“I’VE HEARD ABOUT YOU, SHANE.” #1

The Zephyr’s Favorite lines from its favorite Westerns…

(From The Zephyr Archives…December 2004)

I was raised on matinees, on Saturday afternoons.

Lookin’ up at Hoppy, Gene and Roy…oh boy!

And I was raised believin’, the best a man can do

Is a be rootin’-tootin’, straight shootin’ cowboy buckaroo

———————Mason Williams & the Sons of the Pioneers

That’s how it was for me. As a little kid, I grew up in a neighborhood where there weren’t many other children. Billy Springstead was, at seven, four years older than me and didn’t really want to be seen “with a little kid.” So I learned to entertain myself. On Saturdays I was glued to the television, and eagerly awaited one Cinema Cowboy hero after another. Later I’d go out on the sidewalk and re-enact the episodes I’d just watched. I even did my own Western background music, the lavish orchestrals that always accompanied a good horse opera. Oddly enough, all these years and decades later, my favorite musical genre is…you guessed it..the soundtracks to great Westerns. I’ve run off more than one girlfriend, simply because I refused to remove my “Lonesome Dove” CD from the car stereo. I need my own soundtrack.

I also love the great laconic dialogue that comes from a good Western. And so I’ve gathered here some of my favorite lines from my favorite Westerns. It’s not a complete list, by any means—I don’t even think I have a Top 10 list here…maybe a Top 7? I’m not a movie critic and am not about to bore you with critic-ese about the fabric and texture of a film. I simply know what I like and these are the films that sustain me when I need a good jolt of Cinema West.

So, in no particular order, here are the great Western movie lines I love the most…JS

THE SHOOTIST (1976)

John Wayne(JB Books) Lauren Bacall (Mrs Rogers) Ron Howard (Gilliam Rogers) James Stewart (Doc Hostetler)

Screenplay by Miles Hood Swarthhout & Scott Hale from the novel by Glendon Swathhout

Music by Elmer Bernstein

It’s dangerous for an environmentalist/sometime liberal to say anything kind about John Wayne. Especially these days. But the Duke deserves kudos for “The Shootist,” his last film. Ironically, it’s about an aging gunfighter, riddled with cancer, who comes to Carson City, Nevada to live out his last days. John Wayne actually succeeds in acting humble in this film. The fact that he died of cancer, three years later, makes “The Shootist” that much more poignant.

“His name was J.B Books and he had a pair of ivory-handled pistols that were a sight to behold. But he wasn’t an outlaw. For a while he was a lawman…The wild country had taught him to survive. He lived his life unherded, by himself. And he had a credo…

“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to others and I require the same from them.”

James Stewart (as Dr Hostetler) offers Books an alternative to the agonizing death by cancer that he faces…

“There’s one more thing I’d say. Both of us have had a lot to do with Death. I’m not a brave man but you must be…I would not die the death I described if I had your courage.”

BOOKS:  “Every young man feels the need to let the badger loose now and then.”

Sheriff Tibidoh offers this advice to Books…

“Books, this is 19-ought-one. The old days are gone and you don’t know it. We got a waterworks and we’ll have our street car electrified by next year. And we’ve started to pave the streets. Oh we’ve still got some weedin’ to do, but once we get rid of people like you, we’ll have a goddamn Garden of Eden here…You plain outlived your time.”

BOOKS:   “A man’s emotions gets him all tangled up sometimes. I been operatin’ on the raw edge Gilliam…Guess I jumped too far, too fast.”

Conversation between young Gilliam and Books on being a Shootist…

Gilliam: “Bat Masterson said a man has to have guts, deliberation and a proficiency with firearms.”

Books: “Did he mention that third eye you better have? You need it for that dumb ass amateur. It’s usually some six-fingered buster who couldn’t hit a cow on the tit with a tin cup that does you in. But then Bat Masterson always was full of sheep dip.”

Have you got your own favorite lines? Add them in the comments below…

NEXT TIME:   “ONE-EYED JACKS” with Marlon Brando & Karl Malden