Best of the Badmen
(Polecats, Varmits and Desperadoes of Western Films)
Authors: Boyd Magers, Bob Nareau, Bobby Copeland
Forewords by Morgan Woodward, House Peters Jr., Michael Pate and Jan Merlin

 

Here's what Gene Autry Entertainment writes about this comprehensive book:
The measure of how “good” the hero is in a Western film is usually based on how “bad” the villain is. Over the many decades of Western adventures there have been some wonderfully despicable bad guys and you can read all about them in the book Best of the Badmen (Polecats, Varmints, and Desperadoes of Western Films). Extensively researched, the book features complete bios and photos on 315 Western screen heavies from 1930 to the TV era of the 1960s. The authors have also dug up facts and obscure information on the actors that have never been published before. Learn about their real lives as you prepare to boo and hiss them once again!

Just a few of the heavies featured in Best of the Badmen are Roy Barcroft, Harry Woods, Jack Elam, Noah Beery, James Coburn, Yakima Canutt, and Lee Van Cleef. Notable bad guys from Gene Autry Westerns also included are George Chesebro, Charles King, LeRoy Mason, Tris Coffin, Harry Lauter, and Myron Healey.

Here's what a few of them said about playing the bad guy:

Dan Duryea: "You can't make a picture without a villain...it pays well and you last."

Leo Gordon: "Westerns are fundamental...the morality play. There's a good guy and a bad guy. You know which is which. You don't have to go into the psyche to find out his parents were abusive. (And the heavy is) the guy people remember. You get more recoginition."

Neville Brand: "I don't go in thinking he's a villain. The audience might, but the villain doesn't think he's a villain. Even a killer condones what he's done. I just create this human being under the circumstances that are given. I don't think he's a villain. Everybody just condones his own actions."

 

Jack Elam: "In the old days, Rory Calhoun was the hero because he was the hero and I was the heavy because I was the heavy - and nobody cared what my problem was. And I didn't either. I robbed the bank because I wanted the money. I've played all kinds of weirdos but I've never done the quiet, sick type. I never had a problem - other than the fact I was just bad."

 

Hardcover. 352 pages. Black and white photographs. Published without book jacket.