WHAT MAKES A WESTERN A WESTERN?

As someone who has made (modest) earnings and gained some acclaim through writing westerns – and who loves the genre – I was interested in a discussion I saw recently on Social Media about ‘what makes a western a western.’ Especially when I realised that the question, which might seem easy to answer, is actually anything but.

I’m sure an initial response would be that western exists in the familiar zone of cowboys manning ranches and driving cattle to market, Native Americans facing their final conquest by the U.S. army, and settlers populating even the most remote regions of the U.S.A.; of Colt pistols and Winchester rifles, law and order finally replacing outlawry and a fastness of nomadic tribes, buffalo and beaver replaced by towns, trails, railroads and farms. What tend to be male-centric, action-heavy adventure stories dependant on the struggle between good and evil, law and lawlessness and what could be loosely defined as ‘civilisation’ and ‘savagery.’

Key elements are that the western takes place on a ‘frontier’ - that ephemeral region where densely-settled and well-policed areas gave way to sparsely settled semi-wilderness and then true wilderness peopled only by indigenous peoples. Where the furthest reaches of modern industrial civilisation met – and sometimes clashed with - supposedly more primitive societies.

But just when it seems the genre can be easily defined, it becomes amoeba-like, stretching out in all directions, shape-shifting across history, geography and even beyond the Earth!

After all, the ‘frontier’ elements I’ve described as defining the western existed elsewhere in the world, most particularly in the 19^th Century, as depicted in movies set on the South American frontier like ‘WAY OF THE GAUCHO.’

Rory Calhoun and Richard Boone in WAY OF THE GAUCHO

Could these be westerns in disguise?

Australian tales like ‘NED KELLY’ and ‘ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,’

NED KELLY (2003)

South African adventures like ‘UNTAMED’ or even ‘ZULU.’

UNTAMED

Or ‘THE SEEKERS’ set in New Zealand where British settlers clash with the Maori?

THE SEEKERS

Or even ‘THE SEVEN SAMURAI’ set in 16^th Century Japan, which re-surfaced as ‘THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN’ of course.

And now I read Kirk Douglas (in his autobiography ‘The Ragman’s Son’) describing ‘THE VIKINGS,’ a Dark Age epic set in Northern Europe in the 9^th Century, as ‘really a western!’

Kirk Douglas in THE VIKINGS

Not to mention ‘STAR WARS’…

I think this part of the discussion should come to a juddering halt. In my view, these films may have similarities to the western, but a western for me, has to be set in the geographical American West.

A landscape that stretched from the Mississippi to the Pacific. But even within that vast land mass the western is selectively located. The Pacific Northwest, Idaho and Utah rarely feature. (Even if Monument Valley, Utah is perhaps the most famous western location, most of the movies filmed there are set elsewhere – in ‘The Searchers,’ for example, Monument Valley stands in for the Texas plains.)

Monument Valley

The most favoured locations for westerns tend to be Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and the Great Plains states from Montana and North Dakota down to Texas.

Historically the bulk of westerns take place in a period of history that lasted barely two generations, from around 1860, as the American Civil War was about to begin, to 1890 when the Census Bureau announced the end of the frontier, meaning there was no longer a discernible frontier line in the west, nor any large tracts of land yet unbroken by settlement. The same year saw the last major clash between the Native Americans and their conquerors in the tragic encounter at Wounded Knee.

Inside these three turbulent decades the vast majority of westerns are set – from novels written by Louis L’Amour and Larry McMurtry, to movies directed by John Ford and/or starring John Wayne to TV westerns from ‘Gunsmoke’ to ‘Bonanza’ to ‘Deadwood’ to ‘The Virginian.’

But immediately we can see the western bulging out of that time frame. In its early seasons at least one of these keynote shows, ‘The Virginian’ was located after 1890 – the elegiac episode ‘West’ was set in 1897, whilst other episodes featured the Spanish-American War of 1898. The highly popular movie ‘BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID’ was set at the same time, when the Hole-in-the Wall gang plundered freely, taking the western into the early years of the 20^th Century.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

‘RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY,’ often held to be one of the greatest westerns ever made, opens with shots of ‘horseless carriages’ on the streets of a western town. Sam Peckinpah’s violent masterpiece ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ is set even later, during the Mexican revolution of the 1910s, as is ‘THE PROFESSIONALS.’ Both are unmistakably what aficionados would regard as westerns. Clearly a western requires a lawless environment, where anarchy and outlawry is still prevalent, whatever the date on the calendar.

William Holden goes down fighting in THE WILD BUNCH

Quite where the mainstream western turns into a ‘modern western’ is a subject for debate. Perhaps a cut-off date might be 1920, separating films like ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ from movies set later, even up present day – movies like ‘BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK’, ‘LONELY ARE THE BRAVE’, ‘NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN’ and ‘WIND RIVER.’

The ‘modern western’ – WIND RIVER

What defines these movies is that they’re all set in the U.S. west of the Mississippi – but is that exclusive western territory? After all both ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ and ‘THE PROFESSIONALS’ take place largely in Mexico – and the roistering Rory Calhoun adventure ‘THE TREASURE OF PANCHO VILLA’ is entirely set there, yet contains all the elements of a western.

And what about Canada? Movies set north of the 49 are just as obviously westerns – such as ‘PONY SOLDIER’ ‘O’ROURKE OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED’ and ‘THE CANADIANS’ – where Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd and Robert Ryan play Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen trying to prevent Indian wars breaking out in the 1870s.

Mountie Tyrone Power in PONY SOLDIER

Perhaps in defining the western we can allow for some overspill into adjacent regions where similar conditions to the American frontier prevailed.

Nor is there anything set in stone about 1860 as the beginning of the ‘classic western’ era. It’s just that not many western films and TV shows take place earlier. But the pre-1860 west has occasionally featured. The California Gold Rush was the backcloth to movies from ‘THE OUTLAWS OF POKER FLAT’ to the TV movie ‘The Desperate Mission’ about the legendary gold rush bandit Joaquin Murrieta.

Dale Robertson and Cameron Mitchell in THE OUTLAWS OF POKER FLAT

The wagon trains crossing the continent from the 1840s onwards were the backcloth to ‘MEEKS CUTOFF’ and ‘WESTWARD THE WOMEN.’

Wagons head west in MEEKS CUTOFF

The fur-trappers immortalised as ‘mountain men,’ whose heyday was 1810-1840, feature in ‘KIT CARSON’, ‘JEREMIAH JOHNSON’ and ‘ACROSS THE WIDE MISSOURI’ etc.

Robert Redford as JEREMIAH JOHNSON

And in 1835-1836 there was the short but bloody Texas War of Independence, where movie-makers have tended to focus on the dramatic stand at the Alamo in films like ‘THE ALAMO’ – 1960 and 2004 versions – THE LAST COMMAND and THE FIRST TEXAN.

Films like ‘THE ALAMO’ highlight that movies can, of course, be two things at once. They depict a battle between two modern armies, both using artillery, so can be described as ‘historical epics.’ But, as the two most prominent Alamo defenders were legendary western icons Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, how could these films not be westerns also? Crockett particularly is regarded as the epitome of a frontiersman… which raises another issue.

Davy Crockett (John Wayne) takes his last stand in THE ALAMO (1960)

Crockett was born and died on the frontier… but his birthplace was eastern Tennessee, which was as much a frontier at the time of his birth in 1786 as Texas was when he died there in 1836.

The real David (‘Davy’) Crockett in 1834

The point is the frontier kept moving, and it started on the very easternmost seaboard of the U.S.A.

In 1625 the frontier – the beginning of ‘the West’ – stood in Virginia and New England. By the mid 18^th Century ‘the west’ had advanced to somewhere in the neighbourhood of western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley. Around 1780 it was Kentucky and Tennessee.

But the frontier could switch north and south as well as continuing west. When young Davy Crockett went off to fight the Seminoles in September 1814 he marched south-east from his Tennessee home to the newly-opened up frontier of Florida.

Similarly, settlement advancing west across the Great Plains leap-frogged Oklahoma and left it behind as the ‘Indian Territory.’ When first opened up for mass settlement in 1889 there was an explosion of lawlessness and violence in Oklahoma that ran through the 1890s – long after surrounding areas of Kansas and Texas, and states further west like Colorado, had become relatively ‘civilised,’ tamed by the advance of settlement speeded up by the railroads.

