| OCR Text |
Show _.. THEZEPHYR/DECEMBER 2004-JANUARY 2005... ‘VE HEARD ABOUT YOU, SHANE...’ The Zephyr’s T OP 10 List of the Greatest Westerns of all Time By Jim Stiles I was raised on matinees, on Saturday afternoons. Lookin’ up at Hoppy, Gene and Roy...oh boy! And I was raised believin’, the best a man can do Is a be rootin’-tootin’, straight shootin’ cowboy buckaroo ONE-EYED JACKS Marlon Brando (Rio) (1961) Karl Malden (Dad Longworth) My pal Judge Lewis Paisley introduced “OneEyed Jacks” to me, just a few years ago. The Judge is a connoisseur of good cowboy dialogue and knew I could not resist Brando's over-the-top lines. And of course Brando could play it over the _ top-this is the only film he ever directed and clearly, he decided to take it to the limit. You've got to love a Western in which the leading actor can, with unheard of earnestness, call the Bad Guy, “A gob of spit.” Mason Williams & the Sons of the Pioneers That’s how it was for me. As a little kid, I grew up in a neighborhood where there weren’t many other children. Billy Springstead was, at seven, four years older than me and didn’t really want to be seen “with a little kid.” So I learned to entertain myself. On Saturdays I was glued to the television, and eagerly awaited one Cinema Cowboy hero after another. Later I’d go out on the sidewalk and re-enact the episodes I’d just watched. I even did my own Western background music, the lavish orchestrals that always accompanied a good horse opera. Oddly enough, all these years and decades later, my favorite musical genre is...you guessed it..the soundtracks to great Westerns. I’ve run off more than one girlfriend, simply because I refused to remove my “Lonesome Dove” CD from the car stereo. I need my own soundtrack. L also love the great laconic dialogue that comes from a good Western. And so I’ve gathered here some of my favorite lines from my favorite Westerns. It’s not a complete list, y any means—I don’t even think I have a Top 10 list here...maybe a Top 7? I’m not a movie critic and am not about to bore you with critic-ese about the fabric and texture of a film. I simply know what I like and these are the films that sustain me when I need a good jolt of Cinema West. So, in no particular order, here are the great Western movie lines I love the most... THE SHOOTIST (1976) John Wayne(JB Books) Lauren Bacall (Mrs Rogers) Ron Howard (Gilliam Rogers) James Stewart (Doc Hostetler) Screenplay by Miles Hood Swarthhout & Scott Hale from the novel by Glendon Swathhout Music by Elmer Bernstein “My home is any place I throw my saddle down, I guess.” Rio tries to seduce a young woman... “Inever did get much upbringin’ as a kid and the manners J learned was ina saloon. Didn’t have much chance to be around ladies like yourself...I’m sorry Senora. Just hope you don’t think too bad about me when I’m gone....my mother give me this ring just before she died. It'd mean a lot to me Senora if you’d wear it for me. It’d make me feel a whole lot better.” “Remember a little stick place just this side of San Felipe? Remember when you was drunk and you killed that lady’s goat? Ben Johnson tries to interest Rio in a bank robbery.. “How would you like to get rich, once and for all? You could stand a piece of change couldn’t you? Fourteen days ride from here there’s a town. And in that town is the fattest bank you lookin’ for where you “Now ever saw. And it ain’t nuthin’ but a cheesebox...Word’s goin’ around you’re Dad Longworth...Hear there’s dirt between yuh. Now if that’s true, I can tell yuh can find him...You want me to keep talkin’? here’s where the fun comes...it’ll tickle you. The sheriff in that town is Dad Longworth. Now we gonna do some business?” Rio’s expressive vocabulary... “You get up, you big tub o’ guts!” It’s dangerous for an environmentalist/sometime liberal to say anything kind about John Wayne. Especially these days. But the Duke deserves kudos for “The Shootist,” his last film. Ironically, it's about an aging gunfighter, riddled with cancer, who comes to Carson City, Nevada to live out his last days. John Wayne actually succeeds in acting humble in this film. The fact that he died of cancer, three years later, makes “The Shootist” that much more poignant. “We took to scufflin’ and he come out from behind there with that scattergun. Yeah...he didn’t give me no selection.” “Get up you scum suckin’ pig! I want you standin’ when I open you up! Geton up! You got right on the edge...you mention her once more and I’m goin’ to tear yer arms out!” Dad Longworth to Rio... “Rio, you've been tryin’ to get yourself hung for ten years and this time I think you're gonna make it.” Rio to Dad... “You're a one-eyed jack around here, Dad, but I’ve seen the other side of yer face....know where I spent the last five years? Rottin’ my guts out down in that pen in Sonoma...what do you think of that?” “You gob 0’ spit!” “His name was J.B Books and he had a pair of ivory-handled pistols that were a sight to behold. But he wasn't an outlaw. For a while he was a lawman...The wild country had taught him to survive. He lived his life unherded, by himself. And he had a credo... “) won't be wronged. I won’t be insulted and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to others and I require the same from them.” THE MISFITS (1961) Clark Gable(Gaylord Langlan) Marilyn Monroe (Roslyn Tabor) Howland ) Thelma Ritter (Isabelle Stears) Screenplay by Arthur Miller Montgomery Clift (Pearce For Gable, Monroe and Clift, this was their last James Stewart (as Dr Hostetler) offers Books an alternative to the agonizing death by cancer that he faces... =: “There’s one more thing I’d say. Both of us have had a lot to do with Death. I’m not a brave man but you must be...I would not die the death I described if I had your courage.” film of note. They would all be dead within three years of the release of “The Misfits.” Montgomery Clift was always a brilliant actor, so there's no surprise here that his performance is so memorable. But Gable usually played Gable and Marilyn played herself. When you see these performances, you've got to think they both knew his was their last chance to get it right. And they id. The screenplay was by Arthur Miller, one of MMs ex-husbands. He actually wrote the shor “Every young man feels the need to let the badger loose now and then.” Sheriff Tibidoh offers this advice to Books... “Books, this is 19-ought-one. The old days are gone and you don’t know it. We got a waterworks and we'll have our street car electrified by next year. And we've started to pave the streets. Oh we've still got some weedin’ to do, but once we get rid of people like you, we'll have a goddamn Garden of Eden here... You plain outlived your time.” “A man’s emotions gets him all tangled up sometimes. I been operatin’ on the raw edge Gilliam...Guess I jumped too far, too fast.” long Conversation between young Gilliam and Books on being a Shootist... Gilliam: “Bat Masterson said a man has to have guts, deliberation and a proficiency with firearms. Books: “Did he mention that third eye you better have? You need it for that dumb ass amateur. It’s usually some six-fingered buster who couldn’t hit a cow on the tit with a tin cup that does you in. But then Bat Masterson always was full of sheep dip.” Os PAGEI2 | 4 y period of rest, through the first half of the 0” Century. Now all that was changing. “Tcan smell a cowboy...I can smell the look in your face. But I love every miserable one of you...‘Course you’re all good for nuthin’. “That may be but it’s better than wages.” Gay on Educated Women... “Oh..I like educated women alright. But they’re always tryin’ to figure out what we’re thinkin’....Did you ever get to know a man better by askin’ him questions?” |
