The western is the most popular and enduring of Hollywood forms. It is one embodiment of a traditional theme in American culture: the West as both Garden of natural dignity and innocence and also as treacherous Desert resisting the gradual sweep of agrarian progress and community values. Westerns have in common: a) history, America's past; b) themes, such as law versus the gun; c) archetypes, incorporating elements of romance, comedy, tragedy, morality play, and d) icons, symbols which have developed through time, such as the raising of a church in the wilderness. The westerns of three important directors, Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, and Sam Peckinpah, are little studied. Typical of Mann is that his heroes are overreachers, extreme men stretching out beyond their reach as if possessed. For Boetticher, the western offers a look at an archaic world where the ambiguous drama of individualism can be played out. Peckinpah's films center on the quest for personal identity. (JK)