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Love in Western Film and Television This page intentionally left blank Love in Western Film and Television Lonely Hearts and Happy Trails Edited by Sue Matheson LOVE IN WESTERN FILM AND TELEVISION Copyright © Sue Matheson, 2013. All rights reserved. First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the World, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–1–137–27293–5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Integra Software Services First edition: January 2013 10987654321 Dedicated to the memory of Sam Matheson, who loved a good horse opera This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Sue Matheson 1 Virgins, Widows, and Whores: The Bride Pool of the John Wayne Westerns 7 Helen M. Lewis 2 Only a Woman After All? Gender Dynamics in the Westerns of Barbara Stanwyck 19 A. P. Nelson 3 Violence, Vixens, and Virgins: Noir-like Women in the Stewart/Mann Westerns 35 Debra B. Cutshaw 4 From Whore to Hero: Reassessing Jill in Once Upon a Time in the West 53 Andrea Gazzaniga 5 “Wild” Women: Interracial Romance on the Western Frontier 71 Cynthia J. Miller 6 Paladin Plays the Field: 1950s Television, Masculinity, and the New Episodic Sexualization of the Private Sphere 91 Erin Lee Mock 7 Reverse Transvestism and the Classic Hero: The Ballad of Little Jo and the Archetypal Western (Fe)male 111 Vincent Piturro viii Contents 8 The Melancholy Couple in Winchester ’73 125 Peter Falconer 9 Outlaws, Buddies, and Lovers: The Sexual Politics of Calamity Jane and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 141 Frances Pheasant-Kelly 10 Horse Power: Equine Alliances in the Western 161 Stella M. Hockenhull 11 A French Unsettlement of the Frontier: Love and the Threatened American Dream in Heaven’s Gate (1980) 179 Lara Cox 12 Midnight Cowboy: A Love Story 197 Zhenya Kiperman 13 German Saddle Pals and the Absence of Love in the Karl May Westerns 209 Robert Spindler 14 “When you side with a man, you stay with him!”—philia and the Military Mind in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) 225 Sue Matheson Notes on Contributors 239 Index 243 Figures 2.1 From The Washington Post and Times Herald, May 13, 1956 22 2.2 Kit (Barbara Stanwyck) dies in the arms of Jeff Younger (Barry Sullivan) in The Maverick Queen (1956) 24 3.1 Lola Manners (Shelly Winters) and Lin McAdam (James Stewart) embrace in Winchester ’73 (1950) 40 4.1 Jill (Claudia Cardinale) stops in the doorway before stepping out of the house and giving men water in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) 55 5.1 Paulette Goddard’s feisty Louvette in North West Mounted Police (1940) attempts to sell her furs to Dusty Rivers (Gary Cooper) 76 5.2 Louvette (Paulette Goddard) is contrasted with April Logan, Madeleine Carroll’s Celluloid Princess in North West Mounted Police (1940) 78 6.1 Paladin (Richard Boone) comforts Ella West (Norma Creane) in Episode 1, Season 1 of Have Gun, Will Travel (1957) 96 7.1 Joe Monaghan (Suzy Amis) is told that he is “quite peculiar” in The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) 116 8.1 Lola (Shelly Winters) tells Lin (James Stewart) that she understands what the last bullet is for in Winchester ’73 (1950) 133 9.1 Calamity Jane (Doris Day) disagrees with Bill Hickok (Howard Keel) in Calamity Jane (1953) 146 9.2 Sundance (Robert Redford) and Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) discuss whether or not to jump off a cliff andintoariverinButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) 153 10.1 Sonny (Robert Redford) and Rising Star ride off into the sunset at the conclusion of The Electric Horseman (1979) 176 x List of Figures 11.1 Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert) and James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) dance in Heaven’s Gate (1980) 182 12.1 Ratso (Dustin Hoffman) tells Joe (John Voight), “I don’t think I can walk anymore” in Midnight Cowboy (1969) 205 13.1 Old Surehand (Stewart Granger) meets the cavalry in Among Vultures (1964) 211 14.1 Tector (Ben Johnson), Lyle (Warren Oates), Pike (William Holden), and Dutch (Ernest Borgnine) walk to the Bloody Porch to rescue Angel (Jamie Sànches) in The Wild Bunch (1969) 233 Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the generosity of the writers represented in this book and Dr. Kathryn McNaughton, vice-president, Academic and Research, University College of the North, for her funding and support of this project. I would also like to thank my saddle pals at PCA and Film & History