Dave Kehr corrects some conventional critical misconceptions, drawing upon an admirable familiarity with the history of the cinema.

As a Western buff since my diaper days, I’ve been glad to see the burst of positive publicity that our much maligned and neglected national genre has been getting, thanks to the simultaneous appearance of Warner Home Video’s magnificent John Ford-John Wayne box set and the debut of the third, apparently final season of “Deadwood” on HBO.

But it has also been an occasion for passing along the critical clichés and historical misconceptions that have gathered around the Western since it passed from mass popularity in the early 1970s. Nancy Franklin, the fine television critic of “The New Yorker,” begins her piece on “Deadwood” in the June 12 issue with a list of what she believes to be the genre’s conventions: “It has been many years since the Westerns were essentially black-and-white, cut-and-dried stories of good versus evil: morality tales with lots of horses and guns and one of everything else — a sheriff, an outlaw, an embattled hero, a town drunk, a whore with a heart of gold, a honky-tonk piano, and a schoolteacher from Illinois, who found out shortly after arriving in town that, for worse and for better, there was more to life than book learnin’. Indians were, for the most part, the obstacle that had to be overcome — although sometimes there was a ‘good one.’”

I suspect this isn’t the list of someone who’s seen a lot of Westerns; it’s the list of someone who’s absorbed the high culture caricature of them that has emerged since the genre effectively passed away, fatally linked in the minds of most baby-boomers with the disaster of Vietnam. Franklin goes on to say, “Although Westerns have evolved, the conventions are still often glaring, making even Westerns that have gray, shadowy moral areas a tough sell to some people. There’s just too much dust, leather, whinnying, shooting, and mud — too much brown — and not enough talking, understanding, humor and complexity. The trappings of Westerns make them seem fake and message-y, even as they strain to be realistic.” Franklin finds “Deadwood” the great exception to this rule.

It has indeed been many years since Westerns were like what Franklin describes — I’d say, since about 1903 and “The Great Train Robbery.” Westerns have, in fact, been the primary means through which American filmmakers have expressed “the gray, shadowy moral areas” of American history and the American character. In my experience — which includes way too many hours watching the routine B movies Franklin presumably has in mind (little she says applies to the adult Westerns that emerged in the late 40s, and were developed by such outstanding artists as Ford, Howard Hawks, Samuel Fuller, Budd Boetticher, Anthony Mann, Delmar Daves and quite a few others) — I’ve found the genre to be far less reactionary and rigid than consistently questioning and even progressive. There probably is a brutally racist, genocidal Western out there somewhere that advocates the extermination of the Indians, though I have never seen it or heard of one that fits that description. From the very beginnings of the genre on screen, Westerns frequently took the point of view of the Indian — romanticizing him and condescending to him, of course, but almost always following the Fennimore Cooper tradition of the “noble savage.”

D.W. Griffith, who could be as brutal a racist as anyone, made quite a number of Cooperesque odes to the “Vanishing American” (to borrow the title of a Zane Grey magazine serial of 1925, filmed that same year by George Seitz), including the exemplary 1909 “The Red Man’s View” (available on the “D.W. Griffith — Years of Discovery” DVD from Image Entertainment), a moving version of the “Trail of Tears” story about an Indian couple forced to separate when white settlers drive their tribe from their land. Another fine example is “The Invaders,” a 1912 production from Thomas Ince that may have been directed by Francis Ford, John Ford’s older brother, and included in the “More Treasures from American Film Archives” box set from the National Film Preservation Foundation. This very accomplished work depicts an epic battle ignited when white surveyors trespass on Indian lands, using Lakota Sioux as actors, eighty years before the proudly revisionist “Dances with Wolves” made the genre briefly fashionable again in the early 90s.

In a comment on the same post, Larry Kart recommends a selection of “non-obvious Westertns.”

Excerpts from an e-mail exchange (obviously inspired by this thread) with a friend of about my age (64) who didn’t see many Westerns as a kid:

Some Westerns that I can personally recommend, not only because they’re good but also because (no less important) they really get under my skin (won’t list all the ones we’ve the previously mentioned by Anthony Mann [though you might miss, but shouldn’t, Mann’s “Man of the West” with Gary Cooper] Boetticher, etc. or John Ford or Hawks— order is what I can see, by director or otherwise, as I leaf through David Thomson’s “Biographical Dictionary of Film”):

Andre de Toth: “Ramrod,” “Springfield Rifle,” “Man in the Saddle, “Carson City,” “The Stranger Wore a Gun,” “The Bounty Hunter,” “Riding Shotgun”). The latter bunch are B-movies with Randolph Scott and prefigure the Scott-Boetticher movies, though De Toth definitely has his own flavor. “Ramrod,” with De Toth’s then wife Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea, is a noir Western par excellence and not to be missed.

