Movie-lore: Popular Cinema & its Evolution since 1895. Based on World Movies in general & Hollywood in particular . NS. # Part-I of the Western Genre
 |
| High Noon |
 |
| Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid |
 |
| Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine (39) |
 |
| The Great Train Robbery(1903) |
 |
| John Wayne |
 |
| The Wild Bunch |
****The Western Genre .
Perhaps the Western Genre which started as an All-American in the yrs preceding the release of '7 Samurai' of the famed Japanese Film-maker Akira Kurosawa, changed the myth making it an all linguistic styled genre. The Movie by Kurosawa became a standard form of Movie-makers all over the world, the film was adapted for a Hollywood bloc-buster named 'The Magnificent 7' (60) by John Sturges of the Bad day at Black Rock (54) fame,that starred only Yul Brynner as an estd actor, Steve McQueen though had 6 films to his credit, this movie brought him to limelight & would act in Sturges's "The Great Escape" in 1963 would be one his best role with the least screen appearance, rest of the Cast like Bronson, Coburn, & Horst Buccholz were quite new in the Movie-Biz.
This Genre would go on to capture the imagination of Film-makers world-wide, such as the Spaghetti (Italian) western with movies like The Good, Bad & Ugly (66) & Django churned out by Dirs like Sergio Leone.Curry (Bollywood) Westerns such as Sholay(75), Kaala Sona, & the Japanese styled '7 Samurai' would make this genre an Int'l phenomenon.
"The Great Train Robbery" of 1903 is credited of being the 1st ever Western genre film. This 12 minute film though had the least promotion, accepted by the masses without much fun-fare, even the producer's added this film at the end of a Vaudeville Act at the Huber's museum, after the film of 12 min started & ended the crowd went berserk shouts of once more filled the center which was shown by the theater, after viewing it for the 3rd time the Theater Lights were lit to make the audience leave the Theater, & the Western genre was born. Though the actual story of Butch & Sundance who successfully gets away, the film shows that on receiving the News of holding up the local train, the town folks form a posse, & kills the outlaws, thus serving justice Western style. The Film was the idea of none other than the famous American inventor Thomas A. Edison, who was working on a way to show moving objects on Screen. In 1899 he hired Edwin S.Porter to make films, both were best in their respective fields. 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903) directed by Porter was based on a script & a true story. A Great scene of the Film was of the shooting scene along-with the story base appealed to the audience. When the actor George Barnes playing a bandit takes his gun pointing to the Camera shoots, (a great film shot considered today) made the film more appealing.
Though an All-American genre the
 |
| Yul Brynner in Magnificent 7 |
Western genre hasn't been a great success at the Academy Awards or the Oscar's. ONLY 3 Movies have won the Best-Pic category, the 1st being Cimmaron in (1930-31), the 2nd was the Kevin Costner directed "Dances with Wolves"(90); & the 3rd was the Clint Eastwood directed "Unforgiven"(92).
The Historical aspect of the Western was the transformation of the old & the dreaded West to homesteads & the modern west, best portrayed in the movie "How the West was Won" of this gradual change to the modern times. The Civil War, bio-pic on Legends of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Geronimo,Billy the Kid, & the Cowboys were made into legendary masculine heroes in Movies like "My Darling Clementine" with Henry Fonda as the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp & Victor Mature as the drunk Doc Holiday who is suffering from T.B. who joins Earp in avenging the death of the former's brother later to b remade into many films, the most notable being "The Gunfight at the O.K Coral". Film-makers like John Ford,Sam Peckinpah of "The Wild Bunch", John Sturges, & Sergio Leone the famous Dir to make the Spaghetti Western a popular style, making Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleefe, Eli Wallach into house-hold names.
Dir John Ford who is best known & associated with the Western genre & winner of 4 Oscars,
 |
| Clint Eastwood |
for Best-Dir never won an Oscar in the Western genre, but instead won for Socially relevant movies like that of "How Green was my Valley". Stars like Broncho Billy Anderson, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, were some of the most famous actors to have made the Western genre, mainly the Good vs Bad themed Western popular. John Wayne who is the most famous in this genre, won an Oscar for Best Lead Actor category for "True Grit" in 1969, He acted in nearly 200 films in 5 decades of which the majority of them were from the Western genre, another revered actor was Gary Cooper who won his 2nd Oscar for "High Noon"(52).
 |
| Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp & Kirk as Doc Holiday |
