KEVIN COSTNER SAYS, ‘LET THE FEUD BEGIN!’

(Updated 5/30 - see SUMMER OF SILENTS)
The man who won Best Director and Best Picture Oscars, and was nominated for Best Actor, for DANCES WITH WOLVES (1991), will star in THE HATFIELDS AND THE MCCOYS, a miniseries announced for the History Channel. Although the channel is known for documentaries, this will be a dramatic presentation based on the infamous decade-long Kentucky feud that began near the end of the Civil War, and saw the murder of at least a dozen men – some versions of the events say many more.

Costner, who has played many real-life people, from Wyatt Earp to Eliot Ness to Jim Garrison, will portray Hatfield patriarch Devil Anse Hatfield – a role played by Jack Palance in a 1975 MOW. Set for the 2012 season, the show will be produced by Leslie Greif, who produced WALKER, TEXAS RANGER.

RON HOWARD SAYS ‘DARK TOWER’ WILL ROLL SPRING 2012

Yes, another sci-fi western, based on Stephen King’s novel THE DARK TOWER, is set to roll camera in the spring, with Ron Howard at the helm. Howard is no stranger to the Western form, from behind the camera, where he directed FAR AND AWAY and THE MISSING, or in front of the camera, where he starred in THE SHOOTIST and THE SPIKES GANG, and series like BIG VALLEY, BONANZA and GUNSMOKE.

The script is by Akiva Goldsman, a frequent Howard collaborator who also scripted I AM LEGEND, CINDERELLA MAN, and won an Oscar for A BEAUTIFUL MIND. A very large and complex undertaking, DARK TOWER involves three feature films and possibly two TV series. A week ago, Universal, balking at the price tag, threatened to pull the plug, but seems to have reconsidered. Javier Bardem had been announced as the lead, but that is now in doubt. Says Howard, “I can’t really say who’ll be in it yet, buy Javier Bardem has shown a great deal of interest. We’ll know by the end of the summer, when our flashing green light goes solid. We had to pull back to our September start date due to budget delays and ongoing story development and logistical issues, but DARK TOWER is moving forward.”

WATCH YOUR BACK GRIFFITH & EDISON -- WESTERN FILMMAKING RETURNS TO FT. LEE, NEW JERSEY WITH ‘DAMN YOUR EYES!’

DAMN YOUR EYES is a 19 minute Western film directed by 24 year old David Guglielmo. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2009. DAMN YOUR EYES is his thesis film, a demo for the feature version he plans, and was produced by Jennifer Joelle Kachler and shot by Alex Chinnici.

I think DAMN YOUR EYES is an impressive piece of work, and instead of just giving you a link to the trailer, you can see the entire movie HERE. I warn you that some of the dialogue and visuals are pretty rough, in keeping with the Spaghetti Western tone.

HENRY: I really enjoyed your film, and being from New York myself, I know there’s not a lot of Western atmosphere there. Whereabouts did you film?
DAVID: The scene with the horse – that was actually a horseback riding place in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Literally, if I moved the camera an inch to the right or left you would see buildings, and telephone poles. We were in a very urban area.
H: I think this makes you the first person to successfully make a western in Fort Lee since Edwin S. Porter made the GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY there. That makes it about 108 years since the last one.
D: Wow, that’s great – I’m going to start saying that!
H: Wasn’t Fort Lee where Griffith was making his films?
D: It’s exactly where. You wouldn’t know it from walking around town now, but Fort Lee used to be Hollywood. You know, Chaplin worked here, and John Barrymore’s house is still standing.
H: Where else did you shoot?
D: Louisa’s cabin is actually a highway rest stop in New Jersey – it’s the first exit off the P.I.P. It used to a bathroom, but they made a bigger bathroom, so that one was abandoned, and the town opened it up for me. There’s not a lot of production design in there, but I brought a table, and with the sound design, the way I lit it, I made it like there was a fire going. That opening scene in the saloon, that’s in a studio, just an empty room. I rented furniture from antique shops in Brooklyn, hauled them over there and filled up the place, made it look like an old saloon. I had access to that studio, and I would go there with my cinematographer and block the whole thing out; made sure we were prepared because we knew that was the biggest scene. With short films especially, if you don’t grab them within the first couple of minutes you’re not going to grab them, so I really wanted to make that scene strong. So the shot-list was a little looser for the rest of the locations, but for the saloon it was really prepared.
H: Not a ton of guys who are 24 have even seen a western, no less want to make one. How were you introduced to Westerns?
D: I don’t remember how I was introduced to westerns, and I don’t remember when I first saw it, but the one that made the difference was THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. That made me fall in love with European Westerns.
H: So you discovered European ones before you discovered American ones?
D: I don’t think I discovered them first, but I fell in love with them first. Then I went and watched the traditional Westerns – the John Wayne films and the John Fords – and I love those, but I definitely got into the Spaghetti Westerns first. It probably has to do with Quentin Tarantino. I was nine years old when my mom let me watch PULP FICTION. We made a deal, because we were going somewhere I didn’t want to go, and she said, “If you go, I’ll let you watch PULP FICTION.” So I watched it, and I became a big Tarantino fan, and he’s very influenced by Spaghetti westerns, so I went back and watched all of them as well.
H: Where did the story DAMN YOUR EYES come from? Anything in particular suggest it to you?
D: The funny thing is I wrote the film my first year in film school, which was 2005. I never made movies growing up. I always knew that I wanted to be a film director, and I wrote stuff, but I never went out and made a film. I just watched a lot of movies and gathered all of these ideas for the one day when I would be able to do it right. So I wrote this idea, and a couple of scene, and I showed it to someone who said, ‘You’re not going to be able to pull this off.’ And they were right, so I put it on the back burner and I wrote smaller short films, just for practice, so I could develop a visual language, try my hand at making movies, and then, when thesis year came around I went back to that story and I said, you know, I think I could do this now.
H: You pulled it off; you’re direction is very solid. How did you cast it?
D: I started putting up casting calls online. I had a lot of people coming to audition, and I couldn’t really find the right people. No offense to them, there are a lot of very talented actors in New York, but a lot of them are very pretty, more like models than actors. And for Westerns, you want a get those gritty faces, older actors, and a lot of the time you get just college-age actors. I found one guy, Angelo Angrisani, who plays the antagonist in the film, and I thought he had a really good face, because he could play bad and still be sympathetic. So I cast him right away, and he helped me cast the other people – Sam and Louisa, just about everyone. He really ought to get a casting credit.
H: Have you written a feature length version?
D: It was always a feature idea, but I wrote it first as a short. And I was going to serialize it, and make it kind of a modern take on the old serials, but I wrote a couple of parts, and then I realized that I don’t really want this to be an internet movie. I mean, it’s good for the short film, but the whole thing I see as constantly getting bigger, with more action, the sets more elaborate. I really want it to be in a theatre. So I wrote the feature, and now I’m trying to get it off the ground. People are reading it and really liking it. I’m getting great feedback, working with my producer, Jennifer Joelle Kachler, and we’re putting everything together on the business end. We’re looking for backing.
H: Any other projects?
D: I’m adapting a screenplay right now, another feature. It’s a crime noir. It takes place in Texas. I love the visual sense you get in Westerns and I try to incorporate that into things that aren’t westerns.
H: What other films and filmmakers have influenced you?
D: I love Sam Peckinpah. RIO BRAVO’s one of my favorite films. THE SEARCHERS. For Spaghetti Westerns I particularly like THE BIG SILENCE. That’s probably the biggest influence on DAMN YOUR EYES. Sergio Corbucci’s really good. COMPANEROS, DJANGO – I think all of his stuff is really great.
H: Have you heard about Tarantino’s newest project, DJANGO UNCHAINED?
D: Yeah, I’m excited for that. It’s funny – I met Tarantino. Right after I made DAMN YOUR EYES I was in the West Village and I see him go into a Starbucks. I run after him, and I happen to have my film, because I always have my film with me. It’s obsessive, I know, but it comes in handy. So I go into the Starbucks and I say, “Mr. Tarantino, I’m such a big fan of yours!” For the first time I’m really star-struck. I really didn’t know what else to say, but, “Please watch my movie!” And I handed it to him and I said, “You’ll see your influence in it.” And he was really cool about it, and said, “Cool cover,” and he went home with it, so hopefully he watched it.
H: What else should we know about you?
D: I have a lot of stories, a lot of different genres. If you like this, then keep up with what I’m doing. If you don’t like it, don’t keep up with what I’m doing. I’m just really excited to be making movies.
H: For a short movie, you certainly have a lot of good graphics.
D: What’s really cool is I have over a hundred posters. One of the graphic design teachers at SVA wanted to get her students into movie posters. And since my film was one of the only genre films, and had a lot of room for different interpretations – it’s a western but with a horror movie vibe to it -- she assigned it to all of her classes, and each student had to do three posters. I’m never gonna get that lucky again!
(By the way, if you’d like to learn something about the history of filmmaking in Fort Lee, New Jersey, go HERE.)