If the classic requirements of the western are American ‘frontier’ elements you can certainly argue that movies like ‘DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK,’ ‘LAST OF THE MOHICANS’ (both set in New York State in the late colonial period,) ‘SEMINOLE’ (located in the swamps of Florida in 1835) and the TV Series ‘Daniel Boone’, (set in Kentucky in the 1770s) are westerns, regardless of how far east they’re located on the map.

Fess Parker played ‘Daniel Boone’ on TV

On the other hand movies set in the ‘classic western’ time frame but far from the frontier can’t be called ‘westerns’ in my view. If every movie set in the U.S.A. between 1860 and 1890 counted as one, that would mean ‘GONE WITH THE WIND’ (set in Georgia in the 1860s) was a western! Not to mention ‘THE RAID’ (set in Vermont in 1864) ‘THE AGE OF INNOCENCE’ (New York 1870s) and others. Personally I don’t think Quentin Tarantino’s ‘DJANGO UNCHAINED’ can be called a western – despite its ‘spaghetti western’ trappings the movie’s set in Tennessee and Mississippi long after their frontier days.

Jamie Foxx as DJANGO UNCHAINED

I came to the conclusion that a better definition of a ‘western’ might be to term them ‘frontiers’ – but I can’t see that catching on!

I don’t know if I’ve cleared up any confusion with this discussion or just created more. But feel free to disagree!

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM by MICHAEL ZIMMER

Michael Zimmer, winner of the Western Heritage Wrangler Award, tells me he has four favourites of his own western novels. One is WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM.

In 1858, Clay Little Bull, born a slave, and raised by Kiowa Indians, ventures west to seek freedom; but a band of Kansas slavers are on his heels.

An ex-slave in the American west brought to mind ‘mountain man’ and trail blazer JIM BECKWOURTH, who I’ve blogged about previously.  
http://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/author-favourites-to-keep-promise-by-bn.html

A backcloth to the story are the historical events of ‘Bleeding Kansas.’

This is how Wikipedia sums it up:

‘Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent confrontations… between 1854 and 1861 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. The conflict was characterized by years of electoral fraud, raids, assaults and retributive murders carried out by rival factions of anti-slavery ‘Free-Staters’ and pro-slavery ‘Border Ruffians’ in Kansas and neighbouring Missouri.

'At the heart of the conflict was the question of whether the Kansas Territory would allow or outlaw slavery, and thus enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 called for ‘popular sovereignty,’ requiring that the decision about slavery be made by the territory's settlers (rather than outsiders) and decided by a popular vote… 

'Missouri, a slave state… was populated by a large number of settlers with Southern sympathies and pro-slavery attitudes, many of whom tried to influence the decision in Kansas. The conflict was fought politically as well as between civilians, where it eventually degenerated into brutal gang violence and paramilitary guerrilla warfare. 

'The term "Bleeding Kansas" was popularized by Horace Greeley’s ‘New York Tribune.’

(Events in ‘Bleeding Kansas') …suggested to the American people that the sectional disputes were unlikely to reach compromise without bloodshed, and it therefore directly presaged the American Civil War. Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state in January 1861, but partisan violence continued along the Kansas–Missouri border for most of the war.’

Perhaps the most notorious figure in this dispute was outspoken abolitionist JOHN BROWN (1800-1859.)

John Brown c. 1847

John Brown led his sons and other followers in planning the murder of settlers who spoke in favour of slavery. At a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek on the night of May 24 1856, the group seized five pro-slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords.

In August 1856, thousands of pro-slavery men formed into armies and marched into Kansas, leading to the battle of Osawatomie. Brown tried to defend the town of Osawatomie against 400 pro-slave guerrillas but was forced to withdraw. The hostilities raged for another two months until Brown departed the Kansas Territory. In all, approximately 56 people died in 'Bleeding Kansas' by the time the violence ended in 1859.  

