The American Western in Transition- 1963-1968
by CountElvisIV | created - 22 May 2018 | updated - 22 May 2018 | PublicAn exploration of how the American Western Changed from the release of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
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1. Hang 'Em High (1968)
Approved | 114 min | Drama, Western
When an innocent man barely survives a lynching, he returns as a lawman determined to bring the vigilantes to justice.
Director: Ted Post | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle, Ed Begley
Votes: 43,130
2. The Christmas Kid (1967)
90 min | Drama, Western
A corrupt sheriff, who was born on Christmas Day, decides to change his ways and go against the powerful man who runs the gambling establishments in town.
Director: Sidney W. Pink | Stars: Jeffrey Hunter, Louis Hayward, Gustavo Rojo, Perla Cristal
Votes: 70
3. The Wicked Die Slow (1968)
R | 75 min | Drama, Western
"The Kid," a notorious gunfighter, and his Mexican sidekick Armadillo ride through the post-Civil War West looking for four Indians who raped the Kid's girl friend.
Director: William K. Hennigar | Stars: Gary Allen, Steve Rivard, Jeff Kanew, Susannah Campbell
Votes: 88
4. Fort Courageous (1965)
Approved | 72 min | Western
An ex-cavalry sergeant, being escorted to prison after being convicted of a crime he didn't commit, finds himself leading the remnants of a unit that has been under Indian attack at a fort.... See full summary »
Director: Lesley Selander | Stars: Fred Beir, Don 'Red' Barry, Hanna Landy, Harry Lauter
Votes: 181
5. He Rides Tall (1964)
Approved | 84 min | Western
A rancher is pressured by his cheating wife and a gang leader, into trying to cripple a marshal's gun hand, after that marshal killed his murderous son in self defense.
Director: R.G. Springsteen | Stars: Tony Young, Dan Duryea, Jo Morrow, Madlyn Rhue
Votes: 203
6. Three Guns for Texas (1968)
G | 89 min | Western
Several episodes of the TV series "Laredo" edited together and released as a feature.
Directors: Earl Bellamy, David Lowell Rich, Paul Stanley | Stars: Neville Brand, Peter Brown, William Smith, Martin Milner
Votes: 109
7. The Ballad of a Gunfighter (1964)
84 min | Drama, Western
A former Confederate robs stagecoaches to be able to give money to the local poor people. He soon runs into a gang of robbers who don't have the same good intentions he does.
Director: Bill Ward | Stars: Marty Robbins, Traveler, Joyce Redd, Robert Barron
Votes: 112
8. An Eye for an Eye (1966)
Approved | 106 min | Western
A former bounty hunter teams up with a younger one, to track down and kill the wanted gang leader who murdered his wife and little boy.
Director: Michael D. Moore | Stars: Robert Lansing, Patrick Wayne, Slim Pickens, Gloria Talbott
Votes: 435
9. Gunfight in Abilene (1967)
Approved | 86 min | Western
A sheriff, haunted by the accidental killing of his best friend, refuses to wear a gun. But when the brother of his best friend is murdered, the lawman must make a choice.
Director: William Hale | Stars: Bobby Darin, Emily Banks, Leslie Nielsen, Donnelly Rhodes
Votes: 486
10. Cattle King (1963)
Passed | 88 min | Western
A rich landowner of Wyoming fights to prevent the Texas herds from trampling his rich meadows.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Robert Taylor, Robert Loggia, Joan Caulfield, Robert Middleton
Votes: 581
11. The Bounty Killer (1965)
Approved | 92 min | Western
A tenderfoot becomes a bounty hunter in the hopes of making a better future for himself and his new love.
Director: Spencer Gordon Bennet | Stars: Dan Duryea, Rod Cameron, Audrey Dalton, Richard Arlen
Votes: 449
12. Arizona Bushwhackers (1968)
Approved | 87 min | Romance, Western
A Confederate spy takes the sheriff job in a lawless Union town where people are hostile to him and where a crooked saloon owner peddles rifles to the renegade Indians.
Director: Lesley Selander | Stars: Howard Keel, Yvonne De Carlo, John Ireland, Marilyn Maxwell
Votes: 370
13. The Texican (1966)
Approved | 91 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A former Texas sheriff, living in Mexico, goes to Arizona to investigate the murky circumstances under which his brother, a peaceful newspaperman, was killed.
Director: Lesley Selander | Stars: Audie Murphy, Broderick Crawford, Diana Lorys, Aldo Sambrell
Votes: 935
14. Hot Spur (1968)
91 min | Western
A deranged stablehand kidnaps the wife of a ranch owner to avenge the rape of his sister.
Director: Lee Frost | Stars: James Arena, Virginia Gordon, Joseph Mascolo, Wes Bishop
Votes: 224
15. Gunpoint (1966)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Western
A young, determined sheriff and his posse chase a gang of murderous train robbers, and a kidnapped woman into New Mexico.
Director: Earl Bellamy | Stars: Audie Murphy, Joan Staley, Warren Stevens, Edgar Buchanan
Votes: 885
16. Bullet for a Badman (1964)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Western
Former Texas Rangers Sam Ward and Logan Keliher become enemies when Sam turns bank robber and Logan marries Sam's ex-wife.
Director: R.G. Springsteen | Stars: Audie Murphy, Darren McGavin, Ruta Lee, Beverley Owen
Votes: 1,082
17. The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967)
Approved | 87 min | Western
Near the ending days of the Civil War, a group of Confederacy spies traveling under guises of musicians are tasked to steal a shipment of gold. Anything goes wrong, one spy (Roy Orbison) has a bullet-shooting guitar handy - just in case.
Director: Michael D. Moore | Stars: Roy Orbison, Sammy Jackson, Maggie Pierce, Joan Freeman
Votes: 474
18. Return of the Gunfighter (1966)
Not Rated | 98 min | Romance, Western
An aging gunman and a wounded drifter come upon a young Mexican girl, and agree to help her avenge the death of her father, who was murdered for their land.
Director: James Neilson | Stars: Robert Taylor, Chad Everett, Ana Martín, Mort Mills
Votes: 711
19. Villa Rides (1968)
R | 125 min | Drama, War, Western
Mexican rebel Pancho Villa leads a revolution helped by an American aviator imprisoned in Mexico.
Director: Buzz Kulik | Stars: Yul Brynner, Robert Mitchum, Maria Grazia Buccella, Herbert Lom
Votes: 2,327 | Gross: $2.64M
20. Apache Rifles (1964)
Not Rated | 92 min | Western
A young cavalry officer is assigned the job of bringing in a band of Apaches who have been terrorizing the countryside.
Director: William Witney | Stars: Audie Murphy, Michael Dante, Linda Lawson, L.Q. Jones
Votes: 3,347
21. Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964)
Not Rated | 92 min | Western
In New Mexico, a Confederate veteran returns home to find his fiancée married to a Union soldier, his Yankee neighbors rallied against him and his property sold by the local banker who then hires a gunman to kill him.
Director: Richard Wilson | Stars: Yul Brynner, Janice Rule, George Segal, Alfred Ryder
Votes: 2,346
22. Black Spurs (1965)
Approved | 81 min | Western
A man becomes a bounty hunter to earn enough to marry the woman he loves, but when he returns to their Kansas town, she has married the sheriff instead which prompts him to scheme revenge by ruining the town's reputation.
Director: R.G. Springsteen | Stars: Rory Calhoun, Linda Darnell, Terry Moore, Scott Brady
Votes: 466
23. The Scalphunters (1968)
Not Rated | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Western
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas, Ossie Davis
Votes: 4,386
24. Texas Across the River (1966)
Approved | 101 min | Comedy, Western
In 1845 Texas, a Louisiana belle is courted by a wanted Spanish nobleman and a Texas brawling gunrunner but her suitors' passionate duel is interrupted by the cavalry and a Comanche attack.
Director: Michael Gordon | Stars: Dean Martin, Alain Delon, Rosemary Forsyth, Joey Bishop
Votes: 1,878
25. The Stalking Moon (1968)
G | 109 min | Drama, Western
U.S. Army soldiers round up a group of Apache, mostly women and children. Surprisingly, they find among them a white woman and her half-Apache son.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Forster, Noland Clay
Votes: 3,180
26. Custer of the West (1967)
G | 143 min | Biography, Drama, History
George Armstrong Custer's love of the heroic traditions of the Calvary and his distaste with the coming of industrialization leads him to his destiny at the Little Big Horn.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Robert Shaw, Mary Ure, Ty Hardin, Jeffrey Hunter
Votes: 1,622
27. Arizona Raiders (1965)
Approved | 97 min | Western
When Quantrill's (Quantrell) gang is almost destroyed two of the captured members agree to join the Arizona Rangers to help finish the job.
Director: William Witney | Stars: Audie Murphy, Michael Dante, Ben Cooper, Buster Crabbe
Votes: 1,264
28. The Rare Breed (1966)
Approved | 97 min | Western
An English woman and her daughter enlist the aid of a cowboy to try and get their hardy hornless bull to mate with the longhorns of Texas, but have to overcome greedy criminals and the natural elements.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen | Stars: James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Juliet Mills
Votes: 3,969
29. The Night of the Grizzly (1966)
G | 102 min | Adventure, Western
Ex-lawman Jim Cole retires to Wyoming to farm his land, but a land-greedy neighbor, an ex-con turned bounty hunter, and a vicious grizzly bear upset his retirement plans.