http://www.fortleefilm.org/history.html
http://vimeo.com/19145510

SUMMER OF SILENTS AT ACADEMY FEATURES ‘COVERED WAGON, ‘THE GENERAL’
In L.A., the best entertainment deal of the summer has long been the film series at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Previous series have featured Oscar winners, Oscar nominees, and last summer it was Oscar-nominated Film Noir Screenplays. This year it’s SUMMER OF SILENTS, featuring nine silent features that have won the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor, an award that predates the Oscars.

The programs are Monday evenings from June 13th through August 8th, each film will be a 35mm print, have a live musical accompaniment, selected shorts, and an introduction by someone knowledgeable, among them the great film historian Kevin Brownlow. And the price for the entire series is just $25, $20 for Academy members and students, or $5 per movie. Only two of the films are truly Westerns, but some others are ‘rurals’, and all are well worth seeing. Here’s the line-up:
June 13th – HUMORESQUE (1920)
June 20th – TOL’ABLE DAVID (1921)
June 27th – ROBIN HOOD (1922)
No movie on the 4th of July (Who wants silent fireworks anyway?)
July 11th – THE COVERED WAGON (1923)
July 18th – THE BIG PARADE (1925)
Wednesday July 20th – Bonus comedy – THE GENERAL (1927)
July 25th – BEAU GESTE (1926)
August 1st – 7TH HEAVEN (1927)
August 8th – FOUR SONS (1928)

Tickets go on sale June 1st, which is Wednesday, but you can start buying online at midnight Tuesday night, and knowing the tendency of these programs to sell out, that’s when I buy mine. To buy tickets, go to HERE or visit the box office 9 to 5 on weekdays at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211.


LAST OF THE INDIAN CHIEF CARDS

About half a year ago, doing some much-needed office cleaning, I came upon a set of fifty cigarette insert cards that my father had given me more than thirty years ago. Forerunners of bubble-gum cards, they measure 1 ½” by 2 ¾ ”, and are the ‘Celebrated American Indian Chiefs’ collection, from Allen & Ginter of Richmond, Virginia, and date from 1888. I’ve been running two a week, and today I share the last two, plus a check-list. In the next week or so I’ll be putting the whole set in the photo section of our Facebook page. Hope you enjoy them

FREE GENE AUTRY DOUBLE BILL SATURDAY JUNE 4TH

The first Saturday of every month, The Autry presents a free Gene double feature at noon. The first is always pre-war a Republic Picture, the second is always a post-war Columbia. First it’s PUBLIC COWBOY #1 (1937) and pits Gene against modern (for 1937) rustlers with refrigerator trucks and walkie-talkies. Next is RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING PINES (1949), where Gene must fight unscrupulous lumbermen and DDT! Normally the films are shown in the smaller Imagination Galley, but this time they’re in the roomier and more comfortable Wells Fargo Theatre!

ROY ROGERS ON RFD-TV THURSDAY JUNE 2ND

At 2:30 pm Pacific time catch IN OLD CALIENTE (1951) starring Roy and Dale. Son Roy ‘Dusty’ Rogers and grandson Dustin do the intros, and have interesting things to say about the unpopularity of short-time sidekick Pinky Lee. But when they start giving away too much plot, stick your fingers in your ears and yodel!

THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepeneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permenant galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.

HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywood western, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.

WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


FREE WESTERNS ON YOUR COMPUTER AT HULU

A staggering number of western TV episodes and movies are available, entirely free, for viewing on your computer at HULU. You do have to sit through the commercials, but that seems like a small price to pay. The series available -- often several entire seasons to choose from -- include THE RIFLEMAN, THE CISCO KID, THE LONE RANGER, BAT MASTERSON, THE BIG VALLEY, ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, and one I missed from 2003 called PEACEMAKERS starring Tom Berenger. Because they are linked up with the TV LAND website, you can also see BONANZA and GUNSMOKE episodes, but only the ones that are running on the network that week.

The features include a dozen Zane Grey adaptations, and many or most of the others are public domain features. To visit HULU on their western page, CLICK HERE.

TV LAND - BONANZA and GUNSMOKE

Every weekday, TV LAND airs a three-hour block of BONANZA episodes from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They run a GUNSMOKE Monday through Thursday at 10:00 a.m., and on Friday they show two, from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m.. They're not currently running either series on weekends, but that could change at any time.

NEED YOUR BLACK & WHITE TV FIX?

