50 Fun Facts About Western Movie

Which 1903 film, made for the Edison company, is usually cited as the beginning of the Western genre?

Edwin S. Porter's film set the 'crime, pursuit and retribution' pattern; a famous shot has outlaw Justus Barnes firing straight into the camera.

Which 1939 film made John Wayne a mainstream star after a decade of B-Westerns?

Producer Walter Wanger wanted Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich instead; John Ford refused to replace Wayne.

Which landscape on the Arizona-Utah border did John Ford make his signature backdrop from 1939 onward?

He used it from Stagecoach through Cheyenne Autumn in 1965, even when the story was set in Texas.

What is John Wayne's escaped-convict character called in Ford's 1939 breakthrough film?

He has broken out of prison to avenge his father and brother, killed by the Plummer gang.

What was John Wayne's real name?

Born in Winterset, Iowa, in 1907; a Glendale fireman nicknamed him 'Little Duke' after his Airedale terrier, Duke.

For which role did John Wayne win his only Best Actor Oscar?

Henry Hathaway's True Grit premiered in June 1969; Jeff Bridges played Cogburn in the 2010 Coen brothers remake.

What was John Wayne's final film, in which he played an ageing gunfighter dying of cancer?

Wayne himself died of stomach cancer in June 1979, two months after his last public appearance at the Oscars.

Which 1952 Western starring Gary Cooper unfolds in real time as a marshal waits for a gang to arrive?

Fred Zinnemann's film won four Oscars including Best Actor for Cooper; Grace Kelly played his Quaker bride.

Why did John Wayne turn down the lead in Fred Zinnemann's 1952 marshal-alone Western?

Screenwriter Carl Foreman was blacklisted after refusing to name names to HUAC; Wayne, then MPA president, helped pressure him.

Which singer had a country hit with 'Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling', from a 1952 Western?

Dimitri Tiomkin's song won the Oscar; Frankie Laine later had a pop hit with it.

Which 1956 John Ford film was named the greatest American Western by the AFI in 2008?

Wayne's Ethan Edwards spends years hunting for a niece abducted by Comanches, played as a teenager by Natalie Wood.

Who plays the abducted niece Debbie in Ford's 1956 masterpiece?

Jeffrey Hunter plays Martin, the part-Native American nephew who kills the Comanche chief Scar.

John Sturges's 1960 gunfighters-defend-a-village film is a remake of which Japanese classic?

Kurosawa's film had itself been released in the US as The Magnificent Seven; Yojimbo was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars.

Which actor plays Chris Adams, leader of The Magnificent Seven?

Eli Wallach plays the bandit chief Calvera; Elmer Bernstein's score is on the AFI's top-25 list.

Who coined the term 'spaghetti Western'?

Italians call the genre western all'italiana; in Japan they are sometimes 'macaroni Westerns'.

Where were most spaghetti Westerns shot?

The Tabernas Desert in Almería doubled for the American Southwest again and again.

Which three films make up Sergio Leone's famous trilogy with Clint Eastwood?

Clint Eastwood's poncho-wearing Man with No Name starred in all three between 1964 and 1966.

Who plays 'the Bad' and 'the Ugly' alongside Clint Eastwood's 'Good'?

Wallach's Tuco calls Eastwood 'Blondie'; Van Cleef is Angel Eyes.

Who composed the score for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

Its coyote-howl main theme is one of the most recognisable pieces of film music ever written.

Where is the gold buried in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

The cemetery was purpose-built near Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain and has since been restored by fans.

Which usually heroic actor played the villain Frank in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West?

Charles Bronson is the harmonica-playing avenger; Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci helped devise the plot.

Which two future giants of Italian cinema helped Leone devise the story of Once Upon a Time in the West?

They researched other Westerns for the plot; Sergio Donati was brought in later to rewrite it.

Who wrote the original screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?

He researched the outlaws for eight years; one studio only wanted the script if the pair did NOT flee to South America.

Where do Butch, Sundance and Etta flee to escape the posse?

Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty both turned down Sundance; Beatty thought it too like Bonnie and Clyde.

