Hollywood, Westerns And The 1930S

Peter Stanfield is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Kent. His main area of interest is the cultural history of American film, with a particular focus on film genres and cycles, and popular music and film. His current research is concentrated on and around post-war film cycles, in particular boxing movies, Mickey Spillane adaptations, Mark Hellinger Productions, Eagle-Lion crime films, the series of Audie Murphy westerns, and the psychologisation of the western hero.

• Contents: The first cycle of sound Westerns; series Westerns, Will Rogers and the emergence of the singing cowboy, 1931-1935; series Westerns - masking the modern; class-A Western features, 1935-1938; democratic art - Westerns 1939-1941; Dixie cowboys - representing the nation.

‘ . . . a remarkably solid and thorough treatment of the Western film from 1929 (the year of In Old Arizona and The Virginian) to 1941 (the year of Belle Starr and Billy the Kid). Noting that “1930s Westerns can be read as complex allegorical narratives, which articulate issues of national cohesion, American identity and experiences of modernity”(12), Stanfield offers many thoughtful observations on the genre’s central characteristics, its cultural significance, and its evolution over time . . .is a valuable and well-documented guide for scholars in search of a home on the flickering range.’ (American Studies International October 2002, Vol XL No3) “Peter Stanfield’s book is an exemplary model of this approach to genre studies in its examination of the western genre and its historical and cultural contexts during the 1930s.” (Review by Ron Wilson, University of Kansas U.S.A) “Although it would seem that everything one might want to know about westerns has already been written, Peter Stanfield's new book on the subject proves otherwise . . . His decision to treat all westerns equally, as output produced by the studios, instead of privileging a small canon of classics, yields fascinating new insights into the genre during this decade . . . Stanfield's work provides an entertaining chronicle as well as a valuable contribution to scholarship." (Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn 2002) "Peter Stanfield has blazed a new trail in the history of the Western. The value of Stanfield's work is that it does not confine itself to the recognised classics, dealing instead with the genre as a whole. Stanfield writes with wit and insight, and an astonishing knowledge of the more arcane reaches of American popular culture. This is the book the Western has long needed.” (Edward Buscombe, editor of The BFI Companion to the Western) "Full of insights, painstaking scholarship and lively writing. It will become a classic. A definite recommendation.” (Steve Neale , Research Professor in Film, Media and Communication Studies, Sheffield Hallam University and author of Genre and Hollywood)