Check out your cable system for WHT, which stands for World Harvest Television. It's a religious network that runs a lot of good western programming. Your times may vary, depending on where you live, but weekdays in Los Angeles they run DANIEL BOONE at 1:00 p.m., and two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.. On Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. it's THE RIFLEMAN again, followed at 2:30 by BAT MASTERSON. And unlike many stations in the re-run business, they run the shows in the original airing order. There's an afternoon movie on weekdays at noon, often a western, and they show western films on the weekend, but the schedule is sporadic.

Also, AMC has started showing two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN on Saturday mornings.

That's about it. My wife just handed me a newspaper ad about a North Valley Heritage Festival Saturday and Sunday, June 4th and 5th -- I'll find out about it, and update you here and on Facebook. In the meantime, don't forget to take time to remember that Memorial Day is not just a three day weekend, it's the day we honor our brave war dead who have kept up free all of these years FLY YOUR FLAG!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All contents copyright by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved!

BLUE AND GREY REMATCH AT PIERCE COLLEGE

(Updated 5/23/2011 -- see DJANGO UNCHAINED TO LENS IN LOUISIANA)

Last Saturday and Sunday, May 14th and 15th, the Farm Center at Pierce College played host for the second year to the HERITAGE DAYS CIVIL WAR REENACTMENT. More than a couple hundred Yanks and Rebs met on the battlefield, reenacting not specific battles, but typical ones. I attended on Sunday, and this being my second time, I’d learned not to stand too close to the Confederate canon battery; thus I was able to hear well enough to conduct interviews.

I met a Union soldier and asked him about his unit, and how Saturday’s battles had gone. “I’m Steve Columbus. We’re the 7th Michigan, Company F, we’re Custer’s brigade, and we fought at Gettysburg on the third day, repulsing Stewart’s advance, while Picket’s charge was taking place on the other side. (Yesterday’s battles) were quite exciting. Went in with saber and pistol, won one, lost one. We had seven horse on the Federal side and four horse on the Confederate side, and infantry was about seventy to a hundred on each side.”

(Photos -- horse; Steve Columbus (L); Casey Bernardin, Annette Grace, Joanne Davidson; Mike Climo; Abe Lincoln)

What does he do when not fighting the Civil War? “I’m an underwriter for Bank of America. I love history, always have since I was a kid. I got involved with going back to the big Gettysburg events. I’ve been back about four times, the second to last one had 23,000 reenactors, about 600 horse, and I got hooked. So I moved back up this way, bought a horse property, started collecting horses to do this. It took three to get one that I could fight off of. You can’t just grab a horse and do it. They’ve got to have the right temperament around canons and muskets and saber-bashing. We do this probably twelve to eighteen times a year, in places all over Southern California. There’ll be a big event in Moorpark, west of here, in November. Maybe as much as 600; so quite a bit larger.”

I found a cluster of four ladies cooking and sewing at a tent. I asked if their husbands had been long gone in the war.
“Far too long, unfortunately,” replied Annette Grace.
Joanne Davidson told me, “My husband died prior to the war. My son is at battle – he’s been at war for three years. I do get to see him occasionally, and we do exchange letters.”
Casey Bernardin smiled coquettishly and said, “I am not yet married, but as a girl of 17, I should be soon.” Casey and the others missed yesterday’s battles. “We were too busy doing dishes and preparing food for the men to actually be able to see the battle, unfortunately.”
Joanne added, “We were just saying we’d like to watch the one today. However, we’re very happy our men all came home.” When I asked if they would break character and tell me how they got involved, Joanne told me, “My son actually joined up four years ago, and three years ago I ended up coming along. The first year he just went to a couple while he saved up money to buy muskets and uniforms. So I had to drive him there a few times.” And once she got involved herself? “You do research – we’ve found a lot of letters online, transcribed. You learn about people. We don’t reenact as a particular person, although some people do. My husband doesn’t actually like doing this, which is why we killed him off. (I noted her unusual accent) I’m actually from way back west – I married an American, but I’m from Australia, so I’m a very strange reenactor.”

Casey’s been doing it just as long. “None of my background is American, but I still find American history more interesting. My dad’s parents are both from Canada, and my mom is from El Salvador. I’ve been doing it for over four years now, ever since I was 16, my freshman year. As an 8th grader at Moorpark School District, you take a field trip to the Moorpark Reenactment. And I went there, loved it, had to come back. And I found out Joanne, my mom – not my bio-mom but my mom for the Civil War – was doing it, and came along, and she gave me a dress. I went out as a boy on the field last time, and I have to say I would personally never do it again!”

Annette added, “A lot of girls do dress up to take the field as men, which was true of the time. I’ve been doing this for quite a while, almost five years. My husband is a Major, so I started to tag along with him, and I absolutely love it. I dove into the history and I love learning the who, what and why – more the why, why did they wear what they wore, why did they eat what they ate?” I asked, tactfully, what rank her husband as. “ He started as a private – everybody works their way up. He’s been doing it for 15 years. He started with SASS – Single Action Shooting Society – years ago. He started working on his character development, and realized his character would have been alive during the Civil War. So he went to a Civil War event to investigate what his character would have gone through, and he liked it more than he likes SAS, so he stuck with it.”

In the interests of equal time, I also spoke to Mike Climo, Signals Officer for Camp 1742 of the Inland Empire for Sons Of Confederate Veterans, and official webmaster for the state of California. “The Sons…started right after the war – it was then the United Confederate Veterans, the UCV. And Stephen Dill Lee, a general during the war, in 1896 determined that too many of the UCV veterans were dying off, and they needed somebody to preserve the heritage of the Confederate soldier, and gave the charge that, ‘To you, the sons, I give you the request that you uphold our heritage and uphold the good name of the Confederate soldier.’ Ever since then it’s been a heritage organization, completely apolitical. We have liberals and conservatives, so we stay out of the politics of it. My great, great grandfather rode in the Seventh Kentucky Cavalry, and spent four years on horseback, fighting in many major battles. He actually escorted Jefferson Davis from Charlotte all the way down to Georgia. I wanted to do something to preserve his memory. We’re about 30,000 strong and getting bigger.”

He told me that with the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War soon upon us, the organization has its work cut out for it, trying to ensure fair treatment in the portrayal of the Confederate soldier. He also told me about the Hunley, the Confederate submarine which in 1864 became the first successful combat submarine when she sank the USS Housatonic. She was raised in 2000, and is on display in Charleston, South Carolina.

If you’d like to learn more about reenactment events in California, visit the Civil War Alliance HERE:

http://www.civilwaralliance.com/

TARANTINO’S ‘DJANGO UNCHAINED’ TO LENS IN LOUISIANA

Recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with a burst of recent film activity, Louisiana is becoming a center of Western film production. First JONAH HEX was shot there, currently ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER is rolling, and next up will be DJANGO UNCHAINED, according to my unimpeachable source, Eric Spudic. I’ll give you details as I get them, but in the meantime I’ll give you the semi-official casting rumors: Idris Elba, Will Smith, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Keith Carradine, Franco Nero, Treat Williams and Nicky Katt.

