Subject Librarian
Lucinda M. Hall
Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
Other library resource(s)
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John Ford from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceJohn Ford’s film career began with the earliest days of Hollywood silent filmmaking c. 1914 and continued until 1968, spanning the rise of the studio system, the coming of sound and color, the postwar restructuring of the studio system in the face of the antitrust decision, television, and rapid expansion of independent production. ... -
John Wayne from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceJohn Wayne’s film career began in Hollywood silent films in the late 1920s and, in one sense, ended in 1976—a half-century later—with his last film, Don Siegel’s The Shootist (1976). Wayne died three years later, having become not only an actor, but also a film director and the head of his own production company. By then he had also become a major cultural figure, a carrier of myth, an icon of a certain Americanness, and this iconic status continues today; he and his work continue to be cited, commented upon, analyzed, and evaluated, as this article documents. He acted in different genres but became identified mainly with two: the Western (he spent the 1930s making quickie B Westerns) and, with the advent of World War II, military and quasi-military films.
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The Searchers from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Since the 1970s, 'The Searchers,' directed by John Ford, has become one of the most discussed films of 1950s US cinema. A story of captivity and revenge set in post–Civil War Texas, 'The Searchers' is now regarded as one of the best films ever made, although it received mixed reviews upon its original release. The film’s artistic reputation did not rise until the early 1970s, buoyed by auteur critics like Andrew Sarris and Peter Bogdanovich and by film school–trained directors like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, who paid homage to 'The Searchers' in their own movies.
Internet resource(s)
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The Shock of the Old: Seven Men from Now and the Ranown Cycle from Current
In the summer of 1956, when a taut, swift little B western called Seven Men from Now snuck into American movie houses, the long-lived film genre had begun to show its age, and its most popular stars were looking none too spry themselves. {Rafferty; 08/06/21} ...
Defining the western
An enduring film genre with worldwide popularity whose classic setting is the period of the winning and settling of the US western frontier between around 1865 and 1890. Mixing history and archetype, stories are typically told from the standpoint of the settlers, with key themes including cattle drives and cowboys, the building of railroads, farmsteading, Indian wars, and the rule of the settlers’ law. The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, US, 1903) is widely, though not without dispute, credited as the earliest western. By the 1910s the cowboy picture was recognized by both exhibitors and audiences as a distinctive type of film, and in the US hundreds of ‘horse operas’ (among them Cecil B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man (1913)) were made during the silent cinema years. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). western. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 18 Aug. 2021
Finding library resources for westerns
To find westerns in the Library's collections, you can click on one of the subject headings below:
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western filmsThe call number range for Westerns is PN 1995.9 .W4 on Baker Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
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Historical dictionary of westerns in cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 V37 2008ISBN: 9780810855892When the earliest filmgoers watched The Great Train Robbery in 1903, many of them shrieked in terror at the very last clip when one of the outlaws turns directly toward the camera and fires a gun, seemingly, directly at the audience. The puff of smoke was sudden and it was hand colored so that it looked real. Today, we can look back at that primitive movie and see all the elements of what would evolve into the Western genre. Perhaps it is the Western's early origins--The Great Train Robbery was the first narrative, commercial movie--or its formulaic yet entertaining structure that has made the Western so popular. Whatever the case may be, with the recent success of films like 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the Western appears to be in no danger of disappearing. ... -
Stagecoach to Tombstone: the filmgoers' guide to the great westerns by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 H685 2008ISBN: 9781845115715This is the true story of the American West on film, through its shooting stars and the directors who shot them. Howard Hughes explores the Western, running from John Ford's Stagecoach to the revisionary Tombstone. Writing with panache and fresh insight, he explores 27 key films, and draws on production notes, cast and crew biographies, and the films' box-office success, to reveal their place in western history. He shows how through reinvention and resurrection, this genre continually postpones the big adios and avoids ending up in Boot Hill...permanently. ... -
The Old West in fact and film: history versus Hollywo by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 A52 2012ISBN: 9780786468881For many years, movie audiences have carried on a love affair with the American West, believing Westerns are escapist entertainment of the best kind, harkening back to the days of the frontier. This work compares the reality of the Old West to its portrayal in movies, taking an historical approach to its consideration of the cowboys, Indians, gunmen, lawmen and others who populated the Old West in real life and on the silver screen. ... -
Westerns: aspects of a movie genre; and, Westerns revisited by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 F7 2005ISBN: 9781857547474Publication Date: Expanded ed.The political, historical, and cultural forces that shaped the development of the Western film genre--especially the 30 years after World War II--are explored in this book. Addressing the treatment of Native Americans, African Americans, women, and children, the role of violence, the landscape, and poker playing, this cultural analysis advances the theory that most Westerns of those years can be put into four principal categories that reflect the styles and ideologies of the four leading politicians of that era: John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson, and William F. Buckley. ...
Selected book titles
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Gunfight at the eco-corral : western cinema and the environment by Call Number: Baker Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 M87 2012ISBN: 0806142464Most film critics point to classic conflicts--good versus evil, right versus wrong, civilization versus savagery--as defining themes of the American Western. In this provocative examination of Westerns from Tumbleweeds (1925) to Rango (2011), Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann argue for a more expansive view that moves beyond traditional conflicts to encompass environmental themes and struggles. The environment, after all, is the fundamental stage for most western stories, from land rush dramas that pit "sod busters" against ranchers to conflicts between mining-town communities and corporations. Because environmental issues lie at the forefront of so many conflicts today, Murray and Heumann believe that the Western is ripe for such new examination. -
Imagined Frontiers by Call Number: Baker/Berry PS 169 .W4 A23 2015ISBN: 9780806148366We live near the edge--whether in a settlement at the core of the Rockies, a gated community tucked into the wilds of the Santa Monica Mountains, a silicon culture emerging in the suburbs, or, in the future, homesteading on a terraformed Mars. -
Native cecognition: Indigenous cinema and the western by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781438443997Offers a new interpretation of the century-long relationship between the Western film genre and Native American filmmaking. In Native Recognition, Joanna Hearne persuasively argues for the central role of Indigenous image-making in the history of American cinema. Across the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, Indigenous peoples have been involved in cinema as performers, directors, writers, consultants, crews, and audiences, yet both the specificity and range of this Native participation have often been obscured by the on-screen, larger-than-life images of Indians in the Western. ... -
The philosophy of the western by Call Number: Baker Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 P485 2010ISBN: 081312591XThe western is arguably the most iconic and influential genre in American cinema. The solitude of the lone rider, the loyalty of his horse, and the unspoken code of the West render the genre popular yet lead it to offer a view of America's history that is sometimes inaccurate. For many, the western embodies America and its values. In recent years, scholars had declared the western genre dead, but a steady resurgence of western themes in literature, film, and television has reestablished the genre as one of the most important. The Philosophy of the Western examines philosophical themes in the western genre. Investigating subjects of nature, ethics, identity, gender, environmentalism, and animal rights, the essays draw from a wide range of westerns including the recent popular and critical successes 'Unforgiven' (1992), 'All the Pretty Horses' (2000), '3:10 to Yuma' (2007), and 'No Country for Old Men' (2007), as well as literature and television serials such as 'Deadwood.' -
Westerns and the trail of tradition : a year-by-year history, 1929-1962 by Call Number: Baker Berry PN 1995.9 .W4 H355 2001ISBN: 0786411252If you want to know what glorious contributions the western made to mid-century American culture, this is the year-by-year book for you. Beginning in 1929 with the advent of talkies ('In Old Arizona' fascinated its audiences), the author discusses the cultural and industry trends, the directors, producers, studios and especially the stars, and how their personalities (and financial ups and downs) affected the way westerns were shot. The improvements in technology through the years, the trick horses, the fistfight choreography, the evolution of plotlines - these are fascinating indicators of the way Americans themselves were changing.
Finding articles & journals
Articles and other writings about westerns can be found in many publications. We don't have journals that look exclusively at westerns. However, you can use Film & Television Literature Index to find relevant articles.
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Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about this genre.
A Selected list of westerns
Find more westerns in the Library's collections.
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3:10 to Yuma by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6750Arizona in the late 1800s. Infamous outlaw Ben Wade and his vicious gang of thieves and murderers have plagued the Southern Railroad. When Wade is captured, Civil War veteran Dan Evans, struggling to survive on his drought-plagued ranch, volunteers to deliver him alive to the train that will take the killer to trial. On the trail, Evans and Wade, each from very different worlds, begin to earn each other's respect. But with Wade's outfit on their trail, and dangers at every turn, the mission soon becomes a violent, impossible journey toward each man's destiny. -
Ain't them bodies saints by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #16812A traveling magician bringing his potions and mystical items with him is challenged by the Minister of Health, who believes the magician to be a charlatan. -
Chingachgook: die grosse Schlange = The great snake by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7699The film takes place in 1740. While the French colonists are using the Hurons to fulfill their war purposes, the Delaware are fighting on the side of the English troops. Only Chingachgook, a young Delaware, and his fair-skinned friend Deerslayer realize that the whites intend to expel and exterminate Indians altogether. -
City slickers by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #8995ISBN: 0783240953Three friends go on a cattle drive in order to quench their mid-life crises. -
Jubal by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #16457In this Shakespearean tale of jealousy and betrayal, a man who is an honorable itinerant cattleman, befriended and hired by a bighearted ranch owner despite his unwillingness to talk about his past. When the new hand becomes the target of the flirtatious attentions of the owner's bored wife and is entrusted by the boss with a foreman's responsibilities, his presence at the ranch starts to rankle his shifty fellow cowhand. -
Rango by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #13988Rango is a lizard who imagines himself an actor who literally breaks the fourth wall of his terrarium when the hatchback car in which he is riding swerves and sends him careening. Abandoned in the desert amid the shards of his former home, Rango makes his way to the nearby town of Dirt, which is experiencing a mysterious water shortage. The actor in Rango seizes the opportunity to invent a grandiloquent new image for himself, and as in many a Western, the stranger in town is suddenly promoted to the rank of sheriff. Along the way to solving the mystery of the vanishing water supply, he must survive highway crossings, giant hawks, an army of bat-riding prairie dogs, and a gun slinging rattlesnake. -
Tell them Willie Boy is here by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #10417A modern western classic based on the true story of a Pauite Indian named Willie Boy and his bride who become the objects of the last great Western manhunt after he kills her father in a "marriage by capture." As the pressure builds, the events explode in the tragic deaths of Lola and Willie and a turning point for Sheriff Cooper. -
The left handed gun by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #5351His name: William Bonney. His legend: Billy the Kid, the fabled gunslinger. The West had never before seen the likes of this Brooklyn-born desperado, a troubled teen who wrote his name in blood on history's pages. -
The Rainmaker by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6697Under the spell of a wandering charlatan named Starbuck, a lonely ranch girl blossoms into full womanhood.
Western Film Societies
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Western Film FairThe Western Film Preservation Society is a nonprofit organization established for the purpose of preserving and promoting the memories and ideals of western movies and classic television.
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Western Film Preservation Society, Raleigh, NC“Keeping Western Movies Alive For Future Generations To Enjoy”
Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.