Jesse James [VHS] by Ben Silvey $9.98
No studio was better than Darryl Zanuck's 20th Century-Fox at dishing out lovingly textured Americana, of which this movie is a prime example. The outlaw gets canonized as an American Robin Hood, an honest farmer who, with post-Civil War Missouri overrun by corrupt agents of the Railroad, had no choice but to start robbing banks and trains to achieve a measure of social justice the System...

The Rounders [VHS] by MGM (Warner) $19.98
Burt Kennedy wrote several of the finest Westerns ever for director Budd Boetticher in the late '50s--marvels of austere, subtle storytelling. Yet on his own, writer-director Kennedy tended to very broad comedy-Westerns. The Rounders, based on a novel by Max Evans, falls somewhere between Support Your Local Sheriff (high) and Dirty Dingus Magee (low). Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda play two...

Drums Along the Mohawk [VHS] by Darryl F. Zanuck $19.98
Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year. Henry Fonda and...

Once Upon a Time in the West [VHS] by Sergio Leone $14.95
The so-called spaghetti Western achieved its apotheosis inSergio Leone's magnificently mythic (and utterly outlandish) Once upon a Time in the West. After a series of international hits starring Clint Eastwood (from A Fistful of Dollars to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), Leone outdid himself with this spectacular, larger-than-life, horse-operatic epic about how the West was won. (And make no...

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell [VHS] by Leon Shamroy $19.98

Ox Bow Incident [VHS] by Arthur C. Miller $9.98
The Ox-Bow Incident is one of the essential Westerns, directed by William Wellman. A study of the effects--and aftereffects--of mob violence, this film (based on a true story) begins with the murder of a popular rancher. Angry townspeople form a posse, find suspects, and, without waiting for a trial, summarily hang them in an expression of biblically tinged frontier justice. But the one cowboy...

How the West Was Won [VHS] by Charles Lang $29.98
How the West Was Won [VHS] ASIN: B00000693P Binding: VHS

My Name Is Nobody [VHS] by Sergio Leone $14.99
My Name is Nobody is a spoof of spaghetti Westerns, but it's also a legitimate, highly regarded entry in the genre. Its pedigree is purebred, as it was executive produced by the maestro of spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone, as a personal farewell to the genre that he helped to create. It's a transitional film, cheekily acknowledging the impact of The Wild Bunch and Sam Peckinpah (whose name is...

The Cheyenne Social Club [VHS] by William H. Clothier $9.98
This 1970 film teams director Gene Kelly with two veteran Hollywood actors in a light romp about two over-the-hill cowboys who inherit a bordello. Henry Fonda and James Stewart dusted off their spurs to team up in this appealing if formulaic western comedy. The two Hollywood legends play aging cowpokes who seem to do nothing but get on each other's nerves as they travel aimlessly through the...

Cheyenne Social Club [VHS] by William H. Clothier $14.98
This 1970 film teams director Gene Kelly with two veteran Hollywood actors in a light romp about two over-the-hill cowboys who inherit a bordello. Henry Fonda and James Stewart dusted off their spurs to team up in this appealing if formulaic western comedy. The two Hollywood legends play aging cowpokes who seem to do nothing but get on each other's nerves as they travel aimlessly through the...