Two or three years ago, my youngest son gave me a DVD of old Western movies. Some of them predate me, so you know they are old Westerns. They are pretty much a hoot. In fact, a couple of them involved Hoot Gibson who was pretty famous back in his day. I am not certain why he was famous, but he was. He did not even look like a cowboy, even if he did bust chops with the best of them. If he were in the acting business today, he would most likely play the “nerd” in an adventure film where he came nowhere near the girl.
Then there was Charles Starrett who was also known as the Durango Kid. Charles made a lot of movies, but when he played the Durango Kid, he had it really tough. As usual, with cowboy stars he was in different towns. This meant that when he moved he had to move with two horses. He had to find a place out of town to stable one of the horses. This was because while everybody in town knew him as Steve, when trouble arose, he rode out of town. Then, he rode his other horse back into town wearing his “Lone Ranger” mask and took care of the bad guys as the Durango Kid.
Naturally no one recognized him as “Steve”. It showed the value of a good mask. It should be noted that good masks were hard to find in the old West as the Lone Ranger had cornered the market on them, and he did not share very well. Luckily, he took a liking to the Durango Kid. Although, the Kid did have to promise not to ride a white horse. It was also lucky for the Lone Ranger that Johnny Mack Brown did not wear a mask. Johnny was a former All-American football player, and he tolerated no dissent.
To return to Charles Starrett for a minute, he did keep up with the times. Singing cowboys became the rage, and he could not sing a lick. (One of the reasons that I never became a cowboy star). Therefore, to cover up his non-singing voice, the studio hired the Sons of the Pioneers to back him up – and let them drown Starrett out. Finally, to make certain, they put Smiley Burnette in his movies as well to sing along. They were very creative back in the day!
Now I recognize that the above probably is of more interest to mankind than womankind, but variety of knowledge is never a bad thing. The Blonde in the house was not impressed with old cowboy stars, even when I pointed out to her that John Wayne had acted in a slew of Western “B” movies. She does like “chick” flicks with problems in them. Believe it or not, some of the old Westerns were that way.
One of the movies in the DVD starts out with a young boy whose mother dies. So he heads out west where his dear old Dad had gone to make the family fortune. He finds his Dad at a dusty old farm with not much around except scrub grass, cows and numerous villains. As you might expect, father and son along with some other good ranchers fight the bad guys tooth and nail. In the big finale, the bad guy falls off his horse and gets run over by stampeding cattle.
They really knew how to stampede in those days.
Now you are ready to assume that everything was hunky dory and father and son rode off into the sunset. Well, you are mistaken. As I indicated, this was a “chick” flick Western (Grade B type). Before the big bad guy fell off his horse, he shot old Pop dead. Thus, the movie ends with the kid who must have been all of twelve years old headed back to the old dusty farm by himself – whistling as he goes.
I tell you, they made tough kids back then!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com