tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91941824952252024282024-03-13T16:21:07.507-05:00 WEST OF THE RIVER Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-16097315920808007752023-03-05T20:54:00.005-06:002023-03-07T16:10:42.186-06:00THE LAST HUNT<p> </p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>THE MOVIE (MGM, 1956)</b></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTxZnAqAyeMa7QReTRPxYciXehzLoYiSnJu3p61BjWvd-b0QQY7v_xeDDluSMS4KQYCP-UszJqZAVhuze3Zv5N76_xIGUXJdp_t3axMDYB-sHjEKtjCtXkpbqw0FW62VXxaTYMiR1wNzBDv0rg7KcY6VNECoaJPKYXWRHW2NC-JiTfDtY9FGnAv1cu/s393/LasthuntOS.jpg" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 20px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="254" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTxZnAqAyeMa7QReTRPxYciXehzLoYiSnJu3p61BjWvd-b0QQY7v_xeDDluSMS4KQYCP-UszJqZAVhuze3Zv5N76_xIGUXJdp_t3axMDYB-sHjEKtjCtXkpbqw0FW62VXxaTYMiR1wNzBDv0rg7KcY6VNECoaJPKYXWRHW2NC-JiTfDtY9FGnAv1cu/w414-h640/LasthuntOS.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">DIRECTOR: Richard Brooks; PRODUCER: Dore Schary; WRITERS: screenplay by Richard Brooks based on novel by Milton Lott; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Russell Harlan</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">CAST: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Lloyd Nolan, Debra Paget, Russ Tamblyn, Constance Ford, Joe Desantis, Ainslie Pryor, Ralph Moody, Fred Graham, Roy Barcroft, Steve Darell, Dale Van Sickel, Dan White, Henry Willis, Terry Wilson </span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>THE PLOT.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The year is 1882, somewhere in South Dakota. An experienced buffalo hunter named Sandy McKenzie (Stewart Granger), who has tired of killing buffalo, is approached by Charlie Gilson (Robert Taylor), an inexperienced hunter, who nevertheless relishes killing buffalo, and, as it turns out, Indians.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">A deal is worked out to go partners and they hire a one-legged skinner known as Woodfoot (Lloyd Nolan) and the half Irish, half Indian Jimmy O'Brien (Russ Tamblyn) to help him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When Indians steal their horses, Charlie trails them and ambushes them in their camp. He spares only two lives; a young Indian woman (Debra Paget) and her baby son. He brings them to the hunters' camp. Charlie hates Indians, but he intends to make the Indian "his woman."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, for Charlie, she and Sandy are attracted to each other, but they are afraid to let the ruthless Charlie know. But the mutual attraction cannot be hidden. Sandy had already been in the process of seeking a way to sever his ties with the sadistic Charlie, and his relationship with the Indian woman (who is never given a name) drives the two hunters even farther apart.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">At the late date in which the film is set the buffalo had vanished in the southwest and much of the Great Plains, decimated by the hunters who killed them for their hides, leaving the carcasses to rot and be consumed by scavengers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">It was an ugly business that not only wiped out the herds but also transformed the lives of the native tribes that were heavily dependent on them for their livelihoods, forcing them against their will to live out their days on government reservations.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbbeDaCf0IkjxWs3_54zBx9sRm09bl-Zw44Q6q255vDNjW59YUbpdJE4MUFDdhc-pWqetFv74JZUwFHc58s98s6t7iIqjapGQH2vHthX4r-2fDMmGuZSLBU9RbvI5g5RdDav-inRpiMzjShnyR3TTxbOOnl8dYMqMl7v8nu-zpuV_jwugS76pjwpyu/s672/buffalohunter.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="672" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbbeDaCf0IkjxWs3_54zBx9sRm09bl-Zw44Q6q255vDNjW59YUbpdJE4MUFDdhc-pWqetFv74JZUwFHc58s98s6t7iIqjapGQH2vHthX4r-2fDMmGuZSLBU9RbvI5g5RdDav-inRpiMzjShnyR3TTxbOOnl8dYMqMl7v8nu-zpuV_jwugS76pjwpyu/w640-h274/buffalohunter.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><span style="font-size: medium;">The film manages to show the viewer just how brutal the act of shooting buffalo must have been. It does that by filming the annual "thinning out" of the protected herd in Custer State Park in South Dakota, giving viewers the most graphic scenes of a buffalo hunt to ever be filmed.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sometime in the 70's I first read the novel the film's screenplay is based on, and shortly thereafter I viewed the movie on TV. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, but I never forgot the chilling climax to the film and it is still a vivid memory all these years later. Recently, I reread the novel, and the story's conclusion was just as shocking to me as it was a half-century ago. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">However, I am not going to spoil the ending for future readers of the novel or viewers of the film.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>THE STARS.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Robert Taylor, born Spangler Arlington Brugh in 1911 in Nebraska, died in 1969, at age fifty-eight.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">He appeared in only one Western before 1950, and that was when he was miscast as the title character in <b>BILLY THE KID </b>(MGM, 1941).</span></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKAVrhjlPPEr3mU0IhSmpt8OuD_MzDIcxk4kAGDb4lABENVs2AYkvvEepu-LoqWWyMOala4GqQ6RMr_IDu_uDxUe4DvtZhxBO9nxCRY92ic7nYTyHEzkEk79HgzPb8AqEe5VbPqUugS1hxSh0FvKqFnZiULP_bH0UQAkwm83YgwIDNCHaGRP-qWoT/s391/Billy_the_Kid_1941.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="255" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNKAVrhjlPPEr3mU0IhSmpt8OuD_MzDIcxk4kAGDb4lABENVs2AYkvvEepu-LoqWWyMOala4GqQ6RMr_IDu_uDxUe4DvtZhxBO9nxCRY92ic7nYTyHEzkEk79HgzPb8AqEe5VbPqUugS1hxSh0FvKqFnZiULP_bH0UQAkwm83YgwIDNCHaGRP-qWoT/w261-h400/Billy_the_Kid_1941.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">Taylor was not believable in the role for several reasions, but especially since he was thirty-years old and was portraying an historical figure who died at twenty-one.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Furthermore, it doesn't help things that Billy is a good guy cleaning out the territory of bad guys and that Brian Donlevy, near the top of my list of actors who should never have been cast in a Western, is Taylor's co-star.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the 50's, Taylor starred in six Westerns. Fortunately, he and the films were great improvements over his debut Western. <b>THE LAST HUNT </b>is one of the best -- and perhaps the best -- of the six. Taylor was cast against type in the film and the result is that he gave one of his best perfomances.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">He starred in a couple more Westerns during the 60's, the last produced three years before his death.</span></p><p><br /><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWYRq20TFtsE8HjNx2C7m4WKk6an0r9zvxXe9xy92K7p9vSgva7SXnI8dcOhPk22jA0aWQDB6JIGISY5WyiyJr5DcC5Cu3aZHGBJMgRFbPQF1U7fO8H2qdVJyokI8wSIbP3_nnlYRndX868SRMrzJv3qNQDYcMfhzgGfW7CFGQbeORDCbq42n6wUVi/s800/taylorwidmark.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="800" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWYRq20TFtsE8HjNx2C7m4WKk6an0r9zvxXe9xy92K7p9vSgva7SXnI8dcOhPk22jA0aWQDB6JIGISY5WyiyJr5DcC5Cu3aZHGBJMgRFbPQF1U7fO8H2qdVJyokI8wSIbP3_nnlYRndX868SRMrzJv3qNQDYcMfhzgGfW7CFGQbeORDCbq42n6wUVi/w640-h490/taylorwidmark.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Robert Taylor and Ricard Widmark in THE LAW AND JAKE WADE (MGM, 1958)</span><br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stewart Granger, born James Lablache Stewart in London in 1913, died in 1993. Since he needed to adopt a new screen name in order to avert confusion with James Stewart -- and he couldn't have very well chosen his middle name, he became Stewart Granger.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Granger was much more a swashbucker than a westerner, but he was quite good in the Westerns in which he appeared.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">His only two Westerns made in the United States were <b>THE LAST HUNT </b>and <b>GUN GLORY </b>(MGM, 1957). He did star in three Westerns made in Europe in which he portrayed Karl May's "Old Surehand."<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the 1970-71 TV season Granger, as Col. Alan MacKenzie (ironically), became the last owner of the Shiloh Ranch in <b>The Virginian </b>series. However, the title was changed to <b>Men of Shiloh</b>. James Drury and Doug McClure continued in their roles as The Virginian and Trampas, respectively, while Lee Majors was added to the cast.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsqcpVtXXTzW6mqRf9rFyI-kgIC8Iqtd8DgYdoi3IKnf3mkSnDopeqg7Rh6Lf1Z-4UzobELbSuTPythkn51VpWf6JGx1jngkX7OjiZ3O7we8bxOudpKpZO1RNj3g7NivcIokTW7sYVuEN_TIKYhEctHIcmdnvh-Flrk27QF6ef40Act35tIrGHTaXu/s1999/gun%20glory.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1999" data-original-width="1288" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsqcpVtXXTzW6mqRf9rFyI-kgIC8Iqtd8DgYdoi3IKnf3mkSnDopeqg7Rh6Lf1Z-4UzobELbSuTPythkn51VpWf6JGx1jngkX7OjiZ3O7we8bxOudpKpZO1RNj3g7NivcIokTW7sYVuEN_TIKYhEctHIcmdnvh-Flrk27QF6ef40Act35tIrGHTaXu/w258-h400/gun%20glory.jpg" width="258" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">As good as <b>THE LAST HUNT </b>is, it could have been even better if Taylor and Granger had been backed with better supporting actors.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Debra Paget, who had portrayed an Apache woman in <b>BROKEN ARROW </b>(Fox, 1950), portrayed a Sioux in <b>THE LAST HUNT</b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">It wasn't that she was a bad actress, but that she just didn't look the part. Anne Bancroft had been originally cast in the role in <b>THE LAST HUNT</b>, but was injured early in the filming when she fell off a horse. As good an actress as Bancroft was, it would be just about as difficult to accept her in the role as it is Paget.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>L</span><span>loyd Nolan, who was a good actor, is also on my list of actors who should never have been cast in Westerns. He was much more at home on the streets in large cities than in the Dakota Badlands or the Black Hills.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Russ Tamblyn, in the role of Jimmy O'Brien, was even more miscast than Nolan or Paget.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">THE DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Richard Brooks was one of Hollywood's most respected and acclaimed directors and screenwriters, though many people, because of his bad boy reputation, didn't exactly relish the idea of working with him.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">However, he was nominated for eight Academy Awards as either a director or screenwriter, but won only one, that being his screenplay for <b>ELMER GANTRY </b>(UA, 1960).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He directed only two Westerns after <b>THE LAST HUNT</b>: <b>THE PROFESSIONALS </b>(Columbia, 1966) and <b>BITE THE BULLET </b>(Columbia, 1975).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>THE CINEMATOGRAPHER.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Russell Harlan began his career behind the camera when he served as Harry "Pop" Sherman's cinematographer on the Hopalong Cassidy B-Western series from 1937-1944. He is one of the reasons that the series was the all-time best looking B-Western series ever filmed.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">His first two A-Westerns were also for Harry Sherman, both starring Joel McCrea: <b>RAMROD </b>(UA, 1947) and <b>FOUR FACES WEST </b>(UA, 1948). They are two highly entertaining middle-budget films, that are beautifully filmed by Harlan.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then there was <b>RED RIVER </b>(UA, 1948), followed by <b>THE LAST HUNT</b>, and three years later, both <b>RIO BRAVO </b>(WB) and <b>DAY OF THE OUTLAW </b>(UA).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, Harlan was busy during those years filming important and critically - acclaimed non-Westerns. In a thirty year career, though he never won, he was nominated for six Academy Awards, including two in the same year in 1962: <b>HATARI </b>(Paramount) and <b>TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD </b>(Universal).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPiMEQ7BIwzq6aMoF5PFEhkxaW1M5yaOx_mAw0myEwU4i6JO6nMLJGm-hozkp40P1cSeXd-itgOhD1BpmhZ6waPM43XkNq88tquag0jxoqpUykPB-iz5VF9tDoxXlFV85KlHb3VNEDRddghHF__clNssrv6FqUPfoJ_zgWmghO_g4yijROe0-cqLp/s338/brooks.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="294" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPiMEQ7BIwzq6aMoF5PFEhkxaW1M5yaOx_mAw0myEwU4i6JO6nMLJGm-hozkp40P1cSeXd-itgOhD1BpmhZ6waPM43XkNq88tquag0jxoqpUykPB-iz5VF9tDoxXlFV85KlHb3VNEDRddghHF__clNssrv6FqUPfoJ_zgWmghO_g4yijROe0-cqLp/s320/brooks.jpg" width="278" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span> The Director/Screenwriter</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyFL3N_aE__gv7iHJ-1n-7Uvrc84nEX59qlVjaNAcQb7XWp7ce_WfIktrcMY7JXUjZCtU6pVKE2hJnqp8vdALG3mb-_z8OQKunTa6C1TXDGHrddx4oe7f476zXFXOFKhkpEgkv16FCTXe6kh-7zgh6ZgkeJrD0chKl8PIDGi0F9FYq5RO3JosZFgJZ/s950/harlan.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyFL3N_aE__gv7iHJ-1n-7Uvrc84nEX59qlVjaNAcQb7XWp7ce_WfIktrcMY7JXUjZCtU6pVKE2hJnqp8vdALG3mb-_z8OQKunTa6C1TXDGHrddx4oe7f476zXFXOFKhkpEgkv16FCTXe6kh-7zgh6ZgkeJrD0chKl8PIDGi0F9FYq5RO3JosZFgJZ/w168-h200/harlan.webp" width="168" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The Cinematographer</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>******</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Reviews</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">"The film has a worthy message, teaching us the evils of bloodlust, indiscriminate hunting, Indian-hating, and lack of respect for the environment."</i> -- Jeff Arnold, <i>Jeff Arnold's West</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">"This one is admittedly clumsy -- the screenplay reduces Lott's complex novel to a slender simple yarn; the acting, except for the two leads, is poor; the movie is too slow. But it is strong stuff and the ending is one you are not likely to forget. -- </i>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;">"Harlan's low-key photgraphy captures beautifully the bleak tone of Brooks' script and direction." </b>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;">"The equating of Indian-hating with a lust for slaughter is morally good. But it does seem to take Mr. Granger an awfully long time to get around to freezing out Mr. Taylor."</b> -- Bosley Crowther, <i>New York Times</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>******</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Book.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">"I hope that no one makes the mistake of classing this book as a 'Western.' It is about as far removed from the run-of-the-mill book of that variety as it is possible to get." </i>-- W.R. Burnett, <i>New York Times</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGLkEthjnG3Bx0TS22LCmaR9HxO2lIdB0zsv-dBgLLWUA4u5kboPmgn4WEVyfWwungzNPACXWBCVsWfGKjcsLOxtKPBZtpTJTTaJaQJpgYGzIU7vITaaTxG9wPE0ey0eVVXufrTz3_TqrafsV1Y7kwCjNVFGjU7gMGRuRGEawnY9sIsAQiyjXzSZhd/s456/lasthunt3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGLkEthjnG3Bx0TS22LCmaR9HxO2lIdB0zsv-dBgLLWUA4u5kboPmgn4WEVyfWwungzNPACXWBCVsWfGKjcsLOxtKPBZtpTJTTaJaQJpgYGzIU7vITaaTxG9wPE0ey0eVVXufrTz3_TqrafsV1Y7kwCjNVFGjU7gMGRuRGEawnY9sIsAQiyjXzSZhd/w264-h400/lasthunt3.jpg" width="264" /></a></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;">The Last Hunt </b><span>(1954) was Milton Lott's (1916-1996) debut novel. Although he may have written more, only two other novels were published: </span><i><b>Dance Back the Buffalo</b> </i><span>(1959) and </span><i><b>Backtrack</b> </i><span>(1960).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Needless to say, Lott is remembered, if remembered at all, for </span><b>THE LAST HUNT</b><span>, a book that was nominated for both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While the movie is set in South Dakota in order to take advantage of the buffalo herd in Custer State Park, the book is set in northwestern Montana. Lott chose that location because by 1882, as earlier noted, the buffalo in the southwest and much of the plains had been decimated. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Last Hunt </b>is a landmark novel about that slaughter and the near extinction of the great herds.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is a slow burn that may not satisfy readers who require a lot of action in their Westerns. To be sure, there is action, but at first Lott uses flashbacks to flesh out his four main characters and even after that the story if very much character driven.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know if Lott ever wrote poetry or painted landscapes, but if not, he nevertheless possessed the soul of a poet and the eye of a painter.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since he grew up in the Snake Valley in Idaho, he was intimately acquainted with the setting of his novel and his lyrical descriptions allow one to picture the valleys, badlands, and mountains of Montana, even if one has never been there.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have read only one other novel about buffalo huntng that can compete with <b>The Last Hunt</b>. It is <b>Butcher's Crossing</b>, the only Western written by John Wiliams. In its plot, characterizations, and psychological impact, it reminds me of <b>The Last Hunt</b>. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What W.R. Burnett wrote about <b>The Last Hunt </b>is also true of <b>Butcher's Crossing</b>. Both are examples of historical fiction that happens to be set in the West. And I have to admit that it is a toss-up for me as to which is the better book.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-size: large;">******</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Reviews</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>"A resolution of destinies against an enduring setting of mountains, plains, and valleys, and an encyclopedic sense of buffalo hunting, and its bloody, hoggish destruction ... with a bitter knowledge of the waste." </b>-- Kirkus</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;">"In one sense, THE LAST HUNT is a frontier morality play, a struggle between good (Sandy) and evil (Charley), two men engaged in the same deadly pursuit but with strikingly different attitudes about their professions." </b>-- Edward Joseph Brawley, <i>Chasing the Sun: A Reader's Guide to Novels Set in the American West</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;">"[Lott] creates a sense of chronicle, channeling a series of events through geographical area, and he is solidly artistic in his depiction of landscape, atmosphere, and emotion." </b>-- Christina Bold, <i>Twentieth-Century Western Writers</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Rock Salt; font-size: x-large;"><i><b>THE END</b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Ance6-Ym-r9MGK8HNIK4CzzmhSShduupPxrll7RpHgiF2Ra8lTFQHv27ildvkwKYinS3T9K6sCMh4ILSt9c68SJmZ6PdtAExmGuVfFTW46W8a9bahn8kMVbMxpwdDqoX1bFA88-Z-aKK86uJRJWcogOqtjYrvkgtVELeyz0kl1nlEk9EOVpzjVJc/s456/lasthunt.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span></a></div><p></p>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-43679012852957136722023-02-05T12:18:00.001-06:002023-02-05T12:29:20.542-06:00SAM SHEPARD: A Life<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSoEpPFCWHGwPmzGpvVQKEiivlZM0jOB_hD3ypCLaWeP2yfpeqFcQjG_x7Lz5BSjzhzgrl4pFtU2nmwuB3zaSOjl68c49f1UiocMoLvoUewlxUMJ9iKCemkoTPjHNZNBDNcAihWFa1IsvvXhJnkCJcKfZdNvnqlrNTqQuMr-m5ejrKZ5Xii_79Mhkx/s2400/samshepard.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSoEpPFCWHGwPmzGpvVQKEiivlZM0jOB_hD3ypCLaWeP2yfpeqFcQjG_x7Lz5BSjzhzgrl4pFtU2nmwuB3zaSOjl68c49f1UiocMoLvoUewlxUMJ9iKCemkoTPjHNZNBDNcAihWFa1IsvvXhJnkCJcKfZdNvnqlrNTqQuMr-m5ejrKZ5Xii_79Mhkx/w426-h640/samshepard.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i>Once upon a time, I shook hands with Sam Shepard.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">I suppose that most people who remember Shepard remember him as a movie actor; but that was only one facet of his professional life -- and it wasn't even the most important.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">He first made his mark as a playwright and his talent led <i>New York Magazine </i>to name him the greatest playwright of his generation. In fact, three of his plays were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and one of them, <i>Buried Child</i>, won. He also directed a number of plays.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">He even co-wrote a song with Bob Dylan, <i>Brownsville Girl</i>. It was eleven minutes long. It was said that it was either Dylan's longest song or Shepard's shortest play.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">You can watch an interesting video of the song on YouTube that features scenes from two Gregory Peck western movies. Also, Dylan changed the title to <i>Danville Girl</i>, because, he said, there were already too many songs about Brownsville. The link is : </span></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLlNoilSqA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLlNoilSqA</a><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Shepard also wrote poetry and prose, prose that is difficult to categorize, because, as with many of his plays, it is experimental; also because Shepard admitted he found it easy to write dialogue, but struggled when it came to narration. All his life he was a rambling man and his prose which is always semi-biographical bears that out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzM-IPpD69pK002s95gHbFt_4GcYtfhA74_kRxhIS3ZlYMcgS6MNO7-YSxDWWMOeyUGct-GFnJogUVCSYPJNDe2YPcQoFG7tukPTRQneeSL2FXyvpmqFSBqfGcJZTriC9QoJYuro0jzE3_ST7c9-NQvq_CjjLP6ySnT0ZWutrZEldlsmB3osjKnlpI/s313/Sam_Shepard%20young.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="313" data-original-width="246" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzM-IPpD69pK002s95gHbFt_4GcYtfhA74_kRxhIS3ZlYMcgS6MNO7-YSxDWWMOeyUGct-GFnJogUVCSYPJNDe2YPcQoFG7tukPTRQneeSL2FXyvpmqFSBqfGcJZTriC9QoJYuro0jzE3_ST7c9-NQvq_CjjLP6ySnT0ZWutrZEldlsmB3osjKnlpI/w314-h400/Sam_Shepard%20young.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">Sam, age 21, already an accomplished playwright<br /><br /></i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When he began acting he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of famed test pilot Chuck Yeager in <b>The Right Stuff </b>(1983).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3M5zq43uXuD7kq4KJa8HPxCFFDRK74_C5aeZ-3jsRYwqXPD84X7SZAPVRmZ4HUxe2wf1ospHC4yLneByvXWlI767gCBDVtGznHJsEkxdcVgVP_J4Qf6ti85wXkl6-pnZmaJDEi0dKv8JkXwxc7PhbmfQoskIR-lV_cFh22TOushpDgSxDiNLGKUg/s425/chucksam2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="308" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3M5zq43uXuD7kq4KJa8HPxCFFDRK74_C5aeZ-3jsRYwqXPD84X7SZAPVRmZ4HUxe2wf1ospHC4yLneByvXWlI767gCBDVtGznHJsEkxdcVgVP_J4Qf6ti85wXkl6-pnZmaJDEi0dKv8JkXwxc7PhbmfQoskIR-lV_cFh22TOushpDgSxDiNLGKUg/w290-h400/chucksam2.jpg" width="290" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sam is Chuck Yeager</span><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">He didn't win; instead the Oscar went to Jack Nicholson, who ironically played an ex-astronaut in <b>Terms of Endearment.</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">During the years in which he was in great demand as an actor he continued to write plays, directed a couple of films, and wrote screenplays. His best script was for <b>Paris, Texas </b>(1984), a film that won three prizes, including first place, at the Cannes Film Festival.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">All and all, "not bad for a Southern California kid whose greatest dream had once been to be 'a veterinarian with a flashy station wagon, and a flashy blond wife, raising German shepherds in some fancy suburb.'"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Although he was uniquely someone who was simultaneously an accomplished playwright and movie star he once said, "I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Furthermore, "being a writer is so great because you're literally not dependent on anybody. Whereas, as an actor, you have to audition or wait for somebody else to make a decision about how to use you, with writing, you can do it anywhere, anytime you want. You don't have to ask permission."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">However, he said that while nobody could make a living as a playwright he was able to make enough money from one movie that allowed him to spend a whold year concentrating on his writing and also be able to feed his horses.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Shepard placed a high premium on his privacy and guarded it with a vengeance and therefore refused to cooperate with Winters -- or any other biographer. He did, however, leave a mother lode of written material that Winters was able to mine and that allowed him to accomplish his goal of revealing "the chasm that exists between the Shepard the public sees and thinks it knows, and the man himself."</span></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">******</b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some of what I have written I already knew before reading his biography. I knew that he was an impotant playwright, but I was much more familiar with his film career. That's partly because we don't have many opportunities in the Missouri Ozarks to take in plays staged by professionals. That's an ovestatement; we don't have any opportunties</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">If, however, I had known then what I now know after reading the book, I might have been in such a state of awe that I would have been unable to say anything to him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It was in a coffee shop in Santa Fe in the fall of 2015 that I shook his hand. I was there with my son, who manages a well-known western hat store just off the plaza.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, unlike me, my son is accustomed to seeing celebrities, since Santa Fe has become a magnet for actors, writers, and entertainers who want to escape the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. And sometimes they wander into his store.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I was at the coffee shop because I was in the middle of a road trip and had stopped for a couple of days to spend some time with my son and his family. It was a weekday and it was my son's routine to go to this coffee shop each morning before going to work. It was a popular place that served good coffee and you had to stand in line to be waited on.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We're standing in line and my son nudges me in the ribs and whispers "Look, look."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So I looked, but I didn't see what he saw.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And then I heard him say, "Hello, Mr. Shepard."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And I turned my head and Sam Shepard was standing in front of me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">My son knew more about Shepard than I did, especially about his literary career. And because he will talk to anyone and everyone, he was able to engage Shepard in a conversation that had not yet gotten around to his films, which I could have commented on.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But I noticed that Shepard was carrying a book, and I asked him what he was reading. It was <i style="font-weight: bold;">Empire of the Summer Moon</i>, a biography of the last Comanche war chief, Quanah Parker, a book that I had read earlier that year. So now I had something that I could add to the convesation, one that lasted a good half hour.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We were still standing in line, but people were stepping around us and finally Shepard said that he should be moving on, that he was keeping us from getting our coffee. We shook hands -- and he left.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Less than two years later, he was dead.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>******</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The cause of death was complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly called Lou Gehrig's Disease. I had a friend who died from the disease so I know something about it. It is an insidious disease in which the mind outlives the body, with the victim living on the average two to four years after contracting the disease.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Although his handshake was firm and I didn't notice that he was experiencing any difficulties in walking, in all likelihood Sam Shepard was already in the early stages of ALS, and yet he paused to pass the day with two of his admirers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"I could go on and on about death. One of my favorite subjects -- so long as you can keep it at arm's length." -- Sam Sheperd</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoSliJPhBl4XaC3y0jf73NVqXKttJjAKg0_865uXa6zUG-pAmzsu37145puOg9wVlh_dNeleC6s5hzyu61mixFf8uXI3sU3OX5_zFE1TekQsbyKPb3GLVkYOid81v9m-B0DhQgVET5gkFWT09mR4RJ9pxjQDZBjFSvLqDmL6LrUVLYaXBMAiseYGK/s300/sam3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoSliJPhBl4XaC3y0jf73NVqXKttJjAKg0_865uXa6zUG-pAmzsu37145puOg9wVlh_dNeleC6s5hzyu61mixFf8uXI3sU3OX5_zFE1TekQsbyKPb3GLVkYOid81v9m-B0DhQgVET5gkFWT09mR4RJ9pxjQDZBjFSvLqDmL6LrUVLYaXBMAiseYGK/w640-h358/sam3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i>1943-2017</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-63253892183274120272023-02-04T18:09:00.003-06:002023-02-04T21:20:16.087-06:00ELMER KELTON (1926-2009)<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP5FtxPiLQI1TxEJSiyvbCXp2sWm151ECBQgeffHxcIDAfr-uK8LlP1aeuutSqGHGp3VvMUL2s-iBhPWynwrL0qfxf_N1Ptsi0c4GRSnhCpPipgSloGrmvscDMg0W2AiX7JrAbPbFGQKPXDOCCRbyHit8HqiWqhkJxYZP47f-OyBuXSoKhUYTUgI5U/s435/ELMERKELTONLIBRARY.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="435" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP5FtxPiLQI1TxEJSiyvbCXp2sWm151ECBQgeffHxcIDAfr-uK8LlP1aeuutSqGHGp3VvMUL2s-iBhPWynwrL0qfxf_N1Ptsi0c4GRSnhCpPipgSloGrmvscDMg0W2AiX7JrAbPbFGQKPXDOCCRbyHit8HqiWqhkJxYZP47f-OyBuXSoKhUYTUgI5U/w640-h456/ELMERKELTONLIBRARY.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"</span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">My dad wanted to make a cowboy out of me, but every time he turned around to see where I was, I was reading a book."</span><br /></span><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLbSAgxVghoktiNtipulnPmJX23FbZCbXy9ecUXp7d34xarDNXJ2TLAeFd3-wTDrp97bonemhNBP3oMSDbX2BJwHp7WTzG30-36SS7qEA4ffneBl2LxW2dSoZtSQoSVR7i7KoN-wLxpEKIsMedYp_NuFlnLRMVMPoa_CPnmAJwuXPtCGNsuFcv22hu/s400/CraneTexasStreetWatertower1940TXOPtb.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="400" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLbSAgxVghoktiNtipulnPmJX23FbZCbXy9ecUXp7d34xarDNXJ2TLAeFd3-wTDrp97bonemhNBP3oMSDbX2BJwHp7WTzG30-36SS7qEA4ffneBl2LxW2dSoZtSQoSVR7i7KoN-wLxpEKIsMedYp_NuFlnLRMVMPoa_CPnmAJwuXPtCGNsuFcv22hu/w640-h472/CraneTexasStreetWatertower1940TXOPtb.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-weight: bold;">Crane, Texas (1940s)</span><br /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-weight: bold;">"In an oil-patch town like Crane a boy who excelled in English and won spelling bees was automatically suspect."</span><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">No writer ever knew West Texas better than Elmer Kelton. No, that's not quite correct. Let me start over. No writer <i>ever knew west Texas as well as Elmer Kelton.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">After all, he was born on a west Texas ranch where first his grandfather and than his father was the foreman. He grew up near the town of Crane on the McElroy Ranch located in Upton and Crane counties where his father, R.W. "Buck" Kelton, was employed for over thirty years. His mother was Neta Beatrice "Bea" (<i>nee </i>Parker).</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Kelton wrote in his autobiography, <b><i>Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer</i> </b>(2010), that:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">"Dad gave me every chance to learn to be a cowboy. I was probably the greatest failure of his life. I was always better talking about it, and writing about it, than I ever was at doing it .... By the time I was eight or nine years old, I fantasized about someday writing the Great American Novel."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">A good listener, Kelton was quoted as saying that "Cowboys, especially in the days before television, were pretty good storytellers. As a kid I loved to sit around and listen to them talk. I soaked it up like a sponge."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">After high school he attended the University of Texas at Austin and was a semester shy of graduation when he was drafted into the army during WWII and served in the infantry in Europe from 1944 to 1946. A Bronze Star was among his ciatations.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">After the war he finished his degree in journalism at the University of Texas. Beginning in 1948 he wrote for over forty years about farming and ranching in west Texas for various agricultural newspapers and journals, before retiring in 1990.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Kelton's mother, a former school teacher, encouraged him to be a writer, but his father was rather dubious about his son's career choice. His response was "That's the way with you kids nowadays, you all want to make a living without working for it."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">When asked if he had any advice for young writers, Kelton said: "Keep your day job. Read, read, and keep on reading. Write, write, and keep on writing."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Kelton took his own advice. He kept his day job.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">During those four decades as an agricultural journalist he wrote fiction in his spare time, in the evenings and on the weekends. He began writing short stories for pulp magazines and published his first novel, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Hot Iron</i>, in 1955.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIsGHb4gNey7y1sPFmWsWOmfnxtqVA2ooX40s5YeDLCC5SA7x4POTxTAx6tfWpTcaIjXEGBCLPkIdR9G_KrWFXpkqgDKeodDOa7rG0LGskZtE5NPytuq_ydFliCWAmc46IbW-KQe5zpg51uw_WnCgVEhKSmD8kkl_jHymjB5FkXpQ_AnaN1Tx-tFr/s350/hotiron.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="213" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIsGHb4gNey7y1sPFmWsWOmfnxtqVA2ooX40s5YeDLCC5SA7x4POTxTAx6tfWpTcaIjXEGBCLPkIdR9G_KrWFXpkqgDKeodDOa7rG0LGskZtE5NPytuq_ydFliCWAmc46IbW-KQe5zpg51uw_WnCgVEhKSmD8kkl_jHymjB5FkXpQ_AnaN1Tx-tFr/w244-h400/hotiron.webp" width="244" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;">He went on to write more than forty novels, all westerns, and, with few exceptions, set in west Texas.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">His first real recognition was due to the publication of his novel, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Buffalo Wagons </i>(1957), which received the highest honor that a western novel can receive, that being a prestigious Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kMdyGaA9T3mT4o6LJX5oNA7f5SRELO5rydk2OVz5prJ2uGGknZgHxORJzh34IG8yVcaHOIULIbxoJMfhjk21hlwwxJdJXVSzt2vzi161197b-JlNZLjy9zgU4-q-W3_lYrF3F-ybaTNNX-0bJRklYHvdOtnDDcerYHva2UJUUGfR-9z2fd5IRd6G/s475/buffalowagons2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="294" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kMdyGaA9T3mT4o6LJX5oNA7f5SRELO5rydk2OVz5prJ2uGGknZgHxORJzh34IG8yVcaHOIULIbxoJMfhjk21hlwwxJdJXVSzt2vzi161197b-JlNZLjy9zgU4-q-W3_lYrF3F-ybaTNNX-0bJRklYHvdOtnDDcerYHva2UJUUGfR-9z2fd5IRd6G/w397-h640/buffalowagons2.jpg" width="397" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That was just the beginning, for six of his later novels would also win the award. They are: <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Day the Cowboys Quit </i>(1971); <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Time it Never Rained </i>(1973); <i style="font-weight: bold;">Slaughter </i>(1992); <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Far Canyon </i>(1994); <i style="font-weight: bold;">Eyes of the Hawk </i>(2001); and <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Way of the Coyote </i>(2002).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In addition, three of his novels have received Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. They are: <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Time It Never Rained </i>(1973); <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Good Old Boys </i>(1982); and <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Man Who Rode Midnight </i>(1987).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Note that <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Time It Never Rained </i>is the only Kelton novel to be honored by both organizations. This is only fitting since it is his most popular and most critically acclaimed work, as well as being his personal favorite.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In 1995, <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Good Old Boys </i>was made into a <a href="https://westofriver.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-good-old-boys-movie.html" rel="nofollow">TV movie</a> on TNT, starring Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed and co-wrote the script. To date, it is the only Kelton story to be adapted for film.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That same year Kelton's peers in the Western Writers of America organization voted him the "All-time Best Western Author." I don't know where the two biggest selling authors, Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour, placed, but it was somewhere behind Willa Cather who finished a distant second.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">When asked in an interview how he felt about the vote, he said, "I'd hate to have to stand up and defend that in front of a jury. I appreciate the compliment, but I can't say that I believe it."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Kelton's primary theme in his novels "has always been change and how people adpt to it or don't adapt." Never is this more apparent than it is in his most acclaimed novel, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/9194182495225202428/4947566715029289435" rel="nofollow">The Time It Never Rained</a>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdN0_NnLHF0PORbMGqb95E5uXEzYGWv-nKHtaXAaQS8iEnPmK7T1L5MPEkoumFjhW7-2MO-No6onsHrv1Zz92stcYMs0nRCUk_kuWIVEjOdlIjrKySzrzkria98Spc0XT7AqFAnkJt4xPgx6E5FfrRhQMW2oRPiO7r6b_PcZfr7HvPoMMA0kFN6ZK/s475/Elmernever%20rained.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="317" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdN0_NnLHF0PORbMGqb95E5uXEzYGWv-nKHtaXAaQS8iEnPmK7T1L5MPEkoumFjhW7-2MO-No6onsHrv1Zz92stcYMs0nRCUk_kuWIVEjOdlIjrKySzrzkria98Spc0XT7AqFAnkJt4xPgx6E5FfrRhQMW2oRPiO7r6b_PcZfr7HvPoMMA0kFN6ZK/w268-h400/Elmernever%20rained.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">It is the story of an actual drought that occurred in west Texas during the 50's, one that lasted seven long years.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">During those years the ability of ranchers to adapt was severely tested year after year.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Kelton not only wrote about the drought in his novel, he lived it.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">He said that "I could never have written it without my experience as a reporter. That drought was my daily running story as an agricultural writer for seven years."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Charlie Flagg is the story's primary protagonist. Kelton said, "I have heard Charlie described as a mythical character representing old-fashioned ideals of rugged individualism and free enterprise. To me there was nothing mythical about him. He was real."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">And so were you, Mr. Kelton.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Verdana, "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 115%;"><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face="Verdana, "sans-serif"" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #2b00fe; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /> </p>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-7458472355284216962023-01-20T21:06:00.005-06:002023-03-08T11:38:48.611-06:00THE GOOD OLD BOYS: The Movie<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Elmer kelton wrote more than forty novels, all set in the American West. One would think that more than one of them might have been filmed, wouldn't you?</div></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After all, Zane Grey's stories were filmed over and over and over. The plots were rewritten so many times that in the last productions the only two things they had in common with the original product was Grey's name above the title -- and the title.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This despite the fact that, let's face it, he wasn't a good writer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Two good writers whose novels were many times adapted to the screen were Ernest Haycox and Luke Short, though not as many times as Grey's.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, when all three of these writers were publishing the Western dominated all other genres in print and on the screen.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Louis L'Amour, who sold more Western novels than any other writer, including Zane Grey, began his writing career in the early 50's and many of his did make their way to the big screen, but they were written in the 50s and 60s. By the time the 70s arrived his books were still selling but they weren't being adapted for movies though some did become TV movies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Did I mention that Elmer Kelton wrote over forty novels and that only one was adapted as a movie? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That didn't happen because Kelton wasn't a good writer. In fact, he was a great one. The Western Writers of American even named him the greatest Western novelist of all time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, one factor that explains the lack of screen adaptations of Kelton's novels is the explanation of L'Amour's drop-off at the end. Western movie production was curtailed in the 60's due to the competition of the little screen in the living room and even more so during the 70's and later.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">However, I am still flabbergasted that only one Kelton story made it to the screen -- and it wasn't even a theatrical release, it was a TV movie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That movie was <b>THE GOOD OLD BOYS (Turner/TNT, 1995)</b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2vjZb0sLxDkJe1xzhKIrzDJcOskD6XdJnEwqp5ykiv_0jnqABdrjFc5nmGvRwjPhc9T-PMkxVnSQ_aXuf9qXPn42q7D-xP_r4VJN80X4zm00KXICEnf7CtKqsliwpnqR737TGyvHK063bW6wYF3cz-qVhFpTxYU198BUvVqDcoB0_GZPqvbC8vL3H/s491/tljss.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="350" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2vjZb0sLxDkJe1xzhKIrzDJcOskD6XdJnEwqp5ykiv_0jnqABdrjFc5nmGvRwjPhc9T-PMkxVnSQ_aXuf9qXPn42q7D-xP_r4VJN80X4zm00KXICEnf7CtKqsliwpnqR737TGyvHK063bW6wYF3cz-qVhFpTxYU198BUvVqDcoB0_GZPqvbC8vL3H/w456-h640/tljss.jpg" width="456" /></a></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>DIRECTOR: TOMMY LEE JONES; PRODUCER: SAM NEWMAN; WRITERS: TELEPLAY BY TOMMY LEE JONES & J.T. ALLEN BASED ON NOVEL BY ELMER KELTON; CINEMATOGRAPHER: ALAN CASE</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>CAST: TOMMY LEE JONES, TERRY KINNEY, FRANCES MCDORMAND, SAM SHEPARD, SISSY SPACEK, MATT DAMON, </b><b>WILFORD BRIMLEY, WALTER OKLEWICZ, BLAYNE WEAVER, BRUCE MCGILL, LARRY MAHAN, PARK OVERALL, JIMMY DON COX</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here's what Jonathan Taylor had to say about the film in <i>Variety </i>at the time that it debuted:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">"<b>THE GOOD OLD BOYS </b><i><b>has 'vanity project' written all over it. Tommy Lee Jones not only stars but also makes his debut as director and writer .... By rights, it should be an indulgent and self-conscious effort, instead, it's a work of uncommon charm and poignance. It's being shown on TNT but would look just fine on the bigscreen."</b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Good for you, Mr. Taylor, those are my exact sentiments. But there's more:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"It's enormously entertaining and marks an auspicious directing debut. It's not so much of a vanity project as a virtuosity effort."</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, now, that is indeed high praise. And it would not have happened had it not been for Tommy Lee Jones' "vanity project." Look at that cast list; not quite what one would expect for a TV movie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgoC0ADfAxwJeB4dGQF0k8O0isoZyk4XdfC3lH9CNEjUeMCQAyBiiEzCLmby0UdGJXwsIAsttokLT8yH8LN8ypJwnexBKkMDJk99oSNo133c1u93dg0miN9SCaku3alXqNF4GvVyPYmMqrV-SlmEZigcoyMMk3r8Ka-oszQOBC0Ptfv-WUlmBrW9gF/s781/tljbiscuit.png" style="font-size: medium; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="781" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgoC0ADfAxwJeB4dGQF0k8O0isoZyk4XdfC3lH9CNEjUeMCQAyBiiEzCLmby0UdGJXwsIAsttokLT8yH8LN8ypJwnexBKkMDJk99oSNo133c1u93dg0miN9SCaku3alXqNF4GvVyPYmMqrV-SlmEZigcoyMMk3r8Ka-oszQOBC0Ptfv-WUlmBrW9gF/w400-h310/tljbiscuit.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Tommy Lee Jones is Hewey Calloway</span></i></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The movie is set in West Texas and is filmed there around Brackettville, Alpine, Del Rio, and Fort Davis.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;">It is an "end of the West" story in the tradition of films such as <b>SHANE</b>, <b>RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY</b>, and <b>THE WILD BUNCH</b>.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">It is, however, a story of quiet characterization, with a lack of gunplay. Hewey doesn't carry a gun and was a notoriously bad shot. Only one shot is fired in the whole movie and it is a warning shot fired by a county sheriff. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Therefore, it doesn't portray the violence that takes place in the previously mentioned films, especially the last one. It is much more akin to <b>MONTE WALSH</b>, but even that film had a shootout near the end.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Jones and his co-writer must have admired Kelton's novel for the script adheres closely to what the author had written and many of the good lines and humor are taken directly from the book.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Hewey Calloway is one of the good old boys whose only ambition, like that of Monte Walsh, is to be a cowboy forever, and, in the year 1906, that sets him off from most of the rest of the world, for the life he desires to live forever is being rapidly replaced by techological progress.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Elmer Kelton wrote in the introduction to my copy of the book:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"[Hewey] tries to remain a horseback man while the world relentlessly moves into a machine age .... He lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change."</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The movie opens with Hewey riding toward the homestead that his younger brother, Walter (Terry Kinney), is farming in west Texas.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Along the way he has a conversation with his horse, Biscuit:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"Biscuit, I'm tired of this cowology. I'm tired of these mountains. And if you won't take it the wrong way, I'd just as soon talk with somebody can talk back, every once in a while. You ain't said nothin' in two years."</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Before he arrives at his brother's place he meets up with a former employer and big rancher and banker C.C. Tarpley (Wilford Brimley), who, as it turns out, owns the mortgage on Hewey's brother's farm:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyca-SydklsoUlPbsrZnUJvnP8vJ126xyspLCCxNR_tEwA1d8mniXVSqp6sXAie7dp4lV_zy4NPAFyjilc3_qu7zPPmZeKrl3YZFYgfO3oIRIlqm9Mb-9scsl3iXi_xwCj_CIcA7S1gseaFm71mC2mcy6RXNCIa7iEmxNLg999-VK-CPadY0KeaLUO/s852/gob9.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="852" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyca-SydklsoUlPbsrZnUJvnP8vJ126xyspLCCxNR_tEwA1d8mniXVSqp6sXAie7dp4lV_zy4NPAFyjilc3_qu7zPPmZeKrl3YZFYgfO3oIRIlqm9Mb-9scsl3iXi_xwCj_CIcA7S1gseaFm71mC2mcy6RXNCIa7iEmxNLg999-VK-CPadY0KeaLUO/w640-h360/gob9.webp" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>C.C. has designs on Walter's farm</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b style="color: #2b00fe;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">C.C. TARPLEY: "All you got is a brown horse past his prime, an old saddle, and maybe twenty dollars. Now that ain't much to show for them years, is it?"</span></i></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>HEWEY: "I went north one time into Canada and seen the glaciers. You ever see a glacier, C.C.?"</i></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Eventually he arrives at his brother's farm where<span style="color: #2b00fe;"> he </span>spies his brother and his brother's youngest son, Tommy (Blayne Weaver), plowing a field.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Father and son are tickled and pleased to see Hewey who had been drifting for two years.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">He expected a warm welcome from his brother and nephews, but he knows his appearance will not be welcomed by Eve (Fances McDormand), his headstrong, temperameltal sister-in-law, who seemed to always like him more when he was going than when he was coming.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTrboKBpuc7cldUI66e1OkbiC-8IwQXUIMmoYuca1VPj7kk5tZne0pN-wKnM9pWkeZ2zQoqemXVYmyQwin-SFFioeGnLWR0Itg5YwPOC6rnDQZbeltO9SrB4b7CL-bsqDu7LYQx6zomh5ewVCP150hZvVgsvNTYzliOGGVPDl5Fr-_UCBDBbiwZxs/s550/gob8.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="550" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTrboKBpuc7cldUI66e1OkbiC-8IwQXUIMmoYuca1VPj7kk5tZne0pN-wKnM9pWkeZ2zQoqemXVYmyQwin-SFFioeGnLWR0Itg5YwPOC6rnDQZbeltO9SrB4b7CL-bsqDu7LYQx6zomh5ewVCP150hZvVgsvNTYzliOGGVPDl5Fr-_UCBDBbiwZxs/w640-h290/gob8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>headstrong and temperamental Eve (Frances McDormand</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Before Walter married Eve he was as footloose as Hewey and beginning at an early age the two had ridden many a trail together.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That changed, however, after Walter met Eve, a pretty young woman working in a boarding house. Despite Hewey's objections and efforts to abort the relationship Walter married Eve.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">After their marriage Eve insisted that Walter take a job as a ranch foreman rather than jumping from one job to another as he once did, and as Hewey still did. She grew dissatisfied with their situation on the ranch and she talked Walter into staking a homestead claim so that they could raise their two sons on land that they owned. Walter, cowboy, became Walter, farmer.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Eve fears the effect that Hewey might have on Walter and their two sons. She is afraid that Walter may be influenced by Hewey and long for the days in which he too had the freedom to roam at will. She knows that Hewey loves her sons and they love him in return, but she is fearful that they might grow up to emulate their wandering uncle.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Eve was always lecturing Hewey about settling down, about responsibility, respectability, always trying to change him.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>EVE: "A man with a good woman to help and encourage him can make a garden out of a desert."</i></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="color: #2b00fe;">HEWEY: "If he's anything like me he'd make a desert out of a garden."</span></i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord's work by making everyone the same.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinq4L8mNwSzdG1livcb2q_5MNEw2fnwqIXbBINNwPWjr2T8mtVNY2m-GJ7fyAejE6im5HsE-zwv8jx_9VW0hG0ZmB8xYiX6nM3pRpyBp-MGBIHmlQ9U0SJQ5RI6j4fIFu7b4JkAryjah48LPwTJkrbwjKw2jwOSyyGLfOTgkV8FUQ61lh4KlL-rXQa/s225/gob3.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinq4L8mNwSzdG1livcb2q_5MNEw2fnwqIXbBINNwPWjr2T8mtVNY2m-GJ7fyAejE6im5HsE-zwv8jx_9VW0hG0ZmB8xYiX6nM3pRpyBp-MGBIHmlQ9U0SJQ5RI6j4fIFu7b4JkAryjah48LPwTJkrbwjKw2jwOSyyGLfOTgkV8FUQ61lh4KlL-rXQa/w400-h400/gob3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>Hewey, riding his horse "Biscuit" flanked by his nephews (L) Cotton (Matt Damon) and (R) Tommy (Blayne Weaver)</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Fourteen-year old Tommy has grown a good deal in the two years since Hewey last saw him, but he's young enough that he still worships his uncle Hewey. Cotton, age 16, is a different story. He has not only grown, he has changed, and he has grown distant from both Hewy and his parents.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZiuS37OWKRDmt5VQ3Y9n2iLJBGPgsl0APnOsM18ReTLaRZVDfLGZeLp9VO5N8vWgj3yNBDx3oViFg5Yx3V71NfFoJe6WeQFduvS_efZN6MJDgqlj-NjWkUDhD7W-AdAgO35kDCBtQBuHg3-NSOWcGaG5WJE4-bWlps9bb06RyazRJknhu4ddmtSI/s550/gob7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="550" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDZiuS37OWKRDmt5VQ3Y9n2iLJBGPgsl0APnOsM18ReTLaRZVDfLGZeLp9VO5N8vWgj3yNBDx3oViFg5Yx3V71NfFoJe6WeQFduvS_efZN6MJDgqlj-NjWkUDhD7W-AdAgO35kDCBtQBuHg3-NSOWcGaG5WJE4-bWlps9bb06RyazRJknhu4ddmtSI/w640-h290/gob7.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>young Matt Damon, in one of his earliest screen roles, is Cotton Calloway</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Cotton talked of the future as a time of automobiles and great machines and fantastic inventions waiting to burst forth upon the world. Hewey shuddered. He tried, but could picture no place in such a world for him. The wonders that made the future look golden to Cotton made it bleak and terrifying to Hewey.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i>COTTON: "Yov ever ride in an automobile?"</i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i>HEWEY: "No. Only ones I've been around are broken down or fixin' to explode."</i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i>COTTON: "World's movin' faster all the time. You either go on with it, or you get left behind. I'm gonna be part of it. I'm gonna help build it."</i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i>HEWEY: "Well, I hope you like it when you get finished."</i></b></span></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Hewey is approaching middle age, but has never married, and posseses no desire to change that situation, at least not until he meets the boys' teacher, Miss Spring Renfro. This casuses him to examine and re-examine the life he has chosen to pursue.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5JyDXrPsUUeccwZSwUPw5OF14M1ztIVpx4JoLufWbpHzWbNwGxw3oi7Zzkyp2R73n862MwXBc6-Xva9sdv4IslmVTHCE_1xl8jct5vJMb27TL2ALUyZw_fslrb2t2bZ0cGoDCDCsO4x5NkVyXSq1Wgj6SFmqFlT_apRxWt8VhG-JREPCqo5nEYWX/s550/gob1.jpg" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="550" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf5JyDXrPsUUeccwZSwUPw5OF14M1ztIVpx4JoLufWbpHzWbNwGxw3oi7Zzkyp2R73n862MwXBc6-Xva9sdv4IslmVTHCE_1xl8jct5vJMb27TL2ALUyZw_fslrb2t2bZ0cGoDCDCsO4x5NkVyXSq1Wgj6SFmqFlT_apRxWt8VhG-JREPCqo5nEYWX/w640-h290/gob1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>Miss Spring Renfro (Sissy Spacek)</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Kelton states Hewey's quandary in the introdution to his book:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>"To fulfill a wish we often give up something of equal or nearly equal value. Hewey feels drawn to the life his brother Walter has found: a home a family, a piece of land that is his own. But to have it he knows he must give up his freedom to go where he pleases, when he pleases, to travel his own road without considering the needs of someone else ....</i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">He cannot have it all: nobody can.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">He asks Spring to marry him and they make plans. Enter Snort Yarnell (Sam Shepard), Hewey's saddle pal and partner in making mischief. He has a string of horses that he is taking into Mexico and asks Hewey if he would like to go with him.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Which road will Hewey choose? Will it be the open road with Snort or a settled domestic life with Spring?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJen8o45frsZBnK4VrvbNgw_0LQ4rkqVpwBHNSIHwDyZiFcIDNganSW47sB038svtR4jczmRwcKuqKiqI3bBhh6AohjxeytzylTtZlIzXagnWR-L9npTLKudZ3eTzjQuYtiXhcJTOYExq9GGEni0Dz4j9ezJZxTNhdnAxhNHqOCj9JHmruMjjjYLm/s1004/gob5.webp" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1004" data-original-width="669" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJen8o45frsZBnK4VrvbNgw_0LQ4rkqVpwBHNSIHwDyZiFcIDNganSW47sB038svtR4jczmRwcKuqKiqI3bBhh6AohjxeytzylTtZlIzXagnWR-L9npTLKudZ3eTzjQuYtiXhcJTOYExq9GGEni0Dz4j9ezJZxTNhdnAxhNHqOCj9JHmruMjjjYLm/w426-h640/gob5.webp" width="426" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>Sam as Chuck Yeager, his most famous role</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEg9PYopYiqVT2xN5JAMrhq5UlEqNi8s8RU5n41yeuM9Iq4ij4OX3IXP6TVWqoFwYIrAIlziH8iqbt0VwpDYaH5BkbClDXUL_e1QtrsdfZWrfIxl4bMAcaoTAdfyYImpY4oyIjFNOlWN2ahhrewAAX0_7ErL8jXgOy5TEBS7UcdAZ16l7rFisPWPg6/s800/gob6.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="800" height="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEg9PYopYiqVT2xN5JAMrhq5UlEqNi8s8RU5n41yeuM9Iq4ij4OX3IXP6TVWqoFwYIrAIlziH8iqbt0VwpDYaH5BkbClDXUL_e1QtrsdfZWrfIxl4bMAcaoTAdfyYImpY4oyIjFNOlWN2ahhrewAAX0_7ErL8jXgOy5TEBS7UcdAZ16l7rFisPWPg6/w640-h538/gob6.webp" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>Sam as Frank James <br /><br /><br /></i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DqjRxwLzUU6ug-M8nIw1-ls3suPGdX0BF7ftzhJ2WFDs4mAiRTovmN_7-VpP7WdFsVYfC4XAdMgOisR1wXJD3IcBIVb1HMVMP9TwtgkbP4OlT5q3b-p2LwSswgq9PCjlpHBQFyy8KcKIQYB2lAF-xo_5nsPPfJrEybqgLsdkOGoQU-nPvFt8rL9N/s271/ELMER.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="271" data-original-width="208" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4DqjRxwLzUU6ug-M8nIw1-ls3suPGdX0BF7ftzhJ2WFDs4mAiRTovmN_7-VpP7WdFsVYfC4XAdMgOisR1wXJD3IcBIVb1HMVMP9TwtgkbP4OlT5q3b-p2LwSswgq9PCjlpHBQFyy8KcKIQYB2lAF-xo_5nsPPfJrEybqgLsdkOGoQU-nPvFt8rL9N/w307-h400/ELMER.webp" width="307" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b><i>Elmer the Great</i></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>******</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>REVIEWS</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">".... a charming cowboy yarn that Jones also directed, artfully blending romance and adventure, the call of the hearth and that of the open sky. He plays Hewey Calloway, a true Texas cowboy trying to keep the modern era from tossing his era out of the saddle. </i>-- Steve Johnson, <i>Chicago Tribune</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">"This is a Western without gunfire or even the threat of serious violence. The characters and builders we see, to quote novelist Elmer Kelton, are the West's 'main event,' not the storied gunslingers whom Kelton brushes off as 'the sideshow.'" </i>-- Ray Loynd, <i>LA Times</i><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Rock Salt;"><b>THE END</b></span></i><i style="color: red; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"> </i></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div></div></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-57985884722311767162023-01-17T16:38:00.007-06:002023-01-18T13:38:37.913-06:00THE HEWEY CALLOWAY TRILOGY by Elmer Kelton<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgvjloHtuftBYN1-PrRrQPpd_jQ_AeIDrfIS6CuBg46fIQxEo83tVBGwgWy6X9qgh5vD7PNnBuPxI8R-eDOG5H5PyeOB8ALaiLqR5YPfrQwyspBGgtPp2ZcvqMjvu8V6WAzdZFnO0xbBl8i6-s4Th1BxwWCPcJtCzA1bnWfDpoRKzWcWYomOFuYlW/s1280/cowboy1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgvjloHtuftBYN1-PrRrQPpd_jQ_AeIDrfIS6CuBg46fIQxEo83tVBGwgWy6X9qgh5vD7PNnBuPxI8R-eDOG5H5PyeOB8ALaiLqR5YPfrQwyspBGgtPp2ZcvqMjvu8V6WAzdZFnO0xbBl8i6-s4Th1BxwWCPcJtCzA1bnWfDpoRKzWcWYomOFuYlW/w640-h360/cowboy1.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span><p></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: x-large;">Elmer Kelton </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: x-large;">(1926-2009)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: medium;">I haven’t read all of Elmer Kelton’s forty books, but I’ve read about thirty of them and I like some more than others, but I have never read a bad one.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">Among my favorites are the novels comprising the Hewey Caloway trilogy: </span><b style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-style: italic;">The Good Old Boys (1978); The Smiling Country </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">(1998); and </span><b style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">Six Bits a Day </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">(2005).</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;">That's the order that they were published, but it isn't the chronological years in which they are set. <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Smiling Country </i>is a sequel and <i style="font-weight: bold;">Six Bits a Day </i>is a prequel.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfotB1ZIrEML10PDEGfLApp9FL5bBAnoT6A6YXWlLqubwTAdmG9r7cetsyh0ojIc14yDLJNXfM4ZJ2knLl_237ylhoh2P9lC9vCP3P-rJkM9pIjSddlbTVhZBKhKBkoClx8Xqpu1TEyFWzzrT93N0ciZOJ1FF-Flocfl_mHdEOBR8hCYmVzDK4WsF/s500/goodoldboys1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="312" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfotB1ZIrEML10PDEGfLApp9FL5bBAnoT6A6YXWlLqubwTAdmG9r7cetsyh0ojIc14yDLJNXfM4ZJ2knLl_237ylhoh2P9lC9vCP3P-rJkM9pIjSddlbTVhZBKhKBkoClx8Xqpu1TEyFWzzrT93N0ciZOJ1FF-Flocfl_mHdEOBR8hCYmVzDK4WsF/w400-h640/goodoldboys1.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: large;">THE GOOD OLD BOYS</span></b></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: medium;">Hewey Calloway is one of the good old boys whose only ambition is to be a cowboy forever, and, in the year 1906, that makes him a living anachronism, for the life he desires to live forever has had its place in the sun, but that sun has set.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">As Elmer Kelton writes in the introduction to my copy of the book:</span><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"[Hewey] tries to remain a horseback man while the world relentlessly moves into a machine age…. He lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change."</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoINNhEFFSat6_ciZjHQT4w5qCniDKv4s61ggritToHFg5jCfVhb7ImHPGfSFCB4OLf31C76kBQcLCiNSnn_CS37zXWgYi3ZnrECzXaFugLpX7G-tgZD1k-75cWqgp7y7XbtudYWbDkRdKCx6kpa7u6cH9Befg4W6LBROY_szJRP6DqaDHa_uPy4Vy/s1024/cowboy3.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoINNhEFFSat6_ciZjHQT4w5qCniDKv4s61ggritToHFg5jCfVhb7ImHPGfSFCB4OLf31C76kBQcLCiNSnn_CS37zXWgYi3ZnrECzXaFugLpX7G-tgZD1k-75cWqgp7y7XbtudYWbDkRdKCx6kpa7u6cH9Befg4W6LBROY_szJRP6DqaDHa_uPy4Vy/w640-h320/cowboy3.webp" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">The story opens with Hewey riding toward the homestead that his younger brother is farming in west Texas, but he approaches with trepidation. He expects a warm welcome from his brother and his nephews, but he knows that his appearance will not be welcomed by Eve, his sister-in-law, who seemed to always like him more when he was going than when he was coming.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">Before Walter married Eve he was footloose, but only out of necessity, being of a more pratical bent than Hewey, he wished to live a more settled existence. At an eary age, however, they had ridden many a trail together. </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">After their marriage Eve insisted that Walter take a job as a ranch foreman rather than jumping from one job to another as he once did, and as Hewey still did.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">She grew dissatisfied with their situation on the ranch and she talked Walter into filing a homestead claim so that they could raise their two sons on land that they owned. Walter, cowboy, became Walter, farmer.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">Eve fears the effect that Hewey might have on Walter and their two sons. She is afraid that Walter may be influenced by Hewey and long for the days in which he too had the freedom to roam at will. She knows that Hewey loves her sons and they love him in return, but she is fearful that they might grow up to emulate their uncle.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eve was always lecturing him about settling down, about responsibility, respectability, always trying to change him. The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">Fourteen-year old Tommy has grown a good deal in the two years since Hewey last saw him, but he is young enough that he still worships his Uncle Hewey. Cotton, age sixteen, is a different story. He has not only grown, he has changed, and he has grown distant from both Hewey and his parents.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cotton talked of the future as a time of automobiles and great machines and fantastic inventions waiting to burst forth upon the world. Hewey shuddered. He tried, but could picture no place in such a world for him. The wonders that made the future look golden to Cotton made it bleak and terrifying to Hewey.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">Hewey is thirty-seven, never married, and possesses no desire to change that situation, at least not until he meets the boys’ teacher, Miss Spring Renfro. This causes him to examine and re-examine the life he has chosen to pursue.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="background: white;">Kelton writes in the introduction:</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: medium;"><b>"To fulfill a wish we often give up something of equal or nearly equal value. Hewey feels drawn to the life his brother Walter has found: a home, a family, a piece of land that is his own. But to have it he knows he must give up his freedom to go where he pleases, when he pleases, to travel his own road without considering the needs of someone else…."</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;">He cannot have it all; nobody can.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;">Which road will he choose? Will it be the open road or a settled life with Miss Renfro? </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><b style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">******</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;">I give you Hewey Calloway, philosopher:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>If a bath always felt this good, I would take one every week or two.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>Looks like to me if they want people to pay attention to the rules, the rules ought to make sense.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>He had never seen harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable. The motive in this case would be to keep Eve from raising hell and later regretting her lapse from grace. It had always ben his policy to protect her from herself.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>I was ducked for a Baptist. But the water didn't soak very deep. I taken up my old and willful ways again pretty soon.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>Lots of folks talk about what the Lord wants. Wonder how many has ever asked Him.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>If it cost a hundred dollars to go to heaven I maybe make it to Fort Worth.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;">And Hewey Calloway, citizen:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>I'm a free born American. I even went to war. I'd be a taxpayer, and proud to say it, if I owned anything to pay taxes on.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;">and finally:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;"><b>Folks have got to take me like I am or leave me alone. </b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Comic Sans MS; font-size: medium;">But does that apply to Miss Renfro? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">******</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Some
things we just can’t have, because if we try to hold them they die. There’s no way I can have you without
changing you. So go ahead, Hewey, go
with Snort. I know it’s what you really
want to do, deep in your heart. Go on then
… go on to Mexico.”</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And he does.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Hewey turned once, reined up and waved his
hat. Then he rode on.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The sun broke over the prairie in a sudden red
blaze. The family all pulled together,
arms around each other, Spring standing to one side, still alone. They watched as Hewey seemed to ride into the
fire, sitting straight-shouldered and proud on Biscuit’s back. And finally he was gone, melted into the
relentless glow of a new day.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And so ends <b><i>The Good Old Boys.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">******</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The story ended in such a way that it might have
been written to allow for a sequel. If
so, Kelton waited a long time to write one, since <b><i>The Good Old Boys </i></b>was
published in 1978 and its sequel<b><i> </i></b>was published twenty years later.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">More than likely, Kelton was looking for a story
idea and decided to resurrect Hewey Calloway, one of his – and his fans’ –
favorite characters.</span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">The happy result
was </span><b style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><i>The
Smiling Country, </i></b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">which was also set in west Texas, but in the year
1910, four years after </span><b style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><i>The Good Old Boys</i></b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Many of the same characters from <b><i>The
Good Old Boys </i></b>will be re-introduced, including:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">Walter
and Eve Calloway – Hewey’s brother and sister-in-law</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">Tommy
Calloway – Walter and Eve’s youngest son</span></b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> (their oldest son Cotton does
not make an appearance; he has gone to town to work in an automobile garage)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">C.C.
Tarpley – wealthy rancher</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Frank “Fat”
Gervin – C.C.’s son-in-law and Hewey’s nemesis<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alvin and
Cora Lawdermilk – Eve and Walter’s neighbors<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Snort
Yarnell – Hewey’s sometimes saddle pal and mischief maker<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">And –</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Miss
Spring Renfro – school teacher and Hewey’s ex-fiancée</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">******</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhwm-hZtDDwcPC5u-U9QRt3VAkSJfS97nSRAexSru8JRZDejJjNwRlnIECvQ9pe3zPD3dlrXsNUbVOSnfIr0fxLumMUaAN2QtbIfXJugHMagx_TpwA1sIRe_5e-DxRFk9X_SOUEkzQ78LjpbPvrGOBNWWRi2Dxkiw8mYh00_FROKDRZtchk3LlcFcc/s459/smilingcountry.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="316" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhwm-hZtDDwcPC5u-U9QRt3VAkSJfS97nSRAexSru8JRZDejJjNwRlnIECvQ9pe3zPD3dlrXsNUbVOSnfIr0fxLumMUaAN2QtbIfXJugHMagx_TpwA1sIRe_5e-DxRFk9X_SOUEkzQ78LjpbPvrGOBNWWRi2Dxkiw8mYh00_FROKDRZtchk3LlcFcc/w440-h640/smilingcountry.jpg" width="440" /></a></b></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: large;">THE
SMILING COUNTRY</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;">The story begins:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">“Hewey
Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that
distracted his attention from matters of real importance. In his opinion anyone who wasted time
worrying about his age had more leisure than was good for him. He had not acknowledged a birthday since he
had turned thirty a dozen years ago – or was it fifteen?”</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">“…. In
horse years, Biscuit was older than his rider, but the brown gelding was
equally indifferent to the passage of time …. He could outguess a cow nine out
of ten confrontations and outrun her the other time.”</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsDTtkl1qm4PNUGCDciVwkm7TU5y6GUsS-nDbOIUnAM6bnEAFE2VVvKY2q2ukZIHyvHFki15DRSZPAbNoKlIsBTLE-QVY_WYiRGGS6sASnrPikZRSfvs75Tef7MTRW9_hDI9DeQCcASq-atNkMKBeKQhNSH9e19LAmi_dXTlZuecaer4IOGs5PZrcJ/s265/cowboy4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="265" height="459" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsDTtkl1qm4PNUGCDciVwkm7TU5y6GUsS-nDbOIUnAM6bnEAFE2VVvKY2q2ukZIHyvHFki15DRSZPAbNoKlIsBTLE-QVY_WYiRGGS6sASnrPikZRSfvs75Tef7MTRW9_hDI9DeQCcASq-atNkMKBeKQhNSH9e19LAmi_dXTlZuecaer4IOGs5PZrcJ/w640-h459/cowboy4.png" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><b style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">“…
Anybody who couldn’t get where he was going on horseback or in a wagon was in
too much of a hurry.”</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">Hewey, true to his fiddle-footed, happy-go-lucky
personality, was opposed to owning property for he viewed it as a handicap
rather than an asset.</span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">He never wanted
more property than he could tie to his saddle and carry with him to his next
job.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“I’m
satisfied with myself the way I am.
Ain’t much I’d want to change.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">He hated giving orders, found responsibility
smothering, and preferred to work as a top cowhand at thirty dollars a
month. Unfortunately, responsibility
came knocking in the person of his young nephew, Tommy, who was now eighteen
and who wanted to be a cowboy, just like his Uncle Hewey.</span><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hewey loved Tommy but he knew that his
sister-in-law’s greatest dread had
become a reality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;">EVE TO
TOMMY: “Don’t do everything your uncle Hewey does. Use your head and don’t let him get you hurt.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">HEWEY:
“Tommy’s levelheaded. Like as not he’ll
be lookin’ after me more than I’ll be lookin’ after him.”</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">EVE:
“That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"> </span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hewey did
look after Tommy and the responsibility put him in the hospital. with a broken
arm, ribs, knee, and internal injuries.
It happened when Hewey refused to allow Tommy to ride a mean, unbroken,
outlaw bronc and instead did it himself.
Hewey rode the horse but he was badly injured.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiOuYVl0z0h1yn19GgbWxGJLZ8Iu5xdvY_sA-MBR0ohqZ1IFVtAY1gpOlHtubmJHFlPi-drq-b5wGNof8W7DN4qlA5hQ-7YDEqZI6ysdx0KkVmXrBHj78o79ti4xp4iENt6vxAj-UGEV4XZlRft0RLnNuUCBDO7SRn3vxtC6zoCh7nWkW5t_oeh37/s612/cowboy5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxiOuYVl0z0h1yn19GgbWxGJLZ8Iu5xdvY_sA-MBR0ohqZ1IFVtAY1gpOlHtubmJHFlPi-drq-b5wGNof8W7DN4qlA5hQ-7YDEqZI6ysdx0KkVmXrBHj78o79ti4xp4iENt6vxAj-UGEV4XZlRft0RLnNuUCBDO7SRn3vxtC6zoCh7nWkW5t_oeh37/w628-h640/cowboy5.png" width="628" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">He
realized that his days as a cowboy and bronc buster were behind him and he was
forced to “ponder the imponderable price of freedom.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After
leaving the hospital he went to his brother Walter and sister-in-law Eve’s farm,
even arriving in an automobile.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Spring
Renfro was the only woman he had ever loved. In the four years he had been gone she was
never far from his thoughts. He wondered
if he should ask her to marry him – a second time. Unfortunately, he discovered that she and
Farley Neal, a good man, with both boots planted firmly on the ground, was also
in love with her.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">Who would
she choose?</span><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">******<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;">REVIEWS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">“<i>Elmer Kelton does not write Westerns. He writes fine novels set in the West</i></span></b><i><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"> – Dee Brown, author of <b>Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee</b> <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">“Elmer Kelton is to Texas what Mark Twain was
to the Mississippi River …. Each page of this novel resonates with the
authenticity that only Kelton can bring to this stirring adventure tale ….
Kelton’s clean, crisp writing makes this a most enjoyable addition to the body
of this author’s always memorable work. </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">– Jory Sherman, author of <b><i>Grass
Kingdom<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">Old timey dialogue, newly minted, rhetorical
stretchers and whopping good humor right out of Twain. </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">-- <i>Kirkus<b> </b></i></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><b>******</b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-i1hfX9HZg5r4yWM-eQsi4nwdE1Kq1GhFFGE4E9hxsaU5fx3iKllus6hhhkPIG8G2CPfjDmXrHRgh2TlUnRzxUnxe0bzJDf_piJqSVvhAMR_wLic1584BMusbdA_rgdhPP8nFnwBtNt7L7H-So1RLK6aLA3yoqNVeHdUt5Z9yvAL7m2RbEoZyxVrb/s499/sixbits.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="375" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-i1hfX9HZg5r4yWM-eQsi4nwdE1Kq1GhFFGE4E9hxsaU5fx3iKllus6hhhkPIG8G2CPfjDmXrHRgh2TlUnRzxUnxe0bzJDf_piJqSVvhAMR_wLic1584BMusbdA_rgdhPP8nFnwBtNt7L7H-So1RLK6aLA3yoqNVeHdUt5Z9yvAL7m2RbEoZyxVrb/w480-h640/sixbits.jpg" width="480" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: x-large;">SIX BITS A DAY</b><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: x-large;"> </b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">In </span><i style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><b>Six Bits a Day</b></i><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> we learn the
back stories of the Calloway brothers: Hewey, age twenty-two, and Walter, who
is a year younger. In the year 1889, they have put the farming life in east
Texas behind them, at least Hewey has, and have traveled to west Texas to
become cowboys, at least Hewey wants to.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: medium;">The brothers have different outlooks on life and do not share the same goals. Hewey is carefree, fun-loving, can't remember how old he is, and can't shoot straight.</span></p><div><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">But as a <i>Kirkus </i>reviewer wrote: <b>"One has to appreciate a Western whose hero is so bad with a revolver that he couldn't hit water if he was standing knee deep in a lake." </b><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Walter, on the other hand, has a more practical nature and is more grounded. He's already tired of the wandering life and wants to settle down, especially after he meets Eve, a pretty girl working at a boarding house, whom he falls for like a ton of bricks, and tells Hewey that he is going to marry.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">Hewey feels that it is his obligation as the older brother (he'</span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: medium;">s not sure about how much older) to rescue Walter from a fate worse than death.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;">If you have read <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Good Old Boys</i> you know if he succeeded or not .</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6jPqWlHZdE3zwIm7ibgXyz_iMqkq3oKBU3cdTdFCloY6eHJRThZ98W2CPDr-GmpNs3_BVwcyjEuCTufC1AZgIRGEntCeJqNpB65ysM5hjGV5L7dJ10yAk6yHVxa8G3CG_CtyzYUwoSzydDFeCNVYZQ_2CQmoVV8XQ9BRIAXH0iW7vmV48Kv9TFT46/s626/Elmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="514" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6jPqWlHZdE3zwIm7ibgXyz_iMqkq3oKBU3cdTdFCloY6eHJRThZ98W2CPDr-GmpNs3_BVwcyjEuCTufC1AZgIRGEntCeJqNpB65ysM5hjGV5L7dJ10yAk6yHVxa8G3CG_CtyzYUwoSzydDFeCNVYZQ_2CQmoVV8XQ9BRIAXH0iW7vmV48Kv9TFT46/w526-h640/Elmer.jpg" width="526" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>the author</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, they are hired on by a tough, big rancher, and total skinflint named C.C. Tarpley and because the brothers are rank amateurs when it comes to cowboying they are paid six bits a day (75 cents) rather than the going rate of a dollar a day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">The reader also learns C.C.'s back
story, a character whose name is familiar to readers of </span><i style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><b>The Good Old
Boys</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"> and </span><i style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">The <b>Smiling Country</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">, and they will get the back
stories of practically every character that appears in the other two books,
including Snort Yarnell and Fat Gervin.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">Hewey, as one would expect, gets himself into some scrapes of his own making and that of others, but through his wit and dumb luck, mostly dumb luck, he escapes, tattered at the edges, but more or less unscathed.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">Like the other books in the trilogy, this is not a shoot-em up Western. There is little gunplay, and that's a good thing for Hewey because he would not have survived. It is also a little shy on plot, but that's not a bad thing, since Kelton provides color and humor and memorable characterizations, along with the good writing that is the hallmark of his work.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";">It is my least favorite of the three books, but it's still a 5-star read for me -- and that ain't bad atall.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">THE END</span> </span><span style="color: #181818; font-size: medium;">(for now)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<br /></span></span></p><div><br /></div></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-65453771938626946372018-06-15T10:51:00.000-05:002018-12-29T21:48:59.046-06:00ROUGH RIDERS: Theodore Roosevelt, His Cowboy Regiment, and the Immortal Charge Up San Juan Hill by Mark Lee Gardner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fJz6ffqkeQc/WyPb8bCDORI/AAAAAAAAEWk/SDWx0BOSqHEdD2ZrtRqjgV_YSRMuEpOMgCLcBGAs/s1600/roughriders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="317" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fJz6ffqkeQc/WyPb8bCDORI/AAAAAAAAEWk/SDWx0BOSqHEdD2ZrtRqjgV_YSRMuEpOMgCLcBGAs/s400/roughriders.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">REMEMBER THE MAINE!</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">"The day that Roosevelt can go into battle with [the Rough Riders] will likely be the happiest of his life." -- </span>Chi</b></span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><b>cago Tribune</b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Mark Gardner writes early in his thoroughly researched and lively account of Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, “This war with Spain was no surprise to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. For months, he had been doing everything in his power – not always with the direct knowledge or approval of the secretary – to make the navy ready for the great conflict he was certain was coming. And he also let it be known that he had no intention of observing the war from afar. Crazy as it sounded – and more than a few did think Roosevelt was crazy – this lighting-rod bureaucrat intended to go where the bullets were flying. He had been waiting for a war, any war, his entire adult life, and now that it was here, nothing was going to keep him from the battlefield.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Gardner adds, “But Roosevelt’s war fever was actually due to America’s fever for war, or at least its long glorification of all things military.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">-----------</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">In 1898, the USS Maine was dispatched to Cuba to protect American interests and property due to reported riots by Cuban insurrectionists who were in rebellion against their Spanish rulers. On February 15, the ship exploded in the Havana harbor; two hundred and sixty-six sailors were killed.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">A court of inquiry called by President William McKinley ruled that the explosion had been caused by an underwater mine, but did not place the blame on the Spaniards. It didn’t matter. The Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers did not hesitate to name the Spaniards as the perpetrators.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">McKinley was the last U.S. president to serve during the Civil War. He knew war wasn’t all glory and adventure for he had experienced it firsthand. Reluctant to plunge his nation into another conflict, he hoped to avoid war by negotiating independence for the Cubans. When his efforts failed, Congress declared war on Spain. “Remember the Maine; and to Hell with Spain” became the rallying call for battle.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">THE ROUGH RIDERS</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Thirty-nine year old Theodore Roosevelt resigned his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and began using personal and political contacts to lobby Russell Alger, the Secretary of War, to allow him to raise a volunteer cavalry regiment. One of the personal contacts he called on was Colonel Leonard Wood, and through their combined efforts they were successful in getting the secretary’s consent.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">While Wood was named commander of the regiment, Roosevelt received a commission as lt. colonel and was named second in command. Roosevelt was impressed by the fact that Wood had won a Medal of Honor during the campaign against Geronimo in the American southwest and he fervently desired to win one of his own.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">As long as there is a war, Roosevelt wrote his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, “the only thing I want to do is command this regiment and get into all the fighting I can.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Since cowboys were regarded as natural born horsemen, the two officers decided to recruit from among their ranks. And it worked. Cowboys from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona readily volunteered to serve in the regiment. Although it was sometimes called the “cowboy regiment,” it also included “Oklahoma Indians, Ivy League football stars, and champion polo players,” -- and more than one fugitive from justice.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The official name of the unit was the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, but it quickly became known by the press and the public as the “Rough Riders,” or more specifically, “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders,” despite the fact that he was second in command.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">But Colonel Wood didn’t mind that his subordinate was getting all the attention. And what could he do about it if he had minded? One newspaper observed “this only goes to show that wherever Roosevelt rides is the head of the parade.” It was not meant as a compliment.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The Rough Riders were “riders” in name only. In fact, due to a shortage of transports needed to ship the horses to the island all the cavalry units were dismounted. The only horses to make it to Cuba were pack animals and the horses belonging to the officers. As a result, the natural born horsemen of the American West fought the war on foot as infantrymen.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">And it wasn’t long before Roosevelt did command the regiment. It happened when Colonel Wood was given the command of a brigade and Roosevelt received a promotion to full colonel and command of the Rough Riders.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">KETTLE AND SAN JUAN HILLS</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br style="font-weight: 400;" />"</b><span style="color: blue;"><b style="background-color: white;">I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened."</b><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><b>– Theodore Roosevelt</b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The war’s final decisive battles were fought on two hills located in the San Juan Heights: Kettle and San Juan. Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were in the thick of those battles and were instrumental in the victorious outcome. That is not to say that they didn’t have a lot of support from other cavalry units. But as Gardner writes, “It was no surprise that the news reports gave the Rough Riders much of the glory, even though the First and Tenth Cavalries fought equally as hard.”</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Col. Roosevelt and Rough Riders pose for camera atop San Juan Hill</span></b></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Tenth Cavalry, it should be noted, was one of two cavalry regiments made up of African American troopers. They were the so-called “Buffalo Soldiers” that fought in the Indian wars in the years following the Civil War.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">"There can be no better soldiers in the world, and yet I used to doubt whether the negro could fight with as much dash as the white man."</span></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><b> – Rough Rider</b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">MEDAL OF HONOR?</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">"I don’t ask this as a favor, I ask it as a right….I am entitled to the Medal of Honor, and I want it."</span></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> <b>– Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge</b></span><b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /></b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Theodore Roosevelt was courageous and bold to the point of foolhardiness. Throughout the campaign he exposed himself to enemy fire. Since he was often mounted on horseback he represented an inviting target for enemy bullets. But by some miracle he didn’t receive a scratch even though men who were charging into enemy fire near him were killed or wounded.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">In his desire to achieve glory he reminds one of another soldier, George Armstrong Custer. They differed, however, in one important respect. Custer was primarily interested in his own welfare, while Roosevelt never failed to look out for the well-being of his men. His men were fiercely loyal to him and he returned that loyalty by looking out for their interests.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">"Our general is poor; he is too unwieldy to get to the front. I commanded my regiment, I think I may say, with honor. We lost a quarter of our men."</span></b><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> – Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Roosevelt’s commanders recommended him for a Medal of Honor, but to no avail. Gardner speculates that Roosevelt’s comments to the press about the conduct of the war and a critical letter that was published by the Associated Press so infuriated Secretary Alger that he personally blocked the award. And though the war was a logistical nightmare and in some respects a comedy of errors, his public criticisms did constitute insubordination. He was fortunate that a president like Harry Truman was not the commander-in-chief or he might have experienced the same fate as General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Roosevelt and the Rough Riders had become the darlings of the press and the public. And Regulars were justified in resenting the situation, for believing that the Rough Riders – and their commander – had received media attention all out of proportion to their actual contribution to the war effort. This also became a factor militating against Roosevelt and his desire to receive a Medal of Honor.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">In fact, the tempest in a teapot that their commander had initiated worked against not only him, but also his regiment. When the final names of the war’s Medal of Honor recipients were named – twenty-five in all – not only was Roosevelt not one of them, no member of the Rough Riders was named.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Two Rough Riders did eventually receive a Medal of Honor at a later date. The first was Captain James Robb Church, who had served as assistant surgeon under Roosevelt. The medal was presented to Church in 1906 by his old commander, and now President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. It must have been a bittersweet moment for the president.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">In 1996, Congress passed a bill that waived time restrictions for awarding the Medal of Honor. After some debate, Congress voted to award Theodore Roosevelt the medal. On January 16, 2001 President Bill Clinton presented the medal to Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt. Thus, Theodore Roosevelt became the second Rough Rider, and the only president, to win a Medal of Honor.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">As Roosevelt would have said: “Bully! Dee-lighted!”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br /></span></span>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-89784876056369167132018-06-05T11:53:00.000-05:002018-06-14T19:12:43.176-05:00DOWN THE SANTA FE TRAIL AND INTO MEXICO: The Diary of Susan Magoffin<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b></span>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“My journal tells a story tonight different from what it has ever done before.” – Susan Shelby Magoffin</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">In November 1845, Susan Shelby, age 18, married Samuel Magoffin, age 45. Eight months after their marriage they embarked on a journey down the Santa Fe Trail that would conclude fifteen months later in Chihuahua, Mexico. On her journey she kept a journal which began with the above quote.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Susan had been born into a wealthy and influential family on a Kentucky plantation. In fact, her grandfather had been the first governor of the state. Her husband was a prosperous trader who had accumulated a sizeable fortune while engaging in the Santa Fe trade.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">To protect against marauding bands of Indians, especially the feared Comanche, the traders traveled in large caravans, and the Magoffin entourage made up a large part of this particular caravan.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Susan described it this way:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">“We now numbered, ourselves only, quite a force. Fourteen big waggons, with six yoke [oxen] each, one baggage waggon with two yoke, one Dearborn with two mules (this concern carries my maid), our own carriage with two more mules and two men on mules driving the loose stock, consisting of nine and a half yoke of oxen, our riding horses two, and three mules….we number twenty men, three are our tent servants (Mexicans). Jane, my attendant [maid], two horses, nine mules, some two hundred oxen, and last, though not least our dog Ring.” </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">A carriage, servants, an attendant? Well, that isn’t the whole picture. One of the servants was a cook. The other tent servants’ jobs included staking out a large tent at the end of each day in which the Magoffins would spend their evenings. Luxuries inside the tent included a bed and mattress, table and chairs, even a carpet to spread on the floor.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Pretty cushy, eh? But have you ever traveled through Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, across the Rio Grande, and deep into Chihuahua, Mexico? Riding in a carriage pulled by a team of mules? I have made that trip – at least as far as the Rio Grande – not in a carriage pulled by mules but in a vehicle equipped with a heater and an air conditioner. I ate my meals in restaurants and spent my evenings in a motel. I made it to the Rio Grande in three days.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">My point is that despite servants and all the accouterments Susan possessed, her journey was no cakewalk. And instead of three days, it lasted fifteen months.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Susan Shelby Magoffin</span></b></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Adding to the drama of the venture was the fact that war had broken out between the United States and Mexico. In fact, the Magoffin caravan traveled west in the wake of the invading American army.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">One day after her nineteenth birthday she suffered a miscarriage at Bent’s Fort in southeastern Colorado. From that point on her health forced the Magoffins to spend lengthy stays along the way in order to allow her to recover from various ailments.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Despite the travails of the trail and her illnesses, Susan’s natural curiosity led her to faithfully write in her journal almost every day, in which she described everything: hardships, land and climate, flora and fauna, and people, including the Indians and Mexicans that she encountered.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">In addition to her writing about her miscarriage at Bent’s Fort, she had this to say about her stay there:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">“There is no place on Earth I believe where man lives and gambling in some form or other is not carried on. Here in the Fort, and who could have supposed such a thing, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">they have a regularly established billiard room!</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"> They have a regular race track. And I hear the cackling of chickens at such a rate some times I shall not be surprised to hear of a cock-pit.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Her journal ends abruptly due to the fact that she contracted yellow fever in Matamoras, a time in which she gave birth to a son who did not survive.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">The Magoffins returned to Kentucky in 1848 and later moved near St. Louis where Samuel purchased a large estate. Susan gave birth to two daughters, but her health further deteriorated and she died in 1855 at age twenty-eight. She is buried in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Historians of the western movement will be forever indebted to this bold and adventurous young woman and her colorful journal, originally published in 1926, that provides them with a first person account of life on the Santa Fe Trail.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In commemoration of her journey, a seven-foot high bronze statue of Susan Magoffin holding her journal was unveiled in El Paso, Texas in 2012. At her side is Ring, her faithful dog. </span><br />
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" />Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-27276056952089913462018-04-07T16:00:00.001-05:002022-12-30T20:14:50.292-06:00TO HELL ON A FAST HORSE: BILLY THE KID, PAT GARRETT, AND THE EPIC CHASE TO JUSTICE IN THE OLD WEST by Mark Lee Gardner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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" 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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Let’s begin with a movie question. What historical individual has been the subject of more films than any other individual?</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Yep, that would be Henry McCarty aka Henry Antrim aka “Kid” Antrim aka Billy Bonney aka “The Kid” aka “Billy the Kid.” Beginning in 1911, more than fifty films have been produced with him as a character – and nearly always as the principal character. It is difficult to pinpoint the best of the lot, but the bottom of the barrel is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Billy the Kid vs. Dracula</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">(1966), brought to you that same year by the same folks who made </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">. Do I need to say that that they were both fictional? But all the movies dealing with these two most famous of all Western outlaws were fictional to some degree or the other.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">There was even a B-Western series in the ‘40s, first starring Bob Steele and later Buster Crabbe, in which Billy was the hero. In these films he was a wanted outlaw, but he had been falsely accused, you see, and roamed the frontier doing good deeds, winning over people, and attempting to clear his name. Since he had no visible means of support, I’m not sure how he and his sidekick (they were required in B-Westerns, you know) survived financially, but they did.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">There were four stage productions, one written by Gore Vidal, featuring the Kid and one TV series, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">The Tall Man</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">, starring Barry Sullivan as Pat Garrett and Clu Gulagher as Billy. The series further advanced the myth that the two were best pals. They weren’t.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">People as diverse as Woody Guthrie and Billy Joel have written and sung songs about the young outlaw, who died at age twenty-one. Unlike most outlaws, however, he did not die with his boots on; he had removed them shortly before being shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett.</span></span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w5PFNaVNQVo/WsktZvpB0dI/AAAAAAAAEVc/H1WvXLZngQYZT6-85ur1CILjwKLMPJ3EgCLcBGAs/s1600/Billy_the_Kid_corrected.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w5PFNaVNQVo/WsktZvpB0dI/AAAAAAAAEVc/H1WvXLZngQYZT6-85ur1CILjwKLMPJ3EgCLcBGAs/s400/Billy_the_Kid_corrected.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Billy</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">And books? There have been as many books – maybe more – about Billy than there have been movies. Some are no more than purveyors of the myth without regard for the truth; some are works of historical fiction; and a few have been serious works of history and biography.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Mark Lee Gardner’s </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">To Hell on a Fast Horse</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"> falls into the last category. The subtitle, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">, informs us that it is a dual biography, which to my knowledge no writer has heretofore attempted.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">However, I do take issue with the subtitle, at least the “Untold Story” part of it. Personally, I don’t think that I learned anything about Billy from reading the book, if so it would have to be a minor detail or two. What I did learn, however, and it was certainly “Untold” as far as I was concerned, is what Pat Garrett’s life was like after he shot and killed Billy at Fort Sumner, New Mexico in 1881. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">I knew that he continued his career as a respected lawman for a number of years and that he died ignominiously on a lonely road near Las Cruces, New Mexico. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">He was shot from behind while urinating on the side of the road. There has been much speculation about what happened, but the mystery of his murder has never been officially solved.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--R9ioZTOWBQ/WskveC_ClEI/AAAAAAAAEVo/tcrq7FDfsXkvU7k4McbaYf4ktmTcn8DrACLcBGAs/s1600/Pat_Garrett2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--R9ioZTOWBQ/WskveC_ClEI/AAAAAAAAEVo/tcrq7FDfsXkvU7k4McbaYf4ktmTcn8DrACLcBGAs/s320/Pat_Garrett2.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">What I didn’t know is that he was a rotten businessman, who made many poor decisions. Although he was a successful lawman, the job didn’t pay much – and he had a wife and eight children to support. So he dabbled in ranching and other business sidelines without much, if any, success. His efforts were hampered by his penchant for breeding race horses – slow ones, apparently – and placing bets on horses at race tracks – slow ones, apparently.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Gardner’s book is a thorough look at both men’s lives. If you don’t know the details about Billy’s life – and would like to – or if you aren’t familiar with Garrett’s post-Billy years – and would like to be – this is the book for you. Unlike many who write about Western lawmen and outlaws, Gardner has no ax to grind. He doesn’t take sides. His book is a quest for the truth and is probably as close to it as we will ever come. </span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>******</b> <br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">“The double-helix relationship between Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett is one of the abiding fascinations of the West. No one has come closer than Mark Lee Gardner to capturing their twin destinies, and their inevitable final collision. Gardner’s research is so richly detailed, you can almost smell the gun smoke and the sweat of the saddles.” – Hampton Sides, author of <i>Blood and Thunder</i></b></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><i><br /></i></b></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-67369421852804775852018-03-06T14:39:00.003-06:002018-03-06T14:39:39.223-06:00JUSTICE: STORIES by Larry Watson<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Do you know how many books have the word justice in their titles? I’ll tell you: a bunch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Okay, I’ll narrow that a bit. I did a search on Goodreads and it generated 100 pages with 20 entries to each page. Do you know how many that is? I’ll tell you: a bunch.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Even so, I venture to say that Larry Watson’s book, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Justice</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">, is nevertheless unique among that bunch. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">It is a prequel to his best known novel, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Montana 1948.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> But what makes it unique is that it is not a novel. It is a selection of short stories with each told from the point of view of one of the main characters in </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Montana 1948</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> – with two exceptions.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">One exception is the narrator of the earlier novel who is looking back to the summer of 1948 and so we already know his back story (assuming one has read the novel first). The other exception is the most enigmatic character in the novel. Oh, he appears in nearly all the short stories in </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Justice</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">, but none is told from his point of view.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">I found that odd – but intriguing. So I went looking for an explanation; and I found one. In an interview Watson said that he could never find his way into the character’s mind and that was the reason for the omission.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">You often hear writers say that characters sometimes take on a life of their own and thus the writer is forced to follow along. But here is a complex character who not only remains an enigma to the reader, but also to his creator.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">I recommend both of these books, for Watson is a talented writer. However, even though each can be enjoyed as a standalone, I think that reading both adds to the enjoyment of reading each.</span></span>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-76631359405919588662018-02-17T14:40:00.002-06:002022-12-30T20:16:13.910-06:00MONTANA 1948 by Larry Watson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-63jzPC1joi8/WoiPNlIyClI/AAAAAAAAEUw/MI8bqfm-WD4PIjWGvZIJYpbmax0DXQscgCLcBGAs/s1600/montana.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="292" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-63jzPC1joi8/WoiPNlIyClI/AAAAAAAAEUw/MI8bqfm-WD4PIjWGvZIJYpbmax0DXQscgCLcBGAs/s400/montana.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them ….</b><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br /><i>A young Sioux woman lies on a bed in our house. She is feverish, delirious, and coughing so hard I am afraid she will die.<br /><br />My father kneels on the kitchen floor, begging my mother to help him. It’s a summer night and the room is brightly lit. Insects cluster around the light fixtures, and the pleading quality in my father’s voice reminds me of those insects – high-pitched, insistent, frantic. It is a sound I have never heard coming from him.</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><i><br />My mother stands in our kitchen on a hot, windy day. The windows are open, and Mother’s lace curtains blow into the room. Mother holds my father’s Ithaca twelve-gauge shotgun, and since she is a small, slender woman, she has trouble finding the balance point of its heavy length. Nevertheless, she has watched my father and other men often enough to know where the shells go, and she loads them until the gun will hold no more. Loading the gun is the difficult part. Once the shells are in, any fool can figure out how to fire it. Which she intends to do.<br /><br />There are others – the sound of breaking glass, the odor of rotting vegetables …. I offer these images in the order in which they occurred, yet the events that produced these sights and sounds are so rapid and tumbled together that any chronological sequence seems wrong.</i></b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The above is not a spoiler since it is the first thing written on the first page of Larry Watson’s novel, one that has been characterized as a literary page-turner. Those are fairly rare, perhaps almost as rare as literary Westerns. Well, how about a literary page-turner set in the West? Now, that is virgin territory. But as the title tells us, this is not a historical Western. So, readers that do not enjoy Westerns need not shy away from it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">I read this soon after it was published in 1993. It is true that one can’t judge a book by its title or its cover, and I didn’t do that. No, I judged it by both its title and its cover (an oil painting of the Yellowstone valley). Only when I began reading did I discover that it was a coming of age story. For me, that was an added bonus.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">At some point I read it a second time and then recently I gave it a third reading. Now, I do read quite a lot of books twice, but it really has to resonate with me if I turn to it a third time.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The narrator is middle-aged David Hayden looking back to the summer of 1948 when he was twelve years old. It was a summer of lost innocence. It was a summer in which he learned that truth is not always what we believe and that power can be abused, but those are not the hardest lessons he learned. Because of a scandal, a murder, and a suicide, he also learned that doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is especially hard when the choice lies between family loyalty on one hand and justice on the other. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The book expertly evokes a time and a place in prose that has been variously described as ‘understated,’ ‘precise,’ ‘clear,’ ‘crisp,’ and/or ‘restrained.’ I would accept those, but would add elegant.</span></span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>******</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">“Part family memoir, part psychological drama, part historical adventure tale, part elegy to a place and a lost way of life ….”</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">-- David Huddle, 1993 National Fiction Prize Judge</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: blue;">Larry Watson</span></span></b></i></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br /></span></span></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-18277340498609546902017-05-21T22:01:00.001-05:002022-12-30T20:11:03.005-06:00THE WESTERN TALKS!, 1928-1937<br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"It would seem that the western, telling its story in terms of action rather than dialogue, should have been relatively unconcerned about the mechanical problems of sound .... [But] because of many actual and alleged problems, including most specifically the recording of the camera's own operational noise, the camera became rooted to the ground and housed in small 'sweat boxes.'</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"In the first year or two of sound, the western didn't seem important enough to justify the necessary effort. Like the big elaborate swashbuckler, it was considered a dead relic of the silents and of no major commercial value." </i>-- William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The humble B-western dominated western filmmaking in the silent era, just as it did during the first two decades following the advent of sound.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">There were some silent westerns produced to appeal to adult audiences, those starring William S. Hart, for example, or directed by a young John Ford, but the biggest star of the era was Tom Mix, whose fast-moving, action-filled films were geared to a younger audience.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Mix and Tony</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But since westerns were by their nature outdoor films, the coming of sound, and its crude sound equipment, meant that most productions would be filmed indoors and consequently the western would be at a disadvantage.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This was true even after <b>IN OLD ARIZONA</b> (Fox, 1928) proved that sound movies could be filmed outdoors. However, even this film was unavoidably stilted and static because of the problems presented by the sound equipment which dictated that the camera had to remain stationary much of the time.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Warner Baxter is the Cisco Kid in </i>IN OLD ARIZONA</b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Despite the success of the film, the major studios tended to shy away from outdoor pictures. Under the best of conditions, it was still a cumbersome process when compared to filming on a sound stage. As it turned out, it would be the Poverty Row studios that rushed in where the majors feared to tread.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Many of them didn't even own a sound stage and didn't possess the necessary financial wherewithal to rent one. For that reason, among others, B-westerns flooded the market. Many of them were so crudely done and amateurishly acted and unintentionally laughable that they are extremely painful for even lovers of western films to watch today.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But the equipment improved and the films began to slowly but surely improve as studios such as Republic and Monogram began to produce superior B's and some of the majors also got back into the business of making quality B-westerns.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">And as equipment improved and logistical problems were worked out the majors also began to film A-westerns geared to adult audiences. It was still a slow process, however, and did not build up a head of steam until the landmark year of 1939.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">As Les Adams and Buck Rainey noted in their detailed study of western movies, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Shoot-em-Ups</i>, the years from 1933 to 1937 were boom years for the B-western programmer, but not so much for the A-western. In fact, almost 500 of the 530 western features shot during the period were B-westerns.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">What follows are some of the significant sound A-westerns made prior to 1939, beginning with, naturally:</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red;">IN OLD ARIZONA</span> (Fox, 1928)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh; WRITERS: adaptation by Tom Barry based on O. Henry's short story, <i>The Caballero's Way; </i>CINEMATOGRAPHER: Arthur Edeson</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe, Dorothy Burgess, Henry Armetta, Frank Campeau, Tom London, J. Farrell MacDonald </b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Warner Baxter is the Cisco Kid, a Robin Hood type who robs the rich and gives to the poor. In O. Henry's short story the Kid was actually an Anglo, but Baxter plays him as a Mexican, unconvincing accent and all, and in the many Cisco Kid films (and TV series) that followed, he would never return to his original Anglo status. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In the second year of the Academy Awards the film was nominated for five Oscars out of a possible seven. However, Baxter's award for Best Actor was the film's only winner. Despite the award it is difficult today to watch his attempt to portray a Latin outlaw without cringing at its stereotypical nature. Neither his performance nor the film has stood the test of time.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"[It] was of its time -- a romantic triangle melodrama with a gloomy ending." </i>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"[It] was hardly a super-western but was certainly one of style and importance. Microphones hidden under prairie scrub and foliage enabled naturalistic sound effects to be picked up, and even more than the gunshots and the galloping hooves, the sound of frying bacon impressed itself on viewers and showed that the realistic quality of sound was perhaps just what the western needed. </span>-- William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>"<span style="color: blue;">Novelty of first major sound western and first talkie to take microphones outdoors has long worn off, leaving only a stilted performance led by Baxter's dubious Oscar winner as the Cisco Kid." </span>-- </i>Leonard Maltin</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">THE VIRGINIAN </span>(Paramount, 1929)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Victor Fleming; PRODUCER:</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>B.P. Schulberg; WRITERS: screenplay by Howard Estabrook based on novel by Owen Wister; CINEMATOGRAPHER: J. Roy Hunt; A</b></span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">ssistant Director: Henry Hathaway; </b><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Dialogue Coach: Randolph Scott</b><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, Mary Brian, Richard Arlen, Chester Conklin, Eugene Palette, Victor Potel, Ernie Adams, George Chandler, Bob Kortman, Ethan Laidlaw, Lee Meehan, Jack Pennick, Randolph Scott, Charles Stevens</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">TRAMPAS (Walter Huston): "Well, who's talkin' to you?"</span></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">THE VIRGINIAN (Gary Cooper): "I'm talkin' to you, Trampas!"</span></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">TRAMPAS: "When I want to know anything from you, I'll tell ya, you long-legged son-of-a-...."</span></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">THE VIRGINIAN: [<i>Trampas stops talking abruptly as the Virginian's pistol is pressed against his abdomen.] </i>"If you want to call me that, smile!"</span></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">TRAMPAS: "With a gun against my belly, I -- I always smile!"</span></b></span><br />
<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">[<i>He grins broadly.</i>]</span></b><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Owen Wister's seminal western novel is perhaps the most famous ever written. It was so popular that it was twice produced as a play and has been the basis for six films, including two during the silent era. And then there was the popular TV series that ran for nine seasons from 1962 to 1971.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The 1929 film is known primarily for the above scene and the exciting shoot-out conclusion. An early talkie, it is generally considered to be a classic film and easily the best production of the story. It also made Gary Cooper a leading man though real stardom would have to wait a few more years.</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /><br /><i style="color: blue;">"[It] remains a classic: the essential western, still vital, still funny and moving by turns .... Cooper's performance ... still impresses, but Huston and Arlen aren't far behind ... </i><span style="color: blue;">THE VIRGINIAN </span><i style="color: blue;">is fun, and very good; possibly we may never come nearer to the ultimate western." -- </i>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">".... stiff but interesting western, salvaged in good climactic shoot-out."</span> -- Leonard Maltin</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">".... verbose, slow and unlikely .... The film's slowness is a direct result of the new slower pace sound brought to the cinema." -- </i>Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red;">BILLY THE KID </span>(MGM, 1930)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: King Vidor; PRODUCER: King Vidor; WRITERS: dialogue by Laurence Stallings, et al. based on book by Walter Noble Burns, <i>The Saga of Billy the Kid</i>; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gordon Avil; T</b></span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">ECHNICAL ADVISER: William S. Hart</b><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Johnny Mack Brown (as John Mack Brown), Wallace Beery, Kay Johnson, Wyndham Standing, James Marcus, Russell Simpson, Roscoe Ates, Warner Richmond, Hank Bell, Chris-Pin Martin</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The story of Billy the Kid had been filmed a couple of times during the silent era, but by the dawn of the sound era he had become an almost forgotten historical character. That all changed in 1926, however, with the publication of Walter Noble Burns' pseudo-biography, <i>The Saga of Billy the Kid</i>, which was not as much a biography of historical Billy as it was of the legendary Billy. The bestselling book effectively resurrected Billy from the dustbin of history -- or at least the legendary version, the tragic hero, the misunderstood one who was a victim of circumstances.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">Johnny Mack Brown ... brought athletic ability and a pleasing personality to the role of Billy, although it was Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett who gave the best performance, a surprisingly underplayed piece of acting for such an extrovert player and an equally surprising underwritten role.</i><b> -- William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">William S. Hart served as technical adviser to the film and this no doubt added an air of authenticity to the production. And so did the fact that the film was shot on the actual locations of the Lincoln County, New Mexico conflict.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, the old cowboy actor had to be displeased with the happy ending that was added to the film, one that allowed Billy to ride across the border to enjoy a peaceful life with the woman he loved. At least that is what happened in the version released in the U.S.; the film distributed in Europe included the historical ending in which Garrett shot and killed Billy. One supposes that the producers didn't think U.S. audiences would be willing to accept such a tragic conclusion.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It was hoped by all concerned that the film would make a star of Brown and it did, but not the kind that he or the studio envisioned. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">What he did eventually become, after being demoted to Poverty Row for a time, was one of the most pleasing and most durable of all the B-western stars, spending most of his career at Universal and later Monogram.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"The slow film is rather talky but it recaptures the legend of Billy the Kid very nicely .... The movie conveys an overpowering flavor and sense of history, in terms of time and place, rather than the facts ... and the movie was shot on actual locations at a time when they hadn't changed perceptibly." -- </i>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">" ... the photography is good, but always naturalistic, the characters drab in dress, the buildings ramshackle, the streets dusty .... its script is frankly untidy, yet the film is quite certainly the best and most convincing of all the Billy the Kid sagas." -- </i><span style="font-weight: bold;">William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"[It] is undeniably faithful to the look of the old West, despite its big budget and romantic plot." -- </span>Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"Realistic early talkie western ...; some performances seem highly dated today." </span>-- Leonard Maltin<i> </i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;">DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh; PRODUCER: Winfield R. Sheehan; WRITERS: screenplay by Marie Boyle, Jack Peabody, and Florence Postal based on story by Hal G. Evarts; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lucien N. Andriot and Arthur Edeson</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;">CAST: John Wayne, Marguerite Churchill, El Brendel, Tully Marshall, Tyrone Power, Sr., Charles Stevens, Chief Big Tree, Ward Bond, Iron Eyes Cody</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>"The most important picture ever produced" was apparently not a unanimous opinion.</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Great pains were taken to give this wagon train tale an authentic look, but the film is severely hampered by a B-western script and Wayne's lack of experience as an actor. "The most important picture ever produced" was a failure at the box office where it really counted.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Much has been written about this film due to the fact that it provided John Wayne with his first important role. </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">THE VIRGINIAN </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">made Gary Cooper a leading man, but </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">BILLY THE KID </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">failed to do the same for Johnny Mack Brown. And Wayne, like Johnny Mack, would be relegated to B-westerns, but finally, unlike Johnny Mack, he would finally escape in 1939 when John Ford chose him to star in <b>STAGECOACH </b>(UA, 1939)<b> </b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But even then, like Cooper before him, the film made him a leading man but true stardom would have to wait several years, in his case, almost a decade, until Howard Hawks cast him in </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">RED RIVER </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(UA, 1948). The actor's long and fruitful association with John Ford began after that and eventually he became the biggest star of them all, especially in, but not restricted to, western films.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In a perverse way the failure of <b>THE BIG TRAIL</b> may have worked in the actor's favor. Those years at Monogram and Republic starring in B-westerns are where he finally learned his craft.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"THE BIG TRAIL was a surprising box office failure .... Wayne ... is more than adequate in the lead .... The sequences of the wagons fording rivers and being manhandled up mountains and the action scenes are both realistic and visually breathtaking." </i><i>--</i><i style="color: blue;"> </i>Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">".... an outstanding early sound epic .... But ... the authenticity of detail and the sweep of history was somewhat let down by a standardized 'B' plot ...." </span><span style="font-style: italic;">--</span><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;"> </span>William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"The script is poor, but so is Wayne's acting; he is wooden at best, and embarrassingly inept at worst." </span>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"Epic western may seem creaky to some viewers, but remains one of the most impressive early talkies, with its grand sweep and naturalistic use of sound." </span>-- Leonard Maltin</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red;">CIMARRON </span>(RKO, 1931)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Wesley Ruggles; PRODUCERS: William LeBaron and Wesley Ruggles; WRITERS: dialogue by Howard Estabrook based on novel by Edna Ferber; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Edward Cronjager; SECOND UNIT DIRECTOR: B. Reeves Eason</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Richard Dix, Irene Dunne, Estelle Taylor, William Collier, Jr., Nance O'Neil, Roscoe Ates, George F. Stone, Stanley Fields, Edna May Oliver, Bob Kortman, Frank Lackteen, Ethan Laidlaw</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CIMARRON </b>is primarily noted for two things: 1) it was the first western to win an Oscar for Best Picture (the second to win the award was <b>DANCES WITH WOLVES</b> [1990], fifty-nine years later) and 2) the Oklahoma land rush scene staged by the incomparable action director B. Reeves Eason.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>It was reported that the land rush scene took a week to film, utilizing 5,000 extras, 28 cameramen, 6 still photographers, and 27 camera assistants.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Unfortunately, as critics have noted the land rush is the most exciting thing about the film and it occurs at the beginning. After that, it is unsurprising that the film had a tendency to lose its momentum.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, it was nominated for seven Oscars and won three (Best Picture, Art Direction, and Best Writing Adaptation). </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Both of its stars, Richard Dix and Irene Dunne (her film debut), were nominated for their performances but neither won.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Dix would go on to star in 18 other westerns, but except for one comedic contemporary western, this would be the only one for Dunne.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It was also the year's biggest money maker at the box office, but because of its expensive production costs it still lost money. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">"The opening spectacle -- the Oklahoma land rush -- is tremendous and it's a solid empire-building movie about the conversion of Indian Territory into the state of Oklahoma and the subsequent building of oil fiefdoms ..., it's soap more than horse opera ... it leaves quite a lot to be desired for modern audiences, and with the climactic land rush at the beginning rather than the end, it has nowhere to go but downhill." </i><span style="font-weight: bold;">-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><i style="color: blue;">"... it tended to be bogged down in character studies and had the structural flaw of presenting its highlight -- the massive Cherokee Strip land rush sequence at the beginning of the picture .... the film was well-served by Richard Dix and Irene Dunne in the leads [and] many good supporting performers .... " </i>-- William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of Western Film</i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><i style="color: blue;">"Though Ruggles' spirited direction seems dated now, the outdoor scenes still remain impressive."</i> -- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><i style="color: blue;">" ... it dates badly, particularly Dix's overripe performance -- but it's still worth seeing."</i> -- Leonard Maltin</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Based on W.R. Burnett's novel, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Saint Johnson</i>, the film is a thinly disguised fictional treatment of the events leading to and including the shoot-out at Tombstone's O.K. Corral. It stars Walter Huston as a Wyatt Earp-like character with Harry Carey filling the role of the Doc Holliday-like character.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>I earlier reviewed the film and if you wish you can read it <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2016/04/law-and-order-universal-1932.html">here.</a></i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: King Vidor; PRODUCER: King Vidor: WRITERS: screenplay by Louis Stevens from a story by King Vidor and Elizabeth Hill based upon data from Walter Prescott Webb's book, <i>The Texas Rangers</i>; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Edward Cronjager </b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Fred McMurray, Jack Oakie, Jean Parker, Lloyd Nolan, Edward Ellis, Benny Bartlett, Fred Kohler, George "Gabby" Hayes, Stanley Andrews, Irving Bacon, Hank Bell, Neal Hart, Charles Middleton</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Three desperadoes (L-R): Fred McMurray, Jack Oakie, Lloyd Nolan; two will eventually go straight.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">What a pleasant surprise! It is a much better film than the attention it has received would indicate. I had read about it, but had never viewed it until recently. It wasn't because I didn't want to, it was because I couldn't locate it. But what I had read in works dealing with the history of the western, with one exception, had never given the film much more than a brief mention.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The exception is <i style="font-weight: bold;">A Pictorial History of the Western </i>by William K. Everson. Everson writes:</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"By far the best of Paramount's quartet of mid-thirties epics was </i>THE TEXAS RANGERS<i> and indeed, despite its weaknesses, it is still one of the most enjoyable Paramount super-westerns from any period. It was directed by King Vidor in 1936, his first western since </i>BILLY THE KID <i>[1930], and a much more polished if gripping work .... [T]he script ... was not ambitious enough ... ostensibly based on Texas Rangers records, but actually it seems to consist of well-known Ranger incidents ... fused with a very standard "B" picture plot which constantly threatens to reduce its epic stature.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"[B]ut Vidor fills his film with enough incident, action, and well-developed characters for these flaws to matter too much.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Even though not a classic, [it] is an exhilarating western with a refreshing schoolboy vigor."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">By the way, the other three Paramount super-westerns that Everson alludes to and ranks below <b>THE TEXAS RANGERS</b> are: <b>THE PLAINSMAN </b>(1936), <b>WELLS FARGO </b>(1937), and <b>THE TEXANS </b>(1938). Two of them are coming up next and I plan a complete review of <b>THE TEXAS RANGERS </b>in the near future.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Fred McMurray: outlaw?</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>McMurray and Oakie: Rangers or outlaws?</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Gabby: crooked judge?</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red;">THE PLAINSMAN </span>(Paramount, 1936)</b></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">DIRECTOR: Cecil B. DeMille; PRODUCERS: Cecil B. DeMille and William H. Pine; WRITERS: screenplay by Waldemar Young, Harold Lamb, and Lynn Riggs; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Victor Milner; SECOND UNIT DIRECTOR: Arthur Rosson</b></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess, Porter Hall, Paul Harvey, John Miljan, Fred Kohler, Harry Woods, Anthony Quinn, Francis McDonald, George "Gabby" Hayes, Fuzzy Knight, Stanley Andrews, Francis Ford, Irving Bacon, Hank Bell, Monte Blue, Lane Chandler, Bud Osborne, Charles Stevens, Chief Thundercloud, Hank Worden</b></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Gary Cooper is Wild Bill Hickok, Jean Arthur is Calamity Jane, James Ellison is Buffalo Bill Cody, and Cecil B. DeMille is in charge of what was his first western epic. The film should have benefited from its big budget, but it didn't always. The director always preferred shooting his epics indoors and never liked spending much time on location, to the detriment of this film and others he helmed. </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Co</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">nsequently, the film is marred by phony studio "exteriors," </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">back projection shots, and </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">actors riding mock-up horses. </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In fact, most of the outdoor scenes, and not just the action scenes, were shot by second unit directors, in this case, Arthur Rosson.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Wild Bill gets the drop on crooked gambler</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But the audiences of the '30's didn't seem to mind and it was a popular, if not critical, success. And the good cast is able to overcome its shortcomings to some degree and the end result is entertaining.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">And, by the way, Porter Hall is Jack McCall, the dastardly coward who dispatches Wild Bill in a Deadwood saloon, shooting him from behind, of course. Oh, and another thing, if you are interested in the true history of the three principal characters it would be best to look elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue;">"... for all its attention to petty historical detail ... it plays fast and loose with history .... Slow moving and overly romantic by modern standards in its depiction of westward expansion, [it] remains an entertaining spectacle." </span>-- </i><span style="font-weight: bold;">Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"[W]hile a big popular success, it was hardly a good picture. Its script was heavy-handed and obvious, and far too much of the film was spoiled by DeMille's over-fondness for shooting as much of his pictures as possible within the confines of the studio. Nevertheless ... the production as a whole was big and certainly entertaining." </i>-- William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">" ... performances by most of the players are spirited. But its juvenile, an overblown programmer. [It] isn't much of a movie but it did establish Cooper as the archetypal western hero." </span>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Typical DeMille hokum, a big, outlandish western .... About as authentic as </i><span style="color: blue;">BLAZING SADDLES <i>[WB, 1974]</i></span><i style="color: blue;">, but who cares -- it's still good fun." </i>-- Leonard Maltin</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red;">WELLS FARGO </span>(Paramount, 1937)</b></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">DIRECTOR: Frank Lloyd; PRODUCERS: Howard Estabrook and Frank Lloyd; WRITERS: screenplay by Paul Schofield, Gerald Geraghty, and Frederick J. Jackson based on story by Stuart N. Lake; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Theodor Sparkuhl</b><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Joel McCrea, Bob Burns, Frances Dee, Lloyd Nolan, Ralph Morgan, Johnny Mack Brown, Porter Hall, Robert Cummings, Harry Davenport, Frank Conroy, Peggy Stewart, Ernie Adams, Hank Bell, Lane Chandler, Richard Denning, Jack Perrin, Hal Taliaferro, Harry Woods</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><i><b><span style="text-align: start;">Joel McCrea and Frances Dee were Mr. and Mrs. McCrea in real life. </span></b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">There's a lot of soap in this hoss opera, a nation-building epic about the formation of Wells & Fargo, Co. McCrea portrays a troubleshooter who is instrumental in the company's efforts to establish an overland freight and mail service. The film covers the years represented by the California Gold Rush, the Pony Express, and the Civil War. This requires the stars to age several decades and suffer through many trials and tribulations, including strains on family life, during those eventful times.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Before all is said and done the story evolves, make that devolves, into more of a costume drama than western adventure. My advice is to skip this one and to watch <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9194182495225202428#editor/target=post;postID=182266508152830309;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=69;src=postname">Four Faces West</a>, a much more satisfying western starring McCrea and Dee. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, <b>WELLS FARGO </b>was McCrea's first starring role in a western and there would come a time when he would devote his entire career to starring in the genre. And those of us who love westerns (and that should be everyone) can grateful for that.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"[Joel McCrea] proved at home in the saddle here, and hence his selection as the star of </i><span style="color: blue;">UNION PACIFIC </span><i style="color: blue;">[Paramount] two years later ... but the film can be a bore unless you are in a tolerant mood." </i>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">" ... a long, carefully made, but stiff, dull and practically actionless movie, long on historical data, romance, and interior scenes, short on excitement and exteriors." </span>-- </i>William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of the Western Film</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Paramount's production values are solid enough, though Lloyd wisely eschews any crowd scenes, but the material doesn't stretch to the 115 minutes' running time." </i>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-28594681819042563492017-05-17T17:21:00.001-05:002022-12-30T17:22:55.751-06:00HUEY LONG by T. Harry Williams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r-Bkrhors0A/WRyZY5salPI/AAAAAAAAEOg/va2hF1i3POsrJSKGhRcycHo5rgskrcx1ACLcB/s1600/huey1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r-Bkrhors0A/WRyZY5salPI/AAAAAAAAEOg/va2hF1i3POsrJSKGhRcycHo5rgskrcx1ACLcB/s640/huey1.jpg" width="403" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue;"><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">DICTATOR</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> – in politics, a leader who rules a country with absolute power, usually by force</span></b></span></i><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><span style="color: blue;"><b><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">FASCIST</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> – an individual who favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">DEMAGOGUE</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> – a political leader who gains power by appealing to people’s emotions, instincts, and prejudices in a way that is considered manipulative and dangerous</span><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">POPULIST</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> – an advocate of the rights and interests of ordinary people, e.g. in politics or the arts</span></b></span></i></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><span style="color: blue;"><b><br style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;" /></b></span></i><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">I don’t know which is more forbidding: T. Harry Williams’ massive biography (994 pages) or the political career of the colorful, charismatic, controversial legend that is its subject. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Huey Pierce “Kingfish” Long served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932, and represented his state in the U.S. Senate from 1932 to 1935. His term in the Senate was cut short at age forty-two, when he was assassinated in the halls of the state capitol in Baton Rouge, ironically, a building that he made possible. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">At one time or the other, he was branded with all of the political labels mentioned at the beginning of the review, sometimes two or three simultaneously, and in the same breath. And the truth is, he was a little of all of them. However, Williams, in his critically acclaimed and award winning biography, which was published in 1969, leans more toward the populist label. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">T. Harry Williams was born in Illinois and grew up in Wisconsin. He eventually moved south where he taught American history at Louisiana State University (LSU) from 1941 to 1979. Since Long had been dead only six years when Williams took the position and the controversy surrounding him had hardly abated at all in the interim, it is only natural that historians, especially in Louisiana, would still be keenly interested in his legacy, though they might differ on the nature of that legacy.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Williams was also able to interview many of Long’s champions and enemies who were still alive when he was conducting his research and that gives the book an air of immediacy that later biographies would not have. His research also leaned heavily on oral histories that had interviewed people in both camps.</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"> </span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Williams’ biography is surprisingly sympathetic toward its subject. Although he doesn’t gloss over Long’s many faults or his heavy handed tactics, he does respect what Long attempted to do and, in many cases, did do for the poor people of his state. And he did accomplish a great deal. This is not the place to list all the things that Long did for his state and its people – especially the poor – for it is a long list, but there is no doubt that the populist label does fit.</span></span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><i><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></i></b></span></div><div><b style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><i><span style="color: blue;">I do not know any man who has accomplished so much that I approve of in one state in four years, at the same time that he has done so much that I dislike. It is a thoroughly perplexing, paradoxical record.</span></i><span style="color: #181818;">-– Raymond Gram Swing (one of the most influential print and broadcast journalists during the time of Huey Long's heyday)</span></b></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">It is also true that Long was a demagogue and that he did become a virtual dictator in his state, controlling it with an iron hand in a fashion that no state before or since has ever experienced. Furthermore, that control did not let up with his election to the U.S. Senate but, on the contrary, it intensified. In his short tenure in that office he spent more time in Baton Rouge micromanaging the affairs of his state than he did in Washington, D.C. It wasn’t in his personal makeup to leave the state’s business in the hands of the new governor, even though that individual was his handpicked successor and carried out each and every one of his wishes. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><i><span style="color: blue;">[Huey Long’s] clownish humor and acerbic tongue make Donald Trump look like Michael Dukakis.</span></i><span style="color: #181818;"> – Johnathan Alter, <i>Newsweek</i></span></b></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Alter was badly mistaken.)</span></i></b></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></i></b></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></i></b></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">As a senator, he at first supported FDR and the New Deal, but the two men became estranged because Huey didn’t think that the president’s economic policies went far enough. At the time of his death, he was positioning himself to run for president on a third party ticket.</span></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br style="background-color: white;" /></span></i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">He never got that chance, but he did force FDR to propose legislation that he favored. The president did so because, as he privately stated, he wanted to steal some of Huey’s thunder. The result was the so-called “Second New Deal” that was proposed by FDR and passed by Congress in 1935. It included the Social Security Act and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), two programs advocated by Long.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">This was my second reading of Williams’ book and each time I was struck by the similarities that I thought Long shared with another politician. Lyndon Johnson grew up under similar circumstances and he possessed the same burning ambition to be somebody and he was also known to be ruthless and to demagogue on occasion, but he also accomplished greatness. Both were bigger than life personalities whose lives read like something out of a Greek tragedy. And as someone once said of LBJ, they both "knew what made the mule plow."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">It doesn’t surprise me that upon his retirement from LSU in 1979, T. Harry Williams began immediately to write a biography of Lyndon Johnson. Unfortunately, just two months after his retirement and after completing the first two chapters of the book, Williams died at age seventy.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">It is impossible to summarize his biography of Long, but needless to say it is a thorough documentation of the life and times of one of the most fascinating politicians this country has ever produced. And Williams leaves no stone unturned or fact unexamined in making that abundantly clear. There have been a number of Huey Long biographies published since and most have been less sympathetic toward its subject, but they all have to be mea</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">sured against Williams’ monumental work.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“I like Ike!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Of course, I do; doesn't everybody? But I don’t worship at his altar and I bet you don’t either. However, I can’t say the same thing for Michael Korda. He fell in love with his subject and concluded that his man never made a mistake and that those who disagreed with him were always – well, nine out of ten times anyway -- wrong.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">He should have ended the book with Germany’s surrender because while he writes of the Eisenhower presidency in glowing terms, he constantly overstates his case and devotes only 60 pages of a 700 plus page book to Ike’s eight years in the office. It comes off as a sprint to the finish line.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Korda writes in the introductory chapter:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">“<i>Of course there is a natural ebb and flow to historical reputations, however exalted. Sometimes a reputation can be revived by a single great book, as David McCullogh did for Harry S. Truman and John Adams</i>….”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">It is obvious that Korda set out to rescue Ike from what he perceived to be historical oblivion – just as McCullogh did for Truman and Adams. The truth is, however, that, among historians at least, the reputations of Truman and Adams had been on the ascendency for a good while before McCullogh published either book. Of course, both books were well received by the reading public and were critically-acclaimed best sellers, so there’s no doubt that they did play a role in enhancing the reputation of two presidents whose reputations did take a hit at the time that they held the office and for some time afterwards. But by no means did McCullogh “revive their reputations.”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">And what of Eisenhower? When Korda wrote his book (published in 2007), Eisenhower was still one of the most famous generals in American history and one of the most popular presidents to ever hold the office. True, historians did not rate his presidency very high at the time he was in the office, but that changed through the years to the point that he was given credit for accomplishments that were overlooked at the time.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">In an interview Korda admitted that he had not held an especially high opinion of Ike before he began doing his research, but that his admiration increased the more that he learned about the man. And it is evident that he did not know much about his subject before he began his research. There’s the problem. Korda is not an historian – or a journalist – but a writer and book editor and biographer with eclectic interests who sometimes writes about historical subjects. He did write a biography of U.S. Grant (which was not well-received by historians) and it was that experience that led him to wanting to write about Ike. Throughout this book he draws parallels between Grant and Ike, some sound and some overdrawn. More recently he wrote a book about Robert E. Lee, but I haven't read it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">The Eisenhower story is truly one that would have been labeled as far-fetched if it had been written as a novel. Born in Texas and raised in Kansas by parents who were both pacifists, he went to West Point. Four years after being promoted to lt. colonel he was a four-star general who held the title of Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe with three million men under his command. In that position he commanded the most complicated combat operation of his time – perhaps all time – when the allies landed on the Normandy beaches</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">T</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">hat is a highly and unprecedented record for a general, especially one who heretofore had never led men in combat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Historians today give the Eisenhower presidency high marks and they rate him as a good president, but not a great one. But that doesn’t discourage Korda who goes overboard in his assessment:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">“<i>No American president had ever exercised power more surely or more deftly, or under greater pressure of time and events</i>….”</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Really? Not even Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt? Furthermore, he doesn’t take the time to make the case. He just states it and then moves on.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">He also makes the claim that Ike did more for civil rights than either John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. He bases that claim on a single occurrence, that being Ike sending in federal forces to enforce the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. He claims that Ike did it without hesitation because he was a strong supporter of civil rights, which is not true on both counts. He did send in the troops but only after a good deal of hesitation and furthermore he had opposed the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, handed down in 1954. To his credit, however, he felt constitutionally obligated to enforce the court’s opinion and he did. However, he also stated privately that his appointment of Earl Warren, the Chief Justice who led the court that rendered the decision, was the greatest mistake that he had ever made.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Perhaps Korda should write a book on Lyndon Johnson because he apparently is not familiar with that president’s record on civil rights. In the process, he might learn a lot about the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1968.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">In an interview Korda even claimed that Ike was a better politician than Ronald Reagan. I have to confess that I was a Reagan critic, but I never doubted his political skills which were his greatest gift. Nor does he mention the fact that Eisenhower’s legislative successes were made possible by the co-operation that he received from two Texas Democrats: Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson, who served as both Majority Leader and Minority Leader in the Senate during the Eisenhower presidency.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">In watching the Korda interview on C-Span’s excellent Booknotes program, I have to admit that I found it entertaining. He is a gifted raconteur who loves to tell stories and he tells them well. But like many storytellers he doesn’t hesitate to add little flourishes that add color to make the stories more entertaining, even if the result is a slight distortion of the facts. But while his sins of commission are notable, it is his sins of omission that I find most deplorable, particularly with regard to the Eisenhower presidency.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Eisenhower is an important historical figure who was one of our greatest military leaders and a good president, but it would have been impossible for him to have lived up to the reputation that Korda has manufactured for him. </span></span><br />
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<br />Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-4186633173841530482017-04-30T19:15:00.001-05:002017-05-01T09:46:37.726-05:00DEAR COMMITTEE MEMBERS by Julie Schumacher<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ms. Nan A. Talese</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Doubleday Publishing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">1745 Broadway</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">New York, NY 10019</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Dear Ms. Talese:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I saw online that you were the contact person for Doubleday Publishing and that manuscripts must be submitted by agents because you do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Well, relax Nan, that isn’t why I am contacting you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No, I have several other reasons I would like to discuss with you:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I became aware of the book <i><b>Dear Committee Members</b></i> when a friend recommended it to me. I also liked the opening line that you all used in your description of the book: <i>Finally, a novel that puts the 'pissed' back into epistolary.</i> Very clever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is a clever book. Epistolary novels are tricky propositions and Julie Schumacher pulled it off. She was able to do that because it is obvious that she is intimately acquainted with the academic world that she describes in the epistles that her protagonist, a professor of creative writing and literature, writes to – well, to everybody – but especially to the many administrators, who, by the way, outnumber the full time classroom teaching professors at his university. That places his institution smack dab in the mainstream and I could feel his pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Some of the epistles made me laugh out loud and some of them made me cuss like a sailor, because they were so on target. I spent many years as the chair of my department in the small college where I taught. I took the job for the same reason that people in Schumacher’s book did: because nobody else would take the job and somebody had to. It was a thankless job and I accomplished little, but somebody had to do it. I also took on the distinguished sounding job of President of the Faculty Forum, because nobody else would take the job and somebody had to. It was a thankless job and I accomplished little, but somebody had to do it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But here is the real reason I am contacting you. I purchased a first edition (used, but nevertheless, first edition), hard cover copy of the book. When I reached page seven in my reading, I discovered that there is no page seven. There also is no page eight – or nine – or ten. They were not torn out. It is obvious that they were never there. Is this what putting “pissed back into epistolary” means? If so, it worked. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I’m not requesting a refund, because I really enjoyed the book. In fact, it is my favorite book of the year. But I do think that I am owed something. By my calculations there are at least two – maybe three – epistles missing from my copy. I am asking that you please do one of two things: 1) send me the missing epistles in an email or 2) mimeograph them and send them via USPS.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I trust that since you are not being swamped with unsolicited manuscripts that you will be able to find the time to do this for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I await your reply -- or the missing epistles.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sincerely,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stormy W.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-14626194375008854212017-04-09T13:43:00.001-05:002022-12-30T20:19:48.056-06:00HIGH NOON: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>This is a review of a book written about the making of the classic western film, HIGH NOON (UA, 1952). If you wish, and I hope you do, you can read my review of the film <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-21-favorite-westerns-rio-grande.html">here.</a></b></i></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>HIGH NOON </b>is one of the most famous and popular western movies ever made. Despite the fact that westerns had never been held in high esteem by the Motion Picture Academy, it was nominated for seven Oscars, and won four.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Practically everybody, even non-western movie fans (surely a small number), is familiar with the plot of a retiring marshal, Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who is deserted by his town in his hour of need. Even his Quaker bride (Grace Kelly), who is of course a pacifist and therefore abhors violence, threatens to leave him on their wedding day if he refuses to leave town with her.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But because he is a man of courage and integrity, he single-handedly, not by choice, takes on a gang of four murderous gunmen who plan to kill him.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>The Author</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Glenn Frankel combines his love of classic films and American history in a fascinating study of <b>HIGH NOON</b> and its rocky backstory, one that almost prevented the film from even getting off the ground. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It didn't start out that way. In fact, the project appeared in its early stages to be one that would have been characterized by little, if any, controversy. Screenwriter Carl Foreman's initial vision was that the film would be an allegory about the necessity of peaceful nations acting multilaterally through the infant United Nations organization to combat the aggressive actions of rogue nations.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Instead of Marshal Kane finding himself in isolated circumstances when the four gunmen come after him, he would be able to count on the people of the town to come to his aid -- just as the UN ideally would come to the aid of a peaceful nation threatened by an aggressor. </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">As it turned out, Foreman's screenplay did become an allegory, but not the one that was originally intended.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">During the film's early stages of production, and while the screenplay was still being developed, Foreman was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) which was investigating communist influence in the film industry.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Foreman and his wife, like many other Americans, had joined the Communist Party during the '30's. The Great Depression had thrown the nation -- and the world -- into a state of economic chaos and capitalism, in its perceived inability to solve the twin problems of unemployment and poverty, was viewed by activists on the right and the left as being part of the problem rather than the solution.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">While some Americans flirted with fascism, some on the left joined the Communist Party because they saw it as a solution to not only getting a handle on poverty, but also as the best defense against the spread of fascism at home and abroad.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Like many Americans who joined the party, Foreman became disillusioned after World War II with the onset of the Cold War and also when the brutal excesses of the Stalin regime became publicly known. It was then that the party's membership began to evaporate in the United States. Among those dropping their membership were Mr. and Mrs. Foreman. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;">A happier Carl Foreman, 1961</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In his appearance before the committee he testified that he was not then a member of the Communist Party, but took the Fifth when he was asked if he had been a member before 1950 and refused to "name names" as some others had done. Consequently, he was branded an "unfriendly witness," which was not only tantamount to admitting guilt as far as the committee was concerned, but it resulted in the individual's name being placed on a blacklist, which in turn meant that person's career was seriously damaged or even totally destroyed.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">At least five hundred people were blacklisted for a decade or more. There were even several suicides as a result of the blacklist.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It also meant that because of the fear of association that few people, if any, were going to come to the "accused" person's defense. In fact, producer Stanley Kramer wanted Foreman to be more forthcoming with the committee and when he wasn't, Kramer feared Foreman's association with the film would doom it at the box office. Although Foreman did receive credit for the screenplay, Kramer stripped him of his associate producer credit.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This is why Foreman began to visualize the film as an allegory for the evils of the witch hunt and the blacklist and why he began to reshape the screenplay to reflect his vision. His life had become exhibit no. 1. As far as he was concerned, he was Will Kane trying to do what was right, but having to do it alone, because the fears of guilt by association that others felt had the effect of isolating him, just as it did Will Kane.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Ironically, Foreman received an Oscar nomination, his third, for best screenplay, but it is no surprise that he did not win. By the time the awards were announced he had left the country. He had gone into self-exile in England where he continued his career with notable success. As for Stanley Kramer, his treatment of Foreman would forever be a blot on the record of a producer who was noted for movies with a "social message."</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">By the end of the '50's, the blacklist activity had faded. HUAC was re-named the House Committee on Internal Security, but was eventually abandoned by 1975.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Frankel's <i style="font-weight: bold;">High Noon </i>book is his second in which he skillfully interweaves film-making and American history.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The first was <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend</i>. That classic Western, starring John Wayne in his greatest performance, was inspired by the real-life kidnapping of young Cynthia Ann Parker from her Texas frontier home by Comanche raiders.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">As he does in <i style="font-weight: bold;">High Noon</i>, Frankel provides the readers with insights into both the making of the film and the history upon which it is based. Both books are well-written and thoroughly researched, but then that is what one would expect from a Pulitzer winning journalist.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">"The real strength of Frankel's account lies in its illustration, in many shades of gray, of the Hollywood blacklist and what it did, in political terms, as it ruined or derailed many, many careers." </i>-- Michael Phillips, <b><i>Chicago Tribune</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">"Though Frankel began this sumptuous history long before the latest election, he ends up reminding us that 2016 was far from the first time politicians trafficked in lies and fear, and showing us how, nonetheless, people came together to do exemplary work." </i>-- John Domini, <b>The Washington Post</b></span><br />
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<br />Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-25516578422020091222017-03-08T13:56:00.001-06:002022-12-30T20:22:10.395-06:00BUTCHER'S CROSSING by John Williams<br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">John Williams (1922-1994) wrote four novels. None of them, however, sold many copies during his lifetime. I remember some years ago seeing and scanning stories about him with headlines such as </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The Best Writer You Never Heard Of</i></b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, or something similar. And that certainly applied to me. I had never heard of him, and I couldn't read his books because they were out of print. In fact, although there were critics who praised his work, his books sold few copies before disappearing -- literally in some cases -- into the trash bin of history.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--OPj5IFdlZ8/WMAqNXv2NJI/AAAAAAAAEFc/VKA_XA9KaG0vGPTODtIcRFPx-j4Gvk34wCLcB/s1600/Augustus.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--OPj5IFdlZ8/WMAqNXv2NJI/AAAAAAAAEFc/VKA_XA9KaG0vGPTODtIcRFPx-j4Gvk34wCLcB/s320/Augustus.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">He received his greatest, albeit fleeting, publicity when his epistolary novel set in Ancient Rome, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Augustus</i>, won the National Book Award in 1973. But it didn't sell many copies either.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Fast forward to 2013:</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">A dramatic change occurred when the New York Review of Books (NYRB) re-issued <i style="font-weight: bold;">Stoner</i>, a novel about a quiet, unassuming, and, in many ways, forgettable professor teaching literature at the University of Missouri, which had been originally published in 1965.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Suddenly, everyone had heard of John Williams, at least those who read books. He had become an overnight success -- almost a half-century after he had written the book -- and almost two decades after his death.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">A year later, NYRB re-issued <i style="font-weight: bold;">Augustus</i>.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, these were not the first Williams novels to be re-issued by NYRB. The first was <i style="font-weight: bold;">Butcher's Crossing</i>, originally published in 1960, and re-issued by NYRB in 2007. It had not attracted the readership that <i style="font-weight: bold;">Stoner </i>did six years later, but it benefited from the popularity of that novel, even to the point that <i style="font-weight: bold;">Butcher's Crossing </i>is now in development as a movie.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The Butcher's Crossing title refers to a rag-tag collection of shacks and shanties located on the Kansas prairie. In the late 1870's, its primary commercial activity is the collection and shipment of buffalo hides to the east. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Will Andrews, a young Bostonian imbued with the teachings of Emerson and Thoreau, drops out of Harvard College and travels west in a quest for -- well, for something that he can't quite explain -- but obviously includes a search for self -- a self that he might discover in Nature.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">At the gate of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he takes into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find Nature to be the circumstances which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. </span>-- </i>Ralph Waldo Emerson, <i>Nature</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In some ways Andrews pursues a course opposite to that of Stoner; while Stoner deserted nature (the farm) for academia, Andrews deserts academia for nature.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Eventually, because he wants to take part in a buffalo hunt (something that neither Emerson nor Thoreau would have approved of), and because he had some money, Andrews agrees to bankroll a hunt led by an experienced hunter named Miller. To assist the enterprise Miller hires Charley Hoge, a one-handed, whiskey-swilling, Bible-thumper to serve as teamster and camp cook and Schneider, an experienced skinner. Young Andrews principal job will be to assist Schneider, even though he knows nothing about skinning animals, but is expected to learn.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I'm not going to divulge any more of the plot, because I don't want to be guilty of spoilers and because it's too damn difficult to do anyway. But I will tell you that the passage across the arid plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado almost ends the hunt even before the hunters arrive in the Colorado Rockies where Miller is certain a huge buffalo herd will be found in a valley that he visited years before.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The hunters find the herd but they tarry too long in the Rockies and have to spend the winter there. Winter in the Rockies means snow -- a lot of it -- and as a result the hunters find themselves engaging in another battle of survival against the forces of nature.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Just as it is impossible to explain in a brief summary why <i style="font-weight: bold;">Stoner </i>is such a great novel, so it is with <i style="font-weight: bold;">Butcher's Crossing</i>. It is a western novel. No, that's not quite right. It is a novel set in the west. Despite the fact that the story is populated by many stock characters -- even the prostitute with the requisite heart of gold -- they are offset by a pared down, austere, but clear and vivid prose that contains no gimmicks or grammatical games.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Joanne Greenberg, who is best known for her book </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">I Never Promised You a Rose Garden</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, knew Williams and admired his talent long before most of the rest of us even had a clue. She was quoted as saying that Williams "wrote like a Shaker would ski -- without a wasted motion." Perfect; I wish I had thought of that.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Anyone looking to read a traditional western in the mainstream of the genre should look elsewhere. This is a book that shares more in common with Herman Melville's </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">Moby Dick</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> than anything ever written by Louis L'Amour. If, on the other hand, you are an admirer of Cormac McCarthy, than this book would likely appeal to you.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"What will you do now, Mr. McDonald?" Andrews asked; his voice soft.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Do?" McDonald straightened on the bed. "Why, I'm going to do what Miller said I should do; I'm going to get out of this country. I'm going back to St. Louis, maybe back to Boston, maybe even to New York. You can't deal with this country as long as you're in it; it's too big, and empty, and it lets the lies come into you. You have to get away from it before you can handle it. And no more dreams; I take what I can get when I can get it, and worry about nothing else."</i></b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Buffalo (bison) skulls to be ground up for fertilizer</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;">40,000 buffalo hides awaiting shipment from Dodge City, Kansas</span></b></i></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">******<br /></span></b></span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">[</span><span style="color: blue;">Butcher's Crossing</span></i><span style="color: blue;"><i>] is a novel that turns upside down the expectations of the genre -- and goes to war with a century of American triumphalism, a century of rejuvenation through violence, a century of senseless slaughter.</i> </span>-- John Plotz, <i>The Guardian</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">Harsh and relentless yet muted in tone, Butcher's Crossing paved the way for Cormac McCarthy. It was perhaps the first and best revisionist western. </i>-- <i>The New York Times</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">The finest western ever written.</i><span style="color: blue;"> </span>-- Oakley Hall, author of <i>Warlock</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">'The West' never existed. It's a dream of 'the East.'</i><span style="color: blue;"> </span>-- John Williams</b></span><br />
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<br /></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-15140510593447908152017-02-21T13:26:00.001-06:002022-12-30T20:27:10.170-06:00THE MAN WHO RODE MIDNIGHT by Elmer Kelton<br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Back in 1973 Elmer Kelton published his most critically acclaimed novel, one that won both Spur and Western Heritage awards. It is <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/search?q=the+time+it+never+rained" style="font-style: italic;"><b>The Time It Never Rained</b></a>, which one admiring critic conceded wasn't "the Great American Novel," but may very well be "the Great Texas Novel."</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It was the story of Charlie Flagg, a tough-minded Texas rancher who in the 1950s was hanging on with all he had as he tried to survive the worse drought to hit that part of Texas since the Dust Bowl days of the '30s.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Wes Hendricks, the primary protagonist of <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Man Who Rode Midnight </i>is cut from the same cloth and could be viewed as the reincarnation of Charlie twenty years down the road. In his seventies, Wes is not facing drought, though like Charlie he is forced to run sheep on his west Texas hill country ranch because they are profitable, which allows him to stay in the cattle business which isn't profitable. It is a sacrifice that any self-respecting cattleman would regret, but a man has to do what a man has to do.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>"I hated sheep at first, but they growed on me. I decided they can't be all bad if they make you more money than cattle. Besides, an old cow'll sometimes try to kill you. So will a horse. An old ewe may be dumber than dirt, but you don't find any malice in her."</b></i></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But Wes does have to confront another problem, one even more relentless and intractable than prolonged drought; his foe is progress. In his youth Wes had swung a wide loop as a cowboy, bronc buster, and rodeo rider. He was one tough galoot. After all, he was "the man who rode Midnight." All he wanted now was to be left alone so that he could live out his days on his ranch. But then progress intervened.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The little town of Big River is dying and on its last legs and its citizens are behind a proposal by developers to dam the river and create a lake that would attract tourists. The only fly in the ointment is Wes; said lake would cover his ranch.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i>Pedernales River in Texas Hill Country</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Wes is offered much more money than what his ranch is worth but that isn't the issue. He doesn't want to sell for any price, not even when the local sheriff who has vested interests threatens him.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Strange, the way life changes things on you. That time I rode Ol' Midnight, they taken my picture. My name was in the papers. People went out of their way to shake my hand and talk to me. I was a hero for a while, and people liked to brag that they knew me. Now all that's gone; it don't mean a damned thing anymore. I'm just an old man standin' in everybody's way."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Other characters in the story include Wes' grandson, Jim Ed, a city boy who grew up in Dallas, but comes to live with his grandfather after flunking out of college during his senior year. He has been sent by his father to try to convince Wes to sell and to take up residence in a retirement home. Jim Ed, nicknamed "Tater" by his grandfather, a name he detests, finds himself falling for a young woman from a neighboring ranch named Gloria Beth Dawson, nicknamed Glory B., a name she embraces.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Jim Ed shoved aside a coiled rope and a bridle to make room on the seat. He had to move an assortment of stock medicine, wire pinchers and general working tools to make footroom on the floor. He bumped his head on a rifle racked against the rear window.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"What's that for?" he asked.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>His grandfather replied in a gravelly voice, "You never know when you may run into a son of a bitch that needs shootin'."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Like </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">The Time It Never Rained</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">The Man Who Rode Midnight </i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">is not a "western novel," but a novel set in the West. The winner of a Western Heritage Award, the themes of </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: bold;">The Man Who Rode Midnight</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> examine a generation gap, the conflict between old and new ways, love of land, uncompromising values, romance, and even aching despair over faded love.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Some evenings Wes takes his fiddle and moves away from the house in order not to disturb his grandson and each time plays the same haunting melody, one that his grandson does hear, and eventually recognizes.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>As I look at the letters that you wrote to me</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>It's you that I am thinkin' of</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>As I read the lines that, to me, were so dear</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>I remember our faded love</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>I miss you darlin', more and more every day</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>As heaven would miss the stars up above</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>With every heartbeat, I still think of you</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>And remember our faded love</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>As I think of the past and all the pleasures we had</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>As I watched the mating of the dove</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>It was in the springtime that you said goodbye</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>I remember our faded love</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>I miss you darlin', more and more every day</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>As heaven would miss the stars up above</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>With every heartbeat, I still think of you</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>And remember our faded love</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i>And remember our faded love</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Written by Bob Wills, James Robert Wills, Johnnie Lee Wills. copyright Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.</i></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The world according to Wes Hendricks:</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"There's somethin' way out of balance in the world. People over in Africa are starvin' because they can't buy food. People here are starvin' because you can't sell it."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"But that's the way with dreams: the bad ones just haunt you, and the good ones never come true." </i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"People moved away from the country in them days; they didn't move to it .... Now it's in style for people to quit the city and move to the country, only they want to bring the city with them. Time they get through changin' it into everything they come here to run away from, there won't be nothin' left of the country .... They'll pave over the last blade of grass someday, and drown the last tree in an artificial lake so some damnfool from town can race a motorboat. You ought to at least remember what it used to be like."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Things ain't like they used to be ... Times, I wonder if they ever were."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"There ain't no better cure for a socialist than a little dose of capital."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"There's no limit to what a man can do once he makes up his mind he ain't allergic to sweat."</i></b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oG-VnmBb1hA/WKyRaziYGyI/AAAAAAAAEFA/MQhl9diLZlEQ1ot6V4T-wsDn12TvmuRzACLcB/s1600/Elmer.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oG-VnmBb1hA/WKyRaziYGyI/AAAAAAAAEFA/MQhl9diLZlEQ1ot6V4T-wsDn12TvmuRzACLcB/s1600/Elmer.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b>Elmer Kelton (1926-2009)</b></span></i></td></tr>
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<br />Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-34363246953304860252017-02-19T21:36:00.002-06:002022-12-30T20:51:17.738-06:00GABBY HAYES: Part II -- A-Western Sidekick<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Part I can be viewed <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2017/01/gabby-hayes-b-western-sidekick-1885-1969.html">here</a>.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">After becoming a popular sidekick in the Hopalong Cassidy series, George Hayes moved to Republic in 1939 where he was paired with up and coming B-Western cowboy star Roy Rogers, to the benefit of both actors. Roy would soon become "the King of the Cowboys" and Hayes, now nicknamed "Gabby," would be the most popular of all the B-Western sidekicks in the business.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">One of the promises that Republic made to Hayes to entice him to sign a contract was that he would be allowed to occasionally appear in their bigger-budget films. Gabby, in the years that he was employed at Republic (1939-1946), appeared in four A-westerns, three of which were Republic productions.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WcqxPQ7PETk/WJDGV2nj6JI/AAAAAAAAD9E/PlxJ6gl-P7IvIeDgA0LNADpi_JgWhVxNwCLcB/s1600/dix.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></a><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WcqxPQ7PETk/WJDGV2nj6JI/AAAAAAAAD9E/PlxJ6gl-P7IvIeDgA0LNADpi_JgWhVxNwCLcB/s1600/dix.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WcqxPQ7PETk/WJDGV2nj6JI/AAAAAAAAD9E/PlxJ6gl-P7IvIeDgA0LNADpi_JgWhVxNwCLcB/s320/dix.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: red;"><b>MAN OF CONQUEST (Republic, 1939)</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: George Nichols, Jr.; PRODUCER: Sol Siegel; WRITERS: screenplay by Wells Root, E.E. Paramore, and Jan Fortune based on original story by Harold Shumate and Wells Root; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joseph H. August</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Richard Dix, Gail Patrick, Edward Ellis, Joan Fontaine, Victor Jory, Robert Barrat, George "Gabby Hayes (as George Hayes), Ralph Morgan, Robert Armstrong, C. Henry Gordon, Max Terhune, Leon Ames, Ernie Adams, Billy Benedict, Lane Chandler, Edmund Cobb, Iron Eyes Cody, William Desmond, Earle Hodgins, Jack Ingram, Fred Kohler, Jr., George J. Lewis, Chief Many Treaties, Chris Pin-Martin, George Montgomery, Horace Murphy, Sarah Padden, Charles Stevens, Hal Taliaferro, Jim Thorpe, Chief Thundercloud, Slim Whitaker, Robert J. Wilke, Guy Wilkerson, Chief Yowlachie</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>SECOND UNIT DIRECTOR: B. Reeves "Breezy" Eason</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Yakima Canutt, Duke Green, Cliff Lyons, George Montgomery, Duke Taylor, Bill Yrigoyen, Joe Yrigoyen</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This Sam Houston biopic was at the time Republic's most expensive film. It also enjoyed the largest advertising budget ever provided for one of the studio's films. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, for: Art Direction; Musical Score; and Best Sound.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The usual suspects make an appearance in the film: Sam Houston (Richard Dix), Andrew Jackson (Edward Ellis), William Travis (Victor Jory), David Crockett (Robert Barrat), Stephen F. Austin (Ralph Morgan), Jim Bowie (Robert Armstrong), and Santa Ana (C. Henry Gordon). And Gabby? Well, he played a fictitious character named Lannie Upchurch who was befriended by Houston. In other words, a sidekick.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The cast list included many familiar faces that any B-western fan worth his salt would recognize, including Max Terhune who did stints as a comedic sidekick in three different B-western series: The Three Mesquiteers (Republic), The Range Busters (Monogram), and Johnny Mack Brown (Monogram).</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">"...</span><i style="color: blue;"> good acting and big battle scenes expertly filmed by second-unit director B. Reeves "Breezy" Eason, but it was poorly written. The effect was that of an overbuilt programmer." </i>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span></span><br />
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<i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue;">"... is still the best movie biography of Sam Houston and, John Wayne's grandiose budget for THE ALAMO notwithstanding, the best account of Texas' fight for independence .... Richard Dix ... was a perfect choice for Houston."</span> </i><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">-- William K. Everson, <i>A Pictorial History of Western Film</i>, 1969</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"Republic Pictures tried to give this biography of Texas' Sam Houston good production values, but script slows down action." </span>Leonard Maltin</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"... it is, in the main, an admirably contrived biography, honest enough to mention Houston's sodden spree among the Indians, making dramatic capital of his progression from self-aggrandizing adventurer to instrument of national development. Houston, as Richard Dix has played him, is a full-bodied portrait, earthy, human, and virile." </i>-- Frank S. Nugent, <i>New York Times</i></b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T0uvdVnJtPs/WJNLT9-P5lI/AAAAAAAAD9U/35rrVTt3vrA4tVQDh4je2YI2m868VoesQCLcB/s1600/Dark_Command_1940.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T0uvdVnJtPs/WJNLT9-P5lI/AAAAAAAAD9U/35rrVTt3vrA4tVQDh4je2YI2m868VoesQCLcB/s400/Dark_Command_1940.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>DARK COMMAND (Republic, 1940)</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh; PRODUCER: Sol Siegel; WRITERS: screenplay by Grover Jones, Lionel Houser, F. Hugh Herbert, and Jan Fortune; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jack Marta</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Walter Pidgeon, Roy Rogers, George Hayes, Porter Hall, Marjorie Main, Raymond Walburn, Joseph Sawyer, J. Farrell MacDonald, Trevor Bardette, Al Bridge, Tom London, Glenn Strange, Ernie Adams, Jack Rockwell, Harry Woods, John Merton, Edmund Cobb, Hal Taliaferro, Yak Canutt</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Yakima Canutt, Cliff Lyons, Bill Yrigoyen, Joe Yrigoyen </b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The film represents the third pairing of Claire Trevor and John Wayne. It all began, of course, with their roles in the classic film,<b> STAGECOACH </b>(UA, 1939), with Wayne appearing on loan-out from Republic. At the time he was starring in that studio's B-western series, The Three Mesquiteers. There would be no more B-westerns in the actor's future, but one of the Mesquiteers films was not released until after <b>STAGECOACH </b>made its way to the screen.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Striking while the iron was hot Republic loaned Wayne to RKO that same year for another co-starring role with Trevor. The film was <b>ALLEGHENY UPRISING </b>and this collaboration was much less satisfying than the initial one, though it was not the fault of the two stars. </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Republic then made the decision to film its own production with the two stars. <b>DARK COMMAND</b> does not rank with <b>STAGECOACH</b>, of course, but it is a far superior to <b>ALLEGHENY UPRISING</b>.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DARK COMMAND </b>is loosely based on the life of William Clarke Quantrill, the Kansas schoolteacher who became a notorious Confederate guerilla leader during the Civil War. In the film his name is Will Cantrell (Walter Pidgeon), but there is no doubt about who is supposed to be.</span></span><br />
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</span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7rCkmSrhd6M/WJNVss5U51I/AAAAAAAAD9k/wkqDzvSUqx0ERL20qYbo-naKJkMJQk5-ACLcB/s1600/Gabby%2BHayes.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7rCkmSrhd6M/WJNVss5U51I/AAAAAAAAD9k/wkqDzvSUqx0ERL20qYbo-naKJkMJQk5-ACLcB/s320/Gabby%2BHayes.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The film is also a re-teaming of John Wayne and Gabby Hayes who first appeared in the same film in Wayne's initial Lone Star/Monogram entry, <b>RIDERS OF DESTINY </b>(1933). Hayes went on to support Wayne in many of the films in that series, sometimes playing a villain, but also beginning to hone the character that would make him famous in the Hoppy and Roy Rogers films.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Speaking of Roy Rogers, he is in this film, too. At the time, he was on the verge of replacing Gene Autry as the most popular B-western cowboy riding the cinematic range (partly by the fact that due to military service Autry was absent from the screen for a couple of years). This is the only time that the three western movie icons -- Wayne, Rogers, and Hayes -- appeared in the same film. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The film is noted for the famous stunt in which four men and a team of horses and a wagon drive off a high bluff into a lake. The stunt was performed by Yak Canutt, Cliff Lyons, Bill Yrigoyen, and Joe Yrigoyen.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DARK COMMAND </b>was nominated for two Academy Awards: Art Direction and Musical Score.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Walsh's direction is efficient, but surprisingly anonymous." </i>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Dramatically uneven, but entertaining." </i>-- Leonard Maltin</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i style="color: blue;">"... a towering Walter Pidgeon performance ... [and] Roy Rogers in a supporting role, comes off surprisingly well as the male ingenue. The music is fine .... and Walsh directed with verve. It's essentially big-budget "B" stuff but it's very entertaining." </i>-- Brian Garfield, <i style="color: blue;">Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i style="color: blue;">"A lot of experience and talent has gone into the manufacture of Republic's </i><span style="color: blue;">DARK COMMAND </span><i style="color: blue;">... and the consequence is the most rousing and colorful horse-opera that has gone thundering past this way since STAGECOACH ... Raoul Walsh ... directed it with an artist's eye for flavor and dramatic movement, and John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Walter Pidgeon and a company of character experts have filled it with brimming life and gusto .... There are ... some spicy contributions made by George Hayes as an itinerant barber-dentist and Raymond Walburn as an overstuffed shirt. </i>-- Bosley Crowther, <i style="color: blue;">New York Times</i></b></span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>The original title of the film was IN OLD OKLAHOMA. It was later changed because the producers of the musical OKAHOMA charged that it created confusion with their film</b></i></span>.</span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> <span style="color: red;"><b>IN OLD OKLAHOMA (Republic, 1943)</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Albert S. Rogell; PRODUCER: Robert North; WRITERS: screenplay by Ethel Hill and Eleanore Griffin based on original story by Thomson Burtis; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jack Marta</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: John Wayne, Martha Scott, Albert Dekker, George "Gabby" Hayes, Marjorie Rambeau, Dale Evans, Grant Withers, Sidney Blackmer, Paul Fix, Irving Bacon, Byron Foulger, Roy Barcroft, Yakima Canutt, George Chandler, Lane Chandler, Myna Dell, Kenne Duncan, Rhonda Fleming, Bud Geary, Fred Graham, Jack Kirk, Tom London, LeRoy Mason, Harry Shannon, Tom Steele, Slim Whitaker, Harry Woods, Will Wright</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Yakima Canutt, Bud Geary, Fred Graham, Cliff Lyons, Eddie Parker, Tom Steele, Post Park, Bill Yrigoyen, Joe Yrigoyen</b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qKgOjgcNV5Y/WJjQQ5FbXFI/AAAAAAAAD-E/klm0fQpojtMKf8leOyQ6NefJsjchqDVkQCLcB/s1600/In_Old_Oklahoma_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="516" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qKgOjgcNV5Y/WJjQQ5FbXFI/AAAAAAAAD-E/klm0fQpojtMKf8leOyQ6NefJsjchqDVkQCLcB/s640/In_Old_Oklahoma_.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Gabby and Marjorie Rambeau</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Oil exploitation in Oklahoma is at the heart of this story which takes place at the turn of the 20th century. Daniel Somers (John Wayne) and Jim Gardner (Albert Dekker) are rivals in both the oil business and the business of romance as they both seek the affections of Catherine Allen (Martha Scott). Gabby is stage driver Desperit Dean, who is also Somers' friend, or should I say sidekick.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Dale Evans, at the time known more for singing than acting, has a small part as saloon girl "Cuddles" Walker. A year later she would become a fixture in the Roy Rogers series and not long after that a fixture in Roy's life as Mrs. Roy Rogers.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">At least Evans' name appeared in the cast list. Rhonda Fleming made her screen debut in this film, also portraying another saloon girl, but receiving no billing.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The setting of the movie was Oklahoma, but location shooting took place in Sedona and Kanab, Arizona and nearby Zion National Park.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Musical Score and Sound Recording.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"... good action; obligatory romance." </span>-- </i>Leonard Maltin</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Periodically, the folks over at Republic do themselves proud by turning out a highfalutin' picture with all the high-budget trimmings, and </i><span style="color: blue;">IN OLD OKLAHOMA </span><i><span style="color: blue;">... is one of them....Once it gets going, [it] does make a lot of noise." </span>-- New York Times</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"... the best thins in the film are the action sequences, notably the convoy of oil-filled wagons dashing across the prairie through a brushfire." </i>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>TALL IN THE SADDLE (RKO, 1944)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Edwin L. Marin; PRODUCER: Robert Fellows; WRITERS: screenplay by Robert Hogan and Paul Fix; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert de Grasse</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: John Wayne, Ella Raines, Ward Bond, George "Gabby" Hayes, Audrey Long, Elisabeth Risdon, Don Douglas, Paul Fix, Russell Wade, Emory Parnell, Raymond Hatton, Harry Woods, Clem Bevans, Russell Simpson, Eddy Waller, George Chandler, Ben Johnson</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Fred Graham, Ben Johnson, Henry Wills</b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N8T5cPAwBcU/WJn5BRgDELI/AAAAAAAAD-U/h2znT20-ACohA99zf5ZzQXDUZ3qh2HlxwCLcB/s1600/tall.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N8T5cPAwBcU/WJn5BRgDELI/AAAAAAAAD-U/h2znT20-ACohA99zf5ZzQXDUZ3qh2HlxwCLcB/s400/tall.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Gabby is a stage driver once again and he befriends the hero played by John Wayne. Nothing unusual about that, except for this: This is the last pairing of Wayne and Hayes, an association, as noted above, that began with <b>RIDERS OF DESTINY </b>(Lone Star/Monogram) in 1933.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">One of the co-writers of this range war feud was Paul Fix, who also had a major acting role in the film. Fix was one of Wayne's mentors and one that Wayne often acknowledged in interviews. He was also the father-in-law of actor Harry Carey, Jr.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-guyHO1Fzg88/WJoD1IW_FqI/AAAAAAAAD-w/jx4G8seljN4vk8Kfie-Q2ZwfIUhyeTwsQCLcB/s1600/TallInTheSaddler.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-guyHO1Fzg88/WJoD1IW_FqI/AAAAAAAAD-w/jx4G8seljN4vk8Kfie-Q2ZwfIUhyeTwsQCLcB/s400/TallInTheSaddler.jpg" width="265" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>The poster takes suggestive liberties with the movie's plot (see upper left corner).</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In addition to Gabby, two other B-western sidekicks were in the cast. Raymond Hatton who, as earlier noted, played that role in three series: The Three Mesquiteers (Republic,); The Rough Riders (Monogram); and Johnny Mack Brown (Monogram), and Eddy Waller, who became Allan "Rocky" Lane's sidekick at Republic.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b>REVIEWS:</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">"</span><i style="color: blue;">Unfortunately the plot, while amiable, is strictly programmer stuff, with a lot of static talk leading to a detective-story denouement, unmasking the villain ... still Raines is lovely, Hayes is funny, Bond is nicely villainous and Wayne is Wayne." </i>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"is memorable for Raines' tempestuous performance as the independent woman who romances Wayne with a mixture of aggression ... and sultry sexuality ...." </i>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"TALL IN THE SADDLE is exciting and adventurous drama in the best western tradition. Picture, mounted with fine scenic backgrounds of the action, combines all the regulation ingredients of wild stagecoach rides, rough-and-tumble fights, gunplay and chases. Story carries unusual twists from regulation formula to provide top interest as strictly exciting escapist entry. </i>-- <i>New York Times</i></b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cHRkpc4HISo/WJtUTbRWc6I/AAAAAAAAD_I/EwWQqdr1RWg7OZZnOVn5mm5acYvLYWVFwCLcB/s1600/Badmans-territory.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cHRkpc4HISo/WJtUTbRWc6I/AAAAAAAAD_I/EwWQqdr1RWg7OZZnOVn5mm5acYvLYWVFwCLcB/s400/Badmans-territory.jpg" width="262" /></span></a></div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">BADMAN'S TERRITORY</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> (RKO, 1946)</span></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Tim Whelan; PRODUCER: Nat Holt; WRITERS: screenplay by Jack Natteford and Luci Ward; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert de Grasse</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Randolph Scott, George "Gabby" Hayes, Ann Richards, Ray Collins, James Warren, Morgan Conway, Virginia Sale, Chief Thudercloud, Lawrence Tierney, Tom Tyler, Steve Brodie, Phil Warren, William Moss, Nestor Pavia, Isabel Jewell, Kermit Maynard, Ben Johnson, Bud Osborne, Elmo Lincoln, Bob Wilke, Emory Parnell, Harry Harvey</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Ben Johnson, Kermit Maynard</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">"See them <u>ALL</u> in action in one picture!" proclaims on poster for the film. The ALL being a whole host of flea-bitten varmints and owl hoots who, at one time or the other, rode the outlaw trail -- but not all at the same time -- except in this movie (and one other, which we will get to later). There's Frank and Jesse James (Tyler and Tierney); Bob, Grat, and Bill Dalton (Brodie, Phil Warren, and Moss); Sam Bass (Pavia), Belle Starr (Jewell), Bill Doolin (Carl Eric Hansen); and Charlie Bryant (Glenn McCarthy).</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Even Elmo Lincoln (born Otto Elmo Linkenhelt), the screen's first Tarzan, makes an appearance as Dick Broadwell.</span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">And lawman Mark Rowley (Scott) has to contend will all of these bad men and this bad woman who have congregated in the Oklahoma Territory. Well, of course you have to suspend your annoying tendency to point out historical inaccuracies in films in order to enjoy this one. This is primarily necessary because several of these individuals had already bit the dust well before the Daltons became wanted outlaws. Belle had been assassinated a year earlier; Jesse four years earlier; and Sam Bass had been gone for over a decade.</span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">As it often happens, Oklahoma looks a lot like California. </span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But never mind. Viewers didn't seem to mind (or know) about historical chronology and the movie did good business at the box office. The film is also significant in that it represents the beginning of Randolph Scott's transition to full-time western star.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">It also represents Gabby's first appearance in a Randolph Scott film, but it wouldn't be the last.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Two years earlier Gabby appeared in his final John Wayne film, </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">TALL IN SADDLE </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(RKO). Then in 1946, weary of the grind of making eight pictures a year plus his work in A-westerns, Gabby left Republic and the highly popular Roy Rogers series.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">RKO had liked him in <b>TALL IN THE SADDLE </b>and even gave him second billing in <b>BADMAN'S TERRITORY</b>. Ironically, with all those historical outlaws, Gabby portrays a fictitious ex-outlaw known as the "Coyote Kid."</span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>******</b><br /></span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;">REVIEWS:</span></b></span><br />
<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue;"></span>"</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i>N</i></span><i style="color: blue;">at Holt produced this absurdity; history twisted beyond belief. The "B" antics are actionful, the performers mostly likable, the script bewildering. Poor, but amusing for the kiddies.</i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;">" </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">-- Brian Garfield, </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Western Films:</i><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> A Complete Guide</i></span></span></b><br />
<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;">"</span><i style="color: blue;">The number of featured parts necessarily make for an episodic structure but Whelan's spirited direction lifts the material well above the rut of routine.</i><span style="color: blue;">" </span>-- Phil Hardy, <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Western</i></span></span></b><br />
<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;">"</span><i style="color: blue;">Solid Western...nonstop fireworks. Rich characterizations, with Hayes fun as the Coyote Kid.</i><span style="color: blue;">" </span>-- Leonard Maltin </span></span></b><br />
<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;">"....</span><i style="color: blue;">i</i><i style="color: blue;">t’s a Randolph Scott Western of the 1940s and as such is definitely worth a watch. Put your credulity on hold and enjoy it for what it is. But don’t expect too much. No one would put it at the top of the Randy list.</i><span style="color: blue;">" </span>-- <a href="http://jeffarnoldblog.blogspot.com/search?q=badman%27s+territory">Jeff Arnold's West</a></span></span></b><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>TRAIL STREET (RKO, 1947)</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Ray Enright; PRODUCER: Nat Holt; Screenplay by Norman Houston and Gene Lewis based on novel by William Corcoran; CINEMATOGRAPHER: J. Roy Hunt</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Randolph Scott, Robert Ryan, Anne Jeffreys, George "Gabby" Hayes, Madge Meredith, Virginia Sale, Harry Woods, Steve Brodie, Ernie Adams, Si Jenks</b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HUDu6NESuyU/WJy3416Pw3I/AAAAAAAAD_o/XVoEba1Q1UIXmaVGME86sRIMvbqV2Y10ACLcB/s1600/TrailStreet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="491" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HUDu6NESuyU/WJy3416Pw3I/AAAAAAAAD_o/XVoEba1Q1UIXmaVGME86sRIMvbqV2Y10ACLcB/s640/TrailStreet.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /><br />You have seen this disclaimer many times: <br /><br /><i><b>The characters and events depicted in this photoplay are fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.</b></i></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The above appears in <b>TRAIL STREET</b>'s opening credits. So, were they telling us that we should regard as coincidence that the hero's name is Bat Masterson? And that he is a famous Kansas lawman? Oh, really?</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Well, the rest of the movie is certifiably fiction. To wit: Billy Burns (Gabby Hayes), an old friend of Bat Masterson (Randolph Scott), asks him to come to Liberal, Kansas to take the marshal's job and to help settle a range feud between farmers and ranchers. In reality Bat Masterson was never a lawman in Liberal, Kansas and may never have even been in the town. No matter, in the movie he answers his friend's call and makes things right.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Evidently the film confused Brian Garfield. Ordinarily, I will defer to him on matters (most of the time) when it comes to western movies, but not in this instance. In his review he has Bat cleaning up Dodge City and identifies Robert Ryan as the villain. Well, as already established, it was Liberal, not Dodge City, and furthermore, Ryan is a good guy this time.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">3 good guys: Ryan, Hayes, and Scott</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Set in town of Liberal, it features farmers versus cattlemen, wilderness versus cultivated land, East versus West, democratic versus individual action and is punctuated by Gabby Hayes' tall stories about the likes of a Texas grasshopper tall enough to pick their teeth with barbed wire." </i>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: red;"><b>WYOMING (Republic, 1947)</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Joseph Kane; PRODUCER: Joseph Kane; WRITERS: screenplay by Lawrence Hazard and Gerald Geraghty; CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Alton</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: William Elliott, Vera Hruba Ralston, John Carroll, George "Gabby" Hayes, Albert Dekker, Virginia Grey, Marie Ouspenskaya, Grant Withers, Harry Woods, Dick Curtis, Roy Barcroft, Trevor Bardette, Paul Harvey, Tom London, George Chesebro, Jack O'Shea, Charles Middleton, Eddy Waller, Olin Howlin, Glenn Strange, Charles King, Rex Lease, Marshall Reed, Ben Johnson</b></span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Fred Graham, Ben Johnson, Chuck Roberson, Tom Steele</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">This was the second in a new series of Republic films starring William "Wild Bill" Elliott. While the studio had earlier filmed two ambitious, big-budget (for them) films, <b>MAN OF CONQUEST</b> and <b>DARK COMMAND</b>, these films were not part of a B-western series in that they had longer running times, bigger budgets, more mature plots, and better production values than those films, but they were characterized by many B-western elements, beginning with the star.<br /><br />Elliott had become a B-western star at Columbia beginning in 1938. In 1943 he signed on with Republic and starred in two series there, first as himself and then as Red Ryder. In 1946 Republic moved him into this new series which the studio hoped would hold appeal for both adult and juvenile audiences. One of the B-western holdovers in these films was the presence of a comic sidekick. <br /><br />Gabby, considering his popularity, would have seemed to be a natural for the films. However, he had cut his ties with Republic the year before and WYOMING was his only appearance in the series, and in fact was his final film for that studio.<br /><br />Andy Clyde had the sidekick role in the initial entry and after<b> WYOMING</b> Andy Devine, who had replaced Gabby as Roy Rogers' sidekick, supported Elliott in a couple of his films, while continuing his role as Roy's sidekick, Cookie Bullfincher. <br /><br />One of the drawbacks to these films was the presence of Vera Hruba Ralston, an ice skater from Czechoslovakia, who had been brought to the U.S. by Republic's boss, Herbert J. Yates, who attempted to make her an actress. He mandated that she be put in films, but it was impossible to make her an actress. Her English was so limited initially that she had to learn her lines phonetically. But because Yates' relationship to Ralston was more than professional, he persevered to the detriment of these films.<br /><br /><b>WYOMING</b>'s plot is the one about a dispute between a cattle baron and homesteaders that has been filmed many, many times. So, there isn't anything new here. Gabby is Thomas Jefferson "Windy" Gibson, who befriends the Elliott character. So, there isn't anything new there either.<br /><br />It isn't <b>SHANE</b>, of course, but it isn't a bad film either.<br /><br /><b>******</b><br /><b><span style="color: blue;">REVIEWS</span>:</b><br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Beautifully lit by Alton with a vividness unusual for the period ... and energetically directed by Kane .... This is one of Elliott's best prestige westerns." </i></b></span><b>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b><br /><br /><i><b><span style="color: blue;">"The players are typecast, the script mostly formulaic, the direction typically speedy; it's a pretty good Elliott oater but rather juvenile.</span></b></i> -- <b>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b><i><br /></i></span><br />
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<b style="color: red;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">ALBUQUERQUE (Paramount, 1948)</span></b></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Ray Enright; PRODUCERS: William H. Pine and William C. Thomas; WRITERS: screenplay by Gene Lewis and Clarence Upson Young based on novel by Luke Short, <i>Dead Freight for Piute</i>; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Fred Jackman, Jr.</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, George "Gabby" Hayes, Lon Chaney, Jr., Russell Hayden, Catherine Craig, George Cleveland, Irving Bacon, Russell Simpson, Dan White, Lane Chandler, Chuck Roberson, Lee "Lasses" White</b></span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Chuck Roberson</b></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The Luke Short novel that the screenplay is based on is characterized by a plot that is a little out of the ordinary. Many of his novels feature a range feud plot, but this one is a story about a conflict between competing ore-hauling outfits.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Gabby, as Juke, is on the right side of course. And although Randolph Scott starts out on the wrong side he quickly sees the error of his way and switches sides. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Russell Hayden, who began his acting career as Hopalong Cassidy's young sidekick, Lucky Jenkins, and then went on to star in a couple of series of his own, is the owner of the freight line that Scott helps win the competition.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Earlier in the decade, Lee "Lasses" White was a comic sidekick for Tim Holt and Jimmy Wakely.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Russell Hayden as Lucky Jenkins</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Smoothly scripted by Lewis and Young, with Scott making the central character a believable one ... the production is only marred by Enright's spotty direction which slows the action down too frequently."</i><span style="color: blue;"> </span>-- Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"It's a good fast Luke Short yarn, well plotted with plenty of twists and fairly adult characters. Minor, but well done by all.</i><span style="color: blue;">" </span>-- Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>RETURN OF THE BAD MEN (RKO, 1948)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Ray Enright; PRODUCER: Nat Holt; </b></span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">WRITERS: screenplay by Charles O'Neal, Jack Natteford, and Luci Ward based on story by Jack Natteford and Luci Ward; CINEMATOGRAPHER: J. Roy Hunt</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Randolph Scott, Robert Ryan, Anne Jeffreys, George "Gabby" Hayes, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, Tom Keene, Robert Bray, Lex Barker, Walter Reed, Michael Harvey, Dean White, Robert Armstrong, Tom Tyler, Lew Harvey, Ernie Adams, Victor Adamson, Hank Bell, Lane Chandler, Earle Hodgins, Kenneth MacDonald, Bud Osborne, Harry Shannon, Charlie Stevens, Forrest Taylor</b></span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">We're back in Oklahoma Territory and the usual suspects have been rounded up and Randolph Scott is once again a lawman forced to contend with many of the same outlaws he confronted in <b>BADMAN'S TERRITORY </b>two years earlier. But he isn't the same person. Mark Rowley in the former, he is now Vance Cordell in the latter. But that isn't the only confusing aspect associated with <b>RETURN OF THE BADMEN</b>. The same kind of inaccurate historical chronologies are as true of this film as were true of its predecessor. So the viewer is advised to just go with the flow and accept the film for what it is, a work of pure fiction that utilizes the names of real people. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Here is the outlaw lineup and the actors who portrayed them:</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span></span><br />
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Cole, Jim, and John Younger -- Steve Brodie, Tom Keene (RKO's first B-Western series star at the beginning of the sound era), and Robert Bray</b></span></li>
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Emmett, Bob, and Grat Dalton -- Lex Barker (a year later he would become RKO's Tarzan), Walter Reed, and Michael Harvey</b></span></li>
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Billy the Kid -- Dean White </b></span></li>
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Wild Bill Doolin -- Robert Armstrong</b></span></li>
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Wild Bill Yeager (never heard of him) -- Tom Tyler</b></span></li>
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<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Arkansas Kid (ditto) -- Lew Harvey</b></span></li>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Gabby gets to play a banker in this one while Anne Jeffreys, as Cheyenne, is billed as the "notorious gun girl." Gun girl? </span></div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Sadly, we have to say goodbye to veteran character actor Ernie Adams who died shortly before this film, his 427th, was released.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Ernie Adams</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b>"R<i>yan's edginess and Scott's air of assured competence complement each other well and, despite the showier roles of Brodie and Armstrong, they are always at the center of the film. This is a superior RKO star western</i>.</b></span> <b>-- Phil Hardy,</b> <i style="color: black; font-weight: bold;">The Western</i></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><i><b>"Stand-out is Robert Ryan, always one of the best bad guys available...."</b></i></span> -- <b style="color: black; font-weight: normal;"><i><a href="http://jeffarnoldblog.blogspot.com/search?q=return+of+the+badmen" style="color: black; font-weight: normal;">Jeff Arnold's West</a></i></b></span></div><div style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>THE UNTAMED BREED (Columbia, 1948)</b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RhbfV7V2fIY/WJ9j5EMByjI/AAAAAAAAEBI/flaXNvCXNvc81A33nSnDXovqxOBika1qgCLcB/s1600/Untamed%2BBreed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RhbfV7V2fIY/WJ9j5EMByjI/AAAAAAAAEBI/flaXNvCXNvc81A33nSnDXovqxOBika1qgCLcB/s400/Untamed%2BBreed.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b>(L-R): George E. Stone, Barbara Britton, Sonny Tufts, Gabby Hayes</b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Charles Lamont; PRODUCER: Harry Joe Brown; RITERS: screenplay by Tom Reed based on story by Eli Colter; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Charles Lawton, Jr.</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Sonny Tufts, Barbara Britton, George "Gabby" Hayes, Edgar Buchanan, William Bishop, George E. Stone, Joe Sawyer, Gordon Jones, James Kirkwood, Virginia Brissac, Reed Howes, Russell Simpson, Paul Burns, Syd Saylor, Dick Elliott</b></span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNTS: Yakima Canutt (also stunt co-ordinator), Fred Graham, Jock Mahoney</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Stop me if you've heard this one. Texas ranchers import a Brahma bull to improve their cattle herd. The bull escapes and commits havoc in the area. He injures people and kills other bulls. Some people want to kill the bull, but our hero (Sonny Tufts), whose idea it was to import the bull in the first place, is adamantly opposed. And so he sets out to capture the bull. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, he decides that the only way he can capture the bull is to capture and gentle a wild horse known as the Widow Maker. Only then, will he have enough horse to subjugate the bull. If he is successful (and of course he is), he might win the hand of the leading lady (Barbara Britton) away from his rival (William Bishop) (which of course he does).</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">I'm not sure what the editor of the <i>Saturday Evening Post </i>saw in this story, but that's where it first appeared. Furthermore, what did the producers of this movie see in it?</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Director Lamont's forte was not westerns. He specialized in cornball comedies starring the likes of Abbott and Costello, Judy Canova, Ma and Pa Kettle, and even Francis the Talking Mule. <b>THE UNTAMED BREED</b>, which referred to the bull, or the horse, or the people, or all three, is not a comedy -- or at least not intentionally.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The leading man was a problem, too. Like the director, Sonny Tufts (nee Bowen Charlton Tufts III) never had much experience with westerns. He was born in Boston, and it showed. A good actor might have been able to overcome that fact, but Sonny was never accused of being a good actor.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Not even Gabby Hayes (as 'Windy' Lucas) and Edgar Buchanan in the same picture could save this one. There were some other pros in the cast, too. For instance, Barbara Britton had been in a ton of westerns and always gave a good account of herself.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Speaking of pros, Yak co-ordinated and performed stunts and was ably assisted by Fred Graham and Jock Mahoney. Charles Lawton was a talented cinematographer and some of the location shooting took place in the scenic Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California. Producer Harry Joe Brown, unlike the director and the film's star, had a long list of westerns on his resume, and there would be many more in the future. However, all these pluses were not enough to offset the critical minuses.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">On the sidekick front, two years later Gordon Jones (as 'Splinters' McGonigle) would replace Andy Devine ('Cookie' Bullfincher) as Roy Rogers' comic sidekick. It was not an improvement, since Jones turned out to be a graduate of the buffoon sidekick school.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"... Tufts and Bishop look strained trying to follow the episodic plot .... Only Buchanan and, surprisingly, Britton, seem able to just get on with it." </span>-- </i>Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"Apparently no one connected with it had much respect for it; it's an unintentional parody -- a textbook example of hokey lousy horse opera. The acting is terrible -- Tufts is howlingly inept with his Brooklyn sounding speech mannerisms -- and the script convoluted, the directing amateurish and the story dull.</span> -- </i>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b> </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>NOTE: As pointed out above, Tufts was born in Boston, not Brooklyn, so that must have been the accent that Garfield heard even though they are quite different.</b> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>This is one of those cases in which the poster was more exciting than the movie. Furthermore, those movies cited at the top did not contain all that much "Action," "Excitement," or "Adventure" but tended to be overblown and on the turgid side. No surprise since two of them were directed by Cecil B. DeMille.</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>EL PASO (Paramount, 1949)</b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>Director: Lewis R. Foster; PRODUCERS: William H. Pine and William C. Thomas; WRITERS: screenplay by Lewis R. Foster based on story by J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ellis W. Carter</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: John Payne, Gail Russell, Sterling Hayden, George "Gabby" Hayes, Dick Foran, Eduardo Noriega, Henry Hull, Mary Beth Hughes, H.B. Warner, Bobby Ellis, Arthur Space, Steven Geray, Irving Bacon, Lane Chandler, John Hart, Reed Howes, John Merton, Jack Perrin, Denver Pyle, Keith Richards, Lee Roberts, Dan White, Lee "Lasses" White, Chief Yowlachie</b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--gBEBHARXSM/WKia_BrahfI/AAAAAAAAECA/iyuBOrnxCVELQKzBJX6A4ZXH5Ar9_4V5gCLcB/s1600/HayesPayne.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--gBEBHARXSM/WKia_BrahfI/AAAAAAAAECA/iyuBOrnxCVELQKzBJX6A4ZXH5Ar9_4V5gCLcB/s320/HayesPayne.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><i><b>Clay and Pesky</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Clay Fletcher (John Payne), an eastern lawyer, travels to west Texas to conduct some legal business. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of a gang of thieves headed by Bert Donner (Sterling Hayden) and sheriff LaFarge (Dick Foran), his partner in crime. What really riles Fletcher is the fact that the crooks are stealing the land from returning war veterans.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">When nothing else works, Fletcher teaches himself to handle a gun and organizes a vigilante organization to oppose Donner and La Farge.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, the vigilante organization evolves into a mob that takes the life of an innocent man, forcing Fletcher to rethink the situation. In the end, he opposes the violence, but nevertheless prevails against the lawless element led by Donner.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The film had a decent cast. It was Payne's first western, but he would go on to make quite a few, and when the script allowed he could give a good account of himself. The same could be said about Sterling Hayden, who always played a tough guy, and he could give an authentic performance on either side of the law.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Gail Russell didn't appear in many westerns, but she was very good in two that are fondly remembered by fans of the genre: <b>THE ANGEL AND THE BADMAN </b>(Republic, 1947)<b> </b>and <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-21-favorite-westerns-seven-men-from.html">SEVEN MEN FROM NOW</a> (Batjac/WB, 1956).</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Both John Payne and Dick Foran began their movie careers as singers. In fact, Foran was one of the very first singing cowboys and was Warner Brothers answer to Gene Autry in the '30's. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Singing cowboy Dick Foran, Smokey, and friend.</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">And Gabby, well Gabby is "Pesky." And guess what, he becomes friends with the hero; not exactly what one would call being cast against type.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"The one about the lawyer who reluctantly learns to strap on a gun. Flabby and wheezy with dull slapstick relief." </i>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b style="font-style: italic;">"The idea of the lawyer taking the law into his own gunhands is quite original and Payne manages the change from educated Easterner to dynamic outlaw leader rather well, in his restrained way." </b>-- <a href="http://jeffarnoldblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/el-paso-paramount-1949.html">Jeff Arnold's West</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Even "Gabby" Hayes as the comic looks rather woe-begone." </i>-- Bosley Crowther, <i>New York Times</i></b></span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red;"><b>THE CARIBOO TRAIL (Fox, 1950)</b></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c4Pe2RP9Tts/WKnDgirlRNI/AAAAAAAAEC4/msloU4J0kXsAGsMxvQoXQrrruHnfA_ANwCLcB/s1600/Cariboo_Trail.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c4Pe2RP9Tts/WKnDgirlRNI/AAAAAAAAEC4/msloU4J0kXsAGsMxvQoXQrrruHnfA_ANwCLcB/s400/Cariboo_Trail.jpg" width="258" /></span></a></div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>DIRECTOR: Edwin L. Marin; PRODUCER: Nat Holt; WRITERS: screenplay by Frank Gruber based on story by John Rhodes Sturdy; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Fred Jackman, Jr.</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>CAST: Randolph Scott, George "Gabby" Hayes, Bill Williams, Karin Booth, Victor Jory, Douglas Kennedy, Jim Davis, Dale Robertson, James Griffith, Lee Tung Foo, Fred Libby, Ben Corbett, Franklyn Farnum, Kermit Maynard</b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The writers attempted to tell a different a story that would be a departure from the run-of-the mill western oater, but in the end it is a routine affair.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The plot has Jim Redfern (Randolph Scott), his partner Mike Evans (Bill Williams), and their cook Ling (Lee Tung Foo) driving a small herd of cattle from Montana up the Cariboo Trail into British Columbia where they hope to establish a cattle ranch. Or at least Redfern does; Evans is more interested in finding gold.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The two men meet an old prospector on the trail who decides to travel with them. Of course that would be Gabby Hayes, whose character's name is Grizzly. That night riders stampede the cattle through the camp with Evans being so badly injured that he loses an arm, one that is amputated by Redfern who in doing so saves his friend's life, but an act for which he receives no thanks.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">After that, the story proceeds much like one would suspect.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Victor Jory, Douglas Kennedy, and Jim Davis are the villains, though Davis is dispatched by Redfern early in the film. Karin Booth portrays a saloon owner with the proverbial heart of gold who falls for Redfern. A young Dale Robertson has a small part, but would soon be on his way to making a name for himself in the western genre.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Some exteriors were filmed in British Columbia, but it appears that most of the film was shot in Colorado. One shot in the film I recognize from my own experience, because I have photographed the same area. Here are two examples:</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ffd-bwbF0qY/WKngPQFttiI/AAAAAAAAEDQ/5iCZls26VwcyRramLLeVdW5VL8tLFpGgQCLcB/s1600/SAM_0197.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ffd-bwbF0qY/WKngPQFttiI/AAAAAAAAEDQ/5iCZls26VwcyRramLLeVdW5VL8tLFpGgQCLcB/s640/SAM_0197.JPG" width="640" /></a></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IwQNJulOCPk/WKnfCbSBr9I/AAAAAAAAEDI/fdHmQEYsZQIVwXAfJBuFtGUDUZqT24SlQCLcB/s1600/SAM_0195.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IwQNJulOCPk/WKnfCbSBr9I/AAAAAAAAEDI/fdHmQEYsZQIVwXAfJBuFtGUDUZqT24SlQCLcB/s640/SAM_0195.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">These photographs were taken along the Gunnison River, which is located in central Colorado. Those dark clouds coming in from the west were about to become even more ominous looking. As I discovered, they represented the front edge of a snowstorm making its way across the Continental Divide.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Gabby Hayes had started portraying grizzled old-timers in films beginning when he was still in forties. And even in 1950 when <b>THE CARIBOO TRAIL </b>was released he was still only sixty-five and could have soldiered on for several more years if he had wished. But he decided to call it quits, which was just as well. By this time he had become a cliche and seemed to be going through the motions, not even being asked to do as much acting as was once required of him in his days with William Boyd and Roy Rogers.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But he didn't shave his beard, or get rid of his floppy hat, or vest, or patched jeans. Instead, still in character he moved from the big screen to the small screen. In 1950-54, he hosted <b>The Gabby Hayes Show</b>, a fifteen minute program that ran on NBC three times a week. As host of the show he promoted his sponsor, Quaker Oats, spun yarns, and narrated clips of old B-westerns. In 1956, he hosted a thirty minute show that ran Saturday mornings on ABC. It lasted thirteen weeks. And that was it; he retired from show business for good.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">George Francis Hayes died in 1969. He was eighty-three years old. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-83149217899231579982017-01-15T11:22:00.001-06:002017-01-31T10:37:14.940-06:00GABBY HAYES, Part I: B-Western Sidekick <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>"Ya dur-r-r-n tootin, ya flea-bitten varmint"</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>CHARACTER ACTOR.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He was born George Francis Hayes (1885-1969) in the little town of Stannards, near Wellsville, New York. In fact, the third of seven children was born in a hotel, the Hayes Hotel, which was owned by his father. In 1902, at the age of seventeen, he ran away from home and joined a touring acting company. In 1914 he married Olive Ireland and the couple toured as a song and dance team on the vaudeville circuit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the late '20s the couple moved to California where Hayes hooked up with a film producer named Trem Carr, one of the co-founders of Monogram Pictures, which led to steady employment as an onscreen character actor. Since Monogram specialized in B-westerns, Hayes, despite his eastern background, found himself acting primarily in films starring a number of cowboy stars, but especially Bob Steele and John Wayne. Already in his forties, one of the first things he had to learn was how to ride a horse. Over the years, to his credit, he became a competent horseman. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In these films he was usually cast as a sympathetic character and despite being only in his forties, he often portrayed old-timers who befriended the hero. In these roles he was given colorful names such as Walrus, Squint, Slack, Altooney, Shamrock, Stingaree and -- well, you get the idea. But he wasn't always a good guy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In <b>RIDERS OF THE DESERT</b> (World Wide, 1932) he is Hashknife Brooks, the leader of a notorious outlaw gang. In the final reel he and Bob Steele engage in fisticuffs, with Hayes being shot and killed by Steele's sidekick, portrayed by Al St. John, who would later become a prolific sidekick, particularly in series starring Buster Crabbe and Lash LaRue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He was a ubiquitous presence in the cast of the John Wayne Lone Star/Monogram westerns that were made in 1934-35 under the supervision of Carr and Paul Malvern. In these films he continued to sharpen and refine the old-timer comedic character that would later make him famous -- but, again, not always.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>(L-R) Three future legends: John Wayne, George Hayes, and Yakima Canutt in RANDY RIDES ALONE</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In <b>RANDY RIDES ALONE </b>(Lone Star/Monogram, 1934), Hayes is Matt the Mute, a businessman who communicates by writing out his comments. Secretly, however, he is Marvin Black, who always dresses in black and is the leader of an outlaw gang. Yakima Canutt, stunt man extraordinaire, is Black's chief henchman, Spike.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the very next entry, <b>THE STAR PACKER </b>(Lone Star/Monogram, 1934), to the public he is prominent citizen Matt Matlock, but behind the scenes he is a mysterious outlaw known as "The Shadow."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>WINDY.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In 1935, Hayes began a profitable association with producer Harry Sherman. Sherman was in the process of launching an independently produced B-western series that would be financed and distributed by Paramount. The association with a major studio ensured that the series would be far superior to the output of most of the Poverty Row studios that specialized in the genre.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It was the good fortune of Hayes to be cast as Hopalong Cassidy's (William Boyd) old-timer sidekick, Windy Halliday, in the long-running series. There were some false starts, however.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Uncle Ben looks a lot like Windy and Gabby.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the first entry he portrayed Uncle Ben, who, unfortunately, was killed off at the end. In the second film he is a bartender named Spike who is a less sympathetic character, but who also doesn't live to the end of the film. In the third film, </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">THE BAR 20 RIDES AGAIN</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> (1935), he finally portrays a character named Windy (no last name), who makes it through the entire film and is invited to join the Bar 20 ranch. However, in the next release, </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">CALL OF THE PRAIRIE</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> (1936), he is the same old timer, but one who is known as Shanghai.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Despite being only fifty-years old at the time, from the outset the crotchety old-timer"Windy" (later 'Gabby') characterization appeared full blown. However, it wasn't a characterization that was created on the run, but one that he introduced and refined in earlier films, especially those starring John Wayne and Bob Steele.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Finally, with </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">THREE ON THE TRAIL</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> (1936), Hayes was cast as Windy Halliday, a continuing role that would consist of seventeen more Hoppy features. Finally, he had the role that in a sense he had been auditioning for ever since his association with Trem Carr began at the beginning of the sound era. He was on his way to becoming the definitive B-western sidekick.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>The poster is for an obvious re-release of the film since Hayes was not billed as 'Gabby' until after he left the Hoppy series</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>a rather pensive Gabby</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">GABBY.</b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">Gabby Hayes was ... the measuring stick by which to judge all of the other cowboy sidekicks. He was the quintessential sidekick before anyone got around to really understanding what a sidekick's role and function were to be in western films. </i><span style="font-weight: bold;">-- </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">David Rothel, <i>Those Great Cowboy Sidekicks</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Due to a contract disagreement with producer Harry Sherman, in 1939 Hayes left the series after appearing in the first twenty-two (eighteen as Windy Halliday) Hoppy films, and rode over to Republic. It might have been considered a comedown from Paramount except for the fact that Republic Studios was a specialist, one that specialized in B-westerns while consistently producing a superior product.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He would remain there for a decade, eventually surpassing Smiley Burnette as the screen's most popular western sidekick. Not only that, his popularity even eclipsed most of the six-gun heroes of the day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of course it must be said that his popularity was greatly enhanced by the fact that the studio placed Hayes in a co-starring role with a young actor named Roy Rogers who was on his way to becoming the most popular B-western star in the business. The pairing of the "King of the Cowboys" and the "King of the Sidekicks" was a fortuitous development for star, co-star, and studio. It created a western movie combo that no other studio could hope to match, much less surpass.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First up was </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">SOUTHWARD HO! </b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(Republic, 1939) in which his character was called Gabby Whitaker, which would become the name of his character in most of the Rogers films. From that day forward George Francis Hayes would be forever known as Gabby Hayes. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><i>"ya flop-eared jug head mule"</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>SOUTHWARD HO! </b>finds Roy and Gabby as two Confederate Civil War veterans returning to Texas after the war. Gabby has inherited a half interest in a ranch and that is their destination with the goal of settling down to a peaceful existence.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But in a plot involving carpetbaggers and corrupt military officers, one that has seen much service in westerns, the two are not allowed to settle down. Instead they must rally the local ranchers in order to oppose the corrupt military government that has been established.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Were they successful in their efforts? Well, of course. Did Roy and Gabby ever fail?</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Gabby giving advice to "young whippersnapper" Little Beaver (Bobby Blake) in a scene from MARSHAL OF RENO, the first Red Ryder feature (starring Wild Bill Elliott)</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>Bill Elliott is Red Ryder and Bobby Blake is Little Beaver</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gabby co-starred with Roy in forty-one films between 1939 and 1946. However, in 1943 Bill Elliott left Columbia and joined the Republic stable of western stars. In order to help guarantee the success of the Wild Bill Elliott series, the studio decided to give him the best possible comic sidekick. Therefore, Gabby supported Elliott in his eight films in 1943-44. In 1944, Republic launched a new series about the adventures of the comic book hero, Red Ryder. Elliott was chosen to play the lead, with Bobby Blake as Little Beaver, and Gabby as the comic sidekick. But after two films Gabby was transferred back to the Roy Rogers series.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It was in that return that Gabby was given his best roles in the series. And he delivered by proving once again that he could not only provide comedy, but that he was also a fine actor.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">DON'T FENCE ME IN </b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(1945) Gabby steals the show by giving a memorable performance as a famous ex-outlaw known as Wildcat Kelly. The film turned out to be one of the most popular entries in the entire series, partly because of the hit title song, but also as a result of Gabby's strong performance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In <b>MY PAL TRIGGER </b>(1946), Gabby was afforded the opportunity to do some serious acting when he played the owner of a ranch that raised palomino horses. Yes, he did provide some comic touches, but in other scenes he expressed anger and grief. It was a touching performance.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gabby could be very funny, but he was never the buffoon, like Smiley Burnette, for example, who hindered the hero more than he helped him. When the chips were down Gabby could be counted on to help the hero out of a tough spot. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i style="color: blue;">SUNSET CARSON: "He wasn't just a comedian, but he had the ability to turn in some mighty fine acting when needed. Gabby could make you cry as well as make you laugh." </i>-- quoted by David Rothel, <i>Those Great Cowboy Sidekicks</i></b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>UTAH (1945)</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>"durn persnickety female"</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UzefXEWfElc/WHlgL0VP-jI/AAAAAAAAD7M/LC5eJhbddIEPUXJJ_Az1XFTnf4nkHnrkACLcB/s1600/helldorado.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UzefXEWfElc/WHlgL0VP-jI/AAAAAAAAD7M/LC5eJhbddIEPUXJJ_Az1XFTnf4nkHnrkACLcB/s400/helldorado.jpg" width="266" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In 1946, Gabby parted ways with Republic Pictures. </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">HELDORADO </b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(1946) turned out to be Gabby's last film with Roy. But Gabby wasn't through acting, no siree, bob. He went on to co-star with the likes of John Wayne and, especially, Randolph Scott in a number of A-westerns.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But that's another story. Stay tuned. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">No siree, bob!</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<br />Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-41597611372946754812016-12-02T11:00:00.002-06:002022-12-30T21:07:27.851-06:00YAKIMA CANUTT: Stunt Man<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5vsQ_xgNMKo/WEBADhKW7DI/AAAAAAAAD44/kjGd1Dc0JHkILN6qLUDgQV7EfDYfEZnawCLcB/s1600/Yakima_Canutt_stuntman.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5vsQ_xgNMKo/WEBADhKW7DI/AAAAAAAAD44/kjGd1Dc0JHkILN6qLUDgQV7EfDYfEZnawCLcB/s320/Yakima_Canutt_stuntman.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><i style="color: blue;">There will probably never be another stuntman who can compare to Yakima Canutt. He had been a world champion cowboy several times and where horses were concerned he could do it all. He invented all the gadgets that made stunt work easier. One of his clever devices was a step that attached to the saddle so that he had leverage to transfer to another moving object, like a wagon or a train. Another was the 'shotgun,' a spring-loaded device used to separate the tongue of a running wagon from the horses, thus cutting the horses loose. It also included a shock cord attached to the wagon bed, which caused wheels to cramp and turn the wagon over on the precise spot that was most advantageous for the camera. </i>-- William Witney, Director</b><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>RODEO STAR.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Enos Edward Canutt was born in 1895 on a farm in the Snake River Hills in eastern Washington. He began his rodeo career at age 16 when he won the bronc riding competition in nearby Colfax, Washington.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Although the details differ depending on the source of the story, it is generally conceded that he received his nickname Yakima, Yak for short, during the Pendleton Round-Up in 1914. </span><br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3GTw-nLF7vM/WDh4pv55kiI/AAAAAAAAD3A/ZlM3Srh6X1AY6hsiAb4Ol5C8Nuw3rweDACLcB/s1600/yak1.png" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3GTw-nLF7vM/WDh4pv55kiI/AAAAAAAAD3A/ZlM3Srh6X1AY6hsiAb4Ol5C8Nuw3rweDACLcB/s320/yak1.png" width="320" /></a><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">During a decade of competing in the top rodeos of the day, Yak became a champion bronc rider and bulldogger, and on several occasions had the honor of All-Around Cowboy bestowed upon him.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">How good was he? He was the only cowboy to ever ride the legendary bucking bronc, Tipperary. Not only that, he rode him twice. And this was after the horse had bucked-off more than eighty riders. It is only fitting, that both Yak and Tipperary were inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1976.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>MOVIE STAR.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Like many another cowboy, Yak was lured to Hollywood and in 1923 he signed with independent producer Ben Wilson to star in a series of silent B-Western quickies.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-34JsEH1pvNI/WDmVjA8udjI/AAAAAAAAD30/2jFxQfru5g86MeRGIg4C_O4RuT8lAG9fACLcB/s1600/yak4.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-34JsEH1pvNI/WDmVjA8udjI/AAAAAAAAD30/2jFxQfru5g86MeRGIg4C_O4RuT8lAG9fACLcB/s320/yak4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">He was not a natural in front of the camera when it came to scenes that called for interaction with other actors, especially when it involved scenes with his leading lady, but when action was called for he was a natural. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In those early days the stars were called upon to perform at least some of their stunts. Yak, on the other hand, performed all of his. As good as he was, he was seriously injured on several occasions during the filming of the series.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">But he also began to experiment with new techniques and equipment that made stunting less hazardous. This would become his major contribution to film production.</span><div><br /></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The end of the silent era and the advent of sound spelled troublefor the cowboy. His voice sounded, as he admitted, "like a hillbilly in a well." He said that his flat voice which lacked resonance was the result of a bout of flu that he had contracted in 1918 when he was in the navy. After starring in one independent quickie, </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">CANYON HAWKS </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(Big 4, 1930), Yak realized that if he was going to have a further career in the movies it was clear that it was not going to be as a western star.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNT MAN.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">In the five years between 1925 and 1930, fifty-five people were killed making movies, and more than ten thousand injured. By the late 1930s, the maverick stunt man willing to do anything for a buck was disappearing. Now under scrutiny, experienced stunt men began to separate themselves from amateurs by building special equipment, rehearsing stunts, and developing new techniques. </i>-- Garrett Soden, <b><i>Falling: How Our Greatest Fear Became Our Greatest Thrill</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In the early '30s Canutt began appearing in supporting roles in westerns starring a young actor by the name of John Wayne. It was an association that would last four decades and one that would advance the respective careers of both men. Wayne readily admitted that he admired Canutt because he was the genuine article -- a real cowboy. In fact, Wayne copied Canutt's rolling walk, his speech pattern, and many of his gestures.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Since Yak was nearly always a villain and found himself in a fistfight with Wayne, he devised a plan to make the fights look more realistic while reducing the landing of accidental punches. He persuaded directors to place the camera in such a manner that it faced one of the participants thus making it appear that punches were actually landing on the adversary. It was a method that was soon adopted by other directors and stunt men.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It was also during that time that Yak became a much sought after stunt man in the cliffhanging serials of the day. He often did double duty by filling a supporting role in the chapter plays. Republic produced several serials featuring masked heroes such as the Lone Ranger and Zorro. These were ideal for they made it much easier for Yak to disguise himself as the hero.</div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In 1939, he doubled Reed Hadley in <b>ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION</b>, a serial that many consider to be the most action filled ever filmed. That reputation is due in no small part to Yak's stunting skills.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">However, it was two films in 1939 that catapulted Yak into the big leagues. First up was John Ford's <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-21-favorite-westerns-stagecoach.html">STAGECOACH</a> (UA)</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, in which Yak not only doubled John Wayne, but also doubled Apaches attacking the coach as it raced across the western landscape.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">You can view Yak as an Apache biting the dust several times when his horse goes down head over heels. He is also the Apache who jumps onto the stagecoach's team of horses and is shot by Ringo (John Wayne) causing him to fall between the running horses and eventually passing under the stage.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">In addition, when the driver (Andy Devine) is wounded and loses control of the stage's team, Yak doubles Wayne who regains control by leaping from the stage to the back of the horses. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">As a follow-up to </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">STAGECOACH</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, Yak doubled Clark Gable in </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">GONE WITH THE WIND </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(Selznick/MGM). In a</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> famous scene it was he who drove a buggy through a burning Atlanta.</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">A year later Yak suffered his most serious injury while doubling Gable in <b>BOOM TOWN </b>(MGM)<b> </b>when a horse went over backward and the saddle horn slammed into his stomach. After undergoing major surgery and a long recovery, Yak returned to work only to break both ankles when a stunt went awry during the filming of a Roy Rogers film, <b>IDAHO </b>(Republic, 1943).</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>STUNT COORDINATOR.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Already forty-four years old at the time of the accident, Yak began to phase out his personal stunt work in favor of stunt coordination and eventually second-unit directing. Throughout the 40's and 50's he staged stunts in serials and western films. During the latter decade he also began to coordinate stunts in Hollywood spectaculars, films that required organizing scenes involving large numbers of extras engaging in huge battle scenes.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">First up was <b>IVANHOE </b>(MGM, 1952). Filmed in England, it was Yak's first movie to be produced outside the United States. Even though it was a different experience for him, the producers had nothing but praise for the way that he organized and staged the action.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Then in 1959 came <b>BEN HUR </b>(MGM). It was this film that cemented Yak's place at the top of any list of legendary stunters and stunt coordinators. Shot in Rome, the chariot race directed by Yak may very well be not only the most famous action scene ever filmed, but also the finest. And it was done without any serious injury to either stunt men or horses. It is a remarkable achievement. </span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">A</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">fter </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">BEN-HUR</b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, Yak was hired to stage the action scenes in other Hollywood spectaculars: <b>SPARTACUS </b>(Universal, 1960), </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">EL CID </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(AA, 1961)</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(Paramount, 1964)</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">, and </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">KHARTOUM </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(UA, 1966).</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">He finally retired in 1976. He was eighty-years old.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">As earlier noted, Yakima Canutt is in the Cowboy Hall of Fame; he also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; and in 1967 he received an honorary Academy Award for his accomplishments as a stunt man and for devising safety techniques and equipment designed to make stunting a less dangerous line of work. It was only fitting that Charlton Heston made the presentation. </span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Yak died in 1986. He was ninety-years old.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="color: blue; font-weight: bold;">Yak was simply the best that ever was at what he does. </i>-- Charlton Heston</span>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><br /></b></span></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-34176539786954258452016-10-03T12:57:00.001-05:002022-12-30T21:18:13.906-06:00THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES (Fox, 1940)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N6wccAFRKfE/V9bJurLCuUI/AAAAAAAADw0/q4YBxPdWy8k1PWqnR_ZeUg2mMy4zO3ZgQCLcB/s1600/frankjames40.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N6wccAFRKfE/V9bJurLCuUI/AAAAAAAADw0/q4YBxPdWy8k1PWqnR_ZeUg2mMy4zO3ZgQCLcB/s1600/frankjames40.jpg" /></a></div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES is a sequel to JESSE JAMES (Fox, 1939). You can read a review of the latter film <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-21-favorite-westerns-jesse-james.html">here</a>.</b></i></span><br />
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<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">DIRECTOR: Fritz Lang; PRODUCER: Darryl F. Zanuck; WRITER: screenplay by Sam Hellman; CINEMATOGRAPHER: George Barnes</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">CAST: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Jackie Cooper, Henry Hull, John Carradine, J. Edward Bromberg, Donald Meek, Eddie Collins, George Barbier, Russell Hicks, Ernest Whitman, Charles Tannen, Lloyd Corrigan, Victor Killian, George Chandler, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Milton Kibbee</span></b><br />
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<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">FACT OR FICTION?</span></b><br />
<span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><i><b><span>W</span></b></i>ell, after all it is a movie; therefore, it is mostly fiction. Here are the historical facts presented in the movie (this won't take long):</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><br /></b></span><ul><li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>here were two outlaw brothers from Missouri named Frank and Jesse James;</span></li>
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>T</i></b></span>hey led a gang that held up banks and trains;</span></li>
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">J</span></b></i>esse was assassinated in his living room in St. Joseph, Missouri by gang member Bob Ford, who was assisted by his brother, Charlie;</span></li>
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>he Ford brothers were tried and convicted of murder, but were pardoned by the governor and received a reward;</span></li>
<li><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>rank surrendered, was tried and acquitted.</span></li>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>he rest of the film is pure fiction, a product of the screenwriter and director's imaginations. Since no one should go to a movie for a history lesson, if done right, the film could still be an enjoyable experience for the viewer. It is a sequel to the classic <b>JESSE JAMES</b> (Fox, 1939) and although it doesn't measure up to the high standards of that film it is, for the most part, an entertaining film.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><br /></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>THE PLOT.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>rank (Henry Fonda) has quit the outlaw trail and has settled down to the peaceful pursuits of a farmer somewhere in the Missouri Ozarks. Only two people know of his whereabouts: an ex-slave named Pinky (Ernest Whitman) and Clem (Jackie Cooper), the young son of a former gang member killed during a hold-up.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>hen one day Frank learns that Jesse was shot and killed and that the killer was Bob Ford (John Carradine), who had help from his brother Charlie. Since the Fords were tried and convicted and sentenced to hang, Frank was satisfied that justice was being served.</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-csJZ1qo4BMA/V-k9lRN37VI/AAAAAAAADxs/60WkqRV4bxU6bheH2crzZct_zOG_ZNBNACLcB/s1600/frankjames42.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-csJZ1qo4BMA/V-k9lRN37VI/AAAAAAAADxs/60WkqRV4bxU6bheH2crzZct_zOG_ZNBNACLcB/s400/frankjames42.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Bob Ford, the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard and laid poor Jesse in his grave.</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">L</span></b></i>ater Frank reads in the newspaper that the Fords have not only been pardoned by the governor, but that they have received a reward for killing Jesse. This news spurs him to ride off in search of the Fords, who skedaddle farther west, eventually holding up in Denver.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Frank, Clem, and Pinky learn that justice has been denied.</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n his quest to track down the Fords, Frank is assisted (hampered) by young and impetuous Clem, who idolizes Frank and has visions of following in the footsteps of both his idol and his late father.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>F</i></b></span>rank has another problem; he needs money to finance his efforts. Consequently, he decides to rob the railroad express office since it was the railroad that provided the reward money that was paid to the Fords. Unfortunately, Clem, who has been trailing Frank, decides to make his presence known to Frank at the time of the robbery. Everything goes haywire at that point and the watchman is accidentally killed and Frank becomes a murder suspect.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n Denver, Frank and Clem concoct a story about Frank's death in Mexico, a story that they pass on to Eleanor Stone (Gene Tierney), a gullible young female reporter working for her father's newspaper.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EASiCfvp2KE/V-1DpfDj6AI/AAAAAAAADzs/wX7suILvRLkBYtaWRpTrz2kXz_2uCXRkACEw/s1600/frankjames70.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EASiCfvp2KE/V-1DpfDj6AI/AAAAAAAADzs/wX7suILvRLkBYtaWRpTrz2kXz_2uCXRkACEw/s400/frankjames70.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;">Gullible, but beautiful</span></b></i></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">M</span></b></i>eanwhile, Frank and Clem are able to locate the Fords, but in a hot pursuit Bob escapes, while Charlie meets his end by falling off a cliff.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>rank makes plans to ride after Bob when Eleanor informs him that back home in Missouri Pinky has been arrested and convicted for the robbery of the railroad freight office and has been sentenced to hang. Frank rides back to Missouri in order to save Pinky and is arrested and charged with the murder of the watchman.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>Major Cobb (Henry Hull)</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>rank's friend and advocate, newspaper editor Major Rufus Cobb (Henry Hull), serves as his defense counsel in the subsequent trial. The major is able to sway the jury by making the railroad a culprit that had a history of taking advantage of small farmers -- the very kind that made up the jury. It worked. Just before the jury's verdict was announced, Bob Ford entered the rear of the courtroom, hoping to see the jury hand down a guilty verdict. When the jury instead announced a not guilty verdict, Bob Ford fled from the courtroom with Frank close behind.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">O</span></b></i>utside the courtroom, and off-camera, Clem and Ford engage in a shoot-out in which both are fatally wounded.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">N</span></b></i>ow that Jesse's death has been avenged, Frank can go back to his Ozark farm, but not alone. No, traveling with him is Eleanor, his new bride.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">N</span></b></i>o, just kidding, that didn't happen.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i>ere's why:</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>ox produced four movies based on Stuart Lake's "biography" of Wyatt Earp. In making the first two the studio was plagued by threatened lawsuits by Wyatt's widow, Josephine, who was concerned about how she or her late husband might be portrayed in the films. In the first instance the studio changed Wyatt's name to Michael Wyatt and in the second they settled with her out of court -- and left her out of both films. Finally, with Josie's death, the studio was able to make the other two films without any interference from that quarter.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b></i>hen the studio filmed <b>JESSE JAMES</b>, the screenplay mostly ignored historical fact, but it did allow for Jesse's marriage to Zerelda Mimms. This was done even though Zee had died in 1900. However, her son, Jesse Edwards James, who happened to be a lawyer, was very much alive. At any rate the studio did not want to deal with lawsuits from the family that might object to any indication that Jesse had been involved with women other than Zee.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">O</span></b></i>n the other hand, Frank remained a bachelor in the film, when in fact he had married Annie Ralston only a few weeks after Jesse and Zee had wed. Annie was very much alive when the movie was filmed (she died in 1944), but apparently did not object to having been left out of the screenplay.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES</b>, Frank is still single and there is no doubt that he and Eleanor are infatuated with each other. In the film's closing scenes Eleanor is heading back to her home in Denver and there is an implication that Frank might make his way there later. But they part with a handshake and a wave.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>THE CAST.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i>enry Fonda (1905-1982) was on his way to becoming one of the most highly sought after and critically acclaimed actors in the business. He was also in the process of becoming John Ford's favorite actor, which turned out to be good news for director and actor.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n 1939, the busy actor appeared in five films, including the aforementioned <b>JESSE JAMES</b>, as well as <b>YOUNG MR. LINCOLN </b>(Fox)<b> </b>and <b>DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK </b>(Fox), both directed by Ford. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n 1940, he not only starred in <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES</b>, but also gave what was his greatest performance (not just my opinion) in another Ford film, <b>THE GRAPES OF WRATH </b>(Fox).</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">G</span></b></i>ene Tierney (1920-1991), on the other hand, made her screen debut in <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES. </b>She had done some acting on the stage but this was her first film and she probably should not have been given such an important role so early in her career. It isn't that she was awful, but when compared with the large group of professionals appearing in the film, her novice status was apparent.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">V</span></span><i style="font-weight: bold;">ariety</i> went so far as to say that "the only member with whom fault can be found is Gene Tierney....[She] is plenty pretty but for oomph she just isn't." The writer went on to say that she seemed to lack what it takes to make an impression on the screen.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>he <i style="font-weight: bold;">Harvard Lampoon</i> even named her "The Worst Female Discovery of 1940." At least, they spelled her name right.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b></i>oth are harsh assessments, too harsh, and theirs was not a universal view. Some critics thought she showed promise. And Brian Garfield wrote in his book, <i style="font-weight: bold;">Western Films: A Complete Guide</i>, that Tierney was excellent in the film. In fact, as you can read below, he liked her much more than he liked the film.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I </span></b></i>wouldn't say she was either excellent or terrible. It was obvious that the camera loved her and that she possessed real potential. Unfortunately, Fox didn't know what to do with her. The following year she was miscast in two films: <b>TOBACCO ROAD</b> and <b>BELLE STARR. </b>The latter was a follow-up effort to cash in on the studio's success with the two featuring the James brothers by bringing the notorious "bandit queen" to the screen. Not only was it almost totally fictional, but it was hokey and had few redeeming qualities.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>fter all those false starts, the studio finally cast her in a film that was tailor made for her. She gave her greatest performance (not just my opinion) as murder victim Laura Hunt in <b>LAURA</b> (Fox, 1944). She followed that film a year later with an Oscar-nominated Best Actress performance in <b>LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN </b>(Fox). </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">D</span></b></i>uring her remaining career she would appear in only one more Western: <b>THE SECRET OF CONVICT LAKE </b>(Fox, 1951).</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">G</span></b></i>ene Tierney was nominated for an Academy Award at age twenty-five and Henry Fonda was first nominated for an Oscar at age thirty-five for his performance in <b>THE GRAPES OF WRATH</b>. Jackie Cooper was nominated for a Best Actor Award in 1931. The film was <b>SKIPPY</b>, and he was nine-years-old.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">Jackie Cooper (L) and Robert Coogan (R) in a scene from SKIPPY.</span></i></td></tr>
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A</span></b></i>t the time of his nomination he was the youngest performer to be nominated for an Academy Award and is still the youngest to be nominated for a Best Actor Award.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b></i>esides <b>SKIPPY</b>, his best known performances were in co-starring roles with Wallace Beery in <b>THE CHAMP (1931) </b>and <b>TREASURE ISLAND (1934)</b>.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">L</span></b></i>ike many (most?) child actors Cooper experienced difficulty in making the transition to more mature roles. Many years later, however, he made a comeback in television as an Emmy Award winning actor/director.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b></i>y the way, Jackie Cooper first gained prominence when he became one of the most popular members of the "Our Gang" troupe in 1929-31. Ironically, another former popular member of that gang, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, has a couple of scenes in <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES</b>.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>T</i></b></span>he supporting cast in <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES</b> is superb and in many cases it consists of performers reprising their <b>JESSE JAMES </b>roles, including: </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Henry Hull as Major Cobb; John Carradine as Bob Ford; Charles Tannen as Charlie Ford; J. Edward Bromberg as George Runyan, railroad detective; Donald Meek as McCoy, the head of the railroad; Ernest Whitman as Pinky; and George Chandler as Roy, Major Cobb's assistant.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>J. Edward Bromberg (L) as railroad detective George Runyan and Henry Hull (R) as Major Rufus Cobb</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><i><b>John Carradine as a worried Bob Ford</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i> would be remiss if I didn't mention that John Carradine, in the same year that he portrayed the despicable turncoat Bob Ford, also gave a touching and haunting performance as the preacher Casy in <b>THE GRAPES OF WRATH</b>. In fact, he had become one of John Ford's favorite supporting actors. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>riedrich Christian "Fritz" Lang (1890-1976) was an accomplished director who specialized in film <i>noir</i>. Therefore, he was a surprise choice to direct <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES</b>, since he not only had never directed a western, he had never even directed a color film. The film is overly slow moving at times, but that may be the fault of the script as much as Lang's direction. Regardless of that criticism, the film was a winner at the box-office.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>ox, pleased with the financial success of Lang's first Western, signed him to film one the following year, and the results were even better. If <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/02/top-21-favorite-westerns-western-union.html">WESTERN UNION</a> an epic film about the stringing of the telegraph, does not achieve classic status, it comes very close. And for sure, it provided Randolph Scott with one of his very best performances.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">L</span></b></i>ang directed only one other western, and though <b>RANCHO NOTORIOUS </b>(RKO, 1952) has its partisans, I confess that I am not one of them. It isn't Lang's direction but the cast that makes it a weak film. There were just too many performers in the film who were never believable in western roles.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Bob and Charley cross on a treacherously narrow bridge -- and in hot pursuit Frank and Clem will do the same.</span>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">O</span></b></i>ne of the great strengths of <b>JESSE JAMES</b> was the lush, lavish color photography provided by George Barnes (1892-1953). Added to the appeal of the film was the fact that much of it was shot on location in Missouri where most of the story takes place. The entire sequel was filmed in California, with the Sierra Nevadas standing in for the Colorado Rockies.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>or the most part it is also beautifully photographed except for some Denver town scenes marred by obviously fake snowcaps in the background. That, however, was not Barnes' fault, but was a cost-cutting measure.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b></i>arnes photographed his first feature in 1918 and went on to film two Rudolph Valentino films, including his final one, <b>THE SON OF SHEIK </b>(UA, 1926). Nominated eight times for an Academy Award, he won for his work on <b>REBECCA</b> (UA), released the same year as <b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES</b>. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue;">"...</span><i><span style="color: blue;">it's not a bad picture but it doesn't have the spirited flavor of JESSE JAMES. Lang's directorial hand was heavy and humorless....A big movie lamentably dated." </span>-- </i>Brian Garfield, <i>Western Films: A Complete Guide</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"Where Henry King's film [JESSE JAMES] is romantic, lush even, Lang's, despite the revenge motive which occurs so often in his work as the force behind the narrative, is almost a sentimental celebration of the Old West...The result is a slow-moving and strangely anonymous looking film. </span>-- </i>Phil Hardy, <i>The Western</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Though neither one of Lang's nor the Jesse James cycle's best films, [it is] a rewarding curiosity." </i><i>-- </i>Richard Collins, <i>The BFI Companion to the Western</i></b></span><br />
