Have Gun – Will Travel
Have Gun – Will Travel is an American Western series, produced and broadcast by CBS on both television and radio from 1957 through 1963. The television version of the series was rated number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings every year of its first four seasons, it is one of the few shows in television history to spawn a successful radio version; that radio series debuted November 23, 1958, more than a year after the premiere of its televised counterpart. Have Gun – Will Travel was created by Sam Rolfe and Herb Meadow and produced by Frank Pierson, Don Ingalls, Robert Sparks, Julian Claman. Of the 225 episodes of the television series, 24 were written by Gene Roddenberry. Other major contributors included Bruce Geller, Harry Julian Fink, Don Brinkley, Irving Wallace. Andrew V. McLaglen directed 101 episodes, 28 were directed by series star Richard Boone; this series follows the adventures of a man calling himself "Paladin", taking his name from that of the foremost knight warriors in Charlemagne's court.
He is a gentleman gunfighter who travels around the Old West working as a mercenary for people who hire him to solve their problems. Although Paladin charges steep fees to clients who can afford to hire him $1000 per job, he provides his services for free to poor people who need his help. Like many Westerns, the television show was set during a nebulous period after the Civil War; the radio show explicitly states the year in the opening of every episode. The season 5 television episode, "A Drop of Blood", gives the specific date of July 3, 1879; the title was a variation on a cliche used in personal advertisements in newspapers like The Times, indicating that the advertiser was ready for anything. It was used this way from the early twentieth century. A trope common in theatrical advertising was "Have tux, will travel", CBS claimed this was the inspiration for the writer Herb Meadow; the television show popularized the phrase in the 1960s, many variations were used as titles for other works, but was antedated by Have Space Suit – Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein.
Paladin prefers to settle without violence the difficulties brought his way by clients when possible, but this never happens. When forced, he excels in fisticuffs. Under his real name, never revealed, he was a dueling champion of some renown. Paladin is a former Union cavalry officer, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a veteran of the American Civil War, his permanent place of residence is the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco, where he lives the life of a successful businessman and bon vivant, wearing elegant custom-made suits, consuming fine wine, playing the piano, attending the opera and other cultural events. He is an expert chess player, poker player, swordsman, he is skilled in Chinese martial arts and is seen in several episodes receiving instruction and training with a Kung Fu master in San Francisco. He is educated, able to quote classic literature and case law, speaks several languages, he is president of the San Francisco Stock Exchange Club. While at work on the frontier, Paladin changes into all-black Western-style clothing.
His primary weapon is a custom-made, first-generation.45 caliber Colt Single Action Army Cavalry Model revolver with an unusual rifled barrel, carried in a black leather holster, hanging from a black leather gunbelt. He carries a lever action Marlin rifle strapped to his saddle, a Remington derringer concealed under his belt. Paladin gives out a business card imprinted with "Have Gun Will Travel" and a drawing of a knight chess piece. A closeup of this card is used as a title card between scenes in the program; the one other major semiregular character in the show was the Chinese bellhop at the Carlton Hotel, known as Hey Boy: in the first season in the episode called "Hey Boy's Revenge", the character Hey Boy is sought by Paladin under the name Kim Chan, written on a piece of paper and shown on screen. As the episode continues, Hey Boy is referred to five times as Kim Chan and on the sixth incident Paladin states Hey Boy's name as Kim Chang and thereafter he is referred to as Kim Chang every time.
No explanation is given for the name change). Hey Boy was played by Kam Tong. According to author and historian Martin Grams, Jr. Hey Boy was featured in all but the fourth of the show's six seasons, with the character of Hey Girl, played by Lisa Lu, replacing Hey Boy for season four while Kam Tong worked on the Mr. Garlund television series. Guest stars included Jack Lord, Charles Bronson, Victor McLaglen, Vincent Price, James Coburn, Ben Johnson, George Kennedy, John Carradine, Angie Dickinson, Buddy Ebsen, Denver Pyle, June Lockhart, Harry Morgan, Jack Elam, Dan Blocker, Pernell Roberts, DeForest Kelley, Lon Chaney, Jr. Warren Oates, Martin Balsam, Sydney Pollack, William Conrad, Dyan Cannon, Robert Blake, Suzanne Pleshette, Kathie Browne, Strother Martin, Albert Salmi, Werner Klemperer and Odetta; each show opened with the same 45-second visual. Over a slow four-note-repeat backbeat score, a tight shot of Paladin's chess knight emblem centered in a black background is seen, before the view widens to show the emblem affixed to Paladin's holster, with Paladin in his trademark costume seen from waist level in profile.
