When one talks about western movies, a set of specific imagery, cultural and gender politics, and generic conventions come to mind: the individual rugged male hero, Calvary rides, and epic southwestern vistas. While apparent across many western films, this iconography acquired added weight through its presence in significant film studies, such as Jim Kitses’s oft-reprinted list of western motifs based upon binaries he believed were central to the genre (individual/ community, nature/culture, West/East, etc.) that all stem from one foundational opposition: the wilderness versus civilization. While significant to the development of various strains of film studies, from auteur studies to semiotics, these genre studies privileged the same kind of western films: the exceptional films made by a small group of auteurs. In fact, Kitses’s taxonomy, often applied to the entire genre, was created to address the work of only a handful of auteur directors. Yet, the western film genre is far more varied and contradictory than we may immediately assume and exceeds any simple formulation of its contents. Nowhere is this more evident than in the B-westerns of the 1940s. In this chapter, I will discuss six western films directed by Wallace W. Fox over the course of one year that illustrate a different western tradition: one that challenges and complicates the conventional notions of westerns through progressive themes that emphasize the importance of collective civic action against corrupt institutions. Through their repeated motifs and themes, these films illustrate a neglected and richer history of the genre at a time of cultural and industrial change.

Additionally, while examining Fox’s films sheds light on a neglected tradition of western genre filmmaking, his films also suggest the influence of another tradition: his Native American heritage. Fox was a Chickasaw working in the genre most tied to Native (mis)representation. On the surface, these films, in their plots and motifs, resemble other B-westerns of his era; however, taking his Native background into account when reading his films, specifically his use of recycled footage from other films, suggests a subtle Indigenous critique of the foundational assumptions of the genre, and foreshadows an approach of contemporary Indigenous media makers. Revisiting Fox as a genre director provides us with a richer view of the western genre. Reclaiming Fox as a Native filmmaker presents new possibilities in what we consider to be Indigenous film and suggests a longer lineage of Native filmmaking approaches.