THE VIRGINIAN

   Owen Wister’s novel, published in 1902, is usually considered the prototype for the enormous number of film Westerns and popular Western novels that came after. An instant best seller, the novel captured the American audience’s imagination with its laconic cowboy hero; its romance between the Virginian and Molly the schoolmarm, who comes out West; its end-of-novel showdown between the Virginian and the evil Trampas. Four film versions of The Virginian have been made as well as a television series and a madefor-television movie. All versions include perhaps the most famous line of any Western. When Trampas, over a drink, calls the Virginian “a son of a bitch,” the Virginian whips out his guns and says, “When you call me that, smile!”

   See also COOPER, Gary; CLASSIC WESTERN' FORMULAS; FRENCH CRITICISM; HART, William S.; HORSE (COWBOY HERO’S HORSE) ; ORIGINS OF THE WESTERN; SILENT ERA CINEMA.