Wonderful Westerns: ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’ (1976)

In my previous article I spotlighted John Wayne’s final film The Shootist, which was released in 1976. Around the same time, audiences saw the new wave of Westerns helmed by the man that the Duke showed disdained towards due to his film High Plains Drifter: Clint Eastwood. This new wave would continue in the form of Eastwood’s third directorial effort, The Outlaw Josey Wales. The story of a Missouri farmer, the eponymous Josey Wales (Eastwood), who’s driven to a cold and violent lifestyle after the murder of his wife and son by the hands of a notorious group of Union soldiers called Jayhawkers — aka Redlegs — led by the notorious Capt. Terrill (Bill McKinney). As he travels towards Texas after the war, he meets a rag-tag group of colorful characters and it’s through this journey that Wales slowly regains his faith in humanity and becomes less of a loner.

Right off the bat, the audience gets an idea of Eastwood’s style when it comes to his film’s heroes — or should I say, antiheroes. There’s no doubt that Josey Wales is out for revenge, so much so that he joins the notorious Confederate guerrilla soldiers led by infamous “Bloody Bill” Anderson. After the war, he’s left aimless and without a home after his house was burnt to the ground, his family buried six feet under, and Wales doesn’t want to belong to the nation that essentially commissioned the men who ruined his life. He doesn’t care anymore. He feels that he can’t find anything that resembles a home ever again.

While, yes, he performs many acts of heroism in the film, it isn’t out of some “truth, justice, and the American way” crusade. It’s really more out of a sense of preventing others from falling into a similar state of isolation and harsh environment.

The film has a motif of Josey coming across people who have either been forced to live on a stretch of land or with a lifestyle against their will or are trying to find a new home. The best example of this with when Wales meets an old Cherokee named Lone Watie (Chief Dan George) who’s forced to live on a rather sad piece of land in a rickety old cabin. Watie was not only forced onto the land by the government, but also even forced to dress a certain way and become “civilized.” “I’m an Indian, all right,” he says, “but here in the nation, they call us the ‘civilized tribe.’ They call us ‘civilized’ because we’re easy to sneak up on. White men have been sneaking up on us for years.”

Speaking of Lone Watie, this is one of my favorite characters of all time — not only in Western films, but film in general. He’s a very smart and witty character who has a great, dry delivery. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the inspiration for the character Nobody in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995).  You’ll absolutely love this guy.

Another way this film differs from previous Westerns is the treatment of Native Americans. While there have been other films previously that tried to depict them in a slightly better light, it was this film that the presented them in the best light possible (for Westerns, at least) — they aren’t the villains!

One of the best scenes in the film is when Wales confronts a group of Comanche Indians who have kidnapped some of his friends. Those of you who haven’t seen the film are probably thinking he just charges in with guns a-blazin’ and saves his friends with a body count behind him. Well, that’s not the case at all! He goes in and talks to the chief, Ten Bears (Will Sampson) and creates a treaty with them.

This truly is a fantastic Western featuring spectacular performances from Eastwood, George, and John Vernon as Wales’s former commanding officer who’s forced to hunt him down. It’s a Western that has garnered praise not only from critics but from the greats of cinema, one of which was the legendary Orson Welles, who said on The Merv Griffin Show, “When I saw that picture for the fourth time, I realized that it belongs with the great Westerns. You know, the great Westerns of (John) Ford and (Howard) Hawks and people like that.” If that isn’t a motivation for you to see it, then I don’t know what is.

John Hamilton

John Hamilton is a lover of classic cinema from Southern Ohio and has been since he was a tiny little lad growing up on the farm. He's a fan of every type of film out there, especially Westerns and movies from the '60s and '70s. John is also a blogger and freelance writer.