We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
BEST POSTERS STEVE’s 1971 WESTERNS
FL = Foreign Language version of poster]
1/Town Called Bastard
2/Badman’s River-saw this one but found it so-so though I was glad to see Lee Van getting more top-billed roles.
3/Capt. Apache
4/FL one for Return of Sabata
5/ALL for Frenchie King
6/2 for Catlow
7/FL one for Trackers
8/FL one for One More Train to Rob
9/Royal Dano in Shoot Out
10/the set for A Gunfight
11/Set for Blindman – Never knew that Ringo had made a western.
12/Set for Wild Rovers
13/Skin Game – peculiar title
14/1st and FL ones for Red Sun -Charlie starting to come into his own with regular top billing. Good to see his status climbing.
15&16/Lawman and 1st one for Valdez is Coming-I really liked these two Lancaster offerings.
17/Skin Game – peculiar title
18/The Hired Hand – He was always “a day late and a dollar short!”
19/2 for Duck You Sucker aka Fistful of Dynamite
20/McCabe and Mrs Miller
21/Set for Big Jake – he never fails to please so this was one of my have-seen 4 westerns in 1971.
HI STEVE I have seen just 4 of the movies in your latest westerns video though the visuals themselves are of the usual splendid standard and overall are worth a vertiginous 99.0% rating for the pleasure they gave me. So well done again.
Things are actually worse nowadays as apart from the occasional art-house film such as Sir Maurice Micklewhite’s 2016 Youth I have unfortunately little interest in the modern cinema.
Just as today’s audiences might have little interest in the types of movies that I have liked down the decades. I mean what thrusting young teenager or 20-something who fancied himself as “cool” would wish to watch on his TV set today episodes about a character like 1960s-1970s’ The Virginian? [A Nebraskan or an Oklahoman maybe!]
So do they actually make westerns anymore? If they DO I suppose they are unpleasant ‘kinky’-type things which spoof-it-up and/or have scripts that comprise the entire contents of the De Niro/Willis/Pesci dictionary of swear-words.
An aversion to the latter type of current practice was one of the reasons for The Duke becoming incensed when others sought to make comparisons between him and Clint Eastwood.
I suppose my guys didn’t need to use swear-words [or fight giant sharks either!] to become Meg-a stars -no pun intended! – though towards the end of his career Marlon had started to mumble a couple of expletive deleteds. However his final movie 2001’s The Score was with his buddy De Niro so maybe Marlon felt he had to get in on the act as the saying goes or even if he wasn’t acted-off the screen he would be sweared-off it!
HI STEVE: Thanks for the thoughtful feedback and of course I enjoyed the The Tricky One aka Daddy Watergate quotes. It was though a bit ironic that he of all people should be extolling the virtues of The Law!
Also I think that he overestimates the box office pull of westerns. They were no doubt generally popular and profitable especially in their heyday; but there were rarely many of them among the very top grossers in any year.
If you Google Wikipedia’s inflation-adjusted list of the highest grossing films BY YEAR for each year from way back in Chaplin’s time of 1915 until the present you will see that westerns hardly get a look-in.
Indeed nowadays it seems that it is predominately a movie from one of the big action/fantasy/superhero/animated franchises that makes the very top spot in a year. Here is break down of the movies over the last 15 years [2006-2020 inclusive] which grabbed the No 1 spot in each of the15 years [little or nothing for me in this list I am afraid but you’ll probably love it]:
Avengers – 3 times
Pirates of Caribbean- twice
Star Wars -twice
And these once each
Captain Manchester Civil War
Batman: Dark Knight Rises
Avatar
Toy Story
Harry Potter
Frozen
Transformers
Demonslayer
I will confess that I am lucky if I know half of the movies in Steve’s 1970s westerns video with for me only The Duke making a significant contribution over the year . However I am well- compensated here via the glut of magical pictorials Steve has provided. For my money the most impressive STILLS are:
1/Macho Callahan
2/Dirty Dingus Magee
3/Sledge
4/El Condor
5/Adios Sabata
6/Cannon for Cordoba
7/ALL for Barquero
8/Rio Lobo
9/2 for Chisum
10/ALL for 2 Mules for Sister Myrna
11/2 for A Man Called Work Horse
12/2 for Soldier Blue – wow!
13/There was a crooked Dan
14/Monte Blue
15/ALL for Companeroes
16/ALL for Trinity
17/ALL for Little Big Ladd – Size does NOT matter!
STEVE Welcome back and I hope you enjoyed your break. Certainly you have picked a high-quality video to recommence with and one that is “Voted Up! ” at 98% by me personally for the striking visuals if not most of the movies themselves. Best POSTERS from my perspective:
1/Reverendo Colt
2/All for Macho Callahan
3/1st one for Dirty Dingus Magee
4/Sledge
5/ALL for El Conder
6/the Set for Adios Sabata
7/1st for Barquero
8/All for Cheyenne Social Club
9/2nd for Rio Lobo
10/The set for Chisum
11/Foreign Language one for 2 Mules for Sister Myrna
12/All for A Man Called Work Horse
13/2 for Soldier Blue
14/Monte Walsh
15/All for Companeroes
16/ALL for Trinity
17/ALL for El Topo
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my 1970 Westerns video, the generous rating and info is much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Into the seventies we go, westerns will get fewer and fewer by the end of the decade.
Violence and nudity was more and more common in the wild west 70’s style, even James Stewart was getting in on the action with Henry Fonda at the Cheyenne Social Club. And John Wayne was entering his 5th and last decade as a cowboy legend.
One film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources, Little Big Man, none scored 9.
My Video Top 5 –
Little Big Man 8.15
El Topo 7.5
The Ballad of Cable Hogue 7.5
They Call Me Trinity 7.4
Companeros 7.4
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
Little Big Man 8.1
The Ballad of Cable Hogue 7.8
Monte Walsh 7.7
There Was a Crooked Man 7.7
They Call Me Trinity 7.7
President Nixon watched ‘Chisum’ in August 1970 and reviewed the film –
“Over the last weekend I saw a movie-I don’t see too many movies but I try to see them on weekends when I am at the Western White House or in Florida–and the movie that I selected, or, as a matter of fact, my daughter Tricia selected it, was Chisum with John Wayne. It was a western, it was a very good western, John Wayne is a very fine actor and it was a fine supporting cast.
I wondered why it is that the western survives year after year after year. A good western will outdraw some of the other subjects. Perhaps one of the reasons, in addition to the excitement, the gun play, and the rest, which perhaps is part of it but they can get that in other kinds of movies but one of the reasons is, perhaps, and this may be a square observation-is that the good guys come out ahead in the westerns; the bad guys lose.
In the end, as this movie particularly pointed out, even in the old West, the time before New Mexico was a State, there was a time when there was no law. But the law eventually came, and the law was important from the standpoint of not only prosecuting the guilty, but also seeing that those who were guilty had a proper trial”.