Western Collection (Pale Rider / The Wild Bunch / Rio Bravo / How The West Was Won / The Searchers)
I was looking for a copy of Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider when I stumbled across this collection of classic Westerns for a great bundle price.
These are some of the classic Western movies that show up on the “Greatest Western Movies of All Time” lists on people blog, podcasts and YouTube channels.
But do they hold up to modern times with such great more recent classics such as Unforgiven, Open Range,
I’d say, yes and no. Take The Searchers for instance. It supposefively inspired all kinds of directors such as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg with it grand cinematic landscapes and compositions. But the racism and over the top toxic masulinity of the John Wayne character seems almost cartoonist by today’s values.
We are suppose to believe that Ethan is suffering from PSD from being on the losing side of the law that he insults everyone he comes across including Union soliders who he says he can only recognize from their backs i.e. they are cowards.
This racist character at one point wants to kill his niece when he finally finds her because after being raised by the Native American’s she is now full “Comanch”. Only at the last moment he decides not to kill her which we are suppose to interpret as Ethan finding his “humanity”.
Pale Rider
A nameless stranger who rides into a small California gold rush town finds himself in the middle of a feud between a mining syndicate and a group of independent prospectors.
The Wild Bunch
It’s 1913, and the “traditional” American West is dying. Among the inhabitants of this dying era are an outlaw gang called “The Wild Bunch.” After a failed railroad office robbery, the gang heads to Mexico to do one last job. Seeing their times and lives drifting away in the newly formed world of the 20th century, the gang takes the job and ends up in a brutally violent last stand against their enemies deemed to be corrupt.
Rio Bravo
On one side is an army of gunmen dead-set on springing a murderous cohort from jail. On the other is Sheriff John T. Chance and two deputies: a recovering drunkard and a crippled codger. Also in their ragtag ranks are a trigger-happy youth and a woman with a past – and her eye on Chance.
How The West Was Won
With courage, sinew, and conflict: that’s how the West was won. With three directors, five interlocked stories, some of the most legendary action scenes in movie history and a constellation of acting talent: that’s how “How The West Was Won” was filmed…
The Searchers
The story of Ethan Edwards, an ex-confederate soldier who swears revenge after his brother’s family is butchered by Comanches and his niece is kidnapped. Accompanied by Martin Pawley, Ethan sets out on an epic seven-year search for the missing girl.
