Randolph Scott and the western period

Randolp scott in a Stetson. I got this from here:https://jeffarnoldswest.com/2021/04/the-westerns-of-randolph-scott-d44/

February 2019….. and so, I sat. Channel film 4 and the memory café Western run. My great frontier. Sometimes, in that early period, I would watch 3 films a day. Mainly westerns from the 1950s. Fall off your horse and be succinct. Easy digest. Black and white hats. Cat. Dog. Salt. Pepper. Tarts with hearts. Virgins with urges. Channel 4 film were showing a lot.  I imagine Film 4’s afternoon viewer demographic were going and seeing these films as new releases in the 1950’s.   

 I had a black Stetson “Tom Mix “hat. My grandmothers favourite apparently.  I found it in a vintage clothes shop in need of restoration. No Beaver was going to die in vain. This hat would not be scrapped. The thought that beavers being farmed for “Cowboys” in the desert seemed like a good example of how far humans would go to fuck things up for their own vanity. I had it restored but I’m too self-conscious to wear it even though it rains almost continuously and there are a lot of cows, horses and sheep and beavers now too. It was restored by Tracy from the costume department of the RSC no less. I went to School with Tracy. I gave the hat to her for a Christmas present that year because Hats were her thing, and it was a beauty.

Tom Mix and his hat. Mine was black. This pic came from wikipedia.

For about 8 months, I watched the same films on rotation. I became more aware of Randolph Scott. He would have been in his 50’s in these films. Eighty percent of the films, Scott made were westerns. To quote the character “Profane”  from the novel “V” by Thomas Pynchon,  Randolph Scott was… “Cool, imperturbable, keeping his mouth shut and only talking when he had to – and then saying the right thing and not running haphazard and inefficient of the mouth” … (I’ve never read V and found that quote in Wikipedia). I agreed but Randolph Scott was scripted, and he knew what the end was. I usually knew what the right thing to say was but that could be at the expensive of not saying what you meant or needed to say.

During this period, it was more that I just couldn’t express what to say in words as I didn’t understand it either. Randolph was understated and had some nice jackets too. I gave the hat to Tracy for Christmas because Hats were her thing, and it was a beauty.

Recently it has dawned on me that westerns have a lot of horses in them. My Horse and Pony interest transformed into the embodiment of creativity. To run with the horses, to sip from the pool in the hoof print of Pegasus.