My Favorite Western Is Not All That Great. That's What Makes It So Perfect

 March 29, 2026

   Here is my introduction to a film being shown today down at the Scottsdale Museum of The West:

   I am often asked what is my favorite Western and my answer does not always sit well with some purists. First of all, let me say I love weather in movies; the snowstorm in It's A Wonderful Life comes to mind, as does the rain storm in Two Lane Blacktop, but the all time weather film in my book is the film you are about to see.

   Another thing I love about this film, is that the town in the movie is so raw and unfinished and it is a thing of joy to anyone who loves authenticity in Westerns. When movie towns are built—think Old Tucson, Mescal or Calico, they bring in real carpenters and the doors are plumbed and finished sometimes with great flair, because, well, they are skilled carpenters and dammit, they are proud of their profession. In this film, doors are unfinished, boards are left hanging down in windows, and discarded lumber and debris is scattered all over the place. The word is that Vietnam draft dodgers (this is in 1970, after all!) were hired to build the town set in the wilds of British Columbia and they were semi-talented hippies who also appear in the film as extras. Anyway, the town is perfect, in the sense that it is totally imperfect!

   In classic Hollywood style, dialogue is meticulously focused on, with every actor delivering their lines cleanly, so that it can be understood, but not in this film. The director has characters talking over each other with different conversations bleeding through to others. In this film language becomes a sound effect. Someone said it is "sound drenched in realism."

   In terms of theme, a typical Western focuses on individuals trying to enact law and order in a land that has none. In this film the characters are shoehorned into a civilized structure, via big mining interests. Everyone is just a cog in the machine. For this it has been tagged as anti-Western, but I think it's actually a Dead On Western.

   In the end it's not the greatest Western, but it is something more: almost a poem in a dream. Put another way it's a super authentic Western that defies gravity. And, somehow it works even when it doesn't work. This is why it's my favorite Western.

   But don't take my word for it.

"It is an incoherent, amateurish, simple-minded, boring and totally worthless piece of garbage and an insult to the intelligence of anyone stupid or masochistic enough to sit through it."

—Rex Reed, in his review of McCabe & Mrs. Miller