Cynthia Ann Parker who was mentioned in The Searchers segment was the mother of Quanah Parker, the last war chief of the Comanches. After he surrendered, he became a wealthy cattleman, movie actor and hunting buddy of Theodore Roosevelt. He was friends with Charles Goodnight also mentioned in the video. He also founded the Native American Church which still exists and is controversial because of their use of peyote. That was not a Comanche practice but was used by other tribes in the Southwest and Mexico.
I have always thought that if there is a holiday designated to honor Native Americans is should be called Parker Day to recognize both him and Ely Parker. Ely Parker was the principal chief of the Seneca tribe, personal friend of US Grant and the man who wrote out the document that Grant and Lee signed at Appomattox. Also the first native director of the BIA. He was an engineer and lawyer working for the railroads just before the Civil War when he met Grant who at the time was a failing businessman with a drinking problem. Parker saw something that few others did at the time.
I’ve got a very poor condition copy of Wm F Cody’s autobiography and his biographies of some of his contemporaries. I got it as a youngster. Even allowing for the efforts of an uncredited ghost writer it ruined westerns for me for pretty much the rest of my life. Also took some shine off the reps of a few notables.
The Indians at Adobe Walls didn’t seem to get the memo on no frontal attacks.
IIRC, the shotgun was the gun most commonly owned until very deep in the 20th century.
Hollywood does, of course, routinely get things wrong. The natural tendency is to play up the action for dramatic effect.
However, I also quibble with some of the “de-bunking” that is done in the referenced video. It is a common theme, of the firearm-prohibitionists, that gun-ownership and concealed-carry are recent inventions of the NRA and the “Gun Culture” crowd. They, routinely, claim that firearm ownership was rare until the late 20th Century when the NRA and firearm manufacturers conspired to flood the American Market with firearms.
The guy in the referenced video seems to have swallowed this prohibitionist’s propaganda. He regurgitates it, in the video, by also claiming that most cities and towns, in the Old West, had laws against firearm carry and, seemingly, agrees with the prohibitionists that most people in the Old West were disarmed.
When one researches the facts, however, then this bit of propaganda falls down. While it is true that some towns and cities had ordinances against open carry of firearms, people (being people) carried anyway.
The situation was not all too different from our World of Today. In the modern World, few people will open carry a firearm even if it is legal to do so. However, there are lots of people who carry concealed. This was as true in the Old West as it is today. The idea that Gun Control worked, in the Old West, and that the general population was mostly disarmed, is a prohibitionist myth as great as anything dreamed up by Hollywood!
If one studies sales records, for handguns, during the late 19th Century, one finds that small, concealable revolvers, and derringers, outsold the big, army-size revolvers by at least 20 to 1. So, perhaps only soldiers and lawmen were walking around with the “Big Iron on their Hip” but lots of men and women had small pistols tucked in their pockets or purses.
I would recommend this YouTube video for further information on this point:
I have never understood the love affair that conservatives have with Wyatt Earp. The OK Corral was an enforcement of gun control laws. The GFZ there persisted until the 1980s when AZ passed preemption.
I grew up with the westerns in the 50’s and yes, there are so many inaccuracies in Hollywood westerns that it is ridiculous. You could fill a book. Most folks don’t realize that the Winchester lever action rifle almost always was chambered for handgun calibers. Yes, it was more accurate than a revolver, but trading shots at 300 yards did not really happen except out of ignorance.
The “Good, Bad, and Ugly” handguns were all ball and cap revolvers which by the 1870’s were converted to cartridge. In almost all scenes, (especially in the final duel), the revolvers all still have there cap nipples on the cylinders which would have been removed with cartridge cylinder conversion – yet, their gun belts are filled with cartridges.
I could go on all day, but I have chores to do and bills to pay. I will say that Open Range was the most realistic western I had ever seen. I took my 90 year old father back to see that movie and it was the last one he saw before he passed. He grew up in the early 1900’s in South Texas on the border. He remembered when they blacked out the windows in the farm house at night so that the border outlaws couldn’t see them in the distance and ride up to raid.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was one movie I really loved to watch. Not because it was realistic (it wasn’t), but the character was so goofy I found it immensely entertaining. It’s like Gene Autry in full regalia in a Spaghetti western.
BTW, the duel between Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt, was the only “known” gun fight where they met on main street and did the Marshall Matt Dillon “walk and draw”. Unless you were surprised, if you were going to an altercation/gunfight you already had your revolver in your hand. To leave it holstered was suicide.
However, I will still continue to watch westerns and enjoy them.
As far as firearm ownership, possession, and use, I have read other opinions.
To be honest, for the most part, I don’t watch movies for realism. I watch them for the stories.
Tuco in G, B, & U was portrayed as too good a gunman to have not realized that his revolver wasn’t loaded in the final showdown. Yes, in general, the ability to make accurate hits from the hip after a fast draw with a SA was a rare gift. It does make the story more enjoyable, though.
I wonder how much of the period revolvers’ poor reputation was due to the nascent state of pistolcraft at the time. While a rifle would always be preferable, I can think of a few men like Wild Bill who provided a pattern of examples of acceptable combat accuracy with revolvers.
Someone (NRA?) did an analysis of Hollywood gunfighters vs the real thing. They concluded that the Hollywood version was actually better in terms of gun handling and time to first shot. They credited training and better holsters. How they got the data from the Old West was unclear. Perhaps Wyatt Earp who ended his days as a firearms consultant for the movie industry and knew many of those guys. Or Bat Masterson who lived until the 1920s, was a sportswriter and knew the players in the Old West and Hollywood. Or John Wesley Hardin. For the Hollywood gunfighters it was easy enough to put a shot timer on the scenes.
In the 1970’s had a neighbor in Wrightwood, CA. Retired Hollywood cameraman, dating back to the days of hand-cranked cameras. One ‘trick’ when filming a draw, ‘undercrank’ the camera a little, so that when projected onto a screen the ‘draw’ looked faster than it really was.
Realism in movies? The ‘baddie’ is on high ground, with a rifle, the ‘good guy’ on horse back in the canyon below. The ‘baddie’ shoots and misses, the ‘good guy’ draws his pistol and hits him, first shot.
I’m not sure how realistic Brokeback Mountain was. Anyone here care to weigh in on that?
For my part, I can’t comment since I have never viewed that particular movie. All that I know about it is some reviews that (vaguely) outline its plot. That was that all I wanted to know! 🙂
As a general rule, “Woke” fantasy films do not appeal to me. Certainly (based upon the little that I know about it), that movie does not fit my idea of a “Western”.
I remember when I saw the movie version of “Wild, Wild West,” not the TV show. I thought Hollywood was trying to be inclusive by showing black cowboys. I thought all cowboys were white. Well, I researched it. Turns out, about one-third of “real” cowboys were black. They had been freed by Lincoln, so many went out West and found work as cowboys. Makes perfect sense.
Movies depend on drama, to avoid boredom, so liberties with the truth get taken.
Cynthia Ann Parker who was mentioned in The Searchers segment was the mother of Quanah Parker, the last war chief of the Comanches. After he surrendered, he became a wealthy cattleman, movie actor and hunting buddy of Theodore Roosevelt. He was friends with Charles Goodnight also mentioned in the video. He also founded the Native American Church which still exists and is controversial because of their use of peyote. That was not a Comanche practice but was used by other tribes in the Southwest and Mexico.
I have always thought that if there is a holiday designated to honor Native Americans is should be called Parker Day to recognize both him and Ely Parker. Ely Parker was the principal chief of the Seneca tribe, personal friend of US Grant and the man who wrote out the document that Grant and Lee signed at Appomattox. Also the first native director of the BIA. He was an engineer and lawyer working for the railroads just before the Civil War when he met Grant who at the time was a failing businessman with a drinking problem. Parker saw something that few others did at the time.
I’ve got a very poor condition copy of Wm F Cody’s autobiography and his biographies of some of his contemporaries. I got it as a youngster. Even allowing for the efforts of an uncredited ghost writer it ruined westerns for me for pretty much the rest of my life. Also took some shine off the reps of a few notables.
The Indians at Adobe Walls didn’t seem to get the memo on no frontal attacks.
IIRC, the shotgun was the gun most commonly owned until very deep in the 20th century.
Hollywood does, of course, routinely get things wrong. The natural tendency is to play up the action for dramatic effect.
However, I also quibble with some of the “de-bunking” that is done in the referenced video. It is a common theme, of the firearm-prohibitionists, that gun-ownership and concealed-carry are recent inventions of the NRA and the “Gun Culture” crowd. They, routinely, claim that firearm ownership was rare until the late 20th Century when the NRA and firearm manufacturers conspired to flood the American Market with firearms.
The guy in the referenced video seems to have swallowed this prohibitionist’s propaganda. He regurgitates it, in the video, by also claiming that most cities and towns, in the Old West, had laws against firearm carry and, seemingly, agrees with the prohibitionists that most people in the Old West were disarmed.
When one researches the facts, however, then this bit of propaganda falls down. While it is true that some towns and cities had ordinances against open carry of firearms, people (being people) carried anyway.
The situation was not all too different from our World of Today. In the modern World, few people will open carry a firearm even if it is legal to do so. However, there are lots of people who carry concealed. This was as true in the Old West as it is today. The idea that Gun Control worked, in the Old West, and that the general population was mostly disarmed, is a prohibitionist myth as great as anything dreamed up by Hollywood!
If one studies sales records, for handguns, during the late 19th Century, one finds that small, concealable revolvers, and derringers, outsold the big, army-size revolvers by at least 20 to 1. So, perhaps only soldiers and lawmen were walking around with the “Big Iron on their Hip” but lots of men and women had small pistols tucked in their pockets or purses.
I would recommend this YouTube video for further information on this point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTzJk2c-bVA
So, I would rate the attached video at 2/10 regarding his point about the disarmed population in Old West Towns! Otherwise, he makes some good points.
I have never understood the love affair that conservatives have with Wyatt Earp. The OK Corral was an enforcement of gun control laws. The GFZ there persisted until the 1980s when AZ passed preemption.
“most cities and towns, in the Old West, had laws against firearm carry”
I wish I could ask one of the folks who think gun ownership in the Old West was rare, why did any town need a law against carrying them.
Logic is scarce among the “common sense laws” crowd.
The Searchers and The Unforgiven are true classics.
As is “The Shootist,” which I watched again last night.
I grew up with the westerns in the 50’s and yes, there are so many inaccuracies in Hollywood westerns that it is ridiculous. You could fill a book. Most folks don’t realize that the Winchester lever action rifle almost always was chambered for handgun calibers. Yes, it was more accurate than a revolver, but trading shots at 300 yards did not really happen except out of ignorance.
The “Good, Bad, and Ugly” handguns were all ball and cap revolvers which by the 1870’s were converted to cartridge. In almost all scenes, (especially in the final duel), the revolvers all still have there cap nipples on the cylinders which would have been removed with cartridge cylinder conversion – yet, their gun belts are filled with cartridges.
I could go on all day, but I have chores to do and bills to pay. I will say that Open Range was the most realistic western I had ever seen. I took my 90 year old father back to see that movie and it was the last one he saw before he passed. He grew up in the early 1900’s in South Texas on the border. He remembered when they blacked out the windows in the farm house at night so that the border outlaws couldn’t see them in the distance and ride up to raid.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was one movie I really loved to watch. Not because it was realistic (it wasn’t), but the character was so goofy I found it immensely entertaining. It’s like Gene Autry in full regalia in a Spaghetti western.
BTW, the duel between Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt, was the only “known” gun fight where they met on main street and did the Marshall Matt Dillon “walk and draw”. Unless you were surprised, if you were going to an altercation/gunfight you already had your revolver in your hand. To leave it holstered was suicide.
However, I will still continue to watch westerns and enjoy them.
Matt Dillon only shot one guy. He just did it every week for 20 years.
GBU was set in the 1860s.
Aw man. I thought all that was real. Ruined my childhood image of the old west
:>). Seriously though many still think that the Lone Ranger shooting guns out of people’s hands was realistic.
One guy’s opinion.
As far as firearm ownership, possession, and use, I have read other opinions.
To be honest, for the most part, I don’t watch movies for realism. I watch them for the stories.
Tuco in G, B, & U was portrayed as too good a gunman to have not realized that his revolver wasn’t loaded in the final showdown. Yes, in general, the ability to make accurate hits from the hip after a fast draw with a SA was a rare gift. It does make the story more enjoyable, though.
I wonder how much of the period revolvers’ poor reputation was due to the nascent state of pistolcraft at the time. While a rifle would always be preferable, I can think of a few men like Wild Bill who provided a pattern of examples of acceptable combat accuracy with revolvers.
Someone (NRA?) did an analysis of Hollywood gunfighters vs the real thing. They concluded that the Hollywood version was actually better in terms of gun handling and time to first shot. They credited training and better holsters. How they got the data from the Old West was unclear. Perhaps Wyatt Earp who ended his days as a firearms consultant for the movie industry and knew many of those guys. Or Bat Masterson who lived until the 1920s, was a sportswriter and knew the players in the Old West and Hollywood. Or John Wesley Hardin. For the Hollywood gunfighters it was easy enough to put a shot timer on the scenes.
In the 1970’s had a neighbor in Wrightwood, CA. Retired Hollywood cameraman, dating back to the days of hand-cranked cameras. One ‘trick’ when filming a draw, ‘undercrank’ the camera a little, so that when projected onto a screen the ‘draw’ looked faster than it really was.
Realism in movies? The ‘baddie’ is on high ground, with a rifle, the ‘good guy’ on horse back in the canyon below. The ‘baddie’ shoots and misses, the ‘good guy’ draws his pistol and hits him, first shot.
I’m not sure how realistic Brokeback Mountain was. Anyone here care to weigh in on that?
Do I detect some sarcasm here?
For my part, I can’t comment since I have never viewed that particular movie. All that I know about it is some reviews that (vaguely) outline its plot. That was that all I wanted to know! 🙂
As a general rule, “Woke” fantasy films do not appeal to me. Certainly (based upon the little that I know about it), that movie does not fit my idea of a “Western”.
Jim, No. No I wouldn’t. 😉
I refuse to believe that “Silverado” wasn’t 100% historically accurate!!
If you disagree with me, you’re a doody-head!!
😬😬
Loved the video.
I remember when I saw the movie version of “Wild, Wild West,” not the TV show. I thought Hollywood was trying to be inclusive by showing black cowboys. I thought all cowboys were white. Well, I researched it. Turns out, about one-third of “real” cowboys were black. They had been freed by Lincoln, so many went out West and found work as cowboys. Makes perfect sense.
Movies depend on drama, to avoid boredom, so liberties with the truth get taken.
“I don’t know if you ever heard of me before, but… I used to be called The Waco Kid.”
“How ’bout some more beans, Mr. Taggart?”