McCabe and Mrs. Miller

For those new to 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' it can be hard to relate to its reputation as the anti-Western that shook up the genre. Today, a non-traditional film like this would be common place, but in 1971, at the beginnings of the New Hollywood movement Altman’s shaggy Hippie Western was as strange an anomaly as could be.

The Revenant

Perhaps more admirable and commendable than moving or masterful, the large scale frontier adventure tale visualized with eye-popping wide angle realism doesn't quite to add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. This is the power of that indescribable piece of storytelling/cinematic magic which when missing can make even the boldest, visionary works of art feel strangely inert.

Jubal

Delmar Daves’ (3:10 to Yuma) uncomplicated western soap opera has taken the fancy of the Criterion Collection resulting in a visually spectacular high-def transfer, though underwhelming in special features. Despite some ovepraise in the Criterion notes, Daves’ very loose Othello story set fits the western genre well. Shakespeare’s themes such a male loyalty, codes of honour and betrayal are transplanted successfully to the story of a wandering cowboy caught in the power struggle between a naïve cattle rancher and his devious ranchhand looking to seize his wealth.

Heaven's Gate

Expensive – who cares? Egotistical director – who cares? At the end of the day, what miraculously rises from the ashes of time is the superlative cinematic splendour of Cimino’s picture. Heaven’s Gate is the comeback picture of the last 30 years and a terrible cinematic injustice now vindicated with its glorious high definition restoration by the Criterion Collection, and before that an open vault festival screening at the Venice Film Festival.

The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven (1961) dir. John Sturges
Starring: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Horst Buchholz, Brad Dexter, Charles Bronson

**½

By Alan Bacchus

I won’t even compare The Magnificent Seven to the Seven Samurai, the legendary Akira Kurosawa epic that inspired this remake. The fact is, despite the difference in quality, Kurosawa’s film was ripe for adaptation. The Western frontier setting closely resembles feudal Japan, and the bushido code of honour serves as the unwritten form of law that governs the motivations of the heroes of the western genre. Though immensely popular and successful, John Sturges’ film is so remarkably straightforward and uncomplicated, and thus merely watchable, compared to other more revered American westerns of its era.

The poor Mexicans in this film are victimized with maximum sympathy, and the American heroes are characterized as honourable knights riding in to save the day. In the opening scene a Mexican village is raided by malicious bandits led by a particularly nasty looking Eli Wallach. It’s an annual ritual for these poor people, and now for three of the humble residents it’s time to fight back. But gosh darn-it if they don’t know what to do. And so, they take advice from their respected elder, who tells them they need guns!

After travelling to the local town, they discover there are men to hire who do this kind of work, two of whom are Chris (Brynner) and Vin (McQueen). These characters are introduced boldly confronting some racist gunslingers protesting the burial of an Indian in their graveyard. After their courageous confrontation, the three Mexicans quickly sign up Chris and Vin, who then go about finding four other worthy hands to complete their team. The others include the knife throwing expert, Britt (James Coburn), the gentlemanly northerner, Lee (Robert Vaughn), Chris’s old buddy, Harry (Brad Dexter), and Irish-Mexican strongman Bernardo O’Reilly (Charles Bronson). The seventh member, as in Kurosawa’s film, is the wannabe slinger, Chico (Horst Buchholz), who tags along and proves himself worthy and courageous despite the doubts of the others. While staying in the Mexican village the heroes ingratiate themselves with the local women, who of course see the men as heroic saviours and subservient to their desires.

Several steely-eyed, tense confrontations provide some decent action scenes, but everything is played so on-the-nose with absolutely no subtext or shades of grey in between. This is typical of most of John Sturges’ late career work as an action director who became an expert at big action films with large casts (e.g., The Great Escape).

The Magnificent Seven delivers on what it aspires to be, an uncomplicated showcase for its ensemble of actors for the brain-dead populace. It’s a popcorn movie – a low-risk exercise in studio filmmaking. But sometimes we all need some meat and potatoes to fill us up, and The Magnificent Seven just barely satisfies this appetite. Elmer Bernstein’s rousing score and the strong actors filling those seven Magnificent roles makes it all watchable. But that’s all this film is – watchable.

The Magnificent Seven is available on Blu-ray from MGM Home Entertainment.

Dead Man

Dead Man (1995) dir. Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Lance Hendrickson, Michael Wincott, Robert Mitchum

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Jim Jarmusch's idiosyncratic western plays like a delirious Coen Bros. movie, which also fits into the auteur stylings of the man whose Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law are two of the best movies in a dismal decade.

In Dead Man it's much the same, but set in the western frontier. Johnny Depp plays an accountant from Cleveland named William Blake, who travels west for a new job but becomes an outlaw on the run from a maniacal trio of desperado hit men.

It's a great cast, with the core relationship being Depp's character and a wandering Indian (Gary Farmer), who combine to form a unique cinematic buddy relationship. It's a great heartwarming performance from Farmer inspiring every other supporting character.

Look out for Robert Mitchum at his grizzled best playing the loose cannon entrepreneur hunting down Blake. The trio of Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop and Jared Harris makes a great sequence in itself. Iggy Pop wearing a dress is weird enough to capture our attention, but look for a then unknown Billy Bob, who steals the scene.

Mixed into the thought provoking Native American mysticism of Gary Farmer are some very bloody death scenes and set pieces of rather shocking violence. Gabriel Byrne's brief appearance is marked by an inspired gunfight and two awesome death scenes.

Robbie Muller's black and white photography is beautiful, evoking the idiosyncratic mood of Jarmusch's early films.

Dead Man is memorable because there's just something not right at every turn in this picture - Eugene Bird playing a black hit man for sure, Crispin Glover playing a batshit crazy train porter, Neil Young's whiny guitar score and even the fade outs, which mark the beginning and ending of each scene.

And yet we wouldn't want anything normal or expected in this film. It's a haunting, beautiful and strange cult classic.