Which Burt Bacharach and Hal David song plays over the bicycle scene in Butch Cassidy?

Time magazine hated the 'anachronistic' scat-singing soundtrack; the song won the Oscar anyway.

Who directed Blazing Saddles, and who plays Sheriff Bart?

Richard Pryor co-wrote it and was Brooks's first choice for Bart, but the studio reportedly refused to insure him.

What is the name of the town the railroad must pass through in Blazing Saddles?

Villain Hedley Lamarr wants its residents driven out; the finale spills off the Warner lot into Burbank.

Which bandleader cameos in the desert with his orchestra in Blazing Saddles?

They play 'April in Paris'; the film cost $2.6 million and made $119.6 million.

Which four Westerns have won the Academy Award for Best Picture?

That is 1931, 1990, 1992 and 2007.

Dances With Wolves was the feature directing debut of which star?

It won seven Oscars from twelve nominations, and much of the dialogue is subtitled.

Which Native American language is spoken through much of Dances With Wolves?

Doris Leader Charge of Sinte Gleska University translated it; the film was shot in South Dakota and Wyoming.

To whom did Clint Eastwood dedicate Unforgiven?

'Dedicated to Sergio and Don' appears at the end of the credits, honouring his two mentors.

Who plays the sadistic sheriff 'Little Bill' Daggett in Unforgiven?

He won Best Supporting Actor; the film also took Best Picture, Director and Editing.

What is the name of the Wyoming town in Unforgiven?

William Munny rides there for a bounty put up by prostitutes after one of them is slashed.

What did Eastwood's own story editor say about the Unforgiven script in a 1984 memo?

He held on to David Webb Peoples's script for a decade before making it.

Who plays Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993), in a performance widely singled out for praise?

Kurt Russell has said he essentially directed the film after screenwriter Kevin Jarre was fired.

Who narrates Tombstone (1993)?

Heston has a supporting role; Mitchum's voice opens and closes the film.

Tarantino's 2012 Western takes its title from a 1966 spaghetti Western by which director?

Tarantino was writing a book on Corbucci when he started the script; the original Django, Franco Nero, cameos.

Which two Oscars did Tarantino's 2012 Western win?

It grossed $449 million, the highest ever for a Western and for Tarantino.

Which is the highest-grossing Western film of all time?

Its $449 million beat Dances With Wolves' $424 million.

Which other 1939 films, alongside Ford's Wayne breakthrough, revived the Western from 'pulp' status?

Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Joel McCrea and James Stewart with Marlene Dietrich starred respectively.

Which two 1990s films are credited with bringing the Western back into the mainstream?

The genre had waned through the 1980s.

Which 1901 Edison short, based on a Buffalo Bill act, likely influenced Porter's 1903 train-robbery film?

Porter had also studied Méliès and the British Brighton School to learn story-driven filmmaking.

Which stage actor, later the first cowboy star, appeared in Porter's 1903 film as 'Broncho Billy'?

He soon faced competition from Tom Mix and William S. Hart as the genre's first icons.

Who directed The Big Trail (1930), the widescreen epic that gave a 23-year-old John Wayne his first lead?

Shot on location from the Grand Canyon to the redwoods, it flopped partly because Depression-era cinemas could not afford to switch to widescreen.

Westerns made in Australia were jokingly labelled with which food, in the style of 'spaghetti Western'?

The same food-tagging habit produced 'ramen Westerns' for Asian films and 'masala Westerns' for Indian ones.

Eastern Bloc takes on the genre, often set during the Russian Civil War, were nicknamed what?

Despite the Cold War, the American Western strongly influenced Soviet and East German filmmakers.

Which Kurosawa film, remade as A Fistful of Dollars, was itself inspired by Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest?

The influence ran both ways: Kurosawa was a fan of American Westerns, especially the films of John Ford.

In which decade did Western films outnumber every other genre combined?

The years 1940 to 1960 are often called the Golden Age of the Western, with directors like Delmer Daves and Budd Boetticher at their peak.

Which 1902 novel by Owen Wister is considered the first critically recognised Western?

Zane Grey followed in the early 1900s, and Louis L'Amour became the genre's best-known mid-century novelist.