In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Louis L'Amour on Film and Television
  • D. B. Gough
Louis L'Amour on Film and Television. By Ed Andreychuk. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. 196 pages, $49.95.

Despite the immense popularity he enjoyed during his lifetime, Western writer Louis L'Amour has received rather little critical attention since his death in 1988. Bantam, L'Amour's publisher since the early 1960s, released The Louis L'Amour Companion (1994) which mixes book reviews and feature magazine articles about L'Amour with friends' remembrances. Into this dearth of scholarly literature, Ed Andreychuk's Louis L'Amour on Film and Television is certain to become a useful guide to the translations of L'Amour's prose to movies and TV. [End Page 222]

Andreychuk contextualizes L'Amour's literary career within his family history and the history of western authors. He begins the introduction, for instance, by referencing L'Amour's ancestors' participation in the US Army during the Sioux Uprising of 1862, indicating that L'Amour's family history motivated his quest for historical authenticity (which is a dubious claim at best). L'Amour's personal experience as a merchant seaman and World War II veteran are also emphasized. Just as important to L'Amour's development are popular authors such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, and, of course, the western adventure author Zane Grey.

Aside from a brief introduction and epilogue, the book is broken down by decade, from the 1950s to the 2000s. Andreychuk examines each film, television episode, and television series in chronological order. For each entry, he includes a list of credits and cast, the film synopsis, original L'Amour source material (when it is known), the plotline of the source material, and his own commentary on the film or television show. Undoubtedly, Andreychuk's greatest contribution is his attention to detail in these commentaries. He documents well the liberties taken with the source material by filmmakers, and, when L'Amour's novel follows the release of the film, the further development that L'Amour gives characters and plot. His encyclopedic knowledge of L'Amour's work, including his keen eye for the occasional intertextual error, is quite impressive.

The most interesting sections of the book, perhaps not surprisingly, deal with the most famous of the films. In the chapter on the 1950s, the John Wayne picture Hondo (1953) receives the most coverage, with Andreychuk contextualizing it as a lackluster imitator of Shane (1953). In the 1960s, Heller in Pink Tights (1960) and the Oscar-winning How the West Was Won (1962) prove the most useful entries. The latter in particular, on which L'Amour based his novel of the same name, provides a helpful glimpse into L'Amour's process of writing based on previous material. Many of the entries on made-for-TV movies, miniseries, and television episodes, however, fall short. Andreychuk seems more interested in salvaging these films for public memory, especially Sam Elliott's made-for-TV movies of the 1980s and 1990s, than in offering any kind of fruitful analysis of the films or novels.

At a concise 196 pages, Louis L'Amour is a serviceable resource for teachers and scholars looking to include more discussion of popular culture in their thinking about western literature. The inventory is exhaustive, and the text is accompanied by a host of absorbing still photographs from the films and television shows. Unfortunately, Andreychuk's passion for his material does not overcome the lack of any substantive criticism on the filmic representations or literary career of Louis L'Amour. [End Page 223]

D. B. Gough
University of Iowa, Iowa City
...

pdf

Share