Top 15 Non-John Wayne Westerns from My Childhood

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One of the very first, if not the first, article I wrote for Mostly Westerns concerned the John Wayne films I remembered seeing as a kid.

Having written more movie reviews than I can count over the last few years on all things JW I thought I’d return to the same theme of childhood but this time rate my top twenty non-JW Westerns in ascending order that I also saw as a kid. Feel free to comment/disagree/agree as I take a walk down memory lane once more in the name of the genre I love the most. Hope you enjoy it.

 

15.Escape from Fort Bravo (1953)

Seeing as I was a one year-old when this film was released then it’s a pretty sure bet I caught it on re-release later on. In this relatively little-known John Sturges opus, William Holden plays Union martinet Captain Roper, tasked with overseeing a prison camp which serves as host to rebel soldiers anxious to escape and get back to fighting on behalf of the South.

 

14.Drum Beat (1954)

I saw “Drum Beat”, directed by Delmer Daves, in a tiny cinema on the Mediterranean island of Malta. I vaguely recall the hero of the film, Alan Ladd, facing down Charles Bronson, as the villain of the piece, with Ladd presumably standing on the ever-present orange box in order to give him more stature than his supposed height of 5 foot 7 inches would allow.

 

13.Wichita (1955)

On the face of it this is just another in a long line of shoot-em-ups barely distinguishable from the literally hundreds of cowboy films Hollywood turned out in the 1950s.

What makes “Wichita” memorable to me, though, is the scene in which a young boy, watching a shoot-out in the street below from an open window, suddenly catches a stray bullet and is thrown backward by the force of the shot.

 

12.The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American epic Revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on the Mexico–United States border trying to adapt to the changing modern world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means.

The screenplay was co-written by Peckinpah, Walon Green, and Roy N. Sickner. The Wild Bunch was filmed in Technicolor and Panavision, in Mexico, notably at the Hacienda Ciénaga del Carmen, deep in the desert between Torreón and Saltillo, Coahuila, and on the Rio Nazas.

The Wild Bunch is noted for intricate, multi-angle, quick-cut editing using normal and slow motion images, a revolutionary cinema technique in 1969. The writing of Green, Peckinpah, and Sickner was nominated for a best screenplay Oscar, and the music by Jerry Fielding was nominated for Best Original Score.

11.A Thunder of Drums (1961)

I remember this film so well because it was the main feature on a double bill with an Italian sword and sandals epic “The Colossus of Rhodes”, directed by none other than a pre-“Fistful of Dollars” Sergio Leone.

10.Nevada Smith (1966)

I do like a good revenge movie and this is one of the best. Steve McQueen, in top-notch cowboy form, plays the title role. It’s a prequel spin-off from an earlier movie, “The Carpetbaggers”, in which Nevada Smith was played by Alan Ladd, so consider this an early ‘origins’ film.

 

9.Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957)

The 1950s ushered in a wave of so-called psychological Westerns, the main requirement being overwrought performances from the principal actors and some kind of subconscious motivation buried deep within the psyche that pushes the characters over the edge.

The perennially tense and jittery Kirk Douglas was therefore well-equipped to play the highly-strung and agitated Doc Holliday in yet another in a long line of Wyatt Earp / OK Corral movies churned out by Hollywood on a regular basis.

 

8.The Professionals (1966)

“The Magnificent 7” was the first of a number of films released in the 1960s that featured a team of hired hands each specialising in a certain skill. James Coburn was good with a knife and the other six were all good with their guns, so a bit thin on the ground to be honest in terms of individual skill sets, but I’m sure you get my drift.

“The Professionals” offers more choice in the deadly expertise stakes, with all of the main cast members specialising in their own specific talent for mayhem, death and destruction. The hired professionals comprise Burt Lancaster as an explosives expert, Lee Marvin as a weapons specialist, Robert Ryan as a horse wrangler and Woody Strode as an expert killer with a bow and arrow.

 

7.Winchester 73 (1950)

Filmed in black and white and with a co-writing credit for Borden Chase, who contributed to a number of other Anthony Mann Westerns as well as “Red River” for Howard Hawks, the story follows the travails of Lin MacAdam, played by James Stewart, who along with his riding partner High Spade, played by Millard Mitchell, arrive in Dodge City on the trail of someone, but at that point, we’re not exactly sure who they’re looking for, or why.

 

6.The Magnificent 7 (1960)

What a great start to the decade. One of the most popular cowboy films ever made – and not one pesky Injun in sight.

As we all know, it’s a remake of Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”, transplanted from medieval Japan to bandit-ridden Mexico. Yul Brynner is ostensibly the main star but the film belongs of course to the likes of Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson who, along with Robert Vaughan, Brad Dexter (the one no one can ever remember) and Horst Bucholz, plus Eli Wallach as the dastardly Mexican bandit leader, Calvera, collectively make this one of the best casts assembled for a Western.

 

5.The Good the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

As Quentin Tarantino maintains, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is ‘cinematically perfect’ and I wholeheartedly agree. Sergio Leone’s final entry in the Dollar trilogy is without doubt the best Western he ever made. It runs just short of 3 hours and I could watch it multiple times and never get bored. It’s got a great cast and is also blessed with the best soundtrack Ennio Morricone ever wrote, bar none.

 

4.Shane (1951)

I must have seen this when it was rereleased back in the late 50s, and when you’re watching a movie with a ten-year-old kid in it and you’re only a few years younger than the kid up there on the screen then it tends to stay in the mind. Someone once commented that the film is almost telling the audience they’re watching a classic Western, and defying you to think otherwise.

Therefore, all the standard conventions of the cowboy film are present and correct from lone gunfighter to land-grabbing hornswagglers, evil hired killers, fistfights and showdowns.

To me, however, just like “The Searchers” and “Rio Bravo”, it’s also one of the many cowboy films my dad took me to see when I was growing up which is why it means so much to me.

 

3.The Man from Laramie (1955)

Anthony Mann certainly saved the best for last in his five Western film collaborations with James Stewart. The theme tune, which was a big hit in America for Al Martino, and over here in the UK for Jimmy Young, tells of a ‘man with a peaceful turn of mind, he was kind of sociable and friendly’.

Talk about disparity between character in film and the song. I certainly don’t feel the man from Laramie, as portrayed by Stewart, is anywhere near having a peaceful turn of mind, and when he’s riled – and he gets riled a lot in this one – he’s not what I would call sociable and friendly either, no sirree.

2.One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

 

One-Eyed Jacks is a 1961 American Western film directed by and starring Marlon Brando, his only directorial credit. Brando portrays the lead character Rio, and Karl Malden plays his partner, “Dad” Longworth. The supporting cast features Pina Pellicer, Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens.

In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

1.Once Upon a Time in the West  (1968)

is a 1968 epic Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone, who co-wrote it with Sergio Donati based on a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Leone. It stars Henry Fonda, cast against type as the villain,Charles Bronson as his nemesis, Jason Robards as a bandit, and Claudia Cardinale as a newly widowed homesteader. The widescreen cinematography was by Tonino Delli Colli, and the acclaimed film score was by Ennio Morricone.

After directing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone decided to retire from Westerns and aimed to produce his film based on The Hoods, which eventually became Once Upon a Time in America. However, Leone accepted an offer from Paramount Pictures providing Henry Fonda and a budget to produce another Western. He recruited Bertolucci and Argento to devise the plot of the film in 1966, researching other Western films in the process. After Clint Eastwood turned down an offer to play the movie’s protagonist, Bronson was offered the role. During production, Leone recruited Donati to rewrite the script due to concerns over time limitations.

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