Dead Man is available on Blu-ray from Alliance Films in Canada.

Destry Rides Again

Destry Rides Again (1939) dir. George Marshall
Starring: James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Mischa Auerm, Brian Donlevy, Samuel S. Hinds

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Destry Rides Again showcases Jimmy Stewart in one of his earliest starring roles. As a spry 29-year-old, Mr. Aw Shucks is as amiable, compelling and undeniably a star as he ever was.

The film portrays a typical situation in the western genre. A corrupt frontier town (appropriately called ‘Bottleneck’) has difficulty maintaining law and order. The local sheriff is completely ineffective and is beholden to the local criminal syndicate. Even the mayor is under the corruptive influence of the malfeasants. Marlene Dietrich plays Frenchy, the local saloon owner who quietly helps the criminals cheat and steal their way to money and power.

When the new Sheriff is knocked off by a cheating gangster, Kent (Brian Dunlevy), Mayor Slade gives the badge to the town drunk, Washington Dimsdale. Instead of doing Slade and Kent’s bidding, Dimsdale considers the appointment as an opportunity to make something of his life. And so he hires an old friend and the son of a legendary lawman, Tom Destry Jr. (James Stewart). Destry arrives in town gunless and is ridiculed for his passivity toward armed violence. But beneath his easy-going demeanour is a stone cold hombre who refuses to back down against the local tyranny.

The film takes its time establishing the situation. In fact, Jimmy Stewart doesn’t appear until 30 minutes into the film. George Marshall, a stock studio director with over 150 directing credits but few classic titles, directs the film with the utmost of studio perfection. Watch the scenes from the opening titles to just after Destry arrives in town. Though most of the film takes place in the saloon through camera movement, shot selection and creative staging, Marshall manages to sustain 45 minutes of high cinema energy and action.

After Destry's introduction, Marshall stages one of the all-time great cat-fights in cinema history. It’s Marlene Dietrich as Frenchy versus Una Merkel, who plays the wife of a husband who was cheated out of his money. The fight starts out as a fall-down, hair-pulling match between the gals, but when Destry breaks it up Frenchy continues to battle the new deputy for a total of 5 minutes of bottle-throwing and chair-smashing action. The sequence is a lengthy but exciting and inspired duel of wills. Of course, it’s played for humour, but Marshall’s staging is invisible to the extensive stunts required to make the scene look real.

Though Stewart refuses to carry a gun and uses intelligence to best his opponents, the filmmakers are clear to tell us that Destry is no sissy. In fact, he’s a crack shot with a gun. At one point he picks up a pistol and nonchalantly shoots six targets with his six bullets. But in a genre where the attitudes toward violence are defined by the liberal 'western code of honour', Destry's 'non-violent' approach is a smart nod toward pacifism. These themes would be reworked and remade a number of times after Destry. Marshall would remake the film again in 1954 with Audie Murphy, and Support Your Local Sheriff with James Garner borrows its central concept of a lawman with guns. Enjoy.

Destry Rides Again is available on the James Stewart Westerns Collection from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

Oher related postings: THE FAR COUNTRY

Here's the classic catfight scene:

Fort Apache

Fort Apache (1948) dir. John Ford
Starring: Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Shirley Temple, Ward Bond, Victor McLaglen

***½

By Alan Bacchus

This is the first film in John Ford's 'Cavalry Trilogy'. It’s a story of the frontier wars from the point of view of the special military regiment set up for the mobile protection of America's frontiersmen. Henry Fonda is the stuck-up Colonel Thursday, who is put in charge of a ne’er-do-well Cavalry division on the outskirts. The group comes into conflict with soldiers and officers used to policing the frontier with a different and more nuanced set of rules.

As with many of Ford's westerns, it's a lengthy film (128 minutes), which takes time to get going. The first hour or so, in repetitive fashion and without much subtlety, sets up a ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ scenario between Thursday and his soldiers. As an officer of privilege forced out of his previous and respectable posting in the civilized East, Thursday is introduced as a bitter old warrior who is set in his ways about military conduct. When he arrives at Fort Apache he discovers a group of soldiers without the traditional whip-cracking discipline he's used to. Most of the first half of the film establishes the stubbornness of Thursday with respect to the men, as well as his disapproval of his daughter's courtship with a young and less refined Lt. O'Rourke. John Wayne is also underutilized standing quietly in the backdrop for most of the first half while Fonda controls the stage.

After the hour mark when the Apaches enter the story the stakes are raised with more complex conflicts, not to mention some solid action scenes. When an Apache threat emerges after a period of an agreed-upon peace, John Wayne's character, Captain York, investigates and discovers that the peace was broken by the hubris of an American settler. York becomes torn between his loyalty to Thursday, who wants to go to war, and his admiration, respect and word given to their chief adversary, Cochise.

Here we soon realize this is not a traditional cowboys and Indians picture. Cochise is aggrandized and given much respect and admiration from the American cavalrymen, and York's devotion to Cochise's honour becomes a deeper, more resonant point of conflict than the mere blowhard stubbornness of Thursday. Thus, Fort Apache admirably challenges America's place as imperialists and policemen of the North American frontier.

Fort Apache is also a story of manners and the examination of class in America. Colonel Thursday speaks to his troops with the barrier of military rank, but also the barrier of class, presumably born from his eastern upbringing. This prevents him from earning his troops' true respect. Fonda's performance is on the mark. He's characterized in the extreme, but we sense in Fonda's soulful eyes an insecurity and honourable conviction at odds with his chosen profession.

Of course, Ford once again shoots the picture in the majestic Monument Valley locales. The landscape under the crisp B&W cinematography is magnificent if not taken for granted given the vast number of times we've seen the backdrop. We're treated to some of the best of Ford's classic compositions, often filling up the majority of his frames with the dreamy cloud formations high above the actors.

