The Searchers:
Ethan Edwards, returned from the Civil War to the Texas ranch of his brother,
hopes to find a home with his family and to be near the woman he obviously, but
secretly, loves. But a Comanche raid destroys these plans, and Ethan sets out,
along with his 1/8 Indian nephew Martin, on a years-long journey to find the
niece kidnapped by the Indians under Chief Scar. But as the quest goes on,
Martin begins to realize that his uncle's hatred for the Indians is beginning
to spill over onto his now-assimilated niece. Martin becomes uncertain whether
Ethan plans to rescue Debbie – or kill her.
The Wild Bunch:
In the Wild Bunch the movie opens with a group of aging outlaw's final score, a
bank robbery. The event concludes with a violent and overtly bloody shootout
that would generally mark the finale of a movie. This is correct in that it
marks the finale of an era, for the characters and the world they live in. They
simply can no longer keep up, the times are changing, technology advancing, and
they're style of life is getting left behind in the dust that they spent so long
galloping through. They abandon their careers for the simpler life of
retirement. They enjoy this time, they live their fantasies. During this time
the law is always on their tracks, bounty hunters. The further into their
fantasy they get, the closer their demise seems to get. When one of their own is
captured they are faced with the choice of escape or what is certainly a suicide
mission to attempt and free their fallen behind comrade.
How the West Was Won:
Sprawling epic which follows the Prescott's, an emigrant family through four
generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830's to their settled home in the
West a half a century later. On the way they encounter river pirates, and escape
with the help of fur trapper Linus Rawlings, who subsequently marries one of
their daughters, Eve. The parents are drowned on a foundering raft, and the
other daughter Lilith becomes a riverboat singer and catches the eye of a
genteel adventurer Cleve Van Valen. They cross the plains together in a wagon
train and make and lose a fortune in California; meanwhile Linus has turned
farmer and, comes the Civil War, joins the Union Army and is killed at the
Battle of Shiloh. One of his sons Zeb also joins the army and stays after the
war as a cavalry officer and is sent to Colorado to help guard the pioneering
railroad against the Indians, whose land they are crossing.