‘WILD
WEST CHRONICLES’ SEASON 5 STARTS MARCH 4!
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This Wednesday on INSP, Bat Masterson once-again holsters his gun and draws his fountain-pen for 5th season of Wild West Chronicles. Lasting this long is no small achievement. As series Producer Gary Tarpinian puts it, “In an era in which getting a second season is tantamount to a small miracle, I have to pinch myself that we are really delivering a fifth season of this scripted, anthology series that presents the greatest true stories and characters of the Old West.” (Read my season one interview with series Producers Gary Tarpinian and Craig Miller HERE).
For anyone unfamiliar with the series, they took the fact that Bat Masterson later in life became a New York newspaper reporter, chronicling the Old West, and used it as a jumping-off point. In each episode, Masterson, portrayed by Jack Elliot (read my interview with him HERE), travels back to the West to interview witnesses or surviving participants in important, though not always famous, historical events. These are entertaining historical dramas, not docudramas with clunky reenactments and talking heads, and while writers have to invent dialogue, they hew as close to the knowable history as possible – sometimes to the writers’ disappointment. And while historical series endlessly recycle over-exposed legends like Wyatt Earp and Jesse James, Wild West Chronicles focuses on fascinating but less well-known figures. This season’s opener is about Bat’s less-famous brother James, and subsequent episodes are about Henry Garfias, Phoenix’s first City Marshall, and the two teenaged girls who ran off to join Bill Doolin’s gang.
Jack
Elliot’s portrayal of the cane-wielding lawman, whom he very-much resembles,
produces a lot of fan-mail, often comparing him favorably to Gene Barry’s
portrayal from the 1958 TV series.
MAKING
FRONTIER CRUCIBLE – PRODUCER, DIRECTOR & STAR
As
I opined in my True West, Best of the West article in the
January/February 2026 issue, Frontier Crucible is the best Western
feature released in 2025. It’s available through Prime Video and AppleTV. The
premise is simple: in 1870s Arizona, Maj. O’Rourke (William H. Macy) convinces Merrick
Beckford (Myles Clohessy), a soldier-turned-cowboy, to cross Apache country, to
attempt to deliver desperately-needed medicine to an isolated town. En route Beckford
encounters survivors of an Apache attack: three unsavory men (Thomas Jane,
Armie Hammer, Ryan Masson), a beautiful woman (Mary Stickley), and her wounded
husband (Eli Brown). Beckford can’t
abandon them, he can’t trust them, and he can’t delay his mission. It’s based
on the novel Desert Stake-Out by prolific pulp author Harry Whittington.
‘Based on’ is putting it mildly, as the following interviews will explain.
It's
a tough, stripped-down, sophisticated, suspenseful, and very arid Western, with
strong, smart characters in conflict, which recalls the collaborations of
Delmer Daves and Glenn Ford, Anthony Mann and James Stewart, and especially
Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott.
In
the past I’ve interviewed producer Dallas Sonnier, director Travis Mills, and
star Thomas Jane on other Western films, and had the opportunity to interview
all three on this collaboration.
DALLAS
SONNIER – PRODUCER
Dallas
Sonnier is a very busy guy, and has been for a long time. When we first spoke,
it was in 2015, on the set of his and Craig Zahler’s grounding-breaking “Horror
Western” Bone Tomahawk (you can read that article HERE. ) That was Dallas’ 19th
feature. Since then he’s produced 20 more movies, including Brawl
in Cell Block 99, Dragged Across Concrete, Terror on the Prairie, and a
half-dozen TV series. His 2019 film VFW, starring Stephen Lang, Fred
Williamson and Martin Kove, is a reworking of Rio Bravo, set in a
Veterans of Foreign Wars post. When we spoke in October, and I asked if he was
busy, he happily replied, “I'm having an embarrassment of riches right now.
We've got Muzzle: City of Wolves, the Aaron Ekhart sequel, coming out in
a couple of weeks. Then Frontier Crucible December 5th, and we
have The Pendragon Cycle coming out in January.” The Arthurian Pendragon
miniseries, along with a number of his recent films, is produced with Ben
Shapiro’s The Daily Wire +, and that’s where you need to go to stream it
“We're in Los Angeles prepping a movie right now. And the John Rambo prequel is
shooting in Thailand in the New Year. So it has just been absolutely bananas.”
