If Costner thinks a western is novel. . .

The whole generation of boomers got rather drunk at the whole "western" genre of entertainment. People my age needn't tax their memory too much. 

There must have been a basis for Hollywood's creative minds to give us such an endless buffet of the shoot-'em-up stuff. "Draw!" Black hats for the bad guys. 

I could only watch NBC shows up through my junior high years. So I was a "Bonanza" person. How we loved "Hoss." "The Virginian" was an unusual 90-minute show that was also on NBC. My neighborhood finally got the "Able Cable" of cable TV and it expanded our horizons. Westerns came at us with great frequency. It in fact seemed like an endless well to tap. 

Before the great expansion of TV in the 1960s, we saw a similarly overwhelming fare of westerns on the "big screen" like with Joel McRea. The professional creators must have known what they were doing with this abundant panoply with cowboy hats, vests, horses and gunfire. Ah, "The Rifleman" with Chuck Connors, the baseball player turned actor. 

We can draw a line for when this entertainment genre faded out: the year 1970. The TV world recognized a literal "de-ruralization." Casualties were the rural-based sitcoms in addition to the westerns. Consider the iconic "Andy Griffith" along with "Petticoat Junction." Such charming settings for showing the simple and moral people of America's rural heartland. 

Norman Lear came along and implored the entertainment industry about how it was out of touch. The entertainment needed to find its base in big city America where, after all, the people of this country were increasingly concentrated. Non-white characters came to the fore and this was logical. 

How many of us actually missed the old template with the cowboy vests, 6-shooters and "moral at the end." Yes, the western shows were set up to glorify United States values and our independent spirit. 

A schism became apparent. At the same time the shows were proclaiming such virtue along with our U.S. of A., our country was increasing its involvement in the immoral war in Indochina, Vietnam. Young people were increasingly cynical and detached from the ensconced values. Take away the war and would we have been more reverent about our country? That's a good question. Most likely there were other factors involved in the unraveling of my boomer generation. 

Chris Matthews has often talked about the war's effect but he points his finger primarily at the draft for the war. So many young men simply forced to go over there and face very high risk of death or suffering. 

We grew up seeing the "good guys" of the TV westerns with guns blazing. The stories ended with good prevailing. But we learned that our own country could commit something absolutely ghastly and tragic. And that our pleas would fall on deaf ears for a very long time. John Wayne had no time for the pleading voices. What bigger symbol of the heroic cowboy? But we could see his screen image was just a well-crafted fantasy. Out of a dream world. 

John Wayne

John Wayne was in reality a master craftsman of the movie industry, of multiple phases of it. For that he merited our respect. He was woefully miscast in the famous WWII movie "The Longest Day." He played the role of a U.S. officer who in fact was many years younger than Wayne at the time. Robert Mitchum seemed awfully old for someone who "hit the beach" along with all of his grunts. 

Mitchum came across so dignified in his role, there's no way Hollywood would allow him to even be wounded in the film. We see him in the triumphant scene at the end where he holds up a cigar to his nose and is so satisfied at the aroma. A real hero. 

Actually there is a long pattern of Hollywood showing low-level commanders in war as being much older than their real-life counterparts. Why, I wonder? Of course we can speculate. Maybe Hollywood knew the military wouldn't want the secret out that it was the very young men and boys who took the brunt of the death and suffering. 

So many lives snuffed out as these young men were just on the threshold of adulthood. No, let's show older men like Wayne and Mitchum trying to dodge bullets with the rest. Might seem like poetic justice. After all, it's the older men - quite older in fact - who make the decisions that lead to war. In reality it is the very young men who step into hell. 

 

What's old is new again

Given the overwhelming presence of westerns on our TV screen once - I could say "ubiquitous" that that's a big word - I was struck by how Kevin Costner felt there was a need for such fare again. So, Costner has given us "Horizon." It's actually drawn up as a series of movies. You might way it is "bloated." Or seems so. 

I suspect Costner has a "long game" for this series where he comes out OK financially, maybe. He's a sharp cookie. The initial reports seemed overwhelmingly unfavorable. And from the news reports I saw, the project seemed a total reflection of the old TV/movie westerns. We see the familiar categories of characters including the "Indians." 

I wonder why Hollywood ever got so enamored with this "western" template at all. You might say it portrays "the opening of half a continent." I remember Louis L'Amour using those words in an interview. He was comparing his own books and others in the western theme with the "refined cultural stuff" that got the fawning reviews in the "right" places. So he'd argue, what could be more significant or panoramic in scope than stories about the "old West," the advance westward. 

The advance by European civilization I might add. What about the earlier opening of the East coast and the eastern U.S.? Wouldn't that have been just as significant? Seems like it would have been. But Hollywood got entranced by the march westward. 

 

A toast to "Laredo"

New "westerns" came at us all the time. Maybe one of my favorites was one toward the end called "Laredo." I just loved the tenor of that show, how it often had a dash of humor. I have read in fact that "Laredo" was inspired by the humorous episodes of "Bonanza." The show had the unforgettable character actor Neville Brand standing out. So my generation developed fondness for Brand as "Reese" even though his Hollywood background was as a "bad guy." He was a real-life war hero. Unfortunately he smoked a lot. I'm sure he had a cameo in "Tora Tora Tora" because of the popularity he won from "Laredo." 

"Laredo" was toward the end of the '60s which meant that the curtain was coming down soon for the "westerns."  Goodbye "Hoss," goodbye "Trampas" and goodbye to the "Gunsmoke" characters who I never got to know. Was the Old West really like that? Hollywood wouldn't mislead us, would it?

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com