Tag: film

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Eleven: Red Sun; The Ride Back; Outland; Oblivion

Posted on October, 2025 by JS

Whoa Riders,

Ride along in High-Concept Country, we’ve got some more Project: 100 Westerns for yawl!

I typically use this space to tell you I selected movies at random, but this time, I was pretty purposeful in my picks — mash-ups and mindbenders!

Westerns are great fodder for mixed-genre stories. We see it all the time in sci-fi, but it appears in manga/anime, big-budget action, crime television, cartoons and so much more. I thought it might be neat to leap headlong into these types of movies and see how successful they can be through the iterations.

#40. Red Sun (1971)

“Now we’re even, though I’m a little more even than you.”

Sporting a cast of some of the biggest international stars at the time, Red Sun is an ambitious cultural mashup that explores the relationship between two men on different ends of the honor spectrum.

Charles Bronson plays Link, a scoundrel who is only redeemed by the nastiness of his partner, Gauche, played by Alain Delon. The two decide to rob a train teeming with gold, but in the process Gauche betrays Link and leaves him for dead, whilst also stealing a prized samurai sword from a Japanese ambassador. Upon awakening from his brush with death, Link is tasked by the ambassador to accompany his bodyguard Koruda (Toshirō Mifune) on the retrieval mission, to which Link reluctantly capitulates.

The cowboy/samurai adventure that ensues is a playful but sufficiently grave affair that uses the central tension of the two leads to keep the plot churning. Link and Koruda maneuver around each other while using their wiles and strengths in entertaining ways, and of course the theme of Mutual (Brotherly) Respect emerges toward the last act. Delon plays a fine baddie, sinister but with enough humanity to make his next action unknown and his beau, Christina (Ursula Andress), slips into the “prostitute with a heart of coal” role very well, too, adding to the turmoil and danger.

Additionally, like any Western worth its salt, the action/fight scenes are well done, as I’d expect from a Bronson-led movie. There’s some neat-o set pieces here, including the bloody final sequence in a burning cane field. The only real knock I have against the movie is the choice of a horde of Indians as the final antagonist. They present more as a force of nature than a group of humans, and there’s a real lack of agency since there are essentially no Native characters in the film.

This movie maybe is a little too cute for some, but I thought it was smart and well-made, and considering the close relationship between the Western and Samurai genres, it makes a lot of sense. I recommend simply on the cast and concept alone.

#41. The Ride Back (1957)

“When you ask questions you gotta wait for answers.”

I’m finding the “two frenemies go on a short trip together” trope to be quite popular in the Western genre. It makes sense, the conditions on the fictional frontier are hazardous and the populace generally untrustworthy. It works in movies like Red Sun and The Deadly Companions, though all three suffer from the same weak-tea “faceless Native” threat to inject danger into the plot.

The Ride Back, written by Antony Ellis (adapted from a Gunsmoke radio show by the same author) and directed by Allen H. Miner, follows a predictable tune but hits the notes hard: Hamish (William Conrad) is a sad-sack lawman tasked with returning accused murderer Kallen (Anthony Quinn) back to the town of Scottsville to stand trial. The two, both on missions of self-preservation, clash routinely, which transforms into reluctant camaraderie in the face of danger.

Despite lots of Spanish (sans subtitles) in the first half, this movie is easy to follow and enjoy. The story points are minimal, but where the film blossoms is in the performances and dialogue. Conrad plays the battered Hamish with a low-simmering intensity, closed-off but increasingly fidgety in the face of complications. Quinn shows off his acumen with a charm and bravado that fills the screen. This is another one of those films that portends the genre’s Revisionist era by switching up conventions and subverting expectations. The “hero” is somewhat pathetic in his determination and his opposite almost has you cheering for more crime. There’s a underlying humor to the adventure, as well, with the two sniping at each other freely.

I liked this cozy movie — a brisk Southwestern trek through the psyche of the Western protagonist/antagonist dynamic.

#42. Outland (1981)

In this Space Western loosely based on 1952’s High Noon, a Marshal assigned to a mining facility on a moon of Jupiter is the lone opposition against the corrupt heads of said facility. Sean Connery stars as W.T. O’Niel, a man trying to find his purpose in a morally depleted world. We’re not told too much about O’Niel, he’s a petty stereotypical cop-dude, but the nuances from Connery’s performance colors the edges of the character well.

