Ride the High Country.
I've always hated Westerns, because of how cliched and stereotypical they were. You can talk about John Ford all day long, but even his films get a bit tiresome in this regard. (Save for Liberty Valence) That said, years ago Leone's Westerns blew my mind, and Peckinpah achingly tore the Western apart from the inside. So, I now like good Westerns. Here, Sam Peckinpah makes a traditional Western in every sense that is dying. The two leads are wise old sages on their last legs (literally. Both Randolph Scott and Joel Mcrea were retiring.) and the world around them has changed. All of Sam's repeated themes appear here for the first time in the midst of some stunning location cinematography. A simple story that is told in a straightforward way is something that has become lost to the ages. This movie is timeless. Featuring one of the single greatest closing shots in all of cinema and that line...that unbelievably fantastic immortal line: "All I want is to enter my house justified."
4 stars out of 4 "I'm not going to get sad at the end.....oh crap"s.
Major Dundee: The Extended Version
This is the second time I've watched this thing, and the second time where I haven't known what exactly to think. The production wasn't planned well, the script wasn't finished, and then the studio took it away and re-cut the whole thing so nothing really makes much sense. But I still watch this with rapt attention. This is a movie where the Civil War Union Major is a dirty mean son of a bitch who is relegated to being a jailer out in the Southwest because he can't take orders. So he then takes a bunch of Confederate prisoners, criminals and miscreants to track down a band of Apaches who have just slaughtered a village full of soldiers. All this to get back and maybe get a promotion. It's nice and dirty. Charlton Heston is always best when his characters have a nasty side, and Dundee is no exception. Richard Harris steals every scene as the Irishman turned immigrant turned Union soldier turned Confederate turned prisoner. And James Coburn is a part-Indian guide with one arm. That last bit was enough for me to give this a go. The extended version adds back in about 12-15 minutes of scenes but there's no big exclamation of a masterpiece found or anything. It just makes a little more sense. The new 5.1 score seems a bit rushed and doesn't work as well as the original mono. But that original score has a horribly inappropriate title song that does not match the film whatsoever. Dundee is the stepping stone between High Country and The Wild Bunch.
3.5 balls out of 4.