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.