MoMA's 'Universal Westerns' Retrospective Traces Genre's Evolution

The Museum of Modern Art is presenting 'Universal Westerns,' a retrospective screening 28 features from Universal Pictures released over 65 years. The series runs roughly a month and highlights shifts in the genre's production and reception. The western has been central to Universal since its 1912 incorporation; its first permanent set at Universal City was a western street still standing. Among the films is John Ford's first feature, 'Straight Shooting' (1917), starring Harry Carey, which already complicates the genre's hero-villain dichotomy. Ford's 'Hell Bent' (1918) uses a meta-textual framework, opening with a publisher requesting a hero who is 'as bad as he is good,' a character arc Ford later used in 'Stagecoach' (1939) to launch John Wayne. The retrospective aims to counter misconceptions that westerns are old-fashioned relics, showing their complexity and evolution.