VIRGINIAN PT. 4, ALMERIA, NEW CISCO KID,

THE VIRGINIAN Part 4 – James Drury on Jumping the Shark!

 

VIRGINIAN cookies!

 

On Saturday, September 22^nd, hundreds of fans, and eight stars of THE VIRGINIAN television series gathered at The Autry to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the show, which had returned to the airwaves that very day via INSP.  This is the 4^th and final part of my report on those events.  One of the day’s high-points was a panel discussion, moderated by one of the premiere writers on the Western movie, Boyd Magers, of the WESTERN CLIPPINGS magazine and website: http://www.westernclippings.com/

Here is the second part of that panel’s highlights.

 

BOYD MAGERS: Jim, what do you think that Clu (Gulager) brought to the show?

 

JAMES DRURY: A unique and palpable sense of danger and mystery.  You never knew what he was thinking.  You almost never knew what side of the law he was on, because he’d never dig down on one side or the other until he was damned clear which was right and which was wrong.  It was such a joy and a pleasure to work with him.  He constantly threw bolts of lightning at you, and you’d try to catch them and throw them back.  I’ll never forget working with Clu, and what he brought to the show was a whole new dimension, and I mean that sincerely, and you should have won an Academy Award for some of that stuff.  This man, he’s such a pleasure to be around, and he doesn’t even know it. 

Drury, Shore, Gulager and Clarke

 

BOYD:  On the other side of the coin, what happened in the last year?  All of a sudden Doug McClure’s got this big mustache, and Lee Major’s on it, and you’re not on enough.  They changed the title (to THE MEN OF SHILOH) and put Stewart Granger in there. 

 

JAMES:  They gave the show a new look, and everybody kind of signed on to it.  I got myself a new horse and a longer gun.  (big laughs from the audience) From a 5 ½ inch barrel to a 7 ½ inch barrel.  Longer sideburns.  Much bigger hat.  A sense of accomplishment or…a sense of entitlement – let’s put it that way.  I smoked cigars on the show.  And I just mowed down anybody with my firearms.  But the thing is, we all thought it was a good idea at the time; it was a terrible idea.  And the worst of the terrible ideas was putting Stewart Granger in the same position that Lee Cobb had occupied, that John McIntire had occupied, Charles Bickford had occupied; that John Dehner had occupied.  These were truly great western actors.  Stewart Granger came in and decided that he was going to be the big star of the show:  fired my crew, fired my Academy Award-winning cameraman, got all new people.  He pissed off everyone in the entire organization.  And he sunk the show.  So thank you, Stewart, wherever you are. 

 

BOYD:  Don told me a very interesting story about Charles Bickford.  Why don’t you tell it?

 

DON QUINE:  Charles Bickford, as most of you know, was a very handsome copper-haired actor. He was working at MGM, up until he got in a fight on a film there.  And someone said, ‘We don’t have to put up with this any more, Mr. Bickford.  You’re fired.’  And he was a very good businessman.  What he did, there was a vacant lot right on the corner of Culver, that faced MGM.  And he bought that corner lot, and he bought a couple of old junker cars, and put a huge sign up there that said Charles Bickford’s Used Cars.  (big laughs from the audience)  And about two weeks later he got a call from MGM saying, ‘We’d like to buy that property from you.’  He said no thank you.  They offered more; he said no thank you.  After about the fifth offer, they offered him a lot of money, he said okay.  When he got fired out of MGM he couldn’t get a job in the business, and he started working these real low-grade B movies.  There was one in which he had to play a lion tamer (EAST OF JAVA, Universal 1935).  And he still had his wonderful copper hair.  They said, ‘Mr. Bickford, would you mind giving us another shot?’  He did two or three more shots with this lion he was supposed to tame.  They said just one more shot, and he said, ‘This is it.  I’m not doing any more after this one.’  He went in and the lion mauled him – almost killed him.  He was in the hospital, and his hair turned to silver.  And that was the end of Charles Bickford the leading man.  As a character actor he went on to be nominated for Academy Awards several times (for SONG OF BERNADETTE (1944), THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER (1947) and JOHNNY BELINDA (1949)). 

 

Don Quine

 

 

Boyd Magers then gave members of the audience a chance to ask questions.  The first man wanted to know if any episodes, which were shot in eight days, ever went over budget.