As he draws his revolver from the holster, the four-note-repeat backbeat fades to a light harp-like strumming. He cocks the hammer, rotates the gun to point the barrel at the viewer for 10 seconds delivering a line of dialogue from the coming episode, a
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning five decades. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor, he appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins. He made his Hollywood debut in 1935, his career gained momentum after his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, a 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel about an Oklahoma family who moved west during the Dust Bowl. Throughout five decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts, 12 Angry Men. Fonda moved both toward darker epics such as Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and lighter roles in family comedies such as Yours and Ours with Lucille Ball, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for the movie On Golden Pond, his final film role. Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, grandson Troy Garity.
His family and close friends called him "Hank". In 1999, he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska on May 16, 1905, Henry Jaynes Fonda was the son of printer William Brace Fonda, his wife, Herberta; the family moved to Omaha, Nebraska in 1906. Fonda's patrilineal line originates with an ancestor from Genoa, who migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century. In 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America, they were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, New York. By 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska. Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist, though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Grand Island, he said, "My whole damn family was nice." They were a close family and supportive in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion.
Despite having a religious background, he became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, was a good skater and runner, he imagined a possible career as a journalist. He worked after school for the phone company, he enjoyed drawing. Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America. However, this is denied elsewhere; when he was about 14, his father took him to observe the brutal lynching of Will Brown during the Omaha race riot of 1919. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life. By his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet tall, but remained shy, he attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism. He took a job with the Retail Credit Company. At age 20, Fonda started his acting career at the Omaha Community Playhouse, when his mother's friend Dodie Brando recommended that he try out for a juvenile part in You and I, in which he was cast as Ricky, he was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, embarrassed by his acting ability.
When he received the lead in Merton of the Movies, he realized the beauty of acting as a profession, as it allowed him to deflect attention from his own tongue-tied personality and create stage characters relying on someone else's scripted words. Fonda decided to go east in 1928 to seek his fortune, he played a minor role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and became a valued member of the University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock company. There he worked with his future wife. James Stewart joined the Players a few months after Fonda left, though they were soon to become lifelong friends. Fonda left the Players at the end of their 1931-1932 season after appearing in his first professional role in The Jest, by Sem Benelli. Joshua Logan, a young sophomore at Princeton, double-cast in the show, gave Fonda the part of Tornaquinci, "an elderly Italian man with a long white beard and longer hair." In the cast of The Jest with Fonda and Logan were Bretaigne Windust, Kent Smith, Eleanor Phelps.
The tall (6 ft 1.5 in Fonda headed for New York City, to be with his wife, Margaret Sullavan. The marriage was brief. Getting contact information from Joshua Logan, Jimmy, as he was called, found Hank Fonda and these small town boys found they had a lot in common, as long as they didn't discuss politics; the two men honed their skills on Broadway. Fonda appeared in theatrical productions from 1926 to 1934, they fared no better than many Americans in and out of work during the Great Depression, sometimes lacking enough money to take the subway. Fonda got his first break in films when he was hired in 1935 as Janet Gaynor's leading man in 20th Century Fox's screen adaptation of The Farmer Takes a Wife. Fonda was making $3,000 a week and dining with Hollywood stars such as Carole Lombard. Stewart soon followed him to Hollywood, they roomed together again, in lodgings next door to Greta Garbo. In 1935, Fonda starred in the RKO film; the New York Times announced him as "Henry Fonda, the most likable
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U. S. allies or partner nations. With the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches, it has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force. The U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, established during the American Revolutionary War and was disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.
The U. S. Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers, it played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The US Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world; the 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, it is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in U. S. foreign and military policy. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, headed by the civilian Secretary of the Navy; the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is the most senior naval officer serving in the Department of the Navy.
The mission of the Navy is to maintain and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas. The U. S. Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States; the Navy's three primary areas of responsibility: The preparation of naval forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war. The maintenance of naval aviation, including land-based naval aviation, air transport essential for naval operations, all air weapons and air techniques involved in the operations and activities of the Navy; the development of aircraft, tactics, technique and equipment of naval combat and service elements. U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is "to be prepared to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest." As part of that establishment, the U. S. Navy's functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to "sealift" duties, it follows as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, with it, everything honorable and glorious.
