Well I thought I was done with this blog but then after watching 'Garden of Evil' through over the course of about a week (it doesn't help when you keep falling asleep!) I got to musing about the similarities between Westerns and what we know of Ancient Greek theatre. Not a huge amount of similarities, maybe, but I think there are some.
First and most obvious is the stripped-down cast. It's not that they were short of folk who could go on stage and perform in 5th century BC but there were rules, and these rules limited the number of main speaking parts to two; a bit later on, to three. (There's some scholarly debate about that as I'm sure you can imagine, but let's keep it simple, here).
From the plays I've read the characters are what we might think of as stereotypes, though try to imagine that with the pejorative overlay the word has acquired with more modern usage. You have the doomed, tragic hero. You have the Woman. In a comedy you have the Fool. Each starring character has his fatal flaw of course, which is what ultimately leads to his destruction - Widmark's character Mike Latimer makes reference to this in 'Run for the Sun'. And other than your starring characters, the Greeks had the Chorus, who danced and sang but who also occasionally entered into dialogue with the main guy, providing background information and asking the questions that we, the audience want answered. You might think of them as the ancient version of a narrator or continuity announcer.
Lastly for the sake of this blog, because it's not a scholarly treatise, just the musings of someone that happens to like Westerns and the plays of Ancient Greece, you have the person of the Messenger, the person who comes on and who changes the whole course of the action. In Oedipus, for example, it's a shepherd who reveals that Oeidpus isn't the son of the king he thought he was nor the son of a shepherd either (sorry for any spoilers, folks).
So having watched Garden of Evil pretty thoroughly, let's start there with the sterotypes.
You couldn't really get a more stripped-down cast. There are three main characters and five that hang together pretty much all the way through. There's what might laughably be called a crowd in the bar of Puerto Miguel at the very start, and a crowd of bloodthirsty Indians at the end (more stereotyping) but really all the action is focused on this handful of people who have to get to know each other, just as we have to get to know them. And if you want to talk stereotypes, just look at this picture: -
From left to right: The Lawman, the Woman, the Gambler, the Mexican and the Lowlife.
The Lawman - well Hooker confesses to having been a sheriff in a previous life, but it's not just that, more that he quietly exerts his authority throughout and the others accept it. He's prepared to use violence if necessary and is handy with fists and guns, but prefers dialogue to resolve conflict. Naturally, Westerns are usually set in pretty lawless places along the emerging frontier, so nearly every Western features one somewhere - a sheriff, a Marshall or just a gunfighter seeking justice. Sometimes they'll put a twist on it and make the lawman a baddie - you might think Jake Wade fills that role; he's certainly conflicted to say the least. And as for Bull Harper in Last Wagon ....
The Woman. And what a woman. In the bar, Fiske draws a card, a Red Queen, and in she walks in person. An extraordinary woman with an extraordinary proposition (in this of course, she also fills the role of Messenger, changing the course of the action). A woman who also fills the film noir role of a femme fatale; someone who will make men literally willing (in her husband's bitter words) "to work and fight and even die" for her. And indeed she is the fatal woman, leading nearly all of them to their early deaths. Surely Leah Fuller deserves the title of The Woman even more than did Sherlock Holmes' Irene Adler. Westerns are pretty light on decent female lead roles and it's great to see a good, strong character like this one.
Then Fiske, the Gambler. Not a new role for Widmark; but Fiske is a bit nicer to know and more of a rounded character than Dude of Yellow Sky. In Warlock the role is filled by Tom Morgan and in Cheyenne Autumn (a far more realistically crowded film) by James Stewart as Wyatt Earp. Not every western has gambling though it's more often there than not, even if only in the background, and the idea of playing dice (or chess) with Death certainly isn't new. Or cards, in Garden. I'm reasonably sure that the card Fiske draws to beat Hooker's seven is the same Red Queen he drew at the start of the film.
Daley is harder to piegonhole; I've called him a lowlife (because he is) but his role is usually that of the common man, the cowboys, the miners, the wagon drivers, the bartenders, usually one with a chip on their shoulder or a grudge to avenge. He's usually a coward, dislikes or hates the hero and will throw a spanner into the works just because he can. Consider Rebel, the barman in Backlash, appearing to work for Bonniwell but unwilling to help Slater find him if it's to go and work for him, or Ridge in Last Wagon.
The Mexican; or the indigenous character, the cohort. This was certainly an interesting role, having someone that couldn't speak English in a supporting role. Naturally he's brave and tough as well as slightly dangerous and unpredictable. (In Garden, he also seems to be the only one who doesn't fall in love with Leah.)
As for the Chorus, who is there to fill the role in Garden but the only English-speaking character left - John Fuller? He is the one around whom the whole premise of the film revolves, and yet he's the outsider, he's not party to what's been going on between his wife and this bunch of outcasts. But he observes and he comments and in so doing, fleshes out the situation for us, the viewer. He also provides someone different for the rest to bounce some dialogue off, something Fiske could have done with in at least one of his early conversations with Hooker which sounds downright rhetorical, because when he asks a question, he then has to answer it himself.
So that's it, a fairly brief summary. There'll always be villains, whether they're Persians or Spartans, or Indians or Mexicans, or Russians or Arabs or the English, and there'll always be a brave hero willing to stand against evil and hopefully get through with his life intact and end up with the girl - unless of course he's the doomed tragic character who has set his feet to the path of destruction and must follow it to its ultimate conclusion (Clint Hollister, Dude, Frank Patch, Jim Bowie to name but a few)... but they all do it so well, don't they? And that's why we love them.
