Blake Lucas pointed this out, and it’s certainly worth highlighting here — 3:10 To Yuma (1957) has been added to the National Film Registry by the Library Of Congress.
It’s the seventh 50s Western to make the Registry, the others being High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), The Naked Spur (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954), The Searchers (1956) and The Tall T (1957). While you can maybe argue the titles (I would’ve gone with Winchester ’73), you certainly can’t complain about the directors they’ve chosen to honor.
So when’s Rio Bravo (1959) gonna get in there?
Hey, Toby. Nice piece. The question for me is how to choose between RED RIVER and RIO BRAVO. I wonder which Hawks western will make it first, and why. It’d also be interesting to know why NAKED SPUR over WINCHESTER 73 (though it’s not a choice I disapprove of), and why THE TALL T over RIDE LONESOME (a very tough call in my book). But right you are, they sure picked the best directors, except for excluding Hawks (so far). JOHNNY GUITAR is great and deserves to be ther, but who’d expect Nick Ray to get in before Hawks? Might say the same thing about Stevens and Zinneman and Daves, but it’s clear that the choices were made because of the iconic nature of the film, not who directed it. On the other hand, the same thing happens with Jim Kitses’ definitive critique HORIZONS WEST, who does select according to director: He devotes chapters to Ford, Mann, Boetticher, Peckinpah, Leone, and Eastwood, but not Hawks. A real head-scratcher, that. Happy Holidays.
As much as people admire Hawks and love his films, he still seems to be somewhat ignored.
Rio Bravo is my favorite 50 Western, my favorite John Wayne movie, my favorite Western period (but not what I consider the best). It perfectly sums up what Hawks was about — the buddy stuff, the professionalism, the cool women, the overlapping improvised dialogue and the overall just plain loopy-ness of the whole thing. He makes it all seem so effortless at times — even when he’s pulling off something like the dialogue-free opening sequence. And for all that, and all those incredible performances, Rio Bravo seems as much like visiting some old friends as it does watching a classic film.
In the new movie Hitch, I think it was Hitchcock talking with his agent, and one of them calls Winchester 73 a piece of crap… Along with Johansson’s Janet Leigh referring to Orson Welles and working on Touch of Evil in a negative way – I only heard her refer to Welles, an actor’s director, in a positive light – it kind of made me wonder what the director/screen writer was grasping at…
“one of them calls Winchester 73 a piece of crap”
Clearly it’s a fantasy.
Winchester 73 in my mind was a top-10 film of the 50s, any genre…
I agree 100%.
I had counted 50s Westerns in the Registry last year and kept a specific note in my head about those, so not sure RED RIVER has not made it–I kind of thought it had. If not, it’s a double heresy with Hawks, who has other films in the Registry but at least three of his Westerns (THE BIG SKY also for me) are among his masterpieces and belong there. RIO BRAVO is my favorite of all his movies (and so many agree with that now)–no reason it can’t be revisiting a great film and a group of beloved friends at the same time and I feel both things watching it. I know it has many partisans who have pushed it for the Registry.
The wider point though is not whether RIO BRAVO has made it yet, or which Mann and Boetticher movies have made it (so will probably have to stand in for all their others for years to come), but which other 50s Westerns are there. What is so depresssing is that this is America’s best genre in its best decade and yet is so under represented in the Registry. Now only 7 films out of 600–think about the Western’s dominance through those years, and the heights that it achieved on all levels of production. Though there are are voices who speak for these movies, it seems like in the end the man who makes the final choices has little appreciation for the treasure trove of great and significant Westerns he has to choose from in the 50s or there would be many more there now.
Look at the love shown in earlier thread here for 2012 DVD releases of, for example, WESTWARD THE WOMEN and THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY, so much more deserving of being there than so many films that are. And yet a popular synthetic Western, so fashionable in its period, which won Oscars, like BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID made it years ago.
In this context, it’s just cause for rejoicing that another great Western from the 50s has made it. Whether you feel it should have been the next one or not, or whether you’d have liked Hawks or someone else to make it before Daves, this is a step in the right direction. If it were up to me, there would be one Western for the period 1946-1962 added every single year.
Yes to all that … and I guess RED RIVER isn’t actually a 50s Western, is it? So maybe the Library of Congress actually has already recognized it–Toby was just listing the 50s Westerns that were in there.
I’m glad to see Daves honored in this way as I think his western output is significant enough to warrant some formal recognition.
Blake mentioned Westward the Women and I also feel that’s a movie worthy of inclusion; Wellman’s westerns are all top flight in my opinion.
Regarding Hawks, I think his commercial success has worked against him, at least from a critical standpoint, in his native country. His reputation is much higher in Europe, particularly in France.
