Western Books

[cigar joe]

This little paperback has sketches by Dorothy Johnson with good information on 23 notorious outlaws and/or gangs of the West.



Back to Film Books this one on Altman and McCabe & Mrs. Miller came out very recently, its a good read.

[Banjo]

The Hughes book on western, as it starts from Stagecoach, I assume doesn't cover the first 40 years of western movies. 

It covers these in the introduction but i suspect that like me many readers wouldn't have much interest in such oldies.

The main part of the book has detailed chapters dedicated to 27 key westerns but also includes discussions about several dozen more.Anyone who's a fan of movies directed by Eastwood,Peckinpah and Boetticher will be well catered for.

[cigar joe]

Yea I have all of those you posted Banjo, Hughes ' books have a lot of inserted type additional info besides the main entries. They are good.

[Banjo]

He's also written a book about crime thrillers including a chapter covering Once Upon A Time In America.

[titoli]

Cawelti is one of my favourite essayst on mass culture. Without recurring to idiolect or flight of fancies he analyzes in depth and never trivial. His works on western (the second adds little to the first) are old but I think are still among the best introduction to the genre.
I also recommend his work on spy story and his collections of essays.

[titoli]

Pronzini (western and hard-boiled novelist) has written two books dealing with the worst in mystery literature befiore turning his atention to the western with this volume. Recommended only to pulp literature aficionados.

[cigar joe]

This book is a great read for anyone interested in a first hand account of the Mexican Revolution, and its a good background for all the Zapata Westerns.



El Topo, this is pretty much the screenplay with screen shots and includes an interview of Jodorowski, an interesting read.



Here is the 1991 paperback print of Edmund Naughton's "McCabe" Its a great Western and an interesting comparison piece to both the film and Robert T. Self's recent book on Altman & the film.



This book is the only Western I've ever found that reads just like a Spaghetti Western if you can find it check it out.

[cigar joe]

Anybody interested in Sibley's New Mexico Campaign as a background for GBU this book covers not only the New Mexico portion but the Texas staging & march to New Mexico and the retreat, highly recomended 10/10



For information on the individual battles Valverde below is highly detailed, it features the only lancer charge in the entire Civil War.



For info on Glorieta Pass the book below.



This book on Paddy Graydon is a another good history of both Arizona and New Mexico during the Civil War Graydon was a leader of an Independent Spy Company the North's equivalent to the South's Santa Fe Gamblers (those three long bearded ZZTop looking southern scouts at the head of Sibley's retreating column in GBU). Graydon was the commander who followed the retreating Sibley gathering up the straglers and jettisoned equipment....and according to Leone two guys riding in a southern ambulance.....

[The Firecracker]

[cigar joe]

Never seen that firecracker, looks like a nice one.

[titoli]

Must-read for those interested in the early history of westerns. Most of the volume is dedicated to movies made before Stagecoach. 

[The Firecracker]

Never seen that firecracker, looks like a nice one.

A friend of mine wrote it.
I'd pick it up if you could find it for under $20.

[cigar joe]

How much more info is in this titoli?

How much more does it cover timewise than the first book I just finnished the first & it seems to cut off at about 1971. Does he go any more into Euro/Spaghetti Westerns?

[titoli]

Not much info. Cawelti just updates some of his personal thoughts on western in the light of more recent productions but always in general terms. Little is dedicated to SW.
What do you think of the first volume?

[cigar joe]

I thought that is was a pretty good breakdown of the Western Genre and its formulas and the evolution of those formulas over the course of time from the dime novels to 1970. Its a good framework to build a Western story or screenplay on. I was checking Cawelti against the production numbers I came up with (with the benefit of computer research, though the early years production numbers are sketchy) here:

http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=7622.msg120033#msg120033

They are somewhat close, I was, in the treatise consentrating on the "look" and basic "conventions" of the Westerns more than on formulas though.

In 1958 Cawelti mentions at least 54 Western features made I come up with 43 released though if Cawelti is going by the year they were produced rather than released then 1957 has 57, in 1967 Cawelti has 37 I come up with just 20 don't know what criteria he is going by. But I was again concentrating on the "look" and concerned with volume.
 

I find Cawelti's last statement on the Western that....

"....it's ability to respond to changing cultural themes and concerns--have made the formula successful as popular art and entertainment over many generations, None of these factors is necessarily more basic than any other except perhaps the artistic. For no matter how many social and psychological functions a formula fulfills, it will probably never survive unless from time to time it attracts the interest of original and imaginative artists who are capable of revitalizing its conventions and stereotypes to express contemporaneous concerns."

....to be very interesting, perhaps we are either just in a lull of original and creative artists who can revitalize the convetions and stereotypes of the Western, or there are no apparent contemporaneous concerns that can be expressed in a Western.

However the original and imaginative artists would need some type of financial backing to be able to do that. The money is pointing to blockbusters, comedies, animation. The studio system that was able to sustain the vast majority of Westerns is no more.