Western Wednesdays: ‘The Quick and the Dead’

If you’re hearing the ominous sound of clinking spurs, hissing rattlesnakes, and squeaking saloon doors, well, you’re probably crazy. But it also means it’s  Western Wednesday, and you’re just really excited!

I’m afraid I have to be a bit of a no-good yellow cheat this week due to a previous embargo engagement with one Mr. J. W. Hex.  (He just rides into town so rarely ….) but it never hurts to visit an old favorite, especially one that’s as much fun as The Quick and the Dead.

But first, I have to take you back into a sepia-tinted time of 1995.  I was 13, and I hated Westerns. I was all about sci-fi and fantasy, and no history was interesting to me unless it was medieval and European.   Westerns were a dusty, dull genre where everyone just drank whiskey,  had silly shoot-outs, went on cattle drives,  and visited brothels.

My family rented The Quick and the Dead, and my world was rocked. This Western starred a woman — a mysterious woman with no name.  She rarely spoke, and when she did it was always snarly.  She smoked a cigar.   It was the most original character I had ever seen. If more Westerns were like this, I thought, I would like them all.