Welcome to the first Theatron Zero mini-film festival, with something for everyone. QP was the first with a genre request, and so it shall be...Westerns! Since this is a mini-festival, we have the liberty of focusing on narrow themes. How about gunfights?
Everybody loves a gunfight.
So microwave your popcorn, grab a grog or two and settle back for Funs With Guns. Dial-up viewers will have to enter the Tiny Imaginary Theatron instead, using their Remote Viewers (available in the lobby).
First up...Have Gun, Will Travel, starring Richard Boone as Paladin, the hero in black with a business card embossed with a chess knight. The world was so black and white back then that from 1957 to 1963 every baddie knew he was evil, giving Paladin carte blanche (with knight) to set things straight.
Yes, that's just how I remember HGWT in my jammies, glued to the little b&w tv in the living room.
Before we move forward, let's rewind back to 1948. No Western film festival worth its spurs can fire up a projector without a John Wayne appearance. Here in Red River, John asks Monty Clift to draw, but Monty apparently misunderstands the request to be an art project and so he stands his ground without as much as a single pencil stroke.
Back in 1948, not only was the world still black and white, but sound traveled slower than it does now.
Fast forward to 1970. The world is now in color, and with color comes nuance. The guy in the white hat is much more educated and entitled than any common muleskinner, doncha know. So, he saddles up and heads for...well, take a pass on the messy gunfight and stick with the prelude...
Turns out that Muleskinner was a gunfighter though too, but bein' these were revisionist times, heroes ain't what they used to be.
So...after the wild success of Little Big Man, what could possibly be left for the Western genre? It took only one year to find out. Some say (i.e. the KROK Station Manager) that this is the apex of the Western, the end of an era, the one and only Zachariah, a head of his time.
Meet the Crackers, aka Country Joe and the Fish, and a certain young dude who growed up to fight vice in greater Miami. Ain't he purty? Meanwhile, Zach gets his first taste of the gunfighter life.
Later, a faux pistolero dares to call out Job Cain (gasp!) and gets drummed. It's cymbalic, if you know Job.
Ah well, time to roll credits. Thanks for fillin' up the Theatron seats and coffers, and we'll meet again next time for something entirely different!
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