Taliesin-of-Tomorrow

(With apologies to Horst Wessel) Though comrades fall Run o'er by trucks with forward trac-tion They march with us, In spirit for the fight! Clear up the streets The ani-mal pro-tests rule Clear out the streets The evil trucks are gone The call to arms is no longer to be sounded! For the pigs, the pigs live evermore! The call to arms is no longer to be sounded! For the pigs, the pigs live evermore!

First paragraph – foundational question- “To what extent were Western films during Hollywoods golden age dominated by franchise intellectual properties owned by specific companies?” Nowadays everything today seems to be sequels and remakes; IPs, especially superhero, comic book or genre pictures crowd out everything else. The counter argument - Western films dominated previous decades. counter-counter – Westerns were not IP based like superheros Were they? The question sparks my curiosity. My conclusion – from 1930-1959 approx. 20% to 25% of western feature films were part of franchises, by my definition. Even though this is less than half the total amount of total films, many of these franchises also prospered in the ancillary industries – comics, radio, television and merchandising and even help to create the business strategies of modern IP owners (Red Ryder). Part II, definitions For my purposes we are using the imdb system to measure feature length American Westerns.