Have Gun, Will Travel: the Myth of the Frontier in the Hollywood Western John Springhall

Feature Have gun, will travel: The myth of the frontier in the Hollywood Western John Springhall Newspaper editor (bit player): ‘This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, we print the legend’. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (dir. John Ford, 1962). Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott): ‘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’. Ride the High Country [a.k.a. Guns in the Afternoon] (dir. Sam Peckinpah, 1962)> J. W. Grant (Ralph Bellamy): ‘You bastard!’ Henry ‘Rico’ Fardan (Lee Marvin): ‘Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, you’re a self-made man.’ The Professionals (dir. Richard Brooks, 1966).1 he Western movies that from Taround 1910 until the 1960s made up at least a fifth of all the American film titles on general release signified Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, John Wayne and Strother Martin 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 1950s, 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 Buffalo Bill, out of which the parameters land, or the stages of social evolution farmers, wagon 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 1880s, westward, had hitherto determined gunfighter – 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 Gary Cooper in the 1952 film High Noon. © John Springer Collection/CORBIS Text 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 The Gunfighter (dir. belief was growing that its disappearance could also be seen as part of a gathering Henry King, 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), The Man from Laramie Belief that the frontier was about to woman, in contemporary American (Anthony Mann, 1955), Gunfight at the close may also have created a nostalgic society. Displays of horse-riding and OK Corral (John Sturges, 1956), The Big mood that encouraged many Americans fast-shooting in Wild West shows and Country (William Wyler, 1958), and Rio to wonder what they had missed by – following ‘Bronco Billy’ Anderson in Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959). not making the journey West when the The Great Train Robbery (1903) – by the In 1950 the eight majors released opportunity was still there. At the same cowboy stars of silent era movies (W. S. a total of 61 Westerns, in 1961 the time, displaying Native Americans in Hart, Tom Mix, 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 (Gunsmoke, Tales of Wells would reservation Lakota and Sioux were cheaply made B-features (with Fargo, Rawhide, Maverick, Have Gun: agree to appear in fabricated or ‘inverted exceptions like The Big Trail [1930], Will Travel, Wagon Train, Cheyenne, conquest’ narratives of Native American Stagecoach [1939], and Duel in the Sun Bonanza). 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 Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, 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 Kevin Costner’s Dances A Distant Trumpet, Ulzana’s Raid; (e) audience expectations with, for example, With Wolves (1990) and Clint Eastwood’s My Darling Clementine, The Man who unexpected variations in the climactic Unforgiven (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) Sterling Hayden in Terror in a Texas 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 The Searchers (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 Comanche who killed his brother’s the number of Westerns released. Here made since the 1940s to exemplify, family by embarking on a five-year-long the critical approach taken 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 Arizona’s Monument Pale Rider) 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, Budd Boetticher, 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) Nevada Smith, Valdez Is Coming; or formulaic for, like other classical force, certainly not (c) the structuralist (b) Red River, The Naked Spur; (c) forms, the connoisseur can admire approach evident in the 1970s 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 John Huston’s The Unforgiven (1959), proposed here follows (d) the political Rachel Zachary (Audrey Hepburn), 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).

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