On Saturday, August 18th, I had the pleasure of
watching the first day of filming for Zane Grey’s THE LAST DUANE, at
the Veluzat family’s (formerly Gene Autry’s) Melody Ranch in Newhall.
The film, based on the novel LAST OF THE DUANES, is the fifth screen-telling of the story. The first, in 1919, starred William Farnum;
1924’s starred Tom Mix; the first talkie version, in 1930 starred George
O’Brien opposite Myrna Loy; and the 1941 version starred George Montgomery, Lynn
Roberts, Eve Arden, George E. Stone and, in the role of Texas Ranger Maj.
McNeil (a fictionalized version of Leander H. McNelly), the star of the 1919 version,
William Farnum.
George Montgomery
Zane Grey, who died in 1939, was a tremendously popular and
influential Western writer in his day, and his novels and stories have been the
source for 113 movies and TV shows, and some, like RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE,
have been filmed many times. Big budget
and small, his stories were filmed frequently at Fox, Columbia, and a
particularly fine series of about a dozen films were done at Paramount in the
1930s, many featuring Buster Crabbe or Randolph Scott. From 1956 to 1961, Dick Powell produced and
hosted ZANE GREY THEATRE
This newest version of the story, from Market Street Productions, is being directed by
Christopher Ekstein, and written by Ekstein, Jason Chase Tyrrell and Stacy
Ownes Ekstein. The lead has not yet been determined, but he won't be needed for filming this weekend because the twelve pages of script being shot center
around a dramatic incident in his character’s youth. His role will be played by a child actor, and
you’ll see one of those ‘Ten Years Later’ titles, and then the story will continue. The bulk of the movie will be shot starting
in October.
Jason Patric
Danny Trejo
Rose McGowan
The stars of the opening sequence, who were hard at work at
Melody Ranch yesterday, were heroic Jason Patric; villainous Danny Trejo; and
beautiful Rose McGowan. I’ve agreed to
not post any pictures of the principals for now, and I don’t want to give
anything away, but I was happy to arrive onset just in time to see someone shot
to death in front of a saloon -- several times -- and there was a considerable
amount of shooting and stabbing and riding throughout the day.
Peter Sherayko & Anthony DeLongis
The Tiffany Grips
I tracked down Peter Sherayko, who in addition to being armourer,
through his Caravan West outfit, supplies the horses, saddles, props and buckaroos. I asked him what were the most interesting
weapons in the show, and he said it was Danny Trejo’s pistols, or rather, their
grips. “Danny’s guns have 1851 Tiffany
grips. They made them for a lot of Civil
War officers starting in 1865. Jason
Patric has an 1860 Army (Colt).” Peter was ably aided by assistant armourer
Heath Hammond and art director Christian Ramirez.
I wasn’t familiar with the story they were filming, but
historian Sherayko certainly was. “THE LAST OF THE DUANES is one of Zane Grey’s better-knowns. This part we’re doing now, it’s about Buck
Duane as a nine-year-old kid. He grows
up later, and the novel really takes off with him being an outlaw at the
beginning of it, and ends up with the Texas Rangers, one of Leander H. McNelly’s Rangers.” Buck is fictional, but McNelly was the real
thing. Peter tells me that when the
other Texas Rangers were issued Winchesters, McNelly insisted his men have
Sharps rifles. ‘But Winchesters are
repeaters – with a Sharps you only get one shot.’ ‘I want my men to make every
shot count.’ Sam Elliot is also going to
be in the movie. I don’t know who he’s
playing, but I’d put my money on McNelly.
Chris Ramirez
Larry Poole, Willy Clark & Heath Hammond
As the day’s
shooting progressed, Rose McGowan switched from a beautiful burgundy velvet
dress to a black one. The men who
loitered on the street, or waited to be poker-players in the upcoming saloon
scene, were an unusual collection that added to the atmosphere of the
film. Anthony DeLongis is an excellent
horseman, and expert with whips and swords.
Ardashir Radpour is a great rider and professional polo player. Larry Poole and Willy Clark, with his Gabby
Hayes beard, look perfect in a saloon, but Willy is also an expert
gunsmith. Brian Herrington is a Western
author (CAMPO – THE FORGOTTEN GUNFIGHT), and Tony Redburn is a quick-draw
expert and gun-spinner.
Addy Radpour
Brian Herrington & Tony Redburn
It was around
three o’clock, about 100 degrees, when they started shooting the saloon
interior, and between the art direction, the cast, and the smoky haze, the set
looked perfect. Danny Trejo entered from
the street, and did what he does best: intimidate people. They’d shot the scene of Danny and his two
henchmen riding up to the saloon and dismounting that morning, and now, while
Danny was doing the scene inside, a second unit was doing close-ups of Danny’s
boots – on someone else’s feet – slipping out of the stirrups and hitting the
street.
With that shot
done, the three horses were done for the day.
As they were being walked back to the stable area, Danny Trejo, between
takes, caught sight of them passing by, and called for them to wait. He dashed out of the craft services area with
a yellow apple, and broke it into pieces to feed to the horses, talking to them
and stroking their heads. I’ll have more
details on THE LAST OF THE DUANES in the near future.
THE HIGH CHAPARRAL RETURNS ON INSP!
Beginning with an all-day marathon on Saturday, September 15th, the series about the Cannon and Montoya family, rarely seen in decades, will become a part of INSP’s SADDLE-UP SATURDAY programming starting September 29th, and join the week-day schedule as well.
Henry Darrow, well-remembered as fiery-tempered Manolito, says, “Folks never get tired of a good western. And The High Chaparral is one of the BEST. People often ask me why they can’t see it on TV anymore. Now, I can tell them, ‘You can! On INSP.’ I couldn’t be more thrilled.”
David Dortort, the show’s creator, had his first tremendous success with BONANZA, about a perfect family. He decided to try something new by creating a dysfunctional family, and the social and ethnic conflicts between Anglos, Hispanics, and Apaches were daring back in 1967, and seem remarkably fresh today.
The series, which ran for five seasons and 97 episodes, stars Leif Ericson, Cameron Mitchell, Henry Darrow, Linda Cristal, Mark Slade and Don Collier.
‘YELLOW ROCK’
AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE!
The Western
Heritage Award winner for Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Lead Actors
is now available on DVD and a variety of on-demand and pay-per-view
options. The film stars Michael Biehn,
James Russo and Lenore Andriel.
I’ve
been following YELLOW ROCK since they first rolled camera, and I reviewed it
when it premiered at – and swept the awards of – the Red Nation Film Festival
(you can read my review HERE
)
When
I reached writer/producer/star Lenore Andriel, she was just back from the
Prescott Arizona Film Festival. “We were
there for four or five days, having the time of our lives. They screened the film and we were very
honored, it was right after their tribute film, which was DANCES WITH
WOLVES. The writer was actually there,
Michael Blake, and I got to meet him, and tell him how his film influenced the
heart and storyline of YELLOW ROCK. It
really made the entire festival for us – it was quite wonderful.
“YELLOW
ROCK was released August 7th, across all platforms. It was released for video-on-demand on
Time-Warner Cable, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, COX, WTC, NBC-Universal. It’s coming to DirecTV. And it was also released the same day on DVD
through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Blockbuster, Family Video. It’s available for pre-order on Nexflix, and
it’s available at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage
Museum Almeria , Spain
Also
on the agenda are plans to make two more westerns. “They say the first baby’s the hardest, but I
finally gave birth to it. It was very
difficult making the film, but it’s been a real dream, and a very blessed
film. Now we have a lot more knowledge
of how to do a western, and what not to do. One of the things we’ll probably not do is
shoot it in the summer (laughs). But we
will be back at the Veluzat Motion Picture Ranch, and at Melody Ranch as well. We’ll be back with Daniel Veluzat, who’s been
a wonderful partner to us.”
I
caught up with Lenore’s writer/producer partner Steve Doucette as he was
waiting for Lenore to come over so they could start fleshing out the other two
western stories. It sounded like
possibly a prequel and a sequel to YELLOW ROCK, but Steve wouldn’t commit to
that. “And what’s exciting about it is
we feel we can go bigger on the other two budgets. So we can keep the production value at least
on par, and hopefully bigger and better.”
I
asked him if YELLOW ROCK had turned out bigger than he expected. “Yuh, it blew up on us from day one, from
when we wrote it to when we brought in bigger names than we ever dreamed we
could get. For a small independent
western like this; most definitely.
Bigger in a happy way. We didn’t
think that we’d be winning numerous awards with this, which we’re proud
of. We’re thrilled, and we hope we have
the same financial success with the way that it’s been received.
“You
know, it’s a real shout-out to independents who can do it right. You
never want to slack off on the production value, like the sound, and the way
the movie is shot. There are certain
areas with independents, that makes them look weaker. So that’s where I opened up my wallet, to
make sure we had good sound, good score, good production value. I was
reading some of the reviews on Amazon.com.
There are maybe ten reviews there, mostly four and five star reviews,
and some of the things it’s being compared to, whether it’s DANCES WITH WOLVES,
or the grittiness of UNFORGIVEN; that’s a real compliment to us. We want to make everything real. Although we do think it’s more PG than the R
rating that we got. Quite frankly, I just
believe this is one that the entire family can sit down and watch, which was
our intention. We wanted, and our
director Nick Vallelonga felt the same, to make a movie that was a throwback to
the way stories were told when you and I were kids. We were growing up in the ‘60s. There were good movies with a good moral message
to it, that the whole family could watch.
So whether it was SHANE or some movie like that, that’s what we were
shooting for. I hope that everybody sees
it that way. We’re very proud to be able
to tell the story about Native American Indians. That’s a big, strong point for Lenore and I.”
You can buy the
DVD from Amazon.com HERE. In addition to the movie itself, the DVD includes a
‘Making Of’ documentary, deleted scenes, and a commentary track by director
Nick Vallenlonga and Lenore Andriel.
You can order it
from NBC Universal on-demand HERE. If you have
Time-Warner cable, it’s on demand HERE.
LAST DAYS OF THE‘MUSEUM OF THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY
If you’ve been meaning to visit the Museum of The San Fernando Valley
Even before they had a physical home, the Museum was surprisingly active, hosting walking tours of various parts of the Valley, and sponsoring an oral history project, recording the memories of people who have lived or grown up in this once very rural farming area. They recently recorded the reminiscences of actor Biff Elliot, who passed away this week. Best remembered as detective Mike Hammer in I, THE JURY, he was also, as a soldier, part of every major battle in Italy during the Second World War.
The Museum and the Studio City Neighborhood Council ran the REPUBLIC PICTURES 75thANNIVERSARY celebration in September of 2010, which brought together fans and a bevy of Republic stars (I covered it extensively in the Round-up, if you want to search back a ways).
Busts of Clark Gable, Martin Luther King
“We’re still getting residual effects from that event. Monte Montana Burbank , one in Chatsworth, one in Canoga Park San Fernando Valley .”
I asked him what the Valley’s most important historical contribution was. “For 30,000 years we had the Tonga
Their interests are also literary. On Saturday, the museum ran an event at the Tarzana Community Center
While they would dearly love a permanent address, they have also created traveling historical displays, such as the pictured one about water. Come by the museum if you have a chance. And visit their website for more information: http://www.themuseumsfv.org/
That’s
it for this week’s Round-up. Have a
great week!
Happy
Trails,
Henry
All
Original Contents Copyright August 2012 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
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