Wed 21 Jan 2015
GOLD MEDAL Western Review: WILLIAM HEUMAN – The Range Buster.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Reviews , Western Fiction[8] Comments
WILLIAM HEUMAN – The Range Buster. Gold Medal 429. Paperback original; 1st printing, 1954; 2nd printing, Gold Medal 944, 1959.
Sometimes it is difficult to find a hook with which to start a review, and this is one of those times. The Range Buster is a totally average western, but one that starts with a bang — Cole Faraday, fresh up from Texas to claim his dead brother’s ranch, is shot at from the house by someone inside with a rifle — and never really lets up until it’s over, with Cole having just prevailed over the bad guys — at great physical damage to himself — and getting the girl he never knew he was dreaming of all those years he was making a living alone.
What he finds that he’s walking into is a situation that always seems to arise when two big ranchers are competing for a smaller piece of land that has steady source of water — his brother’s — and starting a feud that threatens all of the other smaller ranchers at their mercy down the valley.
Cole Faraday, skilled with a gun as well as mightily laconic with words, could be played by Clint Eastwood. The owner of one of the big ranches could be played by Lee J. Cobb, while the boss of the Pine Tree, Thalia Mulvane — a tough-minded but outwardly honest woman — well, if Ava Gardner ever was a blonde, she’d fit the part perfectly.
Playing the gunhand who seems to have a grudge against Cole from the start, none other than Lee Marvin. The other girl, young and wholesome, whom Cole is attracted to, perhaps Gloria Talbot, while Stub McKay, the only remaining cowboy on Cole’s brother’s ranch, well why not Stubby Kaye
Besides a western, and a solid one at that, William Heuman’s story is also both a romance (see above) and a detective story. Who killed Cole’s brother, or rather, perhaps, who was he working for? The result is not spectacular in any sense, but as you can tell, it might make for a fairly good movie.
Bibliographic Notes: William Heuman’s career in writing westerns began with the pulp magazines, circa 1944, but when the pulps began to die out and Gold Medal came along, offering writers a new option, the paperback original, Heuman jumped on board almost immediately.
Here’s tentative list of his work for Gold Medal:
Hunt the Man Down, 1951.
Roll the Wagons, 1951.
Red Runs the River, 1951.
Secret of Death Valley, 1952.
Keelboats North, 1953.
On to Santa Fe, 1953.
The Range Buster, 1954.
Ride for Texas, 1954.
Wagon Train West, 1955.
Stagecoach West, 1957.
Violence Valley, 1957.
Heller from Texas, 1957.
Soon after he started writing for Gold Medal, Heuman also began writing westerns for Ace and Avon. Eventually his westerns started coming out in hardcover for Avalon, with many of those ending up in paperback as well.
January 21st, 2015 at 10:14 pm
Gloria Talbot, wholesome? Naah…how about Jena Engstrom?
January 21st, 2015 at 10:20 pm
Jena Engstrom? A little too wholesome, maybe not enough spunk. But maybe I don’t know her well enough.
January 21st, 2015 at 11:25 pm
Sorry, I can’t think of Gloria Talbot without aliens of some sort, and the western I remember her most for was a comedic episode of THE WESTERNER where Brian Keith and John Dehner are vying for a nude painting Dehner did of her that a bar owner wants to pay a $1000 for and she in turn wants the painting and Dehner to both hang at her hacienda.
I don’t think I read any of the books above, but I can’t say I wouldn’t. I thought that actually described a fairly good generic western — sort of a Johnny Liddel of westerns. Sometimes you just want to go through the motions without hitting any distracting bumps in genre fiction.
Ava Gardner as a blonde though. Heresy. Anyway, my aunt closely resembled Gardner (Howard Hughes even hired her as his secretary because of it) and she went blonde once and it was not a good idea. Some things are best left as nature made them.
January 21st, 2015 at 11:34 pm
You may be right about Ava Gardner as a blonde. What happened was that when the character showed up in the book, I pictured here right away as Ava Gardner, then realized later on that she (the character) was a blonde. So here I was stuck in my mind with an image that I couldn’t get rid of. Luckily I found that one on the Internet that I linked to, and that made me happy.
As for Gloria Talbot, I know she hung out with aliens a lot, but I’d watch her in any movie she is in, including any that I happen to be casting.
January 22nd, 2015 at 9:31 am
I like Heuman’s work a lot. All of his pulp stories I’ve read have been very good. David’s comparison of his work with Frank Kane’s is right on the mark. Just good solid generic Westerns, similar to those of Dean Owen, Giles Lutz, William Hopson, etc.
January 22nd, 2015 at 1:24 pm
I’ve never read any of Heuman’s stories in the pulp magazines, even though I must have quite a few that he’s in. I believe this is only the second of his paperback novels I’ve read, the other being HELLER FROM TEXAS. As time goes on, I hope to read more. Problem is, of the other western writers whose work you compared his to, they’re all Gold Medal writers too, and everybody has to wait their turn.
January 27th, 2015 at 3:00 pm
Like James, I’ve liked Heuman’s westerns, especially the Gold Medal ones. Sure, they’re generic, but they’re well written and pack a punch.
January 27th, 2015 at 3:55 pm
In my project of reading as many Gold Medal paperbacks as I can this year, I’m sure that I’ll get to another of Heuman’s westerns. Trouble is, there are maybe a thousand Gold Medals that qualify as potential reading matter, and so far, I’ve done what, only three this month? I gotta pick up the pace.