Since the introduction of moving pictures, and especially after television arrived, Americans have been fascinated with the Old West. For Boomers, western movies were a mainstay of entertainment.
On the Big Screen, the “oater” films hit their stride in the 1950’s. The plot of almost every western was the same: The good guy in the white hat rides into town, shoots the bad guys and rides off into the sunset.
Some of the great leading men in the 50’s westerns include Randolph Scott, Robert Taylor, Alan Ladd, Gary Cooper, Audie Murphy, Lash La Rue, George Montgomery, Tyrone Power, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. And there were also the singing cowboys – Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.
Among the classic western movies that Boomers fondly recall are Shane, High Noon, Gunfight at OK Corral and Winchester 73. There are also many forgettable westerns that young Boomers sat through and watched anyway. After all, a box of popcorn was only a dime back then – with real butter.
When television arrived, westerns made an easy transition. Autry and Roy Rogers were immediate stars along with Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, and Cisco Kid.
In the mid-50s, an actor name James Arness created a television tsunami with his portrayal of Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, one of the most popular television programs of all time. Gunsmoke represented a new era of westerns with superb acting and intriguing plots interspersed in the good guy/bad guy confrontations.
Arness would star alongside Milburn Stone as Doc, Amanda Blake as Kitty, Dennis Weaver as Chester, Burt Reynolds as Quint and Ken Curtis as Festus, among many others.
Beginning in 1955, Gunsmoke aired on CBS as a 30-minute program before expanding to a 60-minute format in season six of twenty. It was the longest running drama in the history of television. Gunsmoke had an overriding central theme – law and order. If you were in Dodge City and acted up, you would pay the price. The 6-foot, 7-inch, 235-pound U.S. Marshall, Matt Dillon, always brought cattle thieves, gunfighters and other villains to justice.
After Gunsmoke broke the ice with serious western drama, it was quickly joined by other smash hit series including Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train and Maverick. When the NBC peacock introduced color, Bonanza was the next western to sweep the ratings.
Bonanza, with Ben Cartwright, the silver-haired patriarch of Ponderosa and his sons Adam, Hoss and Little Joe, would dominate Sunday evening programming for years.
The Virginian, High Chaparral and Big Valley were other mega-hits during the hay-day of westerns on TV.
Then a strange phenomenon occurred. People stopped watching and producers stopped making westerns, not only on film, but also TV. Detective and doctor shows took over and the words “Reach for the sky” were heard no more.
Today, the bad guys are just as likely to escape because of a quirk in the legal system as they are to face justice. Many Boomers watch the modern shows and wish that – every now and then – the good guys would win, the bad guys would lose and the hero in the white hat would ride off into the sunset.
