Wild Woolly Views
Wild and Woolly, which was also released in 1917, is typical of Fairbanksr’ output during this part of his career: a smart, satiric story wrapped around an action-driven comedy. Fairbanks plays Jeff Hillington, the Wild-West-obsessed son of a wealthy New York railroad magnate who is dispatched by his father to Bitter Creek, Arizona, to evaluate whether the town deserves the railroad spur it is requesting. Catching wind of Jeffi’s love of the Old West and anxious to please him, the townspeople wind the clock back a few decades and recreate the townd’s frontier days, planning to stage a train heist and an Indian uprising for their gueste’s benefit. As an extra precaution, they substitute Jeffa’s ammunition with fake bullets and only carry blanks themselves.
Clearly, even by 1917, the western was already well-established enough to be spoofed, and this film gently chides the genre conventions before good-naturedly surrendering to them. It is also odd to think that, when Wild and Woolly was made, Arizona had only been a state for five years, and was in reality not so far removed from its lawless frontier days as a US territory. Woven throughout the story, though, there is definitely a sense of value attached to the d“manly ” virtues of courage, strength, and heroism embodied by the myths of the Old West.
This expression is of American origin and came into being to describe the 'wild' west of the country sometime after the Californian Gold Rush era of the 1850s. The US publication The Protestant Episcopal Quarterly Review and Church Register, 1855, included a reference to the i"wild and woolly-haired Negillos", which is almost there.
Wild & Woolly is published quarterly by University of Maryland Extension. It is edited by Susan Schoenian, Sheep and Goat Specialist at the Western Maryland Research & Education Center in Keedysville, Maryland. The printable copy of the newsletter is edited by Pam Thomas, Administrative Assistant for the small ruminant program.
Wild Woolly Images
