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This collection of ground-breaking articles examines problems romance presents in the American Western. Looking a range of films, this book offers readers important and challenging insights into the complicated nature of love and the versatile frontier narrative that address key social, political, and ethical components of the Western genre.

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Virgins, Widows, and Whores: The Bride Pool of John Wayne´s Westerns; H.M.Lewis Just a Woman After All? Gender Dynamics in the Westerns of Barbara Stanwyck; A.P.Nelson Violence, Vixens and Virgins: Noir-like Women in the Stewart/Mann Westerns; D.B.Cutshaw From Whore to Madonna: Female Subjectivity in Once Upon a Time in the West; A.Gazzaniga Reverse Transvestism and the Classic Hero: The Ballad of Little Jo and the Archetypal Western (fe)male; V.Piturro ´Wild´ Women: Interracial Romance on the Western Frontier; C.J.Miller Paladin Plays the Field: Have Gun Will Travel and the Erotic Domestic of the 1950s; E.L.Mock The melancholy couple in Winchester ´73; P.Falconer Outlaws, Buddies, and Lovers: The Sexual Politics of Calamity Jane and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; F.Pheasant-Kelly Horse Power: Equine Alliances in the Western; S.Hockenhull A French Unsettlement of the Frontier: Love and the threatened American dream in Heaven´s Gate; L.Cox Saddle Pals Eurostyle and the Absence of Love in the Karl-May Westerns; R.Spindler ´When you side with a man, you stay with him!´: The Importance of Philia in Sam Peckinpah´s The Wild Bunch; S.Matheson

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"As the essays in this volume demonstrate, it is love that truly conquered the American frontier. The cinematic West draws its life from tales of passion and heartbreak, sacrifice and betrayal. Matheson is to be congratulated on crafting a volume that illustrates the complexities of cowboy love - a force that, much like the railroad, tamed the wilderness but left deep scars in its path. I highly recommend this collection as an excellent example of the ´film and history´ method associated with the eponymous scholarly journal." - Peter C. Rollins, filmmaker and Emeritus Regents Professor, Oklahoma State University, USA

"Sue Matheson´s Love in Western Film and Television: Lonely Hearts and Happy Trails certainly ranks among the handful of most important studies of the Western genre. Well-written, superbly researched, insightful, and wonderfully entertaining, Matheson´s impressive book explores a topic richly deserving (and woefully lacking) in the scholarly analysis of popular Westerns." - Gary Hoppenstand, editor, Journal of Popular Culture

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