From the very beginnings of American cinema the Western has been a central genre, as the hazardous lives of the settlers, their conflict with Native Americans, the lawless frontier towns, outlaws, and cattle rustlers all found their way into the new medium of film. This book provides a basic work of reference for all the major directors and noteworthy films of the genre. It discusses how folk heroes and heroines such as Jesse and Frank James, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley were all eagerly seized on by filmmakers, and how writers, from the very popular to the very literary—from Zane Grey to Owen Wister and James Fennimore Cooper—were plundered for storylines. The great Hollywood directors are all here, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Michael Curtiz, Sam Peckinpah, and Henry Hathaway, as well as great stars such as John Wayne, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Russell, and Clint Eastwood. Learn how the Western became popular worldwide by offering escape, adventure, stunning landscapes, and romance, as well universal themes such as survival, law and order, defense of family, and dreams of a new and better world.