Good morning yesterday Life in Singapore

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This is a 1955 photo of King’s Theatre is from the National Archives collection.

The is a picture of a cinema ticket dated 1960. Notice the price of $1 and the words

 

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A movie like Cowboys and Aliens (now showing in the cinemas) should appeal to someone like me who enjoy Westerns and sci-fi, - it seems like the best of these both worlds. But I am not rushing to watch it yet. Somehow, the two (cowboys and aliens) seem at odds with one another. A typical Western runs at a languid pace. The vistas span the horizon, larger than life. The reluctant hero speaks little. And when there is a stand-off, the characters squint and look at each other for a long time... No one wants to be the first to twitch. Even flies get bored and fly away.

The alien movie, on the other hand, thrives on confined spaces often to create a sense of foreboding. Space might be huge but it has no horizon, so you can't really have an affinity for it. If its blackness does not suffocate you, it gets boring after a while. The aliens don't typically move at Usain Bolt pace; they tended to drag their sorry asses along, or whatever appendages the director deem fit to put on them. Aliens that move at a fast pace just look like ants. What's so scary about that? They should hide in tight spaces and surprise you when you least expect. Drooling even, in anticipation. An alien in a Western setting will go beserk. It will soon scurry and hide under a rock. Or cave. Open land spaces scare aliens, why they seldom survive. Unless they happen to crash in an area known as Area 51. Then, they would be kept alive and probed, like Paul.

My love for Westerns grew, I suspect, from watching one too many as a kid. In the 60s and 70s, there were plenty of them on Singapore TV, in mostly black and white. There was Gunsmoke, Rifleman, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Big Valley, Zorro, Bonanza and The Wild Wild West.

I enjoyed them all because even though they were of the same genre, they each offered something different.

In Gunsmoke, James Arness was the fair marshal who treated everybody with equal fairness, even if you were a native Red Indian. That showed a universal respect for human rights and above all, justice should prevail regardless of skin colour. Aside from the Red Indians (who verbalised more than the usual grunt or primal scream), the show gave starring roles to 'coloured' actors. I saw for the first time blacks dressing as successful persons other than just slaves or labourers. It told me that you might be a minority race but if you had the flair and personality, you could be your own person. Another aspect of this show I found intriguing was the character of Kitty. She worked in a saloon and you could guess that she was a call girl of sorts, always having a soft spot for Arness' character, Marshal Matt Dillion. As a kid, you don't see her in any sexual way (ok, maybe in a low-cut buxomy way) but as the companion and good person that she was. She gave a human face to the 'world's oldest profession'. Really, you could be friends with a lady friend without getting married.

As a Western, I found Gunsmoke immensely different, maybe why it ran as long as it did. It didn't treat the Old West as the usual place, that is, as an idealised location of pioneer versus natives, or as a wham-bang shoot-em-up place. Every week, the situations were realistic, the themes adult. Probably the doctor character, Doc Adams, best sums up the show: Not everything in the West is what it seems. That each person might have a backstory he/she is desperately trying to forget. And in arriving at Dodge City, everybody starts with a clean slate. How cool is that?

Another character in Gunsmoke that was quite unforgettable was that of Festus. His whiny and nasal voice was not irritating at all. It is kudos to the actor himself that it came across as one of compassion and folksy humour. From him, I learnt not to judge a person like I would a book cover. Even idiosyncratic people can be fun or relied on in a pinch. He was indeed the most unlikely of deputies.

In Rifleman, I was at first enthralled by that rapid fire weapon. That's how the show always begun. But as you watched on, you realised that Chuck Conners wasn't a man who liked violence. This he would often teach his son. And surprisingly, he seldom if at all carried a six-shooter; quite odd for a Western or a man living in those times. The show brought home to me that it must have been tough growing up without a mom. And that as a single kid with no siblings, you had only your parent as your world. I was glad I had a brother and many sisters - even if we quarreled at times. And in a pioneer setting, having a kin mattered a lot. Although the Chuck Conner's character came across as independent, I realised that to survive, no man can be an island. Chuck Conners also had a face and physique that was hard to forget and he stayed in my memory for a long time. You could say he was my first action hero of man. An angmo hero, that is.

Have Gun - Will Travel, I remember for a variety of reasons. First, the opening song: "Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land. ...Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam. Paladin, Paladin, far far from home." I think it was sung by Pat Boone. Paladin gave me the first indication that I could leave home and make a career of being a gun for hire - albeit for good. And for many days, I would dream of being independent and travelling to troublesome places. This kind of daydreaming happened often after home life got tough (i.e. kenna caned). I made up a business card just like Paladin too, but mine featured a rabbit instead of a chess horse piece. Rabbit was my zodiac sign.

I also drew Paladin's horse emblem on the back of my erasers. Paladin was almost the anti-hero. He read books, showed a preference for salons with nice draperies and also theatre. He might be in a Western but he took time to change into fancy duds whenever an event occasioned it. He liked the good life in an understated way. He was a man who knew what he wanted without being ostentatious. A gentleman of principles with firepower strapped to his leg. Speak softly but carry a big gun, kind of thing.

The Big Valley was a girl's Western. It starred actress Barbara Stanwyck as a feisty ranch owner on TV. At the time, this was quite unusual as many of the stories on TV had women in housewife roles, TV series like Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, and even Bewitched. Stanwyck's character showed that as a widow with children you could still pick up the pieces after a husband's death. She was no lame dame and many a time, she had to fight off greedy businessmen intent on acquiring her ranch legally or otherwise. She battered sexism, she battered intimidation. Stanwyck wasn't the most alluring actress at the time, but in her role, she came across as classy, smart and tough. I think there was a good man who pined for her attention. There always is.

Of all the Westerns, Bonanza was perhaps the most famous. This could be due to its stars, who went on to helm other popular TV shows such as Little House on a Prairie (Michael Landon), Battlestar Galactica (Lorne Green) and Trapper John, MD (Pernell Roberts). I think in Bonanza, especially for boys, one could identify with the kind of personality you were with the sons of the patriarch Ben Cartwright.

Little Joe (Landon) was young and impetuous; Horse (Dan Blocker) was warm and gentle, almost innocent (and girl shy); and Adam (Roberts), was the level-headed one in the family. Bonanza wasn't so much the typical Western but a family drama set in the so-called Wild West.

In Bonanza, the stories were rather predictable. But because of the three boys and what they stood for, they often got into scrapes...usually as a result of protecting the modesty and chastity of a girl they happened to come across. Another popular theme was run-ins with cattle hustlers. The Cartwrights showed lots of chivalry and righteousness, but not always in the most astutest of manners. They seemed to tell me that as boys, it was alright to fight ( as in fisticuffs) for what's right. The sort of things that would appeal to a young, idealistic boy.

Wild Wild West I liked for their inventiveness and quirky humour. Somehow, action men with a sense of humour appealed to me as a kid. You could be starring in the face of death, but without a sense of humour, death came easy. Might as well have that last laugh, was my motto. Later, Roger Moore of James Bond fame reminded me much of Robert Conrad, the lead in Wild Wild West. Both were quite the womanisers too!

Later on, besides Little House on the Prairie, there was another impactful TV series about a pioneering family called Young Pioneers, starring Linda Purl. To me then, as a teenager ravaged by hormones, she was the epitome of the good woman that needed protection: Pretty but chaste, sweet yet tough, willing but weak - what every guy would want in starting a homestead. Well, at least that's how the show portrayed it and how I fantasized about it. Haha....Later, Jodie Foster came onto the scene and I thought how similar the two were in looks and stature.

My favourite Westerns are The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Unforgiven. For alien movies, it is the Alien series and The Thing, which will have a prequel showing in Singapore later this year. Looking at these movies, you can see why a movie like Cowboys and Aliens would not work; not as an actioner anyways.

I think The Thing comes closest to being a Western with its desolate landscape, isolated community and idiosyncratic characters - each with his own emotional and social baggage. There was also the stand-off between the alien (infected people) and those who weren't.

I admit unashamedly that I like Clint Eastwood and his spaghetti Westerns. They remind me of a time when all a man needed was a horse, a blanket, a six-shooter, a canteen and a Stetson. He could go anywhere with these. And yes, a pot of coffee and lots of beans. I have no issue with beans as I can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But only the small beans though. They are less raw and more flavourful. There's a simple recipe to make them more delicious right out of the can!

Like the other boys my age growing up in Geylang, I too had a holster set of toy pistols, bullets and badge. Man, that 'Sheriff' badge was precious, especially if it was metal. Me and my siblings played Cowboys and Indians often. To make our pretend wagon, we would face two of our wooden living room chairs back to back and drape a blanket over. Sometimes, that doubled as a teepee.

We didn't have too many guns nor arrows to pass around, so we would make paper ones or use 'lastic' as our bow and arrows. Lastic was a weapon with paper v-shaped bullets shot off with rubber bands.

As for aliens, we didn't know of any then, only the ones that bothered Ultraman. They were more like pests, actually. Ultraman the pest removal. Who knew!

 

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Firecrackers

 

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