As a Sci-fi movie, Outland falls short of “good”, its concepts are too dated and not overly imaginative. This is very much “hard” sci-fi — a work of fiction with firm roots in actual science — which, compared to the tales of aliens and time-travel, is tough to pull off in an entertaining way. As a Western, it barely qualifies, the fantastical cosmic imagery is diametric to the very earthen shots of ground and grass. But as a Sci-fi Western it soars. The isolation, the danger, the lethal indifference of the citizenry and the setting, it’s all there, and done very well.

Connery shines as the curt and direct O’Niel, and he has two great scene partners: the ornery Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen) and Con-Amalgamated boss Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle). Lazarus is mostly used to drop exposition and to talk through ideas, but damn are her cutting one-liners golden. Sheppard is the prime antagonist, the figurehead of corporate greed and apathy, and you can almost see this character/actor flourishing as a Bond villain in Connery’s previous cinematic endeavors.

The specter of dystopia and the cruelty of the environs infuse the movie with a sense of dread that is felt in the halls of the mining rig and found in the tired eyes of our characters. I think of this movie existing in the same universe as the Alien franchise, it shares the sooty retro-futuristic look and the themes of a dreary corporate bureaucracy which gobbles up the common man’s soul. Writer/director Peter Hymans massaged a fantastic remake out of a classic Western, and it amounts to one of my favorite Project: 100 viewings.

#43. RiffTrax: Oblivion (1994/2017)

Imagine all the conventions and imagery of a sci-fi movie violently blasted onto the canvas of a quaint horizon depicting a sun setting over the Rockies. That’s Oblivion.

“Ambitious” is a kind way to put it. There is just too, too much going on in this movie which lists least people five under the “Story By” or “Written By” credits, including fame scribe Peter David. I can’t even succinctly relay it here, it’s so jumbled in focus and feel and leans so heavily on the language of its parent genres it feels insincere.

Of course, I expected a bad product when I fired this up because it’s a project by RiffTrax, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 offshoot that roasts poorly assembled movies as they unfold. The boys do not disappoint in their savagery. George Takei never stood a chance!

From the poor acting (you’ll cringe toward infinity from Julie Newmar’s belabored cat noises), to the absurd set design (ceiling fans count as futuristic, right??) there’s fertile ground here to mock. Even more transgressions: random ass side characters with paper-thin personalities, grueling meandering in and around low-budget locales, off-brand Muppets, boring stereotypes, random ass quotes from other movies and the gall to flash a “To Be Continued” message before the end credits.

That said, there’s a nugget or two of a good idea here, but as comic writer Dan Slott has put it: this suffers from “too many mojos”. It’s like a slapdash campfire story where each kid around the circle adds a little bit of their own favorite lore and passes it to the next. Lizard-man banditos? Empath lawmen? Robotic justice-bringers? Focus on one of these ideas and maybe it works. Throw them all in a pot and forget the seasoning? That’s how you fuck up a meal.

We’ve got another new short coming debuting on November 4th, 2025! Please make a return trip at that time, and remember to pass along our comics to likeminded Western fans!

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Ten: Slow West; West of the Pecos; Jonah Hex; Dead Man

Posted on September, 2025 by JS

Dear gunfighters,

Four more movies have been compiled in Project: 100 Westerns!

While in past write-ups I’ve claimed that I don’t really have a methodology of the movie picks, I realized that’s a bit of a lie. While I don’t normally select based on subgenre or the talent in front of or behind the camera, I definitely try to divvy my choices up by decade. I like to get a cross sample of the different eras of Hollywood, and Westerns are a fantastic time capsule for this.

In this group I definitely slanted toward newer releases… Let’s see how it went!

#36. Slow West (2015)

In 1870, a lovesick boy and a bounty hunter travel through Colorado to find the boy’s crush, but the bounty hunter has other plans…

It’s sort of wild this movie has been out for ten years, as it still feels somewhat new to me. Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender, this wandering low-budget Western with a revisionist slant is methodical in its gait. Not a whole lot happens plot-wise, but it somehow feels full and complete nonetheless.

A lot of the drive behind the endeavor is fueled by the interactions between the naive but determined Jay and the wise but jaded Silas. This is hardly the first Western to team up two disparate souls but the reluctant camaraderie between the two provide the plot with enough juice to reach the end goal. The central tension of Silas tracking down Jay’s object of affection, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius), while the younger man tries to wrangle his emotions is a pretty damn good hook.

While there at lot of aesthetics that feel ripped from Spaghetti Westerns, including wonderful accents and wacky, messy characters, what differentiates this movie from most others is the choice of color palette. There’s sort of this oversaturated thing going on here. The brightness and severe tone of everything are dreamlike and almost nauseating, there’s a certain unnaturalness to it that goes counter to the drab and muted style that the genre is known for. It’s a daring choice but sways well with the mismatched duo of Jay and Silas.

Slow West is a pretty good film, and a quick watch too. It was sort of a critical darling there when it came out but doesn’t get the flowers it deserves as one of the better modern Westerns.

#37. West of the Pecos (1945)

A young Robert Mitchum stars in this Texas-set story about a wealthy man and his daughter moving West and getting caught up in the drama of the frontier. Frankly, the beats of this movie are neither compelling or original. There’s a stagecoach robbery that happens in the beginning and it drives some story movement but really it serves as the branch for the foliage of love to sprout.

There’s a hardy comedic bend to the going-ons here. This Zane Grey adaptation kicks off in Chicago where Colonel Lambreth (Thurston Hall) is convinced by his daughter Rill (Barbara Hale) to move West to ease his deteriorating health. Quickly upon arrival, they are pulled into the life of Pecos Smith (Mitchum), a charming cowboy with a hardened edge. What stirs the drink is that Rill, after being harassed in town, decides to disguise herself as a man which creates a humorously tense relationship with Pecos as she flirtatiously challenges him at every turn. There’s a sort of a queerness to the story that works really well, even by modern sensibilities.

I do want to note here the role of the comical Chito Rafferty, played by Richard Martin. When I was looking up the background on West of the Pecos I discovered Chito appears in over 30 different movies, all played by Martin. The Mexican-Irish sidekick not only appears all over the West and abroad, but in several different time settings. Whenever gripes about comic book movie reboots or re-castings of legacy characters I can now point to the Chito Cinematic Universe as an example of the intelligence of audiences, even way back when.

The movie does a good enough job – it’s got the lightness of a classic Western with a dose of peril to keep the viewer on their toes.

#38. Jonah Hex (2010)

Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender (again), Michael Shannon, Lance Reddick, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Yep, this is one of the most squandered casts of all time.

DC Comics’ Jonah Hex is very likely the premiere comic book Western character (and a huge inspiration for the All-True Outlaw comics). Created in the ‘70s, the adventures of the ex-Confederate bounty hunter were catalogued in comics All-Star Western and Weird Western Tales. Later, cementing his appeal, Jonah was catapulted into increasingly odd scenarios, like post-apocalyptic futures and zombie-horror jaunts. The character always has had a slick relationship with the amazing and the occult, but absolutely can excel in more grounded realms too.

This concept was lost on the production team behind Jonah Hex, where nearly every aspect of the movie is dialed up to eleven. In an attempt to invoke the spectacle of the four-colored world, Hex can (somehow) speak to corpses, gunshots propel victims across rooms and explosions rupture from seemingly nowhere. The tropes of the West are overly baroque and severe. It’s like the European Western on Super Soldier Serum. This flick somehow learned the wrong lessons of Wild, Wild West, all while hitting a lot of similar story beats. Probably the most egregious thing, though? It’s set in the South! There’s this underlying post-Civil War commentary that does not land at all.

It’s essentially Red Dead Redemption: The Movie, which coincidentally debuted the same year. The actors move sort of like stiff NPCs, the internal physics are bombastic, and there’s outlandish oddities like an underground fight club featuring a snake-man from “halfway across the world”.

It’s pretty much universally understood to be a very bad movie, and going in knowing that…I actually sort of like it more than I did seeing it for the first time about fifteen years ago. It’s just an absurd piece of art, a twistedly misguided homage to both films and comics, and with generally good performances across the board, you could do worse in the genre.

#39. Dead Man (1995)

“Every night and every morn’, Some to misery are born, Every morn’ and every night, Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.”

The cult classic Dead Man, directed by Jim Jarmusch, is sort of a herald of the type of Western that would be popular for the next couple decades. Artsy, thoughtful, with a heavy swath of weirdness, it marries the old films of the American frontier with modern technique.

This is where the descriptor labels before the word “Western” gets muddled. The term “Acid Western” applies here, for sure – it’s very likely the epitome of that subgenre. But it also skitters into “neo-Western” territory. From casting choices to soundtrack to literary allusions, it’s a piece that portends the future of filmmaking. There’s a lot to admire here, but also, damn this thing is just a bit full of itself.

Scenes drag on a great deal longer than they need; the tone whips you around like a ride on a bucking bronco; the characters pontificate and monologue just for the sake of filling the air with sound. There’s a lot about Dead Man that I didn’t “get”, which in some ways makes it an fantastic Acid Western, but not a great movie.

Johnny Depp stars as William Blake, a numbers-man from Cleveland who relocates to the West for a job but quickly finds himself in peril when he murders a man in self-defense. He takes a shot to the chest and flees, only to be found by Nobody (Gary Farmer), a sorta-exiled Native brimming with thoughts of wisdom. Nobody informs Blake that the still-lodged bullet will kill him soon enough and the pall of death hangs over Blake in every step and action. The audience is on a ride along toward his inevitable death.

The movie is littered with a heap of good-to-great performances. Most notable is Robert Mitchum, in his final film role, as the town boss, but we also get great (albeit brief) stuff from Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina, Michael Wincott, Crispin Glover and others. Depp is pretty good, as well, though he’s so confused and reactive in this that he’s more a good scene partner for the other actors than a leading man.

Neil Young provides the soundtrack with the very improvisational approach of riffing on his electric guitar, which adds a lot to the overall disjointed, stumbling nature of the whole affair.

I didn’t love this movie, but also think it’s a near must-watch for Western fans. It does a lot with a little, even if it has you checking your watch occasionally.

We’re chugging along like a brand-new locomotive here. Return to our pasture on October 6th, 2025 for a Western comic much in the build of some of these movies we just reviewed.

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Nine: The Deadly Companions; Joshua; Mannaja: A Man Called Blade; News of the World

Posted on August, 2025 by JS

How yah henches?

We’re at the one-third mark in Project: 100 Westerns! It feels like I’ve watched way more than 30-something old(ish) movies since the beginning of the year, but the numbers don’t lie.

Again, the methodology of these picks is basically “vibes” (and maybe a cursory googling). Although we’ve learned by now that Westerns are seedy, dour affairs, this was a particularly shadowy batch of films.

#32. The Deadly Companions (1961)

Sam Peckinpah is considered one of Western’s most influential directors, which is pretty much predicated on his helming of The Wild Bunch, a beloved movie in the genre’s vast catalogue. Peckinpah is known for his brutal depiction of frontier life, one of the flagbearers of the Revisionist age. The Deadly Companions is his first feature as director, and though he reportedly had very little say-so over the film’s script or staging (to the point that he was only allowed to direct the female lead via her brother-in-law), this has Sam’s fingerprints all over it.

Based on an A.S. Fleischman novel, the movie follows Yellowleg (Brian Keith), a scalped former-soldier-turned-criminal, as he enters a Texas(?) town along with his outlaw compatriots, Billy and Turk (Steve Cochran and Chill Wills). Tragedy strikes when Yellowleg accidently kills a young boy during a shootout, and in his subsequent guilt he offers to escort Kit (Maureen O’Hara), the boy’s mother, to an abandoned town to bury him next to his father.

That general plot creates immediate tautness in the movie, with the added danger that Billy is revving to assault Kit at the first available moment. The ugliness of a Peckinpah Western is woven in from the first thread, and initially you have a hard time feeling good about any of these characters, though you certainly sympathize with them.

The general quality of the movie’s print, as well as some glaring technical mistakes, mar the interesting premise. The visual and audio qualities are shoddy, to say the least, and demonstrate the learning curve of a first time director. Good luck seeing anything during the scenes shot at night or inside caves!

