A Pictorial History of Westerns – Michael Parkinson, Clyde Jeavons

Condition : Good.
Hamlyn, 1972, Vintage hardback with removable protective plastic wrap – Cinema – 217pp.

Ever since Michael Parkinson first glued his eyes to the big screen, the Western has been his favourite kind of movie. To him, saddle sore in his cinema seat, the thud of hooves and the whine of the ricochet have meant a special kind of escapism, the uncomplicated ethos of a world cleanly divided into goodies and baddies.

In this book he and Clyde Jeavons take an affectionate look at the whole history of the genre, charting the development of the films from the early action reelers of the whirring camera and double-quick gunfights to today’s elegiac recreations of the West, in beautiful color, where even the blood spurts in slow motion.

They write of the stars who have carved themselves a corner of the prairie; of the directors stupendously led by John Ford, who made the Wild West their specialty; of the legion of stalwarts, the unsung men of wild or grizzled aspect who have been called upon time and again to draw a mean gun or deal a sharp card; of the rise and rise of the Spaghetti Western; and, finally, of the TV Western series.

Illustrated in colour and black and white with more than 380 pictures, it should prove a source of pleasure and instruction to any Western fan.