1970 John Wayne western / WED 11-11-15 / 1921 play that ends with extinction of human race / Talking TV palomino / Bungled salon job

Constructor:David Steinberg

Relative difficulty:Easy

THEME:FORTY-NINE "R"S (62A: Old rush participants ... or a three-part hint to what can be found in this puzzle's grid or clues) — forty-nine "R"s in the grid ... and clues, apparently

Word of the Day:RWE(44D: "Nature" essayist's inits.) —

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. (wikipedia)

First of all, if you think I'm going to count the number of "R" in the *clues*, you are *&%^ing high. Second, this is a long, long, long way to go for a reparsing gag. You know what putting 49 "R"s in your grid gets you? A mediocre-to-cruddy grid. No one ever—and I mean Ever—said, "Hey, you know what this puzzle needs? More "R"s." I kept wondering, as I was solving, "How did a Steinberg grid get this fuddy-duddy and weak? (GRRS? RMONTHS? ROOS? ERI? UAR? ARMA? RWE!? etc.)" And then I got to the revealer. "Oh ... yeah, that'll do it." Baffling. I did enjoy BAD PERM, though (53A: Bungled salon job).

If I'd been concentrating and really trying, I think I'd've set a Wednesday time record with this one .I hesitated nowhere. But then I know my crossword history, so MARGART FARRAR was a gimme, and I was once a hardcore Grace Kelly fan, so I've actually seen "Mogambo"—got AVA GARDNER from just the "V" (28D: "Mogambo" co-star). I am also a huge Leigh Brackett fan, and she wrote the screenplay for "RIO LOBO" (39A: 1970 John Wayne western) (Brackett wrote mainly sci-fi, but she also wrote crime fiction, at least one western, and many important screenplays, including Altman's "The Long Goodbye" (1973) and Hawks'"The Big Sleep (1946) (co-written with some guy named William Faulkner, as well as Jules Furthman)). I also collected postage stamps as a kid, so "MAGYAR Posta" is a familiar, Hungary-related phrase to me. I went to school in Ann ARBOR. And ORRERIES ... why do I know that word? I never see it in real life, but somehow it has stuck. Anyway, I felt uniquely poised to crush this crossword. It surely wasn't that easy for everyone. But it was pretty easy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. I co-constructed today's BuzzFeed crossword puzzle with Lena Webb. You can get it here. Thank you for your consideration.

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