True Grit (1969)

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Dennis Hopper, john wayne, Robert Duvall, True Grit

Western Approaches

Not Bad for a One-Eyed Fat Man

Remakes stimulate debate. Rarely does the new version come out on top. Received wisdom invariably is that “It isn’t a patch on the original.”

It’s an argument that has dual attractions: first in the direction of nostalgia and second of  one up-man-ship. “You mean to say you haven’t seen the original!” The word original (in this context) is straight from the emotive school of language. It’s use, in reality, is little more than saying hooray for my side of the argument. “I like the old one because it is the old one”. Having said that, remakes rarely out-do the fondly remembered.

Glen Campbell as La Boeuf, John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn and Kim Darby as Mattie Ross

Some classic westerns could be termed remakes. 1960’s The Magnificent Seven and 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars for instance. They take their storylines and characters from Akira Kurosawa films. This doesn’t necessarily make them remakes just as  Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 Henry V is not a remake of Laurence Olivier’s 1944 movie. Same characters, same story; completely different film. Of westerns that are remakes, 3:10 to Yuma (2007), The Magnificent Seven (2016), Stagecoach (1966), and The Lone Ranger (2013) all fail to capture the qualities that made the earlier film and TV shows classics. One exception is the 2003 version of Ned Kelly starring Heath Ledger which is a massive improvement of the 1970 version starring a miscast Mick Jagger. (OK it’s Australian but in every aspect it’s a western).  Some films deserve to be remade and some deserve to be left alone. The 2010 version of True Grit is a good film but it fits into the category of “why didn’t they use the wealth of talent at their disposal to make an entirely new western?” It’s like taking your band into the studio and doing a cover version of a Beatles song. It may be brilliant but it will never be(at) the Beatles.

John Wayne’s True Grit is not a masterpiece in terms of classic cinema. It’s a magnificent film, a wonderful 2 hours and 8 minutes  but it rarely features in the top 100 lists. It won John Wayne his Oscar but I think Wayne put in more complex and challenging performances in (for example) The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Stagecoach. The great success of the film is the mixing of key western elements, classic revenge tragedy, stunning location photography, brilliant casting, toughness and grit into what is essentially a heart-warming comedy. What Edward Buscombe describes as “an expert blend of humour, tenderness and excitement”. There’s plenty of shooting, a double-figure body count and yet it is undoubtedly family viewing.

Jeremy Slate as Emmett Quincy, Dennis Hopper as Moon and Johns Wayne as Cogburn

I love it and intend to use the rest of this post to explain (to myself as much as to anybody else) just why this is the case.

First the Mirabell reason*. I admit the film has its faults and I like it better  because of them. Glen Campbell wasn’t the first or last popular singer to be cast in a western (see Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, not to mention Roy Rodgers) but he is undoubtedly the worst actor amongst them. But this suits the film. His character is an awkward sort of a lump who gives both Maddie and Rooster an opportunity to exercise their wit. These are pre Peckinpah cowboys who can ride and fight and drink and never need a change of clothes. They simply don’t get dirty. Campbell’s distinguishing feature as a musician (apart from a voice given by the angels and supreme guitar picking skills) is a head of hair so wonderfully combed as to provide a model for Lego people. His character  rides through the wildest wilderness, crosses  turbulent steams and climbs the rockiest mountains and still looks like he’s wearing George Jones’s Barnet. It’s a performance so wooden that even after he dies we have to wait for Wayne to explain  the lack of movement.

Then there are the prompts, the previews, the tell-you-it’s-coming lines. “Careful you don’t fall down that pit, it’s full of rattlesnakes.” and you have a pretty good idea where the action is heading.

Robert Duvall as Ned Pepper

The title song is poor and has little other than the words ‘True Grit’ to link it  with the movie. It’s all sweeping strings of the over-produced late sixties Nashville style and completely at odds with the rest of Elmer Bernstein’s Magnificent Sevenesque score. But it works. All the faults work. They contribute to making the film  better. In the 2010 remake Matt Damon, as good a lead actor as Hollywood has produced in recent years, struggled to inject life into the character of Le Bouef. He appears  awkward whereas Campbell’s awkwardness appears as a sort of charming gaucherie and contributes enormously to the humour.

On the strong points you cannot avoid Wayne. This is his film even though he doesn’t appear until everything has been set up. Cogburn’s faults allow Wayne to show an impressive skill at comedy without sacrificing the dramatic qualities of the film. He’s old, he’s fat, he’s prejudiced and largely misogynist, mercenary and a drunk. Wayne has enormous fun with all of these. He’s happy either as straight man or comic and never misses a beat. Underneath all of this however,  is a man with a sense of right and wrong, a man capable of love and generosity; a source of goodness.

Strother Martin as Colonel Stonehill

Kim Darby is wonderful as Maddie Ross. She maintains her dynamic and intensity of performance while never attempting to take over the film. A single minded, clear thinking, determined, ruthless force for retribution who, like Wayne, reveals a vulnerable side to her nature when things go wrong.

The last fifteen minutes of the film (once these character traits have been revealed) are surprisingly tender and moving.

The supporting cast is superb. A young Robert Duvall shows what a great western actor he might have been if westerns weren’t rapidly going out of fashion. (I think he did ok without cowboy films). Dennis Hopper demonstrates a completeness in his portrayal of Moon which is perhaps proof that there are no small parts only small actors. Strother Martin is always a delight to watch; here he’s the horse dealer trying to short change Maddie and having the tables turned on him. James Westerfield has barely enough lines but uses them  to establish a court doling out frontier justice by means of a simple request for a peppermint to sooth his troubled stomach.

There isn’t a weak link in the chain. The storyline is gripping. Half revenge tragedy, half quest with a universality dating all the way back to the Greek myths. The story is sequential which requires a recurring pattern of dramatic climax and anti-climax. The timing is faultless, the editing flawless. Quest westerns invariably move from the town or city out into the wilderness. The towns represent all of the corrupting influences on man. Bad things happen in towns. The wilderness is a place for refugees and renegades and outlaws. It is also a place of cleansing. Bad things get put right in the wild, people become renewed and return older and wiser men and women.

“I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man”

Which brings us to the cinematography. We’re invariably looking out across vast undulating hills towards distant mountains. This creates a sense of enormous space whilst delineating the limits of man’s world. Everything is in the  process of growth. The grass is green, the trees are coming into leaf. There is a sense of permanent springtime out there. Shot after shot is superbly composed and photographed with a depth of focus that makes it  look as if you can see for miles.

