When 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. The story
of the western is told in the Historical Dictionary of Westerns in
Cinema through a chronology, a bibliography, and an introductory essay.
However, it is the hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on
cinematographers; composers; producers; films like Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid, Dances With Wolves, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, High
Noon, The Magnificent Seven, The Searchers, Tombstone, and Unforgiven;
such actors as Gene Autry, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda,
James Stewart, and John Wayne; and directors like John Ford and Sergio
Leone that will have you reaching for this book again and again.
