A slightly weaker Anthony Mann Western Prompted by a comment from reader Jean-Marie, I thought I’d say a word about another cavalry...

Space Western I'll come back to Ernest Haycox stories and the movies made from them (I'm reading Trail Town at the mo) but today I'm...

A rather ordinary cavalry Western “A listless and shabby insult to a splendid book.” (Brian Garfield). Well, that may be a bit harsh. The...

A fine Western novel My edition of Bugles in the Afternoon (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003) has a foreword by Richard Etulain and an...

A great Western Last time we were looking at the career of the fine Western writer Ernest Haycox (click the link for that). Probably...

One of the best of all Western writers It is clear that for most of his life Ernest Haycox (pictured left), born 1899, died 1950,...

The real beginning of the cinematic mythic Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday Our last post was on Doc Holliday (click the link for that), and...

John Henry Holliday (1851 – 1887), known in the West as Doc, lived in the shadow of his friend Wyatt Earp. If it had not been for Earp,...

Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (Fox, 1979) Such was the enormity of Fox’s 1969 box-office hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...

Butch Cassidy lives! Of course Butch Cassidy, about whom we were talking the other day (click the link for that), didn’t die in that...

It doesn't do it for me In our last post we were looking at the career of the outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (click the link...

Popular outlaws Few figures of the old West have exercised such a fascination on the public imagination as those of the outlaws Butch...

“Sometimes too much drink is barely enough” (Mark Twain) At one moment in the excellent 1985 Western Silverado, Paden (Kevin Kline)...

Folksy charm, poetic beauty Before leaving John Ford for a bit (we’ll be back on him for sure) I want to say a word about one more of his...

One of the greats You may argue whether John Ford's The Searchers is the greatest Western of them all. Western buffs, certainly, will...

Print the legend We’ve been looking lately on this blog at some of the truly great Westerns. We’ve reviewed superb ones such as...

Hawks's Western masterwork Red River was the only Western in which Howard Hawks matched the artistry of John Ford. It is a mighty film,...

Wyatt's Colt We were talking the other day about the ubiquity of the Colt .45 in Westerns (click the link for that). Well, one of the...

"All in all, it's been exciting, a very interesting trip. Has it not?" Since we are on the subject of famous Westerns that many people...

'The' Western Many regard Shane as a monumental film and talk of it in the same breath as High Noon or The Searchers, for example, as one...