conferences over the years—particularly, Helen, Debbie, and Cynthia. Their enthusiasm, insights, and interest in Westerns helped make this book a reality. This page intentionally left blank Introduction Sue Matheson Since the publication of John Cawelti’s The Six-Gun Mystique in 1971, the Western has been read as a platform for exploring America’s social, political, and cultural concerns. As John E. O’Connor and Peter C. Rollins point out in Hollywood’s West: The American Fron- tier in Film, Television & History, the Western is a complex genre that expresses a myriad of dramatic relations and situations characteristic of the American experience and values (6). And when one consid- ers the 9/11 attacks, American involvement in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Iraq crisis, and the ongoing con- flict in Afghanistan, it is not surprising that many Westerns produced during the latter half of the twentieth and the early twenty-first cen- turies have been concerned with questions of violence. As O’Connor and Rollins note, Richard Slotkin’s very popular Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, a compelling American studies approach to the “myth” of the West, has proven to be an excellent jumping-off point for many scholars of the Western (12). However, one only need consult Gary R. Edgerton and Michael T. Marsden’s Westerns: The Essential Journal of Popular Film & Tele- vision Collection to see that the last 40 years of scholarship concerning this genre demonstrates that the history of the American West and the West in the Western, as O’Connor and Rollins point out, is a far more complex reality than Gunfighter Nation suggests (12). Although Western scholarship is no longer in its infancy, there are still wide open spaces left for scholars to explore. To date, scant atten- tion has been paid to another important staple of the Western: love. Whether or not the cowboy rides off alone into the sunset at his movie’s end, intense caring and affectionate interpersonal relations are found at the heart of this genre, from its early beginnings to its most recent releases. When I think of the Westerns that I have watched, it is not their misogyny or miscegenation, but their love stories that I remember holding my interest. Be it platonic or erotic, narcissistic 2 Sue Matheson or patriotic, in the American West, love is a prime mover, driving characters and action forward. Take for example that early, formula- establishing dramatic Western Riders of the Purple Sage, founded on the difficulties of two couples, released in 1918, and subsequently remade and re-released in 1925, 1931, 1941, and 1996. Love also creates the dramatic tension of the revenge Western. The hugely pop- ular Nevada (1927) and its remake in 1944, the powerful Searchers (1956), and the Coen brothers’ highly acclaimed remake of Henry Hathaway’s True Grit in 2010 are just three examples of the Western’s interest in the power of familial love. Indeed, love is such a powerful force in the Western that whether or not the beloved is physically present seems to matter little. Absence does seem to make the heart grow stronger in the case of characters like Lucy Mallory in Stagecoach (1939), Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner (1940), Tom Dunson and Matt Garth in Red River (1948), Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon (1952), Mattie Ross in True Grit (1969), and Hallie Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). The presence of the beloved, on the other hand, is equally powerful and is the focus of Westerns dealing with the transgressive nature of unrequited love, as in Calamity Jane (1953) and Legends of the Fall (2000). One need only remember the importance of Ruth Cameron and Breck Coleman’s romance in The Big Trail (1930), the budding rela- tionship between Ringo and Dallas in Stagecoach (1939), Custer’s tender familial relationships in They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Ethan Edwards’ obsessive attachment to the memory of his brother’s wife in The Searchers (1956), Elsa’s curious attachment to Heck in Ride the High Country (1962), John McCabe’s longing for a most unsuitable partner in McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), John Dunbar’s attraction to Stands With A Fist in Dances with Wolves (1990), and William Munny’s paternal love for his children in Unforgiven (1992) to begin tracing the important influence of love and its part in creating both conflict and resolution in the Western.

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