***52 Westerns in 52 Weeks Challenge***

Week 27: ****Criterion Approved

I’ve had my eyes on The Westerner for a while now, over the past year William Wyler has shot up my favorite directors list (he wasn’t even on it a year ago) and considering he directed one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve ever seen in the western genre in The Big Country I was ready for this Gary Cooper starring western to nail the vein of my taste that keeps me coming back to these movies. And though I sadly wouldn’t call this one of the better westerns or Wylers I’ve seen it still delivered on that vein of my taste very well. To start off it should almost go without saying at this point that I loved Wyler’s directorial vision, once again every shot in a movie of his looked great with some especially beautiful western skies and the challenges he faced in directing this with the massive herds of cows make it one of the more impressive directorial feats I’ve seen in his filmography in terms of the scale and difficulty and this combined with something like The Big Country paints a clear picture of how he’d go on to land the job directing one of the most ambitious productions of all time. And as far as the acting goes I was pleasantly surprised by Gary Cooper, for no reason I’ve always been a little skeptical of him and saw him as a kind of Kevin Costner stoic figure but he had a few really charismatic scenes in here that have finally fully convinced me I was wrong about that and beyond those he gave a consistently great performance in the lead. Next to him Walter Brennan won an Academy award for this role and though it wasn’t earned I really enjoyed him here, he nails this drunken judge character about as good as anyone could and his fun performance really carried and created a lot of the soul of this movie. Where this faltered just a bit for me and didn’t make for a higher rating was in the story, it’s not anything I can really pick out in particular it’s just an impact issue and sadly neither the dramatic feud between Cole and the Judge or the romance between Cole and Jane Ellen mustered a lasting impact on me which is really surprising to say when I think about how pretty much every other story I’ve seen in Wyler direct has worked really well on me. And with some really good music to top it all off I’m happy to say William Wyler has still yet to give me a bad movie, the story may have underwhelmed but the acting, screenplay, and technical work more than made up for it.

***52 Westerns in 52 Weeks Challenge***

Week 27: ****Criterion Approved

I’ve had my eyes on The Westerner for a while now, over the past year William Wyler has shot up my favorite directors list (he wasn’t even on it a year ago) and considering he directed one of the greatest accomplishments I’ve ever seen in the western genre in The Big Country I was ready for this Gary Cooper starring western to nail the vein of my taste that keeps me coming back to these movies. And though I sadly wouldn’t call this one of the better westerns or Wylers I’ve seen it still delivered on that vein of my taste very well. To start off it should almost go without saying at this point that I loved Wyler’s directorial vision, once again every shot in a movie of his looked great with some especially beautiful western skies and the challenges he faced in directing this with the massive herds of cows make it one of the more impressive directorial feats I’ve seen in his filmography in terms of the scale and difficulty and this combined with something like The Big Country paints a clear picture of how he’d go on to land the job directing one of the most ambitious productions of all time. And as far as the acting goes I was pleasantly surprised by Gary Cooper, for no reason I’ve always been a little skeptical of him and saw him as a kind of Kevin Costner stoic figure but he had a few really charismatic scenes in here that have finally fully convinced me I was wrong about that and beyond those he gave a consistently great performance in the lead. Next to him Walter Brennan won an Academy award for this role and though it wasn’t earned I really enjoyed him here, he nails this drunken judge character about as good as anyone could and his fun performance really carried and created a lot of the soul of this movie. Where this faltered just a bit for me and didn’t make for a higher rating was in the story, it’s not anything I can really pick out in particular it’s just an impact issue and sadly neither the dramatic feud between Cole and the Judge or the romance between Cole and Jane Ellen mustered a lasting impact on me which is really surprising to say when I think about how pretty much every other story I’ve seen in Wyler direct has worked really well on me. And with some really good music to top it all off I’m happy to say William Wyler has still yet to give me a bad movie, the story may have underwhelmed but the acting, screenplay, and technical work more than made up for it.

🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

The Westerner is a decent little western from Mr Wyler. It is goofier than I expected and feels many times largely as a comedy, without fully committing. This makes the movie feel a little disconnected as I wasn't always sure how to view a scene. Also the romance part of the story was quite a bore.

The Westerner is a decent little western from Mr Wyler. It is goofier than I expected and feels many times largely as a comedy, without fully committing. This makes the movie feel a little disconnected as I wasn't always sure how to view a scene. Also the romance part of the story was quite a bore.