone, period. Whether he's Paladin (one of my favorite characters, in my favorite Western t show), or whether he's a bad guy, or something in between. Richard Boone is awesome.

DKoren said...

Yeah, Valance is frightening. Lee Marvin has played lots of stellar bad guys, but Valance is the meanest of the lot.

Um... wellllll, we did start it once. But either our timing was bad, or something else was up and you were distracted, because we only watched the beginning and you didn't ask to finish it. I didn't push or bring it up again because I couldn't bear it if you hated one of my favorite Westerns. But I'm always up for it, cuz it's still in my top 5 favorite Westerns list.

Tom said...

Cat Ballou has been on my to-see list forever! Custer of the West is in my to-watch queue too (though not toward the top) since lately I've been very interested in this time period. I recently picked up all 4 of the Magnificent Seven movies on DVD (only watched the first and enjoyed it) and will have to get to the others one day; I didn't like the 2016 remake.

Heidi said...

I'm curious now about Ride Lonesome...

Thanks for joining the party!