Naval power... is the natural defense of the United States The Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia; the rationale for establishing a national navy was debated in the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, make it easier to seek out support from foreign countries. Detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy the world's preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships and reported the captures to the Congress. On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to be armed for a cruise against British merchant ships. S. Navy; the Continental Navy achieved mixed results.
In August 1785, after the Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, Congress had sold Alliance, the last ship remaining in the Continental Navy due to a lack of funds to maintain the ship or support a navy. In 1972, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, authorized the Navy to celebrate its birthday on 13 October to honor the establishment of the Continental Navy in 1775; the United States was without a navy for nearly a decade, a state of affairs that exposed U. S. maritime merchant ships to a series of attacks by the Barbary pirates. The sole armed maritime presence between 1790 and the launching of the U. S. Navy's first warships in 1797 was the U. S. Revenue-Marine, the primary predecessor of the U. S. Coast Guard. Although the USRCS conducted operations against the pirates, their depredations far outstripped its abilities and Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 that established a permanent standing navy on 27 March 1794; the Naval Act ordered the construction and manning of six frigates and, by October 1797, the first three were brought into service: USS United States, USS Constellation, USS Constitution.
Due to his strong posture on having a strong standing Navy during this period, John Adams is "often called the father of the American Navy". In 1798–99 the Navy was involved in an undeclared Quasi-War with France. From 18
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor, nominated for an Academy Award eight times, winning twice. He starred in over 60 films, such as Mister Roberts, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Days of Wine and Roses, Irma la Douce, The Great Race, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger, The China Syndrome and Glengarry Glen Ross. Lemmon was born on February 8, 1925, in an elevator at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, he was the only child of Mildred Burgess LaRue and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr. the president of the Doughnut Corporation of America. John Uhler Lemmon II was of Irish heritage, his son was raised Catholic, his parents had a difficult marriage, separated permanently when Lemmon was 18, but never divorced. He attended the Rivers School in Weston, Massachusetts. Unwell as a child, Lemmon had three significant operations on his ears before he turned 10, he had spent two years in hospital by the time he turned 12. During his acceptance of his lifetime achievement award, he stated that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight.
He began to act in school productions. Lemmon attended Rivers Country Day School and Phillips Andover Academy, where he pursued track sports with success, Harvard College, where he lived in Eliot House At Harvard, he was president of the Hasty Pudding Club and vice-president of Dramatic and Delphic Clubs. Except for drama and music, however, he was an unexceptional student. Forbidden to act in theatres, Lemmon broke Harvard rules to appear in roles using pseudonyms like Timothy Orange, he was a member of the V-12 Navy College Training Program and Lemmon was commissioned by the United States Navy, serving as an ensign on an aircraft carrier during World War II before returning to Harvard after completing his military service. After graduation with a degree in War Service Sciences in 1947, He studied acting under coach Uta Hagen at HB Studio in New York City, he was a pianist, who became devoted to the instrument learned to play by ear. For about a year in New York City, he worked unpaid as a waiter and master of ceremonies at the Old Knick bar on Second Avenue.
He played the piano at the venue. Lemmon became a professional actor, working on Broadway, his film debut was a bit part as a plasterer in the film The Lady Takes a Sailor, but he was appearing in television shows, which numbered about 400 in the five years from 1948. Lemmon believed his stage career was about to take off when he was appearing on Broadway for the first time in a 1953 revival of the comedy Room Service, but the production closed after two weeks. Despite this setback, he was spotted by talent scout Max Arnow, working for Columbia, Lemmon's focus shifted to films and Hollywood. Columbia's head Harry Cohn wanted to change Lemmon's name, in case it was used to describe the quality of the actor's films, but he resisted, his first role as a leading man was in the comedy It Should Happen to You, which featured the established Judy Holliday in the female lead. Bosley Crowther in his review for The New York Times described Lemmon as possessing "a warm and appealing personality; the screen should see more of him."
The two leads soon reunited in Phffft. Kim Novak had a secondary role as a brief love interest for Lemmon's character. "If it wasn't for Judy, I'm not sure I would have concentrated on films", he told The Washington Post in 1986 saying early in his career he had a snobbish attitude towards films over the stage. He managed to negotiate a contract with Columbia allowing him leeway to pursue other projects, some of the terms of which he said "nobody had gotten before", he ended staying with Columbia for ten years. Lemmon's appearance as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts, with James Cagney and Henry Fonda, for Warner Bros. gained Lemmon the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Director John Ford decided to cast Lemmon after seeing his Columbia screen test, directed by Richard Quine. At an impromptu meeting on the studio lot, Ford persuaded the actor to appear in the film, although Lemmon did not realise he was in conversation with Ford at the time. In the military farce Operation Mad Ball set in a U. S. Army base in France after World War II, Lemmon played a calculating private.
