"Ol’ Tony Hillerman told me one time, ‘Max, you know, if you option a novel, you’ve got to hope they don’t make the movie. Because then you can’t...
Max Evans in Hollywood
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Henry C. Parke
Cowboy Pens Best Rodeo Movie Ever Made
Prescott, Arizona, has been a center of Cowboy Culture since 1888, when civic-minded merchants first posted cash prizes for a cowboy tournament,...
Fire Engulfs Paramount Western Ranch
The cost in human life and property from the fires that blazed through California in November 2018 cannot yet be calculated. The cost to Western...
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The new Netflix Western anthology film from Joel and Ethan Coen, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is the best Western comedy since 1969’s Blazing...
Best of the West 2019: Western Movies
Ever since The Virginian, Owen Wister’s genre-defining Western novel, female characters have traditionally been portrayed as the civilizers. Even...
The Man Who Redeemed The Hamer Name
The story of The Highwaymen, the new Depression-era Western from Netflix, has been a thirty-year obsession for author John Fusco. “Those old photos...
More than Animal House
Despite 183 acting credits, two Emmy nominations and no signs of slowing down, the suave and funny actor Tim Matheson will be forever remembered as...
DVD Review: Dawson City Duo
Those Redheads from Seattle (Kino Lorber; $19.95); Dawson City: Frozen Time (Kino Lorber; $29.95 and pictured above). A perfect pairing: two movies...
DVD Review: The Hanging Tree
“Sluice robber!” With that bellow, and a well-aimed shot, Frenchy (Karl Malden) and a Montana boomtown mob take after the thief (Ben Piazza). He’s...
Sitting Bull’s Gal
The primary job of the biographical Western Woman Walks Ahead, starring Jessica Chastain, Michael Greyeyes and Sam Rockwell, is to entertain. It...
DVD Review: Black Jack & The Belle Starr Story
There is no honor among thieves in the first Oater, 1968’s Black Jack, shot in Spain and Israel. After a fight over a robbery’s spoils, mastermind...
Still Blasting Away
Six decades ago this September 30, a Western series premiered, starring a ballplayer-turned-actor and a one-season Mouseketeer as father-and-son...