SIX-GUN LAW

The modern Western is so intent on portraying the West as it really was that the end product comes across as a tedious, dimly photographed exercise in grime, gloom and doom. Westerns of the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s may not have been entirely accurate in their depiction of the Old West, but they moved like wildfire and entertained prewar and postwar audiences by the millions. Sadly, the classic American Western no longer exists&mdash,where good guys were good and bad guys were bad. The great Western hero actors of the past have holstered their six-shooters and ridden off into the fading sunset. Author Atkinson looks at the Western career of four of Hollywood&rsquo,s often overlooked cowpokes