IMAGE OF WILLIAM BONNEY UP FOR BIDS

130 years ago, a young man with a rifle and a pistol stopped in a Fort Sumner, New Mexico photography studio to get his picture made. The result was the celebrated Upham tintype, the only authenticated photograph of Billy the Kid, which will be offered for public auction in Denver, this June 25th, at Brian Lebel’s Old West Auction. A check of Billy the Kid images on Google will reveal hundreds of variations on the original tintype, and a very few different photos that might possibly be of Billy, but none are sure but this one.

The only time it has been publicly displayed was when loaned to the Lincoln County Museum. It has been in a single family’s possession until now. This will be the 22nd Annual Wild West Show and Auction by Brian Lebel, who last year auctioned Roy Rogers’ gun collection. To learn more, go HERE.

www.denveroldwest.com


WESTERN ACTRESS MYRNA DELL DIES

Leggy blonde and beautiful Myrna Dell, who brought elegance and toughness, depending on the role, to many Westerns and films noir of the 1940s and 1950s, died on February 11th. Coming to Hollywood as an Earl Carroll Girl in the Earl Carroll Revue, she appeared in ZIEGFELD GIRL (1941) at MGM, and was soon appearing as saloon gals and other frontier types in A and B Westerns at all of the sagebrush studios. She was in RAIDERS OF RED GAP (1943) at PRC with Robert Livingston; IN OLD OKLAHOMA (1943) at Republic with John Wayne; ARIZONA WHIRLWIND (1944) at Monogram with Bob Steele, Hoot Gibson and Ken Maynard; BELLE OF THE YUKON (1945) for International Pictures with Randolph Scott and Gypsy Rose Lee; and GUNS OF HATE (1948) for RKO with Tim Holt.

It was at RKO that she got her best roles in all genres, appearing in several of the FALCON mysteries with Tom Conway, who she found to be charming; NOCTOURNE with George Raft; DESTINATION MURDER with Hurd Hatfield; and THE LOCKET with Robert Mitchum. But what she enjoyed most was doing comedy, and at RKO, in addition to films like VACATION IN RENO with Jack Haley, she appeared as the femme fatale in a string of two-reelers with Leon Errol. She also loved making JOE PALOOKA IN THE SQUARED CIRCLE with Joe Kirkwood Jr. and James Gleason, and HERE COME THE MARINES with the Bowery Boys.

Her later Western roles included films like THE FURIES with Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston for Anthony Mann, and ROUGHSHOD, with Robert Sterling and Gloria Grahame. With the coming of television, she guested on many series, and played the Asian villainess, Empress Shira, opposite Dan Duryea in the CHINA SMITH series. Later she had a successful career in public relations. My wife and I first became friends with Myrna in the 1980s, and for some years frequently accompanied her to appearances at autograph shows and places like Corriganville. She was a bright and charming lady with a great sense of humor, and was hugely proud to appear in an episode of UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, directed by her daughter Laura Patterson.

If you’d like to take a look at Myrna at work, click HERE to see THE BUSHWHACKERS, a western about land rights, costarring John Ireland, Dorothy Malone and Lawrence Tierney, and featuring Myrna as Lon Chaney’s hard-as-nails and cold-as-ice daughter.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1879770137/

CLINT EASTWOOD DOUBLE-BILL AT THE NEW BEVERLY

CLINT EASTWOOD IS BACK TO BACK AND BURNING AT BOTH ENDS -- IF YOU CAN TAKE HIM! (That was the tagline when FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE were released as a double-bill in the late sixties) Sunday through Tuesday, the New Beverly will be showing two directed by and starring Clint: HIGH PLANES DRIFTER (1973) and PALE RIDER (1985). For details, visit their site HERE.
newbevcinema.com

THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepeneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permenant galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.

HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywood western, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.

WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


FREE WESTERNS ON YOUR COMPUTER AT HULU

A staggering number of western TV episodes and movies are available, entirely free, for viewing on your computer at HULU. You do have to sit through the commercials, but that seems like a small price to pay. The series available -- often several entire seasons to choose from -- include THE RIFLEMAN, THE CISCO KID, THE LONE RANGER, BAT MASTERSON, THE BIG VALLEY, ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, and one I missed from 2003 called PEACEMAKERS starring Tom Berenger. Because they are linked up with the TV LAND website, you can also see BONANZA and GUNSMOKE episodes, but only the ones that are running on the network that week.

The features include a dozen Zane Grey adaptations, and many or most of the others are public domain features. To visit HULU on their western page, CLICK HERE.

TV LAND - BONANZA and GUNSMOKE

Every weekday, TV LAND airs a three-hour block of BONANZA episodes from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They run a GUNSMOKE Monday through Thursday at 10:00 a.m., and on Friday they show two, from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m.. They're not currently running either series on weekends, but that could change at any time.

NEED YOUR BLACK & WHITE TV FIX?

Check out your cable system for WHT, which stands for World Harvest Television. It's a religious network that runs a lot of good western programming. Your times may vary, depending on where you live, but weekdays in Los Angeles they run DANIEL BOONE at 1:00 p.m., and two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.. On Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. it's THE RIFLEMAN again, followed at 2:30 by BAT MASTERSON. And unlike many stations in the re-run business, they run the shows in the original airing order. There's an afternoon movie on weekdays at noon, often a western, and they show western films on the weekend, but the schedule is sporadic.

Also, AMC has started showing two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN on Saturday mornings.

That's all for now -- Adios amigos!

Henry

All contents copyright May 2011 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved

AUTRY CURATOR JEFFREY RICHARDSON

Over the last couple of years, I’ve heard Jeffrey Richardson introduce at least a half dozen movies at the Autry. This is a job which, when done correctly, looks deceptively easy, but the truth is, it’s a difficult balancing act. A few years ago they had a lady introducing all of Gene’s movies by listing all of the songs, ruining all of the jokes, and telling how the picture ends.

What Richardson does is tell you enough to intrigue both the beginner and the old hand, without making watching the movie seem redundant. I always learn things at his talks, even at the recent MAGNIFICENT 7 screening, where I thought there was nothing much I didn’t know. But introducing screenings is a tiny part of Jeffrey Richardson’s job as the Autry’s Curator of Western History and Popular Culture. Frankly, I’m surprised that such a young guy knows so much about the west, and western movies. I asked him if they were important to him growing up.

