ABSTRACT

Between the ages of four and twelve I lived with my m other, father, and sister

in a small town in north Mississippi. For much of this time my father owned a

little cafe on Main Street. Two doors away was the local movie theater, a third

and fourth run establishment. From my sixth year on I saw almost every

movie that came to that theater with the exception of Duel in the Sun, censored

to adult level by the owner for its miscegenistic content. It was a great loss,

westerns were important to me and to m ost boys of my generation. Almost

every Saturday I sat through a double feature in which one elem ent was a

western, usually a B-level program produced in a fashion that would later

inform the television industry. Occasionally, however, a tru ly marvelous

m om ent would occur. A Shane or a Red River or a Broken Arrow would appear. We

knew the difference and for days afterward we would adopt the roles as we

“played cowboy,” recognizing the richer characterization in these fine fea­

tures, often enacting the moral dilemmas presented to us in popular fashion.