Keith and O’Hara save this from being a disaster though. Despite a sagging second act that basically wanders in the wilderness, the two offer very good performances as a couple of despondent souls in need of any glimmer of hope. Yellowleg and Kit trauma-bond a little too fast, but at the same time these two fuck-ups make a believable couple.

In the end, an enjoyable film about joylessness, I guess.

#33. Joshua (1976)

Ah, so the quality of this movie makes The Deadly Companions look like celluloid gold.

Alternately titled Black Rider, Joshua the Black Rider, or Revenge, this tale is super straightforward and without frills: Joshua is a soldier returning from war, but when arriving at the homestead in which his mother works, he finds she’s been murdered by a roving sect of assholes.

Blaxploitation movie stalwart Fred Williamson wrote and stars in Joshua, and does a fine enough job moving through the story like the hardened killer he’s supposed to be. Josh rarely speaks, and explains his actions even less. He’s driven by revenge and misses his momma, and that’s all we really know about him. This type of character can work, and even thrive, in the Western setting, but when the world around the silent mercenary type is devoid of richness and texture, it makes the shortcomings of the main character’s whole deal all the more glaring.

It doesn’t help that this is one visually fuzzy movie, and it’s brimming with some of the worst acting I’ve seen yet during Project: 100. The movie’s pack of villains are cartoonish, freakishly rotten and stupid, and just about anyone with a speaking line sounds like they’re in 5th grade reading a book report about something they barely skimmed. Additionally, the movie’s score is like this New Wave inspired twangy thing that just doesn’t know when to fade out.

I wouldn’t say this was an absolute struggle to get through, it’s got enough action and violence to offset the bland parts, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone outside of Williamson fans. The most interesting part may have come at the very end, when Joshua decides to kill the homesteader’s abducted wife (who is literally nameless) after the movie sorta indicated he was on a rescue mission. It reinforces the central conceit that this guy is hollowed out by wartime murdering, and has almost nothing left to live for.

#34. Mannaja: The Man Called Blade (1977)

 

“For twenty years, my only dream was to face you down and kill you for what you did to my father. And you know, you are not worth the brass of my seven petty cartridges.”

A crafty and properly violent Italian Western, this one follows the same verve as Joshua, but to better affect.

Maurizio Merli plays the mercenary Mannaja, a standard gunfighter type that we’ve seen in dozens of these films. He’s smooth, handsome, rugged and has little time for your bullshit. Using his preferred weapon of a tomahawk, he’ll slice through you to get what he wants.

Ultimately, Mannaja is driven by a mission of personal vengeance and the occasion for this story is that he finally finds McGowan (Philippe Leroy), the businessman who killed his father and stole his land. The plot turns when the now old man commissions the merc to rescue his daughter from a turncoat foreman, which then turns out very badly for Mannaja. This development helps evolve a fairly trope-heavy movie into something a little different in its final act.

There’s a nice balance of Spaghetti trappings and originality here. The action you would expect is all here — prolonged gunfights and powerful explosions and brutal fistfights — but also thoughtful dialogue and nonphysical obstacles for our protagonist to overcome. The rotation of villains is also engaging, as Mannaja deals with several different calibers of baddie. Right on the good/bad fulcrum is the soundtrack, which is anchored on an interesting ballad by Oliver Onions, but is then repeated like five different times during the course of the 90-min affair.

The flavor of Mannaja: A Man Called Blade is quite spicy. Merli does his job transitioning from one badass mannaja into periled antihero, and expected elements of a hearty Western are all there. The movie won’t blow you away, but fine enough for a lazy watch.

#35. News of the World (2020)

After all the rough edits, blurry visuals and ear affronts, I needed to cleanse the palette with a modern production and an A-lister star.

Set in Texas during Reconstruction, this movie about loss and reclamation is beautifully shot, and smartly paced, literally and figuratively. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) is a former Confederate turned newsreader, a job that makes him sort of a precursor to late night show hosts. The drama begins when he comes across a twice-orphaned girl in the woods, a child abducted from a German couple then raised by native for six years. The story follows Kidd as he shepherds her back to her only living relatives near his hometown of San Antonio.

