In Wyoming, in the dead
of winter, a chartered stage-coach is flagged down by Major Marquis Warren
(Samuel L. Jackson), a bounty hunter with a stack of frozen outlaw cadavers –
he needs to get them to town for the rewards.
But the renter of the coach, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell), wants
no more passengers, living or dead: he’s already transporting murderess Daisy
Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) whom he intends to hang, and the company of
another bounty hunter holds no appeal.
John Ruth finally gives in, and the trio of passengers are barely on the
road when who else appears, thumbing a ride, but Sheriff Clay Mannix (Walton
Goggins), the new lawman at the town where both Ruth and Warren are expecting
to collect their bounties.
Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh
The group arrives at a
stagecoach stop, and find it full of an interesting and sinister mix of
characters: Bob (Demian Birchir) is minding the place while the owners are
away; Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) is a British traveling hangman; Joe Gage
(Michael Madsen) is a hard-looking cowboy and would-be writer; and General
Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) is a former Confederate officer still clinging to
his past status.
Bruce Dern
Guess what? They’re snowed in: everyone will have to
spend the night. This concerns John Ruth
because he’s convinced that someone, perhaps more than one someone, is not who they say.
Someone is there to free Daisy Domergue, and will willingly commit
murder to do it. And he’s right, of course. From there, 99% of the movie takes place in
the one big room of the log house stagecoach stop, as characters confront each
other, secrets are revealed, and people die.
That’s right, it’s what’s known in the
TV vernacular as an ‘elevator show’ or a ‘bottle show.’ It’s a funny and audacious decision by
Tarantino to do a big-budget theatrical feature version of what is done on TV
to save money. Tarantino explained in an interview with
DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD that his influences were series like THE VIRGINIAN, BONANZA,
and THE HIGH CHAPPARAL. “Twice per
season, those shows would have an episode where a bunch of outlaws would take
the lead characters hostage. They would come to the Ponderosa, or go to Judge
Garth's place — Lee J. Cobb played him — inThe Virginianand take hostages. There would be a
guest star like David Carradine, Barren McGavin, Claude Akins, Robert Culp, Charles Bronson, or James Coburn .I don't like that storyline in a modern context, but I love it in a Western,
where you would pass halfway through the show to find out if they were good or
bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed. I thought, 'What if I did
a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, noMichael
Landons. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling
backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room
with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.”
Samuel L. Jackson & Walton Goggins
What happens, very entertainingly is the
HATEFUL 8 – it’s full of the droll characters and crackling dialogue that
helped make Tarantino famous. And this
kind of claustrophobic DESPERATE HOURS sort of story is the kind that he excels
in, as he proved in RESERVOIR DOGS (1992).
Are the characters over the top?
Sure, but they’re meant to be: this is stylized story-telling, not
docudrama, and the ensemble is a delight to watch.
Tarantino loves to shock us, of course, and
there is a lot of blood and vomiting, and there is an extended sadistic
story-telling sequence where Warren psychologically tortures General Smithers
with what may be a real story, or one as invented as the characters’
identities. It’s too ugly, and too long,
but at least its flashback gets us out of the cabin for a bit.
Michael Madsen
Of course, Tarantino has fun with his
inside jokes. Samuel L. Jackson’s
character, Major Marquis Warren, is a nod to novelist, independent Western
filmmaker and screenwriter Charles Marquis Warren, a protégé of F. Scott
Fitzgerald, who was one of the great story talents behind GUNSMOKE, RAWHIDE and
THE VIRGINIAN series. Tim Roth plays
Oswaldo Mobray as a delightful impression of British character Alan
Mobray. And Michael Madsen’s Joe Gage
character is a wink at Nick Adams’ character, Johnny Yuma, from THE REBEL
series, a former soldier roaming the West and writing about his experiences.
The acknowledgment of THE REBEL is
particularly interesting because, while this sort of snowed in ‘Zane Grey meets
Agatha Christie’ story can be found in other series – the STOPOVER episode of
THE RIFLEMAN, directed by Budd Boetticher and written by Arthur Brown Jr, is
particularly memorable – an episode of THE REBEL, entitled FAIR GAME (1960),
written by Richard Newman and directed by Irvin Kershner, is unexpectedly close
to HATEFUL 8. It’s fascinating to see
what Tarantino does expanding what was a thirty-minute plot to 168
minutes. The entire run of the exceptionally
good THE REBEL series is available from Timeless
Video, and after you’ve seen the feature, it’s definitely worth your time
to watch the short, as well as the whole series.
One of the great joys of HATEFUL 8 is
the new score by the maestro Ennio Morricone.
Although he made his name putting music to Sergio Leone’s ‘man with no
name’ films, he hadn’t scored a Western since MY NAME IS NOBODY, forty years
ago.
One of the great virtues of HATEFUL 8 is
the beauty and grandeur of its outdoor visuals for the brief time that the
story is out of doors. Thrice
Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson has shot several other films
for Tarantino, as well as for Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone: he knows how to
get details and definition out of what could simply be a whited-out snowscape
in other hands. It may seem like a crazy
film to shoot in 70mm Panavision, but that decision halted Kodak’s plan to
shutter their movie film stock production entirely.
The whole presentation sentimentally harkens
back to the time of road-show movies of the 1950s and ‘60s, when seeing a big
movie was a big deal, like going to the real
theatre. People dressed up, the seats
were reserved, there was a musical overture, and an intermission. Moviegoing, like the rest of life, is less ‘special’
today. People go to real theatre today attired in a way I wouldn’t dress to mow the
lawn. So, see HATEFUL 8, and if you can,
see it in the longer road-show version, with the overture and
intermission. And maybe dress up. Just take off your Stetson when the lights go
down and the curtains part.
THE KEEPING ROOM – a
Film Review
Brit Marling takes aim
In 1865, in a location identified
only as ‘The American South’, three women survive on a crumbling plantation,
trying to keep body and soul together, and just barely managing. Augusta (Brit Marling), perhaps twenty, is
the daughter of the plantation’s owner who has gone off to war. She hunts rabbits for stew. Mad (Muna Otaru), a young slave, searches the
overgrown fields for edible vegetables.
Louise, (Hailee Steinfeld), is sixteen, Augusta’s baby sister, and unable
or unwilling to face the realities of war; she refuses to work, and seems at
times to drift into a fantasy world, donning her late mother’s elegant clothes
when she should be dressed for picking and planting. When asked by her sister to work, she refers
tersely to the woman who helped raise her.
“The nigger should do it.”
Her sister Augusta
responds, “Like I told you, Louise. We
all niggers now.”
Unbeknownst to the
three women, greater danger than starvation is on its way. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is
coming, cutting his bloody slash “…from Savannah to the sea.” And in advance of his army come his foragers,
or as they were known, ‘Bummers,’ men sent to seize supplies or destroy them, to
prepare the ground for invasion. Mostly they
are unregulated, many of them destructive, sadistic, and homicidal. A pair
of them, Moses (Sam Worthington) and Henry (Kyle Soller) introduce themselves
with an apparent rape and several murders that mark them as men without
conscience.
Sam Worthington
Back at the plantation,
the power shifts between the three women with each challenge they face, until
everything comes to a head with a potentially disastrous accident: Louise is
bitten by a raccoon, and they lack the medicine to treat the infected
wound. Augusta heads to town looking for medicine –
the ‘town’ being a single business, a store, saloon and brothel – and comes to
the attention of the Bummers. She barely
escapes, and soon the Bummers are on the hunt for Augusta and the other women.
Not a traditional
Western or War Movie by any measure, THE KEEPING ROOM is also a suspense and
adventure story, and above all a character study of three finely drawn, very
different women. Elegantly written by
first-timer Julia Hart, it’s directed by English-born Daniel Barber, whose
previous Western, the short THE TONTO WOMAN (2008), from the Elmore Leonard
story, garnered Barber an Oscar nomination.
Muna Otaru
Cinematographer Martin
Ruhe, known for filming crime thrillers like HARRY BROWN (2009 – directed by Barber), and THE AMERICAN (2010),
worked with natural light and source light – lanterns and candles – to give an
authentic and often beautiful look to
the interiors. The exteriors,
forest and field, are equally convincing. Remarkable to think that they were found not
in Georgia but in Romania, where COLD MOUNTAIN (2003) and HATFIELDS &
MCCOYS (2012) were also filmed.
The structure is
unusual, and often admirable. Among the
highlights are a pair of intercut sequences where the women are separately
stalked. Author Hart has a fine ear for
dialogue, and the script is at times unexpectedly generous, allowing a
humanizing of the Bummers, and raising intriguing questions of how life might
have been, had the characters met under different circumstances.
Hailee Steinfeld
The cast is tiny – only
seven actors have speaking parts, and only two scenes have any extras at
all. This serves to make the story
intimate and personal, and it also puts a great burden on a very few
individuals to carry the entire story, which is fraught with tension and
suspense. Fortunately, the triumvirate of
actresses are up to it. Muna Otaru, a
relative newcomer, seems all the more powerful for her halting, soft-spoken
performance. Hailee Steinfeld, playing a
weak and self-centered character diametrically opposed to her Matty Ross in
TRUE GRIT, turns us off, then wins us over when her character rises to the
occasion. And blonde and beautiful Brit
Marling, half Matty Ross herself, and the better half of Scarlet O’Hara, is who
we all wish we’d be when the chips are down.
Of course, no film is
perfect. The smallness of the cast can
be a problem: would Sherman ever send just a two-man force, and if he did, why
didn’t the Southerners just pick them off?
And as smart as Augusta is, why does she keep ignoring warnings to leave
the store, and why does she keep making eye contact with men she should know to
avoid?
Highly recommended, THE
KEEPING ROOM, from Alamo Drafthouse,
will be available on VOD in early January.
PLENTY HAPPENING AT THE
AUTRY IN JANUARY & FEBRUARY
Kenneth Turan, renowned
film critic for The Los Angeles Times
and NPR, will be introducing the first two film programs for 2016 in the Autry’s
monthly What is a Western?
series. On Saturday, January 16th
at 1:30 pm he will introduce the John Ford/John Wayne classic THE MAN WHO SHOT
LIBERTY VALANCE (1962). On Saturday, February
13th, at 1:30 pm he will host a double feature, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW
(1956) and RIDE LONESOME (1959). Star
Randolph Scott and producer Harry Joe Brown had formed the Ranown production company, and these two films are part of the
fabled ‘Ranown cycle’ of
exceptionally fine, tiny budget Westerns, all starring Scott, all directed by
Budd Boetticher, and written by Burt Kennedy.
