Hollywood Westerns

Westerns are one of the oldest, most enduring, and most typically American of film genres. Set on the American frontier during the last part of the 19th century, they portray the conquest of the wilderness and the taming of nature, in the name of civilization.

Hollywood sold its stories about the West to an eager American public, from the series westerns of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers with their clean-cut stars, fun-loving sidekicks, and guitar-strumming sing-alongs, to the obsessed, revenge-bent heroes of Anthony Mann’s majestic 1950s westerns.

Western myths, legends, and heroes have entered American popular culture – from clothes (denim jackets, jeans, and cowboy boots) to children’s toys (cap guns, rubber-tipped arrows, and tom toms) and its vocabulary has entered the English language (such as “round up,” and “bury the hatchet”). It created a “code of honor” by which all mid-20th-century children wanted to live, and it made household names of a myriad of actors. Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and Tom Mix were among the heroes doing battle with the American Indians who were, rightly or wrongly, portrayed as the enemy.

The western seemed likely to fade away in the face of post-war cynicism, and it was only when movies such as Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven repositioned the genre in the 1990s that it once again seemed possible that the western could survive as a modern art form.

This lavishly illustrated, fact-packed publication traces the history of the Hollywood western and the influence it has had on individuals and society, looking behind the scenes to tell the story both on and off screen.