The Chicago Sun-Times puts up an interesting piece on the history of gay cowboy cinema. Sure, gay cowboy drama and award-darling Brokeback Mountain may be the first openly gay cowboy flick, but many more have subtly ridden off into the pink sunset before it. A sample entry:

"THE WILD BUNCH" (1969)

The couple: Gang leader Pike Bishop (William Holden) and Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan).

The scene: The boys have their last night together in a segment cut from the original but available on the director's-cut DVD. As Stephen Hunter from the Washington Post described it, "they do the most intimate thing men can do together and not be called gay, and that's go whoring."

The subtext: Hunter again: "Like Ennis and Jack in 'Brokeback Mountain,' they have no vocabulary to discuss what they feel." They even recall the evening at the same moment. If one of them had the other's shirt, he'd sniff it.

Wow! Now we have a whole new slew of Westerns to add to our Netflix queue. We always thought Paul Newman and Robert Redford were WAY to good looking to be straight in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Now, all we need is to hear about the “off-screen” fireworks between the two. That thought could keep us occupied for a while if you know what we mean.

First gay cowboy movie? We reckon not [Chicago Sun-Times]