The Spirit of the West

Two punks from the big city, traveling across the country in a Volkswagen bug, embrace the western ethos when they must take revenge against a group of rednecks for killing their friend in this lighthearted road movie. Along the way, they enlist the help of a young woman who runs a wrecking service.

CREMASTER 2 is rendered as a gothic Western that introduces conflict into the system. On the biological level it corresponds to the phase of fetal development during which sexual division begins. In Matthew Barney's abstraction of this process, the system resists partition and tries to remain in the state of equilibrium imagined in Cremaster 1.

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."

Ben (Glenn Ford) and Marion (Henry Fonda) are two cowboys who make a meager living breaking wild horses. Their frequent employer Jim (Chill Wills), who always gets the better of them, talks them into taking a nondescript horse in lieu of some of their wages. Ben finds that the horse is un-rideable, he comes up with the idea of taking it to a rodeo and betting other cowhands they cannot ride it.

America's favorite singing cowboy Gene Autry stars in this vintage tale as an up-and-coming rodeo singer caught in the middle of two rival companies, both angling to ride the talented crooner to riches. Featuring several memorable musical performances from Autry, including renditions of "Forgive Me" and "In Old Capistrano," this rousing Western co-stars Smiley Burnette, Virginia Grey and Lucien Littlefield.

This Columbia western starring Charles Starrett finds Steve Randall (Charles Starrett) forming a radio show with Jimmy Wakely (Jimmy Wakely) and his Saddle Pals, and are in town for a rodeo. Reporter Connie Pearson (Constance Worth) persuades them to visit Marty Jones (Elvin Fields), a fatherless boy, who has been sent to a boy's home after stealing Steve's wallet, ran by Tom Goodwin (Forrest Taylor.) Marty tells Steve that the home is a phony and is a front for cattle rustlers. Steve passes the information on to Connie, who doesn't believe him, so he and Jimmy wire the ranch for sound. They are caught and Goodwin turns them over to Sheriff Barnes (Edmund Cobb), and then plans to skip the country

With his bronco-busting career on its last legs, Junior Bonner heads to his hometown to try his luck in the annual rodeo. But his fond childhood memories are shattered when he finds his family torn apart by his greedy brother and hard-drinking father.

Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt against the wishes of Merritt's wife who fears the dangers of this rough sport.

While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.

Two championship rodeo partners travel to New York to find their missing friend, Nacho Salazar who went missing there.

A former champion rodeo rider is reduced to using his saddle skills to promote a breakfast cereal in a gaudy Las Vegas show. When he's asked to perform with a $12 million horse, he discovers it is being doped to remain docile. He flees into the desert astride the beast in an act of defiance. A story-hungry female reporter gives chase.

Once a rising star of the rodeo circuit, and a gifted horse trainer, young cowboy Brady is warned that his riding days are over after a horse crushed his skull at a rodeo. In an attempt to regain control of his own fate, Brady undertakes a search for a new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of the United States.