Wednesday, October 31, 2018
BOBBY CRAWFORD REMEMBERS ‘LARAMIE’, KCET’S ‘TENDING NATURE’ – EXCLUSIVE PEEK, PLUS NEW iPHONE SPAGHETTI WESTERN ‘THE CONDEMNED’!
BOBBY CRAWFORD REMEMBERS ‘LARAMIE’
BY HENRY C. PARKE
LARAMIE's Bobby Crawford, Robert Fuller
and John Smith
When the Emmy nominations for
1959 were announced, the Crawford clan managed a trifecta that no other
show-business family has ever matched – not the Barrymores, not the Hustons,
not the Fondas -- even though none of the Crawfords won. Robert Crawford Sr. was
nominated for Best Editing of a Film for Television for THE BOB CUMMINGS SHOW,
and lost to Silvio D'Alisera on PROJECT 20. Son Johnny Crawford’s work on THE
RIFLEMAN saw him nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Continuing Character, in
a Drama Series, which he lost to Dennis Weaver, playing Chester in
GUNSMOKE.
But perhaps the most impressive
nomination was for Johnny’s older brother, 14-year-old Robert Crawford Jr., whose
appearance on PLAYHOUSE 90, in an episode called CHILD OF OUR TIME, would not
only earn him a nomination for Best Single Performance by an Actor, but pit him
against Fred Astaire, Paul Muni, Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, and Mickey
Rooney. “I got to sit right in front of Fred Astaire during the show,” Bobby
recalls, “And he tapped me on the shoulder and he says, ‘Oh, we're the same
category, and that's ridiculous.’ And he
won the award that night.” But remarkably, fourteen years later, Bobby would
re-team with his show’s soon-to-be-legendary director, George Roy Hill, not as
an actor, but as producer on a string of classic films including THE STING, THE
GREAT WALDO PEPPER, SLAPSHOT, A LITTLE ROMANCE, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP,
and THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL.
In the heat of this past summer,
I had the opportunity to chat with Bobby about his wide-ranging career, and his
family, who already had a history in “the biz.” His mother, Betty Megerlin, was
a stage actress with parents who were both vaudeville violinists. “On the other
side of the family tree, my grandpa Bobby Crawford was a music publisher.” When
he met his soon-to-be-bride, Thelma Briney, Bobby relates, “She was a piano
player at a five and dime store. My grandpa later on was a music publisher with
DeSylva, Brown and Henderson. And they created the song, I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store.” Grandpa
Bobby, who managed Al Jolson, built Crawford
Music,
“Sold it to Warner Brothers in 1928. And then lost his fortune in the
1929 [Stock Market Crash].”
Jump ahead a generation, and
it’s déjà vu: Robert Crawford (the
soon-to-be-editor), is working as an extra at Universal Pictures when a fellow extra wants to introduce him to
the girl he’s been courting.
“So, my
dad walked into the room and my mom was playing the piano and he was smitten
immediately by her.” It took some time, but he stole her away, and they were
married in New York City by Norman Vincent Peale, the Minister famous for his
bestseller, THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING. Robert was working as a film
librarian at Columbia Pictures when
he was drafted into World War II. He joined the Marines, wanting to be a
cameraman, but when they learned of his background, he was made a military film
librarian at Quantico. “He never talked a lot about it, but he felt guilty
about doing the librarian work because he would get all this footage in; the
cameraman's shooting everything, and then oftentimes you'd see the camera
images fall into the sand, as the man had been hit. He did that from ‘43 to ‘46
and I was born in Quantico.”
HENRY PARKE: When did you start
acting?
BOBBY CRAWFORD: [My parents] did
some shows at the Pasadena Playhouse. He had a scooter and they'd go out to
Pasadena from Hollywood, Mom riding on the back, and then have to change from
her scooter clothes into the costume. I remember being a child and watching
them in a small theater in Hollywood. My brother I think was four years old
when he did Little Boy Lost in a
stage show somewhere in Hollywood. And I did a few little things that I don't
recall except I recall being Tiny Tim in some Christmas show. I was about eight
years old. My folks never really belonged to a church, but Grandma sent us off
to Sunday school; we went to the Christian Science Church on Olympic Boulevard,
and our Sunday School teacher just happened to be one of the major agents for
children in Hollywood. She took an interest in both John and I, and she started
representing us and sending us out on commercials. John started getting MATINEE
THEATRE [an hour-long daily live TV drama anthology], and small parts, and I'd
get a commercial now and then. Johnny was the Anglo-looking blond kid and I was
the Hispanic-looking Latino, and I did Indians and French and Spanish-looking
roles as a child. I remember the Fritos
commercial, being at the factory and eating them hot off the assembly line; it
was really good.
HENRY PARKE: Did you take acting
classes, or did your parents teach you?
BOBBY CRAWFORD: My mom was our
coach. We’d go on interviews, and we'd sit out in the lobby and read through
the lines. And the instruction I got from mom, then reinforced when I got my
first big break, by the director George Roy Hill, is the most important thing
about acting? Don't. Don't act. Just be real. I think that was my cue. Therefore,
I figured I'd better not study acting, I'd better just do it. I remember years
later reading the James Cagney autobiography. They asked him, what's your
secret to acting? And he says, stand there and tell the truth. So, I think
those are my two bits of instruction. And I was afraid to get into school plays
or get into theater at UCLA, thinking whatever it was that I did -- and I
didn't know what it was I did -- it seemed to be working, and I was afraid I'd
get corrupted if I started to try to learn it.
HENRY PARKE: You appeared on a
number of TV shows – DONNA REED, WYATT EARP, ZORRO.
BOBBY CRAWFORD: I did a couple
of ZORROS. I remember, I loved being at the Disney
Studios and I also loved being with Zorro, Guy Williams, a wonderful man
and a beautiful man. And Mary Wickes played my aunt. And the sergeant on ZORRO,
Henry Calvin. I didn't realize he was a great opera singer. A roly-poly fellow,
and a wonderful man. Zorro saves me from the well, I guess, but I remember
hugging the big burly Spanish soldier.
Bobby in Playhouse 90's
A Child of Our Time
HENRY PARKE: Before LARAMIE, you
were nominated for an Emmy for A CHILD OF OUR TIME, where you play Tanguay, a
boy who winds up in a Nazi Concentration Camp. How big an effect was your Emmy
nomination on your career? Had you already been cast in LARAMIE?
BOBBY CRAWFORD: No, I got LARAMIE
immediately after doing A CHILD OF OUR TIME, right about the time we were
nominated. A Producer, Robert Pirosh, cast me, wanted me. He was the writer of
the pilot, [and] strongly committed to the series, involved and in charge. I
came out to do a reading with Bob Fuller, a screen test; we did the scene
together. Slim [Sherman, the role John Smith would ultimately play], was the
part that he had originally been cast for, and he went up to talk to a fellow I
later worked with, Pat Kelly, and said, ‘It's wonderful, but the part's wrong.
I should be Jess.’ And Pat Kelly said, ‘Oh yeah?’ He said, ‘Absolutely, I can't
do it otherwise.’ John Smith was a very nice man and he said, ‘It's fine with
me.’ Fuller said, ‘Let me test for it.’ And so we did the scene in which he was
going to convince the powers that be that he should play Jess. And he convinced
them that I should play Slim’s brother. Of course, me being the Latino, I’d had
my head shaved. It's just, John Smith was blond, and I'm supposed to be his brother, and I looked a lot more
like Bob Fuller. So they dyed my hair blond for the pilot. And it grew out in
like four months. I went from being a short haired blond to brunette with long
hair in the series. But anyway, it didn't really matter. They had their show
and it went on the air along with RIVERBOAT which featured some unknown guys, one
of them being Burt Reynolds. I just remember Eastwood starting RAWHIDE and Burt
Reynolds on RIVERBOAT our same season, and I was astonished that our show was a
hit. I just said, wow, I got a job, and I get to go to the studio every day.
And then I was worried. I still wanted
to get into UCLA at that time. I was just starting high school, and I’d just
run into the first defeat of my career in school, geometry. But I remember
getting a leg up because I had a private tutor on LARAMIE.
HENRY PARKE: What were Robert
Fuller and John Smith like?
John Smith and Bobby
BOBBY CRAWFORD: They were jolly.
They were in their prime. They were just thrilled to be starring in the series.
They were congenial and having fun on the set, which is the only time I got to
be with them for the most part. We had some publicity stunt things that we did,
I did a double- date with Bob Fuller once. At 14 or 15 years old I got myself a
moped, and I would tool around, in the Hollywood Hills, before I could have a
driver's license. And there is a shot of Bob Fuller on my moped. Other than
that we had very little social contact off the set. But it was like going to
Disneyland each a day of work when you walked into the set. The guys were all
about the business of shooting the scene and the story and getting onto the
next one. There isn't a whole lot of time between takes and so would have our
chairs. I remember that first Christmas in the show, Bob Fuller bought us all
nice leather director's chairs, with our names engraved on them.
John Smith was the most
beautiful man I had ever seen in my life. I don't know what kind of curse that
was on him, but he just wasn't real to see in life. He was decent, charming man,
but it was so hard to get over -- it was like he was back-lit all the time. He just
glowed in the dark, in the sunlight. You couldn't be help but be struck by it. He's not real, he's so good looking. And Fuller
was good-looking, but rugged; it wasn't quite the same impact.
Robert Fuller and Bobby
Bob Fuller had a forearm as big
as my thigh. And my ambition as a kid in that series was to get a forearm as
big as Bob Fuller's. So I would do my push-ups and pull-ups and my fencing. But
I never learned how to build my body so I'd get a forearm like Bob Fuller. Bob
was a great charismatic fellow. He was a quick draw. What I was learning on LARAMIE
was my lines, and how to be a quick draw. I got the steel holster that helped
make you a quick draw. But I could never quite out-draw Bob. I came close, but
I didn't get the cigar.
HENRY PARKE: How about Hoagy
Carmichael?
Smith, Fuller, Hoagy Carmichael and Bobby
BOBBY CRAWFORD: I adored Hoagy
Carmichael. I'm ashamed to say I didn't get to know Hoagy other than in
passing. We have a couple of episodes
where he's showing me the piano, and he's singing a cute song. Now in my later
years, I find myself driving down the road singing Stardust in the morning. And I'm thinking, if only I'd known about
that when he was playing at the piano.
HENRY PARKE: Did you have any favorite
guest stars?
Ernest Borgnine plays a former soldier accused
of cowardice in this episode
BOBBY CRAWFORD: It was just
terrific fun to work with Ernie Borgnine. I remember being under the table with
him. I knew he was an Academy Award winner, and doing TV was still a second gig
for a movie actor. He was always playing these mean tough guys, but in person,
he was just the most easygoing, charming guy who just loved being there on the
set, as I did. And on the first episode, Dan Duryea, playing the bad guy. He had
this wonderful demeanor about him. I just remember him being scary. A scary
man. He was good casting, a dangerous fellow. I loved all the actors that I got
to be around. Every one of them was a character, but it was true of all the
grips, electricians, the prop men; everybody who would be on a Hollywood set is
a pro, especially if you got lucky enough to get into the major leagues, and I
was in the majors then. Those guys are having fun. They're so confident about
what they do that they can just have fun doing it. There's the pressure of
getting it done, but they're very confident they're going to get it done well. You’re
imbued with confidence when you're on a set like that. Everything works, and nobody
gets hurt. You only appreciate as an adult, that movie-making is all about
moving. You are moving arcs and lights, and in those days the equipment was
big, heavy. And it's horses and wagons and, and I only appreciated later how
physical making a good movie can be, and making a Western in particular. And
also how absolutely prone to accidents things can be, and that's why you want
guys who don't have accidents.
Dan Duryea is the villain in
Laramie's pilot
HENRY PARKE: On LARAMIE you had
two of my absolute favorite action directors, Leslie Selander and Joe Kane. Do you
have any memories of working with them?
BOBBY CRAWFORD: I remember
Leslie Selander, because I loved his name. I remember the directors telling me
what to do. I don't remember them vividly; in fact the only director I remember
vividly was Lee Sholem, who was a director on CHEYENNE. Who was called “Roll
'em Sholem.” Which was because -- look, there's an airplane! Roll 'em! He was a
forceful character. And you didn't want to do two takes with Roll 'em Sholem.
You wanted to do one take. I remember
the cameramen and I remember faces, but I think I was kind of intimidated and
shy on the set; I didn't develop relationships with the crew. I was always
feeling a bit like I was the kid on the show, not necessarily the pro on the
show. I don't know. Somehow, my brother John would get around to every member
of the set, [even]the background extras. He knew everybody on the set, and I
knew everybody to say hi, but I didn't develop relationships. I think I just
sort of passed through my experience as a kid on LARAMIE, enjoying the moments
and remembering some of them, but mostly just saying this too will pass.
HENRY PARKE: You did a few guest
shots on THE RIFLEMAN. How did you like working with your kid brother?
BOBBY CRAWFORD: I did, and the
problem was it was just a couple of days work. We got to get on horses, we'd be
here and we'd be there. We had to go to school for three hours and then we’d
get to be on the set a bit. We got to wrestle in one of them; we got a lot of
practice at that.
HENRY PARKE: Early in season two
of LARAMIE, you and Hoagy Carmichael disappeared.
BOBBY CRAWFORD: Bob Pirosh left, and then John Champion came
along. [Note: Writer and producer John Champion had made several successful
Westerns for Allied Artists, and
would produce LARAMIE and write 36 episodes.] I didn't know who John Champion
was, and I didn't make it a point of trying to stay in the show, or even think
that I wouldn't, until the next season began and they said well, they've
written you out. And I said, okay, I'll do something else. Whether Hoagy wanted
to leave or not, I don't know. And I never talked to anybody about it.
With LARAMIE, my experience with
the cowboys and the horses, what was probably 20 weeks of working and being
part of it, was sensational. It made me feel like a real Hollywood cowboy, and
I could go to Griffith Park, where I had a horse for about three years, that I
would groom and take care of, and be the king of corral 17, and go on parades
and riding. I felt comfortable around horses and always have felt at home in a
stable around the big animals. That I thought was my gift from LARAMIE.
HENRY PARKE: A couple of seasons
later they brought in a new kid, Dennis Holmes and Spring Byington essentially
playing a female version of Hoagy Carmichael. Did you feel vindicated?
BOBBY CRAWFORD: Well, I'm
ashamed to say I haven't watched it, but I don't think I was watching it when I
was making it, either. I didn't want to be inhibited. I do have the DVD set of
the first season, and I have watched some episodes. If I'm going to a signing
show, I'll run an episode or two, but I'm ashamed to say I haven't done that
with THE RIFLEMAN episodes either. So I am an uninformed participant. And
before I go to Kanab, I think I'm going to run some RIFLEMANS and some more LARAMIES,
LARAMIES I haven't been in. I owe Dennis Holmes a look.
In the next Round-up, the second
and final part of my interview, Bobby Crawford discusses his work on BUTCH CASSIDY
AND THE SUNDANCE KID, and twenty years as Producer to iconic movie Director George
Roy Hill.
SHOUT FACTORY has put LARAMIE out on DVD, although season one is out of print. The entire series is available on STARZ.
KCET PRESENTS ‘TENDING NATURE’ PREMIERING
NOVEMBER 7TH!
Following up on the fascinating
Emmy-winning documentary TENDING THE WILD, produced in partnership with KCET
and THE AUTRY MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN WEST, the partners have made a 3-year
commitment to continue with the series TENDING NATURE, which premieres Wednesday,
November 7th. Just as TENDING THE WILD examined land management
techniques used for centuries by American Indians, TENDING NATURE will explore
California’s Native stories, traveling across the state to visit and hear from
several Indian communities striving to revive their cultures and inform western
sciences. This season, the Tolowa Dee-Ni’, Ohlone, Pit River tribes, and the
multi-tribal Potawot Health Village, will welcome the series and share their
knowledge on topics including ocean toxicity, decolonizing cuisine, tribal
hunting, food deserts, and traditional sweats.
Henry’s Western Round-up is honored to share the exclusive following
first look.
HERE’S ‘THE CONDEMNED’, A NEW
TEN-MINUTE SPAGHETTI WESTERN SHOT ON AN iPHONE!
Director Edwards on location
Filmmaker Jay Wade Edwards set
out to make an American film, pretending to be an Italian film, which is itself
pretending to be an American film: an Italian-language Spaghetti Western shot
in, well, the West! Not just any west, but around one of the most photographed
of western locales, Pioneertown! And he
shot it, spectacularly, on an iPhone! I’ll
have more details coming soon to the Round-up, but for now, here is the
wonderfully daft movie itself. Enjoy!
UNSPOOLED ‘HIGH NOON’ PODCAST
POSTED!
UNSPOOLED’s Paul Scheer and Amy
Nicholson are re-examining all of the films on the AFI 100 Best Movies of All-Time list, with 100 individual podcasts. They're very knowledgeable about film, but are not Western nerds, which
makes their discussion of HIGH NOON, and its placement on the list all the more insightful and entertaining. They’re also
funny as Hell. I had a great time as their guest on this segment, and think
you’ll enjoy it – especially since, whether you’re a HIGH NOON or RIO BRAVO loyalist,
you’ll find plenty to be offended by! Here’s the link to the series. HIGH NOON is #19, and APOCALYPSE NOW, #20, begins with listener comments about HIGH NOON. Enjoy them all!
ONE MORE THING…
If you’re looking for a spooky
Western to watch on Hallowe’en (and who isn’t?) Here’s a link to my True West
article on the best and worst of the ‘Weird Westerns.’
AND THAT’S A WRAP!
Happy Trails, and Happy Hallowe'en!
Henry
All Original Content Copyright
October 2018 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved
Labels:
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Sunday, August 26, 2018
‘COWBOY WAY’ RETURNS TO INSP TONIGHT! STAR BOOGER BROWN TALKS ABOUT SEASON FOUR!
Booger Brown doing his best Jack Benny
If you’re on the West
Coast, Booger and Cody and Bubba and their brides and kids will be back for
season four of THE COWBOY WAY today at 5 pm. If you’re on the East Coast it’ll
be 8 pm. It airs again on Thursday night -- check your local listings for times. Just a couple of days ago I had
the chance to talk to Booger Brown about the show, the network, his partners
and family, and what’s in store for fans.
For those of you who
haven’t watched the show, Booger, Cody and Bubba are partners in the Faith Cattle Company. They’ve been
friends and co-workers for many years. Cody Harris is married to Misty, and
they have a son, Carter. Bubba Thompson is married to Kaley, and they have a daughter,
Andie. Booger married Jaclyn, a widowed pharmacist, with a young son, Matthew,
in season two. Booger began by talking about the article I wrote about the show
for True West Magazine. If you haven’t read the piece, you can CLICKHERE.
Booger Brown: Mr. Henry,!
Henry Parke: Booger! How are you doing, sir?
Booger Brown: Now I'm
doing good. How are you? I just looked
at that magazine just this morning, man. You did a heck of a job. Everybody was
real excited, and our photographer, he was pretty excited that he got his
pictures in a magazine.
Henry Parke: Well that's great. It was such fun to meet
all of you and it's great to talk to you again. I can't believe when we met you
had just wrapped up season three and now you've got another season ready to go.
It seems so quick.
Booger Brown: Yeah.
Henry Parke: My wife is a huge fan of the show and she
made me promise that I'd tell you that she loved your wedding. Jaclyn looked
gorgeous. My wife especially loved your having the pillow made out of your granddad’s
shirt there.
Booger Brown: Thank you.
Henry Parke: How are you enjoying being a daddy to
Matthew?
Matthew, Jaclyn and Booger
Booger Brown: Oh man, it's great. There ain't no if, ands or
buts about it. I couldn't draw a picture or couldn't write down a kid who would
be any more perfect fit in my life then my little old son Matthew. I mean, he
is it. When I first met Jaclyn, Matthew loved cars. His daddy passed away when
he was 13 months old, and he sold cars. And Matthew, he's turned on this cowboy thing,
and especially when I'm keeping him, he comes home and he puts on his cowboy
shirts and cowboy hat and cowboy boots and cowboy buckle belt -- he calls it not
belt buckle but his buckle belt. And he wants to ride his pony and he goes with
me. You can't ask for more.
One evening about a week
ago, I was real tired, and he said, “Dad,
I want to ride my pony. Will you catch Trigger so I can ride him?” And I was
thinking, I waited my whole life for a little old kid to ask me that, to want
to go do what I do. And you can't turn it down. So I called his horse and kind
of caught my second wind. And I thought, you know, I need to pen them heifers,
bring 'em in. I went and caught my horse and I was leading Matthew everywhere I
went, and he followed me while we penned the heifers; he likes being big boy
and he likes being a country boy. At that point he said, “Dad, can I take my
shirt off?” And I said, “You bet you
can: take it off!” He throws his shirt off and he thinks that's cool, you know.
And his boots, he's got slip- on boots and they're a little big for him, and
they slide off his feet while he's riding the horse. I had to fix them a time
or two, and I was trying to pen them cattle. And he said, “My boots! My boots!”
I said, “Give 'em here.” And I threw them over by a tree. We went out of the
house this morning and he couldn't find his boots, and Jaclyn said, "I
don't know where they're at." And I thought about it, and they're still
there in the pasture by that tree! (laughs)
Henry Parke: I have to tell you I just got to see the
first episode of season four, where you get Matthew his own horse and it's just
the dream of my childhood.
Booger Brown: Did you see
him when he took his hat off? He got his horse, and he's trotting around the
yard. He takes his hat off and holds it up in the air. Like 'Howdy y'all!'
Henry Parke: A lot of season 3 was about you and your
partners getting into the restaurant business. Were you disappointed that it
didn’t work out?
Booger Brown: No, I wasn’t.
It was something we thought we could go and do, it’d be profitable for us guys.
And we got us a belly full of it, and we decided we were already married, and
we was in the cattle business. We didn't need to be in two things. Couldn't be
married to anything else, you know?
The trio plus one: Cody, unidentified,
Booger and Bubbah
Henry Parke: Have you spent all of your life in Alabama?
Booger Brown: No, I
actually grew up in South Florida. We had ranched in South Florida and my family had a lot of historythere ; you
should check it out sometime. William Brown come over from England when they
were laying the transatlantic cable. He hid out in Cuba and then got a ride on
over here to America. He become an
Indian Agent, and he started the Brown’s Boat Landing where the Seminole Big
Cypress Reservation is now. There’s a video on Youtube called MYSTERY OF
WILLIAM H. BROWN AND BROWN’S TRADING POST. I honestly haven't watched the whole
Youtube video because it starts showing my granddaddy talking and I know I
can't really handle seeing him, you know, but it's good stuff. The day they
buried him, when they got done with a funeral, the Indians came and treated him
just like he was an Indian and held an Indian ceremony at his grave. That's
pretty cool, you know.
I was in my teens when we
came to Alabama and bought a piece of property. (In Florida) it just got tough
with the environmentalists and we realized if we were ever going to actually own
anything ourselves, we had to get out of there.
My Dad is still a rancher
here today. My mom and dad have been together for 35 years. Got married young
and my Dad tells a story of when him and my mom got together. There was lots of
wild cattle, and they had 'em a jeep, and a tranquilizer gun, and they would go
around and tranquilize wild cattle in this old jeep, and had me in a car seat
riding that old jeep at two years old. They would go around and tranquilize
them, then come back with a trailer and load them up, and that's why they made
extra money.
Henry Parke: Without giving too much away, what can
viewers look forward to in season four of THE COWBOY WAY?
Booger Brown: We kind of expand, you know? We sign on with
another business partner and we grow. I
mean, it just gets better. And I'm hopeful there'll be more action in there. I
know they filmed a lot of action and it just depends on what makes the cut and
what everybody wants to see on TV. And INSP is so supportive of us. They are so
wanting to see the real cowboy side of things, and they treat us like real
people. It's really good to work for somebody like INSP and know you're
appreciated for what you do and what you stand for. They shoot us straight and
we shoot them straight as well.
Henry Parke: And how are
you doing personally?
Booger Brown: I've sold
more cattle and traded more cattle this year than I have in the past. The
economy is looking good and things are looking up for us. It's just a good
feeling, and going back to the show, it seems like we're having such a positive
influence on so many people.
Henry Parke: Any other future plans, outside of
the series, that we should know about?
Booger Brown: Me and Jaclyn's really eager to find us a piece of property if we don't get my granddaddy's property back. And who
knows, in the future might have a child. We're really ready to grow
with what we got going on, expand our
business in trading cattle and raising cattle.
AND THAT'S A WRAP!
Happy trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright August 2018 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved
Friday, August 3, 2018
‘YELLOWSTONE’ RENEWED, ‘DEADWOOD’ RETURNING, ‘HIGHWAYMEN’ RESCHEDULED, ‘BUSTER SCRUGGS’ RECUT – PLUS TWO NEW WESTERNS RELEASED THIS WEEK!
HERE’S AN EXCLUSIVE – FIRST LOOK
AT THE NEW POSTER FOR THE NEW WESTERN ‘ANY BULLET WILL DO’, WHICH OPENS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4th!
‘YELLOWSTONE’ RENEWED!
The folks at Paramount TV are so
delighted with the popular and critical success of YELLOWSTONE that they’ve
given the Kevin Costner vehicle an early renewal – the 10th and
final episode of the tyro season will air on August 22nd, and the
cast and crew will be heading back to Utah and Montana shortly. Reactions of
Western aficionados to the Taylor Sheridan series have been mixed – Facebook
complaints run the gamut from improper calf-delivery to no likable characters
to “LONGMIRE did it better” – but all gripes seem to end with, “…but I can’t
wait for the next episode!”
The series follows the Dutton
family, led by Costner’s John Dutton, and their struggle to hold on to the
largest cattle ranch in America, and the attempts of a developer (Danny Huston)
and an Indian activist (Gil Birmingham) to take it apart. It’s the 2nd most watched series on
basic cable, following AMC’s WALKING DEAD.
What with production of
YELLOWSTONE’s 2nd season imminent, it’s fortunate that Costner’s
next project, THE HIGHWAYMEN, is already in the can. Made for NETFLIX, Costner and
Woody Harrelson star as Fred Hamer and Maney Gault, respectively, the legendary
Texas Rangers who got Bonnie and Clyde. Originally announced for October, the
date has been changed to March of 2019. The movie is directed by John Lee
Hancock (THE ALAMO) from a script by John Fusco (YOUNG GUNS).
‘DEADWOOD’ ROLLS CAMERA IN
OCTOBER!
Things are busy at Gene Autry’s
old Melody Ranch these days, where
WESTWORLD is moving out, and DEADWOOD is coming home. Absent since 2006, David
Milch’s series that did so much to reinvigorate excitement about the genre, is
returning to HBO. Everyone involved is being tight-lipped about story-lines,
returning characters, and whether it will be a series or a movie. What is known
is that it will be directed by Daniel Minahan, who directed the series in the
past, and has been busy of late helming HOUSE OF CARDS and GAME OF THRONES.
COENS’ ‘BUSTER SCRUGGS’ GETS A
TRIM, HEADS TO VENICE!
Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs
The Coen brothers’ Western series
THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS will have its premiere at The Venice Film Festival, which begins at the end of August. It was originally announced as an anthology series
with a difference – six episodes with six intersecting story lines. You can read the details about the stories
and casts from my earlier coverage, HERE.
Of course, an international film
festival seems an odd place to premiere a TV series, but the Coens, who brought
you the remake of TRUE GRIT and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, have decided to recut
the series into a 132-minute movie. NETFLIX
says they will be premiering BUSTER SCRUGGS by the end of 2018, but no word yet
on whether it will be in feature form or episodic. Or both (that’s my guess).
INSP’S ‘THE COWBOY WAY’ RETURNS
FOR SEASON 4 ON AUGUST 26TH!
Booger Brown closing in on a steer
Bubba, Booger, Cody, and their
wives and youngins make the move to Sunday nights with the 4th season
of INSP’s remarkably popular and enjoyable reality series, THE COWBOY WAY. The real-life day-to-day challenges and
adventures of the Faith Cattle Company partners are a perfect antidote to
citified stresses. You can read my Round-up
interview with Bubba Thompson HERE. You can read my True West article
on the series HERE.
TWO NEW WESTERNS THIS WEEK: ‘A RECKONING’
AND ‘THE IRON BROTHERS’ – AND A THIRD, ‘ANY BULLET WILL DO’, ON THE WAY!
It seems like THE REVENANT made
a deep impression on a lot of filmmakers. After years of the sandy, gritty,
deserty oaters that took their inspiration from Spaghetti Westerns, independent
filmmakers have decided to look to the mountains.
The two new Westerns that open
this week were both shot in heavy snow; A RECKONING in Montana, and THE IRON
BROTHERS in Idaho and Wyoming. And at the end of the month, a
third Western, ANY BULLET WILL DO, from the writer-director of A RECKONING, Justin
Lee, is also snowbound. Below is an
exclusive-to-the-Round-up clip from A RECKONING.
A RECKONING is the story of Mary
O’Malley (June Dietrich), a young wife whose husband is brutally murdered. It’s
not the first unsolved dismemberment murder in the small community, and the
nominal mayor, played by Lance Henriksen, hires a flock of bounty-men to catch
the killer. When Mary, with no faith in that rabble, tries to sell her property
for a rifle, a pistol, and a horse, to find her husband’s killer herself, only
one townswoman, played by Meg Foster, will help.
As Mary searches, through
stunningly photographed forests, in snow, by lakes, we see she’s correct in her
assessment: the bounty hunters are more interested in hunting each other than
the killer. The problem is, you never get a sense that she has a plan. She isn’t
following tracks, isn’t looking for sign, rarely speaks to anyone, has no
suspect. She just rides or walks through stunning visuals. She once makes a
comment that she’s sticking to well-travelled roads, assuming the killer would
do the same, to look for more victims. But what she travels doesn’t appear to
be a road or even a path; she’s just stumbling between trees, until she
stumbles upon her husband’s killer, and that’s when the action starts. A RECKONING is being released today by SONY
PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT.
IRON BROTHERS features a pair of
real brothers, Tate Smith and Porter Smith, as Abel and Henry Iron, two
mountain-men struggling to make a living as fur trappers since their father
died. Lazy and short-tempered Henry
blows up at traders who offer him an insulting price for his pelts. In moments,
a man is dead and Henry is on the run. At the same time, the more even-tempered
Abel has an unexpected run-in with Shoshone hunters. Suddenly a chief is dead,
and the Iron brothers are running a gauntlet of dangers on their way out of the
mountains, trying to reach the safety of civilization.
As with A RECKONING, there is a
wealth of beauty, but a poverty of incident. As Mary slogged through forest and
snow, the Irons slog through snow and more snow. When the action comes, it’s entertaining,
but the brothers, despite being engaging at times, mutter a great deal of their
presumably improvised dialogue. Many of the conversation scenes are framed ala
Ingmar Bergman, and shot in one take. If you have great actors, well-rehearsed,
this can be very effective. But if you have actors doing their first film, what
you have is a scene that cannot be edited, either to speed it up, or to use the
best parts from several takes. THE IRON BROTHERS is co-written and co-directed
by brothers Josh Smith and Tate Smith, and is available on many platforms,
including AMAZON, from RANDOM MEDIA.
TIM McCOY TEACHES SIGNING, HEMINGWAY
CUTS OUT ORSON WELLES, AND MORE GREAT VIEWING FROM ALPHA VIDEO!
THE SPANISH EARTH
Back in the late 1930s, World War II was raging in Europe, but Japan had not yet pulled the sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor that would propel the U.S. into the fray. A group of American intellectuals, among them writers Dorothy Parker, Archibald MacLeish, Lillian Hellman and Ernest Hemingway, took the side of Spain’s democratically elected government, against the fascist Generalissimo Franco, and decided to finance a documentary to try and sway American public opinion. Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens shot the movie, and Orson Welles performed the narration written by Hemingway. But when Hemingway saw the finished version, he found Welles’ delivery too gentle and cultured – he rewrote the commentary, and recorded it himself. It’s a fascinating documentary, and a fascinating document, whether you are a history buff, or a Hemingway fanatic or, like me, both.
In 1948’s DEADLINE, Sunset
Carson is a Pony Express rider on his last run. The Western Union Telegraph is
putting the Pony Express out of business, and when sabotage and murder occur,
Sunset seems a likely suspect. A decent entry in the Sunset Carson cannon, it’s
written and directed by Oliver Drake, whose greatest service to Western movie
fans was co-writing Yakima Canutt’s autobiography.
But of much greater interest
than DEADLINE is a half-hour educational film sponsored by Standard Oil, INJUN
TALK. Apparently the last film directed
by B-movie whiz Nick Grinde in 1946, at a powwow, Col. Tim McCoy and chiefs
from several tribes tell the fascinating history of Indian sign-language. As a
form of communication used then mostly by elders, there was real concern at the
time that sign-language would be lost. And Tim McCoy was no casual signer.
Before his movie career he’d been Adjutant General of Wyoming, lived for a time
on the Wind River Reservation, and was considered one of the most articulate of
its practitioners – he taught Iron Eyes Cody among others.
RIDERS was one of eight ROUGH
RIDER films that Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton made for Monogram in
the 1940s, movies that traded on the charm of Western stars who were getting a
little too old for the rough stuff. They would have made more but, incredibly,
Col. Tim McCoy was drafted – recalled to active Army duty at age 51. Shortly
thereafter, tragically, Buck Jones, on a cross-country bond-selling tour, died
in a fire in a Boston nightclub, The Cocoanut Grove, along with nearly 500
others.
As with the previous set, the
best part here is the short, an episode of THE BUSTER CRABBE SHOW from 1951. Much
like THE GABBY HAYES SHOW and a number of others, Crabbe hosted a half-hour program
where he chatted with the viewers, and showed a truncated B-Western. The fun of
this one, of course, is watching Buster. The film he shows is GUNS OF THE LAW
from the P.R.C. TEXAS RANGERS series. Normally these chopped movies are hard to
follow. Fortunately, P.R.C. Westerns tended to be so short on plot that this is
probably the best way to watch it!
AND THAT’S A WRAP!
I hope you’re having a grand
summer!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright
August 2018 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
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