[Commlist] New book: The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr

Announcing a new publication from the University of North Texas Press:

*The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr*

 From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again

*Mark Archuleta*

*_https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9798898290030/the-reel-thrilling-events-of-bank-robber-henry-starr/_* 
<https://mngbookshop.co.uk/9798898290030/the-reel-thrilling-events-of-bank-robber-henry-starr/>

*__*

*20% Discount code*: LSMNGUPS26*

*Valid until 11:59 BST, 30^th  June 2026. Discount only applies to the 
MNG website.

"This captivating narrative illuminates the porous boundary between 
banditry and showbiz in the post-frontier period. Alternating between 
brazen bank heists and Hollywood stardom, Henry Starr gave moviegoers 
the authenticity they craved in an increasingly mediated culture. In 
bridging the divide between the Wild West and modernity, Starr and other 
gentleman bandits spawned an entertainment genre that has never lost its 
resonance. Thanks to Mark Archuleta for bringing us the reel 
thing."—Michael J. Hightower, PhD, author of /Banking in Oklahoma Before 
Statehood and Banking in Oklahoma, 1907–2000/

  "We have Mark Archuleta's fantastic book to take us back to that now 
lost era of horse-riding bandits and bank holdups. . . . Everything in 
Starr's life comes to a point when he plans to rob two banks on the same 
day, in the same town, Stroud in Oklahoma. The chapter called 'The 
Stroud Doubleheader' is incredibly well written and lays out every 
aspect of the planned heist in the town. The chapter is also beautifully 
illustrated with a well-drawn map and period photographs to accompany. 
In the end, the heist turns into a full-blown shootout. . . . If you 
love Westerns, you will love it! If you love silent film, you will love 
it! If you love crime films, you will love it! If you love cinema in 
general you will love it!"— /South West Silents/

In 1921 headlines across the country announced the death of Henry Starr, 
a burgeoning silent film star who was killed while attempting to rob a 
bank in Harrison, Arkansas. Cynics who knew the real Starr were not 
surprised. Before becoming a matinee idol, Starr had been the greatest 
bank robber of the horseback bandit era. Born in 1873, Cherokee outlaw 
Henry Starr had survived shootouts and death sentences and lived long 
enough to witness the invention of moving pictures. In 1919, after Starr 
was released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a hotshot movie 
producer convinced him he had the looks, charisma, and “wild and woolly” 
life story to become the next big movie star. When filming began in 
1920, powerful organizations aligned to censor Starr, attempting to 
prevent him from exposing Oklahoma’s corrupt legal system and the 
government’s mistreatment of the Cherokee. The Women's Christian 
Temperance Union pressured theater owners to ban his film, state and 
federal lawmakers drafted legislation to stymie theatrical distribution, 
and police and district attorneys threatened to send him back to prison.

Starr's only film, the biographical movie /A Debtor to the Law/, is lost 
to history, but through surviving memorabilia, newspaper accounts, and 
interviews with people who worked with him on set, author Mark Archuleta 
traces how the reformed gentleman bandit attempted to use the power of 
cinema to reframe his life story and redeem himself in the eyes of the 
public, his family, and the Cherokee Nation. /The Reel Thrilling Events 
of Bank Robber Henry Starr/ is about more than heists and Hollywood 
glamor. Starr’s journey is about the American myth of reinvention, 
recidivism, and the founding of the motion picture industry when racial 
tensions were simmering to a boil.

*Mark Archuleta* is an Emmy-winning screenwriter, journalist, and 
performer. A fifth-generation Coloradoan of Spanish Basque descent, he 
grew up steeped in the history of the American West and the colorful 
characters who inhabited it. Archuleta loves exploring how historical 
fact is refracted through the prism of film and television. He lives in 
Green Valley, California.

*University of North Texas Press | 03 March 2026 | 304pp | 
9798898290030 | PB | £14.99**

*Price subject to change.

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