Allen Dwan: “Tennesse’s Partner,” with Ronald Reagan, based on a Brett Harte tale; “Montana Belle, with Jane Russell as Belle Starr, “Silver Lode.”

Fritz Lang: “The Return of Frank James,” “Rancho Notorious” with Marlene Dietrich — at least as out there as “Johnny Guitar” and made a year before it.

Rudolph Mate: “The Violent Men,” with Barbara Stanwyck. Glenn Ford, and Edward G. Robinson — another noir Western par excellence.

Robert Parrish: “The Wonderful Country,” with Mitchum in great form and a superb score by Elmer Bernstein.

Jacques Tourneur: “Wichita,” with J. McCrea as Wyatt Earp.

Raoul Walsh: “They Died with Their Boots On,” “Pursued” (with Mitchum, another extreme noir Western), “Colorado Territory” (a remake of “High Sierra”with J. McCrea in the Bogart part).

I notice that the list is shorter than I thought it would be (even having ruled out the movies that seemed obvious) and that Joel McCrea pops up fairly often. Also, I’m fairly sure that the air went out of the genre about the same time the air went out of science fiction (at least for me) and probably for related reasons. Also, again, it’s worth taking a look at some of the epic De Mille Westerns from the ’30s with Gary Cooper or McCrea (“The Plainsman,” “Union Pacific,” Northwest Mounted Police”) — the myths are there in potent, garish, unfiltered form. You may laugh at times, but you’ll be gripped too, I think, almost against your taste and will — which is a potentially useful state to be in.

———————–
Hat tip to James Wolcott.
———————–
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Find western film posters and information on other movie classics.

Karl Rove, in a NH interview quoted by Raw Story, opines that the rise of the Blogoshpere has proven a much more useful and positive development for Republicans than it has for democrats.

I do also think that the Internet has proven to be a more powerful tool on our side than it has been for the other side. It has proven to be a tool on our side to sort of unite Conservatives and have a healthy intra-movement dialogue. But it’s essentially been something that has helped us gain in influence and broaden our appeal. Among Democrats, my sense is that the blog world has tended to strengthen the far Left of the Democratic Party at the expense of liberal, but somewhat less liberal, members of their party. It has tended to sort of drive their party even further to the Left rather than focusing on good ideas that would help unite people around common goals and common purposes. Instead, the Internet for the Left of the Democratic Party has served as a way to mobilize hate and anger — hate and anger, first and foremost, at this President and Conservatives, but then also at people within their own party whom they consider to be less than completely loyal to this very narrow, very out-of-the-mainstream, very far Left-wing ideology that they tend to represent.

I like them both.

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Michael Barone, in the WSJ, reflects on the consequences of the habitual misuse of power of the press to delegitimize elected administrations.

It is hard in retrospect to understand why the left put so much psychic energy into the notion that Mr. Rove would be indicted. He certainly was an important target. No one in American history has been as powerful an aide to a president, both on politics and on public policy, as Karl Rove. Only Robert Kennedy in his brother’s administration and Hamilton Jordan in Jimmy Carter’s come close, and neither was as involved in electoral politics as Mr. Rove has been.

Still, it was clear early on that the likelihood that Mr. Rove violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was near zero. Under the law, the agent whose name was disclosed would have had to have served overseas within the preceding five years (Valerie Plame, according to her husband’s book, had been stationed in the U.S. since 1997), and Mr. Rove would have had to know that she was undercover (not very likely). The left enjoyed raising an issue on which, for once, it could charge that a Republican administration had undermined national security. But that rang hollow when the left gleefully seized on the New York Times’ disclosure of NSA surveillance of phone calls from suspected al Qaeda operatives abroad to persons in the U.S.

In all this a key role was played by the press. Cries went up early for the appointment of a special prosecutor: Patrick Fitzgerald would be another Archibald Cox or Leon Jaworski. Eager to bring down another Republican administration, the editorialists of the New York Times evidently failed to realize that the case could not be pursued without asking reporters to reveal the names of sources who had been promised confidentiality. America’s newsrooms are populated largely by liberals who regard the Vietnam and Watergate stories as the great achievements of their profession. The peak of their ambition is to achieve the fame and wealth of great reporters like David Halberstam and Bob Woodward. But this time it was not Republican administration officials who went to prison. It was Judith Miller, then of the New York Times itself.

Interestingly, Bob Woodward himself contradicted Mr. Fitzgerald’s statement, made the day that he announced the one indictment he has obtained, of former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby, that Mr. Libby was the first to disclose Ms. Plame’s name to a reporter. The press reaction was to turn on Mr. Woodward, who has been covering this administration as a new story rather than as a reprise of Vietnam and Watergate.

Historians may regard it as a curious thing that the left and the press have been so determined to fit current events into templates based on events that occurred 30 to 40 years ago. The people who effectively framed the issues raised by Vietnam and Watergate did something like the opposite; they insisted that Vietnam was not a reprise of World War II or Korea and that Watergate was something different from the operations J. Edgar Hoover conducted for Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy. Journalists in the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s tended to believe they had a duty to buttress Americans’ faith in their leaders and their government. Journalists since Vietnam and Watergate have tended to believe that they have a duty to undermine such faith, especially when the wrong party is in office.

That belief has its perils for journalism, as the Fitzgerald investigation has shown. The peril that the press may find itself in the hot seat, but even more the peril that it will get the story wrong. The visible slavering over the prospect of a Rove indictment is just another item in the list of reasons why the credibility of the “mainstream media” has been plunging. There’s also a peril for the political left. Vietnam and Watergate were arguably triumphs for honest reporting. But they were also defeats for America–and for millions of freedom-loving people in the world. They ushered in an era when the political opposition and much of the press have sought not just to defeat administrations but to delegitimize them. The pursuit of Karl Rove by the left and the press has been just the latest episode in the attempted criminalization of political differences. Is there any hope that it might turn out to be the last?

This unattributed email item seems to be basically factually correct, and provides plenty of food for reflection.

THE YEAR 1906

This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine! The year is 1906. One hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes!

Here are some of the US statistics for the Year 1906:

The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US, and only 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour.

The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.

Ninety percent of all US doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as “substandard.”

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death in the US were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4. Heart disease

5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 US adults couldn’t read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.

Back then the pharmacist said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”

Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the entire US.

So, to think I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to you in a matter of seconds! Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

Jim Dunnigan’s Strategy Page offers an insider’s assessment of the developing situation.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has been virtually wiped out by the loss of an address book. The death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was not as important as the capture of his address book and other planning documents in the wake of the June 7th bombing. U.S. troops are trained to quickly search for names and addresses when they stage a raid, pass that data on to a special intelligence cell, which then quickly sorts out which of the addresses should be raided immediately, before the enemy there can be warned that their identity has been compromised. More information is obtained in those raids, and that generates more raids. So far, the June 7th strike has led to over 500 more raids. There have been so many raids, that there are not enough U.S. troops to handle it, and over 30 percent of the raids have been carried by Iraqi troops or police, with no U.S. involvement. Nearly a thousand terrorist suspects have been killed or captured. The amount of information captured has overwhelmed intelligence organizations in Iraq, and more translators and analysts are assisting, via satellite link, from the United States and other locations.

Perhaps the most valuable finds have been al Qaeda planning documents confirming what has been suspected of terrorist strategy. Also valuable have been the al Qaeda assessment of their situation in Iraq. The terrorist strategy is one of desperation. While the effort continues, to attempt to trigger a civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, this is seen as a losing proposition. The new strategy attempts to trigger a war between the United States and Iran. This would weaken the United States, and put the hurt on Iran, an arch-enemy of al Qaeda. Other documents stressed the need to manipulate Moslem and Western media. This was to be done by starting rumors of American atrocities, and feeding the media plausible supporting material. Al Qaeda’s attitude was that if they could not win in reality, they could at least win imaginary battles via the media.

Zarqawi considered al Qaeda’s situation in Iraq as “bleak.” The most worrisome development was the growing number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police. These were able to easily spot the foreigners who made up so much of al Qaeda’s strength. Moreover, more police and soldiers in an area meant some local civilians would feel safe enough to report al Qaeda activity. The result of all this is that there are far fewer foreign Arabs in Iraq fighting for al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has basically been taken over anti-government Sunni Arabs. That made the capture of Zarqawi even more valuable, as his address book contained a who’s who of the anti-government Sunni Arab forces. This group has been hurt badly by last week’s raids.

The government deployed two infantry divisions and over 40,000 police in and around Baghdad to prevent “revenge” attacks by terrorists not yet rounded up by the growing wave of raids. Al Qaeda has announced an increased number of attacks. These have not occurred, although it is believed that more attacks are possible, as many attacks in various stages of preparation can be rushed forward before they are aborted by a raiding soldiers or police. At the moment, most al Qaeda members appear to be scrambling for new hiding places.

The damage done by the post- Zarqawi raids has spurred the Sunni Arab amnesty negotiations. These have been stalled for months over the issue of how many Sunni Arabs, with “blood on their hands”, should get amnesty. Letting the killers walk is a very contentious issue. There are thousands of Sunni Arabs involved here. The latest government proposal is to give amnesty to most of the Sunni Arabs who have just killed foreigners (mainly Americans). Of course, this offer was placed on the table without any prior consultations with the Americans. Naturally, such a deal would be impossible to sell back in the United States. But the Iraqis believe they could get away with it if it brought forth a general surrender of the Sunni Arab anti-government forces. The Iraqis, after all, are more concerned with Iraqi politics, than with what happens in the United States. Iraqi leaders believe that the U.S. has no choice by to continue supporting Iraqi pacification efforts. However, the spectacle of amnestied Sunni Arabs bragging to Arab, European and American reporters about how they killed Americans, might have interesting repercussions.

You won’t read it in the Times or the Washington Post, but Investor’s Business Daily reports that Bush may keep his promise and halve the deficit three years early

Aided by surging tax receipts, President Bush may make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half in 2006 — three years early.

Tax revenues are running $176 billion, or 12.9%, over last year, the Treasury Department said Monday. The Congressional Budget Office said receipts have risen faster over the first eight months of fiscal ’06 than in any other such period over the past 25 years — except for last year’s 15.5% jump.

The 2006 deficit through May was $227 billion, down from $273 billion at this time last year. Spending is up $130 billion, or 7.9%.

The CBO forecast in May that the 2006 deficit could fall as low as $300 billion. Michael Englund, chief economist of Action Economics, has long expected a deficit of about $270 billion this year. Now he thinks there’s a chance the “remarkable strength in receipts” will push the deficit even lower.

With the economy topping $13 trillion this year, a $270 billion deficit would equal less than 2.1% of GDP, easily beating the president’s 2.25% goal. Bush made his vow when the White House had a dour 2004 deficit forecast of 4.5% of GDP, or $521 billion. The actual ’04 deficit came in at $412 billion, or 3.5% of GDP, before falling to $318 billion, or 2.6% of GDP, in 2005.

A CBO analysis last week noted that withheld individual income and payroll taxes are up 7.6% from a year ago, with the gains picking up in recent months.

Buffalo Bill Cody with his Winchester

Today’s WSJ reports that efforts are underway to obtain investment support to revive the production of Winchester rifles in the United States, and to keep the iconic brand alive.

Now, it has fallen to an unlikely modern-day Winchester fan, Michael H. Blank, a 32-year-old who quit his job as a Merrill Lynch stockbroker, to salvage the venerable company. Despite its glorious past, modern times haven’t been kind to the gunsmith. In March the Belgian owners shut down the relatively modern factory built on a site where Winchesters have been made for 140 years, citing a bloated cost structure and slumping sales.

The move has sparked a frantic hunt for a buyer, a debate over what to do with the bronze of Mr. Wayne in the lobby, and a shot of soul-searching by gun owners themselves, who know the value of their Winchesters will soar if the factory closes forever.

Mr. Blank, who is a paid consultant in the search for a buyer, says there’s no reason Winchester’s U.S. factory has to die as long as there are people like him around. The main reason for slumping sales is that the company was making and marketing the wrong guns, not that there aren’t enough people willing to buy them.

“I have 10 Winchester lever-actions,” he says, “but if I had 5,000 more, I’d never have enough. By and large, I believe that whoever dies with the most guns, wins.” Mr. Blank says the company can thrive again if it goes back to its roots, producing high-quality guns for enthusiasts and collectors like him.

He contends the Belgian owners, Herstal Group, don’t have the right vision, pushing, among other things, low-end guns sold through Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Instead, he believes the company should concentrate on the burgeoning market for replicas of historic Winchester models and on upgrading its modern rifles. Today, many replicas, which aren’t allowed to bear the Winchester name, are made in Italy and sell for up to $1,200. Those rifles — with their blued barrels, wood stocks and distinctive levers for cocking the weapon with an unforgettable metallic “cha-chink” sound — are avidly sought by collectors fascinated by the history of firearms and of the American West.

“If we put out real replicas, and slap on the Winchester name, we’ll have the Italians out of the business in three years,” Mr. Blank predicts.

Earlier New Haven plant closing story.

Trenchantly argues Fjordman, guest blogging at Gates of Vienna:

The simple fact is that we never won the Cold War as decisively as we should have. Yes, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed. This removed the military threat to the West, and the most hardcore, economic Marxism suffered a blow as a credible alternative. However, one of the really big mistakes we made after the Cold War ended was to declare that Socialism was now dead, and thus no longer anything to worry about. Here we are, nearly a generation later, discovering that Marxist rhetoric and thinking have penetrated every single stratum of our society, from the Universities to the media. Islamic terrorism is explained as caused by “poverty, oppression and marginalization,” a classic, Marxist interpretation.

What happened is that while the “hard” Marxism of the Soviet Union may have collapsed, at least for now, the “soft” Marxism of the Western Left has actually grown stronger, in part because we deemed it to be less threatening. The “hard” Marxists had intercontinental nuclear missiles and openly said that they would “bury” us. The soft Marxists talk about tolerance and may seem less threatening, but their goal of overthrowing the evil, capitalist West remains the same. In fact, they are more dangerous precisely because they hide their true goals under different labels. Perhaps we should call it “stealth Socialism” instead of soft Socialism.

One of the readers of Fjordman blog once pointed out that we never had a thorough de-Marxification process after the Cold War, similar to the de-Nazification after WW2. He was thinking of the former Soviet Union and the countries in Eastern Europe, but he should probably have included their Marxist fellow travellers, their sympathizers and apologists in the West. We never fully confronted the ideology of Marxism, and demonstrated that the suffering it caused for hundreds of millions of people was a direct result of Marxist ideas. We just assumed that Marxism was dead and moved on, allowing many of its ideals to mutate into new forms and many of its champions to continue their work uninterrupted, sometimes filled with a vengeance and a renewed zeal for another assault on the capitalist West.

We are now paying the price for this. Not only has Marxism survived, it is thriving and has in some ways grown stronger. Leftist ideas about Multiculturalism and de-facto open borders have achieved a virtual hegemony in public discourse, their critics vilified and demonized. By hiding their intentions under labels such as “anti-racism” and “tolerance,” Leftists have achieved a degree of censorship of public discourse they could never have dreamt of had they openly stated that their intention was to radically transform Western civilization and destroy its foundations.

From goodbye_natalie

(Sung to the tune of Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl)

Hey where did he go,
Days when the bombs came
Laughing so hard I can’t swallow,
Man, Al-Queda is so frickin’ lame,
Laughing and a running hey, hey
They’re tripping and a humping
In the late evening smog when
Zark’s hearts quit thumpin’ and you
My hadji girl,
You’re my hadji girl.

Whatever happened
When Zark was laid so low
Going down one last time
Blew his ass to the patio
Crouching in the sunlight laughing,
Hiding behind a concrete wall,
Tripping and hiding
As the two bombs fall, and you
My hadji girl,
You’re my hadji girl.

Do you remember when we used to sing,
Allah allah la la la la la la la la la te da

Old Zark had his day,
But now he is all alone.
I saw him just the other day,
As he laid there and groaned,
Cast my memory back there, Lord
Sometime I’m overcome thinking ’bout
When they killed Zark’s sorry ass
With those two Mk 82
My hadji girl
You’re my hadji girl

Do you remember when we used to sing,
Allah allah la la la la la la la la la te da

Read by Michelle Malkin.

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From Mr. Right:

Ms. American Spy
(Sung to the tune of Don McLean’s American Pie)

A short, short time ago
I can still remember
How the “Plame Game” used to make me smile
And as I read those D-Kos rants
I got a big bulge in my pants
And thought maybe we’d get “Chimpy” for awhile

But then June 12th made me shiver
Fate became an “Indian Giver”
Bad news on the Internet
Precisely what I had fret!

Oh, I remember how I cried
When I thought of Wilson’s “outed” bride
Something deep within me fried
The day that Fitzmas died

So don’t cry, Ms. American Spy
We’ll get Libby for his fibby
And then Cheney will fry
And that smirking chimp will finally wave us goodbye
Singin’, this’ll be the day donkeys fly
This’ll be the day donkeys fly.

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