Post by telegonus on Mar 24, 2017 7:55:06 GMT
Good stuff. Thanks for posting, Richard. We talk about westerns today as genre, but back in the old days, in the period when James Jones wrote From Here To Eternity, they were the most popular kinds of films America made. Forget the genre talk. They defined American movies back in the day, and I don't mean cinema. They also sort of symbolized America, the American spirit, what this country stands for, all around the world. That's the period of Saturday afternoon at the Bijou (or Rialto, as the case may be).
I've had many conversations with older guys over the years on just the topic of "who was a true cowboy star and who wasn't" (Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scoty, yes, Robert Taylor and Errol Flynn, no). For lovers of westerns guys like Bob Steele, Tom Tyler, Tim McCoy, Johnny Mack Brown, Bob Livingston and Charles Starrett were the real cowboy stars,--and that's what they called them--while the other ones, with all due respect--whether Dana Andrews or Glenn Ford, Tyrone Power or Dennis Morgan, guys were actors, movie stars who sometimes starred in westerns, they were not cowboy stars.
I've had many conversations with older guys over the years on just the topic of "who was a true cowboy star and who wasn't" (Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scoty, yes, Robert Taylor and Errol Flynn, no). For lovers of westerns guys like Bob Steele, Tom Tyler, Tim McCoy, Johnny Mack Brown, Bob Livingston and Charles Starrett were the real cowboy stars,--and that's what they called them--while the other ones, with all due respect--whether Dana Andrews or Glenn Ford, Tyrone Power or Dennis Morgan, guys were actors, movie stars who sometimes starred in westerns, they were not cowboy stars.