Romancing The West: The Best Of Western Romance In Film

In one of their many film appearances together, Roy Rogers kissed his wife and costar Dale Evans on the forehead. After that, the studio received sacks of letters telling them to “leave the mushy stuff out.”

Such is the dilemma of romance in westerns. Many of the classics may offer a love story as a subplot: Ringo and Dallas in Stagecoach, Wyatt Earp and Clementine in My Darling Clementine, Sundance and Etta (and maybe Butch) in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. However, many fans don’t care if the hero gets the girl as long as the bad guy winds up face down in the mud.

But romance devotees need not avoid the genre altogether. Here are movies with love stories at the forefront — with or without the mushy stuff.

The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)

You and I are poles apart. If you really knew me you wouldn’t like me at all. And yet I’d rather be with you than anyone else.

Can a hard-partying Florida society girl find lasting happiness with a humble, slowtalking rodeo cowboy? A romantic comedy like The Cowboy and the Lady wouldn’t have it any other way — though it takes its mismatched couple a while to get there (91 minutes, to be exact).

Gary Cooper plays Stretch Willoughby, who is set up on a blind date with Mary Smith (Merle Oberon). During their time together she pretends to be a maid with a tragic past instead of a wealthy socialite. Stretch is so moved that the next day he proposes marriage. She quickly turns him down — and he tosses her in a swimming pool. But truths are revealed eventually, along with true feelings, in this breezy culture-clash yarn.

Colorado Territory (1949)

Did you ever think you’d like to travel a long way off ... as far and as high as the moon ... and stay there for good ... forever ... and forget all about things down here?

Unrequited love is certainly the most painful kind of all, and Raoul Walsh’s Colorado Territory explores three such tragic romances, amidst a fast-paced story about escaped outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) hoping to retire after one last train robbery. During a stagecoach trek to reunite with his former boss, Wes meets Julie Ann (Dorothy Malone), who has moved west with her father to start a new life. He is attracted to her, but her father tells Wes that her heart belongs to Randolph, who refuses to marry her. While Wes pines for the love and the better life she represents, his gang of bandits is joined by Colorado Carson (Virginia Mayo), a half-Indian woman who falls for him. Does anyone get a happy ending? Sadly, not in this remake of High Sierra (1940), also directed by Walsh.

Calamity Jane (1953)

At last my heart’s an open door. And my secret love’s no secret anymore.

The most famous historical Old West romance was that of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane — though many historians doubt their relationship ever extended beyond flirtation. But it makes for a great story, one that inspired several films, including The Plainsman (1936) and Wild Bill (1995). Calamity Jane sets their romance to music, with Doris Day as the titular heroine and Howard Keel as Hickok. While both pursue other relationships for most of the film, they finally acknowledge their true feelings in time for a wedding before the closing credits.

Keel, having already played Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun, seemed right at home in a western musical romance, and the always-ladylike Doris Day is (somewhat surprisingly) delightful as a frontier wildcat in buckskins. And who could forget Doris singing the sublime Oscar-winning hit “Secret Love”?

Oklahoma! (1955)

Don’t throw bouquets at me. Don’t please my folks too much. Don’t laugh at my jokes too much. People will say we’re in love.

Musicals lend themselves more naturally to romance than westerns, so it’s not surprising to find that cowboys who sing and dance are more likely to fall in love. The landmark 1943 stage musical Oklahoma! was adapted into an equally impressive film featuring an iconic Oscar-winning score by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. The choreography by Agnes de Mille was revolutionary for its time, particularly in the dream ballet that dramatizes the romance between Laurey (Shirley Jones, in her film debut) and ranch hand Curley (Gordon MacRae), which is complicated by Curley’s brutish rival, Jud (Rod Steiger).

Murphy’s Romance (1985)

Murphy: “I’m in love for the last time in my life.”
Emma: “I’m in love for the first time in my life.”

Emma (Sally Field) relocates with her son to a small Arizona town after a bitter divorce. There, she meets Murphy (James Garner), drugstore proprietor, country philosopher, and Old World gentleman. He likes what he likes and feels no need to keep up with the modern world — that’s why he still drives a 1930 Studebaker and hasn’t gone to a movie “since the Duke died.” But when Emma walks into his store, he sees a way to change his life for the better.

Murphy’s Romance pairs two of the screen’s most charismatic stars, turning them loose in a story where the ending is easily guessed, but the journey to get there is still delightful. The complication that arises when Emma’s slacker ex-husband arrives is only there to delay the inevitable.

Dances With Wolves (1990)

My place is with you. I go where you go.

There are many reasons why Dances With Wolves is a very special film, from its authentic portrayal of the culture and language of the Lakota Sioux to director-star Kevin Costner’s determination to make the movie his way, which required him to write a $3 million check to get it done. While it is primarily a redemption tale, in which Army officer John Dunbar finds a new and better life among the Lakota, it is the romance between Dunbar and the Native woman Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonnell) that gives the story its heart.

In the film’s final moments, as they head off together after so many harrowing encounters with Pawnees and soldiers, viewers undoubtedly hoped they were riding toward a happy ending. While author Michael Blake’s sequel to Dances With Wolves was never filmed, the story does reveal that the couple stayed together and became parents to three children — until the world outside their tribe once again came calling.

Legends of the Fall (1994)

Tristan, I have nowhere to send this letter and no reason to believe you wish to receive it. I write it only for myself. And so I will hide it away along with all the things left unsaid and undone between us.

Samuel (Henry Thomas) returns to the remote Montana ranch of his father (Anthony Hopkins) with his fiancée, Susannah (Julia Ormond). When Susannah’s eyes lock with Samuel’s older brother, Tristan (Brad Pitt), a mutual passion is ignited. But Susannah ends up marrying a third brother, Alfred (Aidan Quinn).

It’s not as sordid as it sounds, though the melodrama label is not as easily avoided. Still, Ormond is captivating, Pitt proved he’s more than a handsome face, and John Toll’s photography deservedly won an Oscar. How does it end? Fans still debate whether they got it right, but the death of Tristan’s eventual bride and mother of his children, Isabel Two (Karina Lombard), adds yet another element of romantic tragedy that’s almost Shakespearean.

The Horse Whisperer (1998)

I didn’t know that it was right to love her. I just loved her.

Sometimes what an audience wants to happen between a man and woman in love does not come to pass because of complications that are too formidable for honorable people to ignore. Such is the fate of Montana rancher Tom Booker (Robert Redford), whose unique affinity with horses brings him to the attention of New Yorker Annie MacLean (Kristin Scott Thomas). Annie’s daughter Grace (Scarlett Johansson) was seriously injured and traumatized after a riding accident, and her horse has become uncontrollable. While Tom uses his gifts to heal horse and rider, he and Annie fall in love — but Annie is already married.

Love and loss unfold amid stunning cinematography and director Redford’s keen eye for framing both wide-open vistas and achingly intimate moments. The movie ends with a close-up of Tom as he silently watches Annie and Grace leave for New York. As one reviewer correctly observed, “Everything his character is feeling at that moment is revealed perfectly on his face.”

Open Range (2003)

You know, I always hoped somebody gentle and caring might come along. Years pass. A small town and all. And your hopes begin to fade a little every day until you hardly remember what they were. I’ve seen who you are, Charley. The way you looked after that boy and the respect you give Boss. It might be little bits. But they’re enough for a woman who looks.

As one IMDB review states, “Open Range doesn’t do anything particularly new, it just does it particularly well.” That’s a familiar refrain in both memorable westerns and classic romances. There may be only so many ways to tell these stories, but when you pair Kevin Costner (who also directs) and Annette Bening, both at their movie star prime, as two people not looking for love but finding something in each other they never expected, it’s an excursion well worth taking again.

Set in 1880s Montana, the film has both tenderness and violence. Its intensely realistic wide-shot gunfight scenes won critical praise — and its R-rating. The hostilities might be central, but so is the attraction between Charley Waite (Costner) and Sue Barlow (Bening). Their hesitant romance blossoms gradually, like everything else in this leisurely paced tale. Waite, an ex-gunslinger-turned-cowhand, and his boss (Robert Duvall) run afoul of a ruthless cattle baron. A conflict that cannot be resolved will compel Charley, like Alan Ladd in Shane, to return to the violent trade he hoped to escape. It takes a while before the shooting starts, but scenes such as the awkward but endearing moment when Sue serves Charley tea will keep you engaged until the guns are drawn.

The Longest Ride (2015)

You see, I love you so much I just want you to be happy ... even if that happiness no longer includes me.

You can’t go wrong with Eastwood in a western. Okay, in this case it’s Scott Eastwood, but Clint’s son looks as good as a cowboy as his dad did when he was headin’ ’em up and movin’ ’em on in Rawhide. Romance enters the picture when he drops his hat at a rodeo and it’s picked up by sophisticated Jersey girl Sophia (Britt Robertson), who will soon be off to Manhattan to study art history.

While it seems like fate is against them, a chance encounter with an elderly man who has loved and lost (well-played by Alan Alda) may inspire the young couple to give their love a chance. If this sounds like a western version of The Notebook, that’s not surprising as The Longest Ride was adapted from a story by Notebook author Nicholas Sparks. It’s a sweet and predictable tale that might be a little too Hallmark Channel for more cynical viewers — you know who you are.

Slow West (2015)

Once upon a time, 1870 to be exact, a 16-year-old kid traveled from the cold shoulder of Scotland to the baking heart of America to find his love. His name was Jay. Her name was Rose.

In the wrong hands this story might not have worked at all. Indeed, some critics shared that assessment — “unintentionally ridiculous” was the verdict of the RogerEbert.com website. But others were swept up in the adventure of baby-faced youth Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) braving the many hazards of the American Old West to find the woman he loves (Caren Pistorius), after she is unfairly exiled from her homeland.

True, the kid looks like he wouldn’t last 10 seconds in Tombstone or Dodge City, so thankfully writer-director John Maclean provides a guide in Silas, a tough hombre played by Michael Fassbender, one of those actors who automatically make any movie better. The result is not a typical western or a typical romance — even the backdrop of New Zealand substituting for Colorado seems more than a bit off. But this works on you, slowly and steadily, until you’ll be as eager as Jay to find out if his continent-spanning quest of love will be rewarded.

Check out our look back at the iconic 1956 western Giant and more of our favorite Western romances.

This article appears in our April 2024 issue.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy Alamy