Westerns, Part 1

I don't know how much longer these lockdowns and limits will persist, but I do know with less than our normal diet of watchable sports - we need something to watch while our outdoor options are limited.

For much of the 20th Century, Westerns were the most comprised the most popular and evergreen genre of film. Because they could be shot outdoors, they were cheaper to make, than indoor fare, and because horses and folks who could ride them were still plentiful, there were no shortages of actors and stuntmen.

A lot a great and foundational Westerns were made in the silent era and starred guys like Harry Carey Senior and George O'Brien, both of whom had usaable voices and kept working when the talkies came along.  John Ford, who we'll end up spending a lot of time talking about, made tons of silent Westerns, but only a few, like The Iron Horse (1924), 3 Bad Men (1925) and Hangman's House (1928). All are worth watching if you get the chance (and you'll see young John Wayne as an extra in Hangman's House), but they aren't easy to find, and not everyone has the patience for silents.

In fact, one of the first Western talkies to look at is, The Big Trail, directed by Raoul Walsh, and starring a very young John Wayne. It's a fun, cattle drive flick, but it was originally made for wide screen theaters - but in 1930 there were no few wide screens, and nobody was inclined to spend that kind of money during the depression. This ended up becoming a larger problem for the Western genre, which, once sound came along, starting slipping into b-film production, because big studios had really grown and were able to epic swashbuckling  movies like Curtiz's Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Ample Deserts gave rise to Henry Hathaway's The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935),  William Wellman's Beau Geste (1939)  and George Stephen's Gunga Din (1939).  Now you'll notice a 4 year lag between Lancer and Din. During this time, some important directors, who had gotten their training in the silents, like John Ford, Michael Curtiz and others turned their estimable talents back to the Western, and in 1939, they turned Westerns, back into A pictures,

We'll talk about 1939 in the next bit, but not only did it ignite a Western Revival, but it was still probably the the greatest overall movie year in history.