CONTEMPORARY WESTERN ‘BLUE RIDGE’ RETURNS TO INSP AS SERIES
Sunday night, July 28th, 2020’s North Carolina set – and shot – contemporary Western/crime drama TV-movie, Blue Ridge, returns to INSP as Blue Ridge – The Series. Back in his role as lawman Justin Wise is Johnathon Schaech, who to me will always be the full-of-himself 1960s rocker in Tom Hanks’ delightful That Thing You Do. For Western street-cred, he’s played Horror-Western comic-book character Jonah Hex on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and will soon be seen as Sheriff Hitchcock in the gritty Hawaiian Western The Wind & The Reckoning. Returning as his ex-wife is Sarah Lancaster as Ellie Wise, with whom he shares a teenaged daughter – the also-returning Taegen Burns as Maddie Wise.
In
the town of Blue Ridge, the rural working-class community has for ages been
dominated by two warring families, the Wades and the McGraths. Actor and stunt
man Tom Proctor is back as Jeremiah Wade, but where the new story begins, the
leader of the McGrath clan, Cliff McGrath, played by Graham Greene, Oscar
nominee for Dances With Wolves, has died (you can read my True West
interview with Graham Greene HERE ,
or in my book), and his younger brother, Connor McGrath has returned home to
take his place. Connor is played by A Martinez (you can read my INSP interview
with A Martinez HERE ).
Always
a strong, frequently intimidating presence, A, who was recently seen in INSP’s Far
Haven, also plays Sheriff Gordo Sena in Dark Winds, and was
memorably menacing as Jacob Nighthorse, the Native American opportunist/activist
and casino operator on Longmire.
Tonight’s
pilot episode, in which a random car break-down exposes a serious crime, Blue
Ridge turns the small-town and small-budget limitations to its advantage: the
local police force is convincingly underfunded and understaffed. The force’s
entire budget has been spent on a new computer system, and when disaster strikes,
the police are back to working on their Radio Shack computers, the force
relocated to a shuttered local history museum. The premise and performances are
strong, and I won’t spoil it by giving away any more plot.
Blue
Ridge – The Series, premieres Sunday, July 28th,
at 9 p.m., Eastern time.
THE
RUFUS BUCK GANG’S STORY IS TOLD IN ‘THE NIGHT THEY CAME HOME’ – DIRECTOR PAUL
VOLK SAYS: “I WOULD LOVE TO JUST DO WESTERNS: PERIOD.”
Until
2022’s high-profile Idris Elba Netflix Western, The Harder They Fall,
few non-historians had ever heard of Rufus Buck or the Rufus Buck gang. But
while that film was highly entertaining, and full of historical characters,
they and Buck were tossed in so randomly as to true events, and what side of
the law they landed on, that audiences knew no more when they exited than when
they entered, aside from names.
The
Night They Came Home -- an inexplicable title -- fills in a
lot of those blank spaces. From the famously blood-stained pen of Night of
the Living Dead author John A. Russo, who wrote Night They Came Home
as both a novel and a screenplay, Rufus and his band of fellow mixed-race
Native American and African American outlaws get an entertaining and
unsentimentalized telling, and here the historical characters have purpose.
Rufus
is played by Charlie N. Townsend. His gang’s members are portrayed by Phillip
Andre Botello as Lucky Davis, Hugh McCrae, Jr. as Sam Sampson, Ivan Villanueva
as Maoma July, and Nicholas Rising as Lewis Davis.
Real
lawmen portrayed powerfully by veteran Western actors include Tim Abell as legendary
Indian Territory U.S. Marshall Heck Thomas, Sam Bearpaw as Deputy Marshall Sam
Sixkiller, Peter Sherayko as Fort Smith hangman George Maledon, and Mike Gaglio
as Hanging Judge Isaac Charles Parker.
The
most familiar actors are two Rufus Buck victims, and our narrator,
respectively, family-man Brian Austin Greene, bootlegger Robert Carradine, and Danny
Trejo.
The
film’s director, Paul Volk, worked with producer and frequent collaborator Patrick
Durham.
