cover image Great Hollywood Westerns

Great Hollywood Westerns

Ted Sennett. ABRAMS, $60 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-8109-3352-1

From the moment John Wayne beckons you, on the title page, to Monument Valley, this celebration and examination of the sturdy, elegiac Western film genre will stir memories and provoke thought about what the western has meant to the movie business and to America. Sennett ( Great Hollywood Movies ) takes a straightforward approach to the subject, systematically surveying the western's various components--the westward march, the loner, the group, the Indians, the women. No groundbreaking theories are launched, but the author's thoroughness of word and image (275 black-and-white and color photographs) is satisfying. Through careful analysis, Sennett shows why westerns like The Searchers and Red River are classic, and how recent movies--from Hud to Silverado --may ``represent a much-needed modification of the idealized West.'' Despite changes and waning interest, Sennett concludes, the western myth and movie endure. (Nov.)