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The Book of Westerns
The Book of Westerns concentrates on the period between 1939 and the present day, looking at the Western from a wide variety of perspectives and providing in-depth critical analysis of many notable movies up to Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).
The coverage includes such celebrated works as George Stevens's Shane with Alan Ladd as the archetypal solitary Western hero, Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar where the combatants in the final gunfight are Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, and King Vidor's Duel in the Sun with its orgasmic climax when Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones shoot each other down and then claw their way toward a dying embrace.
The text, mainly written by film critics and academics associated with Movie magazine, is aimed at the informed filmgoer as well as the film student and is illustrated throughout with stills that capture the flavor of the Western.
The coverage includes such celebrated works as George Stevens's Shane with Alan Ladd as the archetypal solitary Western hero, Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar where the combatants in the final gunfight are Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, and King Vidor's Duel in the Sun with its orgasmic climax when Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones shoot each other down and then claw their way toward a dying embrace.
The text, mainly written by film critics and academics associated with Movie magazine, is aimed at the informed filmgoer as well as the film student and is illustrated throughout with stills that capture the flavor of the Western.
- GenresFilm
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Ian Cameron
144 books10 followersPseudonym of Donald Gordon Payne.
Donald Gordon Payne was an English author of adventure novels and travel books.
Donald Gordon Payne was born in Denmark Hill in South East London in January 1924. His father, Francis, was a New Zealander, who served in the First World War with the ANZACS. His mother was Evelyn Rodgers, a nurse during the Great War.
He was educated at Dulwich College Preparatory School and then at Charterhouse School. As a child he travelled with his parents to New Zealand and parts of the East coast of Australia – an experience which left him with a lifelong affection for these countries.
Deferring his place at Corpus Christi College Oxford, he enlisted in the Fleet Air Arm in 1943. After training at Sealand, near Liverpool, and at Kingston, Ontario, Canada he was awarded his wings and joined Swordfish Squadron 811 and later 835. He took part in Atlantic and Russian convoys in 1944 and 1945 as a Swordfish pilot, mainly on anti-submarine duties.
After the war he studied at Oxford and became an editor and ghost writer for the London based publishing firm of Christopher Johnson. From there he moved into a full-time career as a writer.
Using James Vance Marshall as a pseudonym, Payne wrote such books as A River Ran Out of Eden (1962) and White-Out (1999). His most famous book is probably Walkabout (1959), first published as The Children and later made into a movie starring Jenny Agutter.
Payne has also used Ian Cameron and Donald Gordon as pseudonyms. As Donald Gordon, he published, among others, Riders of the Storm (2002), an official history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. As Ian Cameron, he wrote The Lost Ones (1961), later dramatized by Disney as The Island at the Top of the World, as well as The Mountain at the Bottom of the World (1975) and The White Ship (1975).
He disliked publicity of any kind, preferring to stay out of the limelight. During his long and distinguished publishing career he made few author appearances, notably for the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Lifeboat Institution and the Reader's Digest.
He lived in Surrey, England, and had four sons and one daughter. He passed away on 22 August, 2018 at the age of 94.
Donald Gordon Payne was an English author of adventure novels and travel books.
Donald Gordon Payne was born in Denmark Hill in South East London in January 1924. His father, Francis, was a New Zealander, who served in the First World War with the ANZACS. His mother was Evelyn Rodgers, a nurse during the Great War.
He was educated at Dulwich College Preparatory School and then at Charterhouse School. As a child he travelled with his parents to New Zealand and parts of the East coast of Australia – an experience which left him with a lifelong affection for these countries.
Deferring his place at Corpus Christi College Oxford, he enlisted in the Fleet Air Arm in 1943. After training at Sealand, near Liverpool, and at Kingston, Ontario, Canada he was awarded his wings and joined Swordfish Squadron 811 and later 835. He took part in Atlantic and Russian convoys in 1944 and 1945 as a Swordfish pilot, mainly on anti-submarine duties.
After the war he studied at Oxford and became an editor and ghost writer for the London based publishing firm of Christopher Johnson. From there he moved into a full-time career as a writer.
Using James Vance Marshall as a pseudonym, Payne wrote such books as A River Ran Out of Eden (1962) and White-Out (1999). His most famous book is probably Walkabout (1959), first published as The Children and later made into a movie starring Jenny Agutter.
Payne has also used Ian Cameron and Donald Gordon as pseudonyms. As Donald Gordon, he published, among others, Riders of the Storm (2002), an official history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. As Ian Cameron, he wrote The Lost Ones (1961), later dramatized by Disney as The Island at the Top of the World, as well as The Mountain at the Bottom of the World (1975) and The White Ship (1975).
He disliked publicity of any kind, preferring to stay out of the limelight. During his long and distinguished publishing career he made few author appearances, notably for the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Lifeboat Institution and the Reader's Digest.
