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WESTERNS
13Rogers coming up fast, the great centaurs who galloped through my youth were the old indestructibles of an earlier generation, Buck Jones on Silver King, Ken Maynard on Tarzan. The slim-hipped no-assed cowboy was still a thing of the future. The Maynards, Ken and Kermit, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones, were built like blacksmiths, iron men who didn't bruise easy.Autry twangling away on his guitar, Rogers carrying his fancy shirting unsoiled through a minimum of action seemed, when I finally caught up with them, poor substitutes for the slambang of the older stars. Some still carried on with a minimum of fuss-The Three Mesquiteers, Charles Starrett, John Wayne, Johnny Mack Brown-but mostly there seemed to be rhythm on the range. The legacies of W. S. Hart and Tom Mix had all but been spent and the genre seemed to be in its declining years. By the time Rex Allen appeared, not only singing but yodelling, the western had reached its lowest ebb.Easy to cast Autry and Rogers as the villains of the genre, not so easy to define wherein lay their vast appeal. Joseph Kane, who directed the early starring films of both, believes the amalgamation of musical and western tapped that vast Southern audience which has kept "Grand Ole Opry" a standard for years. Autry This content downloaded from 193.105.154.3 on Wed,
