“The Magnificent Seven” and “Destry” ride again.
Here’s our weekly overview of choice options for home-screen viewing. (Note: All times listed are Eastern.)
Rio Bravo
Howard Hawks directed dozens of diverse movies — everything from musicals to war stories, gangster melodramas to screwball comedies — throughout a prodigious and prolific career that spanned from the silent era to the early ’70s. But Rio Bravo stands apart from his other certifiable masterpieces as a uniquely revered cult fave, one that elicits rapturous praise from fans and filmmakers alike. (Quentin Tarantino famously declared: “When I’m getting serious about a girl, I show her Rio Bravo, and she better bleeping like it.”) John Wayne, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan and Ricky Nelson are improbably but perfectly matched as the outgunned good guys who, in the true Hawksian tradition, remain true to personal codes of honor and duty — even as they grapple with limitations, weaknesses, inner demons and really nasty hangovers —while bound together for a common purpose (in this case, keeping a killer behind bars while trying to avoid being killed). (2 pm Tuesday, TCM)
The Magnificent Seven
When you think about it, there’s never really a bad time to savor John Sturges’ classic 1960 western about seven hired guns who get a shot at redemption while protecting a Mexican village against a greedy bandit gang. But this week is a particularly good time to take another look at the picture, as a tribute to the late, great Robert Vaughn — the last of the seven stars to ride off into the sunset. Vaughn — who passed away Friday at age 83 — gives one of his career-defining performances here as Lee, a sharp-dressed gunslinger who worries that he may have lost his nerve just when he needs it most. For better or worse, he more or less wills himself to break free of his fears just in time to display courage under fire. (7:15 am, 3:15 pm and 9:30 pm, STARZ)
Giant
Often called “The National Film of Texas,” George Stevens’ acclaimed 1956 adaptation of Edna Ferber’s best-selling novel offers a panoramic view of an epochal period in the Lone Star State — from the 1920s to the post-World War II era — while charting the intertwined destinies of a tradition-bound cattle baron (Rock Hudson), his headstrong Yankee wife (Elizabeth Taylor), and the moody former ranch hand (James Dean) who becomes a powerful zillionaire after striking oil on his property. (2:45 pm Thursday, TCM)
Destry Rides Again
James Stewart made the first of many memorable appearances as a Wild West hero in director George Marshall’s 1939 seriocomic classic about a pacifist protagonist who reluctantly strap on his guns to do what he’s got to do. Newly hired deputy Tom Destry Jr. (Stewart), the son of a famously straight-shooting lawman, wants to avoid gunplay while cleaning up corruption in the town of Bottleneck. But he’s not so inflexible that he won’t try Plan B when the bad guys refuse to cooperate. And he’s not so virtuous that he’s entirely immune to the charms of Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich), the cynical saloon singer who musically encourages the barkeep to “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.” (10:55 Friday, Encore Westerns)
My Darling Clementine
With all due respect to admirers of Tombstone and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Ford’s unforgettable 1946 drama remains in a class by itself as a cinematic account of the legendary shootout involving Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda), Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), and the Clanton clan (led by a startlingly vicious Walter Brennan). Of course, as Roger Ebert noted in his respectful appraisal of the movie, Ford takes a unique approach to that showdown: “Usually the gunfight is the centerpiece of the film. Here it plays more like the dispatch of unfinished business; Ford doesn't linger over the violence.” Indeed, Ebert adds, “My Darling Clementine must be one of the sweetest and most good-hearted of all Westerns. The giveaway is the title, which is not about Wyatt or Doc or the gunfight, but about Clementine, certainly the most important thing to happen to Marshal Earp during the story.” (8 pm Saturday, Encore Westerns)