He lived in Surrey, England, and had four sons and one daughter. He passed away on 22 August, 2018 at the age of 94.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 27, 2017
This was published in Britain as The Movie Book of The Western. The editors (Ian Cameron and Douglas Pye) are identified with the British film periodical Movie and most of the contributors are either on Movie’s editorial board or have previously been contributors to the journal: this book is largely a continuation of the journal and a companion piece to the previously published The Movie Book of Film Noir. Movie is distinguished by a tradition of close textual analysis of individual films, generally placed into the context of the director’s work, emphasis being placed on style and mise en scène, generally written in a clear, non-academic style. And so it is here, most of the essays being on individual films or the Westerns of a specific director. My favourite is an essay by V.F. Perkins on Johnny Guitar, considering the weirdness of the film within the context of genre and the star persona of Joan Crawford. And there are a series of other fine essays. The limitation of this method, however, is that the genre tends to be a background to the articles rather than their central subject matter: they tend to be essays about Westerns rather than the Western. The collection, however, does begin with a series of broader considerations, but these are written by outsiders to Movie. There are, for instance, fine essays by Martin Pumphrey about codes of dress and style in the Western (admirably titled, ‘Why do Cowboys Wear Hats in the Bath?’) and by Peter Stanfield on country music and the cycle of Westerns that began in 1939...if you want to find out more about yodelling cowboys, this is the place to look. It is a fine collection of essays, although it doesn’t suggest or demand any major rethinking about the genre.
July 13, 2019
A very good anthology of academic essays on American westerns, 1939-1994
As my title suggests, this is not - and does not pretend to be - a comprehensive history of the western film. The book is self-limited to American-made westerns produced between 1939 - a year that saw many great and important examples of the genre - and 1994 when the book was being written (it was published in 1996). It deals for the most part with serious "A" westerns - the singing cowboy material of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry among others, the serials, and parody/comic westerns are for the most part ignored or mentioned only in passing. And it is an academic study, written by a variety of mostly university professors who have studied the western in literature and film - not necessarily those who are well-versed in the whole of cinema or in popular culture. Some of the book can be rather difficult and strong on jargon, so be warned.
The chapters for the most part are devoted to one film or one director, or in a couple of cases, an actor. There are several chapters that deal with the films of John Ford, the single most important of all directors who worked regularly in the genre; the longest chapter is devoted to the westerns of Delmer Daves, a relatively neglected figure much of whose work was, at the time this book was written and at the time I began reading it (2008) not widely available on home video (it is now).
A chapter listing will probably give the reader a good idea as to whether this book might be of value; the author of each piece is in parentheses:
INTRODUCTION - Criticism and the Western (Douglas Pye)
COUNTRY MUSIC AND THE 1939 WESTERN - From Hillbillies to Cowboys (Peter Stanfield)
A BETTER SENSE OF HISTORY - John Ford and the Indians (Richard Maltby)
WHY DO COWBOYS WEAR HATS IN THE BATH? - Style Politics for the Older Man (Martin Pomphrey)
SOCIAL CLASS AND THE WESTERN AS MALE MELODRAMA (David Lusted)
JOHN WAYNE'S BODY (Deborah Thomas)
THE DIETRICH WESTERNS - Destry Rides Again and Rancho Notorious (Florence Jacobowitz)
METHOD WESTERNS - The Left-Handed Gun and One-Eyed Jacks (Jonathan Bignell)
GENRE AND HISTORY - Fort Apache and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Douglas Pye)
THE WESTERNS OF DELMER DAVES (Michael Walker)
A TIME AND A PLACE - Budd Boetticher and the Western (Mike Dibb)
THE COLLAPSE OF FANTASY - Masculinity in the Westerns of Anthony Mann (Douglas Pye)
DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (Robin Wood)
DODGE CITY (Charles Barr)
DUEL IN THE SUN - The Destruction of an Ideological System (Robin Wood)
NOTES ON PURSUED (Andrew Britton)
WESTWARD THE WOMEN - Feminizing the Wilderness (Peter William Evans)
SHANE THROUGH FIVE DECADES (Bob Baker)
JOHNNY GUITAR (V.E. Perkins)
DOUBLE VISION - Miscegenation and Point of View in The Searchers (Douglas Pye)
HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS (Richard Lippe)
NOT WITH A BANG - The End of the West in Lonely are the Brave, The Misfits and Hud (Edward Gallafent)
HOW THE WEST WAS WON - History, Spectacle and the American Mountains (Sheldon Hall)
ULZANA'S RAID (Douglas Pye)
PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (Brad Stevens)
CLASS FRONTIERS - The View from Heaven's Gate (Brian Woolland)
DANCES WITH WOLVES (Michael Walker)
UNFORGIVEN (Leighton Grist)
FOUR TOMBSTONES 1946-1994 (Edward Gallafent)
As you might surmise, much of the discussion on these films - and the choices of the films themselves - reflects feminist perspective, issues of gender and racial sensitivity, sex, etc. I wouldn't say the book derives from any specific political agenda, but I think it's safe to say that most of the writers here would be considered to the left of James Stewart and John Wayne without question. Most of them are also British, as are the editors - the book was first published in the UK - so the perspective is often more distanced and measured than you might find in the work of American writers.