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</div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-2638797361524450422016-09-12T11:02:00.000-05:002016-12-05T14:38:39.334-06:00TRIALS OF THE EARTH: The True Story of a Pioneer Woman by Mary Mann Hamilton<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of my favorite novels of last year – or any year, for that matter – was <b><i>The Tall Woman </i></b>by Wilma Dykeman. Set in the Appalachians in North Carolina it is the story of one woman’s struggle to cope with the trials and tribulations of a pioneer woman during the Civil War and its aftermath.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Recently, I finished <b><i>Trials of the Earth</i></b> about another pioneer woman and I was struck by the similarities between the two stories. However, there is one big difference: <b><i>Trials of the Earth</i></b> is not fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is rather amazing that it was ever published. The book’s serendipitous path to publication began in the early ‘30’s when a young Mississippi writer, Helen Dick Davis, first met Mary Mann Hamilton (1866-ca. 1936), who was living nearby in her daughter’s home. After they became friends, Davis became enthralled by the stories that the older woman told her about her life as a pioneer wife and mother who spent many years cooking for boarding houses located in lumber camps in the Mississippi Delta.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Davis encouraged Hamilton to write down what she remembered about those experiences. At first Davis resisted but eventually relented and became obsessed with getting it all down on paper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the preface to the manuscript Davis wrote in 1933:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>When I began to beg her to write down the account of her life, if only as a record for her children and grandchildren, she did it just to please me. She wrote it piecemeal at first, just scattered experiences, ten or fifteen pages at a time written with pencil on cheap tablet paper; stories of terrible floodwaters, cyclones, feuds to the death, escaped Negro convicts….</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>By spring of 1933 Mary Hamilton had given me 150,000 words on this book. I have edited it, worked over it with her, and guided her in her choice of material, but I have in no case added to nor changed what she wrote….</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><b>I want to reassure the reader that my presence does not enter the book. I have not touched her style, nor embellished her material. It is a direct and simple autobiography.</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Despite what Davis wrote, her editing task was monumental. Hamilton had received practically no education and her spelling, grammar, and punctuation had to be corrected in order to make the manuscript readable. But Hamilton’s voice comes through clearly; the storytelling is unpolished and unvarnished.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>After my morning work of milking, churning, cleaning house, getting dinner and supper at one time, and cutting a dress for someone, I would help the children in the field all afternoon. Then I would come in at sundown and milk, while Leslie [her young daughter] finished supper…. After we ate supper…while the children did the dishes, I started making a dress I had cut out that morning, and I never got up from the machine till that dress was finished. Everyone I made meant a dollar cash…. I would make a dollar sewing almost every day.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Accidents, illness, and death were ever present in Mary Hamilton’s life. And so were tornadoes, fires, panthers, bears, snakes, and even escaped convicts – and floods. There is a harrowing account of her being trapped in a flood when the nearby Sunflower River overflowed its levee.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">She found herself stranded with her small daughter and two month old baby on top of a stump located on a ridge with the rain coming down and the flood waters rising rapidly. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>It was midafternoon, and the water was up over the stump, lapping my feet. The old tree that I had been so afraid of in the morning was still standing. Now I prayed it would fall on us, kill all three of us at once and end this suspense. About that time I saw the top kind of quiver. I shut my eyes, clutched my children tight, and to myself said, “Thank God.” It came down with a crash; cold water poured over us. I opened my eyes. It had missed us by a few feet….</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Of course, I was glad it had missed us but disappointed to be facing again this slow sure death. I could see no possible hope….</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>…[T]he only prayer I could think of to ask God was to let them die first so I could take care of them to the end.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is even a mystery at the heart of Mary Hamilton’s account of the struggles and adversity that she and her family faced. I’m not going to give that away. But her dedication written in the front of the book serves as a teaser:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b style="color: blue;"><i>To my husband’s people</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>whoever they are,</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b><i>and wherever they may be</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The book was rejected by Little, Brown in 1933. It resurfaced in the early ‘90’s when it was published by the University of Mississippi Press, but without the permission of Hamilton’s heirs. After the heirs regained the rights to the book, and eighty-three years after initially rejecting it, Little, Brown published it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Finally, this: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A reviewer wrote in the New York Times that Mary Hamilton “was a fairly ordinary woman, but one whom necessity and native grit teased to a grand self-possession and authority.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The hell, you say. This was no ordinary woman; this was one tall woman. </span><br />
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Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-81824387607094775472016-08-25T18:15:00.001-05:002022-12-31T12:23:57.692-06:00MAN WITH THE GUN (Formosa/UA, 1955)<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jUQUxROloWw/V7UhUCAgXJI/AAAAAAAADrg/UsdafUpxe6kvgAP7RpmYIbbam3Bw7K52ACLcB/s1600/ManWithTheGun%2BPoster.jpg" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jUQUxROloWw/V7UhUCAgXJI/AAAAAAAADrg/UsdafUpxe6kvgAP7RpmYIbbam3Bw7K52ACLcB/s320/ManWithTheGun%2BPoster.jpg" width="249" /></a><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">DIRECTOR: Richard Wilson; PRODUCER: Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.; WRITERS: story and screenplay by N.B. Stone, Jr. and Richard Wilson; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lee Garmes</span></b><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></b><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">CAST: Robert Mitchum, Jan Sterling, Karen Sharpe, Henry Hull, Emile Meyer, John Lupton, Barbara Lawrence, Ted de Corsia, Leo Gordon, James Westerfield, Florenz Ames, Joe Barry, Claude Akins, Angie Dickinson</span></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>T</i></b></span>he film opens with Ed Pinchot (Leo Gordon) riding into the town of Sheridan. </span>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OANXQowp-qo/V7jfVn3io4I/AAAAAAAADsc/t1HlFAnK5GQv9vcqusZApkSkiSj0B49awCEw/s1600/gun50.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OANXQowp-qo/V7jfVn3io4I/AAAAAAAADsc/t1HlFAnK5GQv9vcqusZApkSkiSj0B49awCEw/s320/gun50.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i> boy's dog breaks away from him and begins to bark at the feet of Pinchot's horse. Irritated, Pinchot pulls a pistol from his shoulder holster and shoots the dog.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-echp2r4s6NU/V7jkFaPc8XI/AAAAAAAADss/xLUg0ckNsOQyxApzbynPByb-38LbLQOSQCLcB/s1600/gun%2B50.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-echp2r4s6NU/V7jkFaPc8XI/AAAAAAAADss/xLUg0ckNsOQyxApzbynPByb-38LbLQOSQCLcB/s320/gun%2B50.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b></i>hile the boy kneels in the street, distraught over his dog, the gunman receives a warm welcome from Frenchy Lescoe (Ted de Corsia), the manager of the Palace saloon, who, like Pinchot, is employed by a land baron named Dade Holman (Joe Barry). </span> <span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>lthough there were a number of eyewitnesses, including the town marshal, nobody raises a hand, not even the marshal. This is a town that has a lot of problems. What it needs is a town tamer.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7UhM9R4UhgY/V7jtCJKqtrI/AAAAAAAADs8/_5DwR66XTRsRRE21pJX3xu_imP_zo6GtgCLcB/s1600/gun14.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7UhM9R4UhgY/V7jtCJKqtrI/AAAAAAAADs8/_5DwR66XTRsRRE21pJX3xu_imP_zo6GtgCLcB/s400/gun14.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>nd as luck would have it, one is about to ride into town.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>THE PLOT.</b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">C</span></b></i>lint Tollinger (Robert Mitchum) has come to Sheridan because he has learned that his estranged wife, Nelly Bain (Jan Sterling), lives there. Since leaving Tollinger she has made her living by managing a group of "dance hall girls" who are currently employed at the Palace saloon.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">S</span></b></i>ally refuses to talk to Tollinger or to tell him where their daughter is -- or anything else about her. Despite her love for him, she had left with their daughter because she could no longer tolerate his dangerous occupation.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><b><i>Town Tamer's estranged wife</i></b></span></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b></i>ord gets around that Tollinger is a notorious town tamer who hires out his gun in order to establish law and order. After discussing the issue in a meeting, the town council persuaded by its president, blacksmith Saul Atkins (Emile Meyer), reluctantly hires Tollinger.</span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">L</span></b></i>ee Sims (Henry Hull), a man who lacks any semblance of courage or initiative is the town marshal. One has to wonder how it is that a frontier town ever hired him in the first place. Furthermore, why did he take a job that was clearly beyond his means to execute? And why didn't he resign when the going got tough? And why didn't the town council fire him after it hired Tollinger? I don't know why, but he remained in the office to the very end. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>t any rate, Sims deputizes Tollinger and tells him that he is on his own. </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Tollinger makes it clear that he wouldn't have it any other way.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>here is a subplot involving young Jeff Castle (John Lupton) who attempts to homestead on a plot of land that the greedy rancher Holman claims but does not have title to, but nevertheless attempts to control through intimidation and other illegal means. Jeff is engaged to Saul Atkins daughter Stella (Karen Sharpe; not to be confused with Karen Steele). Although Stella is opposed to the whole notion of violence, even for a good cause, she eventually finds herself drawn against her will to the gunfighter, even though she dislikes his methods.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">Tollinger holds a slice of green tomato pie as he talks with (L-R) Jeff Castle, Stella Atkins, and Saul Atkins</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>A</i></b></span>nd of course as in all of the town tamer westerns the business element begins to complain that Tollinger's methods are too harsh and are having the effect of driving business away. We knew that was going to happen -- and so did Tollinger.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">D</span></b></i>ade Holman, whose ominous shadow hovers over the town, is not seen until the closing scenes. He is described to Tollinger as being a reclusive fat man who stays close to his ranch home, and has not been seen in town for several years. He nevertheless controls the town and the surrounding area by employing gunfighters such as Pinchot to carry out his wishes. He also owns the Palace saloon, which is managed by Lescoe.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vu6UFWMWQxA/V7nL7IOvOGI/AAAAAAAADtk/leuEtfMrNA4pn4jfNYtBAJw4qfDj5gWpACLcB/s1600/gun20.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vu6UFWMWQxA/V7nL7IOvOGI/AAAAAAAADtk/leuEtfMrNA4pn4jfNYtBAJw4qfDj5gWpACLcB/s1600/gun20.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vu6UFWMWQxA/V7nL7IOvOGI/AAAAAAAADtk/leuEtfMrNA4pn4jfNYtBAJw4qfDj5gWpACLcB/s400/gun20.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b></i>ell, push comes to shove, as one would imagine -- especially after Tollinger nails up notices forbidding guns within the city limits, including the extremely harsh warning that violators will be shot.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>t isn't long before he makes his point by shooting the Harkness brothers, two henchmen in the employ of Dade Holman, who refused to obey the rule. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n response to the killing of the brothers and the weapons ban, four more of Holman's men ride into town looking for a showdown with Tollinger.</span></span><br />
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</span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RXL83V_VIcA/V7ojr4jGKTI/AAAAAAAADt0/8LTDFOf322A2eL6VbLoq9OkR2SydZ_I7wCLcB/s1600/gun21.png" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RXL83V_VIcA/V7ojr4jGKTI/AAAAAAAADt0/8LTDFOf322A2eL6VbLoq9OkR2SydZ_I7wCLcB/s400/gun21.png" width="400" /></span></a><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>hey are led by Jim Reedy, the hombre in the big hat, portrayed by a young Claude Akins in an uncredited role. Uncredited, because he isn't going to be in this picture for very long.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>ollinger gets the drop on the four and kills the gent on the left who draws his gun on him.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b></i>eedy has a trick up his sleeve -- er in his big hat. But he doesn't fool Tollinger and when the smoke clears Holman has lost another man.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>hat's four.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>here are several gimmicks involving guns in the film: Pinchot carries his gun in a shoulder holster; Reedy has one hidden in his hat; and Tollinger carries an extra gun in his belt.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">Tollinger, a two-gun man with one holster. Why? Beats me.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>long the way Tollinger learns a terrible secret and we learn why he became a town tamer, a man who always uses his gun on the side of law and order -- at least as he saw it. And, of course, there must be a final shootout involving Tollinger and Pinchot and Holman. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">Dade Holman comes to town</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">W</span></b></i>hen the smoke clears and the dust settles Tollinger has killed six men. That's pretty good work for just a few days when one considers that Wild Bill Hickok killed a grand total of six during his lifetime and Wyatt Earp accounted for three. Of course the cinematic Hickok and Earp killed many, many more than that. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>s you can tell, there isn't much originality in the plot. It was done before and would be done again. In fact, in many ways it combines elements of <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-21-favorite-westerns-gunfighter.html">THE GUNFIGHTER</a></span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(Fox, 1950)</span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">and <b>WARLOCK</b></span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">(Fox, 1959)</span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> </b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">as well as a number of other films. </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">And it is true, that given everything that had transpired, the conclusion does fall a tad flat. However, a strong cast and excellent black-and-white-photography make it well worth watching.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">P</span></b></i>ractically the entire film takes place in the town. But I like the town. It has an authentic look and feel -- at least much more so than the typical western movie town. According to sources, the film was shot on the Samuel Goldwyn lot, but I don't recall ever seeing the location in any other film. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>THE STARS.</b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">BLOOD ON THE MOON (RKO, 1948)</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b></i>obert Mitchum (1917-1997) began his movie career in 1942-43 by playing bit parts in the Hopalong Cassidy B-western series. A gang henchman at the beginning he eventually landed a few sympathetic roles in the series. At the same time he was cast in extra and bit parts in other films.</span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>s luck would have it, RKO had lost its two reigning B-western stars -- first George O'Brien and then Tim Holt -- to military service during World War II.In 1944, the studio signed Mitchum to a seven year contract to take their place and planned to star him in a series of B-Westerns loosely based on Zane Grey stories.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></i></b>e starred in two -- <b>NEVADA </b>(1944) and <b>WEST OF THE PECOS </b>(1945) -- and was very good in them. The two earlier series with O'Brien and Holt had been superior and it appeared that the studio had another winner. But it was not to be. These two films were the actor's only starring roles in B-westerns. </span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">F</span></b></i>ate intervened again when, on loan-out, Mitchum was cast in an important role in William Wellman's WWII film, <b>STORY OF G.I. JOE</b> (UA, 1945). It was a success, garnering four Academy Award nominations, including Mitchum as Best Supporting Actor. Ironically, it was his only nomination, but it meant that he would not become a famous B-western star. No, instead he would become a famous movie star. And by the way, at the time of his nomination Mitchum was also in the military, having been drafted near the end of the war.</span></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>fter the war, Tim Holt would return and resume his role as RKO's B-western star and Mitchum would go on to bigger and better things. His deep voice, physical appearance, and sleepy-eyed demeanor made him perfect in the <i>noir </i>dramas that became his specialty. During that period he also starred in one classic western, <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-21-favorite-westerns.html">BLOOD ON THE MOON</a> <b> </b>(RKO, 1948), which<b> </b>possessed many of the <i>noirish </i>qualities that characterized his other films. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n 1954, Mitchum and the studio parted ways. <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b> was his first post-RKO film.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i style="background-color: white;">Jan Sterling and Paul Kelly in a scene from THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">P</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">rior to her role in <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b></span><span style="font-size: small;">, Jan Sterling had appeared in two westerns. The first was an uncredited role as Flo, a saloon girl, in <b>GUNFIRE</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> (Lippert, 1950), a B-western starring Don "Red" Barry. In 1953, she was cast as a tomboy in love with Buffalo Bill (Charlton Heston) in <b>PONY EXPRESS</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> (Paramount, 1953). The first film did nothing to advance her career and the second, a weak film about the beginning of -- you guessed it -- the pony express -- didn't do much for her cause either.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">owever, the next year after <b>PONY EXPRESS</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> she received great critical notices for her performance in the John Wayne airplane disaster film, <b>THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"> (Warner Brothers). It was for that film that she was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. It would be her only nomination.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">enry Hull (1890-1977), as Sheridan's incompetent marshal, gives a surprisingly restrained performance in <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b></span><span style="font-size: small;">. Surprising, because he could chew scenery with the best of them.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">is long and successful acting career began on the stage in 1911 and in the movies in 1917.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">lthough he did not appear in a lot of western films, he did have an important role in one classic. In <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/01/top-21-favorite-westerns-jesse-james.html">JESSE JAMES</a></span><span style="font-size: small;"> (Fox, 1939) he portrayed Major Rufus Cobb, a frontier newspaperman and friend of the James brothers, a role he repeated the following year in the film's sequel, </span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: small;"><b>THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES </b>(Fox).</span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-size: 12.8px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">wo years before <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b></span><span style="font-size: small;">, Emile Meyer (1910-1987) gave his most memorable performance. It was as cattleman Rufus Ryker in <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-21-favorite-westerns-shane.html">SHANE</a> </span><b style="font-size: medium;"> </b><span style="font-size: small;">(Paramount), a man not unlike Dade Holman, that most western movie fans remember him. Perhaps not as evil as Holman, Ryker nevertheless also opposed homesteaders settling on land that he claimed but had no legal title to. And he hired a gunfighter, too, one even more lowdown and mean than the character portrayed by Leo Gordon in this film. Jack Palance was terrific in the role of the gunfighter.</span></span></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">J</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">ohn Lupton (1928-1993) is best remembered for co-starring with Michael Ansara in the TV series <b>Broken Arrow</b></span><span style="font-size: small;">. The series was based on the movie of the same name which in turn was based on Gilbert Arnold's novel, <b><i>Blood Brothers</i></b></span><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;">owever, Lupton would not want to remembered, I am sure, for his starring role in the western-horror film, <b>JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER </b></span></span><span style="font-size: small;">(Embassy, 1966). And neither would the late Jim Davis, who was also in the film. Those must have been lean times for the two actors.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">K</span></b></i>aren Sharpe (B. 1934) appeared in three films with her mentor and friend Jan Sterling. One of them was <b>THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY</b>, for which Sterling received her only Academy Award nomination and Sharpe received a Golden Globe Award for "New Star of the Year."</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>s a result, Sharpe was signed to a contract by Batjac, John Wayne's new production company. It was on loan-out that she appeared in <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b>, her only western feature. During the decade she gravitated to TV where she appeared in many western episodes and in 1959-60 she co-starred with Don Durant in the western series <b>Johnny Ringo</b>, which was cancelled after one season.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>n 1966, she married producer Stanley Kramer and subsequently retired from acting and moved into the production end of the business.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">I</span></b></i>t is a well-documented fact that part of Robert Mitchum's appeal was his bad-boy reputation, partly based on the fact that early in his career he spent a few months behind bars due to a marijuana possession charge.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i>owever, his reputation pales in comparison to that of Leo Gordon (1922-2000).</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>fter receiving an undesirable discharge from the military, Gordon was shot by the police during an attempted hold-up of a bar and its patrons. His conviction earned him five years in San Quentin.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">N</span></b></i>evertheless, he eventually broke into acting and in a forty-year career appeared in more than 170 movie and TV productions. Despite dropping out of school in the eighth grade, Gordon became a screenwriter and provided scripts for a few movies and many TV shows and even wrote a novel. He attributed his ability to write to the years he spent behind bars reading every book in the prison's library.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">D</span></b></i>on Siegel, who directed him in <b>RIOT IN CELLBLOCK 11 </b>(ironically, partly filmed in San Quentin), once said that Gordon "was the scariest man I have ever met." Gordon used that impression and an imposing physical presence to become one of the best brutal heavies to appear on film. After all, he did shoot a boy's dog in the opening scene of <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b>. No villain could top that -- not even Jack Palance.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">B</span></b></i>ut neither Gordon nor Mitchum could have been all bad. Both actors were married only once. Mitchum's marriage lasted fifty-seven years until his death in 1987 and Gordon and his wife had been married fifty years when he died in 2000. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">C</span></b></i>laude Akins (1926-1994) made his screen debut in an uncredited role as Sgt. Baldy Dhom in the WWII classic, <b>FROM HERE TO ETERNITY</b> (Columbia, 1953). In 1959 he had an important part in <b>RIO BRAVO </b>(WB, 1959) and a year later he gave what was perhaps his finest performance when he portrayed Ben Lane, Randolph Scott's nemesis in <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=9194182495225202428#editor/target=post;postID=3722526278110551252;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=128;src=postname">COMANCHE STATION</a><b> </b>(Columbia). </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">A</span></b></i>nd finally, you might recognize the actress who had a small part as Kitty, one of the "dance hall girls, a role for which she received no billing. Angie Dickinson (B. 1931) would have to wait until the end of the decade for her breakthrough role in <b>RIO BRAVO</b>, in which she portrayed a female gambler named "Feathers." </span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size: large;">M</span>AN WITH THE GUN </b>was Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.'s (1926-2015) first film as a producer. Like his father, he preferred to independently produce his films. In fact, this project was filmed by his Formosa Productions company and distributed by United Artists. Although he never ascended to the status of his legendary father, he did enjoy a long, successful career as a producer who specialized in offbeat films. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">He is especially remembered for giving Julia Roberts her big break in <b>MYSTIC PIZZA </b>(Samuel Goldwyn Co./1988). It was also in that film that Mark Damon made his debut. </span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">G</span></b></i>oldwyn wasn't the only rookie involved in <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b>. It also marked the directorial debut of Richard Wilson (1915-1991). In addition to directing, Wilson, who was also a screenwriter (and actor and later producer), co-wrote the story and screenplay for the film.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">H</span></b></i>is co-writer was N.B. Stone Jr. (1911-1967). Stone wrote mostly for television and in fact provided only one other movie story and screenplay, but it was a beauty. The film was <a href="http://westofriver.blogspot.com/2013/03/top-21-favorite-westerns-ride-high.html">RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY</a><b> </b>(MGM, 1962). There is much speculation, however, that director Sam Peckinpah, a former screenwriter himself, was responsible for some major script rewrites.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">L</span></b></i>ee Garmes (1898-1978) was one of Hollywood's legendary cinematographers, one who was particularly adept at shooting films in black-and-white. It is that and some interesting camera angles that make up two of the strongest features of <b>MAN WITH THE GUN</b>. </span><br />
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<b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></b></span><b><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></b>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-85847753215207289942016-08-13T13:12:00.003-05:002022-12-31T12:25:22.787-06:00COME WINTER by Douglas C. Jones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"It was late April and there had been a hard little rain in the afternoon, then clearing, the clouds running off toward White River in the east and the sun coming through ebullient blue sky from the Indian Territory. It was that magic time in the Ozarks when everyone leaned forward, expecting the next instant to hear larks or see north-migrating yellow warblers."</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i></span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b></i>econstruction has ended and Roman Hasford is returning home to take charge of the family farm in northwestern Arkansas. His father has entered the early stages of dementia, brought on by his horrifying experiences during the Civil War, and his mother is no longer able to cope with the burdens of caring for him and the farm.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b></i>oman had left the farm after his father had returned from the war. He made his way to Leavenworth, Kansas where through skill, hard work, a little luck, and good connections he amassed a sizeable fortune, even though he was still only in his twenties.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>his was his second trip back home, but the first had been for only a short spell. He had not returned alone that time, but brought with him a little black-eyed girl named Catrina Peel, who had endured an abused existence at the hands of a no-account father. Leaving her under the care of his mother, Roman returned to Leavenworth to tie up the loose ends that would allow him to settle permanently near Gourdville, the town closest to the Hasford farm.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">N</span></i></b>ow he is returning, and not alone this time either. With him are two people: Orvile Tucker, an ex-slave who is a blacksmith and the "best horse man" Roman has ever known; and Elmer Scaggs, an illiterate, unintelligent, but extremely loyal friend and employee, who "protected Roman Hasford from hurt, from bullies, as if Roman was a little boy on a school ground...."</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"But Roman didn't just settle down. He bought that old limestone building on the north side of the town square, and men went to work there with lumber and brick and mortar and glass to make a bank out of it, some said the second bank in the whole state of Arkansas, the first being down in Fayetteville, established only the year before. And the word went out that a man could borrow money in that new bank in this money-starved country. With appropriate interest."</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>he bank allowed Roman to become a power broker in his community and the surrounding area, not just because he possessed the means to influence events through his control of his neighbor's financial prospects, but because he was also able to dictate what individuals occupied what political offices.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Then came the day that Roman married the little black-eyed girl....</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"Almost everybody who counted in the county came. It was springtime and the black locusts along Wire Road were in bloom. Everything smelled like honeysuckle, and there were already larks calling from the fields across the road....</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"As soon as the 'I now pronounce you man and wife' part was said, Catrina Peel Hasford went into the house and up to her loft room and stayed there the rest of the day."</i></b></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">R</span></b></i>oman had returned home. He had wealth, power, and a wife. But what did it all mean? And how would it all end?</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"But in winter the colors died and the smells dried up. The only place such things were sustained was inside snug walls. The orange flame of the fireplace, the aroma of roasting chicken or frying ham creating a sense of well-being, sheltered from the great world beyond the frozen windows. Outside, it was bleak, making the inside all the more safe and comfortable.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"So things that happened in the outside world, beyond those sheltering walls, were always remembered as harsher and more bitter than they would have if they'd happened in the spring, summer, or fall.</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>"And the trouble came back in winter."</i></b></span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S0BI9V5YgMs/V69gaa5f4EI/AAAAAAAADpI/zTwLnNxYe1klSiMzvnoywJ5ndqzpxyP7wCLcB/s1600/elkhorn2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S0BI9V5YgMs/V69gaa5f4EI/AAAAAAAADpI/zTwLnNxYe1klSiMzvnoywJ5ndqzpxyP7wCLcB/s640/elkhorn2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /><span style="color: blue;">******</span></span></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue;"><b>REVIEWS:</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"The story has all the elements of classic tragedy leavened with a bittersweet humor and wit that is quintessentially American....A master storyteller is at work here, offering a singular and knowledgeable vision of the nation's final frontier days."</span> -- Publisher's Weekly</i></b></span><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"Fine Adventure -- the history is rich, the story is intriguing, the characters are real. Jones' corner of Arkansas is becoming one of the most skillfully and attractively documented places in America." </span>Kirkus Review</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><br /></i></b></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i style="color: blue;">"Come Winter includes a townful of characters, with women as tough as the men, building fortunes in new businesses where the railroads reach. Mr. Jones has created real people in a sympathetic story...." </i>Herbert Mitgang, <i>New York Times</i></b></span><br />
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<br /></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9194182495225202428.post-27276321506784587972016-08-12T14:09:00.001-05:002022-12-31T12:27:06.255-06:00WINDING STAIR by Douglas C. Jones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TyhBau-aM4g/V63pES9KEhI/AAAAAAAADng/hxoo4LcipS0NJ4Z7LuUEMUDFFqxvhDRsgCLcB/s1600/windingstair.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TyhBau-aM4g/V63pES9KEhI/AAAAAAAADng/hxoo4LcipS0NJ4Z7LuUEMUDFFqxvhDRsgCLcB/s320/windingstair.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">"Jones has taken believable crimes of a real gang of desperadoes from the 1890s, has surrounded the real criminals with fictitious lawmen, and given them a fictitious trial before the real 'hanging judge,' Isaac Parker....None of the moral forces of The Ox-Bow Incident perhaps -- but a gritty, lovingly etched Western-crime re-creation." </span>-- Kirkus Review</i></b></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">W</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">inding Stair </span></i><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">takes place in Fort Smith, Arkansas and the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) during the 1890s when the U.S. Federal Court for Western Arkansas, with Judge Isaac "The Hanging Judge" Parker at the helm, also had federal jurisdiction over much of the Indian Territory.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cJjT2A-a38o/V64ZEtY2GII/AAAAAAAADnw/EoNuefK9AmgtkzkVx03lXmRnoU_OrWJ3gCLcB/s1600/kerry%252C%2Bkathy%252C%2Bme%2B--%2Bmay%2B2013%2B003.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cJjT2A-a38o/V64ZEtY2GII/AAAAAAAADnw/EoNuefK9AmgtkzkVx03lXmRnoU_OrWJ3gCLcB/s640/kerry%252C%2Bkathy%252C%2Bme%2B--%2Bmay%2B2013%2B003.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Federal courthouse in Fort Smith as it appeared in 1890 and today</i></b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wWmq1hBan6o/V64ZV7EHTtI/AAAAAAAADoA/KBp4O0zF7y48LjG7jcsq2gWDlpdymslHACEw/s1600/kerry%252C%2Bkathy%252C%2Bme%2B--%2Bmay%2B2013%2B009.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wWmq1hBan6o/V64ZV7EHTtI/AAAAAAAADoA/KBp4O0zF7y48LjG7jcsq2gWDlpdymslHACEw/s640/kerry%252C%2Bkathy%252C%2Bme%2B--%2Bmay%2B2013%2B009.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: blue;"><b><i>Reconstructed gallows at Fort Smith</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Y</i></span></b>oung Eben Pay is reading for the law in the U.S. Attorney's office in Fort Smith when a gang of five murderous thieves, rapists, and killers (loosely based on the Rufus Buck gang) go on a killing and raping rampage in the Territory. Deputy Marshal Oscar Schiller invites Pay to go along in an effort to capture the gang.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A</i></span></b>s events unfold Pay becomes much more personally involved than he had planned.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">T</span></b></i>he reader is also introduced to Marshal Schiller's Osage tracker, Joe Mountain. The marshal, Joe, and Eben made subsequent appearances in other Jones' novels.</span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;"><b>******</b><br /></span></span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: blue; font-style: italic;">"Jones relies on none of the usual Western trappings; he eschews stereotypes....The historical research is seamless -- the story never slows down to admit dull exposition. Winding Stair convinces, utterly, that this is how life must have been in that place at that time...a significant and highly entertaining contribution to the popular literature of the American West." </span><span style="color: blue;">-- </span><i>New York Times</i></b></span><br />
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<br /></div>Stormyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05644679834064113193noreply@blogger.com0