Saturday at the Esquire (South Town, Pantheon) on a winter afternoon. Kids with popcorn and candy, settled in for a newsreel, cartoon, and a double feature. Like as not, one of the films is a Western.
In Hollywood they are oaters, shot in a few days on a back lot dressed with fake boulders and aging stars. They tell a skewed version of the Western past, favoring settlers and trashing natives, but no matter to the kids; for them it's all about good and bad guys, lots of shooting and chases on horseback, and riding off into the sunset.
Bob Wicks, long a big fan, sent a link to a site devoted to Those Old Westerns. It's a slide show of scenes and stars, with music. You'll see names and faces you may have forgotten. My personal favorite in this genre are the films of John Ford, which feature beautiful shots and good acting. Oh, and a big galoot named John Wayne.
2 comments:
The John Ford/John Wayne cavalry trilogy ("Fort Apache" [1948], "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" [1949] and "Rio Grande" [1950]), besides being good movies, preserved and detailed cavalry life, training, commands, bugle calls, manuevers, etc., from a particular time period as did no other material; rather as "Moby Dick" did for the details of whaling.
Ford wanted to do "The Quiet Man" but Republic demanded first another western ("Rio Grande") which he did with essentially the same cast as he used in "The Quiet Man" [1952].
--Allan Stephens
movie aficionado
8-)
USE the link to "Those Old Westerns." It is well worth the trip - and turn on your sound first! Thanks for the memories...
--Allan Stephens
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