FRONTIER CRUCIBLE – CHATS WITH THE STAR, DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER OF THE YEAR’S BEST WESTERN, PLUS INSP’S ‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ SEASON 5 STARTS WEDNESDAY MARCH 4, AND MORE!

 

‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ SEASON 5 STARTS MARCH 4!

Bobbi Slaski as James Masterson, Jack Elliot as Bat
 

This Wednesday on INSP, Bat Masterson once-again holsters his gun and draws his fountain-pen for 5^th season of Wild West Chronicles. Lasting this long is no small achievement. As series Producer Gary Tarpinian puts it, “In an era in which getting a second season is tantamount to a small miracle, I have to pinch myself that we are really delivering a fifth season of this scripted, anthology series that presents the greatest true stories and characters of the Old West.” (Read my season one interview with series Producers Gary Tarpinian and Craig Miller HERE).

Lisa Eve as Little Britches, photo by Morgan Weistling

Brooke Lyne as Cattle Annie, photo by Morgan Weistling

For anyone unfamiliar with the series, they took the fact that Bat Masterson later in life became a New York newspaper reporter, chronicling the Old West, and used it as a jumping-off point. In each episode, Masterson, portrayed by Jack Elliot (read my interview with him HERE),   travels back to the West to interview witnesses or surviving participants in important, though not always famous, historical events. These are entertaining historical dramas, not docudramas with clunky reenactments and talking heads, and while writers have to invent dialogue, they hew as close to the knowable history as possible – sometimes to the writers’ disappointment. And while historical series endlessly recycle over-exposed legends like Wyatt Earp and Jesse James, Wild West Chronicles focuses on fascinating but less well-known figures. This season’s opener is about Bat’s less-famous brother James, and subsequent episodes are about Henry Garfias, Phoenix’s first City Marshall, and the two teenaged girls who ran off to join Bill Doolin’s gang.

Josh Feinman as Bill Doolin sure reminds me of Richard Boone

in Have Gun Will Travel, photo by Morgan Weistling

Jack Elliot’s portrayal of the cane-wielding lawman, whom he very-much resembles, produces a lot of fan-mail, often comparing him favorably to Gene Barry’s portrayal from the 1958 TV series.    

MAKING FRONTIER CRUCIBLE – PRODUCER, DIRECTOR & STAR

As I opined in my True West, Best of the West article in the January/February 2026 issue, Frontier Crucible is the best Western feature released in 2025. It’s available through Prime Video and AppleTV. The premise is simple: in 1870s Arizona, Maj. O’Rourke (William H. Macy) convinces Merrick Beckford (Myles Clohessy), a soldier-turned-cowboy, to cross Apache country, to attempt to deliver desperately-needed medicine to an isolated town. En route Beckford encounters survivors of an Apache attack: three unsavory men (Thomas Jane, Armie Hammer, Ryan Masson), a beautiful woman (Mary Stickley), and her wounded husband (Eli Brown).  Beckford can’t abandon them, he can’t trust them, and he can’t delay his mission. It’s based on the novel Desert Stake-Out by prolific pulp author Harry Whittington. ‘Based on’ is putting it mildly, as the following interviews will explain.

It's a tough, stripped-down, sophisticated, suspenseful, and very arid Western, with strong, smart characters in conflict, which recalls the collaborations of Delmer Daves and Glenn Ford, Anthony Mann and James Stewart, and especially Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott.

In the past I’ve interviewed producer Dallas Sonnier, director Travis Mills, and star Thomas Jane on other Western films, and had the opportunity to interview all three on this collaboration.

DALLAS SONNIER – PRODUCER

Dallas Sonnier is a very busy guy, and has been for a long time. When we first spoke, it was in 2015, on the set of his and Craig Zahler’s grounding-breaking “Horror Western” Bone Tomahawk (you can read that article HERE.  ) That was Dallas’ 19^th feature. Since then he’s produced 20 more movies, including Brawl in Cell Block 99, Dragged Across Concrete, Terror on the Prairie, and a half-dozen TV series. His 2019 film VFW, starring Stephen Lang, Fred Williamson and Martin Kove, is a reworking of Rio Bravo, set in a Veterans of Foreign Wars post. When we spoke in October, and I asked if he was busy, he happily replied, “I'm having an embarrassment of riches right now. We've got Muzzle: City of Wolves, the Aaron Ekhart sequel, coming out in a couple of weeks. Then Frontier Crucible December 5^th, and we have The Pendragon Cycle coming out in January.” The Arthurian Pendragon miniseries, along with a number of his recent films, is produced with Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire +, and that’s where you need to go to stream it “We're in Los Angeles prepping a movie right now. And the John Rambo prequel is shooting in Thailand in the New Year. So it has just been absolutely bananas.”     

HENRY PARKE: I really enjoyed Terror on The Prairie without realizing it was your picture.

DALLAS SONNIER: In 2020 COVID hit, and I sold Fangoria (note: the horror movie magazine). I was getting attacked by a bunch of people internally and externally who were just so mad at me for being an outspoken conservative. Politics got crazy. And I don't even care about politics when it comes to movies; I just like making movies. So I get a phone call from The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro's company. And I ended up selling them Run Hide Fight. I brought them Gina Carano to make the Terror movie. And we have a big King Arthur-style series; all kinds of great stuff.

HENRY PARKE: I’ll bet Daily Wire is very excited, that it's going to bring a lot of new people to them.

DALLAS SONNIER: Yes, absolutely. They need a big series, a great anchor series for them, like House of Cards was for Netflix, like Game of Thrones was for HBO.

HENRY PARKE: How did Frontier Crucible come about?

DALLAS SONNIER: S. Craig Zahler, he's a massive fan of the novelist, Harry Whittington. Probably six years ago, before COVID, he brought the book to me and he was like, this is perfect for your sort of modest budget; thoughtful, minimal locations, but great movie-star roles. You should totally convert the book to a script and shoot it. You don't need to change anything; it's all there. It's even the right length. Zahler is obviously a genius. And so I did it: I got the rights to the book, we converted it to a Final Draft file (note: screenplay software) and made the movie. There literally is no screenwriter on the movie. It's the craziest thing. I was in Budapest, then in Italy, working on the Pendragon series, and I had built up a friendship with Travis Mills over Terror on the Prairie and other movies that he helped me on. He just worked his ass off on Pendragon: he really was the ‘boots on the ground’ producer. He shot second unit, all kinds of great stuff.  <laugh> He acts in the series! And so I was like, “Yo, we gotta find a movie for you.” And at the same time, on the same set, we were really impressed by this young actor named Myles Clohessy. We just thought, this is Clint Eastwood in the ‘60s, in the Sergio Leone movies. I'm always trying to kill multiple birds with one stone, so I said, okay, I've got this project. I want to make Miles a movie star. I want to give Travis a real awesome script to direct: let's put all this together. Me and a buddy, Preston Poulter, put the money together. Then I brought on all my producers, Amanda (Presmyk) and Lily (Campbell) and David (Guglielmo) and Travis. And it was just awesome. We ended up making the movie in Prescott, Arizona. Of course, the beginning of the movie is in Monument Valley; and that's how it came together. It was just such an awesome, independently spirited movie.

HENRY PARKE: It's funny you were saying that Myles Clohessy is your new Clint Eastwood. I was thinking more Randolph Scott or Joel McCrea.

Myles Clohessey and Mary Stickley

DALLAS SONNIER: Well, yes. I mean, obviously in your world and my world, the world of the Ranown Westerns, and (Budd) Boetticher -- what an idol for us! The Randolph Scott sort of tale. Zahler and I talked about those movies a lot. Travis has seen all of them. He's a massive fan of the Boetticher films, so those were incredible influences on us.

HENRY PARKE: Mary Stickley, who's your female lead. I have not seen before, and I thought she was very strong.

DALLAS SONNIER: Yes. She was an absolute discovery by our casting director, David Guglielmo. And the real fear was she's got a thick Australian accent. We cast her over Zoom, and it was very unique. But we wanted someone who visually is so arresting that when Myles, as Beckford, sees her for the first time, his whole world is shook. You know, in our modern, stupid, over-feminized society, we've gotten so far away from feminine beauty; we really wanted someone who was physically beautiful, and we didn't want to apologize for that.

HENRY PARKE: Well, you sure found her, but she's also a really solid actress. Until I looked her up on IMDb, I would never have guessed that she was Australian.

DALLAS SONNIER: That was 90% of the prep work with her.

HENRY PARKE: I loved the manner of her dialogue. Not stilted exactly, but very formal.

DALLAS SONNIER: No, stilted is absolutely a positive word for us. It separates. The very specific cadence, the speech patterns, it lets you immerse yourself in a past time period, and you're not reminded of modern speech. That was a very specific design of ours.

HENRY PARKE: Right. And formal is perfectly appropriate for her entrance into this world, which she obviously does not belong in. I thought that was really effective. Were you at all concerned about her and Miles, being the two least known people in the film, carrying it?

Eli Brown and Mary Stickley

DALLAS SONNIER: That of course comes up all the time, especially when you're talking to agents and managers and casting; (you have) major movie stars in the other roles, and they're like, ‘Who's this guy? Who's this girl? I've never heard of her before.’ I have a unique approach to casting; I call it the reverse bell curve. I like to cast absolute unknowns or real movie stars. You either want to be able to bring a movie forward with a total discovery, like in the case of Isabel May in Run Hide Fight, for example: what a discovery! And then surround them with amazing movie stars. (Note: In 1883, Isabel May played Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s daughter, Elsa Dutton, and walked away with the miniseries.) In Run Hide Fight, it was Thomas Jane and Radha Mitchell and Treat Williams. Or like Dragged Across Concrete, we got Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn and Don Johnson; really stack the cast as much as possible. But even in Dragged Across Concrete, you know, Tory Kittles is the lead of the movie. So it's a fascinating approach. But yes, there was a lot of, oh my gosh, who? And I think it's great. I think Mary and Myles will both go on to be massive stars. And of course, David (Guglielmo) and Travis (Mills) deserve all the credit for casting Mary. And we all deserve all the credit for backing Miles and finding this starring role for him. So in the end, I think they're gonna be huge stars and we'll be real proud having made this movie with them so early in their careers.

HENRY PARKE: I loved Thomas Jane and Armie Hammer playing so against their usual roles.

DALLAS SONNIER: Thomas and I are very close friends. We got to know each other on Run Hide Fight. I could never do what he does, and vice versa, so we're really complimentary in that sense. He was my first phone call on this, and he was a huge Harry Whittington fan already. But you know, he normally would be playing the lead. To play the heavy, I think it was pretty fun for him. And he worked very closely with Travis, and Jeff Dawn, our amazing hair and makeup department head and partner on almost every movie at this point. They worked really hard on the mustache and the gaunt look. He brings a unique speech pattern to it, and that was all TJ's inner working and prep work. We knew we wanted Armie, so David dm’d a mutual friend of Armie, and said the producer of Bone Tomahawk has an offer for Armie. And the friend said, we love Bone Tomahawk! Send us the offer! In 48 hours we had the deal done, and we're thrilled to be his return to acting. Cancel culture is a horrible thing, and I'm proud to be at the forefront of fighting back against it. And I can't wait to work with him again.

