Historic Replicas

Among the movie genres, Westerns are one of the most classic and most popular. Most take place during the latter half of the 19th century in the area that became known as the American Old West or Wild West, but several well known western films, including Vera Cruz, The Wild Bunch, The Proposition, Quigley Down Under, and others have been set in Canada, Mexico and even in Australia. The earliest Western movies were filmed entirely on set, and utilized canvas paintings as Old West backdrops and other Western replicas as props.

The primary theme of these films is often how created but primitive ways of life and routine conflict when confronted with social change, most commonly depicted by conflicts between settlers and ranchers or natives and the coming industrial revolution. This theme of the modern impinging on the established is represented in most films of the genre. The set-up order of things was continuously changing for real Old West settlers as well, since they started to construct towns and farms the land of the new frontier, and this sense of being at the forefront of a new age is often found in many Westerns as well.

Marinara sauce, meet Tex-Mex. The rise of the “Spaghetti Western” genre in the 1960s was unlikely as it was immediately successful. Led by influential film director Sergio Leone and embodied by American movie star Clint Eastwood, the genre married Western tropes with an Italian visual sensibility. It just so happened that the Andalusia region of Spain bore a striking resemblance to parts of the American Southwest, so the director took advantage and saved big on production costs.

Spaghetti Westerns subverted a few of the conventions of traditional Westerns as created in Hollywood films of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. For example, rather than casting the hero in a pure light and the villain in an evil one, all characters dealt with moral struggles and were painted with shades of gray. Some of the authentic western guns the actors used have been emulated in the form of historic replicas.

My friend and I are making a parody of spaghetti westerns and we needed some realistic looking props. Despite the fact that we’re shooting in black-and-white, we still need to have realistic looking western guns for the movies climatic ending.

We scoured the internet and found a great website where we were able to purchase beautifully made replica guns and now we can shoot the scene without having to resort to drawn on and modified water guns!

One of the best ways to experience the culture of your city is by patronizing the local theaters. Even if the institution is small, these theaters always seem to have a way of attracting the talented individuals of a city. One of the easiest ways, however, for a play to be successful is to make the audience forget they are watching a play at all. To that end, the set designs and props should be so realistic that audience members can actually forget they are sitting in a theater at all.

If you’re involved in your local theater production and you’re trying to put together a period piece, don’t forget the importance of these props. Especially when it comes to dramatic fight scenes, make sure the highly choreographed routine isn’t nullified by having cheesy guns or swords. Invest in high quality replica guns, and you will help the audience buy into the false sense of reality you’ve created onstage.

Yesterday I wrote a little about the Louisiana Purchase.  For most people, this marks the beginning of the Wild West era.  Historians, however, use the term  “Old West” to refer to a different time and place.  The “Old West” describes the original spreading out from the Atlantic colonies in New England to the Alleghenies in Pennsylvania.  That happened in the Early American/colonial period between 1676 and 1763, and included western New England, New York State, and part of Ohio. These early pioneers were every bit as daring and courageous as their covered-wagon cousins a century later.  They had to work for it every step of the way; in fact, expanding one hundred miles from the coast took nearly one hundred years of fighting and chopping down trees!  When we think of colonial America, the picture in our heads looks pretty different from the Wild West.  The people in these times were actually pretty similar, though.  Pioneers throughout history have been searching for a better life.  The New England frontier was dangerous, but settlers on its edge were always the people least satisfied with life in more established areas.  Governors sold vast tracts of territory to eager settlers, and while New England had begun as a religious settlement with a strict moral code, its values began to change.  Settlers began to think about more than home, hearth, and heaven; in time, the men and women they most respected were the ones who took risks and got rich.  This overlooked period of American history did a lot to shape the Wild West spirit of adventure we all know and love.

In the rough and tumble days of the frontier West, lawmen and outlaws alike were only as good as the guns they carried. Slowly but surely, word would spread about the great men and women of the day, and over time, they became legends.  People on both sides of the law were known by their firearms, and in many cases, their weapons became priceless collector’s items (the one Robert Ford used to kill Jesse James was sold at auction for $350,000!).  One gun stands out from the rest, though, and that’s the Colt. 

Founder Samuel Colt had a simple yet unprecedented design: the automatic revolving chamber, which for the first time allowed gunfighters to fire up to six rounds without reloading.  It became the most famous of all Wild West guns, and won many a famous battle.  Billy the Kid favored the .41 Colt Thunderer, a double-action revolver that could fire without having to pull the hammer before each shot (another Colt innovation).  It gave him a distinct advantage over opponents with less advanced firearms.  Famous lawman Bat Masterson used a Colt .45, and did much to enhance the weapon’s reputation.  Outlaws Frank and Jesse James used them too; they are among the greatest figures of the Old West, and for a time, the Colt was synonymous with their names.  It’s no wonder that the Colt western revolver is the most famous weapon of our frontier past. 

When you watch the old Western movies, you always see their guns and rifles that look almost real.  It is very hard to find real western rifles like those used in the old wild, wild west.  So the closest you will bet to handling these rifles is by getting replicas.  There are companies out there that specialize in making replicas of old weapons and the rifle is one of the favorites.

The most recognizable and popular is the Winchester lever-action rifle.  It is distinctly American, well-crafted and widely used as immortalized by Annie Oakley and other popular heroes of the West.  Other rifles from Europe came to America but the Winchester never lost its grip.  John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart even helped its popularity more by using them in their films.  It truly is an American classic.

One of the most famous of all Wild West bounty hunters was Charlie Siringo, a bold and adventurous detective for the famous Pinkerton Agency in Chicago.  Born in 1855, Siringo worked from an early age as a cowboy in Texas, before relocating to Chicago and joining the agency in 1886.  In the course of a twenty-year career, Siringo traveled tens of thousands of miles, using his Western guns to track rustlers and bank robbers as far away as Alaska and Mexico City.  His tactics would have a lasting influence on modern detective work; he was one of the first enforcers to successfully work undercover.  He famously infiltrated Butch Cassidy’s gang of train robbers, and later the Western Federation of Miners in Idaho.  He gathered enough evidence to charge their secretary Big Bill Haywood with the murder of Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. Siringo was initially a strong supporter of labor, but changed his tune after spending time in their inner circle, calling them bloodthirsty and dangerous. 

Bounty hunters aren’t often envisioned as heroes, but it is a testament to his character and commitment to justice that Siringo protected Haywood from a lynch mob after he was acquitted. Siringo immortalized himself in two books about his adventures, A Cowboy Detective and Further Adventures of a Cowboy Detective, and made the bounty hunter an indispensable part of American folklore and western replicas.

The 19th century was a time of near-anarchy on the American Western frontier, often lawless and dangerous.  Local sheriffs were adept at the use of Wild West pistols, and did their best to track down offenders and maintain order, but the odds were stacked against them.  They couldn’t pursue offenders across state lines, and communication with other lawmen could take weeks.  Even short trips away from their communities meant leaving them largely defenseless, and could result in chaos.  The government granted special rights to an enterprising group of citizens:  the bounty hunters.  The Supreme Court made them a part of the legal system in 1872, and gave them unprecedented leeway in capturing criminals.  They could track them in different states, break into their houses without due process, and they could do so on Sunday, the Sabbath, which, amazing as it may seem, regular law enforcement officials could not. The rise of the bounty hunters prompted the ever-popular “Wanted:  Dead or Alive” poster that lives on in Wild West replicas.  It was a dangerous profession, to be sure, but with cunning and skill, the bounty hunters were in a position to make enormous profits.