Kevin Costner takes western into the modern era with Open Range

Kevin Costner’s Open Range is one of the best examples of the modern western.

Kevin Costner, left, and Robert Duvall in Open Range.

There are several westerns airing this week, which is always a good thing. One of the best recent examples of the now virtually stagnant genre is the 2003 Kevin Costner-directed star vehicle Open Range (Sunday, 8.30pm, Action Movies).

Costner and Robert Duvall play a couple of cattlemen in the 1882 American west who run afoul of an Irish immigrant land baron (Michael Gambon) and must rely on the local doctor’s sister, played by Annette Bening, to stand up to the corruption.

This is one of Costner’s best films and Duvall’s best performances, both imbued with a melancholic toughness that is the essence of the genre.

Taking place a year earlier on the fictional timeline is another genre entry, this one little-seen or remembered. Though decidedly tame by today’s standards, the changing times of the late 1960s are immediately apparent in producer-director Gene Kelly’s (yes, that Gene Kelly) 1970 Western comedy The Cheyenne Social Club (Monday, 11.25pm, TCM). James Stewart and Henry Fonda play ageing cowboys, the latter of whom inherits a brothel he’s determined to turn into a legitimate hotel.

Want more? You can’t go wrong with the little-seen but worthwhile 1967 Hour of the Gun (Tuesday, 11.35pm, Fox Classics), in which James Garner gives perhaps his best performance as Wyatt Earp with Jason Robards as Doc Holliday. The film is also a career high point for veteran director John Sturges.

Or try the comfort food of westerns immediately preceding it, Sergio Leone’s immortal The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Tuesday, 8.35pm, Fox Classics), which of course made a star of the young Clint Eastwood. And speaking of Clint, which is done a lot around here, perhaps his most neglected performances is that of Private Kelly in the 1970 World War II US-Yugoslav war comedy Kelly’s Heroes (Friday, 8.35pm, Fox Classics). He’s the disgruntled soldier who stumbles across a cache of Nazi gold and enlists a group of misfits — including Don Rickles and Donald Sutherland — to go behind German lines to fetch it.

If the plot seems familiar, that’s because the 1997 George Clooney-starring Iraq war movie Three Kings is an unacknowledged remake — or, at the very least, mute tribute — to it. (Interestingly enough, the movie’s theme song, Burning Bridges by the Mike Curb Congregation and Lalo Schifrin, stalled on the American rock charts yet reached No 1 in Australia in May 1971.)

Author EL Doctorow died recently and there’s a one-time-only screening of director Milos Forman’s flawed but fascinating Ragtime (Saturday, 3.55pm, Masterpiece Movies) that is worth bookmarking.

Open Range (M) 4.5 stars

Sunday, 8.30pm, Action Movies (406)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (MA15+) 4.5 stars

Tuesday, 8.35pm, Fox Classics (113)

Kelly’s Heroes (M) 4 stars

Friday, 8.35pm, Fox Classics (113)