The most valuable chapters to me thus far have been those on Boetticher - too short by far though - Mann, Dietrich, and the first several chapters. The later chapters, focused as they are usually on a specific film and with a specific agenda, aren't as interesting. But I'm still going back to this book regularly, and will read the chapter on Daves in particular more carefully when I've managed to see more of his films.
There are many really terrific, well-chosen stills accompanying the text (all in black-and-white), and a good index. Well-bound and a physically attractive book as well, at least in the dustjacketed hardcover edition I have. A very valuable book then for the serious western devotee interested in meatier critical essays on the subject; not something for the casual reader, certainly, and not for those who would like to see a critic's politics secondary, or absent, from their film reading.
As my title suggests, this is not - and does not pretend to be - a comprehensive history of the western film. The book is self-limited to American-made westerns produced between 1939 - a year that saw many great and important examples of the genre - and 1994 when the book was being written (it was published in 1996). It deals for the most part with serious "A" westerns - the singing cowboy material of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry among others, the serials, and parody/comic westerns are for the most part ignored or mentioned only in passing. And it is an academic study, written by a variety of mostly university professors who have studied the western in literature and film - not necessarily those who are well-versed in the whole of cinema or in popular culture. Some of the book can be rather difficult and strong on jargon, so be warned.
The chapters for the most part are devoted to one film or one director, or in a couple of cases, an actor. There are several chapters that deal with the films of John Ford, the single most important of all directors who worked regularly in the genre; the longest chapter is devoted to the westerns of Delmer Daves, a relatively neglected figure much of whose work was, at the time this book was written and at the time I began reading it (2008) not widely available on home video (it is now).
A chapter listing will probably give the reader a good idea as to whether this book might be of value; the author of each piece is in parentheses:
INTRODUCTION - Criticism and the Western (Douglas Pye)
COUNTRY MUSIC AND THE 1939 WESTERN - From Hillbillies to Cowboys (Peter Stanfield)
A BETTER SENSE OF HISTORY - John Ford and the Indians (Richard Maltby)
WHY DO COWBOYS WEAR HATS IN THE BATH? - Style Politics for the Older Man (Martin Pomphrey)
SOCIAL CLASS AND THE WESTERN AS MALE MELODRAMA (David Lusted)
JOHN WAYNE'S BODY (Deborah Thomas)
THE DIETRICH WESTERNS - Destry Rides Again and Rancho Notorious (Florence Jacobowitz)
METHOD WESTERNS - The Left-Handed Gun and One-Eyed Jacks (Jonathan Bignell)
GENRE AND HISTORY - Fort Apache and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Douglas Pye)
THE WESTERNS OF DELMER DAVES (Michael Walker)
A TIME AND A PLACE - Budd Boetticher and the Western (Mike Dibb)
THE COLLAPSE OF FANTASY - Masculinity in the Westerns of Anthony Mann (Douglas Pye)
DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (Robin Wood)
DODGE CITY (Charles Barr)
DUEL IN THE SUN - The Destruction of an Ideological System (Robin Wood)
NOTES ON PURSUED (Andrew Britton)
WESTWARD THE WOMEN - Feminizing the Wilderness (Peter William Evans)
SHANE THROUGH FIVE DECADES (Bob Baker)
JOHNNY GUITAR (V.E. Perkins)
DOUBLE VISION - Miscegenation and Point of View in The Searchers (Douglas Pye)
HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS (Richard Lippe)
NOT WITH A BANG - The End of the West in Lonely are the Brave, The Misfits and Hud (Edward Gallafent)
HOW THE WEST WAS WON - History, Spectacle and the American Mountains (Sheldon Hall)
ULZANA'S RAID (Douglas Pye)
PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (Brad Stevens)
CLASS FRONTIERS - The View from Heaven's Gate (Brian Woolland)
DANCES WITH WOLVES (Michael Walker)
UNFORGIVEN (Leighton Grist)
FOUR TOMBSTONES 1946-1994 (Edward Gallafent)
As you might surmise, much of the discussion on these films - and the choices of the films themselves - reflects feminist perspective, issues of gender and racial sensitivity, sex, etc. I wouldn't say the book derives from any specific political agenda, but I think it's safe to say that most of the writers here would be considered to the left of James Stewart and John Wayne without question. Most of them are also British, as are the editors - the book was first published in the UK - so the perspective is often more distanced and measured than you might find in the work of American writers.
The most valuable chapters to me thus far have been those on Boetticher - too short by far though - Mann, Dietrich, and the first several chapters. The later chapters, focused as they are usually on a specific film and with a specific agenda, aren't as interesting. But I'm still going back to this book regularly, and will read the chapter on Daves in particular more carefully when I've managed to see more of his films.
There are many really terrific, well-chosen stills accompanying the text (all in black-and-white), and a good index. Well-bound and a physically attractive book as well, at least in the dustjacketed hardcover edition I have. A very valuable book then for the serious western devotee interested in meatier critical essays on the subject; not something for the casual reader, certainly, and not for those who would like to see a critic's politics secondary, or absent, from their film reading.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews