Cowboys, Indians and Mel Brooks

It won’t be only Disney executives who are watching the box office returns for “The Lone Ranger” this weekend. Lots of people are wondering whether Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer can ride to the rescue of a genre that was once a staple of American cinema but has since fallen on hard times: the western.

“The western has always been a definitively American art form,” says Jeffrey Richardson, Gamble curator of western history, popular culture and firearms at the Autry National Center of the American West in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. “It’s one that has grown and evolved over time, but unfortunately, it has been in decline over the past 50 years.”

The western doesn’t have the same place in the minds of young people that it does for the baby-boomer generation, which grew up on the movies of John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood, and television series such as “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza” and “Wagon Train.” The western is an empty word for them, conjuring images of cowboys and campfires but disassociated from the true heart behind them — the survivalist sentiments and moral lessons.

Even Richardson, who is 35, says he didn’t grow up on western movies — and he’s made a career out of the genre.

Still, every few years, the western makes a reappearance. There was the remake of the classic “True Grit” (2010), starring Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, and the more contemporary western “No Country for Old Men” (2007), starring Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem. But neither completely won over young audiences as the former was rated PG-13 and the latter R.

Richardson thinks the revival of “The Lone Ranger” has a shot at changing that (although it too is PG-13).

“The marketing might of Disney and Johnny Depp might make this a little different — hopefully ignite a passion of a much younger audience,” he says.

Not only was the film shot on location in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah but modern technology also adds an entirely new component, especially in comparison to many great western films that weren’t even shot outdoors, Richardson notes.

“Hopefully, a movie like ‘The Lone Ranger’ will provide a good combination of live action and CGI — for a younger audience that expects CGI and an older audience that might think it’s heavy-handed,” he says.

On the occasion of “The Lone Ranger’s” release, Richardson shared his top five western films (below and on next page):