“Fill your hand you son of a bitch”

The climax is a shootout between Wayne and Duvall’s band of outlaws. It’s shot from different angles. At one moment we’re looking down on the field; a clearing in the wooded hills; an arena.  It could be a medieval tournament and close ups show the champions issuing their challenges.

Ned Pepper: What’s your intention? Do you think one on four is a dogfall?

Rooster: I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which’ll it be?

Ned Pepper: I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

Rooster: Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!

I wasn’t old enough to see True Grit at the cinema and it’s too good a film to be fully enjoyed on the small screen. Perhaps instead of remaking these westerns they might consider re-releasing the originals for the full big screen treatment. I would love that!

 

 

* Mirabell is a character in William Congreave’s The Way of the World. Romantic heroes had always extolled the virtues of their beloved. Mirabell was the first, as far as I know, to extol the faults.

MIRABELL
She has beauty enough to make any man think so, and complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so.

FAINALL
For a passionate lover methinks you are a man somewhat too discerning in the failings of your mistress.

MIRABELL
And for a discerning man somewhat too passionate a lover, for I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her, and those affectations which in another woman would be odious serve but to make her more agreeable. I’ll tell thee, Fainall, she once used me with that insolence that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted her, and separated her failings: I studied ’em and got ’em by rote. The catalogue was so large that I was not without hopes, one day or other, to hate her heartily. To which end I so used myself to think of ’em, that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they gave me every hour less and less disturbance, till in a few days it became habitual to me to remember ’em without being displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties, and in all probability in a little time longer I shall like ’em as well.

Winchester ’73 (1950) : Part One

Tags

Anthony Mann, james stewart, john wayne, Martin Scorcese, stagecoach, The Searchers, winchester '73

The Good, The Bad and the Deeply Troubled (and that’s just the main character!)

There was a perceived movement towards increasing violence in westerns as the genre developed. Some said it was a case of producers and directors outdoing each other, and there may be something in that. But violence has always been present in epic literature; be it poetry, drama or film. Sophocles is violent, Paradise Lost is violent, King Lear and Macbeth and Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are violent. Anthony Mann described Shakespeare as “The most violent writer who has ever been”. The violence didn’t become more violent during the century but the portrayal of the effects certainly did. And Anthony Mann is quite possibly the man to credit or blame.

Wayne as Captain Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Between 1939 and 1962 John Ford had elevated the western to the first order of films: films that had something to say about the human condition as well as entertaining with action and tense storylines. Films where we saw real people. People who are shaped by their experience of justice or injustice, comedy or tragedy. You can watch a deepening and darkening of Ford’s view of mankind in the way he used his main star; John Wayne. In Stagecoach, the Ringo Kid is a good hearted young man, hurt by events and determined on vengeance while losing none of his humanity towards those not directly associated with his quest. (Though he can shoot a dozen Apaches without qualm or conscience.) Captain Nathan Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon ten years later is gruff and grizzled, tough and fatherly with a more ambivalent attitude to the native population. By the time we get to The Searchers in 1956, Ford and Wayne had discovered a complexity of character to compare with the truly great writers. Ethan Edwards  is both hero and monster. It’s a troubling and inspirational film and Wayne is superb. There is a great deal to fear in the world of this movie and the most fearsome thing of all is the dark underside of Ethan Edwards. (Reflecting, as it does, a dark underside to society.)

Stagecoach

The Searchers 1956

Almost as if to emphasise that the change between Ringo and Edwards is internal, Ford had Wayne dressed almost identically in the two films.

Westerns were now hitting maturity and other great directors were making their contributions, inspiring each other to greater things: though they often set the bar pretty high with their first attempts. One such was Anthony Mann. Here was someone who transferred the pattern of shadows, that had been created by lighting and set designers, into the very characters themselves. It was the dawn of the psychological western, the continually shifting patterns of darkness and light were now internalised and Mann was to play a masterstroke; albeit unintentionally: he got James Stewart.

Universal Studios wanted to make Harvey, the story of a man who converses with a giant invisible rabbit. It had been a huge hit on Broadway and they were sure it would be a box office success as a film. They also had a screenplay called Winchester ’73 that had been knocking around for years looking for a star name. They wanted James Stewart to transfer his stage role with the talking rabbit and tied him to a double deal with the western. A young untried director was taken on. It was to be a low budget film. A make-weight in the deal. To say it exceeded expectations is a considerable understatement. Not only did it recoup production costs many time over but it also resurrected Stewart’s career which had suffered a string of flops (including It’s a Wonderful Life – which only reached its status as a much loved classic 30 years later) in the years following the war.

So Mann had the much loved gentle actor with a bumbling delivery playing the part of a man on a mission to kill. The public were about to see a side of Stewart that was troubled, dark and brooding. There is no more engaging actor to watch in his hesitant, thoughtful, whimsical mode but, as Mann was the first to discover, there are few more disturbing actors than Stewart when you open up seams of pain, resentment, anger and vengeance. On the surface we are watching a homely, even comic western. Underneath things are very different.

“While John Ford only alluded to the dark side, Anthony Mann dwelt in it. The mythology of the frontier, of a land in perpetual expansion, has given way to greed, vengeance, megalomania, sadistic violence.”                       (Martin Scorcese)

Winchester ’73 opens with a familiar world. An excited crowd gather around a shop window to admire a rifle. Young boys are the first to eulogise but it soon passes on to their elders. Each admires it in their own way. This is the tradition of portraying the gun as a status symbol, an aspect of being grown-up and in an unspoken way, a human right enshrined in the constitution. It is only the start of the journey. The framework of the film will follow the gun through several owners. The hidden story of the film is what people do with guns and what guns do to people. It became an important question with individual film-makers providing their own answers – or, more accurately, their own ways of re-stating the question. George Stevens asks his questions in Shane, Clint Eastwood finds his most eloquent approach in Unforgiven.

This is no ordinary gun. This is “the gun that tamed the West” and this is the most perfect, the one in a thousand, model of this gun. People covet the weapon, fight for it and die for it. The point is unspoken and shouted at the same time. It’s guns that kill people not people.

