Westerns

A couple of days ago a woman reporter writing in The Times said she had just seen about 15 western films, one after the other, to find out what it was about them that attracted other people - chiefly men I suppose. Her photograph showed her toting a six-shooter and wearing a cowboy hat (a letter to the paper days later informed her and us that she was wearing it back to front). I wasn't impressed by her choice of westerns, can't even remember any one of them now, but here's my list of ten, not in any particular order.
SHANE: a man-on-his-own type fighting a cause he believes in because of his devotion to a family trying to make ends meet against a villianous land-seeker. Alan Ladd magnificent of course; too short but apparently they dug trenches for other taller actors. The villain is not your cardboard cut-out nasty piece of work but a man with a reason for wishing to see these "sod busters" off what he believes to be "his territory". Didn't he fight the indians for it? You can't fault his reasons only his methods.
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: If only for the music. But it has some of the best heroes and villains around then: Yul Brynner, Steve Mcqueen, the limited but always watchable Charles Bronson and an uncharacteristically non-suave Robert Vaughan who made two good films, this one and Bullitt then reverted to type in rubbish and now in Hustle; and on the villainy side, Eli Wallach.
HIGH NOON: Gary Cooper, getting on in years but still magnificent, having to stand on his own against some nasty guys who are arriving at noon to "get him", the town's inhabitants unwilling to help him. There was another film with Fred Macmurray, not so good, in which the hero stands alone until the very end when the town's folk decide to help.
MAN OF THE WEST: Gary Cooper again, even older but still wonderful, as a one-time crook who has to defend himself and Julie London against some of the vilest members of a gang he was once part of. The great Lee J. Cobb was the leader of the gang. Much admired by the French New Wave I'm told.
TRUE GRIT: John Wayne at his most ornery best helping a teenage girl, who'll pay him well, to find the killer of her father. Re-made now by the Coen brothers, more faithful to the novel I'm told. Wayne won an oscar.
Watch this space: another five tomorrow.