Each Monday, I continue to share Western movie reviews as I go through the process of making my own 12 Westerns in 12 Months during 2020. I am watching these films not from an audience perspective but as a filmmaker, as a student of the genre.
Week Seventy Nine: Stagecoach to Denver
No Western film title could be more appropriate right now as I travel across the country to Denver. One of the great things about older westerns that can no longer be said about the genre is how commonplace it was, with tons of these films coming out yearly. This led to a very simple kind of Western that has very little connection to the grandiose, thematic films which have come to represent the genre. But I like these just as much.
They have basic plots, often more practical and down to earth narratives with a couple twists and turns. Everything about these pictures shoots straight and sometimes that’s nice. In this one, I like the stagecoach conspiracy device, the danger of the little boy’s health, and most of all the woman who pretends to be his aunt. Her character makes the movie up until her fateful decision in the final ten minutes.
This was a perfect, tight one to watch along my current journey.
Seen on Amazon Prime.