Will Geer as Wyatt Earp

Once the gun has been introduced we see Lin McAdam (James Stewart) and High Spade (Millard Mitchell) amiably smiling and joshing and we seem all set for a comedy. The sense of comedy is enhanced by the peculiar portrayal of Wyatt Earp by veteran character actor Will Geer. He’s clearing Shelley Winters out of the way for the July 4th celebrations. Wyatt Earp has been portrayed in many different ways in westerns but rarely in a manner so out of keeping with the legend. This Earp is amiable, ubiquitous and safe. We seem to be heading in the direction of family viewing, but its a blind. Earp’s affability and measured control is contrasted with hints of McAdam’s troubled past. It doesn’t take long to realise that looking into Stewart’s eyes is like looking into caves of flickering shadows. The apparent happy-go-lucky nature of the two friends is more than that. It is a buddy movie but High Spade is more than a close friend. He’s there to act as a minder; a psychiatric nurse. McAdam needs looking after.

Millard Mitchell’s smiles belie his understanding of the troubled Lin McAdam

The director hurries through the exposition. We learn that McAdam is a man on a mission to gain revenge for the death of his father. We are introduced to his prey. The two make no effort to avoid each other, indeed they both enter the shooting competition to win the eponymous rifle.

At the end of the first five minutes we have a developing plot line, a rapidly developing back story, a couple of western legends (Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson), a hero, the hero’s sidekick and a villain. But with Anthony Mann the lines between hero and villain can become blurred.

As Anthony Mann himself said:

“He was a man who could kill his own brother so therefore he was not really a hero.”

Martin Scorcese sums it up rather well:

“Anthony Mann’s brooding heroes were no saints, seeking revenge was their obsession, an obsession that would consume and nearly destroy them. Even James Stewart, the All American hero of Frank Capra’s fables, succumbs to outbursts of savage violence.”

Anthony Mann

Shakespeare’s greatest plays are psychological dramas containing a huge amount of violence. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello all have the main character wracked with demons and uncertainties and the stage scattered with bodies. Anthony Mann was a profound student of literature and an enormous fan of the Bard. We don’t actually believe we are watching murders, killings and assassinations on the Stratford stage. We are deeply affected by the violence. The violence is necessary to feeling, and therefore understanding the plays. Anthony Mann came very close to capturing the essence of this in his films. The westerns he made during the 1950s are some of the best ever produced. I don’t think it foolish to compare them with the very greatest works of drama.

 

 

 

Stagecoach 1939 (Part Three)

Tags

Andy Devine, claire trevor, Dallas, Donald Meek, George Bancroft, John Ford, john wayne, Stagecoach 1939

Nine Characters in Search of an Author  Continued

Everything in Stagecoach is balanced. The major plot line of Ringo’s search for justice is balanced by the trials of each of the others. We have balance among the travellers. Each connects strongly with another in a deliberate act of pairing  and we have a balance between the “aristocratic and  privileged characters  – Lucy Mallory, Hatfield and Gatewood” and the “disreputable and/or powerless – Dallas, Doc Boone, Peacock and Ringo.” (Jim Kitses). There’s balance between the number and sequence of the exterior shots of the huge landscape the stage is travelling through and close-up shots of characters inside the stage. Balance between travelling shots and resting shots, between night and day. There is also the revealed balance between social status and moral goodness. I’ve mentioned before a touch of Charles Dickens about Stagecoach. John Ford’s view of the world is “democratising and egalitarian, indeed even rabble-rousing” You’ll find something similar in A Christmas Carol and Bleak House. “it is the misfits and losers who are the soul of the new nation.” The Bob Cratchitts the Tiny Tims and Joe the crossing sweeper.

The Ringo Kid: John Wayne

There is no getting away from it. Despite the fact he has the least lines of dialogue, is far from being the best actor, is awkward in his costume, has his most famous scene shot with an unfocused camera and is seldom allowed to move and talk at the same time, John Wayne’s is the most memorable performance in the film. Anyone wishing to do a PhD on what makes a star could do worse than begin here.

He’d been tried in a major role before, it had bombed at the box office and he’d spent ten years churning out B movies at a rate of 8 a year. Production companies were reluctant to put money into a film starring John Wayne: David O Selznick wanted him replaced. But John Ford knew he was right for the role. He made considerable sacrifices in order to keep Wayne. He didn’t intend to make him a star but when he watched the completed film he knew that that was what he had done. That “He (Wayne) will be the biggest star because he is the perfect everyman” (John Ford)

Those of us who had grown used to Wayne as an established part of western casting are surprised to see how young the actor looks in Stagecoach. He was in fact 31.

Much of his success has got to be down to pairing his character with Claire Trevor’s Dallas. Who incidentally was paid five times more than Wayne. She is brassy and hardened by experience though gentle and vulnerable. Her attractiveness is not showy or exotic. Ringo is an innocent who has experienced the hurt and pain but has not yet been able to turn this to durability and wisdom. He’s decent and brave and prepared to stand up for Dallas. She in turn protects him. She understands a great deal that passes Ringo by. They shield each other and given time will nurture each other. And cinematically they look wonderful together.

“It’s one of the most stunning entrances in all of cinema.” (Edward Buscombe). Not quite his debut in films. Wayne had in fact already appeared in 83 movies by the time he twirls his rifle, shouts “Hold it!” and dollies into an out of focus close-up against an obviously painted backdrop. Ford expressed an intention to re-shoot the scene but never did. He must have realised that for all its manifest faults this is an almost perfect moment. It’s right up there with Orson Welles’ first appearance in the shadowy Vienese doorway  in The Third Man, without the enigmatic smile. Wayne’s face is sweat stained and dusty and wears a look of purposeful innocence. You know straight away (we’ve been given clues) that this is the hero; the guy we’re going to be rooting for. The rooting continued for forty years and ended with a presidential eulogy.

John Wayne was bigger than life. In an age of few heroes, he was the genuine article. But he was more than just a hero—he was a symbol of many of the most basic qualities that made America great. The ruggedness, the tough independence, the sense of personal conviction and courage—on and off the screen—reflected the best of our national character.

It was because of what John Wayne said about what we are and what we can be that his great and deep love of America was returned in full measure.

Rosalynn and I extend our deepest sympathies to his family.

President Jimmy Carter 1979

Even the costume declares our allegiance to him. Levis worn outside his boots with the trouser bottoms rolled up, a western shirt and a leather belt. Take away the braces, neckerchief and cowboy hat and you’ll see “everyman” wearing the same on every city street in the world 77 years later.

He’s on his way to Lordsburg to avenge the murder of his father and brother. The film defies our expectations by having him immediately put under arrest,  disarmed and manacled. He uncomplainingly takes his place on the floor of the stage and with barely a line of dialogue establishes himself as a source of decency, a reassuring presence, a calming influence and a protective knight. The relationship with Dallas is done purely though the eyes. For those who think of Wayne as a rugged actor at best who keeps himself free of sentiment, these scenes are eye-openers. 

Peacock: Donald Meek

So close to being a purely comic character and yet so necessary to the plot, the story development and the denouement. There are three running gags. One is people always getting his name wrong (Peacock is the opposite of an aptronymic name), the second is everyone assuming he is a priest when in actual fact he is a whisky salesman (outside the world of Graham Greene they don’t often mix) and third that he keeps on insisting that he comes from Kansas City Kansas when everyone else assumes he comes from Kansas City Missouri. This last one is  one of those jokes that works best without explanation.

He represents the ordinary people of who moved west and took up the jobs that needed to be done. He tries to act as an intermediary on any verbal fights that break out (particularly between Northerner Boone and Southerner Hatfield (Kansas played a complex role in the Civil War)) and is actually a caring and solicitous figure during and after the birth of Mrs Mallory’s baby. 

His main role is as a foil to the comic genius of the character (and portrayal) of Doc Boone. Like Kansas in the Civil War Peacock is badly wounded during the journey but survives due to help from the North (Boone).

Buck and Curly: Andy Devine and George Bancroft

The sort of actors that make westerns work. John Sturges talked about the need to succeed in a film with those characters who come below the stars. The need to beef up the middle. These are tried and tested character actors; Bancroft provided convincing honesty and strong authority to many a film and Devine was a sort of engaging cross between John Goodman, John Bellucci and Lou Costello. He’s a big man with a wonderful high pitched cracked voice that just doesn’t fit with the build. The two characters represent the transport and law  that opened up the West and gave it its first semblance of order.

Curly is the authority figure of the stagecoach  and a particular father figure to Ringo. Buck is more of a brother. Curly knows exactly what is going on in and around the stage, Buck hasn’t the faintest idea but is hard-working and diligent and brave. The two keep up a dialogue that is something more akin to two monologues that occasionally intersect. Curly: prescient, direct, questioning. Buck: wandering, self-concerned, comic. They are a device for setting the background, for moving both stagecoach and story onwards, for contrast with the passengers, for helping the audience navigate between viewpoints and for the pure entertainment value of their scenes.

Cinematography

This deserves an entire post of its own. Stagecoach deserves a special place in cinema history for a lot of reasons not least the cinematography. Bert Glennon not only shot some of the most spectacular exterior shots  seen up to that point in films but also (with Ford) developed a way of shooting interiors that inspired a generation of film makers. The low shot, chiaroscuro, multi shadowed scenes from inside the inns at the way nations were re-created two years later by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane and from then on in almost every “noir” film made in the next thirty years. Welles was credited with transforming the appearance of films. Indeed his achievement with Citizen Kane is fully deserving of all the plaudits it has received but even he admitted that John Ford and Bert Glennon had done it first.

Who Got Paid What?

John Ford  (Director) $50,000

Dudley Nicholls (Screenwriter) $20,000

Claire Trevor $15,000 – $20,000 (depending on source)

John Wayne $3,700

Andy Devine $10,624

Thomas Mitchell $12,000

George Bancroft $8250

Donald Meek $5416

Louise Platt $8541

John Carradine $3666

Berton Churchill $4,500

As you can see, of the major stars only John Carradine (father of David, Keith and Robert: all future stars of Westerns) got paid less than John Wayne.

Bibliography

Horizons West (Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood) by Jim Kitses

Stagecoach by Edward Buscombe

Westerns by Philip French

The Western by David Carter

John Wayne The Man Behind the Myth by Michael Munn

The BFI Companion to the Western Edited Edward Buscombe

The New Encyclopaedia of the American West edited Howard R Lamar

It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own by Richard White

Footnote

These commentaries make little reference to the significant role played in the film by Native Americans. That is firstly because I’ve chosen to look at the film as a social comedy that is an allegory for the establishment of American civilisation in the West and secondly because I intend to return to the issue of how Native Americans were portrayed in this and other films in future posts.

 

Stagecoach 1939 (Part Two)

Tags

claire trevor, John Carradine, John Ford, john wayne, Louise Platt, stagecoach, Thomas Mitchell

Nine Characters in Search of an Author

Forget that this is the film that established John Wayne as a star. Forget everything you know about John Ford films. Forget that it is a western and sit back and watch Stagecoach. It’s 97 minutes of genius: a stage play set in a stagecoach. You can even fast forward the violence and lose very little (other than one of the best chase scenes in cinema history and four deaths, unseen but registered in the facial reactions of women).

“John Ford doesn’t make pictures about good guys and bad guys. He makes films about people. They bend or they break or they hold on depending on the sort of people they are.”  John Wayne

And here we have nine of the best character studies to be squeezed into any film, let alone into an action film. Nine characters who can be taken separately of collectively. This isn’t a showcase for a Hollywood star (the star incidentally was Claire Trevor and not John Wayne: the Oscar actually went to Thomas Mitchell for his skilful and charismatic portrayal of Doc Boone). David O Selznick tried to get Ford to exchange his unknown leads for Garry Cooper and Marlene Dietrich and when Ford refused, withdrew his financial support, dismissing it as “just another western”. It might have been if Cooper and Dietrich had been cast.

This, as John Carradine later wrote, was an ensemble piece. “Ford had never intended that the Ringo Kid establish Wayne as a box-office draw. The film had an ensemble cast and of all of us actors who rode that stagecoach, Wayne had the least lines of dialogue.” quoted in John Wayne The Man Behind the Myth  by Michael Munn

Let us take a closer look at the characters and the actors who played them.

Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Louise Platt, Thomas Mitchell, Berton Churchill, Donald Meek and George Bancroft all in costume for a publicity shot.

Mrs. Lucy Mallory:

The cast are introduced to us in approximate order of social status. American society at the start of the film (as represented by the town of Tonto) is structured and hierarchical. And like many social groups or institutions based on hierarchies has no supporting adherence to meritocracy. This is in many senses a doomed society. The journey takes us from this old world – representing as it does rejected values of old Europe and the Eastern states of the union – to the frontier where a new society is being forged. As the leading member of the old aristocratic world, Mrs Mallory will find the journey fraught with difficulties and will only find a place in the new order once she has accepted a new set of values (rather poetically coinciding with her giving birth to the baby who represents the future of the United States.

We don’t quite know how to take her on her first entrance. We’ve grown accustomed to finding something to admire in most of John Ford’s female characters. We are drawn towards having a modicum of respect but it takes 90 of the film’s 97 minutes before we actually come to like her. She’s haughty and dismissive of Buck Rickabaugh’s attempts to be civil and helpful. She significantly turns down the idea of a cup of coffee (the true drink of the West in films) in favour of a “cup of tea” (the European drink -albeit Asian in origin) and at all times acts as though it is her right (not simply her privilege) to be treated with deference and respect by anyone she meets.

She is from a Southern plantation family, which is as aristocratic as America allowed itself. Like all members of such families she has suffered a fall from grace at the hands of the forces of democracy through the Civil War. She is now the wife of an cavalry officer who we presume had fought for the Confederacy but has now joined the US military. The symbolism of this is never brought to the fore in the movie but is of great significance. Her perception that social status is more important than individual qualities is revealed by her respective treatments of amiable Buck and dubious Hatfield. She knows he is morally compromised but  chooses him as companion rather than a more virtuous traveller.

Hatfield:

Like all the characters in the coach he has been carefully selected to be representational (in this case of the lost Southern society based on wealth, breeding and privilege).

The English concept of the “gentleman” can perhaps be best described by the story of two such fellows being washed up on a desert island and proceeding to spend seven years each separately building a shelter, searching for water and hunting food. When rescued that were each asked why they hadn’t combined their efforts. “But how could we?” they answered. “We’ve never been formally introduced.” The point being that social rules and conventions outweigh common sense, judgement and decency.

We see him staring at Mrs Mallory in the street and, shortly afterwards, from a hotel window. If Southern gentleness counts for anything, it is good manners. Such behaviour hardly corresponds. A seed is planted that these two may have more in common than we are told. His line (spoken to himself) “An angel in a jungle” doesn’t fit a brief glimpse of a frosty woman putting on airs in a Western street.

Just as the coach is ready to leave he announces that he will be travelling to Lordsburg: “Marshall, make room for one more. I’m offering my protection to this lady. I can shoot fairly straight if there’s need for it.”

We have to wait a long time for any truthful snippets of information about his past but the Marshall’s response tells us plenty:”That’s been proved too many times Hatfield“. We are given enough clues to make an educated guess that he has killed people in a very ungentlemanly manner. It’s hard to know just why Mrs Mallory accepts his protection other than an acceptance of his suitability because he speaks well and that she is embarking on a dangerous journey.

These two, together with dishonest banker Ellsworth Gatewood, represent the supposed civilised world that the stage is leaving behind. The same values that America is leaving behind as it pursues the frontier. Gatewood arrives in Lordsburg but is immediately arrested, Mrs Mallory gets there but only after she has shown gratitude and compassion to those she would have considered her inferiors. (Mrs Mallory’s is a journey to self-knowledge. There is no complete epiphany but she changes enough. The baby she has, at the second staging post, will complete this journey for her, and be ready for the new world. Hatfield shows signs of possessing qualities but is unable to break free of the anachronistic straitjacket of his upbringing. He doesn’t survive.

Dallas and The Doc

The counterbalance to these two are from the opposite end of acceptability. Dallas and Doctor Josiah Boone are on the stagecoach without any choice: they are being driven out of town. Dallas because she has found that the only way she can earn her living is through prostitution and the doctor because he is a drunk. Tonto (the Arizona town the coach sets off from) is under the moral direction of a self-appointed group of neo-purists. There is more than a hint of a witch-hunt going on here. It isn’t the only element of the film that relates every bit as much to the year the film was made as the year it was set. Both of the town rejects are fabulous characters and both are brilliantly played. They were created by Ernest Haycox, the writer of the short story the film is based on, but much credit must go to screen writer Dudley Nicholls for turning them into characters Charles Dickens would have been proud of. There is a definite hint of Mr Micawber in the grandiloquence of the doctor’s stoical encomiums on being forced into the coach. Especially when Dallas appeals to him for help.

“We are the victims of a foul disease called social prejudice my child. These dear ladies of the Law and Order League are scouring out the dregs of the town. Come on. Be a proud, glorified drag like me.”

Thomas Mitchell as Doc Josiah Boone

They give each other something that no-one else in Tonto seems able to offer them. She treats him with the respect you’d think was owed to a decent, educated man of medicine. He treats her as an equal; as a fellow human being surviving in a cruel world and hoping for something better.

He ups the quality of his remarks. He isn’t going to bow down to the self-righteous harridans who have taken control of the town and ask their pardon. Instead he continues to take pleasure in pointing out their faults; at one stage combining gallantry towards Dallas with comparing the Law and Order League with Les Tricoteuses.

“Take my arm Madame la Comptesse. The tumbril awaits. To Le Guillotine!” The soundtrack plays a jaunty march version of We Shall Gather at the River. The Doc is leaving town on his own terms. Dallas, though distraught, takes courage from him. To board the coach she must raise her skirts and reveal some stocking. This causes excitement among some male by-standers who are both titillated by the reveal and cruelly amused at her discomfort. In a defiant moment she deliberately flaunts a little more leg and in the instant de-masculates the men and horrifies the women. The (supposed) good people of Tonto are exposed as hypocrites and Dallas too gets to leave town in a moment of glory.

Her ordeal is by no means over though. Mrs Mallory’s friends seem happy to entrust her to the protection of a murderer but cannot countenance her travelling with Dallas, who they cannot even refer to in human terms.

“Mrs Whitney, you’re not going to let your friend travel with that creature?”

Even so early in the film it is obvious that the usual conventions of the western have been smashed to pieces. The paradigms of good and evil reversed and confused. Dallas and the Doc survive the journey ok. In fact they are responsible for several of the others coming through in one piece. They may be social outcasts (so many people arriving in the United States were) but they possessed the human qualities required to forge the new frontier. Two brilliant characters, two people worthy of the highest respect, two magnificent acting performances by Claire Trevor and Thomas Mitchell.

To be continued…

 

 

 

Stagecoach 1939 (Part One)

Tags

andré bazin, claire trevor, duchess of malfi, jim kitses, John Ford, john wayne, stagecoach

Western Approaches  :  Episode 7

Is Stagecoach the perfect western or not a western at all? The story of a journey by horse-drawn coach from Tonto to Lordsburg, or the story of the birth of modern America? Is it a revenge tragedy in the style of John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi or Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy  or is it a love story? The story of perseverance in the face of great hardship; a time spent in the wilderness? An epic journey of a kind that stems back to Homer, Thomas Mallory or Sir Philip Sidney? All of these things or none at all? Let’s first dismiss the none at all. This is a truly great film of redemption and transformation: a demonstration of the qualities that are to form a new country in the aftermath of civil war: a comedy of manners and status that questions the assumptions of society. It is a film of and for women about which prominent female reviewers said

“One of the most exciting experiences the cinema has brought us” (C.A. Lejeune) and “One of the most exciting Westerns I have seen for years” (Dilys Powell).

Influential French critic André Bazin was absorbed by the film. Orson Welles watched it forty times as he tried to work out how to emulate the cinematography. It scooped a couple of Oscars (a thing westerns have always found hard to do) and would have picked up many more if it  hadn’t been released in the same year as Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Goodbye Mr Chips, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Dark Victory.

Is it a Western?

There are two major storylines in Stagecoach: the journey from Arizona to New Mexico by coach with a constant threat of attack and the story of  Ringo trying to exact revenge for the murder of his father and brother. Each of these storylines culminates with an act of violence: an Apache attack fought off by the occupants of the stage and then by the arrival of the cavalry and a shootout on the streets of Lordsburg. The combined denouements last a total of nine minutes in a film of 100 minutes. Remove them and there is nothing left that can be regarded as archetypal of the western. The characters are as likely to be found in a Restoration drama; the landscape of Monument Valley (which later became synonymous with the western) had never been used before in a major film, the storylines deal with social class, child-birth, love and acceptance. If a morality play deals with the victory of good over bad then it is a morality play.

It would make a very good stage-play. All the world’s a stagecoach and all the men and women merely players.

Is it the Classic Western?

André Bazin certainly thought so. He saw it as being as perfectly symmetrical and balanced as a wheel, the spokes of which were history, society, psychology and iconography.

More simply it can be seen as an epic journey in a vast landscape. The size and majesty of the exterior world both diminishing the affairs of mankind to trivialities and to expand the greatness of human achievement to match the towering sandstone buttes of Utah. The constant and dangerous threat of attack by Geronimo and his Apaches a re-telling of the story of Scylla and Charybdis. Survive the snows of the desert mountains or face the Apache war party. Surely impossible to survive both.

Jim Kitses in his excellent book Horizons West breaks the film down into five distinct sections. He doesn’t actually equate these to a five act play but I see no reason why he shouldn’t. Good plays show us how real people react in real situations and how the situations shape the people and vice versa. Stagecoach would, as I have already said, have made a very good play.

The Prologue

Two scouts report to a cavalry outpost that Geronimo and his Apaches have left the reservation and are out to wreak terror on the region. We see a stagecoach crossing a wide deserted prairie.

Act I : Tonto

The stagecoach arrives in Tonto. One by one we are introduced to the passengers who are to make the journey from there to Lordsburg. This being a Comedy of Manners we get to meet the characters in social class order. First Mrs Lucy Mallory, the wife of a cavalry officer who has been travelling on the coach and is invited to “rest her limbs” in the hotel. All characters are established with efficient precision. Between the coach and the pavement we discover she is meeting her husband and that he is nearer to hand than she thought and she sees a man she thinks she knows. This turns into the second passenger, Hatfield. Introduced as a “notorious gambler”, he is actually a Southern gentleman fallen from grace and making his living through a pistol and a pack of cards. He joins the coach in order to protect Mrs Mallory. We are later to learn that this isn’t the first time that their paths have crossed. The driver of the stage goes into the sheriff’s office to enquire about his ‘shotgun (the man who sits  beside the driver as security). We discover that he is out with a posse in search of escaped convict, the Ringo Kid (which starts a second storyline). Ringo has vowed revenge on Luke Plummer for the murder of his father and brother. Buck (the driver) tells the sheriff (Curly Wilcox) that the Plummer boys are in Lordsburg so Curly decides to ride shotgun himself. That makes four.

Meanwhile we have the true nature of Tonto established by the drumming out of town of the local prostitute and the drunken doctor by the Law and Order League; a group of hatchet faced women with no more love and charity in them than could be placed in a snuff box. It is made immediately clear that both the doctor and the harlot are dignified and decent people who are out of tune with the imposed moral harshness of the town (perhaps representing Eastern values). The doctor, Josiah Boone, attempts one final drink on credit at the saloon where he is introduced to fellow traveller Samuel Peacock who must be the mildest, least assuming whisky salesman west of the Mississippi. The two are soon joined at the hip by Boone’s stronger personality (and the attraction of the whisky drummer’s samples).

Thus with seven people aboard, the coach leaves town. We’d seen a payroll being deposited in the bank and as the coach passes the banker flags it down and climbs aboard with a valise containing $50,000 in stolen money.

Act II : The Journey to Dry Fork

The coach is stopped by Ringo in one of the most famous entrances in film history. He is immediately put under arrest by Curly. The journey continues through a magnificently forbidding landscape. At Dry Fork they discover that the cavalry (including Mrs Mallory’s husband) have moved on and that there will be no escort. They have a vote to decide whether to continue or turn back. Over lunch pre-existing social conventions are brought into focus when none of the supposed superior characters will sit near the prostitute Dallas.

Act III  : Dry Fork to Apache Wells

Buck Rickabaugh (driver) takes a mountainous route to avoid Apaches while Curly continues to ponder how Gatewood could have got a telegraph message from Lordsburg if the wires had been cut. At Apache Wells Mrs. Mallory gives birth attended by Doc. Boone and Dallas. Dallas reveals more and more evidence that it is she, and not the Tonto Law and Order League, who possesses genuine moral and human goodness. Ringo who has been increasingly impressed by Dallas, but who doesn’t know her past, proposes to her. She tries to help him escape. First signs of an Apache presence in the stealing of spare horses, the disappearance of the wife of the man who runs the station and smoke signals from the mountains.

Act IV  : Apache Wells to Lordsburg

At Lee’s Ferry they discover the residents have been murdered and the buildings and ferry burnt. They improvise a river crossing and are just celebrating imminent safety when the Apaches attack. Then follows one of the most celebrated chase scenes in westerns. The cavalry arrive at the last minute just as ammunition runs out and Hatfield is about to use his last bullet to save Mrs Mallory falling into Apache hands. Peacock and Hatfield are wounded (Hatfield fatally).

Act V : Lordsburg

On arrival Gatewood continues to find fault with everything but on revealing his name is arrested by the local sheriff who has heard of his theft (the telegraph connection has been re-established). Ringo walks through the town with Dallas who tells him of her past. He tells her he wants to marry her anyway and if she’ll go to his ranch (in Mexico) he will join her as soon as he is freed from prison. He goes off to confront the Plummers and kills them in a showdown.

Epilogue:

Curly is waiting to arrest Ringo and take him to prison. Ringo accepts his punishment and has climbed onto the wagon that will take him to gaol. Dallas is asked if she’d like to ride part of the way wth him and is helped aboard by Doc. Doc and Curly then start the horses and send Ringo and Dallas off together to a life in Mexico. Curly offers to buy Doc a drink. With a sparkle in his eye and absolutely no intention of conforming to the social expectations of the world he’s left behind Doc says “Just one”. The audience don’t believe him.

 

 

 

By Way of Introduction

Tags

colin simpson, dennis moorhouse, john wayne, man with a movie camera, shane, stagecoach, the iron horse, westerns, winchester '73

Western Approaches : Episode 3

Westerns divide opinion. There are many lists of favourite films in magazines, newspapers and especially on the internet. When it comes to lists of the best films ever made, there is a degree of agreement: Citizen Kane invariably appears in the top five (and quite rightly so if you ask me). Tokyo Story, 2001 A Space Odyssey, La Dolce Vita, The Godfather, The General, Battleship Potemkin, Man with a Movie Camera and Apocalypse Now will be somewhere along the line. With westerns it’s different. Films that appear as number one on one list fail to make the top 100 in others. It seems that with films in general there is a acceptance of what is good but when we venture out into the west it’s every man and woman for themselves. And, if I may resort to repetition so early in the piece, quite rightly so.

‘The Man with a Movie Camera’ film – 1929

There are certain films that do recur. I haven’t found a list yet that didn’t have The Searchers flying high. This pleases me. I can remember the first time I saw it and how gripped I was by the twists and turns of the story and of being aware (at age seven) that there was something in this performance of John Wayne that set it apart. Wayne seemed to be in every western televised in Britain in the sixties and had come to be regarded as something of a figure of fun; a cliché, a much imitated example of how it used to be done. The man who in one of the great mis-castings of all time stood at the foot of the cross in The Greatest Story Ever Told and drawled “Surely this must be the son of God!” He certainly made some bad films and he  made great mileage out of his stock cowboy role but there was a fine actor in there if the part and the script gave him the chance: or if the director had the skill to use his enormous screen presence while limiting the dialogue.

The Searchers 1956

These posts were originally conceived as being an excuse to revisit my favourite fifty cowboy films but even in conception the idea has changed, grown, shrunk, evolved, gone back to the original and changed again. I’ve seen a lot of westerns and might be in a position to put some sort of a meaningful list together. I am rather sceptical of such lists though (even though I’m a sucker for reading other people’s efforts and happily agreeing and disagreeing with them). Right now I have little idea where the blog is going other that the simple pleasure of writing about something that I love. It’s an opportunity to re-aquaint myself with films I’ve enjoyed in the past but it would be a wasted opportunity if I didn’t take the chance of catching up with some of the films I’d missed. I’ve never seen a silent western all the way through, I’ve never seen El Topo, Decision at Sundown or Dead Man. In fact there must be a thousand worthy films I haven’t seen.

The Iron Horse 1924

I’ve got a little time on my hands. The modern world doesn’t suit me in every respect (perhaps one of the reasons I return to westerns ) but I do like the availability of films. I have two cinemas within a short drive of where I live which provide me with 30 screens between them and rarely leave me without a film I’d like to see. For a fair price of £16 a month they let me see as many films as many times as I want as well as giving me generous discounts on the ice-creams that I’m becoming dangerously fond of. I’ve also got 3 art cinemas that offer me a choice of up to ten films a week from the minority interest genres. I’m a lucky chap! Then there are dvds which cost a couple of pounds at most and usually come with invaluable commentaries, interviews and original trailers as well as free postage. Not to mention the internet. As a boy or a young man I would have considered it very heaven to have a decent size screen and a library of films that stretches from here to eternity. I have such a heaven and this winter I intend to indulge myself.

I’m beginning with three films that are on every single list of best westerns ever made. They also happen to be three I’m very fond of, have known for a long time and which cover a lot of  ground as far as western movies are concerned. Don’t read this posts if you are wanting to enjoy the films for the first time. There will be an lot of spoilers. The blog is (like most blogs) a self-indulgence. I want to say what I have seen in the films and that means giving away the plot will be something of a starting point.

Stagecoach

I’ll be starting with Shane and quickly following this up with Stagecoach and Winchester 73. I was briefly in a sixth form college and in between the serious studies we were allowed to choose a lighter subject. I chose Film Studies and these were the three films we watched in the short time I was on the course. (About half a term.) I’d loved westerns from infancy and was sceptical about whether I would enjoy studying something so close to my heart. The two teachers running the course were out and out enthusiasts with knowledge that ran deeper than I imagined could be the case. I’d feared I’d either be put off the films or put off the teaching. It simply wasn’t so. I loved it and this blog is maybe is a way of completing what I started back then. I don’t suppose they’ll ever read this or even if they are still with us but I’d like to thank Dennis Moorhouse and Colin Simpson for opening up shafts of learning that would otherwise have remained unexplored and for introducing me to a study that has brought me enormous pleasure while remaining free of examination boards and the demands of a curriculum. I’ve watched thousands of movies since I was the short-lived student at the back of the class and every one with a greater understanding and appreciation because of those classes. When I left I may have been recorded as a failure for the school. I didn’t gain a qualification or even complete the course. It wasn’t wasted though. I sometimes take a while to getting round to finishing things. I have very little need or use for another certificate but I retain an insatiable appetite for movies and for westerns in particular.

Winchester ’73

Cowboys on the Screen

Tags

101 dalmations, cinemascope, henry fonda, james stewart, john wayne, technicolor, westerns

Western Approaches : Episode Two

At the Movies

Going to the cinema was a big event in our family. It happened only twice; once to see a film of the Tokyo Olympic games a good three years after the games had taken place and once to see 101 Dalmations. Family legend allows that this happened somewhere in Scotland in the early 60s and that we took the dog. In fact, everybody took their dog to the cinema and the midnight barking on the film was enjoined by hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves all howling and barking in a Scottish accent. I’m not able to provide conclusive proof of the story but I’m not going to start disbelieving it now. In my mind I have a clear memory of a hundred dogs all with their paws on the seat in front and glued to the screen. The fact that some of the dogs in my image bear an uncanny resemblance to Huckleberry Hound, Scooby Doo and the bulldog out of Tom and Jerry in no way indicates that I’m confusing memory with imagination. Many philosophers and writers would say that they are the same thing anyway.

