My Favorite Western Movies

#1

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

• Released in 1969, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid stars Paul Newman & Robert Redford & was directed by George Roy Hill (director of The World According to Garp, The Sting, Thoroughly Modern Millie, & Hawaii). The screenplay was written by William Goldman, who wrote The Princess Bride among other things. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid grossed over 100 million 1969 dollars on its release & was the highest-grossing film of 1969. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid was so successful that Hill, Newman, & Redford were reunited four years later to make The Sting. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid was nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) & won four (including Best Score & Best Song for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”). The witty dialogue & slick action sequences are second to none.

• Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, although based on actual events, takes certain liberties with history. For example, Butch Cassidy’s gang was The Wild Bunch, not the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.

• The scene in which Butch & Sundance jump off the cliff & into a river is among the most famous & recognizable in cinematic history.

• Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid also stars Katherine Ross (who also starred in The Graduate & The Stepford Wives), with smaller parts for Strother Martin, Chloris Leachman, & Ted Cassidy (who played Lurch in The Addams Family & Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man).

• Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid catapulted Robert Redford, who was not terribly well known at the time, into stardom. Redford is usually acknowledged as the top box office draw of the 1970s.

#2

Tombstone

• Released in 1993, Tombstone, with a perfect ensemble cast, stars Kurt Russell & Val Kilmer with supporting parts for Sam Elliott, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, & Bill Paxton, & smaller roles for Dana Delaney, Billy Zane, & Charlton Heston. Robert Mitchum is the narrator. Kevin Jarre wrote the screenplay & was initially slated to direct but was fired early during filming due to his refusal to cut out excessive material. George Cosmatos replaced Jarre as director, but Kurt Russell claims to have, in fact, directed the rest of the film.

• Val Kilmer steals the show with several memorable lines.

• Dana Delaney is perhaps best known as Colleen McMurphy on China Beach, but she has also provided the voice of Lois Lane in several Warner Brothers animated series from 1996 to 2010.

• Tombstone has been criticized for its lack of historical accuracy.

#3

Big Jake

• Released in 1971, Big Jake was directed by George Sherman & stars John Wayne & Richard Boone. Big Jake was written by Harry Fink & Rita Fink, who also wrote the screenplay for Dirty Harry, which also debuted in 1971.

• Big Jake was the last of nine films in which Patrick Wayne, John Wayne’s son, appeared with his father. Patrick Wayne nearly abandoned the western genre of which his father was the standard bearer & made a series of low-budget SF & fantasy films in the 1970s, but Patrick Wayne always found his way back to the western, with a memorable appearance as the good-guy villain in Rustler’s Rhapsody. Wayne also played Sinbad in Sinbad & the Eye of the Tiger & made a guest appearance on an episode of Sledge Hammer!. Christopher Mitchum (son of Robert Mitchum), Bobby Vinton, Maureen O’Hara (in her last of five screen roles with the Duke), Jim Davis (Jock Ewing on Dallas) & Glenn Corbett (who played Zephram Cochrane in the Star Trek: TOS episode “Metamorphosis”) also appear in supporting roles. John Wayne’s youngest son, Ethan, plays Little Jake.

• A predominant theme of Big Jake, as in many Westerns, is that of modernization. How things of the past must give way to those of the present and whether something is inherently better simply because it is newer or more complex.