Despite a laborious opening, Fort Apache evolves into one of the more challenging and exciting Western action movies in Ford's filmography.

Fort Apache is available on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment.

Unforgiven

Unforgiven (1992) dir. Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher

***½

By Alan Bacchus

This was the career turning point for Mr. Eastwood after two decades of decent, though ultimately unmemorable, feature films. From Play Misty for Me to The Rookie, Clint had made 15 films, but none with the power and gravitas of Unforgiven.

Much like the story of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, the script for Unforgiven was one Eastwood optioned in the early ‘80s, but he didn’t make the film until he was old enough to play the lead role. He knew the importance of the film for the genre and in his career, so timing would be the key to its success. After a decade of only a handful of Westerns and with the new decade starting with the revisionist Western and multi-Oscar winner Dances With Wolves, perhaps it signaled that this was the right time for Unforgiven. And perhaps it was also Eastwood's self-acknowledged maturity in Hollywood that indicated it was time.

Acclaimed as a watershed film of the genre, a Western that ‘demystified’ the myths of the era and the tropes of the genre, Unforgiven is a violent, angry film about a former gunslinger’s journey of atonement through the hit job from a group of women prostitutes avenging the brutal disfigurement of one of their own. Back in 1992 I admired the film, but it was no masterpiece. 20 years later, I’m still of the same thought. The fact is it's not really a landmark film. Sam Peckinpah’s whole career demystified the genre, as did idiosyncratic efforts from Robert Altman (McCabe and Mrs. Miller). These films showed, as Unforgiven does, the frontier as anti-romantic and unheroic.

Unforgiven works best as a razor sharp revenge story, playing into and around the familiar themes, characters and ‘rules’ of the genre. As William Munny, Eastwood is deified as a rogue family man caring for his family on his ranch. His wife is not present, but he has two kids. When approached about doing a hit job on a group of nefarious troglodytes, who, in a fit of rage, cut up a poor town whore, Munny reluctantly accepts, internally conflicted based on a past with details that are unclear but point to a ‘history of violence’.

In town, the prostitutes are sick of the ill treatment from their boorish male superiors, specifically their despicable ‘owner’, who claims to have lost potential earnings from the disfigurement and demands ‘repayment’ from the perpetrators. Gene Hackman’s character, the town sheriff Little Bill Hackett, is complex. While he’s positioned as Munny’s chief antagonist, he’s at first shown, like Munny, as a humble family man, tending to his handcrafted home and reluctantly pulled into adjudicating the matter at the whorehouse. Gradually, when the cards are placed on the table, he sides against the moral right and thus comes to odds with Munny, the vengeful killer.

The film ends with one of the genre’s great scenes, the dramatic rain soaked confrontation between Munny and Little Bill. It’s a stand-off as tense as any duel in Western cinema. The rich cinematography of Clint’s then go-to man, Jack N. Green, is key to creating the atmosphere of fear and violence in that room at that moment.

This is why Unforgiven should be cherished as a simple, well told genre film from a venerable old master.

Unforgiven is available on Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment.

Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens (2011) dir. Jon Favreau
Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, with Paul Dano and Sam Rockwell wandering around looking kind of lost.

*

By Blair Stewart

To be honest with you good readers I have a soft-spot for westerns and sci-fi, snooty cinemaphile pretentiousness be damned. I know every note of Morricone's 'Ecstacy of Gold' score like it's a childhood pet, and there's isn't another film release I anticipated in adolescence more than "Alien 3" (I learned the disappointments of youthful hope on that Friday in '92, and a few years later with Eyes Wide Shut after I got into Kubrick in order to pick up arty broads, so lesson learned on 'anticipating' I suppose). Anyways, there are many ways one could make an enjoyable film concerning Cowboys and Aliens, certainly when you have $160 million to toss around like a big shot, but one method you shouldn't use is half-assed.

How I hate this film, oh lordy lordy let me count the ways.

Emerging from the chintzy-hole of other hacky cash-grabs executive producer Steven Spielberg with his fellow hydra heads of Brian Glazer and Ron Howard join forces with masters of episodic boilerplate prose Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci to bring a forgettable graphic novel to the screen because, dammit, it was easy to sell to Universal. No doubt the post-pitch words ringing through the hallways of movie-studio purse strings were "You know, for kids!?" Most likely empty terms like 'dynamic storytelling' and 'emotional resonance' were used in the early press releases before cameras rolled. Jon Favreau then wandered in bewildered and feverish from being lost in the Alkali salt wastes and was coerced into signing on in return for some refreshing Evian, so here we are.

A Man with No Name named Jake (Daniel Craig, stage name Sir Pouty Lips McGillicutty) wakes up in the Arizona badlands of 1800-something-or-other with an iWatch from Centaurus welded to his wrist. He shoots some blaggards with fireballs he nicked from Street Fighter II's Ryu-'Hadouken!'-and is eventually dragged to jail in a one-horse town to face the wrath of cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford with sly comic timing for a dude who is always really high on-set, but otherwise lazy) for crossing paths with his weasel of a son Percy (Paul Dano, paying bills). Meanwhile, strange local woman Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde, who on her Wikipedia page states about herself being "really critical and analytical" hahahahahawhataboutthisfilmladyhahahaha?) appears when the story needs her to fill in exposition and cover plot potholes. Aliens show up, Indians show up, Daniel Craig does mescaline and nearly relives the utterly terrifying abduction sequence of D.B. Sweeney from 1993's "Fire in the Sky", shit done gets blown up good yessir, FIN, $160 million poorly spent.

Now how could I hate a film like this? It's supposed to fun and lightweight and all homagey to the John Fords and Ridley Scotts of their genres? Because it's average. It's average in scope, in imagination, in intention, its dialogue and mood and filming and pacing and entertainment and acting-average, average, average. The aliens themselves? Totally forgettable, and probably their concept was a rush-job like the rest of this film. The only thing that isn't average in "Cowboys and Aliens" is Craig and Wilde's performances, both of which are terrible, like most of their work. Let us just listen to the title alone: "Cowboys and Aliens". Couldn't even bother to come up with a nifty title like "Strange Rider" or "Deadcreek" or "Showdown at the E.T. Corral". Nope, "Cowboys and Aliens", from the studio that brought you 'Explosions and Tits', cue the lousy guitar solo, now stuff your face with some popcorn.