He met comedian Ernie Kovacs, who co-starred, they became close friends, appearing together in two subsequent films, as a warlock in Bell and Candle and It Happened to Jane, all three under the direction of Richard Quine. Lemmon starred in six films directed by Quine; the others were The Notorious Landlady and How to Murder Your Wife. Lemmon worked with Billy Wilder on seven films, their association began with Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe. His role required him to perform 80% of the role in drag, although people who knew his mother, Millie Lemmon, said he had mimicked her personality and her hairstyle; the critic Pauline Kael said. The sequence of films with Wilder continued with The Apartment and Irma la Douce, in which Lemmon co-starred with Shirley MacLaine, he was Oscar nominated for his roles in Some Like It The Apartment. MacLaine, observing the director's relationship with his male lead, believed it amounted t
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama series broadcast on CBS television from September 21, 1957, to May 22, 1966. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles criminal-defense lawyer who appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Many episodes are based on stories written by Gardner. Perry Mason was Hollywood's first weekly one-hour series filmed for television, remains one of the longest-running and most successful legal-themed television series. During its first season, it received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination as Best Dramatic Series, it became one of the five most popular shows on television. Raymond Burr received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor, Barbara Hale received an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Mason's confidential secretary Della Street. Perry Mason and Burr were honored as Favorite Series and Favorite Male Performer in the first two TV Guide Award readers' polls. In 1960, the series received the first Silver Gavel Award presented for television drama by the American Bar Association.
Perry Mason has aired in syndication in the United States and internationally since its cancellation, the complete series has been released on Region 1 DVD. A 2014 study found that Netflix users rate Raymond Burr as their favorite actor, with Barbara Hale number seven on the list; the New Perry Mason, a 1973 revival of the series with a different cast, was poorly received and ran for 15 episodes. In 1985, the first in a successful series of 30 Perry Mason television films aired on NBC, with Burr reprising the role of Mason in 26 of them before his death in 1993. In August 2016, HBO announced plans to make a new series. Perry Mason is a distinguished criminal defense lawyer practicing in Los Angeles, most of whose clients have been charged with murder; each episode follows a formula. The first half of the show introduces a prospective murder victim and a series of persons involved with the victim who, through word or deed, reveal themselves as the perpetrator of the crime. Once the crime has been committed, his private investigator Paul Drake, his secretary Della Street have some adversarial dealings with the homicide detective, who arrests the wrong suspect, Mason's legal nemesis, Los Angeles district attorney Hamilton Burger, who prosecutes an innocent suspect, until Mason's client is charged with murder based on the circumstantial evidence.
In the second half, Mason spars with Burger in the courtroom, either during the trial or the preliminary hearing, in which the district attorney is required to produce just enough evidence to convince the judge that the defendant should be bound over for trial. As the courtroom proceedings advance, Mason finds the case going against him, so that outside the courtroom either Mason himself or Paul and Della pursue further leads; as the investigation or examination progresses and sometimes Burger will uncover the morally ugly or illegal conduct of some of the witnesses or participants, thus complicating the moral and legal intrigue of the case. Some detail uncovered or remark made inside or outside the courtroom gives Mason the clue he needs to enter into the line of questioning that causes the surprise perpetrator, whether on the stand or not, to break down and confess to the crime and admit to the appalling truth of their motive. In the closing scene or epilogue and Della, sometimes Burger and Tragg, will ask Mason what gave him the clue he needed.
The show never discloses the amount of money spent by the innocent suspect to Mason after being falsely accused by the police and being falsely prosecuted by the District Attorney. Perry Mason – defense attorney Della Street – Mason's confidential secretary Paul Drake – private investigator Hamilton Burger – District Attorney Lieutenant Arthur Tragg – a police homicide detective and lead police official on the series, who appeared from the beginning of the series until midway through the 1963-64 season after appearing less from early in the 1961-62 season.. Lieutenant Anderson – another police homicide detective and lead police official on the series. Known as Andy to his friends, he started appearing in the fall of 1961 when Ray Collins began to reduce his participation in the show due to illness, became more prominent.. Lieutenant Steve Drumm – another police homicide detective and lead police official on the series, who appeared in the final season. Recurring smaller rolesDr. Hoxie – autopsy surgeon played by Michael Fox.