HENRY
PARKE: I really enjoyed Terror on The Prairie without realizing it was
your picture.
DALLAS
SONNIER: In 2020 COVID hit, and I sold Fangoria (note: the horror movie
magazine). I was getting attacked by a bunch of people internally and
externally who were just so mad at me for being an outspoken conservative. Politics
got crazy. And I don't even care about politics when it comes to movies; I just
like making movies. So I get a phone call from The Daily Wire, Ben
Shapiro's company. And I ended up selling them Run Hide Fight. I brought
them Gina Carano to make the Terror movie. And we have a big King Arthur-style
series; all kinds of great stuff.
HENRY
PARKE: I’ll bet Daily Wire is very excited, that it's going to bring a
lot of new people to them.
DALLAS
SONNIER: Yes, absolutely. They need a big series, a great anchor series for
them, like House of Cards was for Netflix, like Game of Thrones
was for HBO.
HENRY
PARKE: How did Frontier Crucible come about?
DALLAS
SONNIER: S. Craig Zahler, he's a massive fan of the novelist, Harry Whittington.
Probably six years ago, before COVID, he brought the book to me and he was
like, this is perfect for your sort of modest budget; thoughtful, minimal
locations, but great movie-star roles. You should totally convert the book to a
script and shoot it. You don't need to change anything; it's all there. It's
even the right length. Zahler is obviously a genius. And so I did it: I got the
rights to the book, we converted it to a Final Draft file (note:
screenplay software) and made the movie. There literally is no screenwriter on
the movie. It's the craziest thing. I was in Budapest, then in Italy, working
on the Pendragon series, and I had built up a friendship with Travis
Mills over Terror on the Prairie and other movies that he helped me on. He
just worked his ass off on Pendragon: he really was the ‘boots on the
ground’ producer. He shot second unit, all kinds of great stuff. <laugh> He acts in the series! And so I
was like, “Yo, we gotta find a movie for you.” And at the same time, on the
same set, we were really impressed by this young actor named Miles Clohessy. We
just thought, this is Clint Eastwood in the ‘60s, in the Sergio Leone movies.
I'm always trying to kill multiple birds with one stone, so I said, okay, I've
got this project. I want to make Miles a movie star. I want to give Travis a
real awesome script to direct: let's put all this together. Me and a buddy,
Preston Poulter, put the money together. Then I brought on all my producers,
Amanda (Presmyk) and Lily (Campbell) and David (Guglielmo) and Travis. And it
was just awesome. We ended up making the movie in Prescott, Arizona. Of course,
the beginning of the movie is in Monument Valley; and that's how it came
together. It was just such an awesome, independently spirited movie.
HENRY
PARKE: It's funny you were saying that Miles Clohessy is your new Clint
Eastwood. I was thinking more Randolph Scott or Joel McCrea.
DALLAS
SONNIER: Well, yes. I mean, obviously in your world and my world, the world of
the Ranown Westerns, and (Budd) Boetticher -- what an idol for us! The Randolph
Scott sort of tale. Zahler and I talked about those movies a lot. Travis has
seen all of them. He's a massive fan of the Boetticher films, so those were incredible
influences on us.
HENRY
PARKE: Mary Stickley, who's your female lead. I have not seen before, and I
thought she was very strong.
DALLAS
SONNIER: Yes. She was an absolute discovery by our casting director, David
Guglielmo. And the real fear was she's got a thick Australian accent. We cast
her over Zoom, and it was very unique. But we wanted someone who visually is so
arresting that when Miles, as Beckford, sees her for the first time, his whole
world is shook. You know, in our modern, stupid, over-feminized society, we've
gotten so far away from feminine beauty; we really wanted someone who was
physically beautiful, and we didn't want to apologize for that.
HENRY
PARKE: Well, you sure found her, but she's also a really solid actress. Until I
looked her up on IMDb, I would never have guessed that she was Australian.
DALLAS
SONNIER: That was 90% of the prep work with her.
HENRY
PARKE: I loved the manner of her dialogue. Not stilted exactly, but very formal.
