DANIEL RADCLIFFE GOES WEST IN MIRACLE WORKERS: OREGON TRAIL!
For two seasons, former
Harry Potter portrayer Daniel Radcliffe, and co-star Steven Buscemi have
starred as an odd pair of angels in the series Miracle Workers. It’s
about angels that are sent down to Earth to perform miracles, and convince God
not to destroy the planet. It’s based on the novel What in God’s Name,
by Simon Rich. It sure sounds to me like
It’s a Wonderful Life meets The Horn Blows at Midnight, which are
two of my favorite comedies.
The first season was set
in heaven. The second season was set in
Europe during Medieval times. And happily,
season three is set in the Old West, on the Oregon Trail! Incidentally, this is Steve Buscemi’s first
Western since Lonesome Dove. The
new season premieres this Tuesday, July 13th, on TBS. Here’s a peek!
IDRIS ELBA’S THE HARDER THEY FALL COMING TO NETFLIX THIS FALL!
Idris Elba is a Brit, but
he surely must love Westerns! In 2017 he
starred as a gunslinger in Stephen King’s futuristic Western THE TALL TOWER. In 2020 he starred in the contemporary
Western CONCRETE COWBOY. And this
fall he’ll be starring in his first historic Western, THE HARDER THEY FALL. He plays Rufus Buck, and when his sworn
enemy, Nat Love, played by Jonathan Majors, learns that Buck is getting out of
jail, he pulls his old gang together to run Buck down. Most of the characters are based on real
people – in addition to Buck and Love, there’s Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz),
Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), Cherokee Bill (LaKieth Stanfield), Jim Beckworth
(R.J. Cyler), and Delroy Lindo as Bass Reeves.
When I posted about this on Facebook, I got some angry responses from
readers who assumed that heroic figures like Stagecoach Mary, Bill Pickett and
the great Bass Reeves are portrayed as members of Nat Love’s gang. I don’t know if they are or they aren’t. Here’s a peek.
Incidentally, Harder They Fall is directed by another Brit who must love the Western genre. Jeymes Samuels, who has many film music credits, previously directed the 2013 Western, They Die By Dawn. While, at 49 minutes, it’s short by today’s standards, that’s close to the average running-time of Western Bs of the ‘30s and ‘40s. For some reason, I'm not being allowed to upload the link, but the whole movie is available on Youtube under its title.
WALTER HILL TO DIRECT DEAD
FOR A DOLLAR!
There was great
excitement at the Cannes Film Festival for Dead for a Dollar, a new
Western in pre-production, co-written and to be directed
by Walter Hill, and to star Willem Dafoe and Cristoph Waltz! Hill, a marvelous writer and director whose previous
Westerns have included The Longriders, Geronimo, Wild Bill, and the pilot
for Deadwood, has not made a Western since his excellent 2003 miniseries
for AMC, Broken Trail.
Dafoe hasn’t done a
Western since his uncredited role in 1980’s Heaven’s Gate, but Hill
directed him in Streets of Fire.
Waltz will be making his second Western, his first being Quentin Tarantino’s
Django Unchained, and just like in Django, Waltz plays a
legendary bounty hunter. Willem Dafoe is
his sworn enemy. I gave a brief summary
of the plot on Facebook: "Waltz is hired
to go to Mexico and rescue the kidnapped wife of an important industrialist," and though I gave no more details, many readers cut to the chase and said it
sounds very much like a remake of Richard Brooks’ The Professionals. The more you know of the plot, the more it
does. But Walter Hill is a great and
original talent, and I am sure he will do something wonderful with it.
STARDUST TRAIL – by J. R. Sanders
A Book Review By Henry C. Parke
I love STARDUST TRAIL,
the new mystery novel by J. R. Sanders.
It’s his first in a series featuring private detective Nate Ross, and I’m
happy to say J.R. is already hard at work on the next one. It belongs to that sub-genre, the Hollywood
murder mystery, which is exceptionally hard to write. That’s because in addition to all the already
necessary skills for a mystery writer and a novelist, one must also write
knowledgably about the film industry, specific studios, and particular
real-life characters at a chosen moment in time. Stuart Kaminsky, with his Toby Peters books,
and Andrew Bergman, with his two Hollywood and Levine mysteries, have succeeded
where most have failed. J.R. Sanders has
joined this select group, as he strides confidently into the world of Raymond
Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.
