Ramrod

(Andre de Toth, US 1947, 94 min., 35mm)

A tough female ranch owner (a surprisingly butch Veronica Lake) teams up with her foreman (Joel McCrea) to put her chief competitor—her father—out of business. Hungarian émigré de Toth (then husband to leading lady Lake) delivers a very entertaining and deeply Freudian Western, filled with phallic symbols…beginning with the title. Then at 8:45 p.m., Western Union…

Western Union

(Fritz Lang, US 1941, 94 min., 35mm)

In the first Western from German director Lang, Randolph Scott and Robert Young star as the men who laid the first coast-to-coast telegraph wire. Lang’s respect for the genre is evident in this handsomely mounted Technicolor™ adaptation of Zane Grey’s novel. Two films for one admission price.

This film appears as part of the Auteur Showdown series. Click here, To read more about auteur directors working in the western genre.