Overlooked Again
I was over at Borders the other day, trying to figure out what to spend my Christmas gift card on, maybe a Raymond Chandler collection, maybe not. Anyway, I was looking through the film magazines for any new articles on The Spirit, or to see if FilmFax had put out a new issue, when I came upon a special year end issue from Wild West Magazine listing the 100 Greatest Westerns of all time.
Curious, I flipped through it and saw the usual entries; Shane, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Unforgiven and High Noon. Disappointing, but not too surprisingly, I noticed a distinct lack of the good old B western movies from stars like Gene Autry and “Wild Bill” Gordon Elliott as well as any western serials.
Now I can understand a lack of interest on the part of “serious” film fans and critics for these lowly escapist entertainments. After all it is unlikely that a film like The Ranger and the Lady or a serial like Adventures of Red Ryder would stand up when compared to films like Rio Bravo or Hang ‘Em High. But what rankles is they’re ignoring them as if they didn’t even exist. Which is pretty callous and overlooks the fact that companies like Universal were able to sustain themselves with little B westerns and serials during hard times when their big budget extravaganzas flopped and almost bankrupted their studio.
Again l know that these films don’t compare in quality to the films they listed in their magazine, but it would have been nice if in the introduction they mentioned that B Westerns and serials were not being considered for such and such reasons and I would have said to myself okay I can understand that. But by not saying anything, they give out the message that these films, and their fans, aren’t worth any consideration. Which sets off my desire to blog a tirade.
So much for that pledge to be more upbeat and not complain that I made last week.
