The Gunslingers Of 69

In 1969--the counter-cultural moment when Easy Rider triggered a "youthquake" in audience interests--Westerns proved more dominant than ever at the box office and at the Oscars. It was a year of masterpieces--The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Once Upon a Time in the West and True Grit. Robert Redford achieved star status. Old-timers like John Wayne, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum appeared in two Westerns apiece. Raquel Welch took on the mantle of Queen of the West. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin tried their hand at a musical (Paint Your Wagon). New directors like George Roy Hill reinvigorated the genre while veteran Sam Peckinpah at last found popular approval. Themes included women's rights, social anxieties about violence and changing attitudes of and towards African-Americans and Native Americans. All of the 40-plus Westerns released in the U.S. in 1969 are covered in depth, offering a new perspective on the genre.

In 1969--the counter-cultural moment when Easy Rider triggered a "youthquake" in audience interests--Westerns proved more dominant than ever at the box office and at the Oscars. It was a year of masterpieces--The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Once Upon a Time in the West and True Grit. Robert Redford achieved star status. Old-timers like John Wayne, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum appeared in two Westerns apiece. Raquel Welch took on the mantle of Queen of the West. Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin tried their hand at a musical (Paint Your Wagon). New directors like George Roy Hill reinvigorated the genre while veteran Sam Peckinpah at last found popular approval. Themes included women's rights, social anxieties about violence and changing attitudes of and towards African-Americans and Native Americans. All of the 40-plus Westerns released in the U.S. in 1969 are covered in depth, offering a new perspective on the genre.

Hollywood in the 1960s walked a tightrope between boom and bust. Yet the decade spawned many of the greatest films ever made, saw the advent of the spy thriller, the revival of science fiction and horror, and represented the Golden Era of the 70mm roadshow. Blockbusters like Lawrence of Arabia and The Sound of Music shared marquees with low-budget hits such as Lilies of the Field and Easy Rider. New stars emerged--Steve McQueen, Sidney Poitier, Barbra Streisand, Sean Connery, Faye Dunaway, Clint Eastwood and Dustin Hoffman. Veteran directors like Billy Wilder and William Wyler were joined by the post-war generation of Robert Aldrich and Stanley Kramer, and the new wave of Stanley Kubrick and John Schlesinger. This book explores a period when filmmakers embraced revolutionary attitudes to sexuality, violence and racism, and produced a bewildering list of critically acclaimed classics that remain audience favorites.

Western outlaws terrorized the country during the late 1800s and early 1900s, robbing stagecoaches, banks, trains and merchants. While they were fearsome, some became folk heroes and legends. The killer of Jesse James was vilified as a coward, while the man he killed was worshipped by man even though he had killed several men. Billy the Kid's reputation outgrew his actual deeds. Legend says he killed 21 men in his 21-year life time. The actual number if believed to be five. The west's fastest gun was not an outlaw. He wa an FBI agent called "Jelly" Bryce. He could drop a coin from shoulder height, draw and shoot it before it reached his waist.

"Over the last 60 years, more has been done in Oakland to reform policing than any other American city-and yet, Oakland has failed to reign in the tendencies of its police to prey upon, rather than protect, its communities. Why is this, and what does it mean both for Oakland, and for America? THE RIDERS COME OUT AT NIGHT will be the first authoritative account of the Oakland Police Department's troubling history of violence, secrecy, and mismanagement, and the city's unfulfilled promise to implement constitutional policing. By examining cases of police violence and corruption in one of America's most iconic cities, the Polk Award-winning investigative duo, Ali Winston & Darwin BondGraham, illustrate why criminal justice reform has proven an elusive goal for the entire nation. Their investigation will introduce readers to "The Riders," a band of corrupt cops running riot through the city, and to Keith Batt, a "fresh out of the academy" rookie assigned to patrol with the Riders. Winston & BondGraham deftly maneuver between the worlds of intransigent police culture to City Hall, where a lack of political will to see through reforms (and local prosecutors who failed to hold officers accountable) conspire to keep these cycles of brutality in place. Through never-before-seen reporting and interviews, the authors paint a portrait of a city-and nation-in crisis, and the steps needed to finally, once and for all, effectively address policing in the Unites States"--

Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Belle Starr, Wyatt Earp, the Younger Gang, the Dalton-Doolin Gang and Bat Masterson—these real-life lawmen and lawbreakers have been the basis of so many Hollywood Westerns that it has become difficult to discover where the truth ends and the legend begins. All actually became larger-than-life characters during their lifetimes, as contemporary newspapers and books embellished their deeds for their own purposes. But it was in Hollywood that the line between reality and myth was completely blurred. Each chapter-length entry here first focuses on the known facts of the people’s lives and how each became truly legendary during their lifetimes. The reality is then compared to how they have been portrayed in the movies.

True stories of the wild and dangerous world of the Arizona Territory—includes photos. A refuge for outlaws at the close of the 1800s, the Arizona Territory was a wild, lawless land of greedy feuds, brutal killings and figures of enduring legend. These gunfighters included heroes as well as killers, and some were considered both. Bandit Pearl Hart committed one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies in the country, and James Addison Reavis pulled off the most extraordinary real estate scheme in the West. But with fearless lawmen like C.P. Owens and George Ruffner at hand, swift justice was always nearby. In this collection of true stories, Arizona’s official state historian and celebrated storyteller Marshall Trimble brings to life the rough-and-tumble characters from the Grand Canyon State’s most terrific tales of outlawry and justice.

When tonic sellers Fergal O'Brien and Randolph McDougal decide to settle in Destiny, they are hoping the new railroad will make Destiny a boomtown, but instead the railroad only brings outlaws and gunslingers, forcing the men to take the law into their own hands.