Reviews for Western Women: Interviews with 50 Leading Ladies of Movie & Television Westerns from the 1930s to the 1960s

The average rating for Western Women: Interviews with 50 Leading Ladies of Movie & Television Westerns from the 1930s to the 1960s based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-06 00:00:00 Stephen Kostovich Growing up in the fifties I was exposed to the culture of the film cowboy on television and the big screen. Even though I now know the screen version of the cowboy is not an accurate depiction of real cowhands, I remain a fan of the genre. Heck, my first wristwatch was a Hopalong Cassidy timepiece my father gave me. I remember that those of us lads who could scrape up the quarter it cost to get into the theatre would re-enact the shootouts with our shiny six-shooters...the type without the orange tips, orange tips not having been invented until the 1980s. This was in the days before policemen shot kids playing with toy pistols, but I digress here... There were so many oaters on the screen that the star had to have some kind of a gimmick in order to stay abreast of the competition: Chuck Connors had the big loop on his Winchester, Roy Rogers had a horse that was almost smart enough to get into college, some cowboys had a dog and quite a few had pestiferous and garrulous sidekicks, but the one thing that they all had in common was an attractive female to add a little class to what would otherwise be a gathering of smelly men and horses. Most of the women in western movies had a definite place in the hierarchy, ranking behind the horse but ahead of the dog. They were there to look good and be rescued by the male lead, and did they look good in those snug jeans and plaid shirts! Happily, some very good westerns departed from this routine and starred strong female leads such as Barbara Stanwyck in The Furies and Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge in Johnny Guitar. Mr Magers had the great privilege of interviewing 50 of these ladies for his book. What results is an interesting account of the early years of cinema and the advent of television. Unfortunately, the accounts of these women are depressingly similar: girl is encouraged by parents to attend audition, girl gets signed to contract but is overworked and underpaid by studio, girl meets man of her dreams at the studio and marries him, husband tells wife to quit acting. On the plus side, most of them enjoyed long and happy marriages. A surprising number of them profess deep religious feelings, and not a single one of the 50 was ever nailed on the casting couch! But the most depressing thing about reading this book was that I came to the realization that the heroines of my boyhood are almost all dead. Those sparkling smiles are now underground grimaces, and those heavenly forms will never fill out another plaid shirt or saloon gal outfit. A couple are still hanging on, but even as I read the book we lost Donna Douglas and Anita Ekberg. I am happy that Magers went to the trouble of recording their stories for those of us who remember them.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-10-12 00:00:00 Jesse Blue H.G. wrote this novel at warp speed nine, as evidenced by the bluntest ending ever written and presented in a Penguin Classic. His dystopian vision here, however, is one of the most influential in SF and beyond. Needless, we’d have no 1984 if it wasn’t for this patchy, overtly racist, but workmanlike tale. Respect to Herb.