And, in an exhilarating change
of locale, Sanders has placed Stardust Trail not at any of the seven Majors
– MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, et al – but at Republic, the
greatest of the Minors, the thrill factory where Gene Autry and Roy Rogers
reined (or should that be reigned?)! It’s
where John Wayne made his name, and the Duke actually makes a guest appearance
in the novel, not the Stagecoach star Wayne, but a younger star in the
beloved B-Western series of films, The Three Mesquiteers.
It’s 1938, and former L.A.
cop, and current private detective Nate Ross stumbles upon a crime in
progress. When he rescues Republic’s
most wooden performer (prior to Sunset Carson) from kidnapping, the power that
be – studio head Herbert J. Yates – agrees that Ross is just the guy they need. A screenwriter name Prince has gone AWOL during
the production of what is meant to be Republic’s biggest Western to date, Stardust
Trail. Ross finds him alright, and
is soon in a swirl of gunplay, Hollywood nightspots from the ritzy Sardi’s to
the henchman-friendly Hackamore Club, fabled locales like Vasquez Rocks, Fat Jones’
Stables, various movie ranches, and Gower Gulch, where B-Western actors and riding
extras hope to pick up a day’s work. The
writing is breezy and smart, and Nate Ross, and ex-cop who is hated by cops,
and hates Hollywood, has considerable dimension. The supporting characters are realistic and
not overly familiar. The plot is
complex, but comprehensible, the dénouement satisfying. Stardust Trail is available from Amazon in
paper for $16.95, and for Kindle at $5.95.
I recently had the chance
to talk to J.R. about Stardust Trail.
HENRY:
I’m a sucker for a well-written
Hollywood mystery anyway, but you really had me hooked the moment that I
realized the kidnap victim was Max Terhune’s ventriloquist dummy, Elmer
Sneezewood,
J.R. SANDERS:
That was a lot of fun to
tinker with that. Actually, it's a supposedly true story. Years ago I was
touring the Autry Museum in L.A., and they had Elmer on display down in the
movie and TV Western section. And there was a little placard next to it that
told that back in the ‘30s, someone had stolen Elmer and sent either sent, a
ransom note and supposedly the ransom was paid. $500 is the figure that sticks
in my head.
HENRY:
I read your previous
book, Some Gave All, about real Western lawmen. And knowing that you've
been a law man and a private detective, I figured you were mainly a true crime
writer. So I was surprised to see that you'd written a novel.
J.R. SANDERS:
I've never really tackled
(fiction) before, other than a children's book years ago, that I don't really
count as a serious fiction. But it was always in the back of my mind that I
wanted to do, and particularly a detective story. That's what I enjoyed reading
over the years and I always thought it would be fun to take a shot at it.
HENRY:
Your detective, Nate Ross,
has a very interesting background. Was he inspired by any real person?
J.R. SANDERS:
Not at all. I just wanted
to do a character in the vein of the old classic Chandler, Hammet sorta
detective, but go with a little harder edge and maybe a little bit more
backstory.
HENRY:
Has your law enforcement
and detective background been helpful in writing the book?
J.R. SANDERS:
I guess maybe, in the
broad brush strokes. But really policing was so very different back in the ‘30s
that I actually had to spend a lot of time looking at old law books and police
manuals and things like that from the ‘30s, the California penal code from the ‘30s,
just to get an idea of how different things were, both in terms of the law, in
terms of police procedures, how crimes were approached. It's a lot more sophisticated nowadays.
Policemen worked a lot less with ready access to backup back in the day. So in
some ways it was more hazardous. Although in some ways it’s more hazardous now:
just different hazards.
HENRY:
You mentioned some
already, but what writers have influenced you, whose mysteries have you
enjoyed?
J.R. SANDERS:
Well, Raymond Chandler,
Dashiel Hammet, any of the old Black Mask writers from back in the day. Most of those names are pretty much unknown
to the average reader now, but people like Lester Dent, Raoul Whitfield. James Ellroy, he's kind of a, an industry unto
himself. He's got a definite signature style and he's always interesting
reading, always entertaining; I always learn something. I'm a big fan also of
Michael Connelly. I'm about halfway through the Bosch books now. Not as far as
I should be, but I've watched the entire Harry Bosch series. It's phenomenal. It's
for my money, the best police series that's ever been made.
HENRY:
Why did he decide to set
your Nate Ross mystery at Republic Pictures?
J.R. SANDERS:
Most of my writing
background has been based in or around old west history because it's just
always been a fascination of mine. It's always been a topic that I've studied and
been interested in. So I just thought that it would be neat to sort of combine
the traditional detective story with a Western story, or at least a story with
Western trappings and setting it in the ‘30s, in the era of the B westerns. It
just seemed like a natural to go with Republic. Republic, isn't usually dealt
with in those stories. Republic was never exactly poverty row, but it wasn't
MGM either. It was kind of a farm team in a lot of ways.
HENRY:
With most Hollywood
behind-the-scenes stories, whether it's books or movies or TV, my main gripe is
that the writers either don't care or really don't know their turf; what the
studios were like, how filmmaking actually works. But your stuff is spot on. Did
you do a lot of research?
J.R. SANDERS:
Well, thank you. I did. I had to, because I'm far from an
expert on any of that. I've watched the movies, but as far as the technical
aspects of movie making, especially in the ‘30s, I didn't really know a whole
lot going in,
HENRY:
It was a kind of a thrill
reading the book and imagining myself at places like Fat Jones’ Stable, or
Gower Gulch, when the Columbia Drugstore was there, and the movie ranches. Did you actually visit any of those locales?
J.R. SANDERS:
I did. I’ve been to Vasquez Rocks many times over
the years, but made a particular visit just with this book in mind. Not much has changed other than the freeway blasting
by it. With Gower Gulch, there's nothing left. Although there is a nice little
strip mall that they've actually named Gower Gulch; with sort of a Western
false-front look to it.
HENRY:
I didn't know there was a
Sardi's on this coast. So that was very interesting to find out that you hadn't
made that up. But how about the
Hackamore Club? Is that your invention?
J.R. SANDERS:
Well, yeah, just complete
fiction. I had read about a couple of honky-tonk type bars that the B-movie
Cowboys frequented, but there wasn't really anything on the scale of a
full-blown nightclub, but it just seemed like a neat touch that, if there wasn't a place like that, there
should have been.
HENRY:
I thought the movie
within the novel, also called Stardust Trail, was just right, because it
was just the sort of overreaching kind of thing that Herbert Yates would do for
a while. Those overblown musical westerns, where you wanted to yell at the
screen, "Enough dancing! Shoot someone!"
J.R. SANDERS:
Since it was going to be
set in late ’38, I had wanted from the beginning to deal with the making of Stagecoach
(1939). But again, not wanting to get
into the major studio sort of a milieu. I didn't want Stagecoach to take
center stage, and deal with all those name actors. John Wayne dropping him in
as sort of a peripheral character, I enjoyed it. I would not have wanted to,
probably wouldn't have had the audacity, to try and make him a central
character,
HENRY:
But he contributes. And it's
such a nice choice to put him in there when he was a Three Mesquiteers
star and on the verge of being something big. I liked that a lot.
J.R. SANDERS:
Well, thank you. I
enjoyed that probably as much as anything in the book, because it was just such
a different view of John Wayne than you typically get. I've seen him portrayed
in fiction here and there over the years, but it's always John Wayne, the icon,
and it was kind of fun to go back and deal with him at a time when he was
really still Duke Morrison.
HENRY:
What's up next for Nate
Ross?
J.R. SANDERS:
Actually, I'm sitting
here as we speak working on the second Nate Ross novel. In this book dealing with film piracy,
chasing a gang of bootleggers who are duplicating Hollywood films and selling
them over the border in Mexico. It’s called Dead Bang Fall. And it's due out in March.
HENRY:
As a Republic fan, do you
have a favorite B Western star or a series?
J.R. SANDERS:
It's in the book; The
Three Mesquiteers. John Wayne and Max
Terhune, those were just such fun movies.
Fluffy and nothing you could take too seriously, but they're just a kick
to watch.
HENRY:
One last question. Where did the title Stardust Trail
come from?
J.R. SANDERS:
There was a quote I ran
across in my research from (Gene Autry’s sidekick), Smiley Burnett. In his
later days, he was out at one of these events, signing 8 X 10 glossies, selling
them for ten bucks a pop. Somebody criticized him for that. And his response
was, "You can't eat stardust."
... AND THAT'S A WRAP!
