Although director Arthur Penn made only three Westerns, his ranking is secure as one of the genre’s greatest interpreters. Actually, Penn’s first...
Close-Ups on the Outcasts
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Henry Cabot Beck
Comanche Moon
I won’t poke any more holes into what promises to be the final production in the Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove series, starring Val Kilmer (Inish...
There Will Be Oscars
The single element that both connected and distinguished David Milch's HBO series Deadwood from the Westerns that preceded it was that the corrupt...
The Road to McCarthy
Even though The Road isn't a Western in the traditional sense, many feel that the post-apocalyptic genre and the Western are two sides of the same...
The Essential John Ford Collection
(Fox Home Video; $49.98.) Those who look hungrily at the massive Ford at Fox DVD box set, which lists at $299, but are hesitant to pony up that kind...
Rawhide: The Second Season, Vol. II
(Paramount; $38.99.) What made Rawhide an exceptional series is that it usually held fast to its single, simple premise, a handful of drovers push...
Major Dundee
Sam Peckinpah’s devoted fans have never been able to decide whether Major Dundee was a masterpiece mutilated by an unsympathetic studio or the noble...
The Good News, Bad News No Country
“No matter how a man alone ain't got no bloody f****** chance.” —Harry Morgan, To Have and Have Not (1937) No Country for Old Men is really two...
Requiem for Billy the Kid
French filmmaker Anne Feinsilber began thinking about Billy the Kid when she read a New York Times article about the controversies surrounding his...
The Curse of Idolatry
Jesse James stands on a frozen pond. Through the ice, he can see the carp swimming inches below the surface. He asks his friend if he ever...
The First Films of Samuel Fuller
Sam Fuller made his first movie about a sullen loser, Robert Ford, instead of a two-fisted hero, a singing cowboy or an outlaw. Lucky for Fuller, I...
A Hex Upon You
DC comic hero Jonah Hex is going to hit the big screen in his current Horror-Western incarnation, which means he’ll be fighting demons or zombies or...