Riding home from the theater after watching this I discovered I had left my phone somewhere in Leicester Square and never found it. I blame this shitty film, which is now yours to own on BluRay, DVD and online from Netflix.

The Long Riders

The Long Riders (1980) dir Walter Hill
Starring: James Keach, Stacey Keach, David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, Randy Quaid, Dennis Quaid,

****
 By Alan Bacchus

By 1980, we were just starting the long doldrums of the Western genre. So maybe we can consider Walter Hill's The Long Riders the last great western. The story of Jesse James has been the subject of a hundred films over the last century, and arguably Walter Hill's is the top bar.

Walter Hill, known mainly as one of the best action directors of the ‘80s, was once a protégé of Sam Peckinpah, having written his fine Steve McQueen/Ali McGraw heist film The Getaway. The Peckinpah influence on Hill and The Long Riders is palpable.

Hill was a master of writing and directing mean and nasty characters, and the conflict between the James/Younger Gang and the Pinkerton authorities is tough and bloody. The opening establishes the steely eyed toughness of Jesse James (James Keach), who is introduced robbing a bank with his brother Frank (Stacy Keach) and his cohorts, the Youngers (the Carradine brothers) and the Millers (the Quaid brothers). After the trigger-happy Ed Miller gets kicked out of the gang, seeds of internal dissent within the group are born.

As they move between train robberies, bank heists, visits to whorehouses and even time spent at home with families, we see the concurrent actions of the Federal Government officers, The Pinkertons, to apprehend the gang.

As the opening Ry Cooder bluegrass tune plays over the elegant slow-motion footage of the gang riding across the lush green Missouri landscape, the reverence of both the genre and the history of the period is established. This tone continues throughout the mix of gritty actions scenes and genuine heartfelt nostalgia. Hill paints his characters as real working class people, but also aggrandized criminals who have helped form the myths and legends of the emerging nation.

The numerous action set pieces are phenomenal. The knife fight between James Remar and David Carradine is terrific. The battle between two badass characters – Remar, the muscular half-breed and husband to Pamela Reed's character, and David Carradine, the quiet and Zen-like client of the whore – is an awesome macho standoff.

Hill saves his best scene for last. It’s not only the best of his career, it’s one of the greatest action set pieces ever filmed by anyone. Hill applies all the Peckinpah influence and knowledge he gleaned from the ‘70s into his mesmerizing Minnesota raid bloodbath. The multiple camera frame rates and the same montage rhythm is the finest and most famous Peckinpah homage we've seen.

The Long Riders is available on Blu-ray from MGM Home Entertainment.

Rio Lobo

Rio Lobo (1970) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum, Jennifer O’Neill, Sherry Lansing and Jack Elam

**1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

While I have fond memories of Rio Lobo from when I first saw it on the big screen as a kid with Dad, I should have guessed something was wrong when my memories were little more than assuming I’d enjoyed the picture. No other details were seared into my brain save for the opening train robbery sequence. After seeing this movie 41 years later on Blu-ray release, I can definitely vouch for the train robbery – it’s a genuinely kick-ass set piece.

Having the distinction of being the last movie directed by the great Howard Hawks, this might perhaps be the only reason not to completely dismiss it. That said, Rio Lobo is a reasonably pleasant 114-minute duster. In spite of the familiar territory of the plot, the screenplay, co-written by Leigh Brackett, is a loose re-telling of Hawks’s classic Rio Bravo and the entertaining but not-so-classic El Dorado (both of which were also written by Brackett). And gosh-darn-it, the picture is not without merit.

Beginning during the civil war, the story involves a Union Colonel (played by John Wayne) whose pay train is robbed by a couple of Confederates (played by Jorge Rivero and Christopher Mitchum). Wayne realizes they’re the two responsible for the hard, dirty work, but the robbery itself has been ordered by someone inside the Union army. When the war is over, Wayne becomes pals with Mitchum and Rivero (he views their pre-war actions as just that – an “act of war”) and the three of them team up to track down the Union traitor (whose actions Wayne views as an “act of treason”). This all converges when the trio helps out the settlers in and around the nearby Rio Lobo, who are beleaguered and bullied by a corrupt land baron. (I’ll let you guess whom the Union Army traitor turns out to be.) At one point, like the aforementioned Hawks westerns, a motley assortment of good guys hole up in a jail whilst the bad guys lay siege.

So in terms of plot, it’s mostly a case of been there done that, but there are worse crimes a western can commit. It’s all in the delivery.

On the plus side, the action set pieces are extremely thrilling. Hawks was wise to hire ace action and stunt genius Yakima Canutt (the man solely responsible for the legendary chariot race in Wyler’s Ben-Hur, among other great cinematic rollercoaster rides), and his second unit direction includes some truly masterful carnage and derring-do.

Another good move on Hawks’s part was re-enlisting screenwriter Brackett to his cause. Not only is the plotting reasonably solid, the movie is peppered with some really crisp dialogue. The problem is that so many of the actors in the film are completely at a loss as to how to deliver their lines.

John Wayne seems up to the challenge, but having to play opposite the sad likes of Jennifer O’Neill (her line-thudding monotone is especially egregious) and the handsome but stilted Jorge Rivero appears to visibly drive the Duke to distraction onscreen. On the other hand, Wayne is such a great actor and true star that one is still glued to him throughout and happy enough to amble along the familiar trail his character is on. Our first introduction to Wayne is especially terrific and sets the tone of his character perfectly. When a young officer approaches Wayne and apologizes for disturbing him, Wayne responds in his deadpan drawl, “You were told to disturb me. You’d have been a lot sorrier if you hadn’t.” Gotta love the Duke!

