The Brattle's Classic Western series

I once read that the Old West was the best place to set a movie. Being about thirteen and sort of locked into sci-fi as my genre of choice, I scoffed at this idea. And, besides, if Westerns were so darn good, why didn't they make them any more? I don't know if I saw one at all before Unforgiven, which piqued my interest when I saw the trailer before Patriot Games - it was the Old West, but it was dark, and they were throwing Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman at us... Then Clint turns around and every man in the theater squeals like a little girl.

But the Old West is the best place to set a movie. It's familiar, not just because there have been thousands of Westerns to establish the iconography, but because it is accessible to a Twentieth (or Twenty-First) Century moviegoer. Even if the movie is technically a period piece, the characters are speaking familiar English, wearing modern-ish clothing, and using recognizable technology. Even the stuff that's not current has easily identified analogs, like a stagecoach being a bus pulled by horses. The differences serve to heighten the drama - there's not so much quick communication possible, for instance, and you have to reload a whole lot more.

I think what makes the genre particularly compelling - and why there are so many people who opt to make movies in other genres that are really Westerns in disguise (whether the movie in question is Serenity, Copland or either Assault on Precinct 13) is that these stories take place on the razor's edge of civilization and lawlessness. The Old West was technically part of the United States, so most people had the expectation that those around them would act like Americans, and follow American laws. But all too often, there was no way to enforce that, so miniature feudalisms or anarchies could develop where there was supposed to be democracy. America was founded on loftier principles than "might makes right", and in a good Western, those principles are tested.

At least, that's how I see it. I noticed my enjoyment of the movies corresponded to roughly how important that theme was. The ones that were about the rule of law versus the rule of the strong (Rio Bravo, High Plains Drifter) really worked for me, but the ones which focused on the more obvious, less thematic, hallmarks (The Tall T, Winchester '73)... didn't.

Which actually makes me worried about revisiting the last movie on the Brattle's program, which I didn't make it to. The Quick & the Dead has a killer cast and is directed by personal favorite Sam Raimi, but it's almost all about the trappings. I'll have to give it another watch sometime next month, when I've got more time for such things.

Rio Bravo

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 13 May 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Classic Westerns)

Even if you've never seen Rio Bravo, you've probably seen movies influenced by it. John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, for instance, is essentially a present-day remake. The basic premise probably predates this movie and the short story it's based upon, and while Carpenter's film is the most direct descendant, any number of action, war, horror, and sci-fi movies have the basic siege structure - small group of heroes waiting out an inevitable attack by a superior force. Few filmmakers have done it better than Howard Hawks does here.

The specifics of the story are familiar - Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) has locked up Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) for a cold-blooded murder, but half the town is on the payroll of Joe's brother Nathan (John Russell), a powerful and ruthless rancher. Chance's allies are Stumpy (Walter Brennan), a lamed jailor, and Dude (Dean Martin), the town laughingstock who used to be a crack shot, but crawled inside the bottle a year ago and is just now coming out. Arriving in town while Chance and company await the U.S. Marshals are a beautiful gambler (Angie Dickinson), a rancher (Ward Bond) who is an old friend of Chance's, and his chief hand (Ricky Nelson).

Read the rest at HBS.

The Searchers

* * * (out of four)
Seen 13 May 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Classic Westerns)

There's evil everywhere in The Searchers, and obsession, too. It's about how, though we often need the services of people who can handle a gun, we should often be wary of the people who are comfortable wielding them. It may contain John Wayne's best performance, although you'd have to ask someone who has seen many more of his films than I have to get a useful perspective.

That role is Ethan Edwards, a former Confederate officer who appears to have continued soldiering after the war ends. When he arrives at his brother's Texas ranch, the kids are excited to see him, although he makes their parents a bit nervous - he's larger than life, and not always pleasant, especially around Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), whom the Edwardses took in as a child; his being a half-breed didn't matter to the rest of the family like it does to Ethan. Laurie Jorgensen (Vera Miles), the teenage daughter of neighboring farmers, doesn't seem to mind, though. Some of Ethan's prejudices seem validated when a Comanche attack leaves most of the family dead, and youngest daughter Debbie (Lana Wood) kidnapped. Ethan joins a posse to find the kidnapped girl, but it will soon be reduced to just him and Martin seeking Debbie (by now played by Natalie Wood). But is Ethan still looking to rescue her?