HENRY PARKE: I'm assuming you had an unlimited budget and months to shoot.

DALLAS SONNIER: We did not <laugh>, we did not <laugh>. We shot the movie in basically four weeks, give or take, 20 days. We did all of the scenes in Prescott, Arizona, and at the very end we shot the William H. Macy scene up in Monument Valley. The tribal communities up there were so amazing to us. That's an unbelievable thing to do, for us Western fans, considering like The Searchers and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and all. It's just unreal to be standing there, and then to add a movie camera. My gosh, what an amazing core memory.

William H. Macy with co-star, Monument Valley

HENRY PARKE:  What are the advantages of having a lean budget and a tight shooting schedule?

DALLAS SONNIER: There are, honestly none. <laugh>. Don't let anyone tell you that it made everyone come together. No, it's just miserable <laugh>. I'm teasing. It’s like the scene in The Alamo where Col. Travis draws the sword and the line in the sand and says, if you step across this line, you're in till the finish, till death, and if you wanna leave, leave now. When you have a very modest budget picture, and working with me is an acquired taste <laugh>. You draw that line in the sand, the people that come over the line and work with you on the movie are family for life. They're in the trenches with you, and they want to make something they can be really be proud of. And so that's it's really; budget and limitations are a dividing line to separate the wheat from the chaff, you know?

HENRY PARKE: Looking back on the film, I thought there was not a single interior.

DALLAS SONNIER: Yeah, <laugh>, there was in the book. The William H. Macy scene does take place in an office, and that's the one creative liberty. When we decided to shoot in Arizona, I said, guys, we gotta just move that scene to Monument Valley. Working with Macy was amazing. That scene was shot on the last day. We picked him up from the Phoenix Airport, drove him up to Monument Valley. He carries a ukulele with him everywhere he goes. So on the drive up, he was playing funny songs. And then on the set in between takes, he was singing for the cast and crew. I mean, what an amazing guy. He came in and just nailed the scene. Just working with an absolute acting legend in a setting that is so iconic for Westerns, and all the people we grew up loving and have such reverence for. It felt like we were amongst the gods, you know what I mean? It was just a wonderful feeling. And when it was all over that night, we went and had a drink together, and then we drove home the next morning, and that was it. And it was over <laugh>, and it's like, oh, man, I could have lived there <laugh>!

TRAVIS MILLS – DIRECTOR

William H. Macy and Travis Mills

I first met Ecuador-born, Arizona-based filmmaker Travis Mills when he was working with British Punk/Western filmmaker and film historian Alex Cox on Tombstone Rashomon in 2017. Mills made his mark on the film industry when he succeeded with his audacious self-challenge, directing 12 Westerns in 12 months.  Alex Cox, and his new Western, Dead Souls, will be the focus of the March Round-up.

Henry Parke: I was just talking to Alex Cox about when you were helping him with casting on Tombstone Rashomon.

Travis Mills: Yeah, it was back in 2016, and I did everything from producing to casting to scooping up the horse poop in the streets of Old Tucson.

Henry Parke: And now you've already directed more Western features than probably anyone else alive. Why did you want to do this one in particular?

Travis Mills: Well, I did the 12 Westerns in 12 months in 2020. Made a couple Westerns before and after that. And Dallas Sonnier, the producer of this one, showed me the script of Frontier Crucible back in 2021. One of the best westerns I've read: kind of a newer, violent version of The Tall T; wonderful characters, rich dialogue. When he first showed me the script, someone else would've directed it. He just wanted my help producing it because of my experience with Westerns. Then eventually I earned Dallas's trust and he said, “This is a project that you should really direct.” And I thought well, I'm gonna take everything that I've learned from these 15 other Westerns that I've made and put it into one film, and try to make the best Western that I've ever made with the most resources I've ever had.

Henry Parke: You did a hell of a job. It brings back the sort of Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea Westerns, but with a harder edge.

Travis Mills: That’s great to hear.

Henry Parke: Dallas told me that before Frontier Crucible, you were also a great help on Terror on The Prairie.

Travis Mills: Yeah, that was another one where I was the quote unquote Swiss Army knife. <laugh>. They brought me in to produce because I'd made all these Westerns. That was the first movie I made with Dallas. He says, this guy knows the genre, bring him to Montana. And they learned that I can do a lot of things; I performed the movie's biggest stunts. I played a character and even shot our B camera for three of the four weeks. So I did about everything you can do.

Henry Parke: Were you familiar with author Harry Whittington before this?

Travis Mills: I was not. I learned about him when I first read the script.

Henry Parke: What particularly appealed to you about the Frontier Crucible story?

Travis Mills: I think that a lot of modern westerns have lost the plot in terms of what really makes a Western. Everybody's focused on the aesthetics: the cowboy hats, the horses, the gunfights and all that. But they don't understand the thematic importance of the genre. The idea of moral codes, competing moral codes. And when you go back to the Budd Boetticher films -- The Tall T, Ride Lonesome -- that's what it's all about. You've got the hero who's got his moral code, you've got the villain who has his, those are clashing, and that's what it's all about. I thought this script did that well in a way that most modern Westerns don't. It had a hero who is sticking to his code the way that Randolph Scott would've. And you have a villain who isn't pure evil, he just has his understanding of the world and his code to stick by. And that's what makes it really interesting.

Henry Parke: With your 12 westerns in 12 months, you were working with actors who had not yet made their mark in the industry. Was this your first time directing stars? How did you like it?

Travis Mills: I directed a non-Western with stars in 2015, a movie with Tom Sizemore and Peter Bogdanovich called Durant Never Closes. And I haven't since. It was wonderful to work with Thomas Jane and Armie Hammer and William H. Macy. Thomas Jane is one of those actors that the collaboration is definitely iron sharpens iron. He's challenging me on what the scene is, I'm challenging him, and you get something better every time because of that. Armie Hammer, honestly, is my favorite actor that I've ever worked with. Wonderful guy, super sweet, very smart, adaptable to anything that I threw his way, would incorporate all of my ideas, and be up for trying anything. I would work with him again in a heartbeat. And of course, William H. Macy is a legend, and being able to shoot with him in Monument Valley was the ultimate honor.

Armie Hammer in his first Western since The Lone Ranger

Henry Parke: How did making a dozen westerns in a year help with Frontier Crucible?

Travis Mills: When you make a movie, inevitably you make mistakes. And I’ve always been one to say, I'm not gonna sit there and try to make one perfect film. I'm gonna be a working filmmaker, and learn from these mistakes as I go. And working in the genre so much. I got to see the weaknesses in writing and performances. How to work with horses, how to work with guns, how to shoot action sequences. I put myself through Western Bootcamp <laugh>, and just applied all of those things. Not to mention, when you make all those films, you meet the armorer that you wanna work with, the horse people you like, the wagon people you like. You develop not just a stock company of actors, but a stock company of crew that you can bring to Frontier Crucible. One of the reasons we shot in Arizona is because I told Dallas, this is where I have my base of resources.

Henry Parke: Speaking of Arizona, how did you like your locations?

Travis Mills: Unbelievable location. It does not sound hard to find a water-hole in the desert, but it's actually turns out that it's not an easy location to find. And some of our options were in National Forests, National Parks, with a lot of red tape to get permission. I lucked out finding our spot in Prescott, Arizona and Watson Lake. I was using Google Maps, looking at a different location, stumbled upon Watson Lake, scouted it in Prescott with the wonderful Film Commissioner, Samara Rice there. And if I had known about Prescot, and some of the locations around Prescott, years ago, I probably would've made all of my westerns there, because you can shoot scenes where it looks like you're in the middle of nowhere, but in fact, you're 10 minutes from Chick-fil-A. So it's the ideal place to be making a Western movie and not be out in the middle of nowhere.

Henry Parke: Were you concerned that your two leads will not be familiar faces to the audience?

Travis Mills: I think there's something wonderful about working with fresh faces. Because when we see people we've seen time and time again, they bring such a history with them, which can be a benefit. But also you're sitting there watching Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or whoever, and thinking about who they are off-screen and all their other roles. Whereas here we have Myles Clohessey and Mary Stickley, and this is gonna be most audience members’ first time ever watching them. I think that they will see them as Merrick Beckford and Valerie, and be able to lose themselves in the performances. Myles does such a wonderful job of carrying the film. I know at an early test screening, people who were completely unfamiliar with him said he has very much a Clint Eastwood vibe, and that was wonderful to hear.

Henry Parke: Would you like a longer shooting schedule on your next feature, or do you prefer having a lean budget and a tight schedule?

Travis Mills: <laugh> I think every filmmaker would like a longer shooting schedule, but I pride myself in being able to shoot a script like this, which was a fairly long script, 120 pages, in 18 days. Again, that comes from my history in the micro-budget world and being very efficient with coverage and keeping things moving along. So sure, I will take more days of shooting anytime anyone will give it to me. But the bigger the crew, the harder it is to move quickly, because there’re lots of elements that you have to get in motion and keep in motion.

Henry Parke: Any favorite memories of the shoot?

Travis Mills: Two things. I can't say enough about how important prep is. I was fortunate to spend three weeks of prep with our director of photography, Maxime Alexandre. Wonderful man who I worked with in Europe before this. And those three weeks is what led to our success on the project. Because we were on location every single day talking through the shots. That time, being in the environment, soaking up the world, creating the visual style of the film, and then eating a lot of hamburgers, was probably my favorite memory. One other story. On our final day in Prescott, we filmed the entire fight scene that happens at the end, the climax of the movie, in one day. As usual, we were running out of light, and we got what is the final scene, the final two, three shots of the film and the last bit of light that could possibly be in the sky. And it's gorgeous. But those little moments where you realize, if we had moved a minute or two slower, then we might not have gotten it; this is nerve-wracking, but also there's a feeling of victory when you get it all in the can.

THOMAS JANE - ACTOR

Don't mess with Thomas Jane!
 

Thomas Jane needs, as they say, no introduction, having been a busy actor since the early ‘90s with roles in Face/Off, Boogie Nights, Thin Red Line, then a leading man in films as varied as The Velocity of Gary, Deep Blue Sea, The Punisher, and so many more.

Henry Parke: I really enjoyed your performance in Frontier Crucible, and it was such fun to see you play someone so unlike your usual heroic characters. How did you like playing someone so charming, but ultimately the bad guy?

Thomas Jane: This is, for me, an homage to all the wonderful character actors that worked throughout the fifties and sixties, that would come in and play these western archetypes that I so enjoyed as a youth. So it was really fun to slip into the role. The part is really well-written. Also I’m a big Harry Whittington fan. There's another book he wrote, Ticket to Hell, and I actually have adapted that into a screenplay, and I'm hoping that we can get that going one day. We have a little rights issue right now, but the combination of Whittington and the throwback Western story that this script follows were turn-ons for me.

Henry Parke: My favorite of your lines, because I thought it summed up your character so well, was, “As long as I'm alive, I'm going to explore every option.”

Thomas Jane: Yeah, that's pretty much the guy <laugh>.

Henry Parke: It was also interesting to see you playing a character older than yourself. The mustache really helped. How did you approach it?

Thomas Jane: The obstacle is my ego. Getting over the fact that I'm gonna age myself up on screen. And I did a great job! You know, people lived a rougher life. They aged quicker, they died quicker, and that was definitely part of the character. The hard-scrabble kind of guys that survived into older age had to be extremely tough. So part of wearing the mask of that character, that helped me get into the spirit of the thing, was aging myself up. Not only physically, but internally as well. I had a lot of fun playing the part.

Henry Parke: Was it a physically difficult shoot?

Thomas Jane: We shot in Arizona in October. The days warmed up, sometimes into the seventies, so the weather was perfect, the light was great. You get that fall sun that's lower in the sky. Shooting was a bit difficult for the night stuff; we were freezing our butts off out there, but that's just part of the gig. And I enjoyed the exterior of it all. You know, character-wise and just getting into the story, it really helps when you've got real rocks and dirt <laugh> under your feet. We didn't have sets to build. It was just a bunch of characters outdoors, which I also was attracted to. I like those kinds of stories, where it takes place over one period of time. I also like characters that don't change costumes. You can take a jacket off, you can take your hat off, but what you see is what you get. I'm always attracted to characters like that.

Henry Parke: Your director, Travis Mills, has probably directed more westerns than anyone else alive at the moment. What is he like to work with?

Thomas Jane: He certainly loves the genre, which is a prerequisite for doing a good Western: you gotta know the genre. And he knows it like the back of his hand. He gave me a couple of Westerns to watch, the names escape me, but there's one with Robert Ryan, terrific little Western. The homework on these things is always fun.

Henry Parke: With the actors clustered around the wagon for most of the film, it was very much an ensemble piece. You lock horns with Armie Hammer. How do you like working with him?

Thomas Jane: I gotta tell you, he's wonderfully astute. He is very well educated and has a spark of life that is very charismatic. He's a good dude. He's done a lot of work on himself, as we all should. I had a wonderful experience with Hammer.

Henry Parke: I was not familiar with Ryan Masson, who played your son, but I thought he was very effective and I really liked your relationship.

Thomas Jane: He was great, a young actor who fell right into it. I thought he was perfect for my son. I look forward to seeing more from that kid.

Henry Parke: Is it true that all of you did your own stunts?

Thomas Jane: We sure did. We had tussling and fighting and falling -- all the fun stuff that you get to do in a Western, and we're on hard ground. With the weather being crisp, you've got to limber up, and I didn't quite limber up enough one day, and I messed my shoulder up for quite a while. You always get little souvenirs from these type of things.

Henry Parke: Any favorite memories from the making of the film?

Thomas Jane: You know, I'm not a morning person; never have been. My clock is set in reverse, so that makes me allergic to sunrises. But on this film, you're getting there before dawn, and you're quitting when you run out of light. And the crisp Arizona air and the gorgeous surroundings woke me up every day. And that was a real joy, to participate in the lovely rhythm of the mornings, which I am not particularly used to. So that was a novel experience that I enjoyed very much.

Henry Parke: What keeps you coming back to the Western genre?

Thomas Jane: I have a love of the genre, and I'm just so happy that we're still making them. The Western has gone through fallow periods, but also rich periods. And I'd love to see a serious revival. What we need is a really strong Western; I haven't seen one since Unforgiven, to be honest. What we need is a great one, and then we'll have another period where we can spend a little bit more money making them. Most of them have become lower budget affairs, which is fine; we don't need a lot of money to make a great Western, which is also appealing. The essence of the Western is the conflict between the individual freedom of man versus the constraints and rules and laws of civilization. You can find that thread in most Westerns. That's a central theme that I'm attracted to, that I come back to over and over.

GOODBYE TO THE BOBBYS, DUVALL AND CARRADINE

We’ve recently lost two Western film legends, Robert Duvall at 95, and Robert Carradine at 71. Duvall I interviewed at some length, and he was fascinating man, and a great talent, and gave me wonderful, candid answers to my questions about his work. Below are links to the two articles I wrote about him for True West, the first an interview, the second a look at his Western film career. I’m currently writing a third, focusing on the making of Lonesome Dove.

The Godfather of Westerns

https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/the-godfather-of-westerns-2/

Robert Duvall – A Western Career

https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/robert-duvall-a-western-career/

Me and Bobby Carradine after a Lone Pine parade

I not only had the opportunity to interview Bobby Carradine, I got to spend time with him socially at luncheons and film festivals. He had a great sense of humor and simply could not have been a nicer guy, easy-going but out-going, always letting you know he was glad to see you. Below is a link to my True West interview with him which, like the Robert Duvall interview, is featured in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them. Also below is a link to my INSP article about The Cowboys 50^th anniversary, for which I interviewed Robert Carradine.

Robert Carradine – Born to the West

https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/born-to-the-west/

50^th Anniversary of The Cowboys – Where Are They Now?

https://www.insp.com/stories/the-cowboys-1972-50th-anniversary-cast-where-are-they-now/

 

RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER

On my February appearance on the show, I joined hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Bell in discussing The Undiscovered Country with its author, the respected western historian and True West writer Paul Andrew Hutton. Here are the links.

To listen: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-kwd42-1a41b82

To listen and see our happy, smiling faces: https://www.facebook.com/rendezvouswithawriter/videos/4397616237229104

MY RECENT INSP ARTICLES

Zane Grey and the Western Movie

https://www.insp.com/stories/zane-grey-and-the-western-movie/

Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey – Two Western Titans

https://www.insp.com/stories/louis-lamour-and-zane-grey-two-western-titans/

TRUE WEST MAGAZINE

Please check out our January/February Annual Best of the West Issue! Here’s the link to my article: https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/western-movies-a-year-of-westerns-on-hold/

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Don’t forget that Season 5 of Old West Chronicles begins on INSP Wednesday night, March 4th! And Thursday night, March 5^th, join me and hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Bell for Rendezvous with a Writer on L.A. Talk Radio, where our guests will be True West President and Executive Editor Bob Boze Bell, and True West Editor at Large and Western Writers of America Vice President Stuart Rosebrook!

Happy Trails, Henry

All Original Contents Copyright February 2026 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

Not to be used for training A.I.

 

 

'EASTERN WESTERN' -- INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKERS THE GROZDANOVA SISTERS, WHO'S TRYING TO SUPPRESS 'YOU'RE NO INDIAN'? PLUS CRAIG JOHNSON ON 'RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER'

 

FROM BULGARIA WITH LOVE – OF THE AMERICAN WEST!

FILMMAKERS BILIANA AND MARINA GROZDANOVA ON EASTERN WESTERN

 

Eastern Western is a beautiful, inspiring immigrant story, but then, so are the lives of the sisters who made it, Biliana Grozdanova and Marina Grozdanova. Marina elaborates, “We’re from Bulgaria originally. We immigrated when we were very young with our parents, and we lived many, many different places, from Australia to Canada, Spain, and then we finally landed in the U.S. We're based in Brooklyn, New York.” Certainly a journey that might help one appreciate the United States, but why the western part of the country? “The Western, I think was the perfect genre for us to start with because it's a genre in which you can talk a lot about those issues, specifically immigration and coming to new lands.”

Biliana says, “We grew up with the ‘90s Westerns. One of the first films I remember seeing was Dances with Wolves, by Kevin Costner. Then we discovered Clint Eastwood, then we started moving backwards to Sergio Leone and Redford. The Western has been an iconography in our creative process. And as Marina said, it's the perfect genre: to tell a story of coming to America in the Western is as old as cinema. And we found that throughout these films that we love so much, you don't really hear the immigrant's perspective. Specifically the Eastern European journey to America was something that we wanted to tell, in this re-imagining of this man coming to America. The main character, Igor, he's from Bosnia and Herzegovina. So we kind of fused our two paths, from Bulgaria, from Bosnia, and made this imaginary tale.”

In the story, in the late 1800s, we find the recently widowed Igor (Igor Galijasevic), and his 2-year-old son Ivo (Leonardo Galijasevic), in a frozen Montana, trying to survive the winter on their farm, and to make a life for themselves in America. They befriend a horse breeder (Duncan Vezain) and his family, and throw in together. The tale is told chronologically, with some abrupt forward leaps.  

Henry Parke: In making this film, were there any particular filmmakers or films that were key references to you, that influenced you?

Marina Grozdanova: I would say no. I would say going into making this film, I specifically was not thinking of any films, only because when you enter a landscape such as Montana, the landscape itself is what inspires the basis of your story, and then the characters you bring into it. Maybe tangentially the cinematic practice of recent filmmaker Chloe Zhao (note: director of The Rider, Nomadland, Hamnet); she does a lot of non-actor films, and she started off by making non-actor Westerns. And perhaps that was in the back of our minds, but I would say that in making this particular movie, I would like to think that it came purely from our minds and our hearts.

Biliana Grozdanova: I echo what Marina says. We didn't set out to make a movie like any other, but deep down, my personal inspiration does come from Kevin Costner. It does come from Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes, the first modern novel, Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. Just as general inspiration of the myths of the West, I do think influences are in the aura of Eastern Western.

Henry Parke: Your style of filmmaking tends to be very, naturalistic, not heavily plot-driven. I was wondering how you went about writing the screenplay.

Marina Grozdanova: To be perfectly honest, our screenplay was a very, I won't say short or rough, but it was an outline. We had a starting point. We had a midpoint; I would say the end point came after a few weeks of shooting, actually. We did one test shoot, and then we did our first shoot in November of 2022. And in that time period, we had maybe half of the outline of the screenplay thought out. And as we did our first shoot, we made the story as we were getting to know our real characters, our non-actors. Igor and his real-life son are the protagonists of the film. And then we incorporated another real-life Montana family to be featured later on in the film. And so we really allowed the story to mold around them. Therefore, the screenplay started off as an outline, then it developed more in detail as we met new characters throughout the shoots.

Biliana Grozdanova: And to piggyback off of that, we fluctuate between documentary and fiction. We come from a documentary background, and we are really open to -- we say this a lot -- the magic of cinema, where you can write the best script. Of course we love scripted cinema, but always being open to improv and discovering new twists and turns for your story was something that we worked with.

Henry Parke: The first sequence that you shot were the things with Igor and his son alone?

Biliana Grozdanova: Yes. Well, actually the first day of filming was the grizzly bear. We thought, if we can get this top list, we'll be good to go.

Henry Parke: Oh my God! Traditionally in Hollywood, you do that scene last, in case your lead gets eaten by the bear.

Biliana Grozdanova: Exactly.

Henry Parke: So you took a big chance there. Shooting a Western under any circumstances is a challenge, but some of the scenes shot in the snow must have been very challenging.

Leonardo Galijaseviv as Ivo

Biliana Grozdanova: It was. Winter was our probably hardest portion because of the cold. We were working with limited hours of daylight, and as you said, naturalistic is our style. We also don't really light any of our scenes, and heavily rely on daylight and moving with the characters and flowing with the characters. So it was difficult. We were also working with kids and horses and animals, which they tell you not to do, because there are lot of factors there. But the elements in Montana very much dictate your shoot, as well as the baby. The young Evo in the film, Leonardo in real life, we were on his schedule. If he has a nap, we'll film the napping scene. If he's crying, we'll film the crying scene. That, plus winter in a tiny cold cabin, was rough. But I think that those winter images are some of my favorite images of the film.

Henry Parke:  Oh, they're just beautiful. The whole film is beautiful, and I was struck by the fact that your cinematographer and editor are the same guy, Cameron Wheeless, which is very unusual, although maybe that would help with the cutting ratio.

Biliana Grozdanova:  We are a small production team. We never hide that. We are very nimble on set and also in post-production. And it did help. We cut the film along with our cinematographer and editor, the three of us together in a room, making some really hard decisions. A lot of scenes were left on the cutting room floor because of the nature of how we film, the improvt. But it's a special way of working. Maybe we're too close to the material; maybe he's too close to the material because he shot it, but in the end, I think it really worked out having a small team.

Igor Galijaseviv

Henry Parke: Was the epilogue sequence also shot in Montana?

Marina Grozdanova: The epilogue actually is shot in Bosnia and Hetzagovina. That portion of the film came out after we shot everything, and we knew that we were not done yet with the story of this spirit of the horse, of the child that grows up. We knew that there had to be some connection to home and a return to Bosnia. Therefore, we said, let's go to Bosnia. Let's shoot the end of this film and really make it a return to home. And also demonstrate that the 1800s led the way into the 20th century. And we had to also tell the story of the beginning of the 20th century, how the World War really showcased a new use for horses. The horse, as it existed in the Western, now had to go serve and help out the forces in Europe. And we thought that that was something that had to be told to really tell the full story of the horse. And also Igor's homeland Bosnia; you know, Eastern Europe is where everything started for World War I.

Henry Parke: How many shooting days did you have?

Marina Grozdanova: We shot over the course of three different chapters. The winter, then we took eight months off, shot in the summertime. We wanted to showcase the seasons, and then the epilogue was shot in the fall in Bosnia. So we had approximately, gosh, 35 shoot days. Which is probably more than you should have for an indie feature. But we were small and nimble, so we could do that.

Henry Parke: Were you shooting film or digital?

Biliana Grozdanova: Definitely digital. We actually have a great little doc style camera that really did wonders with the style of the film, primarily filmed with one wide angle, prime lens. And really, I think we're able to capture intimacy with the characters because we got so close to them. Our cinematographer got so close to them, and the vastness of Montana, really both of those and the nature in general were captured well with the style that we chose.

Henry Parke: Any favorite memories of the shoot?

Marina Grozdanova: I would say the winter, only because it was the start of the adventure. And the start is always, at least for me, less stressful than the middle, because you don't quite realize the avalanche you're gonna be a part of. And also, I really enjoyed the challenge of filming in the snow. I did sound for about 70% of the movie, and all that snow, right next to our cinematographer. We were running through fields and that was fun.

Marina Grozdanova

Biliana Grozdanova: I would say filming with Adam the Bear, who passed recently. Adam the Bear had a very great life, was part of a sort of animal sanctuary in Montana that was really special. And working with the horses in general, and discovering things that we weren't expecting as part of this magic of cinema. You know, some of the greatest lines in the film are improvised. Like when they're having the dinner conversation, Duncan says, we have to go west. Olivia ends that with, 'you Don't forget family.' That was not scripted. And that was one of my favorite lines of the film. So the, the magic magical moments that we didn't expect are, are some of my favorites.

Henry Parke: Most of the characters use their real first names. I was wondering if that was to loosen them up, with that kind of improvised dialogue?

Biliana Grozdanova: As directors we made that choice to leave their actual names, because each character is a version of themselves 150 years in the past. To a great extent they helped us create those characters. So Igor is Igor in the past. Duncan is Duncan in the past, and the only person who doesn't carry the same name is little Evo, because he grows up and he's played by two different real-life people. Everyone else carries their own names.

Henry Parke: There’s very little music in the film, and  certainly not the sort of sweeping Western kind of score that people tend to expect. What was your intention with your score?

Biliana Grozdanova: Thank you for noticing the music. We really are proud of the choice that we made. Six out of the seven tracks in the film are by a former Yugoslavian artist, Baranko Mathia, who passed in the 2000s. He was an immigrant from former Yugoslavia to the American West, I think California. And he built custom guitars, even for Johnny Cash. He had only two albums, I believe you can find him on Spotify, but it was very unique sound, which kind of fluctuates between the East and the West. It's a little rough and analog-y, and it reminded us of certain tones of the Spaghetti Western. And the fact that he was from Eastern Europe and came to America really fit with the motifs in our film. So that's six of the tracks, and then the seventh track that is during the gun battle is actually a Bulgarian composition. We have polyphonic singers in Bulgaria that are a very special type of niche music. And that's our stamp. The only Bulgarian element in the film, besides us, is that Bulgarian composition during the gun battle.

Henry Parke: Among your previous credits is a documentary about the heavy metal band Hessler.

Marina Grozdanova: It’s called Last Kamikazes of Heavy Metal, which features Igor Galijazavic, the main character of Eastern Western. He had a heavy metal band like 12 years ago in Chicago. We met him, we toured, and it was lovely. We became really good friends and when we started Eastern Western, we knew that we wanted him to play our lead cowboy.

Henry Parke: Does he want to have an acting career now?

