‘HELL ON WHEELS’ FINAL SEASON STARTS JULY 18
When I said here that HELL ON WHEELS, the best
original Western series in decades, would begin its fifth and final season on
July 18th, I heard from star Anson Mount. “Just to clarify, it’s not our final season, it’s our final order. We’re airing seven of them this year, and
seven of them next year, so there will be a ‘quote-unquote’ sixth season.”
The first big difference will be that Cullen Bohanan
(Mount) will be switching his allegiance from the Southern Pacific Railroad to
their rivals in the race to Promontory Point, the Central Pacific. I’ll have my review of the opening episode as
we get closer to the 18th, and you can read my interview with Anson
Mount in the September issue of TRUE WEST MAGAZINE. In the meantime, here’s our first peek at the
new season:
THE LAST SHOOTIST by Miles Swarthout – a Book Review
Glendon Swarthout is one of the most respected and
enduring of Western novelists, and THE SHOOTIST may well be his finest work in
the genre – the Western Writers of
America voted it #4 in its list of Ten Best Western Novels of
all-time. So I can imagine the
trepidation his son, Miles Swarthout, felt in doing a sequel. But he has more right than anyone else, and
not just because his father wrote the original.
In a unique-in-Hollywood package deal, before offering the original
novel for publication, Glendon offered his son the chance to adapt it to a
screenplay, and they were sold together.
So Miles was intimately involved in the story of aging gunslinger J.B.
Books from the very beginning.
Many people know the story of THE SHOOTIST from the
novel, but immeasurably more know it from the film, in which John Wayne gave
his final performance, and one of his finest, due in no small part to father
and son Swarthouts’ wonderful story and script, and Don Siegel’s equally fine
direction. SPOILER ALERT! Of course, if you’ve read the novel or seen
the movie, the quandary facing a sequel is clear: Books dies in the end. The obvious approach would be to do a
prequel, usually a disappointing, bastardized form of storytelling, where the
reader, instead of being surprised, already knows the ending, and has to
unexciting chore of judging how convincingly the teller gets there. Instead, in THE LAST SHOOTIST, Miles has
continued not the story of J.B.
Books, but that of Gillom Rogers (Ron Howard in the film), the obnoxious son of
Books’ landlady, Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall).
Miles Swarthout with Courtney Joyner
And Miles has done an absolutely enthralling
job! If you haven’t read the first book,
and you should, you don’t really know
Gillom. Ron Howard’s version was
something of a punk, but on paper, Gillom Rogers is the poster-boy for callow
youth. As the story begins, continuing
directly from the end of the first novel, Gillom, who has already stolen from
the dying gunman, gives Books, at his request, the coup de gras as he lies bleeding, and keeps Books’ fabled pair of
Remingtons as a prize.
The possession of these pistols triggers a series of
sometimes frantic adventures that send him running out of town, running for his
life. At first his wanderings seem
random, but they are driving him to a dramatic conclusion, which will see
Gillom become, if not quite a mature or wholly admirable man, at least someone
on that road. The way there is full
interesting characters, both real and fictional.
There is friendship, romance, and plenty of brutal
bloodletting, much of which would not be necessary if Gillom used his head more
often, which is, amazingly, much of the tale’s charm. While the story is certainly not heartless,
there is an often humorous sense of, “Well, what did he think was going to happen when he put himself in this
position?” You want to see what Gillom
does next in the same way that you want to see where a runaway stagecoach will
go.
Hemingway described imitating another author’s style
as, “…trying to beat dead men at their own game,” and Miles, while clearly
influenced by his father’s work, does not slavishly copy Glendon, and has a
very readable style all his own. He also
enjoys sharing the sort of detail that makes period stories come to life. When you finish THE LAST SHOOTIST, in
addition to being entertained, you will be prepared to start a new life, at the
turn of the 20th century, as either a horse-breaker, or a whore in a
mid-range brothel. You can buy a signed
copy of THE LAST SHOOTIST, as well as a DVD of the film THE SHOOTIST, from our
friends at OutWest HERE.
GENE AUTRY COLLECTION # 10 – a Video Review
This newest collection of Public Cowboy #1’s movies
features four early films, and much of the added pleasure is seeing both Gene’s
and the film series’ growth from picture to picture. The set features one movie per year from 1935
through 1938, and with Gene making eight pictures a year, the progress from
picture to picture is striking. All
films feature sidekick Smiley Burnette and Champion.