I couldn’t agree more regarding the absence of RIO BRAVO, in particular. I love Blake calling BUTCH CASSIDY “synthetic.” It’s very frustrating to have seen a movie like that honored and the lack of regard for ’50s Westerns in general and RIO BRAVO in particular. RIO BRAVO is one of those films like THE SEARCHERS which I think of as a quintessentially American piece of art, emblematic of the greatness of the movie Western.
Best wishes,
Laura
Just to agree about some of these titles, especially last posts from Colin and Laura–I wanted to say something generally about 50s Westerns in the Registry before (but as in a Western, action is needed, so if we love a film we should write them a letter about it every year until it’s there and I’m going to make that one of my New Year’s Resolutions).
Count me as one more that cannot understand the continuing absence after 600 titles of RIO BRAVO, one of the best movies ever and fully worthy of being our host’s own favorite. Laura said it well “a quintessentially American piece of art.” Is it just too entertaining or something? Too many appealing people among its five stars (all five)? Could Dean Martin’s singing (and Ricky Nelson’s too, for that matter) really be held against it instead of for it? I personally would not want to live in a world without “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me.”
WESTWARD THE WOMEN should be an easy call. I’m sure I don’t even need to explain that to anyone who’s seen it. I’ve written at length elsewhere how woman friendly the genre actually was in classical years and this single film is proof enough while also being one of the more individual Westerns, and it’s just
beautifully done–that dance coda when the music finally comes in has to be one of the more sublime moments in all movies.
Finally, I very emphatically agree with Colin about Daves being represented here. His body of 50 Westerns is exceptionally strong, and quite varied though all marked by his sensibility. For me, his contribution to the genre makes him easily one of its dozen greatest directors. So especially as 3:10 TO YUMA is my favorite of all his Westerns, I was really happy with this choice.
I’d really love to see Day of the Outlaw in there.
Red River was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1990.
Thanks for clearing that up!
Thanks for linking to this, Toby! I agree with everyone’s sentiments here (especially Blake’s eloquent comments). Why, for pity’s sake, does A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN (a cute film, but c’mon!) get into the Registry and RIO BRAVO (and so many other classics) do not? While I’m very happy to see 3:10 TO YUMA, ANATOMY OF A MURDER and the like get in, some of the other choices are real head-scratchers. And does a film from the 90s really need to be preserved at this stage…at least at the expense of countless other films from the 60s and before?
One Glenn Ford picture I hope doesn’t get into the registry is the one I saw for the first time on television a few days ago, “The Man From The Alamo”, set in March – April, 1836, which has Ford and the rest of the cast using the standard Western six guns (Colt Peacemakers, ect) decades before they were invented. As every schoolboy knows, they didn’t have six-guns at the battle of the Alamo and this oversight completely ruins the picture of any credibility it may otherwise have had. What on earth were Glenn Ford and the director, Bud Boetticher, thinking of that they went on making the film with such a descrepancy in it? Glenn Ford was also wearing the same jacket and hat that he wore in many of his 1950s Westerns, including “The Violent Men”; “Jubal”; “3:10 to Yuma” and “The Sheepman” and although some of the cast were allowed the luxury of authentic looking muzzle-loading flintlock muskets, much of the clothing and hats, such as those worn by the town sheriff, were straight out of an 1880s – set Western. It all looked terribly out of place and time.
David, as one you very much appreciates your comments here, I would argue this point, at least from a theoretical point of view. It’s not that what you say about the historical inaccuracy is wrong–it’s just that there are ways you could hang this on any Western. Even if others may be more subtle about it and even pretend to some kind of “realism” (a very tricky thing in art), movie Westerns are not a historical reconstruction, but present an Imagined West, one that does take incident, detail, and even some often-seen characters (always a little different depending on the film and time in which the film is made) from what we know of the Real West, then building a work around them. This doesn’t make these films without truth or meaning, or not resonant of history–they are, though in complex ways, and also invariably reflect the culture in which they are made.
As much as history, there is an iconography in the Western and though I recognized what you said as accurate when you wrote it, I’ve never thought of it watching THE MAN FROM THE ALAMO, a movie I very much like and just saw again recently in an unearthed original Technicolor print (with Julie Adams attending the screening) along with another original Tech print of SEMINOLE, a real treat with these two Boetticher movies that can’t come near the best of the Ranown cycle but are, in my view, excellent Westerns.
Glenn Ford was well-suited to the character of the hero who is willing to be condemned rather than speak up and justify his actions–he is an actor who is good at internal things and at times the brooding solemnity this called on, as in this movie. But I’d emphasize he could be appealingly humorous too, and turn these things for comedy. My favorite Glenn Ford Westerns are led by the three for Daves (COWBOY and JUBAL in addition to 3:10 TO YUMA) but do include THE MAN FROM THE ALAMO along with THE SHEEPMAN.
Careless proofreading. It was supposed to start “David as one who very much appreciates your comments here…”