Most movie cowboys were not real cowboys. The idea of people such as Dean Martin or John Candy playing rough, tough cowboy heroes borders on the...
Cowboys in Combat
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Western Movies
Movie Westerns Back in Print
Dorchester Publications is among a fairly finite number of publishers who continue to print both original and older Western novels. In its latest...
The Man Behind the Cape
As the dust continues to settle, and the perspective changes in our grasp of what the Western was and who played a significant role in shaping it,...
A No-Bull Kind of Guy
John Sturges was not a great filmmaker. At least he’s never been placed up there in the top branches with the certifiably best directors—Ford, Hawks...
Excerpts from Escape Artist: The Life and Time of John Sturges
You have to work backward from Yul Brynner, who would ultimately star as Chris, the leader of the gunfighters, to figure out whose brainstorm the...
Kemo Sabe Unmasked
The history of the Texas Rangers is the history of Western movies. When Broncho Billy Anderson told director Edwin S. Porter that he could ride like...
The Next Classic Buddy Film
Steel-eyed, sober, often grim and frequently dangerous, Ed Harris has carved a niche for himself portraying characters who can be flawed or...
Val Kilmer Returns
Ever since Val Kilmer first appeared as a parody of Elvis in the 1984 comedy Top Secret!, he's had one of the most interesting careers in Hollywood...
Young Wayne Blazed a Big Trail
The Big Trail (1930) succeeded in recreating, from the widest vistas to the smallest details, the saga of those men, women and children who crossed...
Close-Ups on the Outcasts
Although director Arthur Penn made only three Westerns, his ranking is secure as one of the genre’s greatest interpreters. Actually, Penn’s first...
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 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...