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Actually, considering I left five spaces open in my list for discoveries that never came, maybe I should vote for Viggo Wears a Hat and Rides a Horse

Five lists in so far including my own and there's one highly notable title from our last list that has barely registered so far, so this list may shape up quite different assuming we get enough lists submitted to count

I haven't really been keeping up with this project, so I'll just be resubmitting my former list with a few updates of great films I've seen since it was submitted:

Jauja - A great modern western, and way more effective in mystical terms than El Topo.

Yellow Sky - One of the greats that I didn't manage to see until just after I submitted my list last time.

Meek's Cutoff - Another great modern western from another great modern filmmaker. Both this and Jauja demonstrate how it's possible to make valid new westerns in new ways, that don't simply act as genre nostalgia, or react against it (or, if you're Quentin Tarantino, both).

The New Land - Likewise, but forty-five years ago.

One Eyed Jacks - The fabulous restoration really allowed this film's special qualities to hit home in a way they never did before.

And Criterion's excellent release of Hellman's 60s westerns has also prompted me to bump Ride in the Whirlwind up about ten places.

Oh, and I need to mention my top twenty orphan from last go-round: Tex Avery's hilarious Deputy Droopy - the great comedy western we could never find.

I found it, it's called A Ticket to Tomahawk!

zedz wrote:Oh, and I need to mention my top twenty orphan from last go-round: Tex Avery's hilarious Deputy Droopy - the great comedy western we could never find.

Is that the one with the robber going to ever more frantic lengths to outpace Droopy and his mule, only to find Droopy having easily caught up? (I like to think it anticipates the mysteriously transporting murderers from slasher films!)

colinr0380 wrote:

zedz wrote:Oh, and I need to mention my top twenty orphan from last go-round: Tex Avery's hilarious Deputy Droopy - the great comedy western we could never find.

Is that the one with the robber going to ever more frantic lengths to outpace Droopy and his mule, only to find Droopy having easily caught up? (I like to think it anticipates the mysteriously transporting murderers from slasher films!)

It's one where they're trying to break into the jailhouse without waking the sleeping sherrif. So every time they need to scream / make a very loud noise they have to run miles away into the hills.

zedz wrote:And Criterion's excellent release of Hellman's 60s westerns has also prompted me to bump Ride in the Whirlwind up about ten places.

I included this one too, and put it quite highly. I was kind of blown away by it, not expecting anything of this quality.

Reminder that the deadline is only two days away. I need at least ten lists to even bother compiling and only have six so far, so if you're reading this, make a top 50 and submit!

One more day to submit! Hint for results thus far: One of the films in the Top 5 last time is not even in the Top 50 so far

Just looked at the results of the past list for the first time. As much as I love Mann, I'm really surprised that Man of the West was the winner! (It's somewhere in my list, but really not among my favorites of his.)

Thirteen lists submitted so far. No film has appeared on every list. However, three have appeared on 12/13 lists-- and I wasn't the hold out on any of them! These three films were all helmed by different directors. Additionally, all three were released in three different sequential decades. Only one of the three films appeared in the Top 10 last time.

My fiftieth film is not a good film, but I've always had an odd affection for it in all its glorious bizarre obscurity. Spencer Tracy in king vidors 1940 technicolor spectacular "northwest passage" it's a fun little oddity with cannibalism on the pre revolutionary frontier. And more memorable to me than seven men from now or the proposition, which are possibly better films that I had contending as well for that final slot but which I remember very little of.

movielocke wrote:My fiftieth film is not a good film, but I've always had an odd affection for it in all its glorious bizarre obscurity. Spencer Tracy in king vidors 1940 technicolor spectacular "northwest passage" it's a fun little oddity with cannibalism on the pre revolutionary frontier. And more memorable to me than seven men from now or the proposition, which are possibly better films that I had contending as well for that final slot but which I remember very little of.

I love that film! It starts off looking like it’s going to be a rather stiff MGM adventure picture but winds up being an ultra-gritty, quasi-Platoon of its era as it depicts the Rangers fighting Indians and starvation into Lake Champlain and Canada. Unrelentingly good and not appreciated at its true value. But unfortunately I (rather rashly perhaps) didn't consider it a western and so didn't include it.

Well that's encouraging to hear. I haven't watched it in ten or fifteen years and have been a bit trepidatious about spinning up my DVD since I am worried I won't find it as fun as I once did.

I'll third it as a great deal of harsh fun if not sure if it is a western.

List closes tonight, so you really have til tomorrow morning when I wake up to submit your last-minute list, as per usual. No edits allowed for submitted lists unless it's to add A Ticket to Tomahawk as your number one. Fourteen lists so far and, uh, this list will certainly be in a different order than the last one

I think it is a western because mileau wise and style wise I feel like it fits, besides, it was an orphan last time, so at least one other person thought it was a western, once.

I haven't seen it but indians plus the frontier equals western

Okay, while we wait, one last clue after tallying up all the responses so far, in Two Truths and a Lie style:

A The current number one film is in black and white
B The same actor appears in the top three films
C No Anthony Mann films made the top ten

The top section of our list looks radically different, so think hard before guessing!

Surely C is the lie, because that would just be silly. And if number one is indeed in black-and-white, I'm guessing it's Stagecoach or My Darling Clementine, with Stagecoach having the advantage IF the shared actor is a lead actor. (If it's a supporting actor that's way too complicated for me to figure out.) Once Upon a Time in the West is another Fonda film with a good chance of making the top three, but I can't think of a strong third candidate.

Of course, if there are indeed no Mann films in the top ten, all bets are off, and you should be ashamed of yourselves!

domino harvey wrote:I haven't seen it but indians plus the frontier equals western

I'm tempted to buy that argument. On the other hand, it's the 18th century, the Seven Years' War to be specific, and it's in the northeast near the Canadian border, so maybe not quite "the frontier" (?). It's more of a historical war film (Brits vs. French & Mohawks). But then I defeated my own logic by including instead the similar-in-time-and-space Drums Along the Mohawk on the list - I'd put Northwest Passage ahead of that one, even though I like both.

I'll wager A is true at least and that Red River is the winner.

I'll give you all one last hint: the number one film stars neither Mary Kate nor Ashley Olsen. Sorry How the West Was Fun fans!

Submissions closed, results soon

While we wait / I don't want the big tally post to be at the bottom of the page: 14 lists for this round versus 16 for the previous round. Only six members who participated last time contributed to this edition.