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Feature Have gun, will travel: The myth of the frontier in the John Springhall

Newspaper editor (bit player): ‘This is , sir. When the legend becomes fact, we print the legend’. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (dir. , 1962).

Gil Westrum (): ‘You know what’s on the back of a poor man when he dies? The clothes of pride. And they are not a bit warmer to him dead than they were when he was alive. Is that all you want, Steve?’ Steve Judd (Joel McCrea): ‘All I want is to enter my house justified’. [a.k.a. Guns in the Afternoon] (dir. , 1962)>

J. W. Grant (): ‘You bastard!’ Henry ‘Rico’ Fardan (): ‘Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, you’re a self-made man.’ The Professionals (dir. , 1966).1

he Western movies that from Taround 1910 until the made up at least a fifth of all the American film titles on general release signified Lee Marvin, , and on the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance escapist entertainment for British directed and produced by John Ford. audiences: an alluring vision of vast © Sunset Boulevard/Corbis open spaces, of cowboys on horseback outlined against an imposing landscape. For Americans themselves, the Western a schoolboy in the , the Western believed that the western frontier was signified their own turbulent frontier has an undeniable appeal, allowing the closing or had already closed – as the history west of the Mississippi in the cinemagoer to interrogate, from youth U. S. Census Bureau officially declared immediate post-Civil War years or the to maturity, definitions of masculinity, in 1890. Associated with the Wisconsin quarter of a century roughly from 1865 concepts of genre, authorship of movies, historian Frederick Jackson Turner to 1890 – occasionally extended to the historical verisimilitude, and even a code (1861-1932) and his seminal 1893 coming of the motor car before 1910. of morality.2 address to the American Historical Within this vast output of movies (over Association on ‘The Significance of the 7,000 Westerns in all) there are huge The origins of the Western Frontier in American History’, there variations, both in the subject matter The Wild West show such as that of was a growing perception that free of the films – cattle-ranchers versus , out of which the parameters land, or the stages of social evolution farmers, train journeys, railroad- of the Western movie emerged, was at on a frontier line continually moving building, fighting Indians, sheriff versus its most commercial during the , westward, had hitherto determined – and in their overall quality. marking the emergence of ‘frontier the course of American history. Usage For someone who, like the author, was anxiety’, feelings aroused in those who of the word ‘frontier’ rather obscured

20 The Historian / Winter 2011 in the 1952 film . © John Springer Collection/CORBIS

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similarities between the conquest of the communal anxieties over the decay of attending America’s small rural cinemas. American West and the global processes white masculinity, together with fears The 1950s eventually saw the Western of European imperial expansion of the new mass immigration from become a critically well-received and elsewhere. In any case, the area where mainly Catholic southern and eastern reliable A-feature staple showing at white domination or settlement had not Europe undermining the Anglo-Saxon, the local Odeon, with auteur-directed yet been achieved was nearly gone and a Protestant republic. These anxieties movies such as (dir. belief was growing that its disappearance could also be seen as part of a gathering , 1950), High Noon (Fred would somehow change the nature of cultural reaction against the cult of Zinnemann, 1952), Shane (George American society.3 domesticity, or the virtues of home and Stevens, 1953), Belief that the frontier was about to woman, in contemporary American (, 1955), Gunfight at the close may also have created a nostalgic society. Displays of horse-riding and OK Corral (, 1956), The Big mood that encouraged many Americans fast-shooting in and Country (, 1958), and Rio to wonder what they had missed by – following ‘’ Anderson in Bravo (, 1959). not making the journey West when the The Great (1903) – by the In 1950 the eight majors released opportunity was still there. At the same stars of silent era movies (W. S. a total of 61 Westerns, in 1961 the time, displaying Native Americans in Hart, , Hoot Gibson), reassured remaining seven made 22. Contributing the Wild West arena and in subsequent largely white male audiences that to a decline in movie output, the 1959-

