Western Movie Favorites

By Ruth Ellen Gruber



American National Public Radio (NPR) runs a "western starter kit for the movie-going tenderfoot" -- a list of key western movies selected by correspondent Bob Mondello.

I settled on five films representing different styles — Shane (1953), a classic traditional Western; The Searchers (1956), John Ford's complex epic about the treatment of Native Americans; The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah's revisionist Vietnam-era look at violence; Blazing Saddles (1974), Mel Brooks' romp through Western clichés; and Unforgiven (1992), a Clint Eastwood riff on disillusioned old-timers that's often referred to as a eulogy for the movie Western.

Listeners were asked to add their favorites..... Me? I would add The Frisco Kid, Limonade Joe -- and maybe a Winnetou movie....and a Gene Autry or two....