SHANE: FROM STORY TO SCREEN---TO SCREEN.

OUR MAN FLINT: COOLEST SPY EVER THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES: FROM STORY TO...

SHANE: FROM STORY TO SCREEN---TO SCREEN.

<div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ujffGgsd6-U..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ujffGgsd6-U..." width="242" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">David Robbins</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">©2015</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We’ll start things off way back in 1946. That’s when Jack Schaefer had a three-part story he called RIDER FROM NOWHERE published in ARGOSY magazine. Later he added to it, and the novel version was released in 1949 with the simple title of SHANE. It hasn't been out of print since, with editions in over 30 languages.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">You’ll find the novel on many ‘best of the West’ lists. It’s the quintessential story of a stranger who rides into the middle of a rancher/homesteader feud and uses his deadly skill with a six-shooter to decide the issue. What separates Schaefer’s story from the hundreds of similar ‘noble gunfighter versus vile gunmen’ tales is the literary excellence he brought to the telling. SHANE is superb from start to FINI, with nuances of meaning and character interplay that few Western novels rival.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It was inevitable, then, that Hollywood saw fit to make the novel into a movie. They didn’t waste any time about it. SHANE, starring Alan Ladd in the lead role, lit the screen in 1953, only four years after the novel came out. The film is widely regarded as a classic. Western Writers of America has called it the greatest Western movie of all time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-32Er8Dd36Ko..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-32Er8Dd36Ko..." width="305" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">[One of the best Westerns ever made. If you appreciate excellence, here you go.}</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">It was perhaps also inevitable that when TV came along, they tapped into Schaefer’s literary vein, with a series starring David Carradine. Yes, the same DC of KUNG FU fame. It lasted seventeen episodes. For the longest time the series was difficult to acquire. Not long ago, though, it was released on DVD.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HV0DNRL9rYI..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HV0DNRL9rYI..." width="286" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>[The series that took forever to make it to DVD. The wait, as they say, was worth it.]</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The question naturally arises: how do they compare, the novel to the movie to the series? Let’s take a look.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The basic plot in each is the same. Shane comes to the aid of the Starrett family in their dispute with a rancher. But the Shane in the movie is not quite the same as the Shane in the novel. Carradine’s Shane, interestingly enough, includes elements of both, and is far deadlier than either. The violence quotient in the TV version---in one episode he shoots three men, in another he kills five, in yet another he shoots six---may have helped contribute to its early demise.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It has been said that you can tell a lot about a person by the clothes they wear, and it’s worth noting that Shane’s attire in the novel is considerably different from the movie and the series. Here’s how Jack Schaefer described his knight errant: ‘As he came near, what impressed me first was his clothes. He wore dark trousers of some serge material tucked into tall boots and held at the waist by a wide belt, both of a soft black leather tooled in intricate design. A coat of the same dark material as the trousers was neatly folded and strapped to his saddle-roll. His shirt was finespun linen, rich brown in color. The handkerchief loosely knotted around his throat was black silk. His hat was not the familiar Stetson, not the familiar gray or muddy tan. It was a plain black, soft in texture, unlike any hat I had ever seen, with a creased crown and a wide curling brim swept down in front to shield the face.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Clearly, this was no cowboy. The description matches that of a gambler. They were known for their wide-brimmed black hats and dark suits and coats. Indeed, toward the end of the novel, when the narrator is speculating on Shane’s real identity, mention is made that ‘he was a certain Shannon who was famous as a gunman and gambler way down in Arkansas and Texas’.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">A more important clue to the special qualities that made Shane so fascinating occurs when he reaches the Starrett place. One of the first things he does is to pluck a petunia from the flower garden and stick it in his hat band. Think about that. A man in the Old West, going around with a flower in his hat?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now let’s contrast that with Alan Ladd’s version. Ladd wore fringed buckskins. They were popular with scouts and other frontiersmen. Most were plain. Others could be as fancy as Shane’s outfit. Take those worn by Wild Bill Hickok, often called the Prince of Pistoleers. His were not only fringed, they had a fur collar and fur around the wrists and again at the bottom of the shirt. If you saw him coming down the street with his pearl-handled revolvers sticking butts-first from his belt or sash, you’d look twice.