It is unusual from the modern point of view to see a movie trailer that has the main actors talking about the movie and I don’t think it’s an efficient way to present a movie, but I believe this one used the approach to it’s advantage.
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John Wayne vs Clint Eastwood – part 1: from pre-classic to classic to revisionist western hero
John Wayne, who’s name is inseparably attached to the Classic Western, once said that he thought that the 20s and 30s (pre-classic) Western heroes were all too clean and perfect.
They never drank or smoked. They never wanted to go to bed with a beautiful girl. They never had a fight. A heavy might throw a chair at them, and they just looked surprised and didn’t fight in this spirit.
John Wayne
While he wanted to create a new kind of hero. The one who isn’t that clean and plain and who responses in an adequate way.
If someone throws a chair at you, hell, you pick up a chair and belt him right back.
John Wayne
The fundumential difference between Wayne’s and Eastwood’s film characters is this line of John Wayne’s quote:
I was trying to play a man who gets dirty, who sweats sometimes, who enjoys kissing a gal he likes, who gets angry, who fights clean whenever possible but will fight dirty if he has to.
John Wayne
Basically Wayne’s characters retained the internal principle of a fair fight. Clint Eastwood had to take it a step further:
John Henry “Doc” Holliday – the Deadly Dentist in the classic western era – part 3
The Outlaw (1943)
“Doc” Holliday in the outlaw has nothing in common with his historical prototype, except for three things – his name, his reputation as a gunslinger and his fear of dying in bed. Everything else about this character in the “Outlaw” is a total fantasy on the topic.
Doc Holliday in “The Outlaw” (1943)
Doc here is lot older than he could possibly be, has a totally different personality and there are no mentions of his tuberculosis (or any other terminal disease).
This film has a quality of a quirky dream, as if your subconscious has created the strange but fun characters out of the images of the famous gunfighters stored in your mind. Even the sudden reference to Doc’s fear of dying in bed happens in such different and weird circumstances as it tends to happen in dreams.
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The Outlaw (1943)
Considering the very daring for it’s time sexual innuendos and images and general absurd “dreamy” qualities of the plot, the film is very enjoyable, as long as you are not expecting a serious ( or God forbid historical) western.
John Henry “Doc” Holliday – The Deadly Dentist in the Classic Western Era – links to later posts:
John Henry “Doc” Holliday – The Deadly Dentist in the Classic Western Era – links to previous posts:
Wyatt Earp on ‘Doc’ Holliday
I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.
Wyatt Earp
Best Western fight scenes: “Lonely are the Brave” – “one arm behind my back”
This fight scene from “Lonely are the Brave” with Kirk Douglas is spectacular, imaginative, brilliantly choreographed and highly original:
John Henry “Doc” Holliday – the Deadly Dentist in the classic western era – part 2
My Darling Clementine (1946)
It’s pretty hard to attribute this film to the Gunfight in the OK Corral story re-telling since it has almost nothing to do with the actual history. Considering that “Doc” Holliday here is a surgeon instead of a dentist, it can be safely said the movie wasn’t intended to be one either.
Doc and Wyatt
Doc and Wyatt in “My Darling Clementine” (1946)
It is easier to list the similarities with the actual history, rather than trying to point out the inconsistencies since there are so many. Therefore there is no point in going into the details why Doc here couldn’t possible have anything to do with his historical prototype, as well as that his friendship with Wyatt in the circumstances shown in the movie is highly unlikely.
For example it’s hard to believe in Doc, the Southern gentleman, taking kindly how Wyatt knocks him down with the pistol handle in a saloon ( should be read as “humiliates him”). Yet again, since it is so obviously purposefully not historical, it can’t be judged in this context at all.
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The general tone of the film is a lot darker and a lot more daunting comparing to the 50s “Gunfight at the OK Corral” and almost gives a feel of a noir.
The story also is a lot grimmer. The film has it’s brilliant moments story-wise such as the scene with the Shakespeare reading in the saloon. But generally the strength of this film is not in the script but in the cinematography.
“My Darling Clementine” (1946)
John Henry “Doc” Holliday – The Deadly Dentist in the Classic Western Era – links to later posts:
John Henry “Doc” Holliday – The Deadly Dentist in the Classic Western Era – links to previous posts:
Wyatt’s description of Doc (1896)
Mad, merry scamp with heart of gold and nerves of steel; who in the dark years that followed stood at my elbow in many a battle to the death.
Wyatt Earp
“Lonely are the Brave” – a comment on the dying Old West
Lonely are the brave (1962) is an epitaph to a true Western Hero.
