Teen western violence

Violence in movies involving kids is upsetting to right-minded adults, but it must be a dream come true for child actors. Perhaps for boys more than girls. That's what they went into acting for.

I just watched an episode of The Rifleman. A 14-year-old gunslinger comes to town looking to shoot it out with The Rifleman. He was cute in his black clothes with his little gun belt. The Rifleman had killed his Pa a few years earlier.



It must have annoyed Johnny Crawford who was the same age playing the Rifleman's son. Over the years he was held hostage, tied up, kidnapped, knocked unconscious. He's had men come to murder him. But he revealed in one episode that he'd never even fired a gun. His father was the Rifleman and, according to Wikipedia, had killed 101 men over the course of he series, but he made sure his son remained a helpless victim.

A little tough love straightens him out.

The teen gunslinger was played by Billy Hughes. I looked him up in Internet Movie Database. His father was a stuntman by trade. He had a fairly good career as an actor, but he had to return home to Arkansas because of family problems. He died at age 56, the age I am now. I wished I had been like him until I got to that bit of information.