ClassicFlix - Only the Classics

The Old Corral: Jesse James On the Silver Screen

Just as Billy the Kid rode across the silver screen endless times, almost always as a misunderstood youth with many qualities and sometimes as a downright knight in shining armor, so too did movie representations of that other famous American outlaw, Jesse James, show him to be a Robin Hood figure, battling ruthless corporate enemies of the common man. Of course there is no evidence whatsoever that either Billy or Jesse robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. In fact, more than likely, bot...

The Old Corral: The Westerns of Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks was perhaps the greatest Hollywood director never to win a Best Director Oscar (though he was given a consolatory honorary award in 1975, presented to him by John Wayne). His friend and admirer John Ford generously suggested that he should have been recognized as best director, instead of Ford, for

The Old Corral: The Westerns of Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford was one of the greatest of all Western actors. He appeared in a long series of cowboy films, 26 total, and in all of them, even the ones of uneven quality, he was outstanding, strong and tough. He was ideal in the role of a man who's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Quiet, even taciturn, speaking with measured tones, Ford was the perfect Westerner. He rode supremely well, as if he and the horse were one. He underplayed in an almost Gary Cooper-like way and once said, "Some actors co...

The Old Corral: The Westerns of Robert Taylor

Spangler Arlington Brugh renamed Robert Taylor by MGM upon signing for them in 1934, was one of the most famous movie stars of his time. He is probably best known as a romantic lead, or riding through Hollywood's idea of the Middle Ages with a sword, but he was brought up on the plains of Nebraska, rode well and always wanted to be in Westerns. He was excellent with a Stetson and six-gun, projecting that right blend of toughness and decency to convince as a hero of the West.He made fo...

The Old Corral: Heroes and Their Horses

'A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi-yo Silver'' - the Lone Ranger!Yup, horses were far more than the basic means of transport in the West and the Western. There is a whole myth attached to horses.In many movies, certain Western actors used the same horse again and again, and they became part of the mystique. Everyone knows Roy Rogers's horse was Trigger (who was so 'intelligent' that he could rescue Roy from scrapes), and The Lone R...

The Old Corral: The Birth of the Western Movie

Many people regardThe Great Train Robbery (1903) as the first Western movie. It isn't, though. Cowboys had been captured on celluloid before and short Western scenes were quite common. As early as 1894 Buffalo Bill Cody's troupe had been filmed and there was already a motion picture, Lasso Thrower viewed by a single person in a kind of what-the-butler-saw device. In 1896 motion pictures were first commercially projected onto large screens in the US.In 1898 there ...

The Old Corral: Hank - The Westerns of Henry Fonda

That rangy walk, those steely blue eyes, that quiet drawl: Henry Fonda was ideally suited to Westerns. Born in the prairie city of Grand Island, Nebraska, in 1905, those roots equipped him to star in future Western movies. Whether as Frank James, Wyatt Earp or any number of other Western characters, Fonda became one of the most memorable Western leads of all.Fonda's early Western career was tied to that of John Ford. Though Fonda started acting in movies in 1935, Westerns -- or at...

The Old Corral: Hats Off to the Stetson

There are three main ways to distinguish a cowboy: his horse, his gun and his hat. On foot in town, the gun and hat are still there; even if there's a gun ordinance in town and he has no pistol on his hip, in the saloon for example, you'll never separate him from his hat. When it all comes down to it, it's the hat that makes the cowboy.He wears it out of doors, indoors and in some movies, in the bath.All Western stars knew this. It was why, when they got a hat they lik...

The Old Corral: Howdy Ma'am - Women in Westerns

The West of the Western movie has always been a masculine place. Looking at it impartially, it's a bit odd because women have been associated with nature and freedom, while men have been the conventional law and order types. So we might imagine that men would be more urban creatures, setting up businesses and building churches, while women would relate to the wide open spaces of the frontier. But the reverse is true.In the Western myth women are the civilizers. The men in Westerns...

The Old Corral: The Westerns of Robert Mitchum

From a tenth-billed part as a heavy in Border Patrol, a 60-minute Hopalong Cassidy oater of 1943 to eighth in the cast list as the bad guy in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man fifty-two years later, with 29 Western appearances in between, Robert Mitchum took on the genre, and won.He was Bob Mitchum, of course, so a lot of the time he went through the motions, sleep-walking through the Western parts assigned to him. He used to say they painted eyeballs onto his closed lids....

Author: Jeff Arnold