Seen in seasons 1 through 7. Fox played other small roles in season 9. Sgt. Brice – a police officer, played by Lee Miller, who accompanies Tragg, Anderson or Drumm. Seen throughout the series run. Miller played other bit roles in seasons 1 and 2. Terrance Clay – owner of the upscale "Clay's Grill" where Perry, Della gather in the final season during the story's epilogue. Played by Dan Tobin. Gertrude "Gertie" Lade – Mason's mentioned but seen receptionist, played by Connie Cezon. Seen in seasons 1 and 2, with one appearance in season 4, four consecutive episodes in season 7. Court clerk – seen, but heard from, during courtroom procedures. Seen in seasons 2 through 6, played by George
Western (genre)
Western is a genre of various arts which tell stories set in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West centering on the life of a nomadic cowboy or gunfighter armed with a revolver and a rifle who rides a horse. Cowboys and gunslingers wear Stetson hats, neckerchief bandannas, spurs, cowboy boots and buckskins. Recurring characters include the aforementioned cowboys, Native Americans, lawmen, bounty hunters, gamblers and settlers; the ambience is punctuated with a Western music score, including American and Mexican folk music such as country, Native American music, New Mexico music, rancheras. Westerns stress the harshness of the wilderness and set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains; the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting a "...mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West". Specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Common plots include: The construction of a telegraph line on the wild frontier.
Ranchers protecting their family ranch from rustlers or large landowners or who build a ranch empire. Revenge stories, which hinge on the chase and pursuit by someone, wronged. Stories about cavalry fighting Native Americans. Outlaw gang plots. Stories about a lawman or bounty hunter tracking down his quarry. Many Westerns use a stock plot of depicting a crime showing the pursuit of the wrongdoer, ending in revenge and retribution, dispensed through a shootout or quick-draw duel; the Western was the most popular Hollywood genre from the early 20th century to the 1960s. Western films first became well-attended in the 1930s. John Ford's landmark Western adventure Stagecoach became one of the biggest hits in 1939 and it made John Wayne a mainstream screen star; the popularity of Westerns continued with the release of classics such as Red River. Westerns were popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time, including High Noon, The Searchers, Cat Ballou, The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Classic Westerns such as these have been the inspiration for various films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings, such as Junior Bonner, set in the 1970s, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, set in the 21st century. The Western genre sometimes portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original, Native American, inhabitants of the frontier; the Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice–"frontier justice"–dispensed by gunfights. These honor codes are played out through depictions of feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged them; this Western depiction of personal justice contrasts with justice systems organized around rationalistic, abstract law that exist in cities, in which social order is maintained predominately through impersonal institutions such as courtrooms.
The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer a cowboy or a gunfighter. A showdown or duel at high noon featuring two or more gunfighters is a stereotypical scene in the popular conception of Westerns. In some ways, such protagonists may be considered the literary descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian Romances. Like the cowboy or gunfighter of the Western, the knight errant of the earlier European tales and poetry was wandering from place to place on his horse, fighting villains of various kinds and bound to no fixed social structures but only to their own innate code of honor, and like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns rescue damsels in distress. The wandering protagonists of Westerns share many characteristics with the ronin in modern Japanese culture; the Western takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, although some notable examples are more morally ambiguous.
Westerns stress the harshness and isolation of the wilderness and set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Western films have specific settings such as isolated ranches, Native American villages, or small frontier towns with a saloon. Oftentimes, these settings appear deserted and without much structure. Apart from the wilderness, it is the saloon that emphasizes that this is the Wild West: it is the place to go for music, gambling, drinking and shooting. In some Westerns, where civilization has arrived, the town has a church, a general store, a bank and a school; the American Film Institute defines Western films as those "set in the American West that the spirit, the struggle and the demise of the new frontier." The term Western, used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World magazine. Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th-century popular Western
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney
Cornelius Vanderbilt "Sonny" Whitney was an American businessman, film producer, philanthropist, polo player, government official, as well as the owner of a leading stable of thoroughbred racehorses. Born in Old Westbury, New York, he was the son of the wealthy and prominent Harry Payne Whitney and Gertrude Vanderbilt, he had a younger sister, Barbara Whitney, an elder sister, Flora Payne Whitney. As a member of both the Whitney and Vanderbilt families, he inherited a substantial fortune. However, he proved to be a capable businessman. After graduating from Yale University in 1922, he went to work at a Nevada mine owned by his father. Whitney's paternal grandfather, William Collins Whitney, was a co-founder and director of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York and in 1926, Whitney was appointed a director, serving on the bank's board until 1940. In 1927, Whitney joined with William Avery Rockefeller III and other investors to back Juan Trippe in establishing the Aviation Corporation of America, which a year would become Pan American World Airways.
In 1931, Whitney founded Smelting Co.. Limited in Canada; the company became a major zinc mining operation, Whitney served as chairman of the board until 1964. Whitney became involved in the motion picture industry, notably with his cousin John Hay Whitney as a major shareholder backing the Technicolor Corporation; the two were financiers for the 1939 film classic Gone with the Wind. Seventeen years C. V. Whitney served as a producer through his own "C. V. Whitney Pictures." His company made three films, the first being the acclaimed 1956 production, The Searchers, directed by John Ford. The second was The Missouri Traveler in 1958 with Brandon deWilde and Lee Marvin, the third was The Young Land in 1959 with Patrick Wayne and Dennis Hopper. Whitney was a major financial partner in the development of Marine Studios, designed as an underwater motion picture studio located on the ocean south of St. Augustine, Florida; the Studios opened on June 23, 1938, with an estimated 30,000 visitors and evolved into a major marine attraction.
It was billed as "the world's original marine attraction". Whitney sold the attraction and its amenities to a group of St. Augustine businessmen, Whitney's legacy continues at the Whitney Laboratory nearby, his father, Harry Payne Whitney, had been an avid polo player and thoroughbred racehorse owner, C. V. Whitney followed in his footsteps, winning the U. S. Open polo title three times. Since 1979, the Greenwich Polo Club at Conyers Farm in Greenwich, has awarded the C. V. Whitney Cup to the winner of an annual polo tournament He was the third generation of Whitneys to be involved in thoroughbred horse racing; the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga Race Course was inaugurated in his family's honor in 1928. C. V. Whitney acquired his father's stable in 1930 and on May 17, his two-year-old colt Equipoise gave him his first stakes race victory when he won the Keene' Memorial Stakes at Belmont Park. Equipoise would go on to become a success on the racetrack and as a leading sire, would be inducted into racing's Hall of Fame in 1957.
Among Whitney's other outstanding horses, Top Flight was the 1931 American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly and the 1932 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly, was voted into the U. S. Racing Hall of Fame. Although he had fifteen horses compete in the Kentucky Derby, Whitney never won the prestigious race. Silver Spoon was the only filly entered in the Derby between the years 1945 and 1980, coming in a credible fifth in 1959. Ridden by jockey Eddie Arcaro and trained by Sylvester Veitch, Whitney's horse Phalanx won the first division of the 1947 Wood Memorial Stakes, finished second in the 1947 Kentucky Derby, took third in the ensuing Preakness Stakes won the Belmont Stakes. In the 1951 Kentucky Derby, Whitney's Veitch-trained colt Counterpoint was still developing after an injury as a yearling that ended his career and tired badly, finishing 11th. However, Counterpoint came back to take second place in the Preakness Stakes and subsequently gave Whitney his second win in the Belmont Stakes and went on to earn 1951 Horse of the Year honors.
Among other successful horses from his stables, Career Boy won the United Nations Handicap and was voted the Eclipse Award champion Grass Horse for 1956. And First Flight was one of his best fillies, winning the Matron Stakes and beating males in Belmont's Futurity Stakes in 1946. One of Whitney's homes was the "Cady Hill" estate at Saratoga Springs, New York, not far from the Saratoga Race Course, it was there in 1950 that he founded the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and served as its first president. A former director of Churchill Downs, he was given an Eclipse Special Award in 1984 in recognition of his lifetime contribution to thoroughbred horse racing in the United States; the C. V. Whitney Farm in Lexington, Kentucky bred more than 175 stakes winners until age forced him to sell off a large part of the property in the 1980s to Gainesway Farm. After his death in 1992, his widow, Marylou Whitney, continued breeding and racing operations on a smaller scale. A much respected figure in racing, her "Marylou Whitney Stables" owned Birdstone, the 2004 Belmont Stakes winner.
Upon his death, Whitney owned over 51,000 acres in the Adirondacks along with a great camp called Deerlands. Located within the Oswegatchie Great Forest, the Whitney estate is home to more than 40 lakes and ponds, as well as the headwaters of the Beaver and Bog rivers. In 1997, New York State bought 14,700 acres of the 51,000 acre Whitney tract from Marylou Whitney's "Whitney Industries" for $17.1 million. Having spent