 

JAMES:  There were a couple of episodes that went to twelve days.  And it was almost an atomic explosion at the top floor of The Black Tower (the executive building at Universal.).  Couldn’t have that, so we didn’t get those directors back, and we didn’t get those writers back.  We made most of the shows in eight days, and one time we tried to make one in seven days.  And we made it in seven days, and then they came in and said, ‘We’re going to make the next one in seven days.’  And I said, ‘No you’re not.’  The first year the pattern budget was, believe it or not, $130,000 a week to make an eight day show, a 90 minute show.  The show was a big hit, so they said, ‘Well, we’ll just cut $12,000 out of the budget, take that $12,000 arbitrarily and put it in our pocket.’  I said, ‘No you won’t.’  They tried these things from time to time, but no, they didn’t.  They said the Universal Studio Tour took precedence over production.  They were allowed to come anywhere they want to come.  And I said, ‘No, you’re not.’  We had a scene, with bank robbers, where there was a big explosion – they blew the bank.  After a short time, bank robbers came out, piled on their horses and took off up the street just as fast as they could go.  Within moments a posse was formed; while they were forming, there was a buggy-wreck; horse went clear over on his back, and the buggy went over his back.  In the meantime, in the center of the shot, I’m having a love-scene with Angie Dickinson!  And they run a tram through the back of the shot!  (nasally) ‘If you look to your left…’  I got in the car and I went home.  I said, ‘When you get rid of the tram, I’ll be back.’  They said, ‘We can’t do that.’  I said, ‘Yes you can.’  I had to do that two years in a row, go home because of the tram.  And the third year they kept the trams completely away from THE VIRGINIAN set, and we never had any more problems with it. 

 

ROBERTA SHORE:  We also used to do two shows at a time, to reach our (budget) goals.

 

JAMES: I appeared in five episodes in one day.  Five units were shooting.  It was a logistical nightmare, and it could not be done, but we did it.  And I sure never had more fun in my entire life. 

 

A woman in the audience asks Clu and James which episodes they did their best work in.

 

JAMES:  There were great episodes, there were great scenes, there were great moments.  But it’s difficult to isolate any one.  I was pretty satisfied with most of the work.  I was delighted with some of it, and I was disappointed in a little bit of it, so if you’ve got a series going for nine years, and you’ve got that kind of a record, you don’t have to stand back for anybody.  That’s how I feel about it. 

 

CLU:  I can’t top that answer.  That’s very honest, from an acting artist.  He was trying to analyze how an acting artist can evaluate his work, and you really can’t.  You have to let other people evaluate your work.  I know that I wasn’t on the VIRGINIAN much.  I came in the third year and (producer) Frank Price was, as I said, a good friend.  I said Frank, I’m hungry, I need work.  I have two children, a wife and a home.  He said okay, so he put me on as the Deputy Sheriff.  Before that, the first or second season I did an episode where I played a deaf mute.  A deaf mute; I said, boy, this is going to be home free!  I don’t have to memorize a damned thing!  I got on that show the first day, and I realized it would be the hardest job in acting that I had ever, or would ever, have to do.  It was almost impossible.  I’ll tell you why:  I didn’t have to remember words, but all of my actions, my looks, my feelings – everything had to be memorized.  I couldn’t come up there and ad-lib and improvise with other actors, they would have said, ‘What are you doing?’  I can’t believe, to this day, how hard it was.  I could never ever duplicate the difficulty of that.  I liked that episode, because of the intensity I had to muster; I had never done to that degree even on the stage.   That was my favorite episode because I just liked the whole experience of it. 

 

A woman in the audience asked for favorite stories about the horses the actors rode in the show.

JAMES:  The horse that I was privileged to ride for the first eight years, Jody, 7/8^th quarter-horse, 1/8 Appaloosa, was a unique horse – and I’ve never seen another horse do it, before or since: if his head was between Boyd and I, and we were having a conversation, if Boyd said something, his ears would go over there and listen.  (audience laughs)  If I said something they go over to me.  This didn’t just happen once in a while, it was in every conversation.  For eight years, that horse knew what was going on. 

 

SARA LANE:  I used to hang out with the wranglers.  One of the most special things was the first year I rode big old buckskin named Buck, a sound, sensible horse, but not a very special horse.  And in the second season, James had a horse that I think he had trained up for himself, named Easter Ute. 

 

JAMES:  He wasn’t big enough for me.

 

SARA:  And somehow I got to ride Easter Ute.  This was a reining horse, and if you were a horse-crazy kid, you could never have afforded a horse (like this).  I trained all my own horses, which means not much, and the pleasure of loping up to your mark, and just kind of sliding into it, having a horse totally sensible, patient, that will wait, and then turn you around – it’s sort of like having a hot-rod car if you’re a young boy.  It was too much; I was so honored to have an animal like that as a partner.  Another one was a 17 year-old stallion.  This horse had been trained to be in a movie called PEPE (1960) with Cantinflas, and had been trained to sit on a pool table – I don’t know how they managed that.  By the time that we got him, he was quite a handful, but that was a wonderful experience.  My poor welfare worker probably didn’t know what we were doing.  She kept me away from the boys, which was not important, because everyone was so protective on the set.  It’s a girl’s dream, to be around wonderful people and wonderful horses. 

 

DIANE ROTER:  My first day on THE VIRGINIAN I was not the horsewoman that Sarah was. 

 

SARAH:  She was an actress; I wasn’t. 

 

DIANE:  I did have a lot of experience as an actor, but not much on a horse.  I was on a horse, and they had just started the (Universal Tour) trams, which was Jim’s favorite thing.  So I’m out there with the wranglers, getting some experience on a horse, and a tour guide on a megaphone said, really loudly, ‘Oh, there we have an actor riding a horse!’  And as soon as he said that the horse went – (she does a braying sound) – and that’s the last thing I remember.  I woke up in the ambulance for a minute, and then I woke up in the hospital.  So I was okay, but I had a concussion and a sprained back.  I was back at work pretty soon, but my back was pretty sore.  And I got back on a horse – I know it’s cliché but it’s true: you get back on a horse.  And the horse must have just sensed something, like, ‘Oh boy, I’ve got one.’  I got on that horse and he took off.  I was scared to death, because this horse was going, going, going, and I was really scared.  And guess who saved my life, literally: Doug McClure.  I looked over and there was Doug, and he just stopped the horse, got me off.  I mean, he was the real thing. 

 

GARY CLARKE: Diane just reminded me of a story about Doug.  Jim and Doug and I were doing the Rose Parade (New Years Day in Pasadena), lining up on Orange Grove Street, and there were all these old, very expensive mansions, and all the people had opened up their homes to us, so we could go in while we were waiting.  We would go in, grab a cup of coffee or a donut.  We were inside when they called us, and I had tied my horse up to an iron rail, a railing that went up the front porch to this mansion.  ‘Alright THE VIRGINIAN – they’re ready.’  And I ran out toward the horse that I had only met about fifteen minutes before.  He reared, and the feet came up in the air, and I said first he’s going to kill me, and then he’s going to end up in South L.A.  And out of the blue came this person with a red cape with a big ‘D’ on it, and it’s Doug McClure.  And he wraps his arms around the horse’s neck, bites his ear, and the horse stops like that.  And I swear I heard that horse say, ‘Okay Doug!’  He’s got one arm around the horse’s neck, the horse’s ear in those eighty-four teeth of his, and with his free hand he’s putting the bridle back on.  He stepped in front of the horse, and looked at it, and said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’  The horse said, ‘Okay Doug.’ 

 

BOYD:  How about the credits, that opening scene, where Jim and Doug and you had to ride?

 

GARY:  Yes.  They were testing my mettle.  Jim and Doug and my stunt guy were the only ones that knew I couldn’t ride, but they wouldn’t tell anyone, because they liked me.  I thought I’d have time to learn how to ride, but I never took advantage of it – there was always something else to do.  Well, the first shot of the first show of THE VIRGINIAN was Jim, Doug and me herding fifty horses.  Camera-car, fifty horses, first Jim.  Jim had worked on a dude ranch, had been born on a horse, I think.  Camera-car took off, horses took off, Jim took off.  It was something, just incredible, and those horses did just what you wanted them to do.  Cut!  Doug’s up; incredible, and he could still smile while doing it.  So I am up next, and what is that phrase you used?  Sh*tting in the pants?  Because nobody knew – and I’m talking to my stunt-guy and his dad, and they’re kind of laughing.  ‘We’ve got just the horse for you; we want you to meet Babe.’  I looked at Babe and said, ‘She looks okay.’  Babe started laughing.  Fell on the ground and rolled, and I know she said, ‘Are you kidding?’  So it’s time for me to go.  All I had done is practice mounts, how to get on the horse and not look ridiculous.  And the assistant director came up and said, ‘You want to ride up to the start-point, Gary?’  ‘No, I’ll walk.’  So I walked up praying, and Jim and Doug are watching.  So I jump up – I’d been practicing one of these mounts – it’s the one where you jump up, stick your left foot in the stirrup and swing your right leg over.  And if you don’t do it, you’re either dead, or close to it.  I did it, and it worked, and the director just happened to be looking my way as I settle into the saddle, and he goes (thumbs up).  So I’m talking to Babe, and I say, ‘Okay, whatever you want – carrots, apples, whatever, for the rest of your life.  Please get me through this shot.’  Cameras are lined up, horses are lined up, I’m lined up.  I said, ‘Babe?’  She says, ‘I’ve got it covered.’  Action!  And we’re off!  I jab my spurs into Babe, (audience groans) probably the smartest thing I could have done.  She takes off, and it’s perfect; so much so that I let go of the horn.  (laughter)  Did I say something wrong?  So I’ve got the reins in my left hand, and the horses are doing just exactly what Babe wants them to do.  And Babe starts cutting in and out, closer to the camera.  They couldn’t use stunt doubles, because the camera would move in and out, to prove that Jim knew how to ride a horse, and it was truly him, and it was Doug, and it was Gary.  But I said to Babe, ‘What are you doing?’  She said, ‘Shut up – this is for your close-up.’  So we finished the shot, they say, ‘Cut!’  And I aim the horse toward Del and my stunt-man Gary Combs, and everything’s gone quite well.  I’m reining in, and then my beloved Babe starts (he makes lurching, bucking motions).  So I grab the reins, I jump off like I know what I’m doing, and the director comes running over, ‘Gary, that was sensational!  Jim, Doug, why couldn’t you do it like that?’  (big applause)  It all went well, and Del and Gary say to me, ‘Good job.’  I say, ‘But why was Babe doing this?’  (He does the lurching motion).  ‘You’re supposed to stop the horse with the reins, you pull in on the reins, and you did that well.  But when you do that, you don’t grab the horse with your spurs!’  Big lesson, well learned.

 

Roberta Shore with me

 

 

ROBERTA:  I wasn’t injured, but I was scared to death of horses.  I was not a horseman; I had one lesson before I started the show.  Lee J. Cobb and I were the laughing-stock of the cutting-room floor because there was so much distance between us and the horses we were riding. 

 

A man in the audience asks the female stars about how long it took them to feel like part of the VIRGINIAN family.

 

DIANE:  I have to say that Clu made a very big impression on me before I was on THE VIRGINIAN.  I consider him my mentor in a lot of ways, because I knew Universal was interested in me, they had offered me a contract, and I was going to take a screen test.  I didn’t know it was for THE VIRGINIAN – I think it was before it was known that Roberta (Shore) had gone off into that marital sunset, so to speak.  And the head of talent at Universal, Monique James, set a time for me to meet with Clu, and he would go over the accent for me, which was actually for a test for TAMMY.   I knew I wasn’t testing for Tammy, because all of the other girls were blonde, and they had southern accents.  And I had barely lost (my accent) – my first language was French, and I still had a slightly different way of speaking.  I met with Clu and he was just the ultimate professional, great coach, and he put me on the phone with his mother-in-law, was she from Georgia or Arkansas?  And went over the accent with me, and it was great.  And after that I found out that I was up for THE VIRGINIAN, and it was wonderful – I felt very integrated right away.  For one thing, people said that they shot more than one show at one time, and ironically, Roberta shot her last show at the same time as I shot my first show.  So we were on the set at the same time.  It was great to be able to see Glenn Corbett’s eyes for one thing, and I’m thinking, oh, she gets to go off and be married to him!  It couldn’t have been more seamless, it was great, and I already knew Clu and felt so comfortable with him, and so safe, and Jim, there’s no way not to feel safe with Jim around.  Randy, what can I say.  People ask me this question a lot.  In the opening credits, Randy says something to me, and I laugh.  And people ask me, what did Randy say to make you laugh like that?  Do they ask you that?

 

RANDY BOONE: Welllll…nope.

 

DIANE: Well, they ask me that, and here’s the truth.  Randy didn’t have to say anything.  He would just have to stand next to me, and I would start to giggle and laugh.  I was just pretty overwhelmed with his charm, I was sixteen or seventeen.  And it looks like he tells me a pretty funny joke, but he really didn’t have to do much.  It was a great experience for me. 

 

SARA:  I think, with my tenure on THE VIRGINIAN, they had cast you first, I think, and then I had a screen test with Don (Quine).  And it’s my fancy that we looked alike and got along so well, and then I did so much better than I might have done without him.  That same week I thought I had gotten a commercial for yogurt.  I was pretty sure that I had that one, but I was so scared that I hadn’t done well on THE VIRGINIAN test, because that’s the one I wanted.  And when I got the word, everyone was so kind, and it was kind of like coming into a new family.  We were all new together, but we were a substantial block, and treated so nicely, welcomed so warmly.  You know more about the process than I do, Don, because he was definitely there before me.

 

DON QUINE: Well, I don’t know the process of hiring, it comes in different formats, but I remember very distinctly how impressed I was with the idea of being able to play with Charles Bickford, because he was an actor who I greatly admired.  And he told me, when Frank Price introduced us, that he and wife were big fans of PEYTON PLACE, which I was on for six months, and he liked my character.  I was kind of a hot-headed kid who got into a lot of trouble.  So we got along tremendously well, got to know him personally, and had dinner at his house quite a few times.  When Sara was cast as my sister, she was just the sweetest little thing, I felt like her brother almost immediately.  It was great, the three of us, Charlie and Sara and I.  And doing the show, me and Jim – he was The Virginian, by the way – he ran Shiloh, and there was this sense that if anything went wrong, go to Jim, he’d take care of it, end of discussion.  And Doug as Trampas, always made you feel totally taken care of, protected; sweetest, most wonderful guy in the world.  So it was a terrific experience for us, we felt extremely grateful and welcomed. 

 

A woman in the audience asked if there were any guest stars the cast couldn’t stand, and if any real injuries had to be written into the show.

 

ROBERTA SHORE:  Most of the people who came on the set I was just in awe of, especially Bette Davis.  Vera Miles was my all-time favorite, but there was one person who’s dead, so he won’t know about this.  Forrest Tucker.  Of course, I was very young, and I was not quite as naive as everyone thought I was.  But he used to bring nude pictures of his wife to show to the crew, remember that, Jim?

 

JAMES:  I never got to see them. 

 

ONE OF THE OTHER MEN:  I’ve got some left over here.

 

ROBERTA: Anyway, I just thought that was so tacky. 

 

James Drury takes a moment to introduce a friend in the audience, actor Jon Locke, who appeared in four episodes of THE VIRGINIAN, including one where Robert Redford guest-starred as an escaped convict. 

 

JAMES:  He swings at Redford with the butt of a Winchester, and I stop him just in time, or we’d never have had BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. 

 

JON LOCKE:  I’d just like to say tonight, Jim, that you are the man.  Let me put it this way; he wanted to take a show to the guys in Vietnam, to entertain them, and we did.  And it was a joy to be in THE VIRGINIAN, and to work with all these wonderful characters here. 

 

Boyd introduces one of James Drury’s favorite leading ladies, Jan Shepard.

 

JAMES:  1962 was a banner year for me.  I got to work with Jan Shepard in a movie called THIRD OF A MAN.  You never saw it, never heard of it, it didn’t go anywhere.  But it was an incredibly memorable experience, what we did, what we tried to do in that picture.  We really did pull it off, and Jan and I started right there with a professional relationship that’s lasted through all the years, and I consider her one of my dearest friends, and her husband Roy, and I’m so glad to announce that I’m going to have dinner with them Sunday night.   (note: they also appeared together on a RAWHIDE, a GUNSMOKE and five VIRGINIANS.)  In1962 I did THIRD OF A MAN with Jan Shepard, I did RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY with Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, and I signed for THE VIRGINIAN – I don’t know how lucky one guy can get in a year! 

 

Jan Shepard

 

 

BOYD:  And you’re going to get to see THIRD OF A MAN on Sunday night, and that’s all due to Maxine Hansen.  I couldn’t find it, Jim couldn’t find it: Maxine found it.  (Maxine is Executive Assistant to Mrs. Gene Autry, and put together THE VIRGINIAN event.)  All I did was call up Maxine and say, “You know, this is the 50^th anniversary of THE VIRGINIAN.  I wonder if The Autry would be interested in doing something.”  She said, “That’s a wonderful idea!”  And she called me back in about thirty minutes and said, “Let’s do it.”  So we’ve been working on it for seven-eight-nine months, and this is it.

 

JAMES: I just want to thank the incredible generosity of The Autry organization putting together this extravaganza here.  From all over the country, wherever we came from, and making it happen.  And Maxine is the one who did that, along with Boyd, and my hat’s off to both of you. 

 

REPORT FROM THE ALMERIA WESTERN FILM FESTIVAL!

 

Lenore Andriel with festival judge and Spaghetti Western

Legend Dan Van Husen

 

Fans of westerns, spaghetti and domestic, gathered this weekend in Almeria, Spain to celebrate, and to visit the hallowed ground made familiar to us by Leone and Corbucci, by Eastwood and Nero, and several great friends of the Round-up were there to screen their fine new movies.  The beautiful and talented star, co-writer and co-producer of YELLOW ROCK, Lenore Andriel, sent me this report from the front! 

 

 

How many times have you seen these mountains?

 

 

“We're having the time of our lives and our premiere yesterday (Friday) was mucho bueno! The people here 'have the fever for Yellow Rock' and we're swamped with pics with them and signing autographs!  It is truly gorgeous here, the festival and people who run it are incredible, the food delicious, and we're in heaven!”

 

HELL'S GATE dir. Tanner Beard, Lenore,

HEATHENS & THIEVES editor Dan Leonard

 

 

On Sunday, last day of the festival, filming began there at historic Fort Bravo for OUTLAWS AND ANGELS, with Robert Amstler and Lenore.  All of the accompanying photos are courtesy of Lenore and YELLOW ROCK. 

 

Lenore and Robert Amstler filming OUTLAWS & ANGELS

 

 

NEW ‘CISCO KID’ IN DEVELOPMENT

 

I’ve got good news and dubious news.  The good news is Salma Hayek (Ugly Betty) and Lauren Shuler Donner (X-Men) are developing a new version of “…O. Henry’s Robin Hood of the Old West, the Cisco Kid!” for C.B.S.  The dubious news is that they’re “re-imagining the iconic Latino character” into the present day.  Written by THE SHIELD’s Diego Gutierrez, Cisco is now a Marine returning from Afghanistan, as is his sidekick, not Pancho, but Sam.  When Cisco witnesses his father’s murder, he and Pancho – I mean Sam – solve the case, and go on to help the oppressed in The City of Angles (no, I didn’t mean ‘angels’).  

It’s being described as in the vein of LETHAL WEAPON, which Ms. Donner’s spouse, Richard Donner did very well with.  Ms. Donner has done very well in her own right – her various Marvel Comic movies, X-MEN and all of their spawn, have grossed more than $4 billion worldwide.  I understand that Hispanics are considered an under-served TV market, so I certainly see the appeal of reviving Cisco.  I’ve loved all the Ciscos, from Warner Baxter to Cesar Romero to Gilbert Roland (my favorite) to Duncan Renaldo (okay, my other favorite).  Jimmy Smits didn’t do badly, either.  But when you remove Cisco and Pancho – I mean Sam – from their distinct time and place, I don’t what you’ll have left, besides LETHAL WEAPON with an accent.  I guess we’ll find out.

 

 

UPDATES  -- VIRGINIAN-RELATED

 

DON QUINE’S OTHER WESTERNS

 

Don Quine, Stacy Grainger on THE VIRGINIAN, had confirmed to me in our interview that his only other western role was in a RAWHIDE episode.   After the interview ran, he emailed me, “I was going through some old photos and came across one that had me in a cowboy outfit where I was a member of an outlaw gang in the ‘Foley’ episode of 20th Fox's LANCER TV series. So I was in three, not two, westerns.”  I just received a photo of him in the role, and he looked so handsome I thought I’d share it with you.

 

DIANE ROTER CATCHES MY FREUDIAN SLIP

 

Diane Roter on RAT PATROL

 

After my interview with Diane Roter, Jennifer Sommers on THE VIRGINIAN, appeared in the Round-up, she sent me a very generous email, but she did catch an error on my part.  “I got a real kick out of reading that I played a French courtesan on RAT PATROL... there is a similarity to the words, but I actually played a teenaged French partisan (a resistance fighter) in an episode called THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY RAID. 
Interestingly enough, however, I once did play a (16 year old mentally disabled Egyptian) prostitute in JUSTINE, directed by George Cukor and based on The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.”

 

GARY CLARKE’S SECRET IDENTITY

Gary Clarke, Steve Hill on THE VIRGINIAN, told me that, post-VIRGINIAN, he’d enjoyed working for producer Andrew J. Fenady in his series HONDO, and credited his performance as Captain Richards with, years later, helping him land his role in TOMBSTONE.  But he still had a bone to pick with Fenady.   “He almost ruined my writing career. Because I gave him an outline for a show that I think would have been terrific. I handed it to him. And he took it, and handed it back, and said, ‘Gary, you’re an actor. Act. Let the writers write.’”  Gary was so concerned that he’d be ‘found out’ as an actor that he wrote several episodes of GET SMART under a nom de plume, and even went to the office in disguise.  “I never saw Andy after that, to tell him, so if you see Andy, tell him for me.” 

 

When I told the creator of THE REBEL and producer of BRANDED and HONDO the story, he was amazed.  “I didn’t mean to discourage Gary.  But everyone in the show was giving me scripts, including Ralph Taeger (Hondo), and we were already full up!  I just wanted him to take it over to BONANZA!”

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

‘DUST BOWL DAYS’, LAMONT CALIFORNIA  OCT. 20^TH

 

Those with a hankerin’ for the good ol’ days known as the Great Depression can experience an antique car show, country music, square dancing, food (not much – it is the Depression), historical exhibits of Dust Bowl pictures, artifacts, memorabilia, and tours of Weedpatch Camp, where migrant workers were housed.  At Sunset School.  Learn more at 661-633-1533 x 2105, or visit HERE

 

GHOST TOUR, SIMI VALLEY Oct. 5-28

Guided walking tour of sites where historical ghosts tell stories of Chumash, pioneers, and eccentrics who once lived in the Valley. Friday-Sunday nights, Strathearn Historical Park. 805-526-66453  Or go HERE .

 

WILD WEST WEEKEND, MOORPARK  OCT. 20-21

 

Wild West entertainment will include stunt ropers, bullwhip demonstrations, roping range, fiddlers, a flea circus, and ‘sidewalk swindlers.’  It’s at the Underwood Family Farms.  805-529-3690 or go HERE .

 

That's it for this week's Round-up!

 

Happy Trails,

 

Henry

 

All Original Contents Copyright October 2012 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved

 

 

GIVING 'HEATHENS' A VOICE!

INTERVIEW WITH ‘HEATHENS AND THIEVES’ WRITER AND CO-DIRECTOR JOHN DOUGLAS SINCLAIR

When I ran my review of HEATHENS AND THIEVES in the beginning of July, (to read it, go HERE) I was discussing a movie that few people had as yet any chance to see.  Since then, this Western Noir has been playing in festivals and garnering awards:

Special Jury Award and Best Actress Award for Gwendoline Yeo at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival.

Outstanding Dramatic Feature at the Sacramento International Film Fest.

Audience Favorite Award at the Downtown Film Festival, Los Angeles.

Best Western at the Columbia Gorge International Film Festival.

Audience Choice for Best Feature at the Sacramento Music & Film Festival.

Coming up on Friday, September 21^st, HEATHENS AND THIEVES will screen at the New Jersey Film Festival.  In fact, this Saturday, September 8^th, it’s the Closing Night film of the Rome International Film Festival – and while that may be in Rome, Georgia, the movie is getting an international reputation:  on Friday, October 12^th it will screen in Spain, at the Almeria Western Film Festival, along with other Round-up favorites LEGEND OF HELL’S GATE and YELLOW ROCK.

And in October and November, HEATHENS AND THIEVES will become available in DVD and VOD – I’ll have the exact dates very soon.   The film was made by OROFINO, a production company consisting of writer/co-director John Douglas Sinclair, co-director Megan Peterson, producer Peter Scott, and director of photography Pyongson Yim. 

HENRY: You wrote it, but you co-directed it.  Most co-directors these days have the same last name, whether it’s Coen or Singleton.  How did you two come together, and what is it like co-directing?

JOHN: The way we came together was, we and the director of photography, Pyongson Yim, had been friends for a number of years.  We had all been working in ‘the industry’ in various ways.  But none of us doing what we’d set out to do in the first place, which was getting features made. 

H: What had you and Megan been doing prior to this?

J: Well, I had been writing.  I won the Nicholl Fellowship from the Academy for screenwriting, so I had been working on trying to get my own stuff made.  I hadn’t been successful in selling or making it myself, and Megan and Pyongson had both been working a lot in reality television, doing some really interesting DISCOVERY and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC shows, but also less interesting reality shows.  Megan was field producing, and Pyongson was shooting.  Most people get into this business with either narrative features or TV in their heart, and so you have to remind yourself, hey, if we don’t do it, we’ll never get it done.  So we kind of put ourselves to it, and started telling everyone that we were going to make a movie, and realized, oh my God, now we’re on the hook; we’ve got to do it.

We realized that, between the three of us, we had the ability to do this.  The way it started actually was that Megan and Pyongson had been talking about doing a film, but I’m more of a writer than they are.  So I mentioned maybe I could come up with a script, and Megan said, “Well, we have to do a western.”  I’m like, “Why a western?”  Because I’d never written a western.  But it was because Megan’s family lived up north in Etna, California, surrounded by friends who have ranches and old properties and horses and things, and she said, “I can bring a lot of that to it.” 

H: I was struck by how many horses you see in one shot.  Because with westerns today, sometimes you say, ‘Isn’t that the same horse the other guy was riding?’ 

J: Exactly!  We were so lucky!  When I heard we were going to get twenty-five or thirty horses, I said, “Well, I’ve got to write a stampede into this.”  I really wrote around the location and the resources – what we had.  Of course I threw some challenges into the script that we weren’t really prepared for, like the explosion. 

H: That was huge!  I that that was going to take out all the buildings on the farm! 

J:  It took out all the windows in the actual set house that we used, even though we had boarded them up.  I grew up like anyone, loving westerns, but I didn’t have any particular special knowledge of them.  Rather than go back and watch a bunch, I said, well, let’s just see what comes out.  What’s in my subconscious; what kind of western would I like to see.  We always knew we wanted it informed by a sense of noir, not a hyper-stylized noir, but we loved the sense of playing with some shadows, playing with some moral ambiguity, and a femme fatale at the center.  I wanted everyone to have a real motive, nobody just to be a villain entirely, which I always respected about UNFORGIVEN: that was always one of my favorite Westerns.  Everyone has a reason for being the way they are, even if they’re a little misguided.  So that’s how we came together.  And as far as co-directing, we spent a lot of time in pre-production just making sure we were on the same page on everything, and also with Pyongson, our D.P.  The three of us really worked the story together so that by the time we got on the set, we were able to make decisions without always consulting with each other.  For the hard stuff, we would always hash it out.  But a lot of times, Megan would rush off and help establish a lighting mood with the D.P. while I was walking the characters through the next scene.  We stepped in wherever we were needed. 

H: You rarely run into a female D.P.

J: Yes, it’s rare, and not only is she a woman; she’s a Korean woman, which is not super-common.  I felt from the beginning that no one but Pyongson could have shot this movie; she’s such a rising talent, has a unique vision.

H: Visually, it has a DESPERATE HOURS kind of a feel, where a great deal of it is taking place on one night, in one place, so what the interior looks like is hugely important.  There was a tendency in westerns, in the late 60s and 70s to bounce-light everything, and it was always too bright.  And after that it got terribly murky and dark.  She did a beautiful job of using shadow, but not making everyone pitch black, making the lighting seem motivated. 

J:  Thank you.  One of the things she was up against was, we shot it on the Red One camera, and it was kind of experimental because none of us had used that camera before.  She wanted to use that noir shadow thing, but she didn’t want to lose detail by not lighting enough.  And so she was walking an interesting line there, to have enough to play with on post production.  And I should say that the four of us, we raised the funding ourselves, so that between the four of us we would have complete creative control, and live or die by our own sword, instead of someone else’s.  So the four of us brought together whatever talents we could.

H: Tell me about that huge explosion.

