What introduction does James Reasoner need?
He has written a gazillion books and is currently wowing pulp style adventure aficionados with the Gabriel Hunt novel, At The Well of Eternity. Check it out HERE. Fans can become friends by visiting the author's blog HERE
And now for The Archive James gives us his thoughts on the book, The Western by Kerry Newcomb
And so it's over to James...
A number of years ago, my friend Kerry Newcomb, who loves Western movies as much as I do, recommended a book to me, and now I’m recommending it to you: THE WESTERN, by Phil Hardy, was published by William Morrow in 1983. It’s a coffee table book that includes brief summaries and credits for a couple of thousand Western films, from 1929’s BRIDE OF THE DESERT to 1983’s TIMERIDER (which is a time travel Western for those of you who haven’t seen it, which I imagine is most of you). It’s profusely illustrated, as they say, with still and publicity photos from many of those movies, and also includes several essays about the history of Western films. These aren’t just Hollywood movies, either. Hardy includes many Italian and German Westerns as well. There are appendixes that list the Biggest Money-Making Western Stars, Academy Awards won by Westerns, Western novels adapted into movies, and various critics’ picks for the Top Ten Westerns of all time.
rough, although if you did, you’d get a pretty comprehensive picture of how Western movies developed over the decades. But when you open it to look up something, chances are you’ll be browsing through it for a while, because there’s always something interesting on the next page. It’s dated now, of course, since more than a quarter of a century has gone by since it was published, and it’s certainly not an exhaustive study of any particular sub-genre of the Western film. Classics like THE SEARCHERS don’t get much more space than B-Westerns starring Tim Holt or Johnny Mack Brown. But the way it embraces the entire Western field sort of adds to the charm of the book. And because of that, you’re liable to stumble across little gems that you’d never heard of before.
8 comments:
Hey, I've seen Time Rider. Motorcycle western, right?
I've got this book, but a later edition, published in 1995. It was also published in 1991 as the second and revised edition. That version and mine ends with 1990's Young Guns 2. Makes me wonder if it's been updated since.
Time Rider? My ears just perked up.
Bill, that's TIME RIDER, all right. Motorcycle Western with Fred Ward, co-written by Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. Not your typical Western, but I thought it was pretty good.
I'll have to keep an eye out for this book. In fact, I bet there's a copy at my parents' house -- my dad's got a pretty good collection of Western/John Wayne/John Ford-related books. When I was visiting there last Christmas, I pulled The Rough Guide to Westerns off the shelf, started flipping through it casually and ended up obsessed with it for days. I thought I'd seen all the great Westerns there were to see, but after reading the Rough Guide I added 20 new titles to my Netflix queue. It takes an amazingly thorough look at the genre, its development and its many, many subgenres. It came out in 2006, so it even includes Deadwood. Definitely worth a look for anyone who's into overviews of the Western on film.
http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Guide-Westerns-Reference/dp/1843536498
-Steve
Steve - I've got The Rough Guide also. And it is pretty much essential.
I need to get a copy myself. Believe me, I was *seriously* tempted to steal my dad's!
-Steve
Time Rider was the movie for us zit faced teens in '82.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG1jEVcY1pM
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