‘FRONTERA’, ‘WESTERN UNSCRIPTED’ REVIEWED, PLUS ‘TRAIL OF BLOOD’, ‘BONE TOMAHAWK’, ‘WESTWORLD’ CASTING NEWS!

FRONTERA – a Movie Review

Ever since the birth of theatre in ancient Greece, the classical tragedy has always been about people of social importance: if they don’t have social status to begin with, how can they fall?  And implicitly, if they’re not important, who cares about them?  That all changed in 1949, when Arthur Miller wrote DEATH OF A SALESMAN, and showed that the lives of ‘nobodies’ could be as compelling as the lives of ‘somebodies.’ 

FRONTERA is a tragedy about regular working people on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border – a retired lawman and his wife tending their ranch; a family whose father must travel north when there is no work at home, and another hungry mouth to feed on the way. 

To the south, the pregnant wife (a beautiful but de-glamorized Eva Longoria) dreads having her husband (Michael Pena) make the dangerous trek through the desert, even though he’s done it before.  And Pena has an extra worry – his father-in-law is saddling him with the son of a friend (Michael Ray Escamilla) who is stupid and irresponsible at best, and maybe much worse.  To the north, Amy Madigan has saddled her horse for a ride, and while her husband, Ed Harris, would come along, his knee is still healing.  He asks her not to take the best trail, because it runs along the border, but he knows she will.   Her meeting with the two men from the south is both cordial and cautious.  She kindly gives them water bottles, and a blanket from her horse against the coming cold of night.  The difference in the two Mexican men is most clear here: Pena is formal and respectful; Escamilla flirts childishly. 

Michael Pena, Eva Longoria

All would have been fine, each going their separate ways, until a series of gunshots shatter the silent desert air.  The woman is dead.  I am loath to give away too much more, because this is a highly compelling, masterfully told story.  It’s not a mystery – you always know who is committing what act, but not what the results will be, and yet the tale is told by writers Louis Moulinet and Michael Berry and director Berry with a self-assurance that makes the outcome of each scene seem both inevitable and infuriating: you can easily imagine yourself making many of the mistakes that the characters do.  For Moulinet, best known as an art director, and Berry, directing his first feature, it is a highly auspicious debut.

Ed Harris and Amy Madigan are actually husband and wife – they met on the set of PLACES IN THE HEART, and have since worked together frequently, including co-starring in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE and the recent SWEETWATER.  Though here Madigan’s time on the screen is cut short, in a few strokes she etches a character that you like and miss.  Harris, Longoria, Pena and Escamilla bring humanity and dignity to their characters, and you care about them all.  Longoria in particular, when she tries to join her husband, pays a coyote to take her, and goes through sheer hell. 

And the movie plays fair with the highly controversial subject of unsecure borders, something I did not expect in the politically correct world of Hollywood.  Not all of the ‘secure the border’ crowd are portrayed as redneck racists.  Not all of the illegals coming across are people that anyone would want in their country.  In one stunningly effective but almost throw-away scene, two men out of a dozen traveling across the border with a coyote separate themselves from the others, throw down prayer-rugs and  begin bowing towards Mecca, underlining how little we, or even the coyotes, know about who is coming across the desert, and what their motives might be. 

I’ve described FRONTERA as a tragedy, and it is full of tragic events, yet it is not a ‘downer,’ nor are the characters without hope.  Cinematographer Joel Ransom gets plenty of atmosphere into the often moon-like border desert, and editor Larry Madaras bridges the gaps between places and moments seamlessly.  This fine film is receiving a sporadic release, and is very much worth the trouble of seeking it out. 

WESTERN UNSCRIPTED – A Stage Review

It’s kind of hard to know how much to tell you about Saturday night’s performance of THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED, because you’re never going to see that story.  In fact no one will ever see it again – because it’s an improvised story, performed by members of The Impro Theatre, and no two performances are alike! 

The FALCON THEATRE, comedy legend Garry Marshall’s venue in Burbank, was packed – all 120 permanent seats were filled, and ten more chairs were put in place.  And no wonder; The Impro Theatre has quite a following, having already tackled CHEKOV UNSCRIPTED, SONDHEIM UNSCRIPTED, and L.A. NOIR UNSCRIPTED among others – coming in December is the return of TWILIGHT ZONE UNSCRIPTED!

As the audience took their seats, the mood was set with instrumental themes from THE WILD WILD WEST, TRUE GRIT, and HOW THE WEST WAS WON.  I was struck by the quality of the sets immediately: a projection screen in the back for the sky, a two-story saloon exterior on the left, and a two story building on the right.  Then the lights went down, a campfire bloomed center-stage, and an old sourdough explained that the rest of the cast would soon come onstage, and they would improvise an evening’s entertainment based on suggestions from the audience.  Then he picked up his campfire and left. 

A moment later, the cast cantered out like SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, handsomely period-costumed, and one of them, Lisa Frederickson, addressed the audience, asking for suggestions for a reason for a lot of town-folk to gather.  Audience voices called out, “A hanging!”  “A funeral!”  “A shotgun wedding!”  “A shotgun wedding.  I like that,” Lisa responded.  

Having seen a fair amount of improvisational comedy, I thought I knew what was coming: a brief sketch about a shotgun wedding, followed by more audience polling, and more sketches.   But I was wrong – this was a feature western, not a short subject, and they played the story for a full two hours, minus intermission, and never slacked the pace.  Within moments an actor had opted – or been appointed – to be the reluctant spouse.  A reason for the urgent marriage – a baby – was improvised with a rolled-up blanket.  The conflict was created – three other men became his accomplices in a series of train robberies.  There’s a big payroll coming, and they’ve been waiting for him to get this marriage done so they can pull the big job.  He wants to go straight, but this one job could help save her family’s farm…you know, that’s a darn good plot: I can see George Montgomery or even Joel McCrea doing it!  It already made twice as much sense as JOHNNY GUITAR!

It was hysterical -- wonderfully silly fun, without ever being juvenile.  On-the-fly, actors created characters and relationships; clearly the cast is well-versed in the common elements of westerns.  And as has often been said, comedy acting is hard, and if you can do it, you can certainly do drama.  One sequence involved a matriarch who’d disguised that she was dying until one of her daughter’s had married.  As the three daughters gather around their dying mother, even with the jokes, we got choked up: they were that good. 

Many of the jokes grew out of western clichés, and some grew out of anachronisms.  One of the actors, desperate to think up a name for a hideout, came up with Smuggler’s Cul-de-sac; I think they’re still needling him about that.   One of the lead bandit’s sisters-in-law gets the idea of smuggling him back to town dressed like a woman; the idea of seeing him in a dress becomes something of an obsession to several characters, even when it no longer serves the plan.  And the actors certainly challenge each other.   When the bandit’s accomplices taunt him for not re-joining them sooner, one says to him, more or less, “I think you’ve been away from it too long.  I think you've forgotten the plan.”

“I remember the plan.”

“Then tell it to us, all of it, to be sure,” forcing him to create off-the-cuff a four man plan to rob a train!  THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED plays Wednesday through Sunday, October 5^th.  Wednesday through Friday the curtain is at 8 pm; on Sunday it’s 4 pm.  I loved it, and I’m going to try to catch it once more, to see how different the second performance will be!  Here’s the link for information and tickets: http://improtheatre.com/shows/western-unscripted/

‘LUCKY’ BARRY PEPPER TO FOLLOW ‘TRAIL OF BLOOD’ TO NEW WESTERN SERIES!

Barry Pepper in TRUE GRIT

Barry Pepper, who played Lucky Ned Pepper in the Coen Brothers’ TRUE GRIT, and appeared in THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA and THE LONE RANGER, is set to star in TRAIL OF BLOOD to run on CINEMAX for Endemol Studios, the folks who bring us HELL ON WHEELS!  He’ll portray a frontier preacher in search of his teenage daughter, who has been kidnapped by the Harpe brothers, real-life infamous serial killers who were active in the late 1790s.  It’s written by Ross Parker, and he and Christina Wayne, who was producer on the mini BROKEN TRAIL and the BBC-America series COPPER, will produce. 

‘BONE TOMAHAWK’ STARRING KURT RUSSELL ROLLS CAMERA MONDAY! 

Kurt Russell in TOMBSTONE

Western horror novelist S. Craig Zahler will make his debut as a writer/director with BONE TOMAHAWK.  The western tale of four men trying to rescue captives from a group of cave-dwelling cannibals has long been set to star Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins, who will now be joined by Patrick Wilson and Matthew Fox.  Peter Sherayko is consulting producer -- he and Kurt Russell last worked together on TOMBSTONE, which turned out rather well.

MICHAEL HORSE GIVES DEPP’S TONTO THE BIRD ON ‘HELL ON WHEELS’!

The Depp Version

The Michael Horse Version

I was catching up on the last three episodes of HELL ON WHEELS – thank goodness for the DVR – and was delighted to see Michael Horse, who was the best thing in 1981’s LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER, playing Tonto.  In the H.O.W. episode THE BEAR MAN he plays Old Porcupine, and a little bird told me he was poking fun at the new LONE RANGER movie, and Johnny Depp’s dead-bird headdress.    

GILLAM PLAYS SLIM PICKENS IN B’WAY-BOUND ‘BLAZING SADDLES!’

Pickens & Gillam in BLAZING SADDLES

Great news via our good friends at Westerpunk!  They tell me that when Burton Gillam, the toothy and goofy star of BLAZING SADDLES, PAPER MOON, and many comic turns in westerns, appeared at their Weird West Fest, he revealed that he’ll be in the up-coming Broadway musical version of BLAZING SADDLES, playing Slim Pickens’ role from the movie!

SPEAKING OF ED HARRIS – HE TAKES ON YUL BRYNNER’S ‘MAN IN BLACK’ CHARACTER IN ‘WESTWORLD’ REMAKE

Yul Brynner in WESTWORLD

Ed Harris in APPALOOSA

Remakes of terrific shows are usually a bad idea, especially when they involve recasting iconic characters: you don’t want to follow John Wayne or Steve McQueen or Yul Brynner into a role, no matter how good the paycheck.  But whoever thought of casting Ed Harris in Brynner’s role in WESTWORLD is a genius.  Movie also stars James Marsden and Evan Rachel Woods and Anthony Hopkins as the lead humans.  And if you don’t understand that reference, you need to run out and see Saul David’s original 1973 production of Michael Crichton’s WESTWORLD, posthaste.   Here's the trailer from the original.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

I’m trying to get some script revisions finished this week, but I know I’ll have some interesting news next Sunday, including a review of a new book on the Christmas music of Gene Autry

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Content Copyright September 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

WESTERN ‘HOMESMAN’ SCREENS AT CANNES, MEL BROOKS ON ‘BLAZING SADDLES’, PLUS JOHN WAYNE COWBOY LUNCH!

TOMMY LEE JONES' 'HOMESMAN' PREMIERS AT CANNES

‘THE HOMESMAN’ had its world premiere Sunday night at the Cannes Film Festival.  While hundreds of films will screen during the festival, and thousands will be bought and sold, only a handful of films are accepted into competition every year, and THE HOMESMAN is one of the few.  Based on the novel of the same name by Glendon Swarthout, who also wrote the novel THE SHOOTIST, it’s the story of a man set to be hanged as a claim-jumper, who is given the chance to redeem himself by helping transport three madwomen to an insane asylum.  The star and director is Tommy Lee Jones, and the woman he’s helping is played by Hilary Swank.  Both Oscar-winners, they are joined by a third, Meryl Streep, and the rest of the exceptional cast includes Hailee Stanfield from TRUE GRIT, Oscar nominee John Lithgow, James Spader, William Finchner, Barry Corbin and Grace Gummer.  At the recent Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival I had the opportunity to interview Miles Swarthout, son of Glendon, who scripted THE SHOOTIST, and has plenty to say about both films.  You’ll be reading that interview soon in the Round-up.

Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank Sunday at Cannes

CANNES TO HONOR SPAGHETTI WESTERN’S 50^TH ANNIVERSARY

Acknowledging that the explosion of Western action with a Italian/Spanish flavor began five decades ago, the Cannes Film Festival will feature screenings of two of Sergio Leone’s classic films. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY was screened on Saturday night.  The one that started it all, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, will screen on Sunday, May 24^th, after the Awards Ceremony, and will be hosted by Quentin Tarantino.  The copy will be a new restoration done from the original Techniscope camera negative.

And what better way to honor the subgenre than to demonstrate that the Spaghetti Western is alive and well.  Franco Nero, the screen’s original DJANGO (1966) will star in DJANGO LIVES! and producer Mike Malloy (of THE SCARLET WORM fame) is at Cannes with Resolution Entertainment hoping to wrap up financing.  In the sequel – actually the third Franco Nero/DJANGO outing following 1987’s DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN – the gunman will have turned up in Los Angeles in the early days of the silent movie industry, working, as many former lawmen and outlaws did, as a technical advisor on westerns.  I am very eager to see this movie made, so if you’ve got a hankering to invest, drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with Mike.

DJANGO LIVES director Joe D'Augustine & Franco Nero

MEL BROOKS AT THE TCM FEST ON ‘BLAZING SADDLES’

Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder

One of the high points of this year’s TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL for Western fans was on Friday night, April 11^th, when the tremendous Chinese Theatre, now with a huge IMAX screen, was 100% packed to see Mel Brooks introduce his 1974 western comedy sensation, BLAZING SADDLES.  There are quite a few western comedies when you think about it.  Among my favorites are CAT BALLOU, CITY SLICKERS, the Burt Kennedy comedies like SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF, and the TRINITY films.  That’s not to mention Bob Hope’s THE PALEFACE, and recent entries like SHANGHAI NOON and THE THREE AMIGOS.  There was once a time when every comedy movie star did a western comedy, like Jack Benny in BUCK BENNY RIDES AGAIN, Laurel and Hardy’s WAY OUT WEST and THE MARX BROTHERS GO WEST.  Almost every series eventually had one – from OUT WEST WITH THE HARDYS to BOWERY BUCKAROOS with the Bowery Boys.  In twelve days we’ll have another, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST.  But few would argue that the best known, and one of the funniest, is Mel Brooks’ BLAZING SADDLES.

One serious note about Mel Brooks.  Speaking as a transplanted New Yorker who loves the city and loves Broadway, we can never applaud Mel Brooks enough, following the 911 attack, for having the courage and independence to open THE PRODUCERS on schedule, not only bringing much needed laughter to a terrified city and nation, but letting the terrorists know that they hadn’t broken our spirit, and couldn’t change our way of life.

As always, practically everything Mel Brooks says is actually shouted, and should be followed with an exclamation point.  In a town of false modesty, his very real immodesty is wonderfully refreshing.  After he walked onto the stage to deafening applause, singing the theme of the movie, and before he was joined by Robert Osborne, Mel spotted some very young audience members. 

MEL BROOKS:  You kids have never seen BLAZING SADDLES.  They’re in for a weird surprise.  It may be my favorite movie.  It may be the funniest movie ever made.  Bless you for all coming here and being a part of this night.  I really appreciate it.  I’m going to talk to Mr. Osborne,

ROBERT OSBORNE:  That standing ovation was well-deserved.  I think it’s also amazing that this movie came out in 1974, as did YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. 

MEL BROOKS:  The same year, and they were #1 and #2 for the year.

ROBERT OSBORNE:  Two of the funniest movies of all time – no question about it.  This was a difficult movie to sell, wasn’t it?

MEL BROOKS:  I remember the first screening for the executives at Warner Brothers.  John Calley was running the studio.  Dick Shepherd had left, and there were like eight other guys, all executives at Warner Brother, and they all said (with expressions of disgust), “Oi!  Oooh! Ay!”  This one said, “We can’t release it.  It’s too vulgar for the American public.”  At any rate, John Calley said, “Let’s try it in New York, Chicago and L.A., and if there’s any love for it, we’ll release it.”  So they released it in those cities, and believe it or not, it was the biggest hit Warner Brothers had that year. 

ROBERT OSBORNE:  Before they released it, did they ask you to cut anything from the picture?

MEL BROOKS:  That’s a good question, Robert.  He knows his stuff.  The truth is, the head of Warner Brothers at the time, who will go nameless, was Ted Ashley.  The preview was really great.  We had cattle in the lobby.  We had cowboys riding up and tying up their horses outside the theatre.  We had tons of Raisenetts.  And the audience loved it.  And Ashley took me by the scruff of the neck, threw me into the manager’s office, handed me a legal pad and pencil, and said, “Take these notes!”  I said yessir.  He said, “No farting!  You can’t punch the horses!  You can’t beat old ladies up!”  There were like twenty of those notes.  And if I followed all of these notes the movie would have been twelve minutes long.  So when he left, I crumpled up all my notes.  And I threw the balled-up notes across the office, into a wastebasket, and John Calley said, “Good filing!”  I didn’t cut a sentence, or a word, or even an expression.  A lot of people don’t know that.  So keep it under your hat.      

ROBERT OSBORNE:  That was a daring movie to make at that time, the (scatological) jokes and stuff; that was dangerous territory to go into. 

MEL BROOKS:  It was beyond vulgar.  It was dirty.

ROBERT OSBORNE:    Where did you get the courage to do that?

MEL BROOKS:  I didn’t know better.  You know, if I was wiser, if I was more diplomatic, or smarter, or if I realized what the rules of courtesy and kindness were, I never would have made the movie.  I was a scruffy little kid from Brooklyn, and there are no rules, or there are just a few.  And there were some things that I just had to say.  I’d been watching westerns all my life – three westerns on a Saturday morning.  Hoot Gibson, Tim McCoy, Ken Maynard!  I loved westerns!  And they’d sit around the campfire.  And they’d eat straight beans off a tin plate -- a lot of beans.  And they’d drink black coffee from a tin cup.  And you never heard a sound across the prairie!  I decided to…let the boot drop.  I wanted to tell the truth about westerns.

The German version

Richard Pryor, one of the writers, I asked Warner Brothers to hire him as the black sheriff, to play Black Bart.  And they said no, we can’t get him insured because he was arrested for drugs; we can’t do it.  Richard and I did a lot of auditions, looking for our sheriff.  Finally there was this guy from Broadway, and his name was Little, Cleavon Little.  And he was absolutely wonderful.  And beautiful.  And Richard said something really profound.  He said, “If I had the part, I could be Cuban, light as I am; I’m coffee-colored.  And I’ve got a mustache; I could be the Cuban sheriff.  This guy is so black, and he’s gonna scare the shit out that town.  And he’s what you want – he’s so damned handsome and so talented.”  And we were so lucky to get him, to play the lead.  And by the way, a lot of the people in that movie are long gone (note: of the top-billed stars, Cleavon Little, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, and David Huddleston are all gone.  Only Mel, and Gene Wilder are still around).  But in the audience tonight is the school marm who punches one of the bad guys -- Carol Arthur is sitting somewhere out there!  (Carol Arthur, who will be 80 in August, once married to Dom Deluise, and a veteran of four Mel Brooks movies as well as THE SUNSHINE BOYS, stands for tremendous and well-earned applause)

ROBERT OSBORNE:   Also you had a lot of casting changes.  Gig Young was originally going to play the Waco Kid, right?

MEL BROOKS:  I hired Gig Young to play the Waco Kid.  He was a great actor, he’d won the Academy Award for THEY SHOOT HORSES DON’T THEY, and I knew he was a recovering alcoholic, so he was perfect for the Waco Kid. Unfortunately he was not really…recovered.  So we’re in the first scene, there’s something green on his mouth.  And he’s spraying the jail-cell all green, and I said, I don’t think he’s ready yet.  I was stuck, and I didn’t know what to do.  So I called my best friend in New York, I called Gene Wilder and said, what am I going to do?  And he said just get a costume for me to wear, and a gun, and a horse to ride on, and I’ll be there tomorrow.  And he did.  And he saved me, and he saved the picture.  It was fate. 

ROBERT OSBORNE:   And fate that you had Madeline Kahn.

MEL BROOKS:  She came to my office, and after I heard her sing, I said, raise your skirt; I want to see your legs.  She said, “Oh, it’s that kind of an audition.”  I said no, no.  It’s just that you’re playing like Marlene Dietrich, and you’ve got to straddle that chair.  She said okay, she raised her skirt, she straddled the chair.  She sang I’m Tired, and I fell madly in love with her.  She was so good, so talented, so richly talented.  You know, Madeline could have been a coloratura in opera.  That’s how great a voice she had.  Also she had a sense of comedy, with her own strange timing, and her own weird little takes – she was just amazingly talented.  And she died of ovarian cancer – just awful.  And Harvey, the great Harvey Korman.  One of my favorite moments is Harvey making love, physically, to the globe.  And when he says, “My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.”  And Slim Pickens says, “Ditto.”  And Harvey says, “Ditto?  Ditto, you provincial putz?”  There are some moments that tickle me so much.  I think this could be the funniest picture of all time. 

ROBERT OSBORNE:   One last question.  Could this motion picture be made today?

MEL BROOKS:  Well, you couldn’t say the ‘n’-word. You know, I said we don’t have to use the ‘n’-word, but Richard Pryor said, “No.  We are writing a story about racial prejudice.  It’s a fact; it’s real.  And the more we use it, from the bad-guys and redneck side, then the more the victory of the sheriff, the black sheriff, who in the end is loved by the townspeople.”  And I said okay Richard.  The ‘n’-word will be all over the screen.

ROBERT OSBORNE:   Thank you for this movie.  Thank you for being here.  Thank you for Mel Brooks.

WEDNESDAY’S ‘COWBOY LUNCH @ THE AUTRY’ SALUTES JOHN WAYNE!

At 12:30 pm on Wednesday, May 21st, Rob Word’s third-Wednesday-of-the-month Cowboy Lunch @ The Autry will salute John Wayne just a week short of what would have been 107^th birthday.  Admission is free (although you have to buy your own lunch) and after the feed, Rob will lead a discussion with folks who worked with the Duke in various capacities, and are admirers of his work.  Last month’s luncheon celebrated THE WILD BUNCH, and Rob brought together actors Bo Hopkins and L.Q. Jones, master horse and car stunt-man Gary Combs, and costumer-turned-screenwriter-turned-producer for Peckinpah Gordon Dawson.     

As people’s schedules can change at the last minute, Rob understandably plays it cagey as to who will take part.  But I can tell you that among the folks he’s invited are one of Wayne’s greatest romantic co-stars, a co-star in Wayne’s best TV comedy turn, a fine character actor who did six films with the Duke, and the man who scripted Wayne’s last movie.  And you never know who will turn up in the audience.  Last time I found myself sitting among actors Paul LeMat, Morgan Woodward, and GUNSMOKE writer Jim Byrnes. 

Below is a poignant teaser, with director Rupert Hitzig talking about directing Mickey Rooney and Ben Johnson in a western at the end of the trail.

THAT’S A WRAP!

That’s it for now – have a great week!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright May 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved