B-westerns
bring out the good in all of us!
Darryle Purcell
“Who’s your favorite cowboy?”
I remember debating that question with other children on the
playgrounds, backyards and pastures during my youth in the 1950s. Depending on
the year, the answers were Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Lash LaRue, Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy, Tom
Tyler, Tex Ritter, Hoppy and other great B-western heroes whose movies of the
1930s and ’40s were saturating early television. We often watched the films
with our parents who had enjoyed them during their first runs in theaters. In
the late ’50s and early ’60s, television series stars such as Steve McQueen,
James Garner, Richard Boone, Will Hutchins, and James Drury were added to the
discussion.
It was a great time to be a kid. And it wasn’t just us guys who
got a kick out of these shows. I remember watching Annie Oakley save her little
brother Tagg and Deputy Lofty Craig from some villainous situation or another
every week on tv for a few years. They were truly fun adventure programs. Gail Davis’
Annie Oakley character lived by the same standard as the male cowboy heroes. In
later years, major motion picture star Barbara Stanwyck rode herd on
television’s The Big Valley.
These wonderful action stories contained very important morality
lessons for the children of the 20th century. Thinking back, I believe the
Saturday matinee westerns were probably the only sermons on good versus evil
that some of the children of the Great Depression, and later, came in contact
with. And, likewise, those of us from the late 1940s into the early ’60s all
wanted to grow up and be strong, good and heroic. And although that didn’t work
out for all of us, it was a good start on life. As we became adults and reality
started to smack us around, most of us did our best to hold on to those western
values.
These movies and early television characters all shared their
visions of the Code of
the West. They taught the beliefs of self-reliance,
honesty and fair play. Every leading B-western star was a straight shooter who
always told the truth, paid his debts, was kind to animals and courteous to the
ladies. Only bad guys lied, stole, cursed, back-shot, and mistreated horses,
women and children.
Good guys always fought fair, no matter what sleazy tricks the
bad guys used. In the long run, bad guys were always brought to justice.
Honesty and fair play was a reward in itself.
That’s why today I still love the old B-westerns. When I’ve read
or heard too much bad news about war, crime and politics, I simply pop in a DVD
and watch Ken Maynard round up the rustlers, Hoot Gibson take down the crooked
banker or John Wayne and the Three Mesquiteers save the settlers from the
clutches of an attorney’s evil land scheme. You can call it therapy; I think of
it as pleasure.
I’ve always followed local politics closely. The things I read
about that just scream political cronyism or payoffs to members of small-town
political machines could very well be re-imagined into a B-western script. Of
course, in that situation Randolph Scott would ride into town and clean things
up within 90 minutes.
Although great western films can still be seen on some cable
stations as well as at
Internet sites, today’s children quite often debate
their favorite video games or “reality” shows. I would love to see youths
rediscover B-westerns like so many have with the classic films of Bogart and
Chaplin. I think they would be amazed at the trick riding found in the 1930s
Gibson and Maynard films, which contain no Computer Generated Imagery (CGI)
special effects. When we watch these films, the stars of that bygone era live
again, as does the message that justice always wins.
With the Hollywood Cowboy
Detectives book series, I believe the characters and their messages also live
again. If asked, “Who’s your favorite cowboy?” today I have to answer, “All of
them.” Obviously, I give a Hoot about the great old western films. And I
believe that as more people are reintroduced to the genre, Hoppy days could be
here again.
Read Darryle Purcell's enthralling Hollywood Cowboy Detectives series, a pulp novel inspired book series, featuring Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Tom Mix, and other great cowboy stars solving crimes and fighting fiendish villains in 1930s Hollywood.
Begin with Mystery at Movie Ranch, a delightful mashup of gangsters, gunmen, Nazis and Klansmen.
