We all know that Westerns aren't accurate representations of Old West history. Having said that, some Westerns go so far as to take historical events & have the characters do the exact opposite of what they did in reality. Some examples*

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I should probably explain a bit more. I'm not talking about shit like a film having Billy the Kid killing a guy someone else killed or whatever. I'm talking about filmmakers taking a problematic aspect of a historical figure & purposely having them do the opposite. Here goes:

A pattern among many of the Westerns made after 1970 is the singer/songwriter or rock musician score. Popular musicians have done music for Westerns since the advent of sound, but I'm talking about the entire score, not Elvis singing Flaming Star on the soundtrack. Here's a list: The earliest example I can recall is Little Big Man's score by John Hammond, son of the legendary producer w/ the same name & an acclaimed blues artist in his own right. He also introduced Bob Dylan to The Band. The score got taken down so here's the film:

One of the scenes Peckinpah decided to cut out of The Wild Bunch was the killing of the bounty hunters. Here's a still from TC's demise (note that he's wearing General Mapache's shot-up coat on his back & has the German military advisor's sword on his horse): A detail many viewers might miss is Coffer's replacement of his hat with the one that belonged to Tector Gorch:

A lot of people don't know this, but Westerns are actually Western movies at heart.

Since Blood Meridian is trending, I again want to recommend My Confession by Samuel Chamberlain, the "non fiction" book Blood Meridian is based on. When I first read Blood Meridian, I thought the judge's lecture on geology was an anachronistic invention by McCarthy. I was wrong Samuel Chamberlain's painting of Judge Holden lecturing Glanton's scalphunters on geology.

Unforgiven turned 30 today, so here's my thread on it... Before we begin, let me say that I love Unforgiven & think it's the finest Western since Sam Peckinpah stopped making them in 1973. However, I have some issues with the film & the way it's usually discussed, specifically in comparison to the rest of the Western genre...

Happy Birthday to Silas Soule, one of my personal heroes and someone everyone should know... Soule was born in 1839 in Bath, Maine. Like John Brown, his father Amassa believed it was his Christian duty to help end slavery. In 1854, he moved his family to Lawrence, Kansas, then known as Bleeding Kansas, which was a hot-bed of Border Ruffian violence on both sides...

Well goddammit. RIP Justus McQueen My friends try very hard, God bless them 🙏

Against my better judgment, I'm going to weigh in on the Sam Elliott/Power of the Dog controversy. I liked Power of the Dog & even though Westerns are my favorite genre, I've never been enamored with Sam Elliott, though I like him well enough. Here goes: I'm not going to write an exact transcript of what Elliott says, but anyone commenting on it should listen to it themselves instead of relying on articles or tweets that only quote snippets. It starts at 1:04:24: wtfpod.com/podcast/episod…

My Darling Clementine is the best Wyatt Earp film & among the least accurate, despite John Ford knowing Earp personally. Contrary to Ford's claims, his film wasn't based on Earp's own account of his Tombstone days, but rather an earlier film whose director also knew the lawman. The OK Corral did not make Wyatt Earp famous throughout the US, only parts of AZ & CA. Earp's introduction to the rest of the nation wouldn't be as a lawman at all, but rather as the corrupt boxing referee who threw the fight for Heavyweight Champion of the World....

@TheLastMachine @WrongReel @gknout Thanks! My top 10 Western novels are probably pretty typical overall. Outside of my #1 choice, the list isn't in any particular order... @TheLastMachine @WrongReel @gknout Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy's novel is as imaginative, surreal & horrifying as a Bosch painting, while still being as authentic & grounded in history as any Western ever written. Based on My Confession, a memoir by former scalphunter Samuel Chamberlain. My no. 1 Western novel

On Aug 19, 1895, a man came into the Acme Saloon in El Paso & shot Wes Hardin from behind. In his youth, Wes was the deadliest of all Old West gunmen, but had since gone to prison & supposedly reformed himself & become a lawyer. The man who shot him was Constable John Selman... A virulent racist & anti-Reconstructionist who was willing to kill at the drop of a hat, Hardin amassed a body count between 25 to 50 over a 9 year span, from the age of 15 to his capture at 24. Yet somehow, John Selman, his killer with a badge, was worse. This is his story...

On May 11, 1950, while working on the Rawlins National Bank in Wyoming, a construction crew unearthed a whiskey barrel that contained a human skeleton with its skull cap sawed off & an odd pair of shoes. Dr. Lillian Heath, now in her 80s, was asked if she knew anything about it.. Dr. Lillian Heath, who was the 1st female doctor in Wyoming, was known to keep a skull cap in her office that she used as an ashtray, pen holder or doorstop. When her skull cap was put on the unearthed skull, it fit perfectly. That's when she told the story of Big Nose George...