Also screening at the
Autry on February 27th at noon are a double-bill of Gene’s films,
BACK IN THE SADDLE (1941 Republic) and RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING PINES (1949
Columbia).
On Wednesday, January
20th at 12:30 pm, Rob Word will present the Cowboy Lunch @ The Autry. After
lunch it’s Rob’s A Word on Westerns discussion. This time the topic is KINGS OF THE COWBOYS,
and as we get closer to the date I’ll let you know what exciting guests Rob has
lined up.
For folks who still
remember how to read (there are still quite a few of us), One Book, One Autry is a
year-long series of programs focusing on Owen Wister’s genre-creating THE
VIRGINIAN. The first two events are Saturdays,
Feb. 20th & 27th, with more to come. If you don’t have your own copy, you can get
one at the Autry Store. (And you can
read it, and learn that the great HIGH NOON is actually plagiarized from the
last seven or eight chapters).
Sunday, January 3rd
is the last day to see the magnificent exhibit Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and The West. From February 6th through March 20th
you can enjoy Masters of the American
West, and if you have deep pockets, you can buy!
Between book signings, performances
and other events, I’m barely scratching the surface. You can learn more by visiting the official
Autry website HERE.
And admission is free
on Monday, New Years Day, and free Saturday and Sunday, the 2nd and
3rd, to Bank of America card holders.
THAT’S A WRAP!
I hope you had a
wonderful Christmas (see above, a favorite gift from my wife), and I wish you a
Happy New Year! I’ve got a lot of stuff
cookin’ but I don’t want to say too much and jinx myself. But I’m very excited that I’ll be a guest of
Jim Christina and Bobbi Jean Bell on THE WRITERS BLOCK radio show on Thursday,
January 7th at 8 pm, when the BIG guest will be LONGMIRE creator
Craig Johnson! If you haven’t tuned in
to this entertaining and informative interview show about the art and craft of
writing, here’s the link: http://latalkradio.com/content/writers-block.
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Content
Copyright December 2015 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
Adam Sandler plays
Tommy, a boy whose father disappeared, and whose mother was murdered before his
eyes when he was a child. Adopted by
Apache Chief Screaming Eagle (Saginaw Grant), he has taken on their ways, adopted
the name White Knife, and has developed a phenomenal skill with knives. He is on the verge of marrying Smoking Fox
(Julia Jones) when his bio-father (Nick Nolte) reenters his life. Dad was an outlaw, but is now old and dying
of consumption, and wants to make amends.
But suddenly Dad’s old gang, led by Cicero (Danny Trejo), appears,
wanting the loot Dad absconded with.
They take him away, and Tommy, sure his father cannot come up with his
own ransom, sets out to raise the missing money to buy his father’s life. On his quest he meets his five half-brothers,
and they join forces to save their father.
On a recent JIMMY
KIMMEL LIVE appearance, Adam Sandler described THE RIDICULOUS 6 as, “A real
Western, but funny.” He’s right. Look at that plot-line – if you drop the name
Smoking Fox, it’s the plot of a straight Western. And straight is how Sandler plays it. Although the film is very funny, he’s loaded
the cast with other comedians because his character makes few jokes in the film. His relationship with his fiancé, his Apache
father, his mixed feelings about his real father, and the feelings of loss for
his mother, are played with utter seriousness.
Sandler’s buckskin
costume is somewhat Indian-ized version of Alan Ladd’s in SHANE. His few jokes are big and physical – he does
some astonishing – actually impossible but very funny – acrobatics and knife
tricks that are heavily influenced by Terrence Hill’s LUCKY LUKE films, and by
Jackie Chan as well. Not bad influences,
to be sure.
Sandler’s stable of
half brothers includes Terry Crews as a well-hung saloon pianist, Jorge Garcia
as an unintelligible strangler, Taylor Lautner as Gomer Pyle with a lobotomy,
Luke Wilson as Abe Lincoln’s contrite bodyguard, and Rob Schneider as the
Mexican brother who plays it as straight as Sandler, but is hysterical. Among the delightful supporting players are
Harvey Keitel, Will Forte as the head of a one-eyed gang, comic and COMANCHE
MOON star Steven Zahn as a man who wants to join the one-eyed gang (go figure),
Jon Lovitz, Steve Buscemi, Norm MacDonald, Chris Parnell, and the voice of
Robin Leach. Then there are the cameos
of historical characters: David Spade as Custer, Blake Shelton as Wyatt Earp,
Vanilla Ice as Mark Twain, John Turturro as Abner Doubleday, and Chris Kattan
as John Wilkes Booth.
Raise your hand if Nick Nolte is your dad.