movies as vanquished foes demonstrated assertive frontier virtues had not been 60 season was the peak period for the to audiences that the fight for the Plains entirely extinguished.4 TV Western with 48 series airing in the was over and had ended in victory for Many Westerns, especially those USA, including eight of TV’s 10 top- their civilised white invaders. Why else produced in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, rated shows (, Tales of Wells would reservation Lakota and were cheaply made B-features (with , Rawhide, Maverick, Have Gun: agree to appear in fabricated or ‘inverted exceptions like The Big [1930], Will Travel, , , conquest’ narratives of Native American [1939], and Duel in the Sun ). Surprisingly perhaps, 26 aggression and brave white resistance? [1945]), designed for the bottom-half cinema Westerns were produced Further, because white American of a double bill, or else formulaic series in America as late as 1976, hardly racial strengths were seen as frontier Westerns made by specialist units, suggestive of a genre in decline, but in virtues (the bronzed, manly cowboy), featuring such as Hopalong Cassidy, the following year there would be only historians have argued that Buffalo , and , targeted seven, followed by a continuing decline Bill’s open-air show gave expression to at audiences either of children or those in the 80s and 90s – despite Westerns

The Historian / Winter 2011 21 Feature

John Wayne is shown as he directs during the filming of The Alamo (1960). © Bettmann/CORBIS

of stature like ’s Dances A Distant Trumpet, Ulzana’s Raid; (e) audience expectations with, for example, With Wolves (1990) and ’s , The Man who unexpected variations in the climactic (1992). Regrettably, young Shot Liberty Valance. The last two were showdown (see the harpoon-wielding audiences have now lost the ability directed by John (The Grapes of Wrath) in Terror in a to read or understand the basic Ford who also made what (in my view) Town (1958) and quarry Don Murray

conventions upon which the Western is the supreme Western of all time, his in From Hell to Texas (1958) reprieved depends for narrative coherence.5 masterpiece (1956), a by the remorseless R. G. Armstrong). complex ‘psychological’ Western with Consequently, the Western movie now Critical approaches to the elements of (a), (b) and (d). John Wayne attracts more critical writing than Western plays racist former Civil War soldier ever, with the number of books on the It is quite possible to simplify the Ethan Edwards seeking revenge on genre published each year exceeding plot structure of nearly all Westerns the who killed his brother’s the number of Westerns released. Here made since the to exemplify, family by embarking on a five-year-long the critical approach is not: (a) sometimes in combination, such basic journey to rescue a surviving daughter the Eurocentric mythic interpretation, narrative trajectories as: (a) the manly from war-chief Scar (Henry Brandon). classifying the chivalric cowboy (Shane, settling of scores/revenge motif; (b) Mostly filmed in ’s Monument ) as transposed knight or the journey/odyssey undertaken in Valley, the reputation of this outstanding Greek hero, nor (b) the auteurist a hostile environment; (c) the town- film (and its famous last shot) continues approach that prioritises notable taming sheriff/hired gun; (d) cavalry/ to grow. directors of Westerns like John Ford, settlers versus Indians; (e) the triumph That some of the above Westerns Anthony Mann, , of civilisation over a violent frontier. adopt certain genre conventions does John Sturges, Sam Peckinpah, or Clint Key examples of each category would not make them necessarily predictable Eastwood, as the primary creative be: (a) Smith, Valdez Is Coming; or formulaic for, like other classical force, certainly not (c) the structuralist (b) Red River, ; (c) forms, the connoisseur can admire approach evident in the with Warlock, Death of a Gunfighter; (d) them for how well they manipulate its emphasis on relating Western plots

