Westward Ho!

I never met a Western I didn’t like until I watched this film. Occasionally films have poor production values, or stilted acting, or a plot that just is too implausible, but not usually all at once.

Released in 1935 (originally in B&W) starring a young John Wayne as John Wyatt, this is the story of two brothers and their paths in life after the brutal murder of their parents on the trail (and the theft of all their cattle). The elder brother (Wayne) is left for dead while the youngest is taken as a protégé of the bad guys. As soon as he can swagger and wear a gun, John Wyatt commences his personal vendetta of tracking down and killing the men who murdered his family. The film is dedicated to a group called “The Vigilantes” active in the 1860s, and that’s exactly what happens, Wyatt can’t get funding for an actual police force so he assembles a posse of likewise wronged, angry and gun-wielding men to bring ‘justice’ to the area.

I wanted to start at the beginning of the genre, and here it is. The “good guys” (ie Wyatt’s Vigilantes) all ride white horses (I kid you not!) and most of them sing (yes, this verges on being a musical). The bad guys all have poor personal hygiene and frankly are not that bright. With the focus on vigilante justice and a moral code that makes it ok to shoot some men but not others, I found myself seeing parallels to the Batman origins stories. Batman doesn’t kill, that’s his personal line over which he will not knowingly cross, in Westerns it seems that the willingness to make that decision to shoot to kill and move on with life is what constitutes a man and it is just whether you use your power for good (killing bad men, men in your way, or anyone who cheats at cards) or for stealing cattle.

When watching older films it is useful if one has some personal sense of the period from which they spawn. This is not really a film about the 1860s so much as it is about the 1930s idea of the 1860s and possibly also about something that was topical in the 30s that the director thought might be discussed well by analogy through this story. I have enough understanding of most periods of the 1800s in Europe and North America to be comfortable getting half-way towards the mindset the filmmakers were aiming for. This film made me realise how alienated I am from the 1930s. I don’t really know what was going on, and I certainly don’t understand what was being said in this film implicitly.

The best things for me in this film is that many of the horses are part-Arabs and so are very easy on the eyes, and that it is only 60 minutes long. I had borrowed my Brother-in-Law’s 2 volume set of John Wayne Westerns to watch this film, I skipped the other 11 hours of films. Westward Ho! is sometimes listed in the top Westerns of all time. It might be a great film in the history of the genre, but it didn’t tickle my fancy.

Who's the Favourite?

The office is abuzz today with hats, sweeps, confusion over TAB forms, and anticipation of a feast for lunch. I've put a few bets on - it's almost un-Australian not to. Nothing unusual in how I chose my camels - I went with the three names I've heard most this morning on my way to work and in the kitchen.
So I've gone for Profound Beauty for a win or a place (what a beautiful name! Very Zen) and Zipping and Nom de Jeu for a place. ?I don't know?! But it adds to the frisson. Otherwise, I'd end up working through it and be totally underwhelmed by the whole thing. This is the lot of the office worker - bored by the eternal ennui of bureaucratesse (am I making up a word there?) and the blandness of our to-do lists and timesheets. So my bets are a token escape into a fantasy world of excitement, risk and glamour. Cheap oblivion. Bring it on.

In other news, some writing last night, and none yet today. I don't know what my word count might be. I also totally forgot about my reckless earlier commitment to audition for a role in the chorus of Oklahoma which has now come around this Sunday. Drat. It could still end up being hi-larious but i desperately need to write my fingers off to catchup my words! The good thing about being such a slow writer is that I am coming up with better plot ideas than if I was whizzing forward. When I say "better", I mean that in a relative sense. This story is very pulpy and unlikely. Increasingly so. Shockingly so. Bring it on.