January 2019 34 The Pony 2nd Hand Store We Collect & Deliver Your Merchandise FREE LOCAL DELIVERY AVAILABLE 662 W. Wickenburg Way Wickenburg • Open Monday–Saturday thepony2ndhandstore.com 928-231-2730 • 928-232-2019 We Carry Quality 2nd Hand & New Merchandise Your Home Furniture Supplies Store Specializing in Appliances Jane and Peter Kibble pony2ndhandstore@outlook.com In the 1930's, as major westerns all but disappeared from the silver screen for a decade, the B's not only featured sixty minutes of action but stances on current subjects like conservation advocacy, land and water rights, along with fish and even Christmas tree poaching in films of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Charles Starrett and the Three Mesquiteers, who even broke out of their usual western universe to fight in World Wars I & II tangling with Nazis, Japanese spies, and encouraging buying U.S. Saving Bonds, then time tripping again helping Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. These western's utilized programmer cowboys to moralize during a time when major studios where cranking out A-list propaganda films starring John Wayne, on loan from B western studio Republic Pictures. The 1950's and early 60s would fight the threat of television with CinemaScope and Cinerama with westerns like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Cimarron, How the West was Won, and Cheyenne Autumn. The turgid 1960's brought westerns with anti-war agendas like Soldier Blue, Dirty Little Billy, and Doc. I'll leave you with the words of famed Italian western director Sergio Leone who said, "Whoever doesn't want to read between the lines, enjoy the film and go home happy." See you next month on the trail. When the west was first exemplified on film, the real west was slowing down, but still active enough for people to be somewhat aware of the ways of range living; unless they took their cue from dime novelists like the Beadle Brothers, Seth Jones, and Ned Buntline. It was from the dime novelists who romanticized the West that the cinematic roots of western film were embraced by filmmakers who were at the time located on the east coast. These filmmakers had simply taken the mythical west from dime novels and continued the fabrications read by the fans without much bother to learn the truth, keeping the fabled romanticized west alive for decades to come. Even when these film-makers and studios relocated to the west coast they carried their dime novel sensibilities with them, creating much of the screen frontier that continues today in westerns of film and television. The western film also has a gimmick going for it that no other genre can convey in the same veiled terms without beating you over the head with rhetoric. The westerns have always been about the time period they were made as opposed to the true old west. Director Sam Peckinpah said it best, “The western is a universal frame within which it's possible to comment on today.” Westerns have always been used to disguise current lifestyles or political views without condemnation. For example, Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and racism. My Darling Clementine, (1946) a wild west allegory of the US troops in World War II Europe, represented by the Earp Brothers saving 1881 Tombstone. The somber tone set by these films, both starring veteran Henry Fonda, displays the true feelings of those who saw action during the war. By Charlie LeSueur Charlie LeSueur, AZ’s Official Western Film Historian. Encore Fellow @ Western Spirit, Scottsdale’s Museum of the West. azfilmhistorian@gmail.com, silverscreencowboyz.com WESTERNS... The Universal Frame Below: Three Mesquiteers and shortwave. Clockwise from top: Dirty Little Billy; Dime Novel; Doc.