Westerns of the Sixties

And now for something in a different mood: How the Westerns of the 1960's reflected the changes in American culture during that turbulent decade:

In many ways, the 1960’s was the Decade of the Western. Some can argue that the 50’s or even the 40’s were the heyday of that typically American medium, while the 60’s saw the art form exported (the Spaghetti Westerns) and eventually depleted. After all, Westerns after the 1960’s became more and more rare, and after Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” (1974), with a few notable exceptions, virtually non-existent. Still, the Westerns of the 60’s were a pivotal part of the American scene, and reflected the changes that were going on within the country during that turbulent decade.

Five films apply demonstrate the shift. Through them we can see how the Western went from clean cut, Good versus Bad, white hat versus black hat, to deeper, more psychological gray areas, from “The Magnificent Seven” to “The Wild Bunch.” Along the way the heroes of the film went from being peace builders who killed because they had to, to war mongers who needed to kill.

“The Magnificent Seven” (1960), a reworking of “The Seven Samurai.” follows seven American mercenaries as they enter a foreign country (Mexico) in order to help the local population fight off a gang of outlaws. Although the characters are complex, not mere cardboard cut-outs, they are decidedly good, and the banditos are decidedly bad. The lines are clear, and our heroes are caught up in doing what is right. Not only is this John Sturgess film a rousing testosterone-pleasing epic, it is also a morality play very much in tune with America’s image of itself.

In the ambitious “How The West Was Won” (1963), three directors created five “acts” to bring a fifty year period of America’s history settling the West to the screen. The heroes again showed complexity, even reluctance, but always did the right thing in the end, whether it was Jimmy Stewart’s mountain man or Gregory Peck’s gambler, or, central to the morality of the film, George Peppard’s Civil War soldier turned railway man turned lawman. Peppard is the rugged American standing up against the lawless West with little more than his own moral compass, courage, and rifle to tame a savage land and bring peace not just for the territory, but his family as well. Nobility abounds.

The shift comes after. There are several choices to mark the watershed, but I pick “The Hour of the Gun” (1967). In this film, Wyatt Earp (played by James Garner) goes on a vengeance trail against the Clanton gang, who had crippled one brother and killed another. Using a Territorial Marshal’s badge and a handful of deadly companions to make his quest legitimate, including Doc Holiday (Jason Robards), Earp leads what becomes a take no prisoners approach.

There is no more brutal scene in film than the moment Earp finds and confronts Andy Warshaw (played by Steve Ihnat), who protests that he didn’t shoot Earp’s brother, he only watched to make sure no one interfered. When Warshaw confesses that Clanton paid him $50 to watch, Earp becomes enraged and squares off. Warshaw is clearly outmatched, but, desperate, draws. Earp is faster and pumps bullet after bullet into Warshaw, emptying his gun, each shot bouncing the poor man against a fence. It is tantamount to murder. Yet Earp is the hero of the piece and we are asked to accept his rage as reason enough to forgive him. The dead were, after all, all bad men. Even Warshaw, who only watched.

But the lines between good and evil have been blurred. What changed? The answer seems obvious -- the Vietnam War. By the time that this film was being made, Americans were beginning to question their involvement in that war. The Good Guys found that their motives were being questioned, more and more so as the decade and the war continued. It seems fitting that the director of “The Magnificent Seven” also gave us the more ambiguous heroes of “The Hour of the Gun.”

Incidentally, the scene described above is available on YouTube and has had nearly 3,000 views. It is an amazing sequence, even out of context of the rest of the film. Though the bloodletting is tame by today’s standards, the physical scene stands on its own. Type in your search engine: You Tube - Hour of the Gun -Steve Ihnat vs. James Garner and Jason Robards, or if you search for Hour of the Gun the link will appear.

The decade ends with “The Wild Bunch,” Sam Peckinpah’s amazing and ground breaking ode to the end of the West. It is also staged and filmed like a combat film, with more visceral bloodletting than any film before, juxtaposed against almost balletic camera shots that at once make the visual images hauntingly beautiful and desperately brutal. By today’s standards, the blood spatter is tame, but for its time “The Wild Bunch” depicted death by gunshot as a messy business that left bodies scattered and the wounded groaning in agony. In this one, four outlaws at the end of their careers make one last job into their epitaph. This time we have all gray areas to contend with: some of the villains are heroes because everyone is a villain. In a reversal of “The Magnificent Seven,” in this film a gang of outlaw Americans go to a foreign land (Mexico again), with only one real motive, destruction.

The new decade began with a film that many consider an indictment of America’s foreign policy, “Little Big Man” (1970). Once again the lines are clearly drawn, only this time Americans are an invading force while the native Cheyenne and Sioux are the local indigenous population being pummeled into submission by a loosely organized policy of genocide. As great storytelling, “Little Big Man” is one of the finest films ever made in America, with complex characters, timely humor, and sensitivity to a dying people struggling not to die. As a political statement, the film completes the self-depreciation of American motives and actions just as the protests at home against the Vietnam War reach their zenith. It is obvious who the bad guys are, and they are us.

The Westerns that follow these five feature more complex, more ambiguous heroes and anti-heroes. The genre has slipped into a more occasional method for telling often revisionist story lines about America’s past, and by extension, her present and future. If art reflects the extremes of the culture that creates it, then the 1960’s brought moviegoers one hundred eighty degrees from certainty to questioning.

We are questioning still, which I think is good.