In THE SINGING VAGABOND (1935), one of his few
period Westerns, Gene leads a singing group of riders, the Singing Plainsmen,
who rescue a wagon-train of showgirls, and Gene gets framed for horse-theft for
his trouble. Lovely Ann Rutherford, a
runaway heiress, is his leading lady.
It’s a lot of fun, but the musical numbers are often operatic, and feel
like they should be in a Dick Foran Western rather than an Autry. Gene wears way too much make-up, and he hasn’t started playing himself – he’s
‘Tex’ Autry in this one. Keep your eyes
open for future Republic star Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan in one of his earliest
roles.
In OH, SUSANNA! (1936), fives movies later, it’s
modern day (for 1936), and Gene plays radio star Gene Autry, who is once again
framed, this time for murder. The
make-up is gone, the songs are more appropriate to Gene, and better
incorporated. But Gene does something
you rarely see in later films – he kisses
the girl, Frances Grant, at the end!
Directed by one of Republic’s finest, Joe Kane, the action is first
rate. It also features, as Aunt Peggy,
one of the great stars of the silent screen, Clara Kimball Young.
In ROOTIN TOOTIN’ RHYTHM (1937), no one plans to
frame rancher Gene Autry until he and
Smiley knowingly steal and don clothes of known criminals! The stress is on humor as well as action in
this one, and the story is by Johnston McCulley, who created the character
Zorro! Mexicali Rose is one of the stand-out songs. An amusing braggart character is Buffalo
Brady, played by Hal Taliaferro (pronounced ‘Toliver’), who had been a star as
Wally Wales, but had a much longer career after, as a supporting player. Armida is Gene’s girl, and for the first of
many times in a film, he sings in Spanish.
When they move in for a clinch at the end, the fans had already spoken
their disapproval, so Gene and Armida actually step out of frame for a moment, then
come back, and only Ernst Lubitsch fans will know they kissed!
Finally with WESTERN JAMBOREE (1938), all of the
elements you expect from an Autry movie are present, including Smiley
Burnette’s classic wardrobe of checkered shirt and crushed black hat. Also present was Ring-Eye, Smiley’s white
horse, who had a black circle around one eye, presumably in tribute to Petey,
the ring-eyed pit bull from the Our Gang
comedies. And what a plot! Half is a lift from LADY FOR A DAY, the
Capra-filmed Damon Runyon story, here about an old saddle tramp whose friends,
including Gene, help him pass himself off as the owner of a dude ranch to
impress his daughter and his would-be in-laws.
The other half of the plot is about helium rustlers! The cast includes famous comic dancer Joe
Frisco, Ken Maynard’s brother Kermit, and soon-to-be Western singing star Eddie
Dean.
The special features for the GENE AUTRY COLLECTION
sets always match up each movie with stills and posters, interesting production
facts, excerpts from the Melody Ranch
Radio Show, and intros from MELODY RANCH THEATER. MELODY RANCH THEATER was a 1987 TV series on The Nashville Network, where Gene and
sidekick and movie historian Pat Buttram would introduce Gene’s movies. Always entertaining, the four intros here are
a remarkable collection not only for Gene’s fans, but for fans of Westerns in
particular, and Hollywood in general.
The first features an interview with Gene’s leading lady not only in SMILING
VAGABOND but in three other movies, Ann Rutherford. They discuss not only her work with Gene, but
her career at MGM, as Polly Benedict in the HARDY FAMILY films. The second interview features Gene’s wife,
Jackie Autry, and a discussion of the plans for the then not-yet-built Gene Autry Museum. The third chat is with Alex Cohen, who
started out as the teenage president of Gene Autry’s fan club in Britain, and
later became Gene’s tour advance man and assistant for decades. Finally, the boys talk to George Sherman, who
directed Gene seven times, and John Wayne nine times -- from PALS OF THE SADDLE
(1938) to BIG JAKE (1971). Pat quizzes
them, and hearing what George and Gene have to say about Republic Pictures, budgets, salaries, block booking, and colorization
is, alone, worth the price of the collection.
The folks at Gene
Autry Entertainment tell me that by the end of 2015, every Gene Autry
movie, TV show and his serial, THE PHANTOM EMPIRE, will be available on home
video. And they’re all available from
our friends at The Autry Museum Store HERE.
THAT’S A WRAP!
Next week I’ll have news about and exciting new
radio talk-show about Western writers, a potential new AMC Western series from the
producer of JUSTIFIED, and my review of the new Scottish/Kiwi Western coming to
home video, SLOW WEST! Have a great
week!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright June 2015 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved
