Classic westerns ride again

Disrespected and often left for dead, the western endures as Laemmle’s second-annual Western Weekend showcases half a dozen of the great films that made the genre popular. Each of the six features is worth a visit, including the classic “High Noon” (4:30 p.m. Sunday) with Gary Cooper as a lawman fighting the clock; director Philip Kaufman pulling off “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid” (7:30 p.m. Friday), Paul Newman starring in “Hombre” (2 p.m. Sunday) and the Kirk Douglas/Burt Lancaster “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (5:30 p.m. Saturday). But two of them are personal favorites. “Ride the High Country” (3 p.m. Saturday), an early effort from Sam Peckinpah, stars veterans Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in a tale set during the closing of the West. A similar elegiac air infuses “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (8 p.m. Saturday). One of John Ford’s indisputable masterpieces, it stars John Wayne, James Stewart and an out-of-control Lee Marvin in an unexpectedly emotional story of lost illusions and missed opportunities. Not your usual western, but a classic nevertheless.

UCLA Film and Television Archive GARY COOPER portrays Marshal Will Kane in the western “High Noon,” which screens Sunday as part of the Western Weekend film festival at the Laemmle.