WESTERNS
Why is it that westerns get so many great lines? I don't know, but they do. Maybe that's what I love about them. Note that I am excluding TV westerns from this list - which is why Lonesome Dove isn't on it.
10. Blazing Saddles
While I will argue that Blazing Saddles is the funniest movie ever made, it is also a western. However, it ranks lowest on this poll because it is really a comedy, in a western setting (well, for most of the movie).
9. Silverado
Honestly, I just always liked this one. Small town ruled by rich jerk, a heterogeneous band of heroes, and a great quote: "I don't want to kill you, and you don't wanna be dead."
8. High Noon
From a moral standpoint, this has got to be one of the best westerns ever. One man standing up for what he believes in, when everyone else tells him to back down. Plus, it has Gary Cooper in it.
7. Rio Bravo
John Wayne. Dean Martin. Ricky Nelson. And my favorite song from any western ever: My Rifle, Pony and Me".
6. A Fistful of Dollars
Why is this great movie at #6? Because there are even better ones below. But the scene where he walks past the undertaker and signals for two? Classic. My favorite of the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns.
5. Stagecoach
John Wayne's first starring role, as an outlaw stranded with a group of people on a stagecoach traveling through an Indian uprising.
4. True Grit
"Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!" 'Nuff said?
3. The Outlaw Josey Wales
Clint gets three, John Wayne gets three. I always loved this movie about the man tormented by the murder of his family and haunted by his past. Plus, it has some great lines in it:
- "Buzzards got to eat, same as worms."
- "Endeavor to persevere."
- "Are you going to skin those smokewagons or start whistling Dixie?"
2. Unforgiven
The best of the more modern westerns, by far.
- "Well, he should have armed himself if he's going to decorate his saloon with my friend."
1. The Magnificent Seven
My bar none favorite western movie. I love the crazy casting, and how Steve McQueen does his best (usually successfully) to steal the scene from Yul Brynner. Another movie with great quotes and a fun ensemble cast.
- "We deal in lead, friend."
- "That was the greatest shot I've ever seen! / The worst! I was aiming at his horse."
- "Nobody throws me my own guns and says run. Nobody."
- "As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83."
6 comments:
A good list although I would put Outlaw Josey Wales in at number 1. My number two would be the Wild Bunch. What is your opinion of it?
ColKG
I like story and the acting of The Wild Bunch, but its one of Sam Peckinpah's blood porn westerns, which I don't like so much. I only like copious amounts of claret spilt in my zombie films.
"Blood Porn", I am going to have to remember that.
ColKG
Hi Kids, I'm going to keep it positive and sunny side up. I dig "The Wild Bunch" a huge amount, have never seen "High Noon," and must remain mum regarding the craptastic waste of film at #10. I require salary to watch Mel. A high salary. Howsabout "Paint Your Wagon"? Clint Eastwood singing to the trees!! Gotta love it! Lee Marvin in a duet? Awe inspiring!
I am not a huge Mel Brooks fan - many of his films just don't make me laugh, or its a rare chuckle (example: High Anxiety). Blazing Saddles is a spectacular exception to that rule, but to each his own, Chuck! I left off several very good westerns: Hang 'Em High; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; McLintock; The Sons of Katie Elder; The Shootist; and so on, ad nauseum.
My favorite Blazing Saddle story happened several years ago when my buddies ran a $2 cinema in Salisbury NC. They picked up a copy of Blazing saddles and ran it as a midnight movie for a while. Nothing like seeing the movie on the big screen. There is a college in town that is predominantly African American. A large group showed for the movie. none had ever seen Blazing Saddles before. I was helping at the concessions stand, about twenty minutes into the movie when the group came back into the lobby in a righteous rage. Apparently in their college studies they had never been exposed to satire. They threatened to call the NAACP and protest the theater until my buddy gave them a handful of free passes and then everything was okay.
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