Shooting Stars: Heroes and Heroines of Western Film ed. by Archie P. McDonald

Abstract

Reviews 235 Shooting Stars: Heroes and Heroines of Western Film. Edited by Archie P. McDonald. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1987. 265 pages, $35/12.95.) This book’s first virtue is physical rather than strictly literary: the cover, showing Gary Cooper in High Noon, is attractive and the book itself of com­ fortable size, unlike so many film books designed to hide burns on coffee tables. The punning title is also a plus. These opening remarks are not intended as damning with faint praise, nor are they the buildup for the letdown: no letdown occurs. A collection of essays by distinguished scholars and lovers of western film, Shooting Stars is a pleasure throughout, offering new facts and new' insights considered within the traditions ofwestern film criticism and evok­ ing only two small grumbles. One grumble must be directed at Sandra Kay Schackel’s otherwise soundly-written chapter, “Women in Western Films: The Civilizer, the Saloon Singer, and Their Modern Sister.” How could she lament the shortage of black heroines in western movies without at least mentioning the one in Silverado? That film’s three atypical women are all missing from Schackel’s discussion, in fact. No complaint can fairly be directed at the editor for restricting treatment of women to only one chapter, since that restriction only reflects the masculine focus and nature of the genre. Other valuable chapters include Stephen Tatum’s excellent treatment of Gary Cooper, editor McDonald’s study of John Wayne, and Michael Welsh’s wonderful essay “Western Film, Ronald Reagan, and the Western Metaphor.” The illustrations are very good, many of them drawn from the writers’ private collections, and ranging from William S. Hart in 1916 to a gritty Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales six decades later. Grumble Two is the book’s lack of an index, the inclusion of which would have turned an excellent read into a more usable research tool. JANE MADDOCK Western Montana College On Nature. Edited by Daniel Halpern. (Berkeley, California: North Point Press, 1987. 344 pages, $22.50 hardcover, $9.95 paper.) In its first incarnation, the contents of this volume appeared as the Au­ tumn, 1986, issue of the journal Antaeus. Daniel Halpern’s advisory editors on the project were Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, Robert Finch, John Hay, Edward Hoagland, and Barry Lopez, each of whom also contributed an essay. Now, North Point Press has reissued in book form these twenty-two contempor­ ary essays “on nature,” where each will gain another life and, so this reader hopes, a w'ider audience. The essays, the accompanying annotated bibliog­ raphies by the advisory editors, and the booklist compiled by Tom Lyon are eminently deserving of the greater exposure that a book can provide. ...