Jimmy (James) Stewart Westerns

[MikeBSG]

A great (non-Western) Stewart performance from the Sixties is in "Flight of the Phoenix," which is a terrific movie.

[mrsl]

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Charlie Chaplin Fan:

You don't have to 'steal' yourself to watch the Stewart/Mann movies. Jimmy gets banged up a lot but he himself, never gets as mean and/or heartless as Henry Fonda did in some of his later films. Personally, I never will get tired of Liberty Valence for either Wayne or Stewart. They are both great in it, but my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie will always be Two Rode Together with Richard Widmark. There's just something about that movie - I'm not sure if it's the acting, the scenery, the story or just the camaraderie between the two main guys.

[stuart.uk]

I just thought of a link between The Two Rode Together and The Alamo, both with leading lady Linda Crystal. In The Alamo Crystal asks Wayne's Davy Crocket would he still have helped her if she was 60 yrs old and wrinkled, but conceeded that she thought he would. In The Two Rode Together, Stewart is cast against type, in the sense he's cynical and is out for what he can get. He rescued Crystal from the Indians and stood up for her back in civilization when confronted with the bigotry of the so called respectable people. Would he have still have done so if Crystal hadn't have been young and attractive.

However, I think I should still point out, both Wayne and Stewart themselves at the time were nearing 60 and that a woman of 60 was hardly likely to be old and wrinkled

[charliechaplinfan]

I will get to Jimmy Stewart's westerns, I don't tend to prioritise Westerns, if my mind is going to wander during a movie it will usually be during a western but Jimmy Stewart like John Wayne is too big a persona to ignore. Perhaps Liberty Valance wasn't the best place for me to start on a Jimmy Stewart western.

[RedRiver]

"Destry" is a good starting point. It's likeable old Jimmy in fairly light material. The Anthony Mann projects were important to his career, as well as to the growth of the genre. Dark and uncompromising, they're sometimes called Western Noir. There are better westerns. I prefer Mann's modern day crime stories. But if you want to see James Stewart on a horse, Anthony's your Mann.

[stuart.uk]

Spoiler

Destrey Rides Again and The Far Country are in some ways similiar.

Stewart's hero in both films has 2 girls interested in him. In Destrey has the so called unsuitable dance hall girl Marlene Dietrich and the nice girl, played by an actress I don't know the name of, such was her impact. In TFC we have Ruth Roman, the saloon owner, not as bad a reputation as Dietrich in Destrey, but still unsuitable compared to the nice Corrine Calvert. In both films Dietrich and Roman are odds on to land Stewart but give their lives to save his, leaving him to marry the nice girls. While I said the nice actress in Destrey didn't make much of an impact, Calvert in TFC did to the point I was glad it was her that ended up with Stewart.

If TFC has a weakness it's at the end. It's one of the great shoot-outs, but when Stewart is battling it out with John Mcintire, the bodies of Jack Elam, Robert Wilkie and Ruth Roman mysteriously disappear from the streets of Dawson