Hellbent For Letterbox

Mike and Pax discuss the 2017 western Ballad of Lefty Brown starring Bill Pullman, Peter Fonda, Jim Caveziel, and Tommy Flannagan.

Michael and Pax welcome back Shawn Robare to finish this year's spooky season double-feature. We're watching the little-known The Devil's Mistress about a gang of ruthless outlaws who stumble across the wrong cabin on their run from justice.

Mike and Pax are joined by their Crestwood House co-host to talk about the horror western Ravenous from 1999 starring Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle.

It's been on our list a long time, but Michael and Pax finally get around to talking about Appaloosa, directed by and starring Ed Harris. It also stars Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons, and is based on the novel by Robert B Parker.

In this episode Mike and Pax finish up a Willie Nelson double header with Red Headed Stranger from 1986.

Michael and Pax watch one of Michael's favorite '80s Westerns, Barbarosa starring Willie Nelson, Gary Busey, and Gilbert Roland.

Mike and Pax cover another Peckinpah.  Will they love it or hate it?  Listen to find out!

Thanks to a listener's suggestion, Michael and Pax watch Glenn Ford, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G Robinson, and Brian Keith in Rudolph Maté's The Violent Men. The movie also features Dianne Foster and Richard Jaeckel. It begins with a couple of classic Western tropes, but takes them in surprising and dark directions.

In this episode Mike and Pax talk about a twisty western comedy called There Was a Crooked Man starring Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Warren Oates, Hume Cronyn, Burgess Meredith, and John Randolph.

Michael and Pax check out Young John Wayne and Ella Raines in the Western mystery Tall in the Saddle. The movie also features Gabby Hayes and Ward Bond.

In this episode Mike and Pax continue watching OK Corral movies with this acclaimed adaptation by John Ford starring Henry Fonda and Victor Mature.

For Valentine's Day, Michael and Pax watch the Western romance, The Dead Don't Hurt, written and directed by Viggo Mortensen. Mortensen also wrote the score and acted alongside the movie's real star, Vicky Krieps. The film also features Danny Huston and Deadwood favorites W Earl Brown and Ray McKinnon.

Mike and Pax discuss another OK Corral movie, this one starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as Wyatt and Doc.  And with appearances by DeForest Kelley, Jack Elam, and Dennis Hopper.

Michael and Pax finally revisit Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a movie that Michael liked on first viewing, but Pax didn't, and neither has seen in a very long time. 

Mike and Pax discuss The Old Way from 2023 starring Nic Cage.

Always on the lookout for Westerns starring women, Michael and Pax watch Lamont Johnson's Cattle Annie and Little Britches. Amanda Plummer and Diane Lane insert themselves into a demotivated outlaw gang (run by Burt Lancaster and Scott Glenn) as it tries to avoid capture by Marshal Rod Steiger.  Pax also watches The Thicket (2024) while Michael takes a look at Heart of Arizona (1938) and The Bold Caballero (1936).

In this episode Mike and Pax discuss another Clint Eastwood western, Joe Kidd, also starring Robert Duvall, John Saxon, and directed by John Sturges.

Michael stretches the definitions of both "Western" and "Horror" when he makes Pax and guest Shawn Robare watch House II: The Second Story. Though it does have undead cowboys. The movie is the sequel to 1985's House and stars Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Royal Dano, John Ratzenberger, Bill Maher, and Lar Park-Lincoln.

It's October!  Check out the first of Hellbent's Halloween episodes where Mike and Pax are joined by Shawn Robare to discuss Knife for the Ladies from 1974 starring Jack Elam!

Michael and Pax finish watching the Budd Boetticher / Randolph Scott Westerns with Comanche Station, also starring Nancy Gates and Claude Akins. And Michael also watched a couple of 1930s Westerns: Buck Jones and Louise Brooks in Empty Saddles (1936) and William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy in Partners of the Plains (1938).