22 The Historian / Winter 2011 to the prevalent American economic communist threat. Even the once taboo structure or to variations in coded subject of miscegenation was broached forms of masculinity and the ethos of in Westerns (Flaming Star, The Indian individualism.6 Fighter). Branded a ‘red-hide nigger’ in The main thrust of the interpretation ’s The Unforgiven (1959), proposed here follows (d) the political Rachel Zachary (), on and allegorical school of Western discovering she has been adopted, can analysis which argues that there is a now marry her white step-brother (Burt basic correlation between Hollywood’s Lancaster). So, throughout the period romantic reconstruction of the Wild of its greatest popularity, ‘the Western West and the socio-political setting held its authoritarian and libertarian of particular historical contexts in components in productive tension’.8 twentieth-century America. Cultural Hence, in terms of another deeply historian Richard Slotkin’s monumental embedded contradiction in American trilogy on the myth of the American culture, Observer film critic Philip frontier and regeneration through French distinguished in the early 1970s violence, in particular Gunfighter between Democratic or John F. Kennedy Nation (1992), goes even further to Westerns (High Noon, The Magnificent advance a grandiose macro-political Seven, Ride the High Country) and thesis setting up the frontier and its Republican or various mythologies, in particular movie Westerns, mostly starring John Wayne Westerns, as the principal dynamic (Rio Bravo, The Alamo, McClintock!). (‘myth expresses ideology’) shaping The Kennedy Western would render the twentieth-century America’s history, frontier past in a moderately realistic culture, and politics, culminating in fashion, with an accent on the need for the tragic debacle of Vietnam. Hence protective community activity. Native he interprets Ford’s The Searchers as a Americans and minorities would be ‘mythic Western fable’ making a crucial viewed with sympathy and the hero connection between domestic racialist would often renounce violence or have it structures and the ideological premises forced upon him (The Fastest Gun Alive, of the new, ‘counterinsurgency’ phase of Death of a Gunfighter). The Goldwater the Cold War. In addition, each chapter Western would be more warmly of British film historian Michael Coyne’s nostalgic, the Duke would be resolute erudite The Crowded Prairie (1997) – and unswerving in his sense of duty, and such as ‘Receding Frontiers, Narrowing emphasis would fall upon individualism Options: The [1969] and the and self-help. Cathartic violence would Western in Richard Nixon’s America’ be seen as unavoidable and perhaps – looks at American national identity to be enjoyed, while there would be a through an analysis of the social or somewhat patronising or hostile attitude political message underlying selected towards Native Americans and ethnic prestigious Westerns.7 minorities.9 Accordingly, to further clarify The Western as product Westerns as part of America’s mythic of its times landscape, let us examine changing Revisionist Westerns of the 1960s and cinematic interpretations (for and 70s notwithstanding, Coyne does not against) of probably shirk from confessing that the Western’s the world’s most ‘overall thrust sanctified territorial legendary Indian expansion, justified dispossession of fighter, scout, and Indians, fuelled nostalgia for a largely Western hero: mythicized past, exalted self-reliance and William Frederick posited violence as the main solution ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody to personal and societal problems’. (1845-1917). The Hollywood Western also codified For Hollywood American identity as mainly white and representations male, accepted racial supremacy as of this iconic uncontested, romanticised aggressive frontiersman six-gun masculinity and, ultimately, have served, since favoured the cowboy’s resistance to and during the the trappings of a feminised civil Second World society as the truest form of manhood. War, to define Politically, red men in the 1950s pro- shifting perceptions Indian Western (Broken Arrow, Devil’s of heroism, Doorway) could be seen as surrogates showmanship, and for the black Civil Rights struggle, whilst the commercialised anti-Indian Westerns (Rio Grande, mythology of the Arrowhead) might be seen as disguised Wild West. Director frontier equivalents of the supposed William Wellman’s

The Historian / Winter 2011 23 Feature

celebratory wartime portrait of Buffalo Conclusions References Bill (1944), for example, features The American Western supplies a good 1 Peggy Thompson & Seako Usukawa, Tall in the Saddle: Great Lines from Classic Westerns (Chronicle prominent B-Western star Joel McCrea test of cinema’s capacity to sometimes Books, , 1998), pp. 59, 79, 82. as Bill Cody and as mirror, contest, or even shape, our 2 Michael Barson, True West: An Illustrated dime novelist and long-barrelled six-gun perception of the late-nineteenth Guide to the Heyday of the Western (TCU Press, Fort Worth, Texas, 2008); Robert Nott, inventor (Edward Zane century history of the American nation Last of the Cowboy Heroes: The Westerns of Carroll Judson). In an invented scene, as one of coming to terms with a rapidly Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and the unassuming Cody, denounced as closing frontier. Equally, there is no (McFarland & Co., Jefferson NC, 2000). 3 John Springhall, ‘Buffalo Bill and his Wild West: a fraud in the press after shortage of movies about the modern- Show Opens London’s Earls Court in 1887’, his stage appearances of the 1870s, is day cowboy made to feel out of place The Historian, No. 97 (Spring 2008), pp. 24-29; reduced to performing as a sharpshooter in a society without a Western frontier Frederick Jackson Turner, ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’ [1893], Ray Allen on a wooden horse in the Wonderland (Lonely Are the Brave, The Misfits, The Billington ed., Frontier and Section: Selected [Dime] Museum, until being rescued Electric Horseman). Yet where there Essays of Frederick Jackson Turner (Prentice Hall, by his estranged Eastern wife (Maureen is a large helping of American history Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1961), pp. 37-62. 4 Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth O’Hara). Promoted as an ‘action-packed contained in pre-1970 Westerns, it is of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, movie’ that, during wartime, ‘celebrates largely ‘invented tradition’ and tells us 1800-1890 (HarperCollins, New York, 1985); the rugged individualism of the man much about how Hollywood preferred Louis S. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show (Alfred A. Knopf, who represents the frontier spirit’, Buffalo to idealise frontier pioneers abruptly New York, 2005), pp. 213-16. Bill is visually splendid in confronted by the advance of civilisation 5 Edward Buscombe, 100 Westerns: BFI Screen but otherwise quite commonplace. Guides (BFI Publishing, London, 2006), pp. ix-xv; (, How the West was Won). Edward Buscombe ed., The BFI Companion to Some years later, in the movie version of Contrast this with a more hard-headed the Western (Andre Deutsch/BFI, London [1988], Irving ’s lively Broadway musical academic reinterpretation of white 1993 ed.), pp. 46-47, 426-27. Annie Get Your Gun (1950), sharp- 6 See: (a) André Bazin, ‘The Evolution of the Western’ America’s relentless westward expansion, in Hugh Gray ed., Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol. II shooter (Betty Hutton) such as the revisionist New Western (University of Press, Berkeley, 1971), pp. performs for the Wild West show and an movement pioneered 25 years ago by 140-48, Kathryn C. Esselman, ‘From Camelot to expansive Buffalo Bill () as Patricia Nelson Limerick. Monument Valley’, in Jack Nachbar ed., Focus on 10 the Western (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, she did in reality. Consequently, a national film history 1974), pp. 9-18; (b) Jim Kitses, Horizons West: Subsequently, the legendary such as that signified by Hollywood no Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Cody () featured in a Eastwood (BFI Publishing, London [1969], 2004 longer convinces solely as a succession edn.); (c) John G. Cawelti, The Six Gun Mystique disappointingly routine and fictitious of genius directors, movements, and (Bowling Green State University Press, Bowling recreation of his role with the masterpieces in a high art tradition, but Green, ID [1970], 1984 edn.), Will Wright, Six Guns (1957), while his mentor and Society: A Structural Study of the Western instead requires what has been called ‘a thick (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1975). (Jeff Corey) turned up in the bitterly embedding in cultural history, production 7 (d) Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth satirical (1970). Cody structures and the mass, popular experience of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America reappeared, played by , 12 (HarperPerennial, New York, 1993 edn.), pp. of going to the movies’. 461-473; Michael Coyne, The Crowded Prairie: in ’s Buffalo Bill and the Finally, why should you bother to American National Identity in the Hollywood Indians (1976), then by Stephen Baldwin search out on TV or DVD the small Western (I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., London, 1997). in TV’s The Young Riders (1989) and, more 8 Coyne, The Crowded Prairie, pp. 69-70, 3, 15. number of twenty-first century Westerns, 9 Philip French, Westerns: Aspects of a Movie convincingly, by Christopher Lloyd as however outstanding (Open Range, Genre and Westerns Revisited (Carcanet Press a harassed showman in Hidalgo (2004). Broken Trail, Seraphim Falls, Appaloosa, Ltd., Manchester [1973], 2005 edn.), pp. 16-17. Increasingly, the Wild West show itself 10 Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against (Peregrine Meek’s Cutoff, plus remakes 3.10 to Yuma Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, [1949] 1965 became ‘a symbol of the misrepresentation and True Grit)? Perhaps because not only edn.); Coyne, The Crowded Prairie, pp. 115-119; and degradation of the frontier experience’. are such recent Westerns entertaining sleeve text on Buffalo Bill [1944] DVD, Twentieth- Significantly, acclaimed director Altman’s Century Fox Studio Classics. and visually striking, they are also by- 11 French, Westerns, p. 194; Buffalo Bill and the iconoclastic but rather dull movie – a products of, and perhaps exemplify, a Indians, or ’s History Lesson (dir. Robert moralistic parable loosely based on Arthur post-2001 world of American paranoia Altman, 1976); Coyne, The Crowded Prairie, pp. Lee Kopit’s play Indians (1968) – was the 168-72; John Springhall, The Genesis of Mass in adjusting to the threat of domestic and Culture: Show Business Live in America, 1840 to outcome of a cynical post-Vietnam and external terrorism (The Assassination of 1940 (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2008), pp. Watergate age, as well as of early 1970s 105-127; Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred: by the Coward Robert Ford, Westerns (Doc, Dirty Little Billy) that The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Cowboys & Aliens). Express (Broadway Books, New York, 2004), p. 151. sought to debunk the legendary heroes 12 Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: of the Wild West. Cody (Newman) is Further reading The Unbroken Past of (W. W. presented by Altman as a confidence man, For invaluable annotated listings see: Phil Norton & Co., New York, c. 1987); Patricia Nelson Limerick, Clyde Milner, Jnr., Charles Rankin, eds., a self-promoting drunk who exploits Hardy, The Aurum Film Encyclopaedia: : Towards A New Western History (University Native Americans, especially Sitting The Western (Aurum Press, London Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KA., 1991); Robert Bull, to boost his own reputation and [1983], 1991 edn.) and Edward Buscombe Gordon, ‘Film History Recut’, review of Peter Bondanella, A History of Italian Cinema [2011] in make profits for the Wild West show. In ed., The BFI Companion to the Western The Times Literary Supplement, 1 July 2011, p. 28. reality, Cody did his best to negotiate the (Andre Deutsch/BFI, London [1988], surrender to the military of his friend 1993 edn.). For the general reader: Philip Dr John Springhall is Reader Sitting Bull who later willingly spent French, Westerns ([1973], 2005 edn.), Paul Emeritus in History at the University the 1885-86 season on the road with Simpson, The Rough Guide to Westerns of Ulster where he taught for many the travelling exhibition. Above all, on (Rough Guides Ltd., London, 2006). For years and is the author or co- horseback and dressed in full buckskin the specialist: Michael Coyne, The Crowded author of six books, most recently regalia, Buffalo Bill was a ‘magnificent Prarie (1997), Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter The Genesis of Mass Culture: Show showman’ whose representation of the Nation (1992), Jim Kitses, Horizons West Business Live in America, 1840 to 1940 Wild West helped to shape one of the (1969 [2004]), Ian Cameron and Douglas (Palgrave Macmillan, New York and most popular of fictional, cinematic, and Pye, eds., The Movie Book of the Western London, 2008). genres.11 (Studio Vista, London, 1996).

24 The Historian / Winter 2011