PAUL
VOLK: I've been doing this since about 1985. A few years ago, I kind of
semi-retired. But if people come to me and offer me a show to direct, I'll come
out of that semi, and it's happened once every couple of years now for the past
few years. It's hard for me to stay out completely; it's kind of in my blood.
HENRY
PARKE: Are you a Western fan?
PAUL
VOLK: I actually always liked them, but just kind of a normal affection for
them. But then in 1994, I directed a movie called Steel Frontier, which
was a post-apocalyptic western, and kind of an homage to Sergio Leone. They
threw it at me as a co-director because (Jacobsen Hart) and I worked for the
same company, and he'd been begging them to direct. It was a bad mistake, but he
was a very talented writer, and we got along well as far as writing together. We
both just dived into all the Sergio Leone movies and used those as kind of a
guide for the lead character. You can see it for free on YouTube. Joe Lara, and
Bo Svenson and Brion James starred. Joe Lara, he was Tarzan on Tarzan, The
Epic Adventures (1996-2000).
HENRY
PARKE: What was the company you both worked with?
PAUL
VOLK: PM Entertainment -- Pepin Merhi Entertainment. Through the
eighties and the nineties, we did huge action for low budget movies,
independent movies. We had the guy who coordinates and creates all the car
chases for Fast and Furious. The big money came from foreign
(companies), because foreigners loved our big action.
HENRY
PARKE: So The Night They Came Home is your first historical Western?
PAUL
VOLK: Yeah; and now I would love to just do Westerns, period. If every show I
ever direct from here on in was a Western, I'd be very happy, because I really
enjoyed this one. Immensely creative, you know, creating your own world. And
everything in it has to be brought in, and everything has to be legitimate. Of
course, it comes with its own set of problems, especially dealing with the
horses. And the wagons. It was eye-opening.
HENRY
PARKE: What surprised you most about making a Western? What were you not
anticipating?
PAUL
VOLK: All the problems with a horse. You can't just get off a horse and expect
him to stay there. <laugh> You know, you've either gotta hand the reins to
a wrangler who's hiding from the camera, or tie it around something. And the
fact that none of our gang rode horses prior to getting to the set
<laugh>. And because we're an independent film, fairly low budget, there
wasn't a lot of time to give them lessons prior (to filming). So they got a
quick little half hour lesson right before the first scene of the first day.
I
originally had it written for them to ride up to the Robert Carradine
bootlegger cabin. But what we got was they kind of walked (the horses) for
maybe 25, 30 feet <laugh>. And I was happy that they got that. Charlie,
the Rufus Buck guy, he was pretty good. He took control of his horse for the
most part. I think a lot of them were kind of afraid, and the horses could
sense it. But luckily they all approached the cabin fairly well, and were able
to line up in a fairly straight line, to throw the rock at Bart's cabin, to get
him out. So I was thankful for that. But that whole scene was crazy because
there were power towers all around, creating interference with the lavalier
microphones, the wireless mics. The gang was on horses and Robert Carradine was
down on the ground, so covering everybody in wider shots with the boom mic was
not working. Subsequently, we had to replace the majority of the dialogue in
ADR (dubbing) for that scene, because just getting that boom up close, it was
hard to do.
HENRY
PARKE: Any other surprises?
PAUL
VOLK: When Anna Florence, who played Ellie Patterson, was driving the wagon, the
wranglers wouldn't let her do that at all. It had to be led by a guy holding
the bridle. You see her whip the horse, and we cut to the back, and it takes
off. Well, that was cut to the wrangler driving it as opposed to her. When we
needed to see her with the Jolene character in the front, it was being led – the
wrangler was trying to run, holding the bridle, the horses. It was not that
easy, and we were trying to shoot it from the drone. It’s hard to make sure
that you frame him out. Luckily, we're shooting in 4, 5, 6 K, so you can blow
shots up tremendously, to get stuff out that you don't want seen.
HENRY
PARKE: Whose idea was it to do a film about the Rufus Buck Gang?
PAUL
VOLK: What happened was Patrick got the original John Russo script, and he called
me and said, I got this Western; read it, I'd like you to direct it. So I read
the script, and it was a bit more horrific and bloody, you know.
HENRY
PARKE: Well, this is the guy who wrote Night of The Living Dead.
PAUL
VOLK: Exactly. <laugh>. I just felt that it was a bit over the top. I
understood where he was coming from. But
in any case, I read the script and I liked it, but realized we couldn't shoot
it for the amount of money and time we had. Patrick said don't worry, we'll
rewrite it. And meanwhile, I got (Russo’s) novel, and I liked that quite a bit.
The DP (director of photography), Morgan Schmidt had worked with this writer,
James O'Brien (note: writer/director of 2015’s Western Religion), and he
recommended giving the script to him, to make it more shoot-able for our
budget. And James was wonderful. He's all about sensibilities; you know,
sensibilities are everything. Does it work or does it not, bottom line. Then
suddenly we had a script that we could do. Patrick scheduled eight days, which
was insane. Come on, it'll take us at least 13, and then that's what it
actually took us. We shot eight full production days with a full crew. And then
we did five more ,what you would normally term pickup days, only they were full
production days, but with a reduced crew and without a first A.D. (assistant
director), which made my job more difficult.
HENRY
PARKE: I found it very interesting that instead of portraying the Rufus Buck
gang as heroes or anti-heroes, you explain clearly what their grievances were,
but you made the white characters that were their victims into real people, and
the audience cared about them. I was particularly struck that you used the most
familiar actors, Brian Austin Green and Bobby Carradine as the victims. Why'd
you make those choices?
PAUL
VOLK: Well, the casting of Brian was a foregone conclusion. He was that
character when I got the script, based on the fact that we only needed him,
originally, for one day. But we had to bring him back; the whole hanging scene
took two days. We shot that first day, and something really interesting, something
good was happening, and we could all tell. The scene at the beginning where we
meet grandpa and grandma and Jolene and the mom in the farm? That was never part of the script; that was
part of the novel. And then Patrick made a wonderful decision.
He
said, we need to shoot that scene: it's so much better to know somebody before
you kill him. We get to meet Jolene, the dad, the whole family and then kill
him. I was very happy about that. Of course, the Danny Trejo story, I might as
well tell you. Danny Trejo was supposed to be in the movie, but he became
unavailable when we were shooting it. About day four of the supposed eight
days, Patrick says, we have to write scenes for Danny Trejo to be in this movie;
and he has to be in throughout. At first I freaked out, and then I thought, he’ll
be a narrator, ala The Princess Bride. And things that may not be real
strong or not work so well, he can explain them! This is wonderful!
HENRY
PARKE: How did you like working with Robert Carradine?
PAUL
VOLK: I’d never worked with him before. I tried to talk a little bit with Bobby
the first day, told him I was a bit of a fan. He seemed very congenial and nice
and down to earth, but then he walked out of the trailer. <laugh> . I
didn't really get to discuss much about his character. He was what he brought
to the set; he had read the lines and he created his character, and I was
basically just there, which was fine. It was a little bit of a surprise 'cause I
guess I expected, in my mind's eye, more of a character. You know, a crotchety
old kind of guy. But what he brought to
the table, he was a sincere guy, you know? And people liked it. So I'm very
thankful.
HENRY
PARKE: Peter Sherayko has a big role as George Maledon, and he’s also famous
for his props and saddles.
PAUL
VOLK: I'm so thankful that Peter was involved. Anything in the production that
one could see was supplied by Peter. Thank God for all that. He's got that
rough kind of exterior, but he's really just a teddy bear inside. We were so
lucky having everything Peter could supply and, using his ranch, and then, that
house, that 1895 house his character lived in, which was an amazing.
The
Night They Came Home is available on DVD, Blu Ray, and to rent
or buy on Prime Video.
AND
THAT’S A WRAP!
I’m
in a rush to get this posted a few hours before Blue Ridge premieres tonight on
INSP, so I’ll just close with this question: If you haven’t bought and read my
new book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made Them,
what are you waiting for? It’s available from my publisher, TwoDot, from
Amazon, and wherever mind-improving books are sold!
Happy
Trails,
Henry
All
Original Contents Copyright July 2024 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
