"Bonnie and Clyde, move over – there's a new sheriff in town. Great partnerships are hard to come by, but we've tracked down one of the most criminally underrated from the world of film, and rounded up 10 great examples of the hybrid genre. The case at hand – Noir Western, where the iconic, rugged landscape of the Wild West is populated by hard-boiled, cynical cowboys battling their own consciences as much as they fight outlaws.
Classic Westerns are typically associated with a cheery, heroic motif which so sanitizes historical reality that they often elicit little more than groans from savvy film viewers. So the marriage of the Western with the gritty world of Film Noir is perhaps a welcome one, and its divorce from charming naivety a necessary one. And on that note, John Wayne symbolically rides off into the colorful sunset while Robert Mitchum sits tall in the saddle, sneering slightly as deep shadows threaten to engulf the scene."