DALLAS
SONNIER: No, stilted is absolutely a positive word for us. It separates. The
very specific cadence, the speech patterns, it lets you immerse yourself in a
past time period, and you're not reminded of modern speech. That was a very
specific design of ours.
HENRY
PARKE: Right. And formal is perfectly appropriate for her entrance into this
world, which she obviously does not belong in. I thought that was really
effective. Were you at all concerned about her and Miles, being the two least
known people in the film, carrying it?
DALLAS
SONNIER: That of course comes up all the time, especially when you're talking
to agents and managers and casting; (you have) major movie stars in the other
roles, and they're like, ‘Who's this guy? Who's this girl? I've never heard of
her before.’ I have a unique approach to casting; I call it the reverse bell
curve. I like to cast absolute unknowns or real movie stars. You either want to
be able to bring a movie forward with a total discovery, like in the case of
Isabel May in Run Hide Fight, for example: what a discovery! And then
surround them with amazing movie stars. (Note: In 1883, Isabel May
played Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s daughter, Elsa Dutton, and walked away with
the miniseries.) In Run Hide Fight, it was Thomas Jane and Radha
Mitchell and Treat Williams. Or like Dragged Across Concrete, we got Mel
Gibson and Vince Vaughn and Don Johnson; really stack the cast as much as
possible. But even in Dragged Across Concrete, you know, Tory Kittles is
the lead of the movie. So it's a fascinating approach. But yes, there was a lot
of, oh my gosh, who? And I think it's great. I think Mary and Miles will both
go on to be massive stars. And of course, David (Guglielmo) and Travis (Mills) deserve
all the credit for casting Mary. And we all deserve all the credit for backing
Miles and finding this starring role for him. So in the end, I think they're
gonna be huge stars and we'll be real proud having made this movie with them so
early in their careers.
HENRY
PARKE: I loved Thomas Jane and Armie Hammer playing so against their usual
roles.
DALLAS
SONNIER: Thomas and I are very close friends. We got to know each other on Run
Hide Fight. I could never do what he does, and vice versa, so we're really
complimentary in that sense. He was my first phone call on this, and he was a
huge Harry Whittington fan already. But you know, he normally would be playing
the lead. To play the heavy, I think it was pretty fun for him. And he worked
very closely with Travis, and Jeff Dawn, our amazing hair and makeup department
head and partner on almost every movie at this point. They worked really hard
on the mustache and the gaunt look. He brings a unique speech pattern to it, and
that was all TJ's inner working and prep work. We knew he wanted Armie, so
David dm’d a mutual friend of Armie, and said the producer of Bone Tomahawk
has an offer for Armie. And the friend said, we love Bone Tomahawk! Send
us the offer! In 48 hours we had the deal done, and we're thrilled to be his
return to acting. Cancel culture is a horrible thing, and I'm proud to be at
the forefront of fighting back against it. And I can't wait to work with him
again.
HENRY
PARKE: I'm assuming you had an unlimited budget and months to shoot.
DALLAS
SONNIER: We did not <laugh>, we did not <laugh>. We shot the movie
in basically four weeks, give or take, 20 days. We did all of the scenes in
Prescott, Arizona, and at the very end we shot the William H. Macy scene up in Monument
Valley. The tribal communities up there were so amazing to us. That's an
unbelievable thing to do, for us Western fans, considering like The
Searchers and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and all. It's just unreal to
be standing there, and then to add a movie camera. My gosh, what an amazing
core memory.
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HENRY
PARKE: What are the advantages of having
a lean budget and a tight shooting schedule?
DALLAS
SONNIER: There are, honestly none. <laugh>. Don't let anyone tell you
that it made everyone come together. No, it's just miserable <laugh>. I'm
teasing. It’s like the scene in The Alamo where Col. Travis draws the
sword and the line in the sand and says, if you step across this line, you're
in till the finish, till death, and if you wanna leave, leave now. When you
have a very modest budget picture, and working with me is an acquired taste
<laugh>. You draw that line in the sand, the people that come over the
line and work with you on the movie are family for life. They're in the
trenches with you, and they want to make something they can be really be proud
of. And so that's it's really; budget and limitations are a dividing line to
separate the wheat from the chaff, you know?