Set in the 60s, this modern day western is about the changes in the American Society that are fueled by the technological progress.
The camera work emphasizes the idea – it is the trademark static Classic Western Camera for the majority of shots, with a sudden moment of a very modern shaky handheld camera. This modern moment happens as the technology occupies the screen – cars, trucks and highways.
Jack Burns (played by Kirk Douglas) is an embodiment of the Classic Western values. He is a loner, he is a drifter. He is ready and willing to accept challenges and he fights fair. He doesn’t interfere with other people business and doesn’t let anyone interfere with his.
Jack Burns: Have you ever noticed how many fences there’re getting to be? And the signs they got on them: no hunting, no hiking, no admission, no trespassing, private property, closed area, start moving, go away, get lost, drop dead!
From Lonely are the brave (1962)
He is an individualist – he cares about himself and those who are close to him. To those who are close he is loyal. He is prepared to break into a jail to help his friend. It’s irrational, it’s not effective. But it’s a mindset.
Once in jail he finds out his friend doesn’t want his help. He is not planning on running away from the jail and going into hiding, he wants to go back to his family with “all the debts paid”. Unlike Jack, he has accepted the world as it is and even started liking it this way.
But Jack can’t change. Probably, he can break, as is suggested by the lifeless eyes he has at the very end of the movie, but this sort of change equals to death. He is only alive while he lives his way. As someone on the constant quest for freedom, he can’t stay in jail.
Jack Burns: I am telling you, I won’t serve a year in this place. I couldn’t. My guts get all tight just by saying about it. I’ll go nuts, I’ll kill somebody. No, amigo, I’ll kill somebody, sure.
From Lonely are the brave (1962)
He breaks out of the jail this time and fights his way up the mountains against a modern “posse”, which includes a helicopter, dragging his horse Whiskey along with him.
Jack Burns (played by Kirk Douglas) in “Lonely are the Brave” – he’d rather risk everything than stays imprisoned.
He hasn’t saved himself by leaving his horse – although it might have seemed like the only option at the time and he tries to, he just can’t go through with it – it would go against his nature.
Jack, with his stubbornness, bravery and skills can fight individuals and win, he can even make his stand against individuals with technology. But he can’t fight the whole society – it will eventually get him for not “playing by the rules”.
Jack Burns (played by Kirk Douglas) in “Lonely are the Brave” – classic western hero VS modern reality
In his mind it is still a different era. He believes is entitled to live his life exactly the way he wants it and there is no reason why that would be anybody else’s business.
Desk sergeant: You mean to say you got no identification at all?
Jack Burns: That’s right.
Desk sergeant: No draft card, no social security, no discharge? No insurance, no driver’s license, no nothing?
Jack Burns: No nothing.
Desk sergeant: Look, cowboy, you can’t go around with no identication. It’s against the law. How are people going to know who you are?
Jack Burns: I don’t need a card to figure out who I am. I already know.From Lonely are the brave (1962)
And the modern reality doesn’t take that kindly. In the very utilitarian way it doesn’t need people like Jack Burns – they are too independent and strong-willed, they are the destabilizing element in the society. The brave pioneers don’t have a place anymore – with no more territory to conquer.
John Wayne – The whole idea of our business is illusion.
The whole idea of our business is illusion. They’re getting away from that now putting electric squibs in livers and blowing them up in slow motion and having blood all over everything. I mean it’s not that there is more violence in the pictures today, it’s that it’s done with such a bad taste! That people turn their stomachs not their emotional insides are affected. That turns their stomachs.
John Wayne, 1975
Pre-Classic Westerns – part 1: Cimarron (1931)
Cimarron (1931)
The Oklahoma run
The movie is done on a big scale and has some very powerful cinematography – e.g. the run for the new territory in Oklahoma.
It has it’s smart moments storywise, like when the woman named Dixie Lee (played by Estelle Taylor) tricks the main character into losing the piece of land he wanted so badly to claim. But the general pace of the film is pretty slow and repetitive with a very pretentious ending.
Yancy (played by Richard Dix)
Yancy (portrayed by Richard Dix)
While Classic Western heroes roam the land appearing to be a magnet for trouble and enjoying the fights and challenges that are coming their way, Yancy is keen on participating in building the new world. He is similiar to the scientists excited by the new discoveries happening in front of their eyes.
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The film is considered to be the first western to win the Academy Awards, although it is pretty much on the borderline between a western and a period drama.
Classic Western Movie Genre 