One also assumes Brackett had a hand in the many funny jokes involving Wayne’s paunchy physique. As the story goes, when Hawks was running into trouble with William Faulkner on the screenplay for The Big Sleep he demanded the immediate assistance of “that guy Brackett” to punch things up. Having written primarily science fiction to that point, Brackett also wrote an amazing hard-boiled detective novel, “No Good for a Corpse,” and the writing endeared itself to Hawks as just what he needed. Throughout many pictures, including those of Hawks, “that guy Brackett” handled HERSELF with the craft and aplomb of an old pro – that she most definitely was. My favourite John-Wayne-directed joke in Rio Lobo is when some strapping young men lift his dead weight after knocking him out cold and one of them quips, “He’s heavier than a baby whale”.

The banter delivered via the screenplay to O’Neill and Rivero is exceptionally well written, but neither actor can attack it with the ping-pong ferocity that was such a hallmark of Hawks’s great comedies and most certainly not to the level displayed by Bogie and Bacall in Hawks’s first teaming with Brackett in The Big Sleep. As the film proceeds, one can almost feel the frustration Hawks must have been fraught with as scene after scene involving these two drags the movie down to some considerable depths.

Much better in the supporting cast is future producer and studio head Sherry Lansing who proves to be a gorgeous and terrific actress. If only she’d had O’Neill’s role. There’s also able support from Robert Mitchum’s son Christopher, who is a lightweight compared to Dad but attractive and affable enough. He’d have been great in Rivero’s role. Thankfully, there are some wonderful old hands like Jack Elam (chewing the scenery like only he could) and a nice bit from Hank (Ole Mose) Worden.

If you’re a fan of Hawks, westerns, good writing (albeit butchered by some awful actors) and The Duke, Rio Lobo will prove to be worth seeing. How memorable it will be is another question, but I can assure you that my second helping after four decades was not without merit.

Rio Lobo is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Video. It has no extra features, but the movie looks just fine in high-definition, and thankfully some over-zealous flunky in the transfer suite hasn’t seen fit to remove the grain and given the film some quality colour balance. Should you buy it? I would. But that’s me.

The Horse Soldiers

The Horse Soldiers (1959) dir. John Ford
Starring: John Wayne, William Holden, Constance Towers

***

By Alan Bacchus

A lesser John Ford is still an upper tier Western on anyone else’s filmography. It’s an odd choice really to give this film the Blu-Ray treatment, when there are so few Ford films at the moment, available in glorious High Definition. Recently Warner Bros’ TCM 4pk was a lowly standard def DVD release, but this is MGM/Fox who admirably take the expense to showcase John Ford in the new format.

This Civil War epic is as big a film as Ford has ever made, a rousing adventure wherein John Wayne plays a Union Colonel commanding his cavalry troop deep into Southern territory to capture and destroy a Confederate railway station. It’s a classic men-on-a-mission set up, but as executed by John Ford, the film moves from through all high and lows of the dramatic cinema, the light and affable to bloody tragic and deadly serious.

The key conflict in the film comes from William Holden’s character, a physician assigned to the troop. Due to a deep rooted hatred Wayne’s character, Marlowe, resents the presence of the peaceful doctor who prefers to save lives then destroy them. Of course, the arc of the story ensures that by the end two men would eventually find common ground and mutual respect for each other’s professions.

The superstar pairing of Holden and Wayne is not lost on us. Wayne is Wayne, the grizzled and stubborn leader, but a man of honour and pride. Wayne exercises his thespian muscles in a dramatic drunken confession scene when he tells of the story of his dying wife who received ill-advised brain surgery. It’s a dramatic moment of painful reflection we don’t often see from the big man. Holden as the equally confident surgeon conflicts with Wayne’s military mentality and fight to win attitude. Holden’s easy going congenial nature perfectly represents the humanism of the character and the historical resonant qualities of the picture as a whole.

As usual there’s not much female representation, but Constance Towers holds court admirably against the star heavies as the Conferedate tag along gal who at first tries to subvert the actions of the Marlowe, then comes to side with the motivations of the Union men.

It’s not all shits and giggles here though. The often obscene tragedy of the brutal violence of the Civil War is given deserved attention. At one point as the Union approaches their destination, the Confederates use a troops of boys to defend Marlowe’s army.

Ford fans will marvel at the brilliant widescreen colour cinematography. We’re also treated to the familiar Fordisms which earns the title, 'a John Ford film’. There’s plenty of awesome, perfectly-composed wide angle shots of the cavalry moving elegantly through the landscape. There’s plenty of action, including a raucous gun fight in the town of Vicksburg. And when required, Ford lays on the frontier sentimentality which allows even the most hardened of male filmgoers to shed a tear without guilt.

The Horse Soldiers is available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment

Meek's Cutoff

Meek’s Cutoff (2010) dir. Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, and Shirley Henderson

****

By Blair Stewart

It was around the lengthy shot of Shirley Henderson running across the waste of Oregon's Empty Quarter that I had an inkling I was watching a good film. A pack of emigrants in the awkward stage of the American westward migration follow wilderness trekker Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) on his uncharted hunch towards points unknown. As this film is a bastardized true story, you can assume the settlers’ decision made for a historically unwise shortcut.

A survivalist Western or a cautionary tale from the female perspective, Meek's Cutoff depicts the struggles of human endeavour from the micro-level of three covered wagons at the buffoonish mercy of Meek, all tan buffalo hides and cowboy-shirted bluster, onwards to green grasses that might just be over another hill, thataway. Michelle Williams is Emily, one of the wagoners' wives, cannier than Henderson's brittle missionary, braver than young Zoe Kazan of the fickle gold-seeking couple. Emily and her husband Solomon (Will Patton) stand across the divide of gumption from Greenwood's Meek, and as the wheels croak along dry beds, the campfire whispers grow louder as the water becomes scarcer.

Beyond the dehydration, mountain fever, and Meek's unreliable drunkard shtick that could kill all of them, the tension is further ratcheted up for the travellers with the capture of a lone Indian (Rod Rodneaux), who could be hostile but will also suffice as their saviour if they correctly understand his foreign gestures for water.

Meek's becomes a parable for our age at the fault lines of race and global cohabitation, with the dilemma of the Indian's presence depicted honestly. He thankfully doesn't speak in honourable platitudes, with his strange nature and pagan tongue matching the unease of the dire surroundings. So the wagons stumble down deeper into the valley.

It's rare to view an overlooked perspective on an old-hat film genre such as the lonesome Western, but Meek's succeeds in depicting the quiet dread of the women folk going about their chores while the men folk, out of earshot, discuss the facts of their survival and whether anyone needed to be lynched or throttled that day. Emily and the wives are off-stage extras eavesdropping on a sloppy performance concerning the slim chances of their existence. The mere act of loading gunpowder into a rifle becomes as leaden with portent as the hypothermia killing Jack London's protagonist's in To Build a Fire.

The cast is mostly sterling aside from my indifference for Paul Dano's mannered work, with Greenwood as enjoyably broad as his beard is manky, seeming to arrive straight from the same off-beat travelling Wild West act as Jeff Bridges recent take on Rooster Cogburn. Michelle Williams, in her second lead role for a Reichardt film, plays a fairly modern protagonist (and a mildly unbelievable one based on the time period) with aplomb and admirable cunning when needed. As the director of the praised indies Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, Kelly Reichardt climbs above the modest ambition of her past work into the forefront of American filmmakers making essential stories, as the ending of Meek's Cutoff itself arrived with the surety of buckshot over the plains. So far, it's the best film of 2011 I've seen.

Wagon Master

Wagon Master (1950) dir. John Ford
Starring: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward Bond, James Arness

**

By Alan Bacchus

Warner Bros/TCM has packaged together a fine four-pack collection of somewhat lesser known John Ford westerns. The mix bag includes his second to last film, the epic Cheyenne Autumn (1964), the second entry in the ‘Cavalry Trilogy'.She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949); the Magi Story transplanted to the wild west, 3 Godfathers; and this picture, Wagon Master, a non-John Wayne western but reportedly one of Ford’s favourite pictures.

Unfortunately despite Ford’s own preference, it’s not his finest hour. A rare dud, for the most part lacking in the genre elements he helped give birth to and even his stylistic cinematic hallmarks of the rest of his body of work.

Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. play a couple of drifters, Travis and Sandy, hired by a Morman elder to guide his family convoy across the frontier to the San Juan Valley. Along the way the group has run ins with a some prostitutes, a medicine man, some Indians, and a snarly trio of bandits.

In the wild west with hostility threatening at every turn the film sadly feels under-dramatized. We never feel the stakes of the journey, and as protagonists Travis and Sandy fail to undergo any signficant change, or even feel any sacrifice for their decisions in the film.

As the Elder Wiggs, Ford has fun with his moral conflict in dealing with the ‘ladies of the night’ who join the group. Perhaps my indifference to this picture lies with the casting of leads. Without Henry Fonda or John Wayne, Ford's leads fail to rise to become heroes or stars whose personalities jump off the screen.

Even the normally scenic Utah locales lack that 'Fordian'  mythic resonance. The musical songs by Stan Jones as performed by the Sons of the Pioneers recalls their more inspiring work later with Ford on The Searchers, but certainly doesn’t come close to providing the same sense of period romance.

That said, this fine sets two of Ford’s best films, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 3 Godfathers, both teaming with the resonant genre qualites we desire from his work. I haven’t seen Cheyenne Autumn yet, so look out for a future look back at this picture – a late career epic from a man whose creativity, though it had brief ups and downs, never seemed to age.

Wagon Master is available via Warner Home Entertainment and Turner Classic Movies

Dances With Wolves

Dances With Wolves (1990) dir. Kevin Costner
Starring: Kevin Costner, Graham Greene, Mary McDonnell, Rodney A. Grant

***½

By Alan Bacchus

I would hold it against Mr. Costner that his film happened to the one that bested Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas for Best Picture and Best Director in 1990. It’s a travesty, there’s no doubt about it. Though he’s proud of his awards, who knows Costner might even agree, but Dances With Wolves is not a bad because of it. In fact, these many years later, the multi-Oscar winning film is still a fine picture, elegant and moving romantic Western about the last days of the solitary Native American way of life before it was destroyed by white man's influence.

In the new Blu-Ray edition we can only watch the lengthy 3 hour and 53min extended version, and so it literally took 4 or 5 sessions over three days to watch the entire film (difficult to do in one shot when you have kids). But I made it through, and was never bored. To remind, Costner plays John Dunbar a downtrodden soldier on the Union side of Civil War. He's sent to an outpost on the frontier, but when he arrives it's deserted, and thus left alone to his devices, waiting for his fellow soldiers to arrive. A tribe of Sioux Indians enters his world, a careful meeting at first which turns into a full fledged acceptance of Dunbar as one of their own. He learns all their customs and their language and even falls in love with a white girl (Stands With a Fist) living with the group since childhood. Dunbar knows the white man is coming and despite his position in the army he can't stop the inevitable. And so the film ends on a sombre reflection of these times now bygone, a new reality of a new world encroaching on the old.

The near four hour running time in this extended edition is daunting, but in it’s compartmentalized segments never feels too long: There's John’s crisis and journey to the Fort; His time alone at the Fort; John meeting and getting to know the native tribe and the love story with Stands With a Fist.

As director Costner shows a cinematic sense of grandeur, pathos, and a strong eye for composition and pacing. The celebrated buffalo hunt scene still is magnificent, like something David Lean would have directed. And this was a time before CGI, just using real buffalo and seamlessly blended practical effects (fake buffalo).

His humane treatment of Native Americans is at times self-conscious, but considering the history of mistreatment by Hollywood, the egg shells he walks on is understandable. But Costner confidently walks this fine line with surprisingly minimal preachiness. I don’t remember how the original theatrical cut played but I recall a feeling that Costner's character was characterized as the saviour of the Sioux tribe he’s adopted into. In reality, in particular the battle with the rival tribe, Dunbar doesn’t so much save the tribe, but contribute to their victory.

I had once complained about Avatar for this very thing, instead DWW is a more sophisticated treatment of this stranger in a strange land story. Costner shows grace, naturalism and resists strong urges to resort to Cameron’s base characterizations in order to simplify conflict. I guess this is what such heavy reliance on technology does - overwhelm human stories. At all times DWW is a human story.

PS. It’s also a good time to celebrate the music of John Barry, who died this week. His fine score deservedly which won him an Oscar in addition to Costner's.

Dances With Wolves is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox/MGM Home Entertainment

True Grit

True Grit (2010) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper

***

By Alan Bacchus

Just last week I watched the original True Grit for the first time on Blu-Ray. Knowing I would see the Coen’s version a week later it was cause for pause. After all, which ever film I saw first would likely colour my opinion of the other one. I was pleasantly surprised at the original True Grit, it’s a fine film and perfectly suited to an update because of its strong foundation of the genre, its progressive themes and a modern style that it looks terrific with today’s eyes.

And so now we have the Coen Bros version which is surprisingly reverent to the original film and likely the original novel (which I haven’t read). Like the Hathaway/Wayne version, the core story of a sprite young girl seeking revenge against the death of her father and the cross-generational relationship with an aging alcoholic gunslinger is classic stuff. Like Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven there’s pathos in the journey and resonant themes of violence, vengeance and the tropes of the Western genre itself.

Hailee Steinfeld playing Mattie Ross, just as Kim Darby played her, is the driving force of the film. The Coen’s open it up with a familiar tone, a melancholy introduction, opening narration complimented by a pitch perfect piano melody by Carter Burwell. We see Mattie Ross’ father lying dead on the ground, as described by Ross, a heinous murdered committed by a criminal named Cheney. We then see Mattie arrive into a small Arkansas town looking to bring his father’s body home, close off his assets and affairs and hire someone to bring his killer to justice. She finds her man in Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a one-eyed U.S. Marshal described as having ‘grit’ – true grit.

Despite being 14 her confidence and aggressiveness as a businesswoman pushes herself passed everything that stands in her way. Not only does she hire Cogburn, she makes $350 selling off her father’s useless ponies to the coral owner who had no desire to buy them. Mattie also meets up with a smarmy Texas Ranger named LeBoeuf (Matt Damon) who also desires to bring in Cheney, but to Texas to see him hanged for his crimes in his state. Soon the unlikely trio find themselves on a lengthy journey to catch their killer.

Each of the key events and set pieces along the way are almost identical to the John Wayne version. And why not, it was a marvellous original screenplay, and so the Coens are smart not to mess with what’s working. They even quicken up the pace by jumping right into the story of Mattie’s search. Gone is the opening sequence showing her father travelling to town and getting killed.

Stylistically the Coens hold back from their idiosyncratic tendencies from A Serious Man and No Country For Old Men. Their reverence of the genre means everything is played straight, letting the characters, conflict and story lead us. The dynamic trio of Ross, LeBoeuf and Cogburn creates a fine narrative anchor. LeBoeuf in particular is the perfect foil for both Cogburn and Ross. We immediately identify with Ross, the innocent young gal avenging her father. And for Cogburn, we know his character inside and out. He’s the antihero of the Western. He’s those John Wayne heroes, like Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, or Alan Ladd’s Shane, aged, but still an anti-establishment loner. LeBoeuf compliments both characters perfectly. His conflict with Ross, who constantly disapproves of her presence in the posse and his fun repartee with Cogburn over the merits of the US Marshal service vs. Texas Rangers service is a fun humourous throughline.

Where this new version fails to supersede the 1969 version is the performance of Steinfeld. Her version is good and she sells the mature confidence of Ross, but there was some kind of spark in Kim Darby that is absent in Steinfeld. Perhaps it was the feminist bent to Darby’s performance, reflective of the year in which that film was made – the liberal 60’s.

But where the Coens’ version is elevated above the original is the fantastic third act wherein that magical touch of dreamy melancholy takes the film to another level. The courage and heroism of all three characters to support each other as a team wonderfully completes their combined arc of unity. By the end Cogburn, Leboeuf and Ross form their own little family, and the Coen Bros' tender treatment of this is emotionally satisfying in a way the original never achieved.

True Grit

True Grit (1969) dir. Henry Hathaway
Starring: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Strother Martin

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Before the Coen Bros remake, True Grit was known as the film which won John Wayne an Oscar. I’m sure the public consensus back in ’69 was that the win was one of those soft victories recognized more for his body of work than being the best performance of the year. The movie survives surprisingly well with today’s eyes though. Despite having an old studio director (Henry Hathaway) in his 70's directing a film in a time when the Hollywood rules were being broken by its ambitious youth, it doesn’t feel at all old fashioned. And John Wayne fits in perfectly with the times, playing against his diametically opposite in Kim Darby.

Wayne plays the aged Rooster Cogburn, an alcoholic Marshall who’s hired by a young but determined girl looking to track down the killer of her father. It was John Wayne’s only Academy nomination, but was it the best performance of that year? No. Was it even the best performance of his career? Probably yes, as there’s some magic and charisma in Wayne which few other actors, ever in cinema, can lay claim to.

