THE LONG RIDERS
I had a couple of hours downtime yesterday and I decided to watch a western movie. I picked one from my collection of DVD’s that I hadn’t seen in a while…The Long Riders.
This movie was written and produced by Stacey and James Keach. It’s about the James-Younger gang. As far as I’m concerned it’s an extraordinary film. The unique thing is that actor brothers play outlaw brothers. The Carradines are the Youngers, and the Keachs are Jesse and Frank. Even Robert Ford and his brother are played by brothers.
Historically, it’s fairly accurate as well. Probably Bell Starr had a bigger role in the movie than she did in the life of Cole Younger.
What’s your opinion of the movie?
Filed under: Old West History
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i first saw this movie in the 80’s on the cable movie channel of the time. I wondered why it did not do well as it was very acurate. I read some years later that the movie was essentially black listed for mistreatment of the horses. it said they used among other things, a “running W”. This is a cable tied to the front legs and the horse set to running. when the cable runs out, the legs are stopped and the horse plows head first into the groundas if shot. You can see this in the final fight scene. It’s a shame they had to pull that crap and ruin an otherwise classic western.
Now-a-days they train horses to fall on queue. Incidentally, the horse gets paid more than the rider for this stunt.
I think things have changed quite a bit since then. Now, horses are trained to fall. They get more money than the stunt man.