At a minute under two
hours, the movie is long, especially for a comedy, but if some scenes could be
trimmed, they don’t drag. Director Frank
Coraci has helmed several Adam Sandler and Kevin James comedies. Sandler co-wrote with Tim Herlihy, who has
written several Sandler comedies, and wrote on 139 SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
episodes. Aussie DP Dean Semler is no
stranger to the Western: he lensed both YOUNG GUNS films, CITY SLICKERS, THE
ALAMO (2004), APPALOOSA, and won his Oscar for DANCES WITH WOLVES.
During the shooting of
RIDICULOUS 6, the film was criticized by several American Indian actresses who
found the writing demeaning, and walked off the film. They made their point: the most offensive
material described at the time did not make it into the movie.
RIDICULOUS 6 was long assumed
to be a MAGNIFICENT 7 parody, but it is in title only. While it is very funny, and often pretty
coarse – frankly I find the frequent burro diarrhea gags more revolting than
amusing – the drama that grows out of Sandler’s and Nolte’s scenes is the core
of the movie’s strength. It’s available
exclusively on Netflix.
C-BAR – A Film Review
C-BAR, the movie,
borrows its title from the ranch where the story takes place. It’s set in Arizona Territory in the
1860s. It’s the home of the aging cowboy
Dockie Barnett (Mark Baugher), his wife (Sande Comenzind), and their son (Adam
Newberry) and daughter (Robin Grande), both in their twenties. They come upon a young woman (Marissa Neel)
who’s been unspeakably abused, and whose family has been slaughtered by a local
outfit, led by one Buck Montgomery (played by Buck Montgomery). While Dockie would prefer to leave the case
in the hands of the frankly ineffectual local law, his offspring are determined
to track down the killers.
Dockie reluctantly
agrees, and leads his kin as they run the bad men down, on the way picking up
for assistance several of his old compadres, whom his son refers to
sarcastically as, “All my uncles that I’m not related to.” It becomes clear that while Dockie and his
old friends were not as bad as the folks they’re tracking, in their youth they
were no angels. If they were, they
wouldn’t be much use in this kind if lethal work. When they catch up with Montgomery, the
bloodshed and repercussions begin.
The story is just that
simple and straightforward. It’s both
taut and tight – the movie runs just sixty minutes. The work of first-time filmmakers, it’s
unexpectedly impressive and entertaining.
The screenplay is by Mark Baugher, adapted from his own first novel, and
yes, he also stars. The director and
cinematographer is Patrick Ball, late of Ball State University in Indiana. And, unbilled, he plays one of the worst of
the gang. The retiree and the college
kid make a remarkably strong team. While
clearly working with a non-pro cast – the female lead was found working at a
feed store – the script has been written and scenes assembled to work
convincingly within the abilities of the actors. The speeches are short; the story is told
largely through visuals. The faces are just right, and everyone rides like they
live in the saddle. The format is
roughly Panavision in shape, the cinematography by Ball and co-camera Aaron
Newton is beautiful when it should be, barren or grim when it needs to be. In a rare combination of jobs, Morgan Stehr
is both editor and composer, and the juxtaposing of image and sound is at times
striking.
Of course, no film is
perfect. A sombrero-wearing character
only has a Mexican accent half the time, and the woman whose victimization sets
the story in motion doesn’t look bad enough.
But these are churlish criticisms of a fine piece of work.
A CHAT WITH ‘C-BAR’
CREATOR MARK BAUGHER
Mark Baugher as Dockie
Sixty-five year old
retiree never intended to get into the film business. “I’ve had different business adventures; I’ve
been a horse shoe-er for years and years.
I dealt in real estate, I owned a transmission repair business, I was a
stockbroker. I was a farm-boy from
Illinois, and my my whole goal was to some way make enough money so that I
could move out to Arizona, buy some real
estate, and do the things I wanted to do rather than have to do.”
He had a story he
wanted to tell. “I’d written the novel
and put it out on Amazon. And his (Patrick Ball’s) girlfriend found it,
gave it to Patrick and said, ‘Read this.’
He read it and called me on the phone, and asked me, ‘Have you thought
about making a movie based on your characters?’
Immediately I said, yes, though I hadn’t. We met in a restaurant in Sedona, and we just
hit it off. I went home, wrote the
script. Thirty days later we started
pulling (the film) together, and it came together effortlessly.”
Mark’s been a voracious
reader all of his life, but he wasn’t a trained screenwriter any more than he’d
been a trained novelist. “I just went on
the internet, and found a program that lines it out, formats it for you, paid
$25. Somebody asked if I was going to
take classes. I said I’m afraid to. It seems to be working with what I don’t
know. I’m afraid to learn something that
might get in the way.”
Bromance! Baugher kisses director Patrick Ball
when they win a cinematography award
Shooting the movie was
not a fast process. “It took eight
months to shoot thirty-eight days, and the reason was, everyone was
working. No one was being paid; we had
to work around everything and everybody.
It was always a matter of when can I get all these people together at
one time.” It didn’t help that the
actors were not professionals. When the
original actress wasn’t up to the part, Marissa Nell, who was originally the
acting coach, had to step into the role of the victim. “We probably had three days of reshoots,
because of actors that didn’t work out.”
Surprisingly, the
filmmakers went to crowd-funding not before, but after the film was made. “We
used Kickstarter, and raised enough money to buy all of our own equipment. We’re self-sufficient now: I’ll do the
writing, Patrick will do the directing and cinematography. We have everything we need, except we do need
to have some money this time, because we could never ask for people to do for
free the second time, what they did the first time. We’re looking for someone who wants to
partner up with us.
“Here’s the plan. I didn’t want this to be a one movie thing
and done. I really want this to be
episodic, same characters, and bringing in more characters, as a web
series. So what we’re doing is we’re
going to give away our first episode to anyone who will watch it. And that will get a quicker audience. Hopefully they’ll get involved with us, and
it’s the second episode we’ll charge two dollars for.” If you’d like to see C-BAR, for free, visit
the official C-BAR WEBSITE, and send Mark a message that you’d like a link sent
to you. And let the Round-up know what
you think of it.
OUTLAW JOSEY WALES –
Forty Years Later
In November I had the
pleasure of introducing a screening of THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES at the Autry
Center, in the Wells Fargo Theater; part of the Museum’s monthly ‘What is a
Western?’ series. It’s hard to believe
the film will be forty years old in June of 2016. In researching for my presentation, I learned
so much about this remarkable film, and its making, that I decided to expand my
talk into an article for the Round-up.
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
is one of Clint Eastwood’s finest movies, and finest Westerns. His work both in front of and behind the
camera is exceptional. It’s one of his
personal favorites, and a film that is not shown nearly enough. Eastwood had become a star playing the ‘Man
With No Name’ in his three Sergio Leone films, and played similar mysterious
avengers in several others. Eastwood
said, “Josey Wales is a hero. You see
how he gets to where he is, rather than just having a mysterious hero appear on
the plains, and become involved in other people’s plight.” He liked the idea of playing a man with a name and with a past, and a
reason for the things that he does. It’s
one of his finest performances.
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
is a rare story, which examines parts of the Civil War that are usually skipped
over. It focuses not on the famous
battles, but on the guerilla war fought in Kansas and Missouri between two brutal
and vicious armies, neither with official standing: the Union loyalists, known
as Red Legs because of their ‘uniform’ of red stockings, and the
Confederate-loyal Bushwhackers. Most of
the story centers on the immediate post-war era, and the disenfranchisement of
the Southerner by the less forgiving and more opportunistic elements of the
government and the Army. While it
focuses mostly on one man, Josey Wales, who had no part in the war until his
family was slaughtered by the Red Legs, leading him to join with Bloody Bill
Anderson and his Bushwhackers, it also casts a light on the plight of Indians,
particularly the Cherokee, and the others that comprised what are known as the
Five Civilized Tribes – Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cree and Seminole, who sided with
the Confederacy, and were singled out for particular abuse by a vengeful
Federal government. It’s a very brutal
story at times, but also one with a great deal of humor, romance, and a
startling degree of heart.
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
was released in 1976. As Sondra Locke
said to me, “I’m shocked at how long ago it was.” At its core it is the vision of two men: the
author of the novel, Forrest Carter, and the director and star, Clint
Eastwood. Also of tremendous importance
is the work of screenwriters Phillip Kaufman and Sonia Chernus, who adapted the
page to the screen. JOSEY WALES is a
story of people rather than big events.
It’s told in many small, intimate scenes and moments, and reading the
novel reveals what a masterful job the screenwriters did in preserving the very
words and ideas of the author, seamlessly turning description into dialogue and
action.
Clint Eastwood needs no
introduction, of course, but he deserves one.
One of the brightest stars in the history of movies, he began as a
contract player at Universal in 1955,
working his way up from uncredited bits in films like REVENGE OF THE CREATURE,
FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE IN THE NAVY, and TARANTULA. Of course his first big break came in 1959,
when he was cast as drover Rowdy Yates in RAWHIDE. His second big break came when RAWHIDE was on
hiatus, and he went to Spain to star in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964). They say that success has a thousand fathers,
and failure is an orphan. If you want
proof, in more than five years of writing about Spaghetti Westerns, I have
never spoken to an actor, screenwriter, or director who was NOT the person who
suggested casting Clint Eastwood in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. While continuing his enviable career as an
actor, he branched out into directing in 1971 with PLAY MISTY FOR ME. He’s earned four Oscars: Best Director and
Best Picture for UNFORGIVEN (1992); Best Picture for MILLION DOLLAR BABY(2005);
and The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
He was additionally nominated for Best Picture for MYSTIC RIVER (2003),
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2007), and last year for AMERICAN SNIPER (2015). He was nominated for Best Director for MYSTIC
RIVER and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, and twice nominated for Best Actor, for
MILLION DOLLAR BABY and UNFORGIVEN.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in 2011,
Eastwood described JOSEY WALES as an “antiwar” film, and his own military
experience colored his viewpoint. “I was
drafted during the Korean War. None of
us wanted to go…It was only a couple of years after World War II had
ended. We said, ‘Wait a second? Didn’t we just get through with that?’ An atomic bomb, the pacification of Japan…and
here we are back in it again…But everybody went. You objected, but you went. You said OK, this is what you’re supposed to
do.
“As for Josey Wales, I
saw the parallels to the modern day at that time. Everybody gets tired of it, but it never
ends. A war is a horrible thing, but
it’s also a unifier of countries.”
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES,
released in 1976, was Clint Eastwood’s fifth feature film as a director, his
second Western; the first was HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, three years earlier. Now, thirty-nine years later, Eastwood is 85
years old, and he’s directing his 35th feature, SULLY, starring Tom
Hanks as hero pilot Chesty Sullenberger.
He was on the news recently, commenting on how happy he is to be back at
his original studio, Universal, and
still considering another acting role, if something good comes up.
JOSEY WALES author
Forrest Carter was not an educated man.
According to his autobiography he was orphaned at the age of four, and
raised by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather. They died
when he was ten, and he’d been on his own ever since. A natural story-teller,
he was convinced by his Indian friends to turn his stories into a book. He did, called it THE REBEL OUTLAW: JOSEY
WALES, and it had a grand press-run of seventy-five copies. He sent one to Clint Eastwood’s Malpaso Company, but like most film
companies, it was against their policy to read unsolicited non-pro material –
the chances of a lawsuit were too great.
But producer Robert Daley was so moved by the cover-letter that he
decided to give it a read, and was immediately hooked. Daley told Eastwood, “This thing has so much
soul to it that it’s really one of the nicest things I’ve read.” Eastwood read it and was equally impressed. He bought the film rights.
The original novel
As Eastwood prepared
the film, the book got a much larger press-run under the title GONE TO TEXAS, a
title Eastwood disliked because he thought it was too regional. Even more were printed under the title THE
OUTLAW JOSEY WALES.
As the popularity of
the book grew, so did the fame of its author.
He also published his memoir, THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE, about his
childhood and upbringing by his Cherokee grandparents. Forrest Carter was interviewed on THE TODAY
SHOW by Barbara Walters. It was the
first time he’d been seen on television.
And some people thought they recognized him, but they knew him by
another name. A short while later, an
article appeared in the New York Times,
and revealed that in the 1950s and 60s, Forrest Carter had been known as Asa or
Ace Carter. He was at that time a
prominent member of, and spokesman for, the Ku Klux Klan, and a virulent racist
and anti-Semite. But feeling the Klan
was too ‘soft’ – I’m not kidding – he started his own off-shoot branch. In a dispute over the finances of the group,
he shot two of his associates, was arrested and charged with attempted murder,
but the charges were dropped. He was a
speechwriter for Alabama Governor George Wallace. He wrote, among many other speeches for
Wallace, the infamous inaugural “Segregation now; segregation tomorrow;
segregation forever,” speech. He split
with Wallace when he decided the governor had become too soft and liberal, and
actually ran against him for the governorship.
He lost, badly, 4th place in a field of 4, and quietly faded
away, until more than a decade later when he reappeared as Forrest Carter.
Some of Carter's most creative fiction.
The memoir was pure
fiction; he was not orphaned, he was not any part Cherokee, and Cherokees
who’ve read LITTLE TREE say that the supposed Cherokee words in the text aren’t
real. But Mr. Carter has turned out to
be something of a Teflon Imperial Wizard.
LITTLE TREE became a best-seller, and the New York Times, the folks who exposed Carter in the first place,
had to be reminded to move it from the non-fiction to the fiction best-seller
list. It has won literary awards, and
was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, although she rescinded when she learned the
whole story. It’s popular in schools all
over the country. It was made into a
film by Paramount in 1997, starring James Cromwell and Tantoo Cardinal as the
grandparents, with a screenplay by WALTONS creator Earl Hamner Jr.
Carter also wrote a
novel sequel to JOSEY WALES, THE VENGEANCE TRAIL OF JOSEY WALES. Clint Eastwood initially optioned the book,
but dropped it. It became a movie in
1986, as THE RETURN OF JOSEY WALES, screenplay by Forrest Carter, starring and
directed by Michael Parks who, interestingly, shot his own career in the foot
when he endorsed George Wallace for President back in 1968. Rarely seen, it’s not a bad little Western. Parks is good as Wales, and directs the
mostly unfamiliar cast well. Although
shot with care at the handsome Alamo Village in Bracketville, Texas, the audio
quality is weak, and the image is worse, as it was recorded on video tape at a
time before film-quality video cameras had been developed.
But Carter did not live
to see these later successes. He died in
Abilene, in June of 1979, at the age of 53, of a heart-attack, allegedly
brought on by a fist-fight with one of his sons. He was a hateful man in many ways, and a
fraud in many ways, but there was nothing fake about his literary talent. JOSEY WALES is a remarkable, uplifting novel.
The film has a fine cast. In addition to
Eastwood, Sondra Locke, the female lead, was making her first of six features
and one TV episode with Eastwood. All
but two – the two with Orangutans – were directed by Eastwood. In 1968 she’d made a tremendous splash with
her debut role, as Mick in THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER. She was nominated for an Oscar for her
performance. But after following up with
female leads in COVER ME BABE and WILLARD, she’d been mostly relegated to
playing waifs on TV episodes until Eastwood cast her in JOSEY WALES. After a very public break-up and protracted
lawsuits with Eastwood, she would move behind the camera, and direct four
features.
Discovered by the Comancheros
No hero is better than
the villain he faces, and JOSEY WALES boasts some gems. Fletcher is played by John Vernon, he of the
ice blue eyes and melodious baritone – he did hundreds of cops and criminals on
film and TV, but is best-remembered as the ineffectual mayor in DIRTY HARRY
(1971), and as Dean Wormser in ANIMAL HOUSE (1978).
The leader of the Red
Legs, Terrill, is played by Bill McKinney, who is chilling as a degenerate
mountain man who sexually assaults Ned Beatty in DELIVERANCE.
Sam Bottoms and Clint
Among the much more
likable characters is Jamie, the young partner who idolizes Josey, played by
Sam Bottoms. In his first film, THE LAST
PICTURE SHOW (1971), he was the simple-minded kid who never spoke, and was
always sweeping the streets. And feisty
little Paula Trueman, who plays Sondra Locke’s grandmother, started out in
Vitaphone shorts in 1929, appeared with Eastwood in PAINT YOUR WAGON (1969) and
would go on to appear in MOONSTRUCK (1987) and DIRTY DANCING (1987).
Clint & Chief Dan George
The three major roles
played by American Indian actors are strikingly un-cliché’d. Chief Dan George,
Oscar-nominated for LITTLE BIG MAN (1970),
plays Lone Watie, and has a wonderful monologue, really a soliloquy,
describing his and other Cherokees attempts to be civilized, and the way they
were treated as a result. Clint
Eastwood said of Chief Dan George, “He says the simplest thing, and it sounds
like an important statement.” George
was not a trained actor, was 77 years old, and had trouble memorizing his
lines. This caused some problems in the
editing, because often the camera caught Clint mouthing George’s lines along
with him. Will Sampson, who was the
silent Indian in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO’S NEST (1975), plays Comanche Chief
Ten Bears. Geraldine Keams, who made her
film acting debut as Little Moonlight in JOSEY WALES, has no lines in English,
but never stops talking.
Will Sampson as Ten Bears
And there are some very
special appearances for us Western crazies.
Bloody Bill Anderson is played by LAWMAN (1958-1962) star John
Russell. Folks appearing as gunmen,
bounty hunters and Rangers include John Mitchum, John Davis Chandler and Bobby
Hoy. And who turns up as denizens of a
ghost town but prairie-trash Matt Clark; Western stalwart and the voice of Abe
Lincoln at Disneyland, Royal Dano; and Clint’s long-time RAWHIDE co-star Sheb
Wooley. If you look quick, you can even spot
an unbilled Richard Farnsworth as a Comanchero, and Josey’s wife briefly seen
at the beginning is Cissy Wellman, daughter of director Wild Bill Wellman.
Behind the camera, Cinematographer
Bruce Surtees certainly had the right pedigree.
His father was three-time Oscar-winning director of photography Robert
Surtees. Bruce Surtees had been camera
operator on a pair of Eastwood-starring films directed by Eastwood’s mentor,
Don Siegel, COOGAN’S BLUFF (1968) and TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA (1970). Siegel boosted Surtees to D.P. for his creepy
Civil War noir, THE BEGUILED (1971),
and Eastwood had Surtees shoot his directorial debut, PLAY MISTY FOR ME. Surtees
was equally elegant on Westerns and crime films. He and Eastwood would be associated on
fifteen films, including the westerns JOE KIDD (1972), HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973),
and PALE RIDER (1985). Working again for
Don Siegel, Surtees would film John Wayne’s final movie, THE SHOOTIST (1976).
Jerry Fielding’s bold
and stirring score for OUTLAW JOSEY WALES was his third, and last, to receive
an Oscar nomination – the other two were for STRAW DOGS (1971) and THE WILD
BUNCH (1969) and, incredibly, he never won.
Starting out on radio as orchestra leader on programs like THE JACK PAAR
SHOW and THE LIFE OF RILEY, he moved on to early TV shows like YOU BET YOUR
LIFE, with Groucho Marx. Then he ran
afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Never a communist himself, nonetheless he
refused to name anyone he suspected, and was blacklisted in Hollywood. He relocated to Las Vegas, where he led the
orchestras for Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Betty Hutton and Abbott &
Costello. In the 1960s, when McCarthyism
had abated, Betty Hutton got a TV series on CBS, and insisted Fielding be her
orchestra leader. He returned to
Hollywood, was hired by Otto Preminger to score ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962), and
his career was soon back on track. He
began a long association with three directors: Sam Peckinpah, Michael Winner,
and of course Clint Eastwood, with whom he collaborated on THE ENFORCER (1976),
THE GAUNTLET (1977), and ESCPAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979).
The film was shot in
autumn, Eastwood’s favorite time of year to film westerns, in Wyoming,
California, and several locations in Utah, including Kanab Movie Ranch, and
several in Arizona, including Old Tucson and Mescal movie ranches. It was shot in 8 ½ weeks, had a reported
budget of about $3.8 million dollars, and if you know anything about Eastwood,
you know that it came in on-time and under-budget. He is considered not only one of the
industry’s most talented directors, but one of its most efficient. A personal note here. A couple of years later, I was in Phoenix,
watching the filming of my first screenplay, SPEEDTRAP (1977); Clint Eastwood
was filming THE GAUNTLET, and we were all based at the same Ramada Inn. There’s always product placement. Our deal was with Schlitz beer, and
Eastwood’s was with Jack Daniels, so you can tell which was the prestige
film. On our set, a dozen cases of beer
were delivered every morning, and gone by noon.
