‘BLACK CREEK!’ ACTION STAR CYNTHIA ROTHROCK ON MAKING HER FIRST WESTERN! PLUS UPDATE: STARTING AT 8 TONIGHT, THURSDAY, TCM WESTERNS: “TCM SPOTLIGHT: THE DEFINING FRONTIER”

R. Marcus Taylor, Keith Cooke, Cynthia Rothrock,

Richard Norton, Don 'The Dragon' Wilson

‘BLACK CREEK!’ ACTION STAR CYNTHIA ROTHROCK ON MAKING HER FIRST WESTERN!  PLUS WESTERNS TO CATCH AT THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL, AND MORE!

When Cynthia Rothrock first appeared on the action-movie scene in 1985, she was exactly what the industry needed: a striking blonde actress who just happened to be a record-holding martial arts master in several disciplines. The undisputed Queen of Martial Arts films has since starred in 70 more action films, and a few comedies, but she never made a Western until 2024. Black Creek will be released early in the summer of 2025. It is a somewhat whacky, wonderfully entertaining revenge Western, and Cynthia has loaded the cast with faces that may not be that familiar to most Western moviegoers, but will be a thrill to action movie fans, as it includes many of the best on-screen fighters in the business, including R. Marcus Taylor, Keith Crooke, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, and Cynthia’s most frequent costar, Richard Norton. Before our interview, which was punctuated with her disarmingly girlish laughter, she’d sent me a link to the then nearly-finished film, and when I emailed back that I’d enjoyed it very much, she replied, “Glad you liked my film. A lot of love and hard work went into it.” I told her that was obvious.

Cynthia Rothrock: Oh, thank you. We did this movie in 14 days, if you could believe it, and I was just so excited because everybody just gave their all, and it was such a hard shoot. We had freezing nights because I wanted the look to be eerie, you know: candlelight and lanterns. We had to light up everything, so everything took longer, but it was worth it. But it was so cold -- like 4:00 A.M. doing a fight scene, your muscles would freeze up. I had all these guys standing around the corral, and they were like, “We're doing this for Cynthia.” They were such troopers. It was such an amazing thing. I created this Facebook page for Black Creek, and we have so many people from different countries that came over, and were working on this film. They became this really tight-knit close family, where they hadn't met before. It's just beautiful to see how everybody is so involved in this project. It's so cool.

Henry Parke: You have a very impressive list of movie credits, but I believe 2024’s Taken from Rio Bravo, starring Alexander Nevsky, directed by Joe Cornet, is your first Western. 

Cynthia Rothrock: Right. That was just a cameo I did as a favor 'cause Alexander as a friend of mine.

Henry Parke: You do a very nice job in it. I was wondering if you sort of looked at it as a dry run for Black Creek?

Cynthia Rothrock: Well, I learned what I didn't want to do, because of it. I liked their Western town, I liked the setting, but we went with Mescal Movie Set instead, because it had a better feel. It was actually more difficult, because Mescal didn't have electricity, so we had to bring in generators, which was another big expense. Some of the people that worked on Taken from Rio Bravo, because they were from Arizona, worked on mine too. So it was a really good connection for my film. What really gave me this idea is, I love Westerns, and if you Google “woman gunslinger,” you get Annie Oakley or Selma Hayek. And I go, gosh, I wanna be known as a gunslinger that can really fight, you know? My inspiration came from Yellowstone because I just loved Yellowstone. I liked the gritty darkness of it. So when we decided to do my own film, because I've done 70 films – but this is the first time I've decided to take the helm and do my own film. Robert (Clancy) and I were coming up with stories, and he’s like, “What do you wanna do?” And I said, “A Western.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “A Western?” “Yeah.” And he's like, “Okay…”

Keith Cooke, Cynthia, Brandy Futch

Henry Parke: I was surprised that you designed and made many of the costumes yourself.

Cynthia Rothrock: Costuming was so expensive. We're like, oh my gosh, that's not in our budget. So (Robert Clancy) and I both did the costumes for the whole entire movie. We researched everything: you can't have this on your boot, you can't have an emblem, no rubber soles, you can't have zippers -- every little detail. We started two years ago with the Kickstarter program. It's funny because, when I did the Kickstarter, all my male peers -- you know, I grew up in this male dominant world?

Henry Parke: Clearly.

Cynthia Rothrock: Being, in the early days, the only female competing against men, I just kind of looked at them as my peers. And a lot of them were saying, don't do a Kickstarter. You're not going to make it. It's going to be embarrassing. There's one actor that has done some big movies, and he failed at (crowd-funding), and they're like, if he failed, why do you think you could do it? And I went, I'm going for it. And we became like the second highest funded action picture in the history of Kickstarter.

Henry Parke: That's great.

Cynthia Rothrock: You know, this was a fan-based production: if it wasn't for the fans supporting us, we wouldn't have been able to do this movie. One of our top incentives for Kickstarter was they could be in a fight scene, or they could have a line in the movie. And we had a lot of people do that. We had people from Greece, England, Australia, a lot of different countries coming just to do this. They did a phenomenal job. We had some working with acting coaches, we would do readings every month and go through the script with everybody. And even if they only had one line, we'd still involve 'em. That's a really good memory for me.

Henry Parke: How many people took part in the Kickstarter program?

Cynthia Rothrock: We had over 500 people. People were saying it was a fluke, right? You'll never do it again. Well, we have the graphic novel for Black Creek coming out as well. We did an Indiegogo campaign for that, and we came in 220% above what we asked for. I just can't wait for everybody to see this because I'm just so proud of it. I'm so proud of everybody – with 14 days and the limited budget -- what we pulled off.

Henry Parke: May I ask what your budget was?

Cynthia Rothrock: It was about $425,000.

Henry Parke: Oh my goodness! I work on a lot of low budget films, so I’m very aware that that is a small amount of money to have something that looks so elegant, and your art direction, your production design, is so impressive.

Cynthia Rothrock: We were drawing how we wanted it to look, and the stunts; we were so, so much involved in this. But I've had a lot of people do favors for me. Our music team is sensational. Doing our main song, and then the ending song, is Jim Peterik, who won a Grammy, and was nominated for an Oscar, for Eye of the Tiger that he co-wrote for Rocky III.