Marina Grozdanova: I think he really enjoyed the process, and the fact that we made a film with his son, who is already now two years older. I mean, we work in family obviously, and he really discovered his love for acting since the Kamikaze days, but specifically with Eastern Western. I hope we do get to work together again. And I hope he does get roles because he's really talented.

Henry Parke: Is there anything else that I should know about Eastern Western?

Biliana Grozdanova, right

Biliana Grozdanova: Primarily to say that this film lives in a space between fiction and documentary, and the majority of everyone you see on screen there are non-professional actors. So they really left their souls on our screen and helped us create this truly ensemble cast-based picture. So we're really proud of our cast, and also really thankful for our crew. And we hope to continue making cinema as sisters.Henry Parke: I should say something about how good Duncan, your second male lead, was. He's quite a find.

Biliana Grozdanova: Duncan is an incredible horse wrangler and rancher from Montana. All the horses on screen are Duncan's. That's his family, his wife, his daughters. He has had small roles in other pictures where he's wrangling, and maybe delivers a few lines but I know that this is his biggest role yet, and he really did an incredible job and we loved having cast him.

Marina Grozdanova: And I just want to add one last thing. Thank you so much, Henry, for this interview. As independent filmmakers, I think for all of us, other filmmakers besides us, it's a really tough moment. And I think through articles such as this, and press, l think that audiences should support independent cinema and I really hope we're moving in that direction.

Henry Parke: I sure hope so. It was a real pleasure to speak to you both and, and to see your film and I wish you all kinds of luck with it.

WHO DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE ‘YOU’RE NO INDIAN’?

If you’ve read my article, A Century of Tribal Disenrollment, in the September/October 2025 issue of True West – and if haven’t, HERE is the link – you’ll know that documentarian Ryan Flynn has made a fascinating and infuriating film, You’re No Indian. It reveals an insidious form of ‘cancel culture’: the widespread practice, especially among tribes which own casinos, of disenrolling members without legitimate cause, for the purpose of increasing the casino share among those remaining. About 11,000 members have been disenrolled from various tribes.

When I spoke to Ryan on Wednesday, December 10^th, he was just back from The Anchorage International Film Festival. “We had a sold-out crowd (of) about 250 people. You could feel it in the audience watching the film; they were moved. The Q and A was powerful. It was interesting; about an hour before the screening, the Film Festival received a ‘cease and desist’ from the lawyers representing Macarro.”

Mark Macarro is the Chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians. “He's the president of the NCAI (National Congress of American Indians). He was just reelected.” As an Indigenous leader, he’s been a familiar face on television and in the news for decades. And unlike You’re No Indian Executive Producers Wes Studi and Tantoo Cardinal – Cardinal narrates the documentary – Macarro does not want you to see it.

At least they weren’t able to stop the screening. Earlier in the year, You’re No Indian was to premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. “We had sold out two screenings, and we were working on our third, and just weeks before this major film festival, they said there was a scheduling issue. And basically said, there's nothing you can say to get this film screened.

I am not going to accuse anybody of doing it, but it's not hard to think that this is part of an effort to silence us.”

You’re No Indian has since played in several film festivals. At the Red Nation International Film Festival in Hollywood, “we received the Impact Award.” And in November, they received something else. As Flynn emailed supporters, “On November 24, we received a cease-and-desist letter from attorneys representing the Pechanga Band of Indians and Chairman Mark Macarro. The letter demands that all screenings and distribution of the film be stopped, citing concerns about research and representation.” The irony is that, not only did Flynn and company reach out to Macarro during the making of the film “multiple times. We've documented every instance because we thought reaching out to him might be a part of the film. We have ourselves on camera trying to call him, emailing him, texting him.  In the film, in its current form, we say that Mark didn't respond. At an NCAI conference a couple years ago, I introduced myself, shook his hand, and he invited us to give him a call. And we did. He didn't respond. Well, he did respond <laugh>: we got a cease and desist.”

When I suggested that, at any rate, a response two years later would be useless, Flynn responded, “I disagree. Responding now, it's still useful. (If Macarro would do an interview), we will include his perspective in the film, and as I've said, we will release the entire interview, our conversation uncut, so that everybody can see exactly what the conversation was. And I think that's fair.”

“You know, this is not about Mark Macarro, or the Pechanga tribe. This is about raising awareness for disenrollment, and part of that conversation is, what are we here to protect? What are we fighting for? We're fighting for the preservation of what disenrollment claims to protect, which is culture.”

Please check out the trailer below. To find out where you can see You’re No Indian, visit the official website HERE. 

CRAIG JOHNSON ON 'RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER' PODCAST!

I join Bobbi Jean and Jim Bell on the first Thursday of every month for their Rendezvous With a Writer podcast, and this month we had the great pleasure of speaking with Craig Johnson about his newest Longmire novel, Return to Sender. I'm giving you a choice of links below, depending on whether you just want to hear our voices, or prefer to stare at our happy smiling faces (previewed above).

VIDEO -- RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER

https://www.latalkradio.com/sites/default/files/Videos/Rendezvous-120425.mp4

AUDIO -- RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER

ONE MORE THING...

HOW COOL IS THIS! INSP has created an author page for me, linking to a bunch of my articles! https://www.insp.com/authors/henry-c-parke/

They’ve even created a Henry Parke avatar, which will never change, even if I go all Dorian Gray!

And please check out the November/December 2025 True West, featuring my article, Val Kilmer in His Cups, about the making of Tombstone from the perspective of costume designer Joseph Porro, and my review of the new Blu-Ray release, Hopalong Cassidy, the Legacy Collection, Vol. 1.

AND THAT'S A WRAP!

Have a very Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever you celebrate! And wishing you a very Happy New Year!

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright December 2025 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved