Westerns

[Phillyfan]

top 6

Big Jake- classic John Wayne. Great story and interesting to see the beginning of the end for the old west with the introduction of the horseless carraige.

Good, Bad , and the Ugly- Just a great all around cast. Eastwood at his peak

High Plains Drifter- great story. much better than the sequel. Eastwood!

Silverado- early kevin costner where he's actually pretty good.

The Magnificent 7 - Yul Brenner leads a star studded cast.

Red Sun- Bronson at his best with an added ursela andress

[dongee]

I've got to go with anything taken from prose and put on to film that originated with Frederick Schiller Faust, who was best known to all of us western fans by his pen name---Max Brand.

That fellow's bibliography has always impressed not only for his prolific career but because of two of his better known works, each in a genre totally apart from the other. Besides, the filmmakers rarely messed up his writings, although some liberties were taken in a couple of the movie re-makes.

Among many other works Brand wrote the Tom Destry book that was adapted to three films, starring three different Americana heroes, Tom Mix, James Stewart and Audie Murphy.

For a radical departure, we have to look no further than his very popular Dr. Kildare series, made into films starring first Lew Ayres and later Richard Chamberlain.

The man was widely known as the "king of the pulps" in his heyday. Max Brand.

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[DscribeDC]

There was a sequel to HPD? You don't mean Pale Rider, do you?

And don't forget to watch for li'l GorDoom next time you screen The Magnificent 7. It was his acting debut!

[mike]

yeah--magnificent seven--and the good, bad , ugly. eli wallch did great in both picutres--along with the rest of the top actors.

[Phillyfan]

I thought Pale rider was the sequel, same type of story, dead cowboy comes back for revenge.

[PeteLeo]

TOMBSTONE, all the way.

Real Western fans (of which group I'm not a card-carrying member) will roast me for this, but after TOMBSTONE, the only "Westerns" I ever make a point of watching are of the "Spaghetti" type: THEY CALL ME TRINITY and TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME.

Sorry. PeteLeo.

[kikibalt]

The westerns I grew up with were the B-Westerns movies, in the mid-late 1940s, my friends and I used to get on the bus (14 cents round trip) and we used go to the Royal theater (14 cents) on Whittier Bl. in E.L.A. to watch "Cowboy Movies" as we call them, we used to do this on Sunday afternoons all for 28 cents.

Some of the stars we used to watch.

Bob Steele

Tex Ritter

Roy Rogers with Gabby Hayes

Johnny Mack Brown

Sunset Carson

Gene Autry

Hoot Gibson

Tim McCoy

Buster Crabbe with Al "Fuzzy" St.John

William "Wild Bill" Elliott, who played "Red Ryder" with Robert "Bobby" Blake as "Little Beaver".

Allan "Rocky" Lane, who also played Red Ryder, also with Blake as Little Beaver.


I have bought some of these old cowboy movies in the last couple of years from "Oidies.Com

Frank

[Sharkey]

Rio Bravo and EL Dorado. I love continually trying to guess what the difference between the two is.

You can't have a real Western without Walter Brennan..I do a mean impression.

---

HPD is awesome. TGTBTU is my favorite. LVC is awesome, and Eli Wallach plays about as good a character as can be played. I liked Unforgiven as well. Exceptionally done imo.

Like all the Wayne movies. Even walk like him when I can think of it.

[Sharkey]

Frank,

my mom loved the Tex Ritter reels, and Gene (Mr. Artery) and Roy and all of them.

[kikibalt]

Frank,

my mom loved the Tex Ritter reels, and Gene (Mr. Artery) and Roy and all of them.

Chris

Buy your mom some of those old movies from Oidies.Com, you get 5 for $25.
I'm sure she will enjoy them.

Frank

[Dan Gunter]

I've long thought that Lee Van Cleef plays the ultimate bad guy in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." True, he does get it in the end. (Oops? Was that a spoiler?) But his bemused and cheerful sadism is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The opening scene, where Angel Eyes eats with the old man, then shoots him--brilliant. He has accepted the old man's hospitality, has literally broken bread with him--but then he kills him, and we know that he intended all along to kill him. And the detail of the breaking of the bread: Angel Eyes cuts off a hunk with his bowie knife--a wonderful touch.

Other details in the movie are equally brilliant. I love the scenes in the bombed-out town where Clint Eastwood again finds Eli Wallach. Eli Wallach's shooting of the one-armed nemesis is vicious and funny. But one great, small detail is the scene of the man shown carrying his coffin down the road. The soldiers direct him to set it down, then they line up and execute him, firing at very close range. The scene is a bit of deliberate, yet casual cruelty. It appears to be a complete throwaway, but it works wonderfully in confirming the atmosphere of violence.

[Phillyfan]

I just thought of another classic, Rio Lobo. pretty much all of waynes movies you can watch over and over and over.

[dongee]

Guys:

You are waxing nostalgic which is hard on these old eyes of mine, welling as they do when I realize that tempus has fugit so damned quickly!

Here are a few names that I recall fitting the cowboy genre nicely: Fred Gilman, Art Accord, Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Jack Hoxie, and my all-time favorite, who died practically at the peak of his career....Fred Thompson!

All of my playmates liked Tom Mix but....Fred Thompson could do no wrong, in my book, and was much better, I thought. Long before the Lone Ranger came along, Thompson's beautiful white horse was named "Silver King". Fred was married to one of the great scenario writers in Hollywood history, Frances Marion.

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[kikibalt]

[BDeskins]

Tombstone
The Wild Bunch
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Young Guns I & II
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Long Riders
Wild Bill
Maverick
The Quick and the Dead
Unforgiven
The Good, The Bad , and the Ugly
Pale Rider
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Blazing Saddles

[kikibalt]

[GorDoom]

My two all time favorite westerns are: The Long Riders that has an incredible soundtrack by Ry Cooder & #2 is Pat Garret & Billy The Kid that has a soundtrack by Dylan that is not only one of his best albums but is flat out the best Western soundtrack I've ever heard.

I love Cooder in the Long Riders but Dylan was just flat out brilliant in scoring the Garret/Kid movie The lyrics & music blend perfectly. He even had a hit single from it" Knockin' On Heaven's Door. If you've ever seen the movie you can't forget a gut shot, Chill Wills stumbling bloodily to his death by the river while the song plays loudly in the background.

GorDoom

[rocky111]

I am with my man Kiki on this one. Give me the b westerns of my youth anytime. Long Riders was pretty good, and maybe a few others. But the actors of today dont have the PRESENSE of the guys of the past. Its long haired guys doing dope on the side trying to play Western heroes. No way Jose.
Give me the Durango Kid, Rocky Lane, Tim McCoy, Lash, Hoppy, Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, the Mesquiters, Duncan Renaldo, George Obrien and others.
All time favorite?
"My Darling Clemintine" which absolutely kills "Tombstone". What a joke comparing the two. Henry Fonda, Ward Bond, Tim Holt as the Earps, Walter Brennen as the Clanton Dad, Linda Darnell (gorgeous) as the Mexican girlfriend of THE Doc Holiday-Victor Mature.
Another fav is my man Ceasar Romaro as the Cisco Kid.
They just dont have the men today nor the fighters to make a showing in boxing as well as Westerns fellas..............

[Mike DeLisa]

Check out Fighting Champ with Bob Steele as a cowboy who becomes a boxer.

Steele's fighting style is cited as being the inspiration for Joe Louis's early style pre-Blackburn.



Lou Nova appears in at least one Red Ryder film with Johnny MAck Brown!

[kikibalt]

I am with my man Kiki on this one. Give me the b westerns of my youth anytime. Long Riders was pretty good, and maybe a few others. But the actors of today dont have the PRESENSE of the guys of the past. Its long haired guys doing dope on the side trying to play Western heroes. No way Jose.
Give me the Durango Kid, Rocky Lane, Tim McCoy, Lash, Hoppy, Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, the Mesquiters, Duncan Renaldo, George Obrien and others.
All time favorite?
"My Darling Clemintine" which absolutely kills "Tombstone". What a joke comparing the two. Henry Fonda, Ward Bond, Tim Holt as the Earps, Walter Brennen as the Clanton Dad, Linda Darnell (gorgeous) as the Mexican girlfriend of THE Doc Holiday-Victor Mature.
Another fav is my man Ceasar Romaro as the Cisco Kid.
They just dont have the men today nor the fighters to make a showing in boxing as well as Westerns fellas..............

Rocky; just how old're you?

I love to watch the Durango Kid, Lash Larue and all the others.

Frank

[PeteLeo]

I could just never accept beach boys such as Victor Mature or Kirk Douglas (whose work I do enjoy) as tubercular little Doc Holliday. I don't think much of Costner's WYATT EARP, but Dennis Quaid starved himself down to a realistic scarecrow for the role, making him second only to dead-white, always sweating Val Kilmer in the Holliday portrayal pantheon for me. PeteLeo.

[Petey]

In not very particular order:

1. The Shootist.
2. Tombstone.
3. Silverado.
4. The Outlaw Josey Wales.
5. True Grit.
6. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
7. The Long Riders.
8. The Searchers.
9. Blazing Saddles.
10. Rio Lobo.
11. Fort Apache
12. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
13. Stagecoach. (The orginal John Ford masterpeice, not any of the re-makes)
14. The Magnificent Seven.
15. Unforgiven.
16. Open Range.
17. The Cowboys.
18. Little Big Man.
19. Once Upon A Time in The West.
20. My Name is Nobody.

[Phillyfan]

[kikibalt]

In just two years, 1945 and 1946, Sunset Carson made more of an impression on western filmdom than most cowboys managed in their entire movie careers. Those were the Republic years, in which the recently-dubbed Sunset starred in eleven actionful pictures plus a guest stint in a Roy Rogers extravaganza. His introduction to movie audiences actually came in 1944, when he co-starred with Smiley Burnette (and surprise! Smiley got top billing) as Sonny 'Sunset' Carson. The odd pairing resulted in four pictures, the last of which is a comedy (!). After that, Smiley would depart from Republic forever and Sunset would become the 'main player' that we all knew he was, anyway.

Sunset blamed bad advice for his departure from Republic. Others have blamed his off-camera behavior. Top-notch film historian Richard B.Smith III wrote in Boyd Magers' Western Clippings that Sunset was fired by Republic president Herbert G. Yates himself, as related by stuntman-director Yakima Canutt. Canutt's account was that Sunset appeared at a gathering of the studio's western stars not only under the influence but with a girl who was apparently a minor. Yates supposedly told Carson at that time that his starring roles at Republic were over. Whatever the reason, he went on to make five low-budget independent oaters (although at least one was in color) which disappointed those of his fans who saw them. Much later in his career, he co-starred with other stars of 'golden age' westerns in a few offbeat films, the last of which was a sci-fi flick!

Never let it be said that the career of Sunset Carson was routine. But, to start at the beginning ...

Well, even the beginning has differing versions. By Sunset's account, he was born November 12, 1922, in Gracemont, Oklahoma, as Michael Harrison. The Internet Movie DataBase says the date was November 12, 1920, and that his name was Winifred Maurice Harrison -- which, admittedly, doesn't sound much like a movie cowboy. (See the link at the bottom of the last Sunset Carson webpage for more biographical information.) Sunset gave different birth years at different times, recalls film festival observer and film scholar Bobby Copeland, each time moving the year up slightly to reduce his apparent age. With all due respect to Sunset, he did embellish the truth just a tad. The best-supported accounts have his family moving to Plainview, Texas, when he was eight or nine years old. That was where he grew up. Sunset has said (we can choose to believe it or not) that his father was a rodeo performer in the Tom Mix Circus and that he himself began rodeo-ing as a teenager and was named All Around Champion Cowboy of South America in 1941 and 1942, and that it was none other than Tom Mix (no stranger himself to some exaggerations concerning his background) who suggested that the young man consider film acting.

As Michael Harrison, Sunset appeared in STAGE DOOR CANTEEN (1943) as a character named Texas, amid a star-studded cast of performers for servicemen. In JANIE, a comedy about a girl (Joyce Reynolds) with a fondness for men in uniform, he played Sgt. Carl. In 1944, he tried out at Republic Studios, and found his niche -- at least for the next few years. Supposedly, it was studio President Herbert Yates who changed Michael Harrison to Sunset Carson after being inspired by a sign on a car dealership: Sunset Boulevard Cars.

But, as mentioned, Sunset didn't begin as the star of his own pictures. Top billing went to Smiley Burnette (pictured on the left), who had come to Republic with Gene Autry and co-starred with others including Roy Rogers and Bob Livingston while there. As the only comic sidekick to be elevated to top billing in a western series, even if it was only four films, Smiley's roles were built up more than usual but it was Sunset who carried the action. In each film, Smiley's character was named Frog Millhouse, while Sunset played Sunset, as he would do in all the rest of his westerns.

The public got its first look at Sonny 'Sunset' Carson in CALL OF THE ROCKIES (1944), with Harry Woods supplying the villainy, Ellen Hall the beauty, and Kirk Alyn (best known for his 'Superman' and 'Blackhawk' serial roles at Columbia, although he would later do some Republic chapter-plays too) as a young mining engineer. Sunset alternated between the light cowboy shirt with the arrow pockets and the striped dark one, as he would do for the rest of his Republic stint. He wore a brace of stag-handled guns butts forward, Wild Bill Elliott-style. Film highlights include battles in the Republic cave set and some suspense as Sunset holds a gun on a renegade doctor (Frank Jaquet) to force him to save the life of a double-crossed outlaw (Tom London) who can expose the others.

Next came BORDERTOWN TRAIL (1944), in which Frog and Sunset are members of the Border Patrol, tracking smugglers led by outlaws Weldon Heyburn and Addison Richards. Sunset acquires his first brother in the Border Patrol commander, Vic Carson (Jack Luden), his only movie brother to survive at the end of the film.

CODE OF THE PRAIRIE (1944) gave Heyburn a sympathetic role this time, as Sunset's lawman friend even though he is temporarily duped by the bad guys until the final brief-but-blazing shoot-out when he and Sunset wipe out the entire gang. Tom Chatterton plays an aging ex-lawman named Bat Matson, no doubt inspired by the real-life Bat Masterson. But the most significant casting is Sunset's first encounter with resident Republic villain Roy Barcroft as the brains heavy and pretty Peggy Stewart as the leading lady. Sunset would see a lot of them both in future films.

In later years, Sunset described Barcroft offscreen as 'my best friend' and he and Peggy were frequent co-stars at film festivals around the country. The last of the foursome was the outright western comedy, FIREBRANDS OF ARIZONA (1944), in which Smiley played a dual role as Frog and the notorious outlaw 'Beefsteak Discoe'. The movie ends with Smiley, as Beefsteak, and Sunset slugging it out and finally shooting it out after Sunset identifies the real Frog by the pills he is always taking. Peggy Stewart is back as a ranch owner who becomes disgusted with Frog's laziness and his excuses about feeling ill all the time. Later, she gets in on the horseback gunfighting right along with Sunset. Earle Hodgins plays a fast-talking sheriff who convinces Frog at one point that Frog is duty-bound to allow himself to be hanged, when he is mistaken for Beefsteak, so that the town can build a memorial to the famous outlaw. Barcroft is the sheriff's deputy, another switcheroo, and packs a pearl-handled pistol for perhaps the only time in his career.

[kikibalt]

[kikibalt]

[dongee]

How many of us remember Herb Jeffries, that terrific baritone ballad singer starring in a series of black cowboy movies during the early war years. The films were not exactly Academy quality, but they enjoyed popularity as trend setters.

I really enjoyed this man's great delivery in songs like "Flamingo". I would go all the way to the clubs on Central Avenue near Vernon boulevard to watch him, among others, perform.

Ivy Anderson, Duke Ellington's gal vocalist, owned a place called the Chicken
Shack nearby. Those were the days when I wouldn't let a black show go by without catching peformers such as Lucky Millinder, Louis Jordan, Benny Carter, Savannah Churchill, Lena Horne, Billy Daniels, Slim (Gaillard) and Slam (Stewart), Count Basie and much later Roy Eldridge. Damn but were they ever good!

Again, memories, Kiki.

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[kikibalt]

Above is a February 6, 1999 photo of singin' cowboys Eddie Dean and Herb Jeffries at a fund raiser at the Iverson Movie Ranch to raise money for Dean's star in Palm Springs. Dean passed away about a month later.


Herb Jeffries

'The Bronze Buckaroo'
Born in Detroit in 1911, Herb Jeffries is a great singer ... and his rich baritone enhanced the legendary Duke Ellington Orchestra beginning around 1940. Prior to his connection with Ellington, Jeffries had sung with the Earl 'Fatha' Hines.

In between all of this, and most often billed as Herbert Jeffrey, he strapped on a six-gun and rode the Hollywood range in a quartet of B westerns in the late 1930s.

In westerns (and other films), it was common to typecast performers based on their race, ethnicity, etc. That was a time of Hollywood stereotypes, and black performers were generally given minor roles as a servant, porter, cook, et al. While I'm no expert on the subject, there was a market for films featuring black performers and there were many black only theaters.

Herb Jeffries' first oater was HARLEM ON THE PRAIRIE (1937), and the producer was none other than Jed Buell. Handling the directing chores was prolific Sam Newfield. Buell's career began with the Mack Sennett studio and later, he produced many of the Fred Scott singin' westerns which were released by Spectrum. And in 1938, Buell created a film that remains unique in Hollywood history --- the movie was THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN which featured an all midget cast playing cowboys and cowgirls.

Over the course of the next year or two, Jeffries did three more sagebrush yarns, TWO GUN MAN FROM HARLEM (1938), THE BRONZE BUCKAROO (1939), and HARLEM RIDES THE RANGE (1939). Buell was not involved in these productions --- Richard C. Kahn had assumed those duties. The films were distributed by Al Sack via his Dallas-based Sack Amusement Enterprises. Three of the four films are available on videotape, and have been shown on Ted Turner's cable networks.

Cast members in the Jeffries films included Mantan Moreland, best remembered for his role as chauffeur 'Birmingham Brown' in the Charlie Chan series. Spencer Williams worked in front and behind the camera --- Williams was 'Andy Brown' in the AMOS & ANDY TVer of the early 1950s.

Hans Wollstein provided info on the vocal groups that appeared in the films: In HARLEM RIDES THE RANGE, two vocal groups appear: The Four Tones (Lucius Brooks, Rudolph Hunter, Leon Buck and Ira Hardin) and The Four Blackbirds (James Davis, Edward Brandon, Reg Anderson and Jack Williams). The Four Tones also appeared in HARLEM ON THE PRAIRIE, THE BRONZE BUCKAROO, and TWO-GUN MAN FROM HARLEM.

Another film or two were in the planning stages, but were never made. Any chances to continue the series ended when Jeffries signed on as the lead vocalist with the Ellington band, circa 1939 or '40. He served in WW2 and, after the war, he lived for a dozen years in France. Jeffries was a recipient of a Golden Boot award in 1996.

The first and only black hero/lead in the old B westerns deserves a page on the Old Corral

[kikibalt]

[dongee]

Kiki:

I have been looking for a copy of the menu for the "Last Supper" and until you came along I didn't think I could find one. Now I see you have access no just about everything and anything a human could want! LOL

You are a treasure, senor Baltazar!

Te saluda Navarro