Read the rest at HBS.

3:10 to Yuma

* * * (out of four)
Seen 16 May 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Classic Westerns)

3:10 to Yuma starts out in a perfectly B-movie fashion, with a title song that promises adventure. And it is, in fact, kind of a stock western, with a reluctant hero and a murderous gang, time spent out on the open range and in wild west towns, with justice a tricky thing to acquire: There's just not enough law to go around sometimes.

As the movie opens, a rancher and his two sons are minding their herd, with father Dan Evans (Van Heflin) mindful of how much the drought is costing him. Their path intersects with a gang that has just robbed a stagecoach, losing their horses in the process. The thieves stop in the nearby town of Contention for a drink, strutting around like they own the place, until their leader, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford), is captured. He's not terribly worried, though - a lot can happen between Contention and Yuma, and his gang is far more organized than the law in those parts. He hasn't counted on that quietly resourceful rancher, though, the one who doesn't want to get involved but can't say no when the stage line's owner (Robert Emhardt) offers enough money to keep his farm going...

Read the rest at HBS.

The Tall T

* * (out of four)
Seen 16 May 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Classic Westerns)

I've been writing about Westerns all week, and there have been a few times when I stopped myself from writing "one of the reasons it's so good is that it's not just a western, it's a thriller/drama/adventure that can work in any time period"; I figured that sells the western short as a genre, like that setting is something to be overcome. But I have to admit - The Tall T IS just a western, and that's part of the reason I'm not so fond of it.

It's got what appears to be a fine pedigree - it's based upon a story by Elmore Leonard. Its supporting cast includes Maureen O'Sullivan and Richard Boone (who would soon take the role of Paladin in Have Gun, Will Travel). It combines screenwriter Burt Kennedy, director Budd Boetticher, producer Harry Joe Brown, and producer/star Randolph Scott, who collaborated on several successful Westerns. Or, as nearly every description of Brown & Scott's production company put it, "medium-budget Westerns". And perhaps that's what the problem is - its ambitions are far too modest.

Read the rest at HBS.

High Plains Drifter

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 17 May 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Classic Westerns)

For the modern audience, Clint Eastwood and the western genre are more or less synonymous. Oh, the casual film fan is well aware that John Wayne made a lot of them, and maybe that John Ford directed a lot of them. And every few years a new one comes out, but it's a gimmick, or a curiosity - it's part science-fiction, or it's something where the star or director thinks doing a western would be neat, even if they don't really know the first thing about the genre. They spend a lot of time trying to overcome their genre, because there aren't really western fans any more. A movie being set in that time period doesn't really lead to anticipation.

Unless Clint is in it.

Eastwood got his start in westerns, and even though he has gone on to create a diverse body of work as both an actor and a director, he's the only guy left where the audience just assumes comfort with (and knowledge of) the genre. So it's interesting to consider that High Plains Drifter, the first western where he was the director as well as the star, seems to be where everything about the genre changed. Part of this is just because of when it was released: Film was evolving in the 1970s, becoming more realistic and less idealized, and this film from '73 sucks the romance right out of the Western, finishing the deconstruction that the spaghetti westerns had started. The film's setting is a dirty, violent town populated by nasty people with dark secrets; there's not a hero to be found here. Drifter also seems to be a fairly early example of the genre-bending trend.

Read the rest at HBS.

Winchester '73

* * (out of four)
Seen 17 May 2005 at the Brattle Theater (Classic Westerns)

Genre films have certain trappings. They're comfortable, and they work as shorthand. The trouble with Winchester '73 is that some trappings don't age particularly well, and spending a lot of time on others may only interest those who really get into the details of the specific topic.

Here, the troublesome details are guns and Indians. I don't think many will disagree when I say that fifty-odd years ago, the average American looked at both rather differently than they do now. Watching Ron Howard's The Missing was a bizarre experience, with its simplistically villainous Native Americans; it's a characterization we have mostly grown past. Kids don't play Cowboys & Indians any more. Of course, part of the reason they don't is that that involves guns, and the general population isn't as fond of or knowledgeable about guns as they once were. There are groups that do, and they're not all violent nuts, but there's a more widespread distaste for firearms, even among men who would have grown up with them had they been around when this movie was originally released in 1950.

Read the rest at HBS.