When it comes to bankable Western stars of the 1940's and 50's, Joel McCrea was among the most reliable. A man who originally started out as a stunt-double, McCrea would soon benefit from the arrival of talkies, and his early roles didn't quite foretell where he'd make his mark as a leading man in Westerns. Those early roles however did include some very entertaining films, and although it was generally his Western output that first attracted me to him, I…
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Four Faces West 1948
I've mentioned many times how frustrating it can be finding films for my collection, and Four Faces West is a typical example of just how difficult the search can be? Joel McCrea sits just behind Randolph Scott as my favourite Western actor, and with good reason. A man who dedicated himself almost exclusively to the Western genre for the best part of 30 years, McCrea took his love of the cowboy life and became a proper rancher with his wife…
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The Jack Bull 1999
This television Western was originally aired on HBO in April of 1999, but somehow has the same feel to it as the Deadwood series that appeared 5 years later. This is set in Wyoming Territory, at a similar period in time that South Dakota was given Statehood, that featured in Daniel Minahan's Deadwood :The Movie in 2019, with the inhabitants of the territory looking for law and order, and an end to the ruthless oppression that land owners and cattle…
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Appaloosa 2008
It's been 8 years since I last reviewed Ed Harris' Appaloosa, an early noughties Western that benefited from a stellar cast, a fine script, and Harris donning various caps as co-screenwriter, director, and star, in a film that really should have been a much bigger financial success for New Line Cinema. With the price of making Westerns just one of the reasons why they are so scarce, even nowadays, the critical acclaim that HBO's Deadwood had found between 2004-2006 had…
