Review of the year 2018

What did we read?

At this time I usually look back over the past year to see which subjects interested readers – and which didn’t.

There have been 12,500 pageviews per month, on average, March being a peak with 19,563. The majority of hits have come from the US, as always, though France, where I live, and the UK have also been strong.

The most read review was of Zandy’s Bride, the 1974 Warners picture with Gene Hackman. I myself find it a dreary movie but people evidently want to read about it.

Next came the post on Caroline Weldon, the woman who lived with Sitting Bull, often wrongly called Catherine Weldon. There’s a lot of interest out there about her.

James Garner’s tough-guy Western Duel at Diablo (1966) came next. I only gave it two revolvers but again people seem interested.

Three essays followed, in popularity or most-read status: the posts on Geronimo in fact and fiction, Derringersand on Johnny Ringo. I can understand the interest!

The remaining entries in the top ten were the reviews of Hostiles, The Ballad of Lefty Brown, Ulzana’s Raid and Wyatt Earp’s Revenge. Personally, only Ulzana was a seriously good contender, but of course the fact that there was most interest in these doesn’t mean they are the most popular Westerns.

In the bottom half of the top twenty came, in descending order, the undistinguished The Culpepper Cattle Company, More Dead than Alive with 'the other' Clint, Apache Warrior (which was the thousandth Western to be reviewed on this blog), Robert Ryan excellent in The Proud Ones, the AC Lyles geezer Western Arizona Bushwhackers, the slightly cheesy The Gal Who Took the West, The Great Silence/Il Grande Silenzio (one of the better spaghettis), Jim Davis freeing California inFrontier Uprising, the interesting Jock Mahoney picture Joe Dakota and the late-ish Audie oater Six Black Horses.

The leastread of my posts were the ones on (in decreasing order) the 1966 Monte Hellman picture The Shooting, the very weak 1970 Western Four Rode Out which starred Pernell Roberts, the 2016 sub-Tarantino picture Outlaws and Angels, the country-singer TV oater The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James, and, last and least, with only 29 reads, the less than riveting Fox 1956 picture directed by William Claxton, Stagecoach to Fury.

Well, it doesn’t mean much but it’s mildly interesting in its way.

The all-time favorites (since the blog began in 2010) are: