A Fistfull of Collar

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to blog about the literary genre The Western. I grew up with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. My brother and I would be watching the Gene Autry Theater until we heard Mom's footsteps on the porch then we would switch the TV to the Mickey Mouse Club. Mom didn't allow us to see anything violent which is funny since I was 9 and my brother was 11 and nothing can be more violent than two boys that age. Mom very seldom allowed us to go to the movies, cost was one factor but again, she saw no good coming to us by watching such carrying on. One time we begged to go see Francis the Talking Mule. We had saved some money we got for turning in pop bottles we had searched the streets for and received 2 cents apiece for. So, she asked around and a couple of the church people thought it would be okay since this was a comedy. As we left for the theater her last instructions to my older brother was that under no circumstance should I be allowed to view any violence. As it turned out the movie was indeed a murder mystery so in the opening scenes Francis the Talking Mule witnesses a murder in his barn. As the hand holding the gun came into sight from around a stall my brother tackled me, attempting to cover my eyes. Quite naturally, never taking much from him, I fought back. Next thing we knew we were on the floor between the seats punching and gouging among the spectators feet.

When we got home Mom asked my brother if there had been any violence and he honestly said that he had prevented me from seeing any of it.

But I digress. Shelby Foote the noted American historian once said that while our country had obtained its national character because of the Civil War, we got our national personality from the old west. As said previously, I grew up with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry but I was still young when I began to forsake that shiny Hollywood singing cowboy for more gritty and factual fair. We didn't have television when I was a lad so we spent our summer days using imagination to invent entertainment. Instead of cowboys and Indians we played mountain men. The library was available and we read every book we could get our hands on about the true west. As a young romantic I thought the greatest thing would to have been born a Sioux Indian in the late eighteenth century. I didn't take into consideration the 35 year life expectancy.

So as a young adult I really cherished the nitty-gritty westerns that captured that era factually. Many of my favorites became movies; Shane, The Ox-Bow Incident, Hondo, The Searchers, Riders of the Purple Sage, and The Virginian to name a few. In the last thirty years some other great movies have come out, old ones like The Tin Star, and The Gunfighter, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Stalking Moon, and The Bend in the River. Two of my favorites have always been Jeremiah Johnson and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I started wearing black shirts because of Robert Redford. I've already talked about the Elmore Leonard movies.

This is too long for one blog so tomorrow, whether you be man, woman or child I will name ten western movies you have to see.

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