A portrait of JOHN BROWN in 1859

In October 1859 Brown led a raid on the federal armoury at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (although it was still Virginia at the time.) His plan was to start a liberation movement among the slaves there. He seized the armoury, intending to arm slaves with weapons from the arsenal, but the raiders were routed by a counter-attack. Within 36 hours, Brown's men had fled or been killed or captured by local farmers, militiamen, and US Marines led by ROBERT E. LEE. Brown was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men, and inciting a slave insurrection, was found guilty on all counts, and stepped onto the gallows on December 2^nd 1859.

‘John Brown’s Body’ became a popular Union marching song during the Civil War and portrayed Brown as a martyr.

Brown’s actions were depicted in the 1940 film SANTA FE TRAIL, which had RAYMOND MASSEY as Brown and RONALD REAGAN as the world’s most unlikely GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER!

RAYMOND MASSEY as JOHN BROWN in ‘Santa Fe Trail’

Films about black men in the Old West include THE SCALPHUNTERS

OSSIE DAVIS in 'The Scalphunters'

and BUCK & THE PREACHER.

SIDNEY POITIER and HARRY BELAFONTE in 'Buck and the Preacher'

Reviews of WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM:

‘A sweeping western adventure in the classic tradition of Lonesome Dove’

‘Great characters, and a fine sense of place.’

‘Zimmer always gives you a good yarn, with a rich mix of characters and in a setting and framework that all come together for a good, informative read.’

‘The story is fast-moving and engaging and the characters are complex and varied enough to avoid being stereotypes... Zimmer is right on when it comes to descriptions of the clothing, guns and gear, and the paraphernalia and process of buffalo hunting prior to the Civil War.’

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Buffalo-Roam-Michael-Zimmer/dp/0786006544/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

My review of THE SHOT RANG OUT by SCOTT HARRIS AND 51 FRIENDS

Acclaimed novelist SCOTT HARRIS set himself and 51 other authors the challenge of coming up with a 500 word short story with the same 18 word prompt:

‘The shot rang out. I heard her scream at the same time the bottle crashed to the floor.’

The result is the anthology THE SHOT RANG OUT. I’m one of these authors but I’m not reviewing my contribution.

One thing this anthology illustrates is the variety within the Western genre, something that has kept it alive for decades. And how many of these authors skilfully sidestep or eschew clichés to produce playful, original and surprising work. Certainly there’s a lot of saloons and gambling, including a lady gambler who bets a bottle of Napoleon brandy.

But there’s myth-makers too – Wild West shows, travelling players, dime novel writers alongside real western characters like Mark Twain, Calamity Jane and Doc Holliday.

We go from the humorous to the charming to the dark. From the action-packed – ‘Easy Work’ by RICK BREEDEN – to JOHN WHALEN’S ‘The Mescalero Incident’ with its sci-fi and horror elements. We have Mormons, lady outlaws and mail-order brides. Stories seen from the viewpoint of women, children and – in the case of LINDA HERMES’ ‘Hoot’n’Holler’ - two mules. 

VIC ANDERSON writes of the modern west. We get great opening lines – STEPHEN BURCKHARDT's ‘The heat was weighing on me like death on a corpse’ - and mean punchlines.  But CHERYL PIERSON bravely dispenses with a punch line and shows a short story can still hit the mark without one.  ERIC HARPER definitely has the best title. PATRICK MULDOON gives us a poem. Whilst some tales are ‘miniatures’ intensely focussed on one small incident, others like MICHAEL RITT’S ‘The Siren Song of Texas’ effectively pack a novel’s worth into 500 words.

If I was to list all the stories I liked this would be the world’s longest review. It’s difficult to pick favourites from among so many goodies, but three have particularly registered so far:

‘The Long Ride’ by TYLER BOONE flirts with the otherworldly. An outlaw on the run finds himself drinking – literally – in the ‘last chance saloon.’

‘One Last Job’ by RICHARD PROSCH. A lawman burying the pain of loss in alcohol decides to resolve the issue one way, but events steer him to another.

And ‘What Beats Three of a Kind’ by PAUL THOMAS which makes absolutely every word count.

Overall a collection of diverse thinkers having fun, and deceptively quick tales that reveal new layers each time you visit. Recommended.  

Other reviewers of THE SHOT RANG OUT:

‘One of the most unique and enjoyable books I have read in a very long time.’

‘The concept immediately suggests that these 52 stories will be repetitious. Yet nothing could be further from the truth… Short on words, long on pleasure.’

‘There are several stories I would love to see expanded into a full novel.’

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C2GFV2B/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523345636&sr=1-1&keywords=the+shot+rang+out+scott+harris

and

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07C2GFV2B/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1523345888&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=the+shot+ring+out+scott+harris

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: THE LONG HITCH by MICHAEL ZIMMER

Michael Zimmer, winner of the Western Heritage Wrangler Award, tells me he has 4 favourites of his own westerns. One is THE LONG HITCH.

Utah, 1874. Young Buck McCready finds himself wagon master of a freight outfit in a race with another freight team. Crossing the Great Basin Desert he has to deal with sabotage, rustling and murder. He’s also hunting the killer of the man who raised him.

Before the coming of the railroads, anytime between the 1850s and the 1880s, caravans of freight wagons were the means of bringing goods to the 19^th Century West. One ‘freight train’ might transport as much as 75 tons of food, cloth, implements and machinery. Most freight wagons were made by either the Murphy Company or by the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company.

A Studebaker wagon

These wagons were hauled by oxen, driven on by ‘bullwhackers,’ and mules, whose drivers were nicknamed ‘muleskinners.’ In practise a whip cracked overhead was usually enough to goad both oxen and mules into movement, and little actual ‘skinning’ was required. Bullwhips might have stocks of hickory, ash or pecan, and a rawhide lash between 10 and 20 feet long.

Mule skinners rode mules. Bullwhackers walked at the left of the oxen, directing them by cracking a whip over their heads.

Argument raged over which animals were better. In essence the difference between them was that mules were faster, oxen were cheaper. Mules tended to be more commonly used in desert country, but were more tempting to Indian raiders as, once stolen, they could be ridden.

A mule team

Bullwhackers sketched by WILLIAM HENRY JACKSON in 1866

Each freight team – known as an 'outfit' – was ruled over by a wagonmaster. He often had to be a tough disciplinarian; Mark Twain once described a company of teamsters he encountered as ‘a very, very rough set.’ Texas historian R.D. Holt said their hard, lonely, monotonous lives tended to make freighters ‘taciturn and peculiar.’

Between spring and the first winter snows these outfits hauled their cargoes across plains, deserts and mountains, braving massive distances, raging rivers, a harsh and testing land that gave them blizzards and dust storms, outbreaks of diseases like cholera and hostile Indians. 

MADAME CANUTSON was a very rare individual – a female freighter operating in South Dakota in the 1880s. Another female teamster was ‘CALAMITY JANE.’ I’ve blogged about ‘Calamity Jane’ here: http://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/author-favourites-copperhead-by.html
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Hitch-Western-Story-Five/dp/1432825240/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

As a boy, ‘BUFFALO BILL’ CODY once worked as a messenger for a freight company.

Although freighters were an important part of the real Old West, they’ve only featured occasionally in western movies and TV, including films such as ‘BULLWHIP’ (1958)

Guy Madison and Rhonda Fleming in 'Bullwhip'

And ‘SANTA FE PASSAGE’ (1955)

I spotted these female freighters in the TV Western world:

The Bonanza episode ‘Calamity over the Comstock’ tells a wildly unhistorical tale of Calamity Jane (played by Stefanie Powers) freighting in Nevada.

The High Chaparral episode ‘Lady Fair’ features another lady freighter, played by Joanna Moore.

One of my favourite western films, ‘WAGONMASTER’ (1950) is about wagon trains transporting settlers – in this case Mormon pioneers - rather than freight.

Reviews of THE LONG HITCH:

‘A wonderful book full of believable characters, good and bad, murders and gun fights… Zimmer's prose is as smooth as glass and as lyrical as birdsong.’

‘A story as tight as a fifth chain moving up the trail… knowledge is woven into the narrative so effortlessly that the reader learns without realizing it.’

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Hitch-Western-Story-Five/dp/1432825240/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=