The Westerner (1940)

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Movie Info & Cast

Director:

William Wyler

Producer:

Samuel Goldwyn

Writer:

Jo Swerling, Niven Busch, Stuart N. Lake

Release Date:

Jan 1, 1940

Runtime:

1hr 40m

Synopsis

Judge Roy Bean, a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegarroon, Texas, befriends saddle tramp Cole Harden, who opposes Bean's policy against homesteaders.

Cast

  • Gary Cooper
  • Walter Brennan
  • Doris Davenport
  • Fred Stone
  • Forrest Tucker
  • Paul Hurst
  • Chill Wills
  • Lilian Bond
  • Dana Andrews
  • Charles Halton

Letterboxd User Reviews

3.6
7.9K
6.8K
1.7K
RATINGS 7 FANS
3.6
  • Oct 14, 2020

    Cinematic Time Capsule 1940 Marathon - Film #83 ”By gobs, he stole my gun” In what is now one of my favorite first acts of any western Gary Cooper rides into town on a “stolen” horse and is brought before the dishonorable Judge Bean’s kangaroo court in the town’s…

    96 Likes
    📀 Cammmalot 📀
    📀 Cammmalot 📀
    Nov 16, 2021

    Walter Brennan was somewhat embarrassed as to how he won three Oscars. In the early years of the Academy Awards, extras were given the right to vote. Brennan was popular with the Union of Film Extras, and since their numbers were overwhelming, he won every time he was…

    88 Likes
    Ziglet_mir
    Ziglet_mir
    Feb 1, 2020

    The Judge Roy Bean and Cole Harden are one of the stranger bromances in classic Hollywood. They could easily be a couple of Mark Twain characters: a lovable eccentric who’s a corrupt justice hanging men for the coins in their pocket, and a Trickster saddle tramp, both dusty…

    75 Likes
    Channing Pomeroy
    Channing Pomeroy
  •
    Jun 28, 2020

    "I'm the government here!" One of the things I love most about westerns is that, by depicting the birth of a nation (as it were), they function as a kind of origin story for the United States, and as such they often offer a critical portrayal of the principles upon which…

    59 Likes
    ScreeningNotes
    ScreeningNotes
    Apr 5, 2020

    oh to live in the great american west!! to have corn to shuck and cattle to herd and horses to...tend to?...i’m just kidding i don’t want any of that I just want to make out with gary cooper

    56 Likes
    eely
    eely
    Mar 23, 2023

    Mild spoilers ahead. The Westerner is half a great Western. The half that isn’t great is some tiresome business about a conflict between cattle ranchers and homesteaders, a venerable but almost always uninteresting Western cliché. I’ve seen dozens of Westerns with this…

    52 Likes
    noir1946
    noir1946
  •
    Mar 21, 2026

    I’ve come to expect a lot from any William Wyler film and this is definitely the weakest of his I’ve seen. It’s actually a solid western overall with a few standout scenes but at the end of the day it’s nothing special.

    43 Likes
    Iamblakeman
    Iamblakeman
    Mar 14, 2020

    Gary Cooper >>> Hegel O caso do Wyler é curiosíssimo: consistente, e paradoxalmente muito irregular. Não à toa foi, junto com De Sica, um problema para a política dos autores (e, como o De Sica, esteve na base dela, com os textos de Bazin e Leenhardt, para depois ser…

    42 Likes
    Bruno Andrade
    Bruno Andrade
    Jul 29, 2025

    During the first five years of the category’s existence, the Best Supporting Actor Oscar was awarded to the same person three times: Walter Brennan won for Come and Get It, Kentucky and finally The Westerner. His win was attributed to the Union of Film Extras, who were…

    42 Likes
    Fabian
    Fabian

Atom Users Reviews

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Metacritic

78
metacritic
Based on 6 Critics
tbd

USER SCORE (0)

There are no user reviews yet
50

If some one could just have decided who should carry the ball, instead of letting it pass from one to the other, The Westerner might have been a bang-up, dandy film. And that, we are sorry to say, it isn't. The trouble, as indicated, is that the picture has no core.

Metacritic review by Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
The New York Times
70

There are agreeable overtones of Mark Twain tall tales in this good-humored, though uneven, version of the paradoxical life of Judge Roy Bean, with Walter Brennan in the part.

Pauline Kael
The New Yorker

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is The Westerner (1940) (1940)?
The movie is 1hr 40min long.
What's The Westerner (1940) (1940) about?
Judge Roy Bean, a self-appointed hanging judge in Vinegarroon, Texas, befriends saddle tramp Cole Harden, who opposes Bean's policy against homesteaders.
Who's the cast of The Westerner (1940) (1940)?
  • Gary Cooper as Cole Harden
  • Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean
  • Doris Davenport as Jane Ellen Mathews
  • Fred Stone as Caliphet Mathews
  • Forrest Tucker as Wade Harper
  • Paul Hurst as Chickenfoot
  • Chill Wills as Southeast
  • Lilian Bond as Lily Langtry
  • Dana Andrews as Hod Johnson
  • Charles Halton as Mort Borrow
Who's the director behind The Westerner (1940) (1940)?
William Wyler directed The Westerner (1940) (1940).
Who produced The Westerner (1940) (1940)?
Samuel Goldwyn produced The Westerner (1940) (1940).
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