I kicked myself the other day - while I was preparing my 1812 in the UK website Channel 5 were screening Brave Warrior with Jay Silverheels as Tecumseh and I missed it!...what luck...anybody see it? Anyway 'Easterns'... I tried to find some stuff about these on the web but to no avail - maybe I made this genre up? In my little world an Eastern is like a Western but set in the Eastern part of the Americas before the opening of the West and are around the 1940s in date - does that make sense? I haven't thought of a definitive list but I suppose it would include 'Last of the Mohicans'(1936), 'Drums Along the Mohawk'(1939), 'Northwest Passage' (1940) (pictured left) 'Unconquered' (1947) (where none other than Boris Karloff plays a Seneca chief Guyasuta) to name a few off the top of my head. They're usually quite scenic and colourful (and in the case of 1953's Fort Ti 3D) but of course costume-wise they are mostly 'pants'. You can watch a sequence or two from Northwest Passage here. They aren't usually very sympathetic to Indians - usually having two sorts - loyal and good - as in 'Blue Back' (Drums along the Mohawk) or evil - Magua and co (Last of the Mohicans) who are usually no match at all for the white frontiersman - Hawkeye - Robert Rogers etc. when it comes to bush skills and fighting ability. They are also quite grisly with all manner of torture being represented or alluded to. I must admit I do like them - they're part of my childhood after all but of course shouldn't be regarded as history at all - they're more like propaganda, or Americana but loveable all the same.
Ralphadeus. Music movies comics feature in this look at life from Somerset.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
'Easterns'
I kicked myself the other day - while I was preparing my 1812 in the UK website Channel 5 were screening Brave Warrior with Jay Silverheels as Tecumseh and I missed it!...what luck...anybody see it? Anyway 'Easterns'... I tried to find some stuff about these on the web but to no avail - maybe I made this genre up? In my little world an Eastern is like a Western but set in the Eastern part of the Americas before the opening of the West and are around the 1940s in date - does that make sense? I haven't thought of a definitive list but I suppose it would include 'Last of the Mohicans'(1936), 'Drums Along the Mohawk'(1939), 'Northwest Passage' (1940) (pictured left) 'Unconquered' (1947) (where none other than Boris Karloff plays a Seneca chief Guyasuta) to name a few off the top of my head. They're usually quite scenic and colourful (and in the case of 1953's Fort Ti 3D) but of course costume-wise they are mostly 'pants'. You can watch a sequence or two from Northwest Passage here. They aren't usually very sympathetic to Indians - usually having two sorts - loyal and good - as in 'Blue Back' (Drums along the Mohawk) or evil - Magua and co (Last of the Mohicans) who are usually no match at all for the white frontiersman - Hawkeye - Robert Rogers etc. when it comes to bush skills and fighting ability. They are also quite grisly with all manner of torture being represented or alluded to. I must admit I do like them - they're part of my childhood after all but of course shouldn't be regarded as history at all - they're more like propaganda, or Americana but loveable all the same.