The heart and soul of the film and the reason the film is not only watchable but supremely entertaining is Kim Darby who plays the spunky Mattie Ross, a teenager who comes to town looking to hire Cogburn to track the killer of his father because she’s heard he has ‘grit’. Darby is so magnetic, lovable and inspiring she’s a minor miracle. Her diminutive stature, boyish haircut and Christian innoncence contrasts perfectly against Cogburn’s eye patch and haggard appearance.

Every frame of the film is full of life and energy. The intergenerational conflict between Ross and Cogburn never slows down and if that were to get predictable there’s the character of Leboeuf (Glen Campbell), the handsome opportunist looking to make some money off of the warrant issued on the killer. The common thread between three characters is their mutual appreciation for the values and rules of the Old West.

Henry Hathaway, was aged 71 when True Grit was made and compared to the late career output of other directors his age, such as Hitchcock, Ford, Hawks, this film is best of these other directors' latter films. The on location work throughout the mountains and valley of Oregan is simply stunning. Little if any process studio work was used and so, Hathaway delivers a film which seems as visually vibrant and modern as say the youthful and stylish ‘Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid’ which also came out that year.

It’s no surprise this material teased the pallette of the Coen Bros. They’ve always been drawn to films with a journey and there’s plenty of warm and wonderful supporting characters the heroes meet along the way makes this a highly updatable and reworkable old film.

True Grit is available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Entertainment

TIFF 2010 - Meek's Cutoff

Meek’s Cutoff (2010) dir. Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Paul Dano, Rod Rondeau

***

By Alan Bacchus

Arguably the North American Premiere of Meek’s Cutoff is one of the hotly anticipated films, at least for Toronto audiences. For those unfamiliar it’s the next feature film from Kelly Reichardt after her breakout success Wendy and Lucy, which Toronto Film Critics anointed as the best of the film a couple year’s back. This time Reichardt's working in the western genre yet applies the same observational style, a unique slow burning type of realism which historically has divided audience between brilliance and boredom.

This one is no exception. From these eyes while it's just too detached to completely satisfy me in the way Wendy & Lucy did, Meek's Cutoff makes up for its narrative deficiencies with its aesthetic voracity.

It’s exciting to see such a staunch independent auteur female filmmaker venture into a typically male genre. Kelly Reichardt has created real western (I can't recall another western directed by a female?). It’s Oregon in the mid 19th century, three families are on a convoy across the Midwestern desert plains away from the dangers of Indian war parties for greener pastures west. Leading the group is a gruff pack leader, Meek (Greenwood) contracted to guide them across the treacherous land.

In the opening the convoy is already at wits end, lost and disillusioned that Meek actually knows where he’s going. A quiet power struggle results between Meek and the other men, specifically Solomon Tetherow (Patton) who differ which the direction to go. When an indian is captured by the group they take him in, bartering food and shelter in exchange for a safe route to water. Can the indian be trusted? Emily Tetherow (Michelle Williams) thinks so, a humanistic attitude which comes into conflict with Meek and the other men.

Meek’s Cutoff sits somewhere in between the extremes of brilliance and boredom. At once it’s an often stunning exercise in sustained quiet tension, on the other we wait patiently for the tension to build toward an event, action or conflict of some kind which never emerges. At the very least, Reichardt and her writer Jonathan Raymond, have crafted a completely unique western, the characters and setting are familiar, but with a stripped down dramatic core emphasizing the innate humanism in all of us. Not much happens, but there's enough value in the conviction Reichardt's hero and moral centre for us to feel the gravitas of the endeavour.

For a Few Dollars More

For a Few Dollars More (1965) dir. Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Luigi Pistilli, Klaus Kinski, Panos Papadopulos

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

I would never dispute that The Good, the Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West were Sergio Leone’s best films, two of the best Westerns ever really. And I wouldn’t argue about the importance of A Fistful of Dollars as the first spaghetti western. But we don’t much talk about For a Few Dollars More. After all it’s the middle chapter in the unconnected Dollars trilogy and it wasn’t the first spaghetti western, nor is it the best.

But looking back on the picture in glorious Blu-Ray, courtesy of Fox’s Dollar Trilogy Set, For a Few Dollars More is indeed a near masterpiece of the genre and very very close to awesomeness of Leone’s aforementioned latter pictures.

Unlike the cynicism and sheer brutality of A Fistful of Dollars, and even The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More is the only other film to come close to the humanity in his characters Leone shows us in Once Upon a Time in the West.

While Clint is billed as the star, the heart of the film is Lee Van Cleef, playing Col. Douglas Mortimer, a former soldier turned bounty hunter plying the wild west for wanted criminals and reward money for their capture. Clint, whose character actually has a name, Manco, is also a bounty hunter treading the same ground as Mortimer, an equally beguiling killer who stacks up bodies for money. The two eventually meet in El Paso following the villainous El Indio ( Volonte) who aims to take down the well fortified El Paso bank.

Manco attempts to join the gang to help take the score while plotting with Mortimer to collect the bounty of each gang member. The bank job is completed with Indio escaping to a small town of Agua Caliente for a final showdown of good and evil, with Mortimer eventually revealing the source of his hatred for Indio, and exacting satisfying revenge against a grievous crime against his family in the past.

Mortimer is portrayed like Charles Bronson’s Harmonica Man in West. While he is as cold and calculating as the other killers in the film, there’s a deep pain which motivates the man in his journey. Leone crafts some wonderful tension between the two gunslingers. When Clint and Van Cleef are on screen together it’s a marvel of gritty eye-squinting machismo, with Van Cleef matching Eastwood’s screen charisma and confidence in character.

Leone and his writers use some of the same plotting devices which he’d elevate to higher levels of grandiloquence in West. Like West Mortimer’s backstory is seen through a repetition of a single flashback and the significance of the mysterious timepiece which is featured prominently throughout is revealed dramatically in the final Mexican showdown.

So you might call For a Few Dollars More a testing ground for Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but the picture stands up well on its own as a great often underappreciated Leone Western.

“The Dollars Trilogy” is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment