It’s Legends of Western Cinema Week again! This yearly blog event hosted by Hamlette’s Soliloquy, Along the Brandywine, and Meanwhile, in Rivendell is always great fun, and I’m excited about this year’s edition! The questions in the kick-off tag are great ones, and I have at least one post coming later in the week that I really enjoyed putting together (maybe more than one post; I don’t know yet!). To get things underway, here’s my answers to the tag:

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1) Western movies or western TV shows?

Both to a degree, but I tend to think of TV shows as being a little lighter on plot (perhaps because of shorter running times) and on historical authenticity.

2) Funny westerns or dramatic westerns?

Dramatic, as in not purely comedy, probably has the edge here percentage-wise, but I like a story that’s leavened with good humor instead of being starkly dramatic the whole time.

3) Westerns that focus on loners or westerns that focus on families?

I’ve never been a big fan of the trope about the lonely, haunted drifter or gunfighter who’s fated never to find a home…but I do enjoy stories of a footloose character engaging with a family or community and becoming a part of it in some way. I guess you could say I like both, but I particularly appreciate a quality Western built around a family, especially an intact nuclear family, because they’re relatively rarer.

4) Male-centric westerns or female-centric westerns?

Either or both, honestly. This applies to stories I read and stories I write, too: it’s not the first thing I think about. I think it’s entirely natural that a large number of Westerns focus on men due to the nature of the setting—and yes, once in a while I may get the impulse to take in a story about a frontier woman instead, just for a change from the usual (as you might feel the hankering for a city story instead of a country one, or a 1900s story instead of an 1800s or vice versa) but whether a story centers around a man or woman is never the driving principle behind what I choose to read or watch.

5) 1930s to 1960s westerns or 1970s to 2020s westerns?

1930s-1960s, almost entirely. My answer to question No. 7 explains a lot of this, I think.

6) Westerns that take place in America or westerns that take place internationally?

Almost 100% of the Westerns I read and watch are American, but the one exception is the brilliant The Man From Snowy River (1982). I saw it for the first time last year and it shot immediately to a place among my favorite Western movies.

7) Family-friendly Westerns or edgier Westerns?

Well, my tastes and principles in general means that most movies I watch are “family-friendly,” and that’s a big reason I watch mostly older movies. However, I do appreciate a serious and powerful story, and I’m a firm believer in the idea that a creative artist can use the tools of their trade to tell a story with mature themes in a way that we call “clean.”

8) Straightforward good guy or conflicted hero?

I tend to prefer the straightforward good guy—not somebody unnaturally perfect, just a decent upstanding human being.

9) Historically accurate Westerns or Westerns that aren’t afraid to take some creative liberties?

The more I read and study about the West, the more I find historical inaccuracies in old movies and shows jarring on me—it makes me feel like such a wet-blanket, but I can’t help it. On the other hand, I do feel that older films often have certain qualities that later ones claiming realism are lacking…I have a bunch of thoughts on this topic that I might try and put into a blog post, whether during this week or another time. But put it this way: a Western movie that’s well-made and entertaining and historically accurate will score big points with me!

10) Bittersweet or happily-ever-after endings?

I’m a happy-endings girl. I can accept a bittersweet ending every once in a while if it’s just right—if it’s right for the story and if it strikes the right chord with my tastes—but in general I prefer a happy or at least satisfying end.

Check back later this week for my next Western post!

I would have liked to write a deep, thoughtful review or essay of some kind for Legends of Western Cinema Week—but no matter how hard I tried to think of something to write, all my brain would say was, “I got nothing, pal.” But I hated the idea of missing out on the event altogether, so I decided to contribute a post on one of the things that drew me to Westerns in the first place: horses. In this case, one horse, a particularly beautiful one who is always a joy to see gallop across the screen.

His name was Steel. A burnished chestnut with three white feet, a wide blaze, and a luxuriant mane and tail, his proud arched neck and graceful, fluid way of moving stand out among the many handsome horses that have appeared on a movie screen. According to IMDB, Steel was so prized as a mount that his owner, Clarence “Fat” Jones, was able to make it a condition that all the horses in a film had to be rented from the Jones stables if Steel was used in the movie.

Like some human actors, Steel paid his dues in B-Westerns. At the bottom of this page you can see several photos of him with the stars of B-grade Westerns in the mid-to-late 1940s, including Tim Holt and a young Robert Mitchum. But at the same time, Steel was already carrying A-listers too. In 1944 John Wayne rode him in Tall in the Saddle—pretty nice mount for a drifter new in town!

In 1948, Steel appears to beautiful advantage as Joel McCrea’s mount in that time-bending chase scene from Four Faces West (again, the fugitive drifter sure scored a nice horse somehow).

In Yellow Sky (1948), it’s Steel who carries Gregory Peck across the desert—looking a bit less elegant than usual, as does everybody else in the movie.

But what most Western fans probably remember him best for is his teaming with Ben Johnson, one of the finest riders in the movies (and also “Fat” Jones’ son-in-law). Steel’s grace and Johnson’s horsemanship made an unforgettable combination in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950), pictured above, and Rio Grande (1950). (I’ve also read that Johnson rode Steel when he won his roping championship, but couldn’t find a picture or record to confirm that on a quick search.)

In Rio Grande, Steel is the subject of an amusing plot gaffe. Johnson’s character is supposed to abscond with his commanding officer’s horse—played by Steel—but John Wayne’s Colonel Yorke rides an entirely different horse throughout the whole movie, both before and after the theft: a powerful bay horse with a narrow stripe down his face, named Banner. Well, perhaps Steel was the colonel’s best horse, kept for Sundays and holidays.

(You can spot John Wayne riding Banner in Red River (1948) as well—and he was also sturdy enough to carry the substantial Andy Devine in Under California Stars (1948). I think he may have been Henry Fonda’s mount in Fort Apache (1948) as well. Banner had a busy ’48!)

Steel was valuable enough to have his own stunt double. The hardest-riding chase scenes in Rio Grande and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon were doubled by another horse called Bingo—but in the above shot ’tis clearly the horse himself, in Oscar-winning Technicolor.

More Steel in color—ridden by Henry Fonda in Warlock (1959) and Richard Widmark in Broken Lance (1953). These screenshots don’t even really do him justice, though; you have to see him in motion to appreciate what a beautiful horse he was.

Steel with Clark Gable on the set of Across the Wide Missouri (1951). I don’t know how many times he appeared onscreen in total—I know Randolph Scott rode him too, but am not sure in which movie(s). If you know of one I’ve overlooked, comment below and tell me!