In 1965 television took a new turn in programming, cashing in on the James Bond craze.  What developed was a sudden trend of secret agent and spy shows that literally controlled the prime-time airwaves.  The Western format that was so prominent in the 1950s and early 1960s was virtually being pushed aside, making way for read more…

The few Westerns seen on television during the early 1950s starred old-style movie heroes such as the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Casssidy, and had little to do with the real West.  Westerns were considered another form of obvious fantasy strictly for kids.  Two shows, Gunsmoke and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp changed all read more…

Support Your Local Sheriff uses as the basis for its comedy the many clichés that have become part and parcel of the Western genre.  Whether it’s the town dominated by a tyrant, the never-missing gunfighter, the absolutely pure hero, the chaste but unchased maiden , the growth of the territory – they’re all dealt with read more…

Director Walter Hill’s superior movie The Long Riders (1980) was an accurate depiction of the James gang’s Northfield, Minnesota bank raid, starring Stacy Keach as Frank, and his brother James (looking like William S. Hart) playing Jesse.  It’s told in gory, post-Peckinpah fashion, complete with slow-motion gunplay, whizzing bullet sound effects and a twanging Ry read more…

The Richmond Timed Dispatched called author Sharyn McCrumb’s book “a novel of mesmerizing beauty and power.” I was captivated at how McCrumb tied two stories together in one novel – set apart by at least a hundred and twenty years. This book starts out with sheriff Spencer Arrowood recovering from a shotgun wound, and his read more…