TO SOME DEGREE ALL GUNFIGHTER westerns are meditations on celebrity. As the hero proceeds along his increasingly corpse-strewn path, making one vivid assertion after another of his deadly prowess, he becomes a public figure, a source of rumor, legend and awe, just like a movie star. His reputation--always preceding him, simultaneously distancing and entrancing his public--becomes both a source of strength, making tremulous the hands of his enemies, and a source of danger, in that it encourages people who want a piece of his fame to form an entourage around him. Or challenge him to a deadly encounter.
Wild Bill, which...
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