HENRY
PARKE: Looking back on the film, I thought there was not a single interior.
DALLAS
SONNIER: Yeah, <laugh>, there was in the book. The William H. Macy scene
does take place in an office, and that's the one creative liberty. When we
decided to shoot in Arizona, I said, guys, we gotta just move that scene to
Monument Valley. Working with Macy was amazing. That scene was shot on the last
day. We picked him up from the Phoenix Airport, drove him up to Monument
Valley. He carries a ukulele with him everywhere he goes. So on the drive up,
he was playing funny songs. And then on the set in between takes, he was
singing for the cast and crew. I mean, what an amazing guy. He came in and just
nailed the scene. Just working with an absolute acting legend in a setting that
is so iconic for Westerns, and all the people we grew up loving and have such
reverence for. It felt like we were amongst the gods, you know what I mean? It
was just a wonderful feeling. And when it was all over that night, we went and
had a drink together, and then we drove home the next morning, and that was it.
And it was over <laugh>, and it's like, oh, man, I could have lived there
<laugh>!
TRAVIS MILLS – DIRECTOR
I first met Ecuador-born, Arizona-based filmmaker Travis Mills
when he was working with British Punk/Western filmmaker and film historian Alex
Cox on Tombstone Rashomon in 2017. Mills made his mark on the film
industry when he succeeded with his audacious self-challenge, directing 12
Westerns in 12 months. Alex Cox, and his
new Western, Dead Souls, will be the focus of the March Round-up.
Henry Parke: I was just talking to Alex Cox about when you were
helping him with casting on Tombstone Rashomon.
Travis Mills: Yeah, it was back in 2016, and I did everything from
producing to casting to scooping up the horse poop in the streets of Old
Tucson.
Henry Parke: And now you've already directed more Western features
than probably anyone else alive. Why did you want to do this one in particular?
Travis Mills: Well, I did the 12 Westerns in 12 months in 2020.
Made a couple Westerns before and after that. And Dallas Sonnier, the producer
of this one, showed me the script of Frontier Crucible back in 2021. One
of the best westerns I've read: kind of a newer, violent version of The Tall
T; wonderful characters, rich dialogue. When he first showed me the script,
someone else would've directed it. He just wanted my help producing it because
of my experience with Westerns. Then eventually I earned Dallas's trust and he
said, “This is a project that you should really direct.” And I thought well,
I'm gonna take everything that I've learned from these 15 other Westerns that
I've made and put it into one film, and try to make the best Western that I've
ever made with the most resources I've ever had.
Henry Parke: You did a hell of a job. It brings back the sort of
Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea Westerns, but with a harder edge.
Travis Mills: That’s great to hear.
Henry Parke: Dallas told me that before Frontier Crucible,
you were also a great help on Terror on The Prairie.
Travis Mills: Yeah, that was another one where I was the quote
unquote Swiss Army knife. <laugh>. They brought me in to produce because
I'd made all these Westerns. That was the first movie I made with Dallas. He
says, this guy knows the genre, bring him to Montana. And they learned that I
can do a lot of things; I performed the movie's biggest stunts. I played a
character and even shot our B camera for three of the four weeks. So I did about
everything you can do.
Henry Parke: Were you familiar with author Harry Whittington
before this?
Travis Mills: I was not. I learned about him when I first read the
script.
Henry Parke: What particularly appealed to you about the Frontier
Crucible story?
Travis Mills: I think that a lot of modern westerns have lost the
plot in terms of what really makes a Western. Everybody's focused on the
aesthetics: the cowboy hats, the horses, the gunfights and all that. But they
don't understand the thematic importance of the genre. The idea of moral codes,
competing moral codes. And when you go back to the Budd Boetticher films --
The Tall T, Ride Lonesome -- that's what it's all about. You've got the
hero who's got his moral code, you've got the villain who has his, those are
clashing, and that's what it's all about. I thought this script did that well
in a way that most modern Westerns don't. It had a hero who is sticking to his
code the way that Randolph Scott would've. And you have a villain who isn't
pure evil, he just has his understanding of the world and his code to stick by.
And that's what makes it really interesting.
Henry Parke: With your 12 westerns in 12 months, you were working
with actors who had not yet made their mark in the industry. Was this your
first time directing stars? How did you like it?
Travis Mills: I directed a non-Western with stars in 2015, a movie
with Tom Sizemore and Peter Bogdanovich called Durant Never Closes. And
I haven't since. It was wonderful to work with Thomas Jane and Armie Hammer and
William H. Macy. Thomas Jane is one of those actors that the collaboration is
definitely iron sharpens iron. He's challenging me on what the scene is, I'm
challenging him, and you get something better every time because of that. Armie
Hammer, honestly, is my favorite actor that I've ever worked with. Wonderful
guy, super sweet, very smart, adaptable to anything that I threw his way, would
incorporate all of my ideas, and be up for trying anything. I would work with
him again in a heartbeat. And of course, William H. Macy is a legend, and being
able to shoot with him in Monument Valley was the ultimate honor.
Henry Parke: How did making a dozen westerns in a year help with Frontier
Crucible?
Travis Mills: When you make a movie, inevitably you make mistakes.
And I’ve always been one to say, I'm not gonna sit there and try to make one
perfect film. I'm gonna be a working filmmaker, and learn from these mistakes
as I go. And working in the genre so much. I got to see the weaknesses in
writing and performances. How to work with horses, how to work with guns, how
to shoot action sequences. I put myself through Western Bootcamp <laugh>,
and just applied all of those things. Not to mention, when you make all those
films, you meet the armorer that you wanna work with, the horse people you like,
the wagon people you like. You develop not just a stock company of actors, but
a stock company of crew that you can bring to Frontier Crucible. One of
the reasons we shot in Arizona is because I told Dallas, this is where I have
my base of resources.
Henry Parke: Speaking of Arizona, how did you like your locations?
Travis Mills: Unbelievable location. It does not sound hard to
find a water-hole in the desert, but it's actually turns out that it's not an
easy location to find. And some of our options were in National Forests, National
Parks, with a lot of red tape to get permission. I lucked out finding our spot
in Prescott, Arizona and Watson Lake. I was using Google Maps, looking at a
different location, stumbled upon Watson Lake, scouted it in Prescott with the
wonderful Film Commissioner, Samara Rice there. And if I had known about
Prescot, and some of the locations around Prescott, years ago, I probably
would've made all of my westerns there, because you can shoot scenes where it
looks like you're in the middle of nowhere, but in fact, you're 10 minutes from
Chick-fil-A. So it's the ideal place to be making a Western movie and
not be out in the middle of nowhere.
Henry Parke: Were you concerned that your two leads will not be
familiar faces to the audience?
Travis Mills: I think there's something wonderful about working
with fresh faces. Because when we see people we've seen time and time again,
they bring such a history with them, which can be a benefit. But also you're
sitting there watching Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or whoever, and thinking about
who they are off-screen and all their other roles. Whereas here we have Miles,
Clohessey and Mary Stickley, and this is gonna be most audience members’ first
time ever watching them. I think that they will see them as Merrick Beckford
and Valerie, and be able to lose themselves in the performances. Miles does
such a wonderful job of carrying the film. I know at an early test screening,
people who were completely unfamiliar with him said he has very much a Clint
Eastwood vibe, and that was wonderful to hear.
Henry Parke: Would you like a longer shooting schedule on your
next feature, or do you prefer having a lean budget and a tight schedule?
Travis Mills: <laugh> I think every filmmaker would like a
longer shooting schedule, but I pride myself in being able to shoot a script
like this, which was a fairly long script, 120 pages, in 18 days. Again, that
comes from my history in the micro-budget world and being very efficient with
coverage and keeping things moving along. So sure, I will take more days of
shooting anytime anyone will give it to me. But the bigger the crew, the harder
it is to move quickly, because there’re lots of elements that you have to get
in motion and keep in motion.
Henry Parke: Any favorite memories of the shoot?
Travis Mills: Two things. I can't say enough about how important
prep is. I was fortunate to spend three weeks of prep with our director of
photography, Maxime Alexandre. Wonderful man who I worked with in Europe before
this. And those three weeks is what led to our success on the project. Because we
were on location every single day talking through the shots. That time, being
in the environment, soaking up the world, creating the visual style of the
film, and then eating a lot of hamburgers, was probably my favorite memory. One
other story. On our final day in Prescott, we filmed the entire fight scene
that happens at the end, the climax of the movie, in one day. As usual, we were
running out of light, and we got what is the final scene, the final two, three
shots of the film and the last bit of light that could possibly be in the sky.
And it's gorgeous. But those little moments where you realize, if we had moved
a minute or two slower, then we might not have gotten it; this is nerve-wracking,
but also there's a feeling of victory when you get it all in the can.
THOMAS JANE - ACTOR
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Thomas Jane needs, as they say, no introduction, having been a
busy actor since the early ‘90s with roles in Face/Off, Boogie Nights, Thin
Red Line, then a leading man in films as varied as The Velocity of Gary,
Deep Blue Sea, The Punisher, and so many more.
Henry Parke: I really enjoyed your performance in Frontier
Crucible, and it was such fun to see you play someone so unlike your usual
heroic characters. How did you like playing someone so charming, but ultimately
the bad guy?
Thomas Jane: This is, for me, an homage to all the wonderful
character actors that worked throughout the fifties and sixties, that would
come in and play these western archetypes that I so enjoyed as a youth. So it
was really fun to slip into the role. The part is really well-written. Also I’m
a big Harry Whittington fan. There's another book he wrote, Ticket to Hell,
and I actually have adapted that into a screenplay, and I'm hoping that we can
get that going one day. We have a little rights issue right now, but the
combination of Whittington and the throwback Western story that this script
follows were turn-ons for me.
Henry Parke: My favorite of your lines, because I thought it
summed up your character so well, was, “As long as I'm alive, I'm going to
explore every option.”
Thomas Jane: Yeah, that's pretty much the guy <laugh>.
Henry Parke: It was also interesting to see you playing a
character older than yourself. The mustache really helped. How did you approach
it?
Thomas Jane: The obstacle is my ego. Getting over the fact that
I'm gonna age myself up on screen. And I did a great job! You know, people
lived a rougher life. They aged quicker, they died quicker, and that was
definitely part of the character. The hard-scrabble kind of guys that survived
into older age had to be extremely tough. So part of wearing the mask of that
character, that helped me get into the spirit of the thing, was aging myself
up. Not only physically, but internally as well. I had a lot of fun playing the
part.
Henry Parke: Was it a physically difficult shoot?
Thomas Jane: We shot in Arizona in October. The days warmed up,
sometimes into the seventies, so the weather was perfect, the light was great.
You get that fall sun that's lower in the sky. Shooting was a bit difficult for
the night stuff; we were freezing our butts off out there, but that's just part
of the gig. And I enjoyed the exterior of it all. You know, character-wise and
just getting into the story, it really helps when you've got real rocks and
dirt <laugh> under your feet. We didn't have sets to build. It was just a
bunch of characters outdoors, which I also was attracted to. I like those kinds
of stories, where it takes place over one period of time. I also like
characters that don't change costumes. You can take a jacket off, you can take
your hat off, but what you see is what you get. I'm always attracted to
characters like that.
Henry Parke: Your director, Travis Mills, has probably directed
more westerns than anyone else alive at the moment. What is he like to work
with?
Thomas Jane: He certainly loves the genre, which is a prerequisite
for doing a good Western: you gotta know the genre. And he knows it like the
back of his hand. He gave me a couple of Westerns to watch, the names escape me,
but there's one with Robert Ryan, terrific little Western. The homework on
these things is always fun.
Henry Parke: With the actors clustered around the wagon for most
of the film, it was very much an ensemble piece. You lock horns with Armie
Hammer. How do you like working with him?
Thomas Jane: I gotta tell you, he's wonderfully astute. He is very
well educated and has a spark of life that is very charismatic. He's a good
dude. He's done a lot of work on himself, as we all should. I had a wonderful
experience with Hammer.
Henry Parke: I was not familiar with Ryan Masson, who played your
son, but I thought he was very effective and I really liked your relationship.
Thomas Jane: He was great, a young actor who fell right into it. I
thought he was perfect for my son. I look forward to seeing more from that kid.
Henry Parke: Is it true that all of you did your own stunts?
Thomas Jane: We sure did. We had tussling and fighting and falling
-- all the fun stuff that you get to do in a Western, and we're on hard ground.
With the weather being crisp, you've got to limber up, and I didn't quite
limber up enough one day, and I messed my shoulder up for quite a while. You
always get little souvenirs from these type of things.
Henry Parke: Any favorite memories from the making of the film?
Thomas Jane: You know, I'm not a morning person; never have been. My
clock is set in reverse, so that makes me allergic to sunrises. But on this
film, you're getting there before dawn, and you're quitting when you run out of
light. And the crisp Arizona air and the gorgeous surroundings woke me up every
day. And that was a real joy, to participate in the lovely rhythm of the
mornings, which I am not particularly used to. So that was a novel experience
that I enjoyed very much.
Henry Parke: What keeps you coming back to the Western genre?
Thomas Jane: I have a love of the genre, and I'm just so happy
that we're still making them. The Western has gone through fallow periods, but
also rich periods. And I'd love to see a serious revival. What we need is a
really strong Western; I haven't seen one since Unforgiven, to be honest.
What we need is a great one, and then we'll have another period where we can spend
a little bit more money making them. Most of them have become lower budget
affairs, which is fine; we don't need a lot of money to make a great Western,
which is also appealing. The essence of the Western is the conflict between the
individual freedom of man versus the constraints and rules and laws of
civilization. You can find that thread in most Westerns. That's a central theme
that I'm attracted to, that I come back to over and over.
GOODBYE TO THE BOBBYS, DUVALL AND CARRADINE
We’ve recently lost two Western film legends, Robert Duvall at 95,
and Robert Carradine at 71. Duvall I interviewed at some length, and he was
fascinating man, and a great talent, and gave me wonderful, candid answers to
my questions about his work. Below are links to the two articles I wrote about
him for True West, the first an interview, the second a look at his
Western film career. I’m currently writing a third, focusing on the making of Lonesome
Dove.
The Godfather of Westerns
https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/the-godfather-of-westerns-2/
Robert Duvall – A Western Career
https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/robert-duvall-a-western-career/
I not only had the opportunity to interview Bobby Carradine, I got
to spend time with him socially at luncheons and film festivals. He had a great
sense of humor and simply could not have been a nicer guy, easy-going but
out-going, always letting you know he was glad to see you. Below is a link to
my True West interview with him which, like the Robert Duvall interview,
is featured in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who
Made Them. Also below is a link to my INSP article about The Cowboys
50th anniversary, for which I interviewed Robert Carradine.
Robert Carradine – Born to the West
https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/born-to-the-west/
50th Anniversary of The Cowboys – Where Are
They Now?
https://www.insp.com/stories/the-cowboys-1972-50th-anniversary-cast-where-are-they-now/
RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER
On my February appearance on the show, I joined hosts Bobbi Jean
Bell and Jim Bell in discussing The Undiscovered Country with its
author, the respected western historian and True West writer Paul Andrew Hutton.
Here are the links.
To listen: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-kwd42-1a41b82
To listen and see our happy, smiling faces: https://www.facebook.com/rendezvouswithawriter/videos/4397616237229104
MY RECENT INSP ARTICLES
Zane Grey and the Western Movie
https://www.insp.com/stories/zane-grey-and-the-western-movie/
Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey – Two Western Titans
https://www.insp.com/stories/louis-lamour-and-zane-grey-two-western-titans/
TRUE WEST MAGAZINE
Please check out our January/February Annual Best of the West
Issue! Here’s the link to my article: https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/western-movies-a-year-of-westerns-on-hold/
…AND THAT’S A WRAP!
Don’t forget that Season 5 of Old West Chronicles begins on
INSP Wednesday night, March 4th! And Thursday night, March 5th, join
me and hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Bell for Rendezvous with a Writer
on L.A. Talk Radio, where our guests will be True West President and
Executive Editor Bob Boze Bell, and True West Editor at Large and Western
Writers of America Vice President Stuart Rosebrook!
Happy Trails, Henry
All Original Contents Copyright February 2026 by Henry C. Parke –
All Rights Reserved
Not to be used for training A.I.
