I would definitely put "Cat Ballou" on the "must see" list. I don't know if a purist would consider it to be a genuine Western, but it was one of the more memorable movies I've seen. I've heard that Lee Marvin, after seeing the movie before it was released, went and hid under his bed, saying "My God, what have I done? Nobody will ever take me as a serious actor again!" But his shame and humiliation was pretty well alleviated when he won an Oscar for his role as the drunken gunfighter. I'd seen Lee Marvin in a lot of movies where he played detectives, crooks, etc., but it was in "Cat Ballou" that I first really noticed him.

My nomination for The Greatest Western Ever Made is "The Big Country." Plot set-up from Internet Movie Data Base:

Retired, wealthy sea Captain James McKay (Gregory Peck) arrives in the vast expanse of the West to marry fiancée Pat Terrill (Carroll Baker). McKay is a man whose values & approach to life are a mystery to the ranchers & ranch foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) takes an immediate dislike to him. Pat is spoiled, selfish & controlled by her wealthy father, Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford). The Major is involved in a ruthless civil war, over watering rights for cattle, with a rough hewn clan led by Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). The land in question is owned by Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons) & both Terrill & Hannassey want it.

It has everything that a good Western needs to have—all the clichés you've ever seen in Westerns—but it handles them with a slightly new twist, such as the shoot-out between Gregory Peck and Rufus Hannassey's cowardly bully of a son (Chuck Connors). McKay (Peck) insists that it be fought "like gentlemen;" with a brace of single-shot dueling pistols. Jean Simmons plays the purty school marm (single, of course) who owns the land—and the water rights—that everyone else wants.

Most people assume that Burl Ives got his Oscar for playing "Big Daddy" in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958), but not so. He was great as "Big Daddy." But he was awarded the Oscar for Rufus Hannassey in "The Big Country" (also 1958). He was bloody brilliant in that role!

One of the really great things about this movie is that there are no clear-cut lines as to who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are. The two people who display real integrity are McKay (Peck) and Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives).

Great sequence:   Steve Leech (Heston), ranch foreman in love with the rancher's spoiled daughter, challenges McKay (Peck) to a fist fight. Later, they meet in the corral in the dead of night and beat the crap out of each other for about an hour. No clear winner. As they both lay there in the dirt, bruised and bleeding and no longer able to move, Peck lifts his face out of the dirt and says, "Tell me Leech, what did we prove?" No answer. Then, they both crawl painfully to their feet and stagger off in opposite directions.

I think there's a metaphor there.

Don Firth