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Carrdine’s Shane wore a buckskin shirt. He was also partial to a sheepskin coat. Neither he nor Ladd wore a black hat; they went for the ‘muddy brown’ variety. The most distinctive aspect of their attire was their gunbelt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Which brings us to one of the core elements of the book, the movie, and the series. Because in each, and most especially in the series, the gun becomes almost a character unto itself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PCi4ymxiyTw..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PCi4ymxiyTw..." width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">[Alan Ladd in action as Shane. Note his gunbelt.]</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s take the novel first. It surprises those who have never read it that Shane doesn’t strap his revolver on until near the end. That scene in the movie where he gives the young boy a lesson in how to draw and shoot? They took that from the book, but in the novel Shane doesn’t strap his own revolver on to demonstrate how it’s done. He uses an old broken revolver the boy is playing with.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Worth noting is Schaefer’s description of Shane’s real Colt:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘There it was, the most beautiful-looking weapon I ever saw. Beautiful, and deadly-looking. The holster and filled cartridge belt were of the same soft black leather as the boots tucked under the bunk, in the same intricate design. I knew enough to know that the gun was a single-action Colt, the same model as the Regular Army issue that was the favorite of all men in those days and that oldtimers used to say was the finest pistol ever made.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the same model. But this was no Army gun. It was black, almost blue black, with the darkness not in any enamel but in the metal itself. The grip was clear on the outer curve, shaped to the fingers on the inner curve, and two ivory plates were set into it with exquisite skill, one on each side.’</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Throughout the novel, Shane’s revolver has a tangible presence as potent as the man who owns it. The same can be said of the movie, to a degree, and especially so the TV series.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ladd’s Shane uses a Colt Single Action Army model with a 7½ inch barrel and ivory grips. (In the movie they were actually plastic, but hey). The front sight is missing. His gunbelt is black leather with large silver conchos. It’s quite distinctive.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So much so, the makers of the TV series decided that their Shane should have a similar belt. His Colt has a much shorter barrel and different grips. But it is as much a star as Shane. The opening credits, in fact, begin with a close-up of the Colt being loaded. Just Shane’s hands are shown. When he hears Joey calling, he twirls the revolver into his holster, then takes his gunbelt off and hangs it on the wall.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5AoDQtN9kf0..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5AoDQtN9kf0..." width="260" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">[The shot of Carradine they used for the DVD release. Note his gunbelt.]</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The impression those credits give, as in the novel and the movie, is that Shane has forsaken his violent past and no longer wants to live by the gun. But again, just as in the novel and the movie, circumstances force him to strap on those silver conchos and demonstrate how deadly he is.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The TV series stresses, again and again, that Shane is a killer. Where in the novel others are wary of him---in the movie not so much---in the TV series many are outright afraid. And you can’t blame them, given the number of times he threatens to kill someone. And the number of times he actually does.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Envision, if you will, a typical Saturday night back in ’66. There were only three main channels on TV then. (Yes, you read that right. ‘Three’.) On one channel you had FLIPPER, a family-oriented show about a dolphin, followed by PLEASE DON’T EAT THE DAISIES, another family show. On the second channel you had the JACKIE GLEASON SHOW, a variety hour with comedy and music. On the third channel you had SHANE, a Western about a gunfighter with a lot of shootouts and a high body count. This at a time when violence on TV was decried as a bad influence. Which show do you think a typical parent wasn't going to let their child watch?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So there you go. Looking for a great<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>novel to read? Or a great movie? Or a great TV-series? Treat yourself to one or both or all three.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_yvoZu3IBY..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_yvoZu3IBY..." width="268" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"> [The Critical Edition. For those who might like more background on the author and all things SHANE.]</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DavidR..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

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Published on October 25, 2015 13:23

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