SHANE the Greatest Western Movie of All Time, Western Writers of America Announces

SHANE the Greatest Western Movie of All Time, Western Writers of America Announces

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SHANE, director George Stevens' classic 1953 movie about a weary gunfighter caught up in a land war between Wyoming ranchers and farmers, is the greatest Western movie of all time, Western Writers of America has announced.

For top honors SHANE, which Pulitzer Prize-winning Western novelist A.B. Guthrie Jr. adapted for the screen from Jack Schaefer's novel, edged HIGH NOON, the 1952 movie that won Gary Cooper his second Academy Award as Best Actor.

Western Writers of America, a nonprofit organization of more than 600 professional writers, founded in the 1950s to promote and honor the best literature about the American West -- including screenwriting -- announced the 100 Greatest Western Movies of All Time on Thursday, June 12, at Scottsdale's Chaparral Suites during the association's annual convention.

"This year has been incredible," WWA Executive Director Paul Hutton said. "Cormac McCarthy's brutal little contemporary Western NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN did great at the box office, taking in over $60 million and was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen got nominations, too. Paul Thomas Anderson also was nominated for THERE WILL BE BLOOD, his amazing adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil, with his lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis winning the Oscar."

Members voted on their top 10 Western movies, and the ballots were tabulated at the WWA offices at the University of New Mexico.

No. 3 was THE SEARCHERS, director John Ford's powerful 1956 story about a vengeful Texan's quest to find his two nieces, taken by Comanche Indians, based on Alan LeMay's novel. No. 4 was BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, the 1969 movie that first teamed Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Kevin Costner's Academy Award-winning DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990), from Michael Blake's novel, rounded out the top five.

Rounding out the top 10 were director Sam Peckinpah's bloody, end-of-the-West opera THE WILD BUNCH (1969); Howard Hawk's first Western, RED RIVER (1948), which gave John Wayne one of his best roles; the surprise cult O.K. Corral favorite TOMBSTONE (1993), starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer; THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960), a Western retelling of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's brilliant SEVEN SAMURAI, and OPEN RANGE (2003), which starred Robert Duvall in another Costner-directed movie.

"It's not the Top 10 I would come up with," says incoming WWA president Johnny D. Boggs, "but that's the fun of lists like these. It prompts lively debate, and members of Western Writers of America can be as passionate about Western film as they are about literature of the West."

WWA's membership roster is filled with writers who are no stranger to Hollywood, including screenwriters Kirk Ellis, Steve Harrigan, C. Courtney Joyner, Andrew J. Fenady, Stephen Lodge, and Miles Hood Swarthout, whose father, the late Glendon Swarthout, wrote the novel THE SHOOTIST, which became John Wayne's last movie. Bill Gulick (BEND OF THE RIVER, THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL) and Max Evans (THE ROUNDERS, THE HI-LO COUNTRY) saw two of their novels adapted for the screen. Hutton, Boggs and fellow members Michael F. Blake, Win Blevins, Brian Garfield, and Arthur Winfield Knight have written extensively about Western film.

In 2009, WWA plans to announce the 100 Greatest Western Television Movies, Series and Miniseries of All Time during the convention in Oklahoma City.

For information on the WWA convention, call the organization's executive director's office at (505) 277-5234 or log on to http://www.westernwriters.org/.

The complete list follows:

WWA Top 100 Westerns

1. Shane
2. High Noon
3. The Searchers
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Dances with Wolves
6. The Wild Bunch
7. Red River
8. Tombstone
9. The Magnificent Seven
10. Open Range

11. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
13. True Grit
14. The Shootist
15. Stagecoach (1939)
16. Unforgiven
17. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
18. The Outlaw Josey Wales
19. Ride the High Country
20. Jeremiah Johnson

21. The Cowboys
22. My Darling Clementine
23. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
24. Rio Bravo
25. The Ox-Bow Incident
26. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
27. Lonely are the Brave
28. Will Penny
29. Hud
30. Winchester '73

31. Little Big Man
32. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)
33. The Grey Fox
34. The Alamo (1960)
35. Silverado
36. Ulzana's Raid
37. Once upon a Time in the West
38. Rio Grande
39. The Rounders
40. The Big Country

41. The Hi-Lo Country
42. Duel in the Sun
43. Fort Apache
44. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
45. The Last Picture Show
46. The Grapes of Wrath
47. Bad Day at Black Rock
48. The Long Riders
49. The Tall T
50. Cat Ballou

51. Tumbleweeds
52. The Iron Horse
53. Man of the West
54. Seven Men from Now
55. The Big Trail
56. Three Godfathers
57. Hell's Hinges
58. The Wind (1928)
59. The Westerner
60. Support Your Local Sheriff

61. They Died with Their Boots On
62. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
63. The Professionals
64. The Cheyenne Social Club
65. El Dorado
66. Thunderheart
67. The Virginian (1929)
68. A Man Called Horse
69. Hombre
70. Barbarosa

71. Chisum
72. The Big Sky
73. Young Guns
74. Destry Rides Again
75. Junior Bonner
76. Angel and the Badman
77. Warlock
78. The Misfits
79. No Country for Old Men
80. Monte Walsh

81. Four Faces West
82. The Naked Spur
83. The Gunfighter
84. High Plains Drifter
85. Devil's Doorway
86. Law and Order (1932)
87. Coroner Creek
88. Valdez is Coming
89. Hondo
90. The Man from Laramie

91. The Unforgiven (1960)
92. Broken Arrow
93. Bend of the River
94. Giant
95. Blazing Saddles
96. The Culpepper Cattle Company
97. Three Bad Men
98. Pursued
99. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
100. The Great Train Robbery (1903)

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: Western Writers of America

CONTACT: Melody Groves of Western Writers of America, +1-575-523-0069,
or +1-505-298-3022, melodygroves@comcast.net

Web site:

http://www.westernwriters.org/

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