Hmm, no proof? PLEASE read the below article on the subject. But, I do give you credit for your youthful enthusiasm as Tombstone is listed way down there in the top ten if you read all the way through. Oh, and just as another counterpoint, if you watched westerns all day every day of your life and someone a bit older did the same, I think it obvious who would smoke the field. He walks into the sunset. Take care. Vern
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SHANE, director
George Stevens' classic 1953 movie about a weary gunfighter caught up in a
land war between Wyoming ranchers and farmers, is the greatest Western
movie of all time, Western Writers of America has announced.
For top honors SHANE, which Pulitzer Prize-winning Western novelist
A.B. Guthrie Jr. adapted for the screen from Jack Schaefer's novel, edged
HIGH NOON, the 1952 movie that won Gary Cooper his second Academy Award as
Best Actor.
Western Writers of America, a nonprofit organization of more than 600
professional writers, founded in the 1950s to promote and honor the best
literature about the American West -- including screenwriting -- announced
the 100 Greatest Western Movies of All Time on Thursday, June 12, at
Scottsdale's Chaparral Suites during the association's annual convention.
"This year has been incredible," WWA Executive Director Paul Hutton
said. "Cormac McCarthy's brutal little contemporary Western NO COUNTRY FOR
OLD MEN did great at the box office, taking in over $60 million and was
nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen got
nominations, too. Paul Thomas Anderson also was nominated for THERE WILL BE
BLOOD, his amazing adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil, with his
lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis winning the Oscar."
Members voted on their top 10 Western movies, and the ballots were
tabulated at the WWA offices at the University of New Mexico.
No. 3 was THE SEARCHERS, director John Ford's powerful 1956 story about
a vengeful Texan's quest to find his two nieces, taken by Comanche Indians,
based on Alan LeMay's novel. No. 4 was BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID,
the 1969 movie that first teamed Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Kevin
Costner's Academy Award-winning DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990), from Michael
Blake's novel, rounded out the top five.
Rounding out the top 10 were director Sam Peckinpah's bloody,
end-of-the-West opera THE WILD BUNCH (1969); Howard Hawk's first Western,
RED RIVER (1948), which gave John Wayne one of his best roles; the surprise
cult O.K. Corral favorite TOMBSTONE (1993), starring Kurt Russell and Val
Kilmer; THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), a Western retelling of Japanese
director Akira Kurosawa's brilliant SEVEN SAMURAI, and OPEN RANGE (2003),
which starred Robert Duvall in another Costner-directed movie.
"It's not the Top 10 I would come up with," says incoming WWA president
Johnny D. Boggs, "but that's the fun of lists like these. It prompts lively
debate, and members of Western Writers of America can be as passionate
about Western film as they are about literature of the West."
WWA's membership roster is filled with writers who are no stranger to
Hollywood, including screenwriters Kirk Ellis, Steve Harrigan, C. Courtney
Joyner, Andrew J. Fenady, Stephen Lodge, and Miles Hood Swarthout, whose
father, the late Glendon Swarthout, wrote the novel THE SHOOTIST, which
became John Wayne's last movie. Bill Gulick (BEND OF THE RIVER, THE
HALLELUJAH TRAIL) and Max Evans (THE ROUNDERS, THE HI-LO COUNTRY) saw two
of their novels adapted for the screen. Hutton, Boggs and fellow members
Michael F. Blake, Win Blevins, Brian Garfield, and Arthur Winfield Knight
have written extensively about Western film.
In 2009, WWA plans to announce the 100 Greatest Western Television
Movies, Series and Miniseries of All Time during the convention in Oklahoma
City.