JEFF: Actually, to be quite honest, they weren’t. I grew up at a time when there weren’t westerns on television or on film, and weren’t a part of the larger popular culture at all. My father enjoyed westerns, the ones that I would see were with my father, on Saturday afternoons. I’d ask him, ‘What are these?’ He replied, ‘Good movies they don’t make anymore.’ But I really didn’t appreciate them. To me they all seemed to be the same. But when I made my way to graduate school, getting my PHD in western history, I really started to understand the larger role of the American West, not only the actual historical west, but the mythic west, the west onscreen. As a result I came to appreciate the western genre in all its complexities, and its very unique history, not only in the entertainment world, but in relationship with the American people, and people throughout the world. So I came more to appreciate westerns now today; they’re certainly one of my favorites.

HENRY: Speaking of Westerns, I notice you’ve grown a beard – it looks right in tune.

JEFF: (Laughs) It works out here, and it gets rid of that baby-face, too.

HENRY: Do you remember any westerns that your dad particularly enjoyed?

JEFF: Like most people of his generation, it was John Wayne and Gary Cooper. He appreciated all the stars that were popular in the middle of the century.

H: You mentioned your PHD in western history.

J: Technically it’s in American cultural history, from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. They have a strong western history program, (which) was one of my major focuses. I actually grew up in the South, I bounced around from Georgia to Florida as a child, where I did a lot of southern history, the other region that has the kind of historiography that the American West does, but when I came west, to Vegas, I really immersed myself in academic Western History. It’s is very interesting – how it’s evolved over the years.

H: How old were you before you knew who Gene Autry was?

J: I think I knew who Gene Autry was as an entertainer, as the singing cowboy when I was in high school; didn’t really again think much of it. Like most people from my generation, I kind of dismissed it: cowboys don’t dress like that! They don’t sing like that! As a big sports fan I knew him more as a result of the Angels than anything else.

H: How did you become involved with the Autry Museum?

J: When I was at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, the Autry used to have a fellowship program. One of the problems you have in most museums is there are individuals that have a lot of academic training, but don’t have a lot of practical real-world experience of what it’s like to work in a museum. So they had a program which brought graduate students, either Master or PHD, to the Autry for a significant amount of time, from three months to nine months, to come and immerse yourself in the larger meaning of what museums did. I came here for one of the nine month fellowships, and during that nine months I came to appreciate and better understand what museums do. Like most people in graduate school, your think, I’m going to teach: it’s the logical profession for people who have been in graduate school for as long as I had. Working in a museum was not something that I actually thought much about. But I was able to appreciate the type of history that is done here, using artifacts to tell stories, and I really came to fall in love with this profession. As a result of my fellowship I was able to get hired at the Autry. I started out as a curatorial assistant, worked my way up the ranks, and now I really enjoy what I do, and can’t see myself doing anything else.

H: You’re currently curating the ‘What Is a Western?’ film series. And you’ve selected a wonderful group of films. Now, is it called ‘What is a Western?’ because it’s an interesting subject to debate, or are you trying to teach people that really don’t know?

J: What we’re really hoping to do with this series – and this series is going to go on indefinitely – is for people to come to understand not only what the western genre is, what it means, what its historical role has been, influencing and mirroring larger trends in American history, but we also want to show how the Western genre has evolved throughout the 20th century. To where, nowadays, you don’t see a lot of pure westerns onscreen, but you see a lot of other films that take from the western. And we want to explore that issue, and just as we do at the Museum, we want to show that there are a variety of ways of looking at the west, that don’t just involve cowboys or Indians, or Monument Valley or those types of things. With this years’ schedule we really wanted to have a baseline, to look at some classic western films that people think of when they think of the American West. So we have THE MAGNIFICENT 7, THE SEARCHERS, TOMBSTONE, UNFORGIVEN. But next year we’re going to take it a little bit further, and (ask), how has the western genre evolved? For example, looking at space westerns, or WESTWORLD, science-fiction westerns. To look at how, when the western genre decreased in popularity, the themes, the actors, these individuals still remained, they just shifted their focus. We want to look at films that tell a distinct story of the American west, that aren’t westerns – for example, the Beach Party movies of the 1960s that really painted a very clear picture of the American west coast, but they’re not Westerns. But they do tell a very distinct western story. So this year we really set that baseline of traditional western films, but next year, and the following years, we’ll intersperse with larger westerns, other movies that tell us a lot either about the western genre or the American west.

H: I noticed that Saturday, August 13th, is listed as ‘To Be Announced.’ Why in particular is there not a film for that date yet?

J: The real issue, and one of the unique things about the film series, is all of our movies are 35mm. Just showing a blu-ray, a DVD, anyone can do very easily. What we want to do is create an experience for the visitor at the museum; they can see a film as it was intended, on the big screen, in 35mm, something that they can’t replicate at home. But what we have come to find is that 35mm prints are very difficult to obtain. The studios themselves have them, but they’re starting to tell us that they are no longer making 35mm prints, and when they wear out, they’re not redoing them, they’re really just focusing more on a digital world. So we’ve had a very tough time securing a variety of 35mm prints. We have some 35s that are not on this year’s schedule – we’re holding them for next year. In some instances we’ve actually found 16mm prints, but we really want to focus on 35, and the other issue if of finding 35mm prints that are of high quality. You do see a lot of them out there, but they’re very very difficult to watch. I think on that particular open day we might be showing GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL. And that should be interesting, because the following month we’re showing TOMBSTONE, to really show how these two films, which obviously look at the same subject, same individuals, but do so in a dramatically different way. One of the most obvious ways is that in GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, the gunfight takes a significant amount of screen time, between ten and fifteen minutes, where in TOMBSTONE it’s much more accurate in the length of time, where it’s more like 30 seconds.

H: Are you going to be continuing to show the Gene Autry double-bills on the first Saturday of the month?

J: Yes, we’re really trying to replicate the idea of people going on a Saturday afternoon and getting that double feature, a short, maybe a newsreel. And we want to make sure that Gene Autry’s presence here in the museum is continuing to be felt. What we do is show an early Republic movie with a later Columbia picture, and the theme and the content of the two is often very different, so people have the opportunity to come and see two very interesting films – some people like the Republic and don’t like the Columbia and vice versa. We’re trying to give everyone a bit of something that they like.

H: Any chance of moving those to the Wells Fargo Theatre?

J: We’re in discussion to do that. One of the issues is logistical. We have other activities that often go on in Wells Fargo – our Native Voices theatre productions, Book Talk, we have a lot of other educational activities that take place in Wells Fargo, so what we hope to do is either move the double bill to the Wells Fargo or get some more comfortable seats for the Western Legacy Theatre. Right now we just have those wooden benches, because they were designed to watch a five-minute introductory film that is normally showing there during the week.

H: I understand you’ve got an upcoming exhibition about the Colt Firearms Company.

J: It’s The Colt Revolver And The American West, and we’re looking at the role that the Colt revolver has played in history, both on the actual American frontier, and in the contemporary west, and in the mythic west. We want to show the history of Colt from 1835, up until the present. The Autry has one of the finest Colt collections in the United states, which is the result of several key acquisitions, a very generation donation of individual pieces from museum supporters and members, and we hope to help people understand why the Colt revolver is often referred to as ‘the handgun that won the West.’ This exhibition will feature over one hundred revolvers, but it will also feature art, artifacts, and a variety of different objects relating to the Colt revolver. It won’t just be a large collection of guns. It’ll be that, but it will be much much more.

H: Are there particular items we should be looking forward to seeing?

J: We have several pieces that I think are quite amazing. We have Teddy Roosevelt’s single-action Army. Roosevelt had it opulently engraved, ivory grips with ‘TR’ on them, ‘TR’ engraved on the recoil-shield. This firearm, unlike a lot of opulently engraved pieces, was actually used by Roosevelt – he took it with him when he made his way to the Badlands in the 1880s, he used the gun, he fired it. It’s a very significant piece of American history, and really gets at the role that the American West played in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That’s one of my favorite pieces in the entire exhibition. We have an entire case devoted to the single-action Army. We have the first single-action Army ever made, in 1872, a year before the revolver went into mass-production. We also have guns related to The Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Monte Hale, we have cutaways that show how the actual internal functions of the guns work. We have pieces that were presented by Samuel Colt himself to Governors, to military officers. We have Samuel Colt’s original coat of arms. The collection is really going to (create) a technological understanding of the role that the revolver played, an aesthetic understanding of the role the revolver played – it will look at all of the ways the revolver has been associated with the American West for almost 200 years.

H: When does it open?

J: It’s going to open on July 23rd, which is the National Day of The American Cowboy, the celebration that takes place every year. Last year was the first year that the Autry recognized the celebration, and it was very, very popular with visitors. It was quite well attended, we had a lot of activities going on, and we’re going to have more activities this year. We’re also redoing two cases that look at Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. A lot of our really great Billy the Kid/Pat Garrett artifacts, including a Whitney-Kennedy rifle that Billy the Kid owned, a watch that was given to Pat Garrett in honor of him killing Billy, by grateful citizens, these pieces will be on display along with a little special section that looks at the Colt Gatling Gun.

H: Anything else we can look forward to?

J: We also have a few other film activities going on. We hope to celebrate Roy Rogers’ 100th anniversary this year. In May we’re actually adding a case to the Imagination Gallery with pieces that the Autry Museum acquired from the recently closed Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri, and before that in Victorville. A lot of people wanted to know what the Autry Was going to do when the Museum closed, and we were able, due to the generosity of Museum supporters, to acquire several key pieces. Roy’s plastic Rose Parade Saddle, a very opulently engraved pair of boots that Roy owned, Roy Rogers’ first guitar – this was one he’d gotten as Leonard Slye, before he became the King of the Cowboys. This guitar was presented to Roy on This Is Your Life. And we also acquired the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans archives, the business records of two of the most popular entertainers in 20th Century America. We’ll have two key pieces from the archive in display, to let the general public know not only what we did to help to save the legacy of Roy and Dale, but lets them know in general what museums do to preserve the past, not only caring for artifacts, but also to allow people to view these artifacts.

H: What are your favorite westerns?

J: I get that question a lot, and the thing is, I’ve seen so many westerns in such a short period of time. The one I think of more than anything else is HIGH NOON. I think because of its significance to the genre, Gary Cooper winning an Academy Award for that role, for what it meant to Hollywood at that particular time, the blacklist and communism, it’s a unique film for so many different reasons. And I’m always surprised at how little action there is in the movie, but you’re on the edge of your seat the whole movie, wondering what’s going to happen, what he is going to do. I think, more than any other, that film resonates with me. But more recently, with the westerns that I did see in the theatre, growing up, I would have to go with TOMBSTONE. It does have a lot of action throughout it. I also remember seeing UNFORGIVEN with my father, when it came out. For pure enjoyment, I think TOMBSTONE, but for everything it is, I’d say HIGH NOON.

H: Do you like spaghetti westerns?

J: I enjoy the spaghetti westerns. I think not only Leone, but Peckinpah at the time made very interesting westerns, and I think for those individuals who don’t like the western, that think, oh, it’s not something for me, showing them a Leone or a Peckinpah film is really the way to go. Those films have a more modern sensibility than your earlier 20th century Western. At times they’re a little excessive in some instances, but as a result of their pacing, their use of dialogue, they hold up really well today.

H: We’re going to be in a documentary together – the same crew from Turner Classic Movies that interviewed you last month interviewed me later that day.

J: One of the reasons that TCM came here is that they’re going to do a Singing Cowboy Month, I believe some time this summer, so everyone should look forward to that.

H: Who is your favorite singing cowboy?

J: I would be a fool not to say Gene Autry. What I like about Gene’s films, not that you can’t find this in the westerns of other singing cowboys, is that in a Gene movie you can get just a little bit of everything. You have your action, you have your drama, you have your music, your comedy – so it’s really a complete package; something that was unique to its era. And you can really understand why people in the 1930s and early 1940s, when they were faced with so much difficulty around them, whether it be economic, political, military, it was so refreshing to be able to go into a theatre and escape for an hour or two. I understand now why people have such a connection to Gene and to Roy, and why it meant it meant so much to them. And why, when they come to the Autry Museum, they are taken back (to that time) by what we’ve done in preserving that legacy for future generations. We’re also going to be doing a ‘cameo’ exhibition later this called Gene Autry’s Angels, celebrating this year, the 50th anniversary of the Angels franchise, and Gene’s role in bringing American League baseball to southern California.

HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY HARRY CAREY JR!

Monday, May 16, 2011, is actor Harry Carey Jr.’s 90th birthday. The son of two stars of the silent screen, Olive Carey and the great Harry Carey Sr., Harry, nicknamed Dobe – short for ‘adobe’, for the color of his hair – he lent his earnest, unaffected presence to countless Western movies and TV episodes. I always think of him in the John Ford westerns, first 3 GODFATHERS, then two thirds of the Cavalry Trilogy. No one, not even the Duke, looks better in a cavalry uniform. But he also worked extensively for Howard Hawks and other great men of the genre, and co-starred with his great friend Ben Johnson more than a dozen times. I had the privilege, between fifteen and twenty years ago to see Carey and Johnson, both in their 70s, team-roping at a charity rodeo in Burbank.

He developed a whole new following running the dude ranch in SPIN AND MARTY on the original MICKEY MOUSE CLUB, and even went to Spain for the spaghetti western TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME. He takes his work seriously, but not always himself. Maybe five years ago on this date, I shot him an email wishing him a happy birthday, and mentioning that my wife and I always know that a Harry Carey Jr. movie is always worth seeing. Within moments I received his reply: “Obviously you haven’t seen BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA.” Carey has a website, HERE, where you can learn more about his career, and purchase his excellent memoir of his experiences working for John Ford, A COMPANY OF HEROES, when it’s back in stock. And if you haven’t watched the trailer to 3 GODFATHERS lately,HERE it is.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3637576729/


Happy birthday Dobe!

http://www.harrycareyjr.com/

UCLA HONORS ROBERT MITCHUM WESTERNS!

In July, UCLA and the Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program will honor that villain of Hopalong Cassidy movies, Robert Mitchum with a month of screenings at the Billy Wilder theatre. The ten films featured in the retropective are PURSUED (1947) BLOOD ON THE MOON (1948), THE LUSTY MEN (1952), THE SUNDOWNERS (1960), TRACK OF THE CAT (1954), RIVER OF NO RETURN (1954), THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY (1959), WEST OF THE PECOS (1945), RACHEL AND THE STRANGER (1948), and EL DORADO (1966). Details as it gets closer.

THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepeneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permenant galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.

HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywood western, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.

WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


FREE WESTERNS ON YOUR COMPUTER AT HULU

A staggering number of western TV episodes and movies are available, entirely free, for viewing on your computer at HULU. You do have to sit through the commercials, but that seems like a small price to pay. The series available -- often several entire seasons to choose from -- include THE RIFLEMAN, THE CISCO KID, THE LONE RANGER, BAT MASTERSON, THE BIG VALLEY, ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, and one I missed from 2003 called PEACEMAKERS starring Tom Berenger. Because they are linked up with the TV LAND website, you can also see BONANZA and GUNSMOKE episodes, but only the ones that are running on the network that week.

The features include a dozen Zane Grey adaptations, and many or most of the others are public domain features. To visit HULU on their western page, CLICK HERE.

TV LAND - BONANZA and GUNSMOKE

Every weekday, TV LAND airs a three-hour block of BONANZA episodes from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They run a GUNSMOKE Monday through Thursday at 10:00 a.m., and on Friday they show two, from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m.. They're not currently running either series on weekends, but that could change at any time.

NEED YOUR BLACK & WHITE TV FIX?

Check out your cable system for WHT, which stands for World Harvest Television. It's a religious network that runs a lot of good western programming. Your times may vary, depending on where you live, but weekdays in Los Angeles they run DANIEL BOONE at 1:00 p.m., and two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.. On Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. it's THE RIFLEMAN again, followed at 2:30 by BAT MASTERSON. And unlike many stations in the re-run business, they run the shows in the original airing order. There's an afternoon movie on weekdays at noon, often a western, and they show western films on the weekend, but the schedule is sporadic.

Also, AMC has started showing two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN on Saturday mornings.

That'll have to do for this week. I spent too many hours at Pierce College today watching them re-fight the Civil War (the North won). Check out our Facebook page to see what else is happening.

Adios,

Henry

P.S. If you like the postcard showing Gene Autry's house, I found a website with a great collection of Movie Star Home Postcards. Check it out HERE.
http://www.image-archeology.com/movie_stars_homes.htm

All Contents Copyright May 2011 by Henry C. Parke -- All rights Reserved.

COWBOY FEST AT MELODY RANCH

On Saturday April 30th and Sunday May 1st thousands cowboys and cowgirls converged on Melody Ranch for the 18th Annual Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival. When it started, it was a cowboy poetry and music event, and poetry and music are still a big part of it. But the event has broadened to include western movies, history and literature, and all things western.

The festival actually began as a much smaller event held at Santa Clarita High School. But when the earthquake of January 1994 hit, the school’s auditorium was too badly damaged to house the event, and the Veluzat family, owners of both Veluzat and Melody movie ranches, stepped up and offered Melody Ranch, and the rest, as they say, is history.




When I arrived on Saturday at lunchtime, the first person I ran into was famed pistol-manipulator Joey Dillon. I asked him what he calls his line of work. “Gunslingin’. Because it sounds cool, and it covers twirls, juggles, spins, trick-shooting – the whole gamut. I got started at a young age. My dad was always watching western movies. We grew up in central California, up in the foothills, gold-rush country. I got into the history, and watched a lot of movies, playing with my toy gun. Moved onto a .22 – with my dad present, to make sure it was safe. At eighteen I started going out, doing it in front of people. Flash-forward about fourteen years, and now it’s a living.”




Joey’s trained many actors to look good handling firearms, including Josh Brolin for JONAH HEX. He’s been working on the upcoming LOOPER, starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis. “There’s a guy named Noah Segan who (plays) one of the Gatmen. It’s a slightly futuristic movie, but this guy fancies himself as a latter-day cowboy. He’s using a .45-70 Magnum revolver that weighs four and a half pounds – twice what we normally use. Had to train him to look good with that: a lot of fun.” He’s also just worked on the still-shooting DUKE, a traditional western with a modern L.A. setting. “I taught the lead how to twirl some snub-nosed .38s, even though they were double-action, which is kind of a no-no*. There’s a scene where it’ll be my hands doing the work. And I’ve got a really big fish coming up, and I’ll see if I can get my foot in the door – and that’ll be acting, and not coaching.” To learn more about Joey, and to see clips of him in action, go to his site HERE.

http://www.joeydillon.com/www.joeydillon.com/home.html




A little farther down the street I ran into the folks from the Rancho Camulos Museum. RAMONA author Helen Hunt Jackson visited the Rancho in 1882, and decided to set her novel there. Disappointed that I missed the Ramona pageant in Hemet this year, I was delighted to learn that on November 5th they celebrate ‘Ramona Days’ at the Museum, and the event includes pageant cast members performing vignettes from the show. To learn more, go HERE.

www.ranchocamulos.org



A short stroll later brought me to make-up artist and historian Michael F. Blake. He’s written several books about Lon Chaney, and two about westerns: HOLLYWOOD AND THE O.K. CORRAL, and CODE OF HONOR: THE MAKING OF THREE GREAT AMERICAN WESTERNS. He was heading out to New Orleans the next day. “Going on ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER. We’re going to do the Battle of Gettysburg. It’s going to take three days, same amount of time as the real battle, minus the vampires.”























I was checking out the wide range of food choices when I ran into a cluster of folks from the upcoming YELLOW ROCK: writer-producer Steve Doucette, writer-producer-female lead Lenore Andriel, and actors Joe Billingiere, Amy Jennings, Elaine Lockley Smith and Natasha Kaye. YELLOW ROCK was shot at nearby Veluzat Ranch (read my two-part story of that production HERE and HERE), and we were soon joined by Daniel Veluzat. To our delight, Daniel, who runs both ranches, took us on a personal tour. He told us that things are pretty busy at the ranch these days. “We did PRIEST, which is a big movie and coming out very soon. They took the western town and totally changed it all around. Recently we did a commercial for Dodge. A lot of (location) scoutings are taking place, a lot of westerns in pre-production.”

Among the sights of interest he pointed out: the saloon exterior where the Long Branch once stood; the jail interior used in dozens – maybe hundreds – of shows; the blacksmith shop – considerably remodeled since GUNSMOKE; the wires strung clothes-line-like, across the end of the street, to hold a giant ‘green-screen’, making it possible to have the town end anywhere; and the building used sometimes as a church, sometimes as a schoolhouse. One of the oldest standing structures, it really was Gene Autry’s schoolhouse as a boy, and he bought it, and moved it to his ranch. In the studio museum we saw the bar used in THE SHOOTIST; cast chairs from a variety of series, including a BONANZA guest-star chair; the Ponderosa living-room fireplace; a revolving cyclorama background, against which cowboys could walk, or ride fake horses, forever without going anywhere.

After lunch, finished off with cowboy coffee and dutch-oven-cooked peach cobbler prepared by the Cowboy Cultural Committee and Chuckwagon Cooks (find them HERE),
http://www.visaliacowboys.com/

I parted with the others to see the rest of the sights. In the Book Corral I ran into western history authors Julie Reams, Robert S. Birchard and C. Courtney Joyner having a heated debate over whether Howards Hawks’s films in the 1960s were worthy of his earlier work, and whether the great action directors of the 20s, 30s and 40s were humiliated to be directing TV in the 60s with impossible time limits.

Here and there were costumed performers, folks spinning yarn and others spinning lariats, Dave Bourne on his saloon piano… But some of the most pleasing moments were later, in the near-deserted saloon and the empty streets. There is a magic to being on movie sets, especially Western sets, which a Universal Studios Tour, with its built-for-the-tour attractions, can approach but never reach. If you missed it this year, don’t repeat the mistake next year. Stroll the wooden sidewalks, swing open the bat-wing saloon doors, and feel the magic.

*You generally only want to twirl a single-action pistol because it has to be cocked to be fired. A double-action cocks and fires when you pull the trigger, so in twirling, it would be easy to accidentally fire.

TARANTINO UNMUZZLED – DJANGO UNCHAINED!




After all the claims and denials and back-and-forth talk, Quentin Tarantino has turned a draft of his Southern-fried Spaghetti Western, DJANGO UNCHAINED in to the Weinsteins. It’s unclear how closely or distantly related it will be to the original Segio Corbucci-directed DJANGO (1966), which starred Franco Nero, and was more popular and influential in Europe than the Leone/Eastwood westerns, and led to countless imitations and sequels.

One definite change is that this Django will be black, a freed slave, and the buzz is that he will become a bounty-hunter, trained by experienced tracker Christophe Waltz. According to Deadline Hollywood, he plans to start shooting before the end of the year. He script is being kept tightly under wraps, after the cover-page got leaked. And here’s something fun to think about: Fred Williamson recently told me he was getting ready to do a new spaghetti western with Franco Nero. In 1976, Fred starred in JOSHUA as a returned Civil War soldier who becomes a bounty hunter…

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY BUYS MONOGRAM STUDIOS!






Financially strapped independent public broadcasting station KCET has sold its 4.5 acre Sunset Boulevard studio to the Church of Scientology. It’s the former home of Monogram Pictures, one of the most prolific of the poverty-row studios. The location of movie facilities since 1912, it was acquired by Monogram in 1936. Among the many series of films produced on the lot were The Bowery Boys, Charlie Chan and Mr. Wong films. The Western series produced on the lot included The Cisco Kid, the Range Busters and The Rough Riders – the latter starring Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton. The studio’s stars included Tex Ritter, Duncan Renaldo, Crash Corrigan, Johnny Mack Brown and, at the start of his career, John Wayne.

Although it is often said that the lot was taken over by Allied Artists, the truth is that Monogram’s owners, knowing they’d developed a reputation for cheapie productions, simply changed the company name to Allied Artists. The Church of Scientology intends to use the facility to make their own training videos. Although it’s always sad to see a studio leave the mainstream of filmmaking, there wasn’t much left on the lot to suggest its history. Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard made his living writing for the pulps – westerns included -- before he decided to start a religion, and Monogram was surely the pulpiest of studios, so it’s not that bad a fit.

‘HELL ON WHEELS’ RELEASES FIRST TRAILER




HELL ON WHEELS, the new AMC Western series focusing on the building of the trans-continental railroad, and stars Anson Mount as a former Confederate soldier seeking revenge, has released its first trailer. Check it out HERE. The pilot is in the can; the series starts shooting in Canada this week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78zEDBmHwbU

‘COWBOYS AND ALIENS’ RELEASES EXTENDED TRAILER




On a recent American Idol episode, viewers got their first look at a 2 ½ minute trailer for the sci-fi Western coming this July. See it HERE:

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2016976153/

FIRST POSTER-ART FOR ‘YELLOW ROCK’




The first poster for this summer’s YELLOW ROCK can be seen above, featuring James Russo. The film also stars Michael Biehn, Lenore Andriel and Michael Spears. To learn more, visit their site HERE, their Facebook page HERE.

www.yellowrockmovie.com

www.facebook.com/yellowrockmovie

THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepeneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permenant galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.





HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywood western, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.

WELLS FARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


FREE WESTERNS ON YOUR COMPUTER AT HULU

A staggering number of western TV episodes and movies are available, entirely free, for viewing on your computer at HULU. You do have to sit through the commercials, but that seems like a small price to pay. The series available -- often several entire seasons to choose from -- include THE RIFLEMAN, THE CISCO KID, THE LONE RANGER, BAT MASTERSON, THE BIG VALLEY, ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, and one I missed from 2003 called PEACEMAKERS starring Tom Berenger. Because they are linked up with the TV LAND website, you can also see BONANZA and GUNSMOKE episodes, but only the ones that are running on the network that week.

The features include a dozen Zane Grey adaptations, and many or most of the others are public domain features. To visit HULU on their western page, CLICK HERE.

TV LAND - BONANZA and GUNSMOKE

Every weekday, TV LAND airs a three-hour block of BONANZA episodes from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They run a GUNSMOKE Monday through Thursday at 10:00 a.m., and on Friday they show two, from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m.. They're not currently running either series on weekends, but that could change at any time.

NEED YOUR BLACK & WHITE TV FIX?

Check out your cable system for WHT, which stands for World Harvest Television. It's a religious network that runs a lot of good western programming. Your times may vary, depending on where you live, but weekdays in Los Angeles they run DANIEL BOONE at 1:00 p.m., and two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.. On Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. it's THE RIFLEMAN again, followed at 2:30 by BAT MASTERSON. And unlike many stations in the re-run business, they run the shows in the original airing order. There's an afternoon movie on weekdays at noon, often a western, and they show western films on the weekend, but the schedule is sporadic.

Also, AMC has started showing two episodes of THE RIFLEMAN on Saturday mornings.

That's all for tonight, pardners!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Contents Copyright May 2011 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved