LEGEND
OF 5 MILE CAVE
SHOOTING
INSP’S NEW WESTERN AT OLD TUCSON
By
Henry C. Parke
The INSP network has long
been a home to quality Western films and television, beginning with their
Saddle-Up Saturday, which expanded to include Sunday, and then chunks of the
weekdays as well. They’ve been making original movies for a few years, and
Western-adjacent programming, most notably the hit reality series The Cowboy
Way, for some time. So it was inevitable that someday they would bite the
bullet and make their own Western movies. Now they’ve made their first,
hopefully the first of many, with The Legend of 5 Mile Cave. I was
absolutely delighted when INSP invited me to come to Old Tucson for a couple of
days, and watch the fireworks.
There is no other place
in the world quite like the Old Tucson Movie Studio, just outside of Tucson,
Arizona. It was first used as a filming location in 1939 for the Columbia Pictures Western Arizona. The epic tale of the 1860s
settling of Tucson, which required the construction of fifty buildings, starred
William Holden and Jean Arthur, and was produced at a then-staggering cost of
$2 million. Actual ancient adobe walls were incorporated into the new Western
streets, and they’re still visible today.
Over 400 movies and TV
shows have been filmed there since then, including recent favorites like Tombstone and The Quick and the Dead, and classics like Winchester ’73 and Broken
Arrow. John Wayne starred in four films there: Rio Bravo, McClintock!, El
Dorado and Rio Lobo. In addition to the dozens of Western TV series
that visited there, it was home base for The
High Chaparral, whose ranch house still stands.
To keep things going when
the popularity of Westerns seemed to have crested, parts of the studio were
turned into a Western-themed amusement park; coincidentally, that’s what was also
done to Sergio Leone’s film locales in Spain, for the same reasons, and both
are again very busy production locations.
Jeremy Sumpter, as Shooter Green, takes aim
The
Legend of 5 Mile Cave is a story set in two time-periods. The
1880s story is about Shooter Green (Jeremy Sumpter), a dazzling marksman who
takes on a dangerous job so he can afford to marry the woman he loves, banker’s
daughter Josie Hayes (Alexandria DeBerry). The 1920s story centers on a young
boy named Tommy (Jet Jurgensmeyer), whose dime-novel-fueled obsession with
Shooter Green is enhanced by ranch-hand Sam Barnes (Adam Baldwin), who in his
youth knew Shooter.
I arrived at Old Tucson
at 8 a.m., two hours before the park opened to the public. There is always
something magical about Western movie sets and streets, whether deserted, or in
the midst of production. I made my way along the Rio Bravo Street, skirted a
remaining piece of the O.K. Corral, to Town Hall, the base camp for the film.
Adam Baldwin as Sam Barnes
As I entered the rotunda, the pharmacy set to my left had been converted to the make-up department. To my right, the bank interior set – scene of countless hold-ups – had been commandeered by wardrobe. Straight ahead was town hall, or a courtroom, depending on how the set was dressed. The man on the judge’s bench directed me to the assistant director, who introduced me to a tall young man who was one of the film’s producers, Jason White. We hopped into his RV, along with his assistant, and headed out to location.
The route into the
Sonoran Desert was a baffling series of random-seeming switchbacks, hills and
valleys dominated by countless saguaro cactus, mesquite plants, and creosote
bushes covered with tiny yellow flowers and tiny cotton-like puffs. In a
moment, all signs of civilization were gone. En route, Jason and I talked about
movies in general, and 5 Mile Cave in particular, and producer Gary
Wheeler gave me more details when we met up on location.
GARY
WHEELER & JASON WHITE - Producers
Henry Parke: How did 5 Mile Cave come about?
Gary Wheeler: I did a movie with Nancy Stafford called Heritage
Falls a couple of years ago and she said, you have to meet this actor/writer
named William Shockley. I live in Charlotte, and William was scouting Charlotte
for a movie, and I said sure, how can I not? I knew William’s work from Dr. Quinn.
We met at a little restaurant, and he started talking about all the scripts
that he'd written with his partner, Dustin Rikert, that he wanted to get made, everything
from a modern-day love story to an action movie, and kind of buried in the
middle of them was, “and we wrote this one family Western about Legend of 5
Mile Cave.” And then he kept going, and I said, let's go back to that
little one you mentioned in the middle. He vowed to send me all the scripts,
and he sent a bunch, but the one I kept looking for was 5 Mile Cave, and
I even said, hey, send me that one. And I read it, liked it, my executive
producers liked it. We put a deal together quickly, and we're in production
less than a year later.
Henry Parke: Wow -- that
is fast!
Gary Wheeler: You know, I've done movies where it's taken
years to develop, and then I've done movies where it comes together very
quickly, and usually when that happens, it turns out well.
Henry Parke: How long have you been working together?
Jason White: Just about
two years. Not too long, but we've done about five movies so far together,
ranging from romcoms to action movies to family dramas. So, yeah, it's been
fun.
Henry Parke: Could you explain for a layman what a
producer does?
Jason White: It’s kind of like you’re building a house,
and I'm a general contractor. It takes a lot of people to build a house; takes
a lot of people to make a movie. We assemble a team, and I try to get out of
their way, and let them do what they do best. We work together great; we always
have good crews. This time in particular we're blending a crew. We shoot a lot
of our movies out east, in Georgia, so about half our crew is from the east
coast, and half our crew is from here, and they've just melded together great.
Which, you know, doesn't always happen. It's kind of nice. It's kind of like a
family.
Henry Parke: How much of this film was shot in Georgia?
Tommy reads about Shooter Green
Jason White: About two thirds. Legend of 5 Mile Cave
is a retelling, from an older gentleman to a younger kid, who’s gotten a pulp
novel, and thinks he knows the real story. But this older gentleman says, no,
I'll tell you what really happened to Shooter Green. We have a lot of
flashbacks, and that's what we're shooting here in Arizona. Georgia is present day, which is 1920s, so
not really present day, but within our movie it's present day. And it
was fun, too. We had a lot of 1920s Model A Fords, a lot of period 1920s
costumes. Amazingly, we found a 1920s house in Georgia totally redone inside,
like the 1920s, which is hard to find because once electricity came in, houses
changed. This one had electricity, but we worked around that. And it looks
great.
Henry Parke: How did you
go about casting the film?
Gary Wheeler: Beverly Holloway is our casting director. We
had several people in mind. You make your lists like any movie, and you find
cornerstone people. We had worked with Jill
Wagner before, and I texted Jill, hey, we got a Western. She's in the Georgia
portion. And Jet Jurgensmeyer plays her son, and he's a kind of a cowboy kid
anyway, so he loved it. We called William (Shockley) and I said, how about
playing this character? You wrote him. He was like, I'm in! And then we got Adam
Baldwin, and I've always been a big fan of Adam’s dating back to My
Bodyguard – that was a sentinel eighties movie for me. Then I have always
been a Jeremy Sumpter fan, I liked him from Friday Night Lights. I knew he was
a cowboy, and I saw footage of him cutting cattle, and I thought he would be a
great Shooter Green.
Henry Parke: How many horses do you have in this picture?
Jason White: We have six on the stage-coach, and probably
another five or six, so like 12 or 13. Jesse Bell has bred and trained all
these horses. He's from Tombstone originally and he runs the stables here at Old
Tucson.
Henry Parke: What are the biggest challenges you found
doing a period film with two periods?
Jason White: That you can't show anything modern: can't
show a power line, can't show a car, can't show a Coke can. When you shoot a
non-period piece, if you happen to see a bicycle or a Ford Focus or something,
it's not a big deal because you know those things exist. But we're in a time
when there’s no electricity, no telephone. It's easier to make a movie if it
happened World War II or after, because a lot of things existed from then on,
that didn't exist before that. 1920s, not everyone had indoor plumbing.
Henry Parke: So you've got two time periods that are both
challenges.
Jason White: Yes. As far as getting the period stuff
right, the one in the West was actually the less challenging because at Old
Tucson they've really preserved it. It's here on county park land where no one
has built behind them. So it's very easy to imagine what the 1880s looked like,
easy to get lost in that.
Henry Parke: What are your favorite Westerns?
Jason White: I love Glenn Ford; I love John Wayne. Lately I've
been watching Rio Bravo and El Dorado a lot, and I know they get
a lot of flak for being similar, but I kind of like that, because you get to
see what (Director Howard) Hawks was thinking. I always liked Westerns, but when I got older,
the good versus the bad, that became stronger imagery to me. I just fell more
in love with them, especially Clint Eastwood movies. My stepfather was a very
John Wayne-esque type person. In fact, at his eulogy, my wife referenced John
Wayne in comparison to him. So John
Wayne has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of him.
Henry Parke: What's your
favorite movie that got shot here?
Gary Wheeler: I really loved El Dorado . I just
rewatched it, and there's a scene where John Wayne has to come and tell the
family that their boy is dead. He tells him and then he takes his horse and he
backs up, covering the family with his rifle. He's such a large man on this
horse and the way he backs that horse up is amazing. Other than that, I would
say Tombstone. And then after I scouted here I went back and rewatched The
Three Amigos and I loved itYou could tell that they had studied.
Henry Parke: How do you like working at Old Tucson?
Jason White: I love it. People here are great. I mean,
this is where Westerns were made, and we're standing on what we call ‘film
sacred ground’, where iconic American Westerns were born, where we have the
idea of what a Western is and what a cowboy is. It's not just an American thing:
people all over the world identify with the Western, and that idea was born
here, created here. From 1939, from Arizona to Rio Bravo to TV
shows like High Chaparral, those were made here, so people's idea of the
what the west looks like is Old Tucson.
Henry Parke: Are you
planning to make more Westerns?
Jason White: I'm hoping to. We really love the Western,
and I think audiences really love the Western, and kind of miss it. And I think
it's making a comeback. I hope we're part of that comeback and I hope we make
more,
Henry Parke: Do you think kids relate to westerns today?
Jason White: Oh yeah. There's always that adventure that
comes from a western. Kids like horses, they like challenges they have to
overcome. I think kids will always be drawn to those types of stories.
We crested a hill and
were suddenly in the location’s parking area. “Always park by the
porta-potties,” Jason advised me. “You can be sure your car won’t be in the
shot.” Sound advice. A short, steep, winding desert path brought us to the
black tent that shaded the pair of video monitors for the two cameras that covered
the action. Brent Christy was watching a
scene replay. Brent is both the cinematographer and the director of 5 Mile
Cave, a very rare combination. Satisfied with what he saw, he left the tent
and returned to the action.
They were shooting a
series of gallop-bys – Shooter Green rides by camera, pursued by a posse of
more than half a dozen riders. It was
exciting stuff, with lots of pounding hoofs and dust and riding around
saguaros. They did several takes.
Tom Proctor fires straight at camera
The next set-up featured
the head of the posse – Virgil Earp no less – taking a shot at the fleeing
Shooter Green. Tom Proctor, an experienced stunt-man and stunt coordinator as
well as an actor, was playing Earp, and he was to fire the shot directly into
camera. It was a blank, of course, but at point-blank range, a person or a
camera can certainly be hurt by a blank. A sheet of thick, clear plastic was
mounted on a stand between gun and camera, and it was the plastic that took the
impact.
I got a lift to the next
location from a man I’d met before, but didn’t recognize. William Shockley,
co-author of 5 Mile Cave, has had a long and impressive acting career, starting
with Robocop, and is best remembered from Dr. Quinn – Medicine Woman,
where he played Hank Lawson, the long-haired, tough, cynical saloon and
brothel-owner, who often surprised people with his basic decency. In the last several years, he and writing
partner Dustin Rikert have had quite a few movies made, including the Westerns The
Gundown, Ambush at Dark Canyon, and Hot Bath an’ a Stiff Drink. Without
his long, scraggily hair from Dr. Quinn, he was unrecognizable. He looks much more
respectable, and much younger, without it. “I had to lose it for the part. That
kind of hair wouldn’t go for a 1920s lawman.” In addition to co-writing the
movie, he plays the antagonist of the 1920s storyline.
WILLIAM
SHOCKLEY – Writer and Actor
Henry Parke: What is it like, as a writer and actor,
delivering lines that you wrote?
Wm Shockley: Well, I've had the privilege to be cast in
many of the films that I've written with Dustin Rikert. This one, they cast me
in the brilliant role of Sheriff Small, who's the bad guy ultimately. To be
able to watch other actors, as a hired actor along with them, participate and
see it come to life, it gives you goosebumps. I mean, it's a beautiful feeling.
Henry Parke: When did you start specializing in Westerns?
Wm Shockley: I was talking to the executive producer
yesterday and he said, not every actor is correct for a western. So I think the
western found me. I think there's a
sensibility that an actor and an actress have to have, and the look, to
participate in the truth and authenticity of the old west. So I think they
found me. I fell in love with Hank Lawsen on Dr. Quinn, clearly. And
then, when I started working with Dustin, there's just such a beautiful truth
about the old west that I can really relate to.
Henry Parke: How do you like shooting at Old Tucson?
Wm Shockley: Well, this is the seventh time I've filmed
here, and I love it. Honestly, I feel like a little kid the first day whenever
I'm back. It's just awe-inspiring. Tucson's almost like my home away from home.
Henry Parke: Where is your actual home?
Wm Shockley: Los Angeles. I've been there my whole life,
since I left Texas. I claim Austin (as my hometown) because it's such a
fabulous city. I went to school there and had a restaurant there.
Henry Parke: It's seems that Westerns are going through a
revival, and a lot of the really good stuff is on television rather than
theatrical.
Wm Shockley: What's the golden age of television? You know,
with the shrinking economy of DVDs, it's harder to monetize an independent
film. And with the advent of Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and all the great
opportunities in television, there's exposure for everything, including Westerns.
In the perilous times that we live in, this unusual moment in history, I think
the world feels great about watching something that feels authentic and good,
like a western. There's such pure honesty in the old west, you know? Steal a
man's cattle, you get killed. Straight up truth. And one man can make a difference.
There were bad guys, (and that) creates drama. I think people enjoy looking
back to a time with no cell phones, and no computers and no Facebook: none of the
clutter.
The next morning, I
caught up with Jeremy Sumpter, who stars as Shooter Green. He first made a splash in 2003, starring in
the title role in the live-action blockbuster Peter Pan, so I was
startled that he had no English accent.
It turns out he’s all-American.
He gave me a bit of a walking tour of the main street, excitedly pointing
out the sights.
JEREMY
SUMPTER – Shooter Green
Jeremy Sumpter and Alexandria DeBerry
between takes
Henry Parke: I understand that you were a fan of Westerns long
before you starred in this one.
Jeremy Sumpter: Absolutely. It's been a dream of mine to do a
Western, and to finally have that dream come true, I mean, I couldn't be
happier. And being a part of this, in Old Tucson, where they made, Rio Bravo
-- like right over here is where Dean Martin went into the horse-trough. And
you see some of these foundations, that's where the old original sets were,
when they built the place in '39 and shot Arizona. Seeing it all here
and being part of that, and making my stamp in the history of the place, it's
pretty spectacular.
Henry Parke: Did you grow up western?
Jeremy Sumpter: Yeah, I did.
I grew up in Kentucky, but I really grew up in L.A. Been out there for 19 years, so 10 years in
Kentucky first, riding thoroughbreds. And
then I went to Texas, and did a lot of horse cutting, and using what I've
learned over the years. I'm a modern-day cowboy in the sense of my whole
mentality, so to take that into my character (Shooter Green), the period seemed
pretty easy for me.
Shooter and Josie
Henry Parke: What are your favorite Western films?
Jeremy Sumpter: The Shootist is great. The Outlaw
Josey Wales. But my favorite is Unforgiven. Clint, he's one of my
favorite directors too.
Later that morning, I
would be acting in a scene with Jeremy. It was Shooter and Josie’s wedding, and
I would have to be costumed for it.
Meeting Jenna Miller on-set, you would probably assume that she
was an actress rather than the costume designer. Despite growing up with a
mother who was a seamstress, she took a very circuitous route to costume
design. “She tried to teach me how to sew when I was a kid, but I was out with
the horses too much.” Jenna was a wrangler first, and eventually got interested
in sewing her own period costumes at the ranch where she worked. She assisted
another costumer designer for some time. 5 Mile Cave is Jenna’s second
film as head designer. “I grew up here in Arizona, born and raised an Arizona
cowgirl. I was immersed in the old west history growing up and it's always
fascinated me. I've done a lot of research and learned a lot about the west,
and I just really like doing this particular era.”
JENNA
MILLER – Costume Designer
Henry Parke: What are your biggest challenges in doing
costumes on a Western?
Jenna Miller: Making sure that we keep it as historically
accurate as possible, and make the accuracy work with how we're filming it, to make
it play into the scenes and work with the camera angles, as far as hats and
things like that are concerned.
Henry Parke: Which is a more demanding, the women's
clothes or the men’s?
Jenna Miller: It depends
on the scene. The men, like right now they're out riding and, in the dust and
dirt. There's the challenge of making sure that their clothing’s aged enough,
with the right amount of dust and the right amount of dirt. So it looks like
they've actually been out there all day riding. The women's clothes are pretty
simple and easy to do, unless we get into some of the more upscale scenes where
they're wearing clothing with extra layers, the bustle skirts and fancier stuff.
It gets a little more complicated. I'm a
specialist in women's clothing of that era. It was really important to me for
female lead, Josie, to have period correctness all the way through the costume
from every single layer. So I was painstakingly making sure that even her
undergarments, that you don't ever see on film were historically accurate,
because there's a certain silhouette that the women had to have in their
clothing back then, that Victorian era silhouette. It's really important that
the corsets and things that she's wearing underneath make the right silhouette
for the outside of the clothing.
Alexandria and Jeremy - note she's standing on
an apple box to bring her up closer to him
The wedding scene was
shot in the church set, a small, perhaps secret wedding attended only by the
couple, the minister and his wife, and two seated witnesses seen from behind, a
bald-headed man and a striking blonde. I am not the striking blonde.
Outside of the church,
they shot the scene with Shooter leaving his bride to do that dangerous job
that would give them financial security. After that I had a chance to talk with
Director Brent Christy, and experienced cinematographer directing his second feature.
BRENT
CHRISTY – Director and Cinematographer
Alexandria DeBerry and Brent Christy
Henry Parke: Quite a few screenwriters and some editors
have segued into directing, but it’s unusual for a cinematographer to do so. How
do your camera skills help you as a director?
Brent Christy: I think what has worked for me is having a
vision for where the light's coming from, and what I want to see from a camera
move. That has helped give me confidence when it comes to the things that I'm
still learning, which is having a relationship with the actors, and making sure
that every little bit is as good as it can be.
Henry Parke: This is your second film as a director?
Brent Christy: That's correct. The first one's called Legal
Action. It’s a courtroom drama that
also has a little bit of detective work in it.
Henry Parke: How do you
like doing a western?
Brent Christy: It's been a great experience, coming out to
Tucson specifically. And doing my first western project really on any level, it's
the scenery: it's hard not to make it look Western. And when it comes to a
place like Old Tucson Studios, it's really built in. The same can be said for a
lot of the set design, the costumes; it's all really here and the people here
are great.
Henry Parke: Growing up, were Westerns a favorite genre?
Brent Christy: No, Western fandom has come later in life. It's
only been the last three years that I dove into Westerns, and really saw the
potential in film history of good guy versus bad guy. A lot of it is entrenched
in the things that John Ford and Howard Hawks did.
Henry Parke: I think you’re pretty near to wrapping this
film. What have been the biggest challenges?
Brent Christy: I'd say dealing with the elements. We've had
some high winds, some high heat, and working out in the sun, making sure
everybody stays hydrated, stays cool. And staying on time with the job ahead
has been a difficult balancing act.
Henry Parke: What particular challenges have you found in
doing a period story rather than a contemporary one, and two different time
periods at that?
Brent Christy: You know, regardless of the facility,
everything is basically outfitted for electric these days. So we have a lot of
help with our VFX (Visual Effects) department when it comes to light switches
and light sockets and things like that. It's hard to make sure every one of
those is disappeared. But overall, we've been very fortunate with the locations
that we've had.
Henry Parke: Except for Old Tucson, you’ve
been shooting in Georgia?
Brent Christy: That's correct. They were all on location,
preexisting buildings. So we had to adapt them to our needs, but thankfully the
structures that we chose were all 1900 buildings, and we were very fortunate to
be working with location owners that were excited to have us recreate something
from that era.
Henry Parke: It's an
unusual story in that you've got the same group of characters in two very
different times in their lives. Did that pose any particular challenges?
Brent Christy: Casting is very important
when you're doing a story where a character is decades older in one scene, and
decades younger in the next. We've been very fortunate that the cast (members
playing the same characters) wanted to collaborate with each other and find the
little idiosyncrasies that make them who they are, and try to infuse a little
bit of those into each other's roles.
Henry Parke: How do you like working with horses?
Brent Christy: It's been a great experience working with
horses, in really being able to respect an animal that you can tame. But at the
same time, we have to respect their needs as well. It's been a good experience
and a great challenge at the same time.
Stagecoach shootout
The last sequence I
watched being filmed was a stagecoach chase and robbery. I’d known that popular Western filming
locations often had a “chase-road”, a long, straight path without obstructions,
where running horses could get up a good speed, and an insert-car could drive
beside them, filming, but I’d never seen a chase-road before. This one was a large
perfect circle, meaning that a camera in the center could pan around, and
always maintain the same distance from the coach – even if the coach drove
endlessly. There was a shoot-out at the end of the chase, with a paint-ball gun
providing convincing bullet-hits.
All too soon, that last
day of filming was over, and everyone was packing up and heading out. The
Legend of 5 Mile Cave is completed now, and will have it’s world television
premiere on Sunday night, June 9th, 2019, on INSP. Check your local
listings to see when it’s on in your area.
LEGEND OF 5 MILE CAVE – A
Movie Review by Henry C. Parke
In Kentucky, in 1929, it’s
a few months before the Stock-market Crash, but the Great Depression is already
here for recently widowed Susan Tilwicky (Jill Wagner) and her son Tommy (Jet
Jurgensmeyer). Without her husband to
work the ranch and break the horses to sell, the mother and son seem destined
to lose their homestead. Things are already bad enough that Susan is looking to
take in boarders. Tommy escapes these worries by immersing himself in dime
novels about the adventures of a fabled cowboy sharpshooter named Shooter Green.
There’s a ray of hope for the Tilwickys when an older roaming cowboy named Sam
Barnes (Adam Baldwin) agrees to break the horses in trade for room and board.
Better still, Sam claims to have known Shooter Green in his youth, and happily
gives Tommy the real story about his idol.
Interwoven with the 1929
story is the 1896 Tucson-set story of Shooter Green (Jeremy Sumpter), a young
man who makes a living by demonstrating his shooting prowess to audiences for a
price. He’s more than a little cocky, and would come off as arrogant except that
he’s every bit as good as he claims to be. Shooter becomes smitten with lovely –
and equally gun-skilled – Josie Hayes (Alexandria DeBerry), the daughter of the
town banker. To earn the money to be able to marry Josie, Shooter tales on a
dangerous job, which leads betrayal, disgrace, and loot from a robbery that’s
still being sought in 1929.
Writers Dustin Rikert and
William Shockley, and director Brent Christy have fashioned a Depression Western
that is anything but depressing. It’s full of adventure and action and heart, engaging
performances, with plenty of surprises along the way. Best of all, at a time
when all the good recent Westerns contain little that would interest kids, or
even be appropriate for them to see, Legend of 5 Mile Cave is a Western
with an elegant balance of adult interest and kid interest, action and romance,
so that the whole family can watch it, and enjoy it, together, not because it’s
been rendered harmless, but because it’s good entertainment. The bond that grows between young Tommy and
Sam is particularly genuine.
Shot in the two beautiful,
but very different, locales of small-town Georgia and Old Tucson, Arizona, the
movie is handsomely lensed by Brent Christy, Cinematographer as well as Director,
and shows off Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, at times using a drone to reveal that
familiar landscape from a completely new perspective. The grand score by Tom
Gire is in the tradition of great, stirring Westerns scores of Elmer Bernstein
and Alfred Newman and Dimitri Tiomkin, without being derivative of any.
The Legend of 5 Mile Cave
makes
its television premiere on Sunday night, June 9th, on INSP. It’s
also available on DVD, as well as Amazon Prime and Fandango.
THE ROY ROGERS ‘HAPPY
TRAILS’ COLLECTION – DVD Review
If you’re a fan of the
King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the West, this twenty-film collection for
about a dollar a movie from Mill Creek Entertainment is an unbeatable
deal, and it’s authorized by The Roy Rogers Estate, compiled with the
help of Roy’s son, Roy “Dusty” Rogers Jr. and Jeffrey Kramer.
While the movies
themselves, almost all directed by Republic Pictures action wizard
William Whitney, many guest-starring Gabby Hayes, would appear to be the main
attraction, if you love Roy and Dale, the even greater appeal of this set is
its source: the 1980s Nashville Network series, Happy Trails Theatre,
which they hosted. The introductions
are heartwarming, and full of insights into the making of the films. Better
still, the introductions usually feature guests, including Dusty, co-stars like
Iron Eyes Cody, Penny Edwards, Ruth Terry, and Roy’s friend and rival Gene
Autry with sidekick Pat Buttram. There are several good documentaries as well.
On four DVDs, and also
featuring a digital copy, the shows have all been digitally remastered. But
while I strongly recommend this set, I want to make a couple of clarifications.
While all the movies I’ve viewed so far are perfectly watchable, these versions
of the movies are the ones that were originally included in the TV series, and
I know that in some cases there are higher quality versions now available. And at least some of the movies are cut. Originally,
B-westerns ran about 60 to 65 minutes. But when they were first sold them to
television in the 1950s, they were cut to 53 minutes, to fit into a TV hour,
with seven minutes for commercials. In some cases, the missing footage is simply
lost. I don’t know if there is a more complete version of 1944’s delightful Along
The Navajo Trail, but it was released at 66 minutes, and this version is
53, with at least one musical number obviously missing.
But it’s a wonderful
deal, and even if I already had all of the movies complete, I’d buy the set for
the intros. Disk one features Sons of the Pioneers (1942) and Trigger
Jr. (1950) in color, and Pals of the Golden West (1951), Young
Bill Hickok (1940), and Don’t Fence Me In (1945) – the only Roy
Rogers Western with a Cole Porter theme – in black & white. You can see the entire list of films, and
order the set, here:
JONAH BLUE - by Jim
Christina – a Book Review
Tuscany Bay Books – 280 pages
With Jonah Blue,
author Jim Christina takes a break from his popular The Hunter Western
novel series to tell a story that begins with 10-year-old Jonah Bleu, growing
up in 1830s Ohio. One of three children, their father is so cruel to the family
that his wife can take it no more, and hangs herself. Jonah finds his mother’s body.
When his father shows no remorse, seeing it as an excuse to whup the boy, Jonah
grabs his few belongings in a kerchief and takes off for the Rocky Mountains.
The bulk of the adventure
tells how Jonah, with the help of a succession of Mountain Man mentors,
starting with Rensfeld Dogget, learns to be a Mountain Man, to live off the
land, to be self-reliant, to protect himself from enemies both White and Indian. He must also, inevitably, deal with the fates
of the brother and sister whom he left behind.
In his autobiographical appendix,
Jim Christina notes, “If you are looking for Louis L’amour, you won’t find him
here.” This is absolutely true. Eschewing pastoral passages and detailed
descriptions, Christina’s prose cuts to the bone. There are no taboo subjects
here. Heroes are not always heroic, language is coarse, and the details of
action are unflinching: nobody is simply “stabbed in the gut.” You will learn
precisely what happened to the victim’s entrails. With a hero every bit as compelling as The
Hunter, one must suspect that there will be many more Jonah Blue novels to look
forward to.
JONAH BLUE is available
from Amazon, in Kindle and paperback, here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073NP2VP2
One More Thing...
I wanted to make sure I posted my article and review about The Legend of 5 Mile Cave before the show actually aired, and I'm down to the wire to do it. As I type these words, it's 2:42 a.m. , Sunday morning, and I still have to choose the pictures to go with the articles. In the next day or two I'll be updating this post with a book review (now included), a video review (now included), and some upcoming events. Please check back in during the week!
Much obliged,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright June 2019 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved
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