When, in 1973, MGM, once the titan of Hollywood studios, found itself on the ropes after a string of flops, a tiny film saved the studio from...
Westworld Reborn
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Henry C. Parke
The Life and Legend of Hugh O’Brian
One role defined Hugh O’Brian’s acting career—the title character in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. The adult Western premiered on ABC on...
Less than Magnificent
Remaking a classic movie is daring, and Director Antoine Fuqua made the challenge a double dare by remaking two: 1960’s The Magnificent Seven and...
DVD Review: Cemetery Without Crosses
A war between families comes to a head when a man is lynched in front of his wife (played by Michéle Mercier). Only an old beau (Robert Hossein)...
DVD Review: The Girl of the Golden West
In 1938, theatre impresario David Belasco’s melodrama became a delightful Western operetta, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. The only...
Struggling for a Dream
In the latter quarter of the 20th century, the only person indispensable to Western film was Clint Eastwood. Losing a Peckinpah or a Leone would...
Broken Lance
The spoiled first three sons—Richard Widmark, Hugh O’Brian and Earl Holliman— of Spencer Tracy’s cattleman character can’t abide their half-breed,...
A Defiant Outlaw-Hero Ballad
You know you’re in Texas when a pair of ski-masked men rob a crowded bank and nearly every customer pulls a gun and opens fire. The impromptu posse...
Ford Set the Bar High
The Buffalo Soldier and his crucial role in the post-Civil War West went unacknowledged for so long in history annals that his story was rarely told...
Sutherland’s Ride Together
This was a film that I’ve been dreaming of making for 30-some-odd years,” Kiefer Sutherland told the audience when Forsaken premiered at the Autry...
The Godfather of Westerns
With seven Emmys won, Lonesome Dove is unquestionably television’s most respected Western achievement. The roles were so good, the nominations of...
The Lonesome Dove Trail
Making the film should have been easy. Movies from Larry McMurtry’s novels—1963’s Hud and 1971’s The Last Picture Show—had already earned five...