The Closing of the American Frontier

[moira finnie]

Which films do you think capture the closing of the frontier in America best? The arrival of the railroad, sodbusters (farmers), and civilization seems to be a constant theme in Western movies, especially in the forties and fifties. Are there some movies that you think approach this event better than others? Thanks for any ideas you may have on this open-ended topic.

[ChiO]

For the end of the Myth of the West, Sam Peckinpah directed two of the best, both in the '60s:

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY

THE WILD BUNCH

[Mr. Arkadin]

I'll add to that excellent list:

Once Upon a Time in the West (1969)
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Shane (1953)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

[klondike]

My fave in this particular niche, more for tone than substance: The White Buffalo.

[mrsl]

.
Ithink rather than the 'closing' of the frontier, you mean something more like the 'opening'. For that reason, I would choose Cheyenne Autumn as a prime example of making the frontier ready for civilization. The worst of the Indians have been captured and forced into submission as well as forced to give up his way of life and live on the worst plots of land the U.S. government can find for them to try to live on. As today, a couple of hundred years ago, the U.S. went in with guns blazing instead of trying to learn the whys and wherefores of certain events. One culture fought against another culture that came in and started destroying the livelihood of the first, the buffalo, which fed, clothed, and housed that culture. Cheyenne Autumn shows the plight of a conquered people whose leaders have finally come to the conclusion that they have no choice but to give up their way of life and try to live as animals in a zoo. They are forced to walk hundreds of miles with women and children back and forth until those in charge come to some conclusion of what to do with them, after tricking them into the last of their leaders giving up the end of their freedoms. While all of this is going on, the railroad is gaining strength, people feel safe traveling on the 'iron horse', the wireless is standing with less interference, and homesteaders are free to take up the good land the Indians had lived on for hundreds of years, never bothering the original explorers, or pioneers.

[JackFavell]

I say Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch are pretty near perfectexamples....

The Last Hunt comes to mind as well.

[movieman1957]

Though it is not a film that I like a lot "Monte Walsh" (1970) might fit well enough.

[Lzcutter]

Bite the Bullet offers a different kind of look at a way of life that is coming to an end.

[mrsl]

I may be misunderstanding what you mean by the 'closing' of the American frontier. If you mean the transition from man on horseback to man in air conditioned car, or family in covered wagon to family in motor home, I guess I would agree with Monte Walsh or possibly Lonely are the Brave. Both films are about men who know their way of life is about to end or change, and the trouble they have accepting that evidence. I still stand by Cheyenne Autumn as the final nail in the casket of the Western way of life, because all the changes were a direct result of the facts presented in that movie. But one last thing I've often commented on usually in a joking way, but true nonetheless. In many early John Wayne, and Gene Autry movies, both guys often jump off of a twin engine plane as it lands, and hop onto horses that are tied up waiting for them to run into town, or out of, whatever the case. If nothing else, seeing that alone would suggest the closing of the American frontier.

[Lzcutter]

Anne,

I'm not sure about others but based on some of the films mentioned, I think many of us are referring to the end of the western frontier in the late 1800s with most of the west finally settled. But new technologies are coming like the horseless carriage are on the horizon and the old ways and new ways don't always mesh well together.

The old west guys now have to deal, increasingly, with civilization, the law, churches, schools and all the things that they escaped the East for. By the end of the 1800s, there are fewer and fewer places in the west that haven't been civilized to some degree, making the free wheeling, devil may care, let's strike out for the territory beyond that fueled much of the western cowboy's hankerings for something and some place new that wasn't where they had been was fast coming to an end.

As civilization caught up with the old ways, many were able to make the transition but the ones who couldn't, well, those make the best movie characters.

We love stories of men out of time both figuratively and literally. Will they find redemption? Will they be able to incorporate into the new ways or will they be forever on the outside, looking in and aware of the gulf?

[mrsl]

Thanks Lynn:

I guess I got it right then. Oddly I didn't like either Monte Walsh or Lonely are the Brave, but they are both good examples of a changing world and how to cope with it, very much like my generation has to cope with all the technology of the past few years. I've chosen the few I care to learn and live with, and the others are for the younger set.

[pvitari]

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

They printed the legend, and turned the desert into a garden.

[moira finnie]

GREAT responses all! Thank you for contributing these suggestions. I hope that more will be added.

I can definitely see each of these films fitting into this topic, but I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned The Westerner (1940), with that great Walter Brennan character of Judge Roy Bean representing the old, wild and wooly West nearing the end of his days.

[klondike]

I can definitely see each of these films fitting into this topic, but I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned The Westerner (1940), with that great Walter Brennan character of Judge Roy Bean representing the old, wild and wooly West nearing the end of his days.

You've got sumpin there, Moira.
The Westerner can definitely shimmy it's leathery, sardonic way into this category, especially with the big, climactic shoot-out in that seemingly cavernous, High Victorian opera house . . particularly as either one of those men would have been grateful to spend one bit for a lukewarm tin cup of gypsumated barley-jack off a rip-sawn plank between two flour barrels a mere 10 years prior!