A comment needing direction.

[mrsl]

Never let it be said that I agree or disagree with anybody's list. A list is a personal thing and no one has a right to counter it. With that in mind, I'm just saying this:

At least two or three people have listed Stars in my Crown on their western lists of favorites. Although it is presented in the west, I think of that wonderful movie as a marvelous family genre, more than a western. Similarily, I would say the same about All Mine to Give or I'd Climb the Highest Mountain. Feel free to shout me down, I'm just commenting on something you might want to hold back on in case we do a 'Family' genre listing. Of course, nobody is saying you can't use the same movie in two different genres.

Okay, I'm ready, give it to me with both guns blazing.

Anne

[Mr. Arkadin]

I put it my list because I see it as a western, but I agree it could be seen in a variety of genres. It could stand alongside films like Our Vines have Tender Grapes (1946), etc., but it's how each participant defines the western genre that determines what is placed within.

I don't consider Tokyo Drifter, Bad Day at Black Rock, or Seven Samurai westerns, but to some people these films have the elements that constitute that catagory. As I said before on the last countdown, I don't care who wins this thing, but I'm very interested on others tastes and POV. In some of these lists I have found new films to enjoy. That alone has made it worth it to me.

[Moraldo Rubini]

I don't consider Tokyo Drifter, Bad Day at Black Rock, or Seven Samurai westerns, but to some people these films have the elements that constitute that catagory.

The Magnificent Seven was a remake of the Seven Samurai. Doesn't Tokyo Drifter have all the elements of western, right down to the saloon brawl? Too much of a stretch?

[Mr. Arkadin]

I know that Mag7 is a remake, but to me 7Samourai is a Samourai film. Films have been remade in other genres forever, many times as a way to disguise them and get the same crowd to spend their money again.

As far as TD, I see it more as a gangster style film. These are just my own catagorizations though. Personally, It doesn't matter to me if someone calls Bringing up Baby a western if that's how they personally feel.

[ChiO]

THE SEVEN SAMOURAI is an Eastern -- from a USA geo-centric point of view -- but if the polling guidelines allow self-definition of what constitutes a Western, then the guidelines allow THE SEVEN SAMOURAI to be a Western.

Even though I -- who put STARS IN MY CROWN at No. 1 because I think it is that marvelous -- would agree that it is not the archetypical Western, I saw it in a film class entitled "The Westerns of Jacques Tourneur", and the IMBd classifies it as, among others categories, a Western (yes -- I checked, in anticipation of a question). So in the universe of my self-definition, it is the best and archetypical Western.

I should have had CITIZEN KANE on my list -- Kane was born in the West, after all.

[klondike]

As long as we're tangenting off onto the related topicality of how broad, or how narrow, the definition of a cinematic Western is, and why it might require the boundaries it commonly claims, allow me to re-run a new-thread paragraph that I originally posted last autumn:

It's all up to you Folks:

Is The Valley of Gwangi a "Western" or not?

I mean, it is chock-a-block with ropin', ridin' & roughhousin', all done by a big cast of cowboys, vaqueroes and Wild West performers, it does feature hidden desert canyons, gun-toting rivals, a romantic love-hate reunion, Catholic friars, an engaging street waif and a Gypsy curse, and takes place entirely in and around a remote Mexican town.
Of course, there is that little plot device thing with those stop-motion dinosaurs, but no reason to get picayune, right?

What's your opinion?

[mrsl]

Klondike:

I didn't want to pirate any of the other threads with my question, but seeing the western lists brought the thought to my mind. I do recall your thread, but since I never saw, and haven't yet, seen the Valley of Gwangi, I doubt if I responded, which is probably why I didn't search for it before doing my own. So, although I used Stars in my Crown, the question is the same, does location alone determine a western, or are there other aspects of the movie that classify it as western?

Anne

[MikeBSG]

Speaking of things that qualify as Westerns or may not, what about "Drums Along the Mohawk" and "Northwest Passage"? Or at the other end of time time scale, "Hud" and "Electric Horseman"?

[Ann Harding]

It's true that Stars in My Crown is a bit of a piece of Americana as well as a western. I usually like a lot films that belongs to various genres: when you watch them you never know what's going to happen...
I also included Pursued which is in equal measure film noir, psychoanalytical drama and western... So is Colorado Territory, a film noir/western based on W.R. Burnett's High Sierra.

[MissGoddess]

I should have had CITIZEN KANE on my list -- Kane was born in the West, after all.

Hee!! And the movie is TOTALLY influenced by John Ford, John Ford and John Ford!!!

So, it qualifies.

[MissGoddess]

Funny, I didn't include The Misfits, one of my all time favorite movies, because I didn't think of it in terms of a "western" though I suppose it could be, in similar ways you might think of Lonely Are the Brave as a western. But are they if they are more modern day?

What about civil war stories? Something like Friendly Persuasion? That movie is like Stars in My Crown in that it's kind of a family type movie, too.

[ChiO]

John Ford, John Ford, John Ford?

Did he direct any Westerns?

Well, Missy, I'm a-lookin' for a gunfight in the "Favorite Western" Corral between Ford and Tourneur for the champeenship (Stars in My) Crown. If Pappy wins, we're sending in the Cat People, The Leopard Man, and a Curse of the Demon (and maybe a stray Zombie).

[MissGoddess]

John Ford, John Ford, John Ford?

Did he direct any Westerns?

Well, Missy, I'm a-lookin' for a gunfight in the "Favorite Western" Corral between Ford and Tourneur for the champeenship (Stars in My) Crown. If Pappy wins, we're sending in the Cat People, The Leopard Man, and a Curse of the Demon (and maybe a stray Zombie).

That would absolutely DELIGHT me if you promise Tom Konway is included in that bunch! He's a dream boat!