The easiest of all movie genres to write for

Rating: 1/10 (19 July 2019)

Performances aside, the easiest genre to write successfully for was the western. While a successful musical took many talented parts, the western took the script and the actor. A comedy took a somewhat funny situation, the right actor with the right timing, and and a good script, and a drama had to have a script that kept audiences on the edge of their seats. A western was luckier. A bad guy, sometimes illustrated by gunfights, and a sheriff in white hat ... a film maker's dream compared to the other movie genres. There is nothing out of the ordinary in the cast presented here. The sheer number of Glenn Ford fan clubs told you how many films he had been in -- although he was rather a subdued, normal actor, unwilling to break out of the box. Nice guy, but where are the acting chops? They are there only in westerns -- where everything is over-the-top dramatic due to death being around the corner (something not true of the real "old west" of the 1870s onward). The Old West is another Hollywood invention, devised again to sell movies. In this genre, they played it safe. Nothing ventured, but a lot to gain, so why not ... ? So many great musicals could have been done, so many comedies and dramas produced, but the money went toward the safe venue...the western. As much of a cartoon as Bugs Bunny ever was. The western was too easy, especially when Hollywood had started out with classics from Errol Flynn, Myrna Loy, William Powell, Frank Morgan, Irene Dunne, Jimmy Cagney, Judy Garland, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Kay Francis, et. al.