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