You can really tell the script is based off of a book (by Paulette Jiles), its choice of narrative flow and switching locales is novelistic. Kidd and Johanna (Helena Zengel) encounter many dangers, from abductors to militias to dust storms, and through those trials we discover their respective unhealed wounds. There’s a lot of The Deadly Companions in the spirit of this story, two damaged individuals on a journey, but executed better in nearly every way. Turns out, a huge budget helps!

Hanks is Hanks, just simply very good as the main beast pulling the wagon. Zengel shines as his primary scene partner, playing a complicated part of a child of two worlds entering a third. Also I just love how this movie looks, as well. The set pieces and costuming is top-notch.

Debuting during a pandemic year certainly hurt this movie’s distribution, as I rarely see it mentioned in discussions about quality contemporary Westerns, but it’s up there.

I think in the next installment, I’m going to at least try to pick something lighter…if that’s even possible in the Western world!

Check back on Sept 1st, 2025 for a new Satterwhite & Fosgrove comic!🔍🤠

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Eight: Last of the Wild Horses; Stars in My Crown; Shanghai Noon; China 9, Liberty 37

Posted on July, 2025 by JS

Salutations street-toughs,

Welcome back to Project: 100 Westerns!  We’re approaching the one-third mark in my endeavor to watch 100 Westerns, and I’m starting to get a little more adventurous in my picks. This quartet might be the most dissimilar group I’ve tackled yet.

Read on, loyal reader!

#28. Last of the Wild Horses – MST3K Version (1948/1994)

“Here’s where the sepia tone really pays off.”

Since we slid a bit in Sci-fi with this month’s release of Glistening Scar (by Dan Lauer, Amal Desai and myself) I thought it apt to rope in one of my all-time favorite TV shows: Mystery Science Theater 3000.

If you’re not in the know, MST3K stars the literal captive audience of a normal human dude and a pair of robots, documenting their mockery of a real-life bad movie. The features very often tilt toward science-fiction realms, but not always, as is the case of Last of the Wild Horses.

It’s a sloggy movie, gray as hell with terrible audio quality. It follows Duke (James Ellison), a bandit on the path to reform after his recruitment onto a horse farm. There’s a romance with the farmer’s daughter somewhere in there, and a smattering of frontier (in)justice, for good measure. This is a paint-by-numbers Western in just about every way. Except the palette is gray, light-gray, almost white, storm cloud and ash.

For fans of the show, this episode is famous for a Star Trek inspired switcheroo: in a multiversal accident, the series’ villains, Dr. Forrester and his sidekick TV’s Frank (aka The Mads) are the ones in the theater mocking the film through the first segment. It’s a treat for the aficionados, and a hidden gem in the deep catalogue of “experiments” constituting the show’s run.

In terms of the movie inside the TV show, I think one needs the MST3K enhancements to get through this piece of cinema. As Crow complains about halfway through: “The movie’s just starting to mosey now! The pace is rough sledding, and this viewer can only handle so many transition shots of people walking someplace before the scene even bothers to start.

#29. Stars in My Crown (1950)

This is labeled Western but is more of a “Southern”. It slants way more toward “historical piece” than “adventure story”.

For the creative conglomerates that produced a film like this, something like Stars in My Crown are the tales of their (great-)grandparents, the happenings still in the living memory of their elders. And indeed, it’s based off of a novel by Joe David Brown, inspired by the memory of his preacher grandfather.

The movie sort of starts out like a traditional Western: a parson named Josiah Gray (Joel McCrea) saunters into the town of Walesburg, Tennessee and immediately enters the local saloon to give a sermon. When the unruly patrons scoff at this attempt, Gray pulls out two handguns and continues to preach at gunpoint. This sets up the parson as a no-nonsense type with a bit of a jagged edge, but honestly, this aura of gruffness dissipates quickly through the first act. Guns and power play only a small part in this story.

Rather, the film revolves around the challenges of Gray to bring more morality and kindness to Walesburg. The slow building A-plot concerns freed slave Uncle “Famous” (Juano Hernandez) as he fends off a wealthy mine owner looking to obtain his land; the B-plot turns on an outbreak of “slow fever” that pits the parson and the town doctor (James Mitchell) against each other in an ideological spat.

The story overall is a bit Pollyanna, but pleasant and put together well. Gray continuously inspires the town through his good nature and the adherence to his values and teachings, and the final scene or two are quite charming and earned. It also gets a few bonus points for one of the best character names I’ve ever seen – Chloroform Wiggins.

#30. Shanghai Noon (2000)

 

There’s a large bracket of folks who were raised during the Age of (Cable) TV, which I would loosely define from the 1960s until about a decade ago. For these watchers, certain movies or programs seem to be stalwarts of the medium. The reruns were constant, and the stuff that played repeatedly become ingrained into the cultural zeitgeist.

Shanghai Noon certainly fits into that category, for me, at least. This movie appeared in the scrollable channel guide a whole lot in my teen years, but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I ever really watched it front-to-back. It was definitely one of those movies you sort of flip on and play in the background until you find something better to do.

Honestly, I forgot the reason a station would put a movie like this into heavy rotation is because it’s actually pretty good.

In the current age of Western, where the current offerings slant generally into either “low-budget” or “arthouse” we need more movies like Shanghai Noon. The movie follows the buddy flick formula, teaming two oddballs on a mission full of action and humor. We have Owen Wilson’s Roy O’Bannon – who we discover in the last minute is also somehow Wyatt Earp – a womanizing thief recently expelled from his own gang, and Jackie Chan’s Chon Wang – a play on “John Wayne” – a Chinese Imperial Guard on a mission to save an abducted princess (Lucy Liu). This plot and casting is pretty obviously trying to catch and harness the magic of Chan’s mega hit Rush Hour, and it comes very close to achieving that vibe.

The movie plays off of a lot of the Western tropes for comedic effect, but stops short of satire or parody. It’s an absurd movie, and the tonal quality is just right, for the most part. There are amazing comedic sequences (of note is the scene where Roy and Chon get blitzed in bathtubs) and Chan’s action choreography injects a super fun element into a fairly average series of plot churns.

This is a good popcorn flick, and it almost makes me want to take back what I’ve said previously about the Comedy Western’s effectiveness. There’s a lesson here about what tenor and inspiration this subgenre should take on, and generally the Western needs more high concept ideas and a more high-flying atmosphere if it wants to attract mainstream audiences again.

#31. China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)

“I need you tonight, and I hate you for it.”

No, you’re not reading the score of an odd football matchup. This methodical Western (with a heavy tint of love story) is led by Fabio Testi and directed by Monte Hellman. It was released in 1978 under the title Amore piombo e furore (“Love, Lead, and Fury”) but didn’t reach the US until 1984.

Basic plot rundown: Mere minutes before his scheduled hanging, gunfighter Clay Drumm is tasked by a railroad company to kill a man whose property they covet. After spending a few days with Matt (Warren Oates) and his wife Catherine (Jenny Agutter), Clay decides against murder…but does engage in an affair with the wife, which leads to the pair fleeing a scorned Matt and his clan. Bullets fly, the damsel changes hands a couple times and the guy on the horse tries to save the day.

The movie leans heavily on extended takes, cheesecake/beefcake and a lively soundtrack. The flavor of the Italian-Spanish Western is as thick as Testi’s accent. It takes a long, long while for the audience to feel the friction of the plot. Maybe a third of the movie is spent introducing us to the characters and their surroundings, and in formulaic fashion, the last third pops with gunfire and sex. What normally keeps a movie like that afloat is either compelling camera work or inspired repartee, neither which isn’t exactly crackling in this. The dubbing and audio is a speck slipshod, as well. I try not to watch with captions but this time I just had to.

The romance at the heart works via the effort of Testi and Agutter. The atmosphere of syrupy lust is sometimes too thick, the attraction between Clayton and Catherine is prominent and immediate. It’s not until much later in the film, after danger has entwined them even further, that you feel their genuine connection and a fear for their romantic future.

I liked China 9, Liberty 37 more than the other Hellman (Ride in a Whirlwind) and Testi (Dead Men Ride) films I’ve previously reviewed for this column. It has a jumbled morality and a bare plot but the steady quality provides enough juice to get you to the ending credits.

Good movie! Though, I would still like to see The People’s Republic of China and Liberty University play football.

This was maybe my smoothest group so far. Nothing felt like a chore.

We have a new comic release on Aug 4th, 2025! A revenge story gone wrong!

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Westward!

 

~Jamil