Director: Joseph Pevney | Stars: Clint Walker, Martha Hyer, Keenan Wynn, Nancy Kulp
Votes: 1,510
30. The Great Sioux Massacre (1965)
Approved | 91 min | Action, Biography, Drama
A somewhat different take on Custer's motivation that changed him from a defender of Native-American rights into a politically-driven, headline-seeker chastiser of the Sioux during the 1870s.
Director: Sidney Salkow | Stars: Joseph Cotten, Darren McGavin, Philip Carey, Julie Sommars
Votes: 709
31. Alvarez Kelly (1966)
Approved | 116 min | Western
During the Civil War, Mexican cattleman Alvarez Kelly supplies the Union with cattle until Confederate Colonel Tom Rossiter's hungry men force Kelly to change his customers.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: William Holden, Richard Widmark, Janice Rule, Patrick O'Neal
Votes: 2,738
32. Hour of the Gun (1967)
Approved | 100 min | Drama, Western
Marshal Wyatt Earp kills a couple of men of the Clanton gang in a fight. In revenge, Clanton's thugs kill the Marshal's brother. Thus, Wyatt starts to chase the killers together with his friend Doc Holliday.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: James Garner, Jason Robards, Robert Ryan, Albert Salmi
Votes: 4,600
33. 4 for Texas (1963)
Approved | 124 min | Comedy, Western
Zack Thomas is a tough guy who hooks up with Joe Jarrett to open a casino.
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, Ursula Andress
Votes: 3,658
34. Major Dundee (1965)
PG-13 | 123 min | Adventure, Drama, War
In 1864, due to frequent Apache raids from Mexico into the U.S., a Union officer decides to illegally cross the border and destroy the Apache, using a mixed army of Union troops, Confederate POWs, civilian mercenaries, and scouts.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, James Coburn
Votes: 8,828 | Gross: $0.01M
35. Gunfight at Comanche Creek (1963)
Approved | 90 min | Western
In 1875 a murderous outlaw gang breaks criminals from jail, uses them to help in crimes, and then kills them for the reward, when it goes high enough.
Director: Frank McDonald | Stars: Audie Murphy, Ben Cooper, Colleen Miller, DeForest Kelley
Votes: 847
36. Welcome to Hard Times (1967)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, Western
A sociopathic stranger all but destroys a small hardscrabble town but the 'mayor' convinces its survivors to stay and rebuild.
Director: Burt Kennedy | Stars: Henry Fonda, Janice Rule, Keenan Wynn, Janis Paige
Votes: 1,695
37. 5 Card Stud (1968)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
The players in an ongoing poker game are being mysteriously killed off, one by one.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Inger Stevens, Roddy McDowall
Votes: 4,411
38. Will Penny (1967)
Approved | 108 min | Drama, Romance, Western
Aging cowboy Will Penny gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds his isolated cabin is already occupied by an abandoned woman traveler and her young son.
Director: Tom Gries | Stars: Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett, Donald Pleasence, Lee Majors
Votes: 5,257
39. Waco (1966)
Passed | 85 min | Western
A lawless town asks the state governor to pardon an imprisoned gunfighter in order to hire him as sheriff but various factions plan to kill the new sheriff and take over the town.
Director: R.G. Springsteen | Stars: Howard Keel, Jane Russell, Brian Donlevy, Wendell Corey
Votes: 367
40. Cat Ballou (1965)
Not Rated | 97 min | Western
A young schoolteacher turns into an outlaw to avenge her murdered father.
Director: Elliot Silverstein | Stars: Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman
Votes: 16,205 | Gross: $20.67M
41. Shenandoah (1965)
Approved | 105 min | Drama, War, Western
A Virginia farmer who has vowed to remain neutral during the Civil War is spurred into action when his youngest son is taken by Union soldiers.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen | Stars: James Stewart, Doug McClure, Glenn Corbett, Patrick Wayne
Votes: 9,628
42. The Professionals (1966)
PG-13 | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
An arrogant Texas millionaire hires four adventurers to rescue his kidnapped wife from a notorious Mexican bandit.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode
Votes: 18,849 | Gross: $19.54M
43. Hombre (1967)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Western
John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Native Americans, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Paul Newman, Fredric March, Richard Boone, Diane Cilento
Votes: 13,846
44. Stagecoach (1966)
Approved | 115 min | Action, Adventure, Western
On the stagecoach to Cheyenne, a mixed group of passengers must work together to survive the arduous journey and the Indian attacks.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: Ann-Margret, Alex Cord, Red Buttons, Mike Connors
Votes: 2,254 | Gross: $8.72M
45. Duel at Diablo (1966)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
In Apache territory, a supply Army column heads for the next fort, an ex-scout searches for the killer of his Indian wife, and a housewife abandons her husband in order to rejoin her Apache lover's tribe.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: James Garner, Sidney Poitier, Bibi Andersson, Dennis Weaver
Votes: 4,266
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