My Top Five Favorite Westerns (Legends of Western Cinema Week)

Howdy, folks!

I'm a bit late posting this, but my dear friend and fellow blogger, Olivia and her friend, Emma are hosting a "Legends of Western Cinema Week" on their blogs this week, where apparently there are supposed to be posts galore pertaining to westerns. So, me, a liker of all things historical, especially western-type things, naturally wouldn't pass up this golden opportunity at participating! (And what a great way of getting me more motivated to post here again...) So I wanted to get at least one post up for this grand occasion before the week was up!

I thought I might tell y'all of five of my favorite western movies, (not in any specific order; and mostly comedies, because clean, family-friendly comedies is another thing I really like :) ). And I'll just give a semi-review of each one while I'm at it. So here we go!

Hot Lead & Cold Feet

This hilarious old west saga involves twin brothers who end up competing for the possession of the run-down town of Bloodshy, founded by their supposedly deceased father.
This one is hilarious stacked up on hilarious! I think my favorite characters would have to be Sheriff Denver (Don Knotts [get used to that name... you're going to be seeing a lot of it in this post. ;)]) and Rattlesnake (Jack Elam).

"You're fast, Denver, but not that fast, nobody's that fast!"

And Jim Dale does an awesome job of playing three parts in this movie, both twin brothers and their father. Mr. Bloodshy (the father) and his assistant, Mansfield, might just be my next favorite characters. (Because how can you just have just ONE favorite character in a movie like this?)

"Mansfield!"

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The Apple Dumpling Gang

This rollicking gem of hilarious genius tells of slick gambler, Donavan (Bill Bixby), and a great mix-up involving him picking up some "valuables" from the stagecoach for John Wintle. These "valuables" end up being three children, and Donavan finds he's been duped into caring for them.
The children also befriend not-so-bright, but hilarious bandits, Amos (Tim Conway) and Theodore (Don Knotts), which are the ones mainly to blame for the ridiculous hilarity that this movie is.

And yes, of course the other characters, (the children, Donavan, Dusty, the sheriff, and all them) are all wonderful, but I'm sure it wouldn't be half as funny without these two dudes.

But they're really all great, don't get me wrong, it's just that it might get to the end of the week before I was finished talking about all of them. :)

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The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again

This sequel continues the adventures of Theodore and Amos in their attempt to become law abiding citizens. But they find it a bit difficult when they end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time and get blamed for robbing a bank. Now they're on the run from feared (and cocky) lawman, Marshal Wooly Bill Hitchcock (Kenneth Mars), who they accidentally get the drop on and humiliate on several occasions.

I think I may like this one better than the original. Don Knotts and Tim Conway once again hit the nail on the head with their comical genius. :D

And Wooly Bill Hitchcock, despite his arrogance, is a rather hilarious character. It's especially fun seeing him getting beat up throughout the movie. :P
 

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The Gunslinger

This adventure, the first in the Witchita Slim Trilogy, follows former outlaw and gunslinger, Wichita Slim (Kenneth Copeland), who is now a born again Christian and is about to become a U. S. Marshal of the Oklahoma Territory. Of course, some of the townsfolk are worried about if he's really changed his ways or not even after several years of going straight, and are hesitant on the idea of him becoming a marshal. And they get in even more of an uproar when on the night of his swearing in, the local bank gets robbed and Witchita Slim appears to have disappeared with the bandits.

I grew up with this movie, and this western is a near and dear one to my heart. :) It was made and produced by Willie George Ministries in the 90s, and it's a wonderful mix of excitement, humor, and the Gospel.

The other two movies in this trilogy are "Covenant Rider" and "Treasure on Eagle Mountain".

It's hard to pick a favorite character, because they're all so grand. And it's also hard to find very good screenshots from this movie as well... :-/ So here's just a few gifs from it that I whipped up for ya.

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The Shakiest Gun in the West

This classic follows the adventures of Jesse W. Haywood (Don Knotts [Again? Yes, again]) a recent graduate of a dental school in Philadelphia, who ventures out west to become a dentist on the frontier. But he runs into many complications in his new environment, including finding himself tricked into marrying a former outlaw (though he doesn't know that yet, of course), Penelope "Bad Penny" Cushing (Barbara Rhoades), that's now working as a spy to track down a ring of gun smugglers in order to get a pardon from jail.

I would imagine the phrase, "hilarious stacked up on hilarious" would go for this one as well. Well, really, how can you go wrong with Don Knotts involved? Plus a whole other assortment of hilarious (have I used that word already?) characters!

"Abel Swanson, proprietor, at your service."

So here's once again another comedic gem that I would recommend heartily, along with all the others above. :D

So, here ya go --- five of my favorite westerns (at least comedic westerns ;) ). Have you seen any of these? What's your opinion of them? What are YOUR top five favorite westerns?

Have an adventurous, rip-roarin' weekend!

~Faith