THE ART OF THE CLASSIC WESTERN MOVIE POSTERS

Acknowledging the iconic, but with plenty of room for the rare and unfamiliar, poster art created for several hundred westerns produced from 1903 to 1978. 800 images, many reproduced as full-page, make this the most comprehensive book of western movie poster art ever published, and the definitive history of a genre often underestimated for its impact on American audiences. One of the earliest narrative films, 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, was a western, and before commercial cinema was a decade old the form had proliferated to such an extent that practically every nickelodeon in the country used short-length shoot-’em-ups in their daily programs. The book begins with a fact-heavy introduction that details how western movies became popular as a result of America’s fascination with the Wild West, as portrayed in dime novels and pulp-fiction magazines. How and when the genre archetypes -- white hat vs. black hat, the cowboy’s love for his horse, the Western hero as roving do-gooder -- were set in stone is discussed. The difference between “A” and “B” movies and which westerns fit into those categories are also explained. “A”s include such movies as Stagecoach, Destry Rides Again, and True Grit, and “B”s such films as Gold Mine in the Sky, Saga of Death Valley, and Hopalong Cassidy, and the likes of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Each chapter devotes a special feature to a specific “western” star, writer, director, stuntman, or leading lady. Also included are the author’s firsthand interviews conducted as far back as the mid-1970s. We are very impressed...we've never before seen so many rare, classic and even long forgotten posters in glorious full color. Everyone is here, from the early cowboys like Tex Ritter, Charles Starrett, Tim Holt, Johnny Mac Brown and Buck Jones, to giants like John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, to top movie stars like Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda. Great coverage of the serials including Zorro, William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, The Three Mesquiteers...it's all here, believe me! Includes superb behind-the-scenes photos, including back lot scenes,  and artist Zoe Mozert painting Jane Russell (seen here). Ed Hulse is the author of Art of the Pulps, Art of Pulp Fiction, The Tarzan Vault Collection, and publisher of the long-running and excellent Blood n Thunder volumes. Foreword by Jay Dee Witney.