westerns

[skippy]

How many westerns was Clint in?  

[Matt]

Clint starred in ten westerns:

A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Hang 'em High
Two Mules for Sister Sara
Joe Kidd
High Plains Drifter
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Pale Rider
Unforgiven

Before these, he was in "the worst western ever made" (in his words) Ambush at Cimarron Pass.  He didn't have the starring role in that one.

[Brendan]

What The Beguild Matt?

[Matt]

The Beguiled isn't a western.  It's a "Southern."  

[KC]

And Paint Your Wagon is chopped liver?

But I agree with Matt's "canonical ten."  

Even before Ambush at Cimarron Pass, Clint had a brief bit part in yet another Western, Star in the Dust (1956). So, in all, he was "in" twelve Westerns, starred in ten.

[Daisy Abigael]

Hey!  What about The First Traveling Saleslady?  

I don't think we can discount comedy and musical westerns from the genre, you know.

Does that make it 14?

And both Coogan's Bluff and Bronco Billy have some claim to being modern/contempory westerns at least in part...

[AKA23]

I wouldn't place either Coogan's Bluff or Bronco Billy in the "Western" genre. I'd say the former is more of a crime drama while the latter is a comedy drama. They may owe something to the whole genre of the westerns that may have inspired certain parts of the story, but there is nothing about either film that would, in my mind at least, classify either as westerns--contemporary modern or otherwise.  

[Daisy Abigael]

Agreed.

But in both movies Clint plays variations on his western character.

They are semi-detached examples of the genre.

And by the way - being a comedy, comedy-drama, horror, musical, romance, crime etc movie DOESN'T stop a film from also being a western.

The western elements that define the genre cut across the whole spectrum of story types.

Unforgiven is drama.  High Plains Drifter is about law and order every bit as much as Dirty Harry.  Paint Your Wagon is musical comedy.  Two Mules is adventure/action/comedy.

You can argue that "contempory" westerns aren't westerns at all - but many many critics would not agree.

I s Bronco Billy any less a western than, say, Junior Bonner, Hud, The Rounders etc?

And the opening sequence of Coogan's Bluff involves Clint as a western sherrif chasing an indian across the desert!  How much more western do you get?

Personally I like my westerns to stay within the historical period 1840-ish to 1900-ish but many disagree.

If Coogan had been an 1890s cowboy lawman coming to the big city - NOBODY would argue that it wasn't a western!

[AKA23]

Good points Daisy. I think both were heavily influenced by the concept of the Western and the genre in general. Does anyone think NO, they ARE Westerns, and disagree with us here. Tell us why you consider them westerns.

[ajay]

Clint starred in ten westerns:

A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Hang 'em High
Two Mules for Sister Sara
Joe Kidd
High Plains Drifter
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Pale Rider
Unforgiven

Before these, he was in "the worst western ever made" (in his words) Ambush at Cimarron Pass.  He didn't have the starring role in that one.

paint your wagon was also a western