And Benjy Gaither, and he currently has a number-one hit song he wrote for George Strait, Three Drinks Behind. And Mark Shearer -- I've never met him, but he’s been a fan of mine. And these three people teamed up and did all our music. And what we would have to pay for that is crazy! We've just been so blessed! And I'm hoping that someone will say, wow, look what she did for two weeks of shooting and this money! If we give her a million or a million and a half and 20 days of shooting, what can you pull off?

Henry Parke: Is this your first screenwriting credit?

Cynthia Rothrock: Yes, it is. First time as a co-writer; first time as a producer. And it was a whole different experience for me, because usually I'm sitting in my trailer and just studying my lines, but now I have no time to sit in my trailer. I knew the script inside out because I was one of the writers, so thank God for that. But I had to be on set all the time to make sure everybody was happy doing their parts, dealing with any issues. It was an eye-opening experience for me, being there way early every morning and then being the last person to leave.

Cynthia gets the drop on Keith Cooke

Henry Parke: You said that you were a big Western fan and that Yellowstone inspired you. Do you have any other favorites that inspired you?

Cynthia Rothrock: Tombstone, Outlaw Josey Wales. I remember when Sharon Stone did The Quick and the Dead, I was like, wow, that's really cool that she was doing that role. I liked a lot of the old Westerns that you would see on TV. When I was a kid I’d read about Annie Oakley, that she was this tough woman back in that era, tough with the guys. And it's funny because I grew up in that same kind of situation, you know?

Henry Parke: Tell me a bit about your character, Rose Jennings.

Cynthia Rothrock: She's a little rough; she likes to drink, she's got a little bit of a potty mouth, and isn't afraid of anybody. She’s very close with her family, but it's hard for her to settle down in one place. She takes off for a while, and when she comes back, she finds out that her family was killed. And then all hell is loose. She's getting these people (who killed them), and saving the rest of her family.

Henry Parke: I was kind of overwhelmed by the physical demands this movie places on you. Wearing so many hats, did you have to do a lot of training while making the movie?

Cynthia Rothrock: No, because I was on-set every day, and if it wasn't me rehearsing my scene, I'm with the other actors because none of these actors got to practice. My stunt coordinator knows how I like to move. And everybody is different; they all had their own fight styles, and he was familiar with them. So we put together a composite so they can watch it and study it and say, Hey, is there anything in here you don't like? And then of course, when you get to the set, we would just be rehearsing while cameras were setting up. And if there was something that wasn't good for someone, we would change it on the spot. It was almost like the old Hong Kong fighting: learn it, shoot it. That's how I got my start. I did seven movies in Hong Kong before I came to the United States and then started doing films. My first movie was in 1985, with Michelle Yeoh, we did Yes, Madam.

Cynthia and 2023 Best Actress Oscar-winner

 Michelle Yeoh in Yes, Madam!

Henry Parke: I just watched it on Prime, under the title In the Line of Duty II: The Super Cops. It was hysterical.

Cynthia Rothrock: That was my first, and I thought I'd just do one movie, you know? I'm kind of an out of the box person. I never really want to do something that's the same, the same, the same. I always want to try to put some unique flare into it. There was something so unique going to Hong Kong. I didn't think it was going to turn into a career. I thought, oh, I'll just go there and I'll do one movie. And it's funny, in my mind, I was thinking, well, maybe I'll be on the poster and I could show my kids someday, saying, “Hey, look, your mom was in a movie.” It really wasn't my intention that I was going to become an action film star.

Henry Parke: Was Black Creek your first time riding a horse in a film?

Cynthia Rothrock:  It was my first time riding a horse on my own. I've gone on trails where you follow the leader. I didn't want to look like I didn't know what I was doing, so the horse wrangler told me, don't put your two hands here, do this here. And actually I got really comfortable with the horse. There's one scene where there were two horses on the side, and me, and they shot some rounds off down below, and it freaked the horses out -- the two horses on the side started bucking. And I just turned my horse around nice and calm and went down the hill. It was funny because someone said to Robert, “Wow, how long has she been riding?” And Robert said, “About two hours.”

Henry Parke: With so many of the smaller westerns, they have no time with the horses, and they have inexperienced riders, and everyone's shouting, “We have to put together a posse and get after those guys!” And they jump on their horses, and walk slowly out of town.

Keith Cooke, Don Wilson, Brandy Futch

Cynthia Rothrock: I know! I did have an incident on-set with the horse wrangler. The horse was so big, and I'm five foot three, and no matter what, I could not get my foot into the stirrup and get it up over the horse. And so he lifts me up, and I'm like five, five and a half feet off the ground. And he dropped me, and I fell on my right, on my back and on my head. We were off to the side, so nobody saw it. And my hat saved my head, because my hat was kind of like a little helmet, and my belt saved my hip, so I didn't get hurt, but it took the air out of me. And the wrangler goes, “You're a karate girl. You should be used to this kind of stuff.” I said, “When I get on the horse, can I get an apple box to stand on?” He says, “Oh yeah.” And I'm like “Why didn't you think of that in first place?”

Henry Parke: This is the first feature directing credit for Shannon Lanier.  Where'd you find him?

Cynthia Rothrock: We had two directors. Shannon was directing the acting scenes. I met him, we talked, and he seemed to have my vision, and he worked in low budget film. I said, “Look, I’m bringing this guy in from Germany for the fights; when it comes fighting, I want him at the helm. I want him with the camera, to direct that,” and he said, “Okay.” So all our acting scenes, Shannon directed, and all the fight scenes, Mike Moeller directed.

Henry Parke: Mike Moeller has quite a resume, doing stunts on the Hunger Games, Matrix, and John Wick films among others. Very impressive.

Cynthia Rothrock: He's so awesome. It's funny, because we brought his stunt team over, and I wanted him to fight me. And he's like, “No, I don't want to fight. I just want to do the choreography.” And I went, “Okay.” And when he saw the trailer, he’s like, “Oh, I should've been in it! I'm fighting in Part Two!”

Henry Parke: I guess you have to be very physically capable to be on a Cynthia Rothrock set. I notice even your cinematographer, Aaron Johnson Araza, is a former stunt man.

Cynthia Rothrock: Yeah. Well, they're moving pretty fast, getting down low with the camera -- it’s good because he understood the action, and that helped us. Aaron would be directing some of the scenes, and we’d go, wow, that's a great shot! It was a collaboration, with everybody pulling this film together.

Henry Parke: What was the most challenging part of making Black Creek?

Cynthia Rothrock: We had 150 people on-set on our first day. So we did the hardest days right in the beginning. I think the most challenging part during the whole movie was, are we going to get all these scenes in? Some of the fight scenes, I wanted more to them, and we had to cut them down because of time. I'm definitely planning that on Black Creek 2, every fight scene has one whole day to shoot. And I must thank James Marlowe. He has the Marlowe-Pugnetti Company; he’s a fan of mine, and he came on as an executive producer. We've become really good friends, and he is definitely my guardian angel, helping us with post production, with editor Ben Ho, getting the right sound person, and just being a mentor through it; he is definitely a big part of bringing this movie to fruition. We put him in as a partner, and when we do Black Creek 2, we'll involve him. (Note: since the interview, it’s been decided that James Marlowe will direct Black Creek 2: Retribution, which is already written.)

This interview is really exciting for me because you're not in the karate world, you're in the Western world. And that's what we want to do as crossover, not only having Martial Art fans, but get Western fans loving this movie as well. And it's unique because you don't really see Westerns where everybody does Martial Arts

Henry Parke: You certainly don't.

Cynthia Rothrock: (Kickboxing legend) Don “The Dragon” Wilson said to me, “But Cynthia, how could everybody know martial arts? There weren't martial arts schools.” I said, “Don, because the Chinese were there. They came in for the gold rush; they all knew it. They taught it.” He goes, “Oh. Okay.”

Just as I was finishing my editing of this interview, I learned that Cynthia Rothrock’s close friend and Black Creek foe Richard Norton had just died. It would be their last of more than a dozen films together. I asked her if she would like me to include a remembrance of him.

“I am beyond words and deeply shocked by the sudden passing of my dear friend and fellow martial artist, Richard Norton. The martial arts world has lost a true legend. We shared an incredible journey—starring together in numerous action films, from China O’Brien, Millionaires Express, Rage and Honor to Lady Dragon. I was thrilled to have him join the cast of Black Creek as the formidable antagonist, Damien Sinclair. His performance was nothing short of extraordinary. Our final fight scene together will forever hold a special place in my heart—a moment I’ll always cherish as the last dance of the “Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers” of Martial Arts action. Richard’s talent, kindness, and dedication to Martial Arts will continue to inspire generations to come.”

WESTERN HIGHLIGHTS AT THE TCM HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL

Me and Shirley Jones -- and a few others -- at the

2014 TCM Fest screening of Oklahoma!

From Thursday, April 24^th through Sunday, April 27^th, The Turner Classic Movies Channel will hold their wonderful annual Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. Screenings and other events will be held at the Chinese IMAX Theatre, The Chinese Multiplex, The Egyptian Theatre, The El Capitan Theatre, and around the pool of The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. While the big packages for attendees can run in the thousands of dollars, individual screenings are only $20 each, although there’s no guarantee you’ll get in. This link will take you to the official Festival website, with complete details: https://filmfestival.tcm.com/

Among screenings of particular interest to Western fans, on Friday they’re showing 1940’s The Mark of Zorro, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Hollywood’s greatest actor/swordsman (just ask him), Basil Rathbone. 

On Saturday they will premiere a restoration of 1958’s Gunman’s Walk, directed by Phil Karlson, and starring Van Heflin and Tab Hunter, and introduced by Keith Carradine. 

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Also on Saturday, on the big Chinese Theatre IMAX screen, they’ll be showing a 35mm VistaVision print of 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, directed by John Sturges, starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt, Kirk Douglas as Doc, John Ireland as Johnny Ringo, Earl Holliman as Charles Bassett, and Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton.  

And on Sunday morning, 1955’s Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, will also be presented on The Chinese Theatre IMAX screen. Directed by Fred “High Noon” Zinnemann, this, the greatest of Western musicals stars Gordon Macrae as Curly, Shirley Jones as Laurey, Gloria Grahame as Ado Annie – who can’t say “no,” and perhaps the only singing film performance by Rod Steiger as Jud Fry! And the film will be discussed by Shirley Jones’ son, Shaun Cassidy.

UPDATED 5-8-2025: TCM FOCUSES ON WESTERNS IN MAY WITH “TCM SPOTLIGHT: THE DEFINING FRONTIER”

Every Tuesday and Thursday night in May, Turner Classic Movies will feature Westerns, 46 in all, in generally chronological order, focusing on various aspects of the genre. I’ve included links to a few of my related articles, for more detailed information about the films.

Thursday, May 1^st – The Foundation, focused on silent films, from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to The Iron Horse (1922).

Tuesday, May 6^th -- The Quintessential Cowboy: John Wayne and the Idea of America, included the film that should have made him a star but didn’t, Raul Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930); and John Ford’s film that did make him a star, Stagecoach (1939); Howard Hawk’s film that proved even to his harshest critics that Wayne could act, Red River (1948); and the epic that was so epic-ish that it took not just Ford, but Henry Hathaway and George Marshall and Richard Thorpe to direct, How the West Was Won (1962).  

And now, the ones we haven’t missed yet!

Thursday, May 8^th -- Rugged Individualism, will begin with a look at great paired actor and dire ctor individualists like James Stewart in Anthony Mann’s The Man from Laramie (1955), Randolph Scott in Budd Boetticher’s Ride Lonesome (1959) , and Barbara Stanwyck in Sam Fuller’s Forty Guns.  A weird choice is James Cagney in Lloyd Bacon’s The Oklahoma Kid (1939), which is better than you’d expect, and does feature Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandito. Rounding out the program are a pair of Eastwoods, Hang ‘Em High (1968), the pretend Spaghetti Western from Ted Post, and Clint’s first self-directed Western, High Plains Drifter (1973).

On Tuesday, May 13^th – Social Commentary in Disguise, is dominated by post-war, noirish Westerns. The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) looks at mob rule, individual responsibility, racism, and lynching. Henry Fonda deserves all of the attention he gets for this William Wellman film, but equally affecting are Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, and Harry Morgan. Jacques Tourneur’s Wichita (1955), was one of the Joel McCrea starrers – here as Wyatt Earp – that were so good that they turned a poverty row studio, Monogram, to a major, Allied Artists. Elmore Leonard’s novel was the basis for Martin Ritt’s Hombre (1967), a pressure-cooker of a movie that looks at anti-Indian and anti-Mexican racism, with Paul Newman as the multiracial center.  Sergeant Rutledge (1960), John Ford’s courtroom drama starring Woody Strode as a black sergeant accused of the rape and murder of a white child, is so uncompromising and blunt that it’s astonishing that it was made, no less released. Rounding out the program is one of Sergio Corbucci’s finest, and most rarely seen Westerns, the snow-bound The Great Silence (1968), starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, and a pre-Blaxploitation Vonetta McGee.

Thursday, May 15^th -- Heroism and Sacrifice are themes that are unforgettably explored in John Sturges’ TheMagnificent 7 (1960), which made stars out of 6 (and Brad Dexter had a very respectable career), made an unlikely Western star of Eli Wallach, and featured future Chinatown cinematographer John Alonzo as one of the townspeople who hires the 7.  It's followed by Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964), which turned Clint Eastwood from TV actor to superstar, and triggered Spaghetti Western mania in the U.S. Fred Zinneman’s High Noon (1952) is next, for which Gary Cooper won an Oscar, as a lawman whose town abandons him at the first sign of danger – heavily influenced by screenwriter Carl Foreman’s experiences during the Red Scare. My Darling Clementine (1946), starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday, is arguably the best movie about the O.K. Corral, although not the most accurate, despite or because of John Ford’s relationship with Wyatt Earp.  The program ends with a 2022 short, High Noon on the Waterfront, about the personal and professional risks taken by the people who made those two films.  

Tuesday, May 20^th, A Changing America: Disillusionment and the Rise of the Antihero is the theme, featuring film stories fomented and fermented during the late 1960s’ and early 1970s’ mélange of disappointment and cynicism. George Roy Hill’s ButchCassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) made charming rascals out of bank-robbers, and Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966) made lovable scamps out of mercenaries: both wonderful Westerns, and Butch’s William Goldman screenplay is often cited as the best screenplay ever filmed. Eleven years after his final Leone film, Eastwood directed his remarkable anti-war Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), considered by many to be the zenith of Eastwood’s Western career, as an actor and as a director. Finally, Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christy as a frontier gambler and a whore in a cheerily grim yet sentimental movie that defies meaningful description.

Thursday, May 22^nd, Cultural Breakthroughs features Westerns that opened their stories beyond the usual white males.  Delmer Daves’ BrokenArrow (1950), tells the largely true story of the friendship between ex-soldier Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) and Cochise (Jeff Chandler).

In William Wellman’s Westward the Women (1951), written by Frank Capra (who'd hoped to direct), stern and sour Robert Taylor reluctantly takes an all-female wagon-train from Chicago to California, doubting he’ll get half there alive. It balances Capra’s charm and Wellman’s toughness beautifully. Despite the low-expectations of Blaxploitation films, Sidney Poitier’s Buck and the Preacher (1972) is a thought-provoking and entertaining surprise. Buffalo Soldier-turned-wagon master Buck (Poitier) leads freed slaves west with the reluctant help of Preacher (Harry Belafonte), who murdered his master and took over his scam. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2006) is the contemporary Western that had traditionalists up in arms, until they learned that Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were portraying shepherds, not cowboys. The final film in the program is the documentary Bearing Witness: Native American Voices in Hollywood (2024).

On Tuesday, May 27^th, American Psyche might nearly be called American Psycho, focusing on the dark side of the West. In John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), the fictionalized search for Comanche captive Cynthia Anne Parker gave John Wayne one of his most compelling, and least likable characters. 

King Vidor’s (and several others’) Duel in the Sun (1946) might have been a good Western if producer David O. Selznick hadn’t been so driven to top his Gone with the Wind, that he forced an epic out of a potboiler plot. Anthony Mann’s Winchester 73 excels with James Stewart as a man obsessed with hunting down the fellow whose coveting of a perfect rifle led to murder.   In Robert Wise’s nearly all-at-night Blood on the Moon (1948), Robert Mitchum is drawn into a cynically manipulated range war.

On Thursday, May 29^th, the series ends with The End of an Era, a look at “end of the West” Westerns. Featured are two very different, but very sentimental films from SamPeckinpah, the gently charming The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and the anthem of doomed manly camaraderie, The Wild Bunch (1969). Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) is the Spaghetti Western epic that has never been topped. And John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) studies the regretted compromises men needed to make for the West grow, through the characters of lawyer James Stewart and cowboy John Wayne.   

ONE MORE THING

Until I have a chance to write at length about the late Val Kilmer’s immense contributions to film in general, and Westerns in particular, here’s a link to his first lead in a Western. In 1989 he played the title character in Billy the Kid, a Ted Turner-produced TV Western that was scripted by Gore Vidal, based on his novel, The Left-Handed Gun, which had first been the source for the 1958 Paul Newman film.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the March/April issue of True West Magazine, featuring my article/interview, Kris Kristofferson: A Texan at Oxford.

And here’s the link to my newest piece for the INSP blog, What Makes a Great Western Movie, wherein I try to reverse-engineer some classics to figure out what makes them work.

https://www.insp.com/blog/what-makes-a-great-western-movie/

And if you haven’t snapped up a copy of my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and The People Who Made Them, wait no longer!

Here’s the link to the Amazon page, but feel free to order it from your local independent bookseller – we have to keep them in business too!

https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Westerns-Ever-Made/dp/1493074393?_encoding=UTF8&linkCode=sl1&tag=insptv-20&linkId=40670747d047d3241c54003bcabb179f&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Happy Trails, Henry

All Original Content Copyright April 2025 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

A CONVERSATION WITH CLAUDE JARMAN JR

 

Robert Sterling and Claude Jarman Jr. in Roughshod

Last month, Claude Jarman Jr. died at the age of 90. Growing up poor, in Nashville, the son of a railroad worker, in 1945, 10-year-old 5^th-grader Claude loved going to the movies, but becoming a movie star was the last thing on his mind. And then 6-time Oscar nominee Clarence Brown, one of MGM’s top directors, came to Claude’s school, looking for an untrained, natural, blond southern boy to star opposite both Gregory Peck, and a new-born fawn, in the film of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ novel, The Yearling. For his performance, he would receive a miniature Oscar (which would later be replaced with the full-sized statuette) as the Outstanding Child Actor of 1946.

In his excellent 2018 autobiography, My Life and the Final Days of Hollywood, Jarman tells not only the story of his brief -- by choice -- but distinguished acting career, but also the story of the final great days of Hollywood in general, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in particular.  You can buy it from Amazon HERE, or elsewhere.

In October of 2022, at The Lone Pine Film Festival, in Lone Pine, California, I had the pleasure of interviewing Claude onstage, after a screening of one of my favorite Westerns, and one of Claude’s best films, 1949’s Roughshod. One of the first and finest noirish post-war Westerns, it was directed by Mark Robson, who had previously directed 5 films for Val Lewton. Its story was by the writer of Hitchcock’s Saboteur, and Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart, Peter Viertel. The screenplay is by Daniel Mainwaring, who wrote Out of the Past, and would write Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and Hugo Butler, Oscar-nominated for Best Writing, Original Story for Edison, the Man.

The film stars Robert Sterling, later famous as George Kirby on Topper, and Claude, as brothers transporting horses to their ranch near Sonora. En route they run into four saloon girls stranded by a crippled wagon: Gloria Grahame, Jeff Donnell, Martha Hyer, and Myrna Dell. Knowing he’s being hunted by three escaped convicts, led by John Ireland, the last thing Sterling wants is the added responsibility of the women.

L to R, Claude, Myrna Dell, Gloria Grahame, (kneeling)

Sterling, Jeff Donnell, Martha Hyer

One more reason that I was excited to be interviewing Claude was that one of the four women, Myrna Dell, had been a good friend of us both.

Henry Parke: Back in 1945, Metro Goldwyn Mayor Studios held a nationwide talent search to select a young man to play Jody Baxter in the film of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Yearling. Twelve-year-old Claude Jarman Jr. was discovered in Nashville, and went to Hollywood to star opposite Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman. If you haven't seen it, you must. It's a beautiful, joyful, heartbreaking classic. And for this first professional performance, Jarman was presented with a miniature Oscar. As his career continued, he'd be adopted by Jeanette McDonald in The Sun Comes Up, grow up to be Ben Johnson in High Barbaree, grow up to be David Bryan in Inside Straight. But much of his best work has been in Westerns. He stars with Joel McCrea in The Outriders, with Randolph Scott in Hangman's Knot, with Fess Parker in The Great Locomotive Chase. He plays John Wayne’s and Maureen O’Hara’s son for John Ford in Rio Grande, and we’ve just seen him as kid brother to Robert Sterling in one of the really fine noir westerns, 1949's Roughshod. It's my pleasure to introduce to you, Claude Jarman Jr.

Claude Jarman Jr.: Yeah. After talking about all these Westerns, I forgot to wear my Western hat again. At any rate, it was interesting that Roughshod was where I really learned to ride. We spent two and a half months living in tents up in Bridgeport. Every day you saw a lot of activities with the horses. And every day I would ride with the wranglers. And I really learned how to ride during that, and it certainly paid off later, when I made Westerns, particularly with Rio Grande, where I did a lot of horseback riding. At any rate, it was a fun movie. The people were very talented, and they were all just at the beginning of their careers, which I think was really remarkable. And it was for that reason, we were all a very happy, happy group on location. And the people were wonderful to be with. The women were great. Myrna Dell, who played the one who wanted to stay with the miner, she was a real kick. She decided she wanted to be an actress, but she did not want to be someone who was a beauty queen. She wanted to just be somebody who could be the dance hall girl. That way she could have a full career. She'd end up making about a hundred movies doing that sort of thing. (Note: The Falcon’s Adventure, Fighting Father Dunne, The Bowery Boys – Here Come the Marines, etc.) And we sort of kept in touch. Every now and then, I would get a letter from her. In 2001 I was at the Academy Awards. That was the year that everyone who had received one was on stage. So I was on stage, and she wrote me a letter and she said, “I just saw you, on stage at the Academy Awards, and you looked terrific. All I can tell you is, when we made the movie together, you were too young for me then, but you're too old for me now.”

Myrna Dell 

Henry Parke: Myrna told me that story, too.

Claude Jarman Jr.: Did she? Anyway, it was Gloria Grahame who went on to win an Academy Award. (Note: Nominated in 1948 as Best Supporting Actress in Crossfire; won in 1953 as Best Supporting Actress in The Bad and the Beautiful.) She was 25 years old, so they were all very young. Martha Hyer, who played the first one to leave the group, to go back with her mother. She kept acting (Note: Nominated in 1959 as Best Supporting Actress in Some Came Running), and then she ended up marrying Hal Wallis, who was one of the great producers in Hollywood (Note: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, True Grit, etc.), and I think she just passed on in the last couple of years. So everyone had a career. They all had something that they grew into. It was wonderful. It was really a good experience. It was funny because that was the fourth movie that I made. First I made The Yearling, High Barbaree, and then the Lassie movie, The Sun Comes Up. I was still at MGM, but they loaned me out to RKO. That was one of the unique things that they would do. They wanted somebody, they would loan them, they would pay MGM; not me. At any rate, it was a great experience. And I think the movie still kind of looks pretty good.

Claude, Gloria Grahame

Henry Parke: Really good. Did you audition for the role of Steve?

Claude Jarman Jr.: No, I did not. I was just told I was gonna work at RKO. I remember at that time, there was a wonderful little school at MGM. I was a student with Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Powell. There was one little student in there all by herself, and that was Natalie Wood. Somehow, she was there by herself.

Henry Parke: Your director, Mark Robson, had gone from assistant director on Citizen Kane, to director of five films for RKO horror czar Val Lewton. And just before Roughshod, he directed Kirk Douglas to an Oscar nomination in Champion. What was he like to work with?

Claude Jarman Jr.: It was obvious to me that he was a very hands-on director who knew what he was doing, because he had just started, this was like his third or fourth film. He knew exactly what he wanted, and how to get a performance out of the actors. It was not surprising he went on to have a very successful career, and he was a very nice man, too. (Note: Best Director Oscar Nominee for 1958’s Peyton Place, and 1959’s Inn of the Sixth Happiness.)

Henry Parke:  Now, Robert Sterling, I think a lot of us grew up watching him and his later wife, Anne Jeffries, as George and Marion Kerby on the TV series Topper. He had a film career, just prior to the war, (Note: Two-Faced Woman, Johnny Eager, etc.) when he was married to Ann Southern, when they had met on one of her Maisie films, Ringside Maisie. But then he'd been away in the war. He'd joined the Army Air Corps and trained pilots in London. And so this was his big sort of comeback film.

Gloria Grahame, Robert Sterling

Claude Jarman Jr.: Yeah. But he was a good actor. He was good looking, came across as being very attractive. I'm surprised he didn't have a longer career than he did. Although I guess the TV thing was something that went on for a while. Then Jeff Donnell, who played the other woman who was sick, who got left behind, she went on and she had a TV career also. (Note: In a Lonely Place, The George Gobel Show, General Hospital, etc.) Everyone there ended up working. Except me. <laugh>.

Myrna Dell, Sara Haden, Jeff Donnell

Henry Parke: Myrna Dell was a good friend of mine. She told me a story about something that happened when Gloria Grahame's husband visited the set unexpectedly. She was married to the actor Stanley Clements. A tough guy in films, he's probably best remembered for taking over from Leo Gorcey in the Bowery Boys films, playing Stash. And Gloria was not that enamored with him at that point. She used to introduce him by saying, “This is my husband Stanley Clements, or as I call him, Humphrey Bogart after taxes.” Anyway, he dropped in on the set, and caught Gloria with Robert Sterling, who was still married to Ann Southern, and Sterling took the hills, and Clement slapped his wife Gloria around. And Myna said they had to use make-up to cover up the marks.

Claude Jarman Jr.: News to me.

Henry Parke: Do you have any thoughts on the villain of the piece, John Ireland?

John Ireland, James Bell, Sara Haden

Claude Jarman Jr.: That was the only time I worked with him. I thought he was a very good actor. My favorite actor after that was Lee Marvin, who was in Hangman’s Knot.

Henry Parke: One last question. Do you have any favorite memories from making the film?

Claude Jarman Jr.: I loved being outdoors; the summertime, the Highs Sierras and Mono Lake. It was just heaven to a kid at that age. And I didn't have to go to school in the summer, so I didn't have to worry about that. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience for me. Anyway, thank you very much, folks!

Henry Parke: And thank you!

Claude and Henry

Roughshod is out on DVD from Warner Archive, available through Amazon. Here's a clip!

 COMING ATTRACTIONS!

 

I’ll soon be posting my interview with actress and martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock about her new Western, Black Creek, which is True West’s Editor’s Choice for Best Western to Stream (although it’s not available to stream yet)!

Here’s a glimpse of Billy the Kid: Blood and Legend, the new Western from director Michael Feifer, which has just started post production. I interviewed Mike just before he rolled camera, and that interview is coming soon to the pages!

Finally, back in 2021, an excellent Western was made in Australia, which has gone under two titles, The Legend of Molly Johnson, and The Drover’s Wife. Based on an 1892 story by Australian writer Harry Lawson, it’s about a pregnant mother at home alone on her farm in the Outback, caring for her children, and waiting for her husband’s return. It stars, and is written and directed by Leah Purcell, and it is an absolute knock-out. I interviewed Purcell back in 2021, but I never ran it because the movie was never released in the U.S., but it’s now running on Amazon Prime, and I’ll be posting the interview very soon!

…And that’s a wrap!

If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned the blockbuster miniseries American Primeval yet, I’m deep into an article about it for True West Magazine! Speaking of which, please check out our Annual January/February “Best of the West” issue, with my selections for the best Western movies, DVDs, and TV shows of the year!

Have a great February!

Henry

All Original Content Copyright February 2025 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved

KEVIN COSTNER ON HOPES FOR ‘HORIZON 1-4’, CRAIG ‘LONGMIRE’ JOHNSON ON HIS NEWEST NOVELLA, 'GUNSMOKE' AUCTION, PLUS AUSSIE WESTERN SERIES ‘TERRITORY’, UPCOMING ‘FRONTIER CRUCIBLE’!

 

KEVIN COSTNER ON ‘HORIZON’

“I love what I do. I feel privileged to be able to do it. It has been a struggle, but it was a struggle for my crew too. Just to give you an example, I shot Dances with Wolves in 106 days. And Horizon, the first one, is arguably as big as that, if not bigger. We shot it in 52 days. No one stopped working. No one was late. [Everyone] was ready.” -- Kevin Costner

 

On Tuesday night, November 12^th, at the Angelika Theatre in New York’s West Village, Horizon, an American Saga, Chapter One, was screened for an audience of mostly members of various film guilds. Afterwards, star, director and co-writer Kevin Costner took to the stage with actress Ella Hunt, and Mara Webster of In Creative Company. Mara interviewed Kevin and Ella about making Horizon, and the following quotes from Kevin Costner are in answer to Mara’s questions.

Ella Hunt, Kevin Costner, Mara Webster

For those who have not yet seen Horizon, Chapter One, the title is the name of a town-to-be which an unscrupulous and thus-far unseen businessman has promoted as heaven-on-Earth to many would-be pioneers. Costner, who doesn’t appear for the first hour, plays Hayes Ellison, a horse trader who inadvertently gets thrust into a feud. Ella Hunt plays Juliette Chesney, a privileged Englishwoman travelling by wagon-train with her artist husband, both of them woefully unprepared for the trip, and clueless as to what’s expected of them. Costner’s and Hunt’s characters do not meet in Chapter One, but doubtless will in Chapter Two.

Mara Webster began by pointing out that Costner had been trying to put together Horizon since 1988, and wondered how having a 35-year gestation period affected the project. (Note: I spoke to Kevin Costner in 2019 for True West – here’s the link: https://truewestmagazine.com/article/kevin-costner/ -- an updated version of my interview is in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them -- and we had discussed Horizon, a project that he wanted to make: “I have a Western that I really want to make; I just can’t find the rich guys that want to make it—an epic Western.”)
“Well, I was certainly ready to make it. I wasn't sure I'd find somebody like Ella. And I'm not sure Ella was born when I started thinking about this thing (note: Ella Hunt was born in 1998). It's an unusual story about Ella. It hasn't happened to me very often -- it happened to me once in Dances with Wolves. Robert Pastorelli (note: Candice Bergen’s useless apartment maintenance man from Murphy Brown) came in to read a part. And he came in spats, he had his bowling shirt on, and his gold ‘goomba’ stuff. And the part I had picked out for him -- I just looked at him -- he started reading and I said, ‘Robert, just stop for a second.’ I took his sides out of his hand. There was another (role), this dirty teamster, and I handed him those sides, and he made history with it. He was such an incredible actor. (Note: Pastorelli died in 2004, at age 49.) And when I first met Ella, she was going to read for the daughter (of a pioneer family), and I didn't take the sides out of her hand, but I made a switch right there, that she would play this incredible character, that we would be asking to do so much. She just has this incredible beauty and youngness about her. But there's some incredible maturity about her too.”

Tom Payne and Ella Hunt

“I thought he was joking,” Hunt responded. “And then was incredibly flattered, and daunted, as Juliette is a character who is very tested over the course of these films… I think one of the very special things about Kevin as a director is…the belief that he invests in all of the people around him. I'm so grateful that you looked at me and thought that I could do that. And now, because of Juliette, I've gone on to do things that I wouldn't have allowed myself to. I've just played Gilda Radner (note: in the new film, Saturday Night).”

In answer to Webster’s question about how Costner chooses when to shoot closely, intimately, and when to “see the impact of the landscape,” he replied, “Well, we did go to places that still exist in America. It's if you're willing to get out of chasing a rebate. For me, that was important, to have these landscapes that went on forever. But you know, we're not making a travelogue. And eventually it boils down to what is the story, and it shrinks down. And when someone can dominate the horizon, this giant landscape, you have to find scenes that are so intimate to set against it. And so we created scenes where my actors swallow this horizon. They're so strong that you forget about how far the country goes. You realize the pain and what they're going through. I like to think of the Western as our Shakespeare. This is not a series of ‘yeps’ and ‘nopes’. It was a Victorian age and people did have the ability to express themselves really beautifully. You have Danny Houston giving us a speech, which I equate to James Earl Jones' speech in Field of Dreams, Danny explaining Manifest Destiny. And you get someone like Ella, who shows the most intimate moment of a woman who is just tired of being dirty, and just the feel of water. And when you watch her perform that moment, and look in that mirror, (you) also understand how cold that night was. You know, that scene has as much place for me in a Western as a gunfight. It had to be there.”

Asked how he gave familiar genre elements a deeper context, Costner replied, “Well, I tried to break with Westerns because I don't like a lot of Westerns; most of them aren't very good. And the black-and-whites that we grew up with, they were so simple, they were a mainstay of our televisions, our theater. But they often were too simple for me. The black hat, the white hat, the way people dressed. But the thing that stood out for me, what had been missing almost in every way -- and it took a while for it to dawn on me -- is every western has a town. But they're not like mushrooms: they didn't just come up. There was a terrible struggle that took place. And it took place from sea to shining sea. Every inch of that land was fought for, was contested. Where our great cities exist, (there) were (already) people. They know where the good places were to live. And we did too, and we kind of wiped them out. But that was not ever talked about in any Westerns: the towns always exist. And I started wondering, what would it be like to see the beginning of something? There was nothing there, there was a (new) group of people that had found a level of equilibrium that made peace with the (native) people to such a degree that they were getting along. [As the film begins,] the first image is a surveyor stick that goes into an ant hill. And we disrupted their way of life. And what you'll see when you see all four -- and I hope that you do -- is you'll see the struggle: this town burns and is rebuilt and burns and rebuilt, and finally there's a tipping point in the West. And it was just simply numbers. They (the natives) never stood a chance. But I also don't want to be embarrassed about the ingenuity and the bravery and the spontaneity and the courage that it took for people to cross that Mississippi and go there. It's not a land in Disneyland; it was contested, it was real. The country was founded in the East, but its character was really formed in the West with this constant battle.

Tom Payne, Ella Hunt, Kevin Costner 

“I think we've had enough of heroes having buffoons to knock down. When you face formidable people, it makes for a more interesting movie. When you believe in the behavior -- it's not really possible for one guy to beat up everybody in the bar. Everybody assumes that everybody could ride a horse, or fix a wagon, or make a fire. If you stick with the reality, there can be a lot of drama in the West, and a lot of danger. Something that I gravitated to when I was little, was when I saw children in a movie being able to survive in an adult world; I leaned into the movie more. But when children were stupid in movies, where directors or writing made them stupid, I leaned away. And I think that with all our CGI, with all our great effects that we have to build our movies up, when we don't invest in character, in behavior, those things aren't any good to us. When we see ourselves is when our greatest joy happens in the theater.

“I do like to make these movies, and when I started writing this with Jon (Baird) in 1988, it's safe to say that no one really wanted to make it. And in 2003, the studio wouldn't make it for 5 million more dollars. And I was distressed about that. I went on to make other movies, but I couldn't leave this one behind. And I was so mad that they didn't understand the first one, that I decided to write four more. (The audience laughs.) And everybody goes, oh yeah, that's Kevin! Jon and I, we started writing, and again, I wasn't writing to please anybody, I was trying to please myself because I think that's my best chance at pleasing you.

“I do love horses running fast. I do love the mountains and rivers that never end. And I do love the gunfight if it's orchestrated correctly. But what surprised me was when I looked up or looked down, with Jon Baird, who I am completely indebted to, was that every story had women running right down the middle. So here I had these Big Four Cowboy Movies, and women almost dominate -- and Ella dominates Chapter Two.  I just found that I couldn't tell the story that I was trying to, without making women dominant. It was a surprise to me. I don't know if fate was just moving my hand. I go, ‘Not another woman! Come on! Where's the gun fight?’ But I loved how their struggle fit so perfectly in the West. I'm proudest of the script, that Jon Baird allowed these actors to feast on with myself.”

An audience member asked if all four parts of Horizon are written. “They're all written, so this is not a case of ‘we don't know where it's going.’ We know exactly where it's going. I don't know why four movies is what's in my head, but that's what it is. And so I will push the rock uphill to find the money to do this. So that one day you'll have these four, and I hope this is a Treasure Island on your bookshelf of electronic films. I hope you have it to show your friends, to revisit it and see the details, see the nuances and choices that these actors made because it was really extraordinary acting going on in an American Western. There's a notion that things are easy for me. I guess maybe they are, if I do the things that people want me to do, and it's not that I am a contrary person. I'm not even an avant garde person for crying out loud. I make movies with horses and campfires, but I do it with an edge. It's not always in vogue. But I'm so happy to be able to do it. And I won't rest until I'm done. And I will figure it out. If I can't find that billionaire, I will look to myself like I did on One and Two. But there will be four.”

An audience member asked Costner how he made period films seem so contemporary. “Well, I think that in every generation we have abusive people. We have peeping toms -- we had them on the wagon train. So I can blend the same difficulties that we have in life and bring them right into the frontier. We have the sociopath; we have acts of kindness. There were guns and there was alcohol and a lot of times there weren't very many women. People were angry. And you run into a person that's just killed somebody and there's a bloodlust. (Note: the following refers to a scene where he’s going up a hill to see the prostitute Marigold, played by Abbey Lee, and is stalked and goaded by gunman Jamie Bower playing Caleb Sykes.) Jamie Bower, who walked up that hill with me – that actor's amazing. So we have a gun fight -- I’m not trying to reinvent the Western. But what I was really interested in was the walk up the hill; that this was a bully, and we've all encountered them in school and at work. And this was somebody that was coming out of a blood lust. He had just killed someone. He'd just been humiliated by his brother. And that was just as interesting to me. A studio might say, ‘Just get to the gunfight for crying out loud, Kevin!’ And I'm in love with the walk. I think I'm always going to be in love with the walk.”

Jamie Bower and Kevin Costner

An audience member notes the industry’s lack of interest in passion projects, and asks Costner where his wellspring of determination and hope comes from. “I just believe. I believe in story so much. I believe I have a secret in my pocket, and I just can't wait to share it). The only thing that's disappointing to me is I can't be you, and see this for the very first time like you just saw it: I wanted people to make a movie like this for me. But I can't lose my enthusiasm. No one can break me, break my spirit. I do get down, do wonder how I'm going to go on, but I love my actors. I just love that I found my Yellow Brick Road a long time ago, when I didn't figure to have any future. I got D’s and F’s in high school, where you're supposed to at least be kind of good.

“I found myself. And to be here in front of you, to be able to share what I love with people who share and have a passion that runs so deep, it's so personal, every detail. And I hope that you see them, (the Horizon films) and you revisit them the same way. When I watched Wizard of Oz, I didn't know the horses change color. I should have, because there's the line, ‘A horse of a different color.’ Every time I watch that, I see something new. And that's what I want from my movies. My movies. They have to be more than just an opening weekend. They have to be a lifetime.”

 

CRAIG ‘LONGMIRE’ JOHNSON JOINS ‘RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER’ TO DISCUSS HIS NEWEST NOVELLA, ‘TOOTH AND CLAW’

On the first Thursday of every month, I have the pleasure of being ‘in the limelight,’ joining hosts Bobbi Jean and Jim Bell on their weekly Rendezvous with a Writer podcast, where I present the month’s news in the world of film and TV Westerns, and take part in their interview with a guest writer. On November 7th, that guest was Longmire creator Craig Johnson, who was announcing the publication of his newest novella, Tooth and Claw. This story takes Longmire and Henry Standing Bear back to the Vietnam War years, and their adventures in Alaska among polar bears and bad men. The link below will bring you to the podcast: 

https://www.facebook.com/bobbi.j.bell/videos/8753051584737954

 

AUSSIE WESTERN SERIES ‘TERRITORY’ ON NETFLIX

Robert Taylor, Sam Corlett

Actor Robert Taylor, who starred as the title character on the phenomenally popular Longmire, has two series this year. He plays Jackson Gibbs, a continuing character on NCIS: Origins, and for Netflix, he stars as Colin Lawson, the patriarch of the Lawson family, who are 5^th generation owners of the largest cattle-station in Australia. (Note: what Americans call ranches, Australians call stations.) It’s stated in the first of six episodes that it’s the size of Belgium, which I suspect is roughly the size of Yellowstone. In the opener, the son that Colin has been grooming to take over the family business meets an ugly fate, and the others scramble to take his position. I found the first episode gripping, and will definitely watch more.    

JANET ARNESS DISCUSSES JULIEN’S ‘GUNSMOKE’ AUCTION

On November 15^th, Julien’s held a Western-themed, largely Gunsmoke auction in the Hollywood Museum, former home of Max Factor glamour empire. There were 568 lots up for bids, 230 from the estate of TV’s Matt Dillon, James Arness. I had the pleasure of discussing the auction before the fact with Jim’s widow, Janet Arness, for an article for the INSP blog. Here is the link: https://www.insp.com/blog/what-janet-arness-thinks-of-the-gunsmoke-auction/

Incidentally, I’m writing another INSP follow-up article on how the auction turned out.

 

THOMAS JANE, ARMIE HAMMER TO STAR IN ‘FRONTIER CRUCIBLE’

Thomas Jane from Murder at Yellowstone City

Johnny Depp and an un-masked Lone Ranger, Armie Hammer

Shooting in Monument Valley and Prescott, Arizona beginning this month, Frontier Crucible will be rolling camera under the direction of Travis Mills, who gained attention when he made good on his audacious pledge to make 12 Westerns in 12 months – during Covid, no less! In the post-Civil War drama set in Arizona Territory, Myles Clohessy is an ex-soldier who throws in with outlaws lead by Jane, and a couple, Mary Stickley and Ed Brown, to fight against common enemies. The role for Hammer, the screen’s most recent Lone Ranger, was not specified. Also in the cast is Eddie Spears. Producer Dallas Sonnier pitched the project as Reservoir Dogs meets Bone Tomahawk, and he in fact produced Bone Tomahawk, as well as 2022’s Terror on the Prairie. (Click HERE to read about my visit to the Bone Tomahawk set, and my interview with Dallas Sonnier https://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2015/10/bone-tomahawk-review-interviews-plus.html )

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the new November/December issue of True West Magazine, featuring my article celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Sam Peckinpah’s classic, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – I was fortunate enough to interview Peckinpah’s assistant Katy Haber, film editor and historian Paul Seydor, and one of the movie’s last living stars – although he’s the first one killed onscreen – Charles Martin Smith. And the next Round-up will feature my interview with Michael Feifer on the eve of directing his 8^th Western!

Much obliged,

Henry C. Parke

All Original Contents Copyright November 2024 by Parke – All Rights Reserved