Western films endure even through the ebb and flow of their immediate popularity. This reference book covers more than 3,500 western films over the past 100 years. The author has tried to be as comprehensive as possible in listing feature films. He includes mainly sound productions and covers silent, serial, and TV films selectively. A few crossover titles, such as Hud and Oklahoma! show the Western influence. Longtime western aficionado Fagen has written several books on this genre. Both Tom Selleck and Dale Robertson wrote prefaces for this volume, in support of westerns and their history. A three-page introduction traces the history and main actors of western films. The body of the book consists of alphabetically arranged film titles. Each entry lists the credits. About half of the entries have only a sentence or two about the movie, but a few, such as the entries for High Noon and Shane, continue for two pages and include production notes, some plot summary and critical commentary, and quotes from critics, performers, and filmmakers. Series are cross-referenced. Writing is clear and usually positive. About 100 black-and-white captioned photos of actors and screen shots offer visual relief and information. Five appendixes provide useful data: a one-page discussion and A-Z list of spaghetti westerns (noting date and director); a chronological list of western Oscar nominees and winners; a list of movies based on books; two supplementary chronological lists of silent and sound titles for which insufficient information or box office returns exist; and a selected bibliography. The index mainly cites names and film titles.
[...]... outlaw leader There is good action in this average Sunset Carson entry (See also CALL OF THE ROCKIES [1944]) Set in the American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War, young frontiersman Jim Smith (John Wayne) leads a group of settlers who find themselves in the unenviable position of being threatened by both the British on the one hand and hostile Indians on the other Based on the novel The First Rebel... players on the western scene As Michael Parkinson and Clyde Jeavons note in their incisive Pictorial History of Westerns (1972), these five, along with predecessors Broncho Billy Anderson, William S Hart, and Tom Mix rank among the handful of western stars who either worked exclusively in the genre or made their biggest contribution to the cinema in the “Western’s broad confines.” Add today the name of. .. Riders of the Dawn (1945); Moon Over Montana, West of the Alamo, Song of the Sierras, Trail to Mexico (1946); Ridin’ Down the Trail, Song of the Wasteland, Six Gun Serenade, Rainbow Over the Rockies (1947); Partners of the Sunset, Cowboy Cavalier, Silver Trails, Outlaw Brand, Courtin’ Trouble, Song of the Drifter, Oklahoma Blues, The Rangers Ride, Range Renegades (1948); Across The Rio Grande, Brand of. .. excellence, and the battle scenes (due largely to Cliff Lyons) are among the best ever put on screen Dimitri Tiomkin’s score is superb, and the song The Green Leaves of Summer” was worthy of an Oscar (it lost out to “Never on Sunday” from the film of the same name) The thematic use of melody and drama in the final scenes has rarely been duplicated, and The Green Leaves of Summer” became a big hit for the recording.. .THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERNS studios need to rethink how they’re doing them and how they’re casting them I don’t believe that for a minute that westerns are dated They don’t date if they’re made properly and are really very lucrative if they are made by someone with a little vision Kevin Costner is someone who simply got it right, and so did Simon Wincer (Quigley Down Under, Lonesome Dove) Simon... Song in a Motion Picture Civil War veterans Don Taylor (Richard Dix) and Paxton Bryce (Preston Foster) head to Texas, settle down, and build a vast empire during the Reconstruction period American Empire is a vivid panorama of the Texas frontier country, which captures the flavor of the Old West if not the precise letter of the times There is lots of outdoor action that explodes in all directions, from... another western screen icon Andrew Sarris remarked of Eastwood in The New Observer, “Now at age sixty-two, he joyously joins the gallery of the sunset horsemen previously incarnated in the twilight westerns of John Wayne, Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, and Gary Cooper, among other grizzled greats.” It was a fitting epitaph to a century of westerns Our purpose in producing Facts On File s Encyclopedia of. .. John Ford With the deftness of a Remington, he could capture the xviii INTRODUCTION demise of the studio system that helped create it, the genre began to be viewed as obsolete More and more westerns had become the special fodder for revisionist critics and filmmakers and CEOs in business suits What was best in the genre had gone from the big screen to the small, with the production of inspired miniseries... Barcroft, Bob Nolan Deputy Marshal Roy investigates the disappearance of a government agent who came to the Lazy A Ranch owned by Dale’s father Among the fine songs featured in this pleasant and pleasing Roy Rogers entry are the classic “Cool Water,” written by Bob Nolan and introduced by the Sons of the Pioneers, of which Nolan and Rogers (then known as Dick Weston) were founding members; and the title... WILDCAT, MARSHAL OF RENO, THE SAN ANTONIO KID, VIGILANTES OF DODGE CITY, SHERIFF OF LAS VEGAS (1944); THE LONE TEXAS RANGER; Wagon Wheels Westward, COLORADO PIONEERS, MARSHAL OF LAREDO, Great Stagecoach Robbery, PHANTOM OF THE PLAINS (1945); CONQUEST OF CHEYENNE, CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH, SHERIFF OF REDWOOD VALLEY, Sun Valley Cyclone (1946) The series continued with Allan “Rocky” Lane in the title role: . John Ford. With the deftness of a Remington, he could capture the THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERNS xviii snow-topped Sierras, the wailing winds of Monument Valley, nearly. set of brothers, the Cravens. But as in The Sacketts, Sam Elliott, Jeff Osterhage, and I played the thr ee brothers. As an ar t form, the western film