Plotting Class: A Marxist Introduction to “Trio” Westerns

Cultural criticism of the Western has needed to develop more complex ways of situating the Western and its myth in the various cultural contexts from which it sprang.

—JohnCawelti

Law, morality, religion, are to [the proletarian] so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

— Marx and Engels

One of the contributing forces in the popularization of the American Western was the proliferation of so-called “B-movies” during the 1930s and 1940s. B-Westerns are, of course, low-budget, speedily produced, black-and-white action films of around one hour in length. They were originally released in theaters (such as the Saturday matinee) as warm-up entertainment preceding the longer headline films, but many were later shown on TV; today they are occasionally shown on networks such as Turner Classic Movies (in North America and Europe) and are also available in inexpensive DVD collections such as those produced by Mill Creek Entertainment. Despite their technologically coarse quality (or perhaps because of this), these dramas, in my opinion, rank among the “true” or “classic” Westerns in the sense that they formulate and portray many of the central ideas, ideals, values, and dilemmas that more polished stories elaborate in more sophisticated and lengthier guises.

Within the B-Western category, one of the most original and exemplary forms of these movies is the “trio” Western. Here the starring protagonists are a closely united group of three valiant cowboys who work together to fight crime and spread justice on the Western frontier through a series of separate stories set in different locations. The most famous trio series are The Three Mesquiteers (Republic Pictures, fifty-one films, 1936–43), The Rough Riders (Monogram Productions, eight films, 1941–42), The Range Busters (Monogram Productions, twenty-four films, 1940–43), The Trail Blazers (Monogram Productions, eight films, 1943–44), The Texas Rangers (Producers Releasing Corp. [PRC], twenty-two films, 1942–45), and The Frontier Marshal (PRC, six films, 1942).¹

Although somewhat marginal in the humanities, there is an ongoing theoretical interest in Westerns, as shown with Jim Kitses and Gregg Rickman’s anthology, The Western Reader (1999); Patrick McGee’s From Shane to Kill Bill: Rethinking the Western (2007); Jennifer McMahon and B. Steve Csaki’s anthology, The Philosophy of the Western (2010); and Marek Paryz and John Leo’s anthology, The Post-2000 Film Western: Contexts, Transnationality, Hybridity (2015). Kitses proposes that if the Western “is no longer the grand narrative, central, totalizing, hegemonic, it has already shown its resiliency and value as a set of codes that can speak with authority to a new millennium” (Introduction). McMahon and Csaki contend that a philosophical examination of Westerns is “an open and promising frontier” because this enables not only “a greater understanding of the discipline of philosophy, but also a fuller appreciation of the origins and continuing influence of the ever-popular genre we know as the western” (Introduction).

While the studies in these books certainly contribute to our understanding of the Westerns they engage, even these critics have continued to pass over the B-Westerns and the trio series. In addition, neither The Western Reader nor The Philosophy of the Western include any sustained and rigorous examinations of Westerns from the Marxist perspective. McGee’s From Shane to Kill Bill offers a much-needed exception in this respect (noting, however, his heavy reliance on the post-Marxism of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri), arguing for “an ideological approach that allows for the examination of how some of the most popular and critically interesting Westerns . . . express ideological tensions that are associated with the class system and the antagonism of class subjects” (xvii). Nonetheless, McGee’s book also does not address B-Westerns. Bearing in mind this blank space in the existing scholarship, this essay concentrates on two of the B-Westerns in the Rough Riders trio series: Forbidden Trails (Bradbury, 1941) and Ghost Town Law (Bretherton, 1942).² By focusing on these stories, my aim is to introduce a Marxist theory and critique of plot, which I simplify as the question of...