On his set, a case of Jack Daniels was given to every crew member on the
last day of filming. You can probably guess which film’s editors
didn’t have to deal with any out-of-focus footage or mics in frame.
Although his company, Malpaso, was producing the film,
Eastwood had not intended to both direct and star. He’d hired Philip Kaufman to adapt the book,
and to direct. Four years earlier,
Kaufman had written and directed the Western THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA
RAID, a very tough, unromanticized look at the James gang and the Youngers,
starring Robert Duvall and Cliff Robertson.
While script development went well, Kaufman and Eastwood started having
artistic differences early into the shooting.
Sondra Locke recalls in
her book, THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE VERY UGLY, “Within a week the tension that
had been growing between Phil and Clint came to a head…. Kaufman had an entirely different approach than Clint to making a film. He is very meticulous and thoughtful and
layered about each shot – an intellectual as well as a visual approach. Clint is all guts and instinct. He, a ‘big picture’ person in life as well as
in filmmaking, is not at all interested in details. ‘If they’re looking at that, then the film’s
not working, and the audience is bored,’ I heard him say many times… To Clint, the differences in these two
approaches mean time and money.
Kaufman’s approach took more time and therefore more money, and with
Clint, that was an impenetrable
impasse. Clint’s legendary ‘shoot the
rehearsal’ approach did not work for Kaufman.”
There were also
personal problems. Locke says in her
book that it was love at first sight for her on the set with Eastwood, and
their ten-year romance began. Of course,
he was married. So was she. So was Philip Kaufman, who was also making a
play for Locke – and he had his wife on the set. But that didn’t stop him, which didn’t endear
him to Eastwood. “I don’t like the way
he touches you.”
When Eastwood started
talking about firing Kaufman, who had worked hard in pre-production, Directors
Guild President Robert Wise, of SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) and WEST SIDE STORY
(1961) fame, flew out to try and convince Clint not to do it. The Guild was especially upset with the idea
of a star-producer firing the director and taking over the job himself. The Guild tried hard to get Eastwood and
Warner Brothers to back down, and when they failed, they imposed a $50,000 fine
on the production. That was real money
in the 1970s. This led to a new addition
to the DGA agreement, known as the Eastwood Rule or amendment, which says that
if a director is fired, they must be replaced by a director who is not
associated with the production, or the Guild can impose punishing fines on the
film company.
While Kaufman
undoubtedly resented being fired, it was not a major career setback for
him. He would go on to write and direct
THE RIGHT STUFF (1983), RISING SUN (1993), THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
(1988), HENRY AND JUNE (1990), and many others.
Perhaps his most lucrative success was when he and George Lucas
developed all of the characters for the RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK/INDIANA JONES
franchise.
The other credited
screenwriter was Sonia Chernus. It was
her only feature film credit, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t an important
writer, and important in the film and TV industry. Starting as a secretary, the legend is that
she promoted casting Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates. She wrote one RAWHIDE episode, was story
assistant on others, and when Eastwood created his Malpaso production company, she was his story editor for many
years, and found many of the properties that became his movies.
Sondra Locke generously
shared the following memories of the making of THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. “Altogether the filming of JOSEY was a wonderful
experience. It has left a warm place in my heart. JOSEY and BRONCO
BILLY are my favorite films I made with Clint. It was the first of six
films I made with Clint.
“It is the only western film I have had the luck of making.
Living in that period alone was a great experience - the horses, the primitive
nature of everything. I mostly recall the beautiful countryside.
Lake Powell at sunset was amazing. The cast of JOSEY WALES was full
of such good actors. I will always recall Paula Trueman, who was 80 years
old at the time, and how feisty she was. She put me to shame with her
somersaults! Yes, she could still do them at 80! She loved to show
off now and then on the set.
“And, of course, working with the great Chief Dan George gave such
an authenticity to the experience. He was a wonderful person and told
great tales of times gone by. In between takes I always found myself
moving my chair near his so I could hear his words.
“I have nothing but great memories of the making of JOSEY. I
wish I could be with you all at this screening. I haven't seen it in
quite a while. Your honoring it makes me want to see it again. Have
a great event.
“All my best,
“Sondra.”
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES is available on BLU-RAY and DVD from Warner Brothers, and can be streamed
from Amazon and watched on Netflix.
…AND THAT’S A WRAP!
I’m still getting used to this every-second-week schedule for the
Round-up – I didn’t see Christmas coming, and it’s almost here (I’d better
start shopping)! Thank you all for your continued readership in
2015! We’re read in over 100 countries,
and today I added a new one to the list – welcome Nepal! There have been nearly 250,000 hits on the
site, and 605,000 pageviews (sometime I’ve got to find out the difference
between hits and pageviews), and this week I’ve had as many readers in Russia
as in the United States! Thank you
again, and whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, Kwanza, Festivus, any
other, or none at all, have a wonderful one!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Material Copyright December 2015 by Henry C. Parke –
All Rights Reserved
