Professionals in Western Film and Fiction

In American Westerns, the main characters are most often gunfighters, lawmen, ranchers and dancehall girls. Civil professionals such as doctors, engineers and journalists have been given far less representation, appearing as background characters in most films and fiction. However, in Westerns about the 1910 Mexican Revolution, civil professionals also feature prominently in the narrative, often as members of the intelligentsia—an important force in Mexican politics. This book compares the roles of civil professionals in most American Westerns to those in work on the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Included are studies on the Santiago Toole novels by Richard Wheeler, Strange Lady in Town with Greer Garson and La sombra del Caudillo by Martín Luis Guzmán.

Kenneth E. Hall has written several books, including a study of John Woo’s The Killer, authored many articles on Latin American literature, and is a contributor to Studies in the Western. A professor of Spanish at East Tennessee State University, he lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Kenneth E. Hall
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 231
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2019
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9729-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3599-6
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi

Foreword by Peter Noçon and Peter Bischoff 1

Introduction 5

1. Professional Case Studies: Doctors on the Frontier 7

2. Professional Allies: Lawyers, Gunsmiths and Other Fixers 30

3. Masquerades: Civil Professionals in Disguise 66

4. Encroachments of Culture: The Frontier in History and Fiction 108

5. Professionals as Civilization Meets Barbarism 115

6. Professionals Across the Border: Mexican Revolution Fiction and “Professional Westerns” 131

Chapter Notes 169

Works Cited 180

Index 211