Movie Flashback: Silverado

Another of my favorite movies of the 1980′s.

Any Western that casts John Cleese as an English Sheriff in the Wild West has to be a classic!

Silverado was released in 1985.

It starred:

Kevin Kline – Paden
Kevin Costner – Jake
Scott Glenn – Emmett
Danny Glover – Mal
John Cleese – Sheriff Langston
Brian Dennehy – Cobb
Rosanna Arquette – Hannah
Jeff Goldblum – Slick

This was one of Kevin Costner’s first “feature” roles. The film was directed by Lawrence Kasdan who had directed the 1983 film “The Big Chill“. Costner had a role in that film that was cut from the final version of the film. He was offered the part of Jake in Silverado to “make up” for the Big Chill exclusion.

Writer/Director Kasdan also wrote “Raiders of the Lost Ark“, “The Empire Strikes Back“, and “Return of the Jedi“, among many others.

John Cleese’s first line in the film as Sheriff Langston is “What’s all this then?”, a direct reference to the first line that any Law Enforcement types always uttered on the classic series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus“.

The movie was filmed in Northern New Mexico. The set was left intact and has been used for other productions including “Young Guns”, “Lonesome Dove”, “Wyatt Earp”, “Last Man Standing”, “Wild Wild West” and others.

Kevin Kline and John Cleese would reunite in the 1988 classic “A Fish Called Wanda“.

Brian Dennehy, playing the villain Sheriff Cobb, had just appeared as a kind alien in the film “Cocoon” prior to the release of Silverado.

The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Sound and Musical Score.

With all the main actors going on to bigger projects, this film was one of the few great films of the 1980′s that did not get a sequel. What a shame. It was truly an entertaining movie and easily one of the best Westerns of the last 25 years or so.