I never saw a cowboy on the big screen until I was 16. I’ve tried to make up for it since. Unfortunately cowboys had been a staple of the film-maker’s output right up until I was 16. Since then they have become an occasional treat. The problem doesn’t lie with the film-makers. They love westerns. They know that the west is where to head if you really want to tell a story where history and mythology mingle (and where else would a sensible person want to centre a story?) The problem lies with the movie-goer. They want their films to be set in schools (where student types are identifiable – only a little bit older and a sight more beautiful than those from any real school) or modern cities where guns and drugs are in the foreground and people buying newspapers and going to work and chatting about the weather have been shifted into the shadows.

The golden age, or the hey-day of the western was back in the forties and fifties. There have been some very good westerns in recent times (The Assassination of Jesse James, The Unforgiven, There Will Be Blood, Brokeback Mountain, Tombstone… ok I’m stretching the meaning of recent) but they have been strictly filed under minority interest. One of the down sides of this is that we no longer have western heroes either actors or characters. No modern actor is remembered primarily for a western role. Under twenties may have heard of William Bonney or the Sundance Kid but they don’t want to be them. It must be a while since anyone woke up on Christmas morning to find a cowboy outfit at the foot of the bed. Unless, that is, they’d bumped into a festive hen party and got lucky.

Cowboy hats are a niche item of clothing. You’ll find plenty if you go to a festival of Americana or wander the streets of seaside towns on a Friday night. I had a friend (a term used in the loosest sense) who was in charge of stapling cartons of cakes to pallets at a well-known British bakery. He dressed in full cowboy regalia and kept his staple gun in a holster. Some considered him “a bit of a character” and some just thought him an arse. All kept their distance.

As a boy I got my western films on the television which meant that every western I saw until I was 16 was in black and white. It didn’t matter. Many of the best films; Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Ox Bow Incident and High Noon had been made in black and white. We distinguished them from colour films in a way that seems clever to me now. We had views on whether Technicolor or De-Luxe was better even though we’d never seen anything other than monochrome. You can actually tell the difference between a made with black and white film and a colour film shown in black and white. It may seem negligible but it isn’t. I’d compare it to those music lovers who have returned to vinyl and analogue because they say cds and digital don’t have the right sound. The same was true of screen ratios. Television companies couldn’t make up they minds over Cinemascope in those long before wide screen television days. Half the time we had the picture scrunched up to fit the 4:3 screen (an advantage was that diminutive actors like Alan Ladd and Richard Widmark looked more imposing) and half the time we watched the film through a letter box. I much preferred the latter. Not only did we get the full picture but, for someone who longed to go to the cinema but found it beyond the family purse, it gave the feeling of something different. At the end of the film I genuinely felt that my experience had been enhanced by Technicolor and Cinemascope.

These days I’m not too bothered whether the film ratios are respected by the projectionist. I prefer it if they do but it isn’t a big issue with me. They always get it right in the Showroom (Sheffield) where the end of the trailers is announced by an adjustment of the side curtains to accommodate the selected screen size and ratio. They don’t always do this at the multiplex (though they do it more often than Mark Kermode would have you believe) but there the screens are much bigger, the chairs have more leg-room, the Baskin-Robbins Lucky 8 ice-cream is more plentiful and you don’t have to put up with the endless whispered conversations of a bunch of pompous twerps as you settle down to the movie. (If you’ve ever wanted to know if working class or educated middle class people are better mannered I’d suggest  trips to multiplex and arts cinemas as a good place to start.)

Right from the beginning there was a big difference between these 2 hour feature films and the episodes of tv westerns. Both absorbed me but in different ways. You had to do a lot more work with the films and I liked that. On the telly most of the exposition had been done by previous episodes. We didn’t even need to do much work with new characters. We only had to wait and see if Trampas and the Virginian liked or disliked them to know if we were going to like or dislike them. On films we had to establish the who, the where, when, what and why. There was a shorthand. If the film had been made before 1950 then any native American was going to be a bad guy, John Wayne was always on the side of right though not necessarily on the right side of the law, as was James Stewart and Henry Fonda; women were always in a subservient role and the cavalry would always ride in to save the day at the last minute (accompanied by a tootling bugle being played by a rider galloping at improbably high speed).

Films divided into categories. The most obvious was according to the star actor. There were certain expectations of a John Wayne film (and the BBC certainly loved the Duke). There were cowboys and indians, gunfighter films, based on a true story films, films involving the army (invariably the 7th Cavalry), log cabin (pioneer and homesteading) films, journey films which included cattle drives and outlaw films. These sub-divided. If it was a cowboys and indian film we wanted to know which tribe was featured. There were over 550 tribes, nations and pueblos of native Americans. Film makers stuck to a very few. They divided into two; friendly and unfriendly. The Navajo and the Mohican were on our side (yes there was an our side) and the Cheyenne, Apache and Sioux were to be feared. In the playground at school little boys in the north of England would argue over who were the scariest indians. It was generally agreed that it was the Apache and these were the tribe we’d pretend to be when we climbed the hills once the school bell had gone. If you were very lucky you’d get to play the part of Geronimo. (This largely consisted of jumping off boulders onto people shouting “Geronimo”. A limited but most rewarding role!) Even in the face of Hollywood and accepted protocol I had a feeling that the warriors and braves of the tribes were victims of a propaganda machine.

Westerns allowed us to go against the law. Nobody wanted to work for the Pinkerton Agency in our games. We all wanted to be Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, Curly Bill Brocius, Billy the Kid or Doc Holliday. We liked gunslingers, six-shooters and gunfights enormously. Westerns showed us that shooting and playing were much the same thing. A single shot could bring down three bad guys, cowboys never missed and (most important of all) death was clean (remember, in my world even blood was grey not red). It wasn’t until I encountered the westerns of Sam Peckinpah that the west began to take on a heavier perspective. If you were shot in a James Stewart sort of a way you had time to stage a dramatic death (always falling forward)  and be in a fit state to count to seven and become alive again. If you were shot in a  Peckinpah way you stayed dead.