The Hollywood Ten: Great Moments From Slim Pickens
A new series this, in which I will choose ten favourites from a random category - the only rule is that the films must be mainstream and from America.
I’ve decided to begin with the great Slim Pickens (1919-83), a real cowboy turned favourite character player in Hollywood movies between the 50s and the 80s; mostly in Westerns but sometimes cropping up in more unlikely circumstances.
1. Riding the H-bomb to oblivion as Major “King” Kong in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
2. Punching Dom DeLuise while uttering the immortal line, “Piss on you, I’m working for Mel Brooks” in Blazing Saddles.
3. Going down to the river to die in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
4. “A Sharps buffalo rifle! This is gettin’ downright romantic!” - Rancho Deluxe.
5. Taking Steve and Ali away from it all in The Getaway.
6. “Wil, if yer neck was any stiffer, you couldn’t even bend down ta pull yer boots on!” - Telling it like it is to John Wayne in The Cowboys.
7. “How can a man take a bowel movement with a hundred buffalo rifles a-pointin’ at him?” - 1941.
8. Driving the stage to the promised land in The Ballad of Cable Hogue
9. Going out to shoot Willie Nelson for seducing his daughter but deciding to get drunk with him instead in Honeysuckle Rose.
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10. Riding the rodeo with James Coburn - and falling for his wife - in The Honkers. Not only a great Western but also one of my favourite behind-the-scenes photos.