A little bit of movie advice please?

JunkMonkey

JunkMonkey

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Talking about movies with Number One Son and it turns out, at the tender age of 15, he has never seen a western. I find this utterly remarkable given how ubiquitous Westerns were in my childhood but there we are. Where do I start? I mean there are millions of the buggers. I want to show him a couple of classic westerns first, not throw him in the deep end with any revisionist stuff - I mean they wouldn't make much sense really if he didn't know the stereotypes and conventions they upend.

Possibles I have come up with are Ford's Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, The Magnificent Seven, High Noon - any other better or more obvious suggestions would be welcome.
 
Good suggestions, JM, especially the last two.
Also True Grit. The original with Big John if possible, but the newer one with Jeff Bridges is also good. I preferred the original Mattie though.
Once upon a time in the west.
El Dorado.
 
Shane, Will Penny, High Plains Drifter, Joe Kidd, A Fist Full of Dollars, Butch Cassidy.
 
I'll add The Searchers, Red River, and maybe Shane (though I don't think it's quite as great as the other two).

The Searchers has it all, though. If your son is going to fall in love with classic westerns, this is one that might be the catalyst.

Fort Apache is entertaining, too.
 
A lot of the best Westerns aren't the most exciting for a 15 year old to watch. So maybe getting him watching the 'idealised' action packed Westerns like Butch Cassidy, Young Guns, Wyatt Earp etc.

Then you've got the classic Eastwood Westerns culminating in The Unforgiven, with is pretty much the antithesis of all his previous movies.

Then you've got the sprawling classics like How The West Was Won, The Wild Bunch and Once Ipon A Time in the West.

And some of my favourites like 310 to Yuma, True Grit, Little Big Man, Dances with Wolves.

Of course, to see what the Wild West was (probably) really like, then the tv series Deadwood shows it in all of its guts, sex, violence and horror. But at 15 years old, he's too young for that.
 
Always Shane. It's the gateway to the west. :) Old Yeller too and Big Country good too to start 'em out.
 
Cat's Cradle said:
I'll add The Searchers, Red River, and maybe Shane (though I don't think it's quite as great as the other two).

The Searchers has it all, though. If your son is going to fall in love with classic westerns, this is one that might be the catalyst.

Fort Apache is entertaining, too.
Click to expand...


I was told that The Searchers was the greatest Western ever made. Which is perhaps why it (slightly) disappointed me, because my expectations were so high. I thought Wayne's best Westrrn movie was 'Who Shot Liberty Valance', where he takes a bit of a back step to Jimmy Stewart. And Lee Marvin was an excellent cowboy villain.

Ps I've just thought of another great Western - Bogey's 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre'.
 
Liberty Valance is wonderful, no doubt; love it.

I find The Searchers to be nearly perfect. Here is a film critic's note: The Searchers is a darkly profound study of obsession, racism, and heroic solitude.

It's an epic film.

ps - The Searchers also has one of my favorite final scenes in a movie. :)
 
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I would say Stagecoach
but my heart is with The Valley of Gwangi.

My first western was either that or Billy The Kid Meets Dracula.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I'm now swithering between Stagecoach and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - which apart from anything else is one of his sisters' favourite ever films. (The other sister's favourite ever film is Frankenhooker.)
 
Once some classics are viewed, I'd highly recommend the hilarious and weird Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch.
 
A couple more...

The Jessie James story, The Long Riders, is a great movie, with the brothers in the various gangs played by real life siblings (Keachs, Carradines and Quaids).

Also, LIttle Big Man, about the only white survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn (the character he was based on was in reality a Native American scout).
 
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Going very left field, perhaps not the first to show Number One son, but perhaps second or third, Cat Ballou -- it has classic themes but with humour and a lightness of tone, and the same for Destry Rides Again.

What has surprised me is that CatBallou actually comes 10th in the American Film Institute list of the 10 best Western movies. The list is:
  1. The Searchers
  2. High Noon
  3. Shane
  4. Unforgiven
  5. Red River
  6. The Wild Bunch
  7. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  8. McCabe and Mrs Miller
  9. Stagecoach
 
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