“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist,
but you have ceased to live.” – MARK TWAIN.
*******
Contemporary global developments such as the protracted Russia-Ukraine war, the centuries-old Israel-Palestine situation, the growing restiveness in Iran and China and the US – Iran JCPOA nuclear deal impasse, are getting so critical and tension-filled that one is either driven to boredom or succumbed to ailments that lead to scary, paralyzing results such as high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, migraine, ulcer, etc.
To escape these cruel impositions by our fellow humans on humanity itself, I take refuge and grant myself adequate time for solitude.
I access a movie warehouse internet link given me by my grandson that has a collection of thousands of movies – new and old – in all genres.
To say that I love western flicks is an understatement.
I am actually addicted to cowboy films especially those starring Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Charlon Heston, Rory Calhoun, Gregory Peck, Glen Ford, Alan Ladd, John Wayne, William Holden, Paul Newman, George Montgomery, Charles Bronson, Audie Murphy and of course Clint Eastwood.
I did a movie marathon one time when there was a break in the UAAP and NCAA wars. I clicked “The Shootist,” from a John Wayne list, Paul Newman’s “Hombre” and Clint’s “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
I consider these three as classic westerns which I never tire of watching because I just love their individual acting, the photography and production and the storyline.
I am not technically an expert on moviemaking nor on rating movies. Like I said, I just love cowboy films.
Since childhood, I love seeing my movie heroes triumph in the end alive and not dead. It makes me happy when my heroes subdue or kill the ‘contravidas’ and all the villains and survive the attack.
But in “the Shootist,” Wayne, a retiring US Marshall dying of cancer, got killed, shot in the back by a treacherous saloon bartender after liquidating three of his sworn enemies who wanted his scalp badly.
Wth his usual swagger and his Southern cowboy accent, Wayne, as JB Books, aptly portrayed the attitude of a gunslinger who had barely a month to live.
In the script, Books was celebrating his birthday in the hotel saloon while three angry men waited to kill him. They did not know that Books was already terminally dying.
Thematically, somehow I found similarities in Wayne’s portrayal of the eldest son in “The Sons of Katie Elder.”
Paul Newman is forever number one in methodical acting. In “Hombre,” a 1967 Western action drama, he is John Russell, a man raised by American Indians in Arizona, who accidentally got involved in a situation he did not like and did not create.
He returned to his hometown to collect his inheritance and found the people not so friendly enough to welcome him
.
Forced by co-passengers in the stagecoach he was riding to save the life of a woman who expressed her racist dislike against the ways of native Indians, Russell faced a gang of stagecoach hold-uppers led by Cicero Grimes (Richard Boone of Have Gun Will Travel fame).
With a film budget of just USD5.86M, “Hombre” earned 12M during its run in the US market.
“The Outlaw Josey Wales” is a fast-paced cowboy flick that has revenge as the primary motive. Clint Eastwood plays a farmer whose family was murdered by Union Army men in the closing days of the Civil War.
He joins a Confederate guerilla group in Missouri in his effort to track down his family’s killers.
The action sequences will delight you as they did to me and keep you from drowsing.
As in all Clint’s adventurous and action-filled scripts, I found “…Wales” far more refreshing than the Spaghetti Western (Few Dollars…) trilogy he made before that helped launch him into stardom and world-wide fame.
By the way, Clint Eastwood himself directed “…Wales.” Cheers! (Email feedback to fredlumba@yahoo.com.) GOD BLESS THE PHILIPPINES!