J: Steven Riley is the guy who was responsible for setting that all up.  He is one of our executive producers, he and David Poole.  Steven’s the pyrotechnics and special effects coordinator in the last eight or ten Clint Eastwood movies.  He claims that for GRAN TORINO, he’s the only man who’s ever shot Clint Eastwood dead in a movie.  He’s done SPIDER MAN, he’s done PEARL HARBOR, he was the head guy on the train crash in SUPER 8.  We were so lucky to get this guy.  Basically he was in a point in his career where he was doing this for years – his first movie was PETE’S DRAGON, back in the 70s.  And he said, I want to learn the producing side a little bit.  He came on as executive producer.  His son Ryan Riley became the special effects coordinator, with his father kind of overseeing, and together they brought up their 46 foot trailer with everything you could ever want, and we really couldn’t have done it without them setting up the explosion.  They even brought out the guy who was responsible for overseeing pyrotechnics in TITANIC for the day, and he helped oversee as well, because it was super-dangerous apparently. 

And when we’re ready to do the explosion, he calls the local volunteer fire, to arrange for a permit for the day.  And they said, what day of the week are you planning top do this?  Tuesday.  They said, oh, we’re off that day.  Go ahead: do whatever you want.  Half the town came out and watched.  We had warned them because we didn’t want any unpleasant surprises.  This is one of those dream situations where you’re bringing up a village of people from Hollywood, and then combining them with a village of locals who came together – the locals were our extras, they were our carpenters, they were our horse wranglers.  Both sides learning from each other; they’re learning the movie business, and we’re learning all about ranch living. 

H: You shot it all in Etna California?

J: Yes, almost all in Etna and the surrounding valley.  It’s 11 ½ hours north of Los Angeles, you’re maybe an hour and a half from the Oregon border. The reason we chose that setting is because we had access to it.  But it inspired us too.  Because so many westerns have been made on the dry, dusty plains, that kind of New Mexico feel. There are some, but not as many that take advantage of that forest-y feel.

H: You’ve got the green west; not the tan.

J: Exactly.  And because I knew we were doing it there, I thought, what is unique about that area, when I was trying to think what kind of western.  I thought that the Chinese element is something that’s been really overlooked.  In DEADWOOD you have that element.  But when I was researching, I could only find one American western that singled out a Chinese woman as a major character, and that was A THOUAND PIECES OF GOLD, with a young Chris Cooper in it, back in the 80’s.  I don’t think it’s ever even made it to DVD.  It’s not a very well-known movie.

H:   It certainly isn’t.  There was the AMC miniseries, BROKEN TRAIL, and of course you have the lady from BROKEN TRAIL, Gwendoline Yeo. 

J:  When I saw BROKEN TRAIL I thought, my God, she’d be perfect!  And she really wanted to do it, she loved the character,.  But she said, ‘My agent has warned me, if you do this, don’t make it like BROKEN TRAIL.  Make sure that they let you look prettier.  More made up.”  Because in BROKEN TRAIL she was out on the road and had no make-up on. 

H: I hadn’t thought of it before, but in a way her character is very much a parallel character to Claudia Cardinale’s in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.

J: Yes, very much so, but I hadn’t thought of that either. That isn’t what I modeled her on, but I’m sure that was buried in my psyche.  I love those Sergio Leone’s – those are my favorite westerns.  Along with UNFORGIVEN, and some of the earlier Clint Eastwood ones, JOSEY WALES.  Those are the kind of westerns that I really love. 

H:  As you said, you weren’t setting out to make westerns initially.  Did you watch westerns very much as a kid?

J: I was aware of westerns.  I remember seeing some John Waynes, the original TRUE GRIT, as a kid.  I think it would be hard to grow up in this country and not be aware of westerns; they’re in our psyche.  But at the same time I never was particularly drawn to them.  When I saw GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY and UNFORGIVEN, that opened my eyes – I wasn’t aware of this kind of western earlier, and that’s what excited me.  My manager jokes that anytime anyone asks what genre I’m into, he’s like, ‘Pick a day.’  I just finished writing, for another director a script for hire, an independent documentary.  There’s a lot of recreations and things, so it’s very narrative, and I’d never done that before either.  That’s what I love, to pick up a challenge; there’s a story for every genre’.

H: Do you see yourself primarily as a writer or a director?

J: I really feel like I want to write and direct, both.  Writing has been the base of my career; I’ve always been a writer, trying to sell scripts for other people to do.  But once I got a taste of directing – I started off with some shorts, separately, as did Megan, but when we did this feature I realized: this is the reward!  All the pain of writing – this is the fun part, going out there with an army of talented people!  We had a production designer and art director who really just excelled in finding authentic stuff from that time period and making it feel real.  And our costumer – she had done a lot of independent film before; she’d done CHUCK AND BUCK and REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES.  And that’s what brought her onto our set; she was looking for a western because it was the one thing she hadn’t done, and she wanted to try her hand at it.  I have to say, all of us up on that set, surrounded by mountains and horses and guns and everything!  It really brings out the six-year-old kid in everybody, to do a western – even if they didn’t know they were western fans at heart. 

H: How long a shooting schedule did you have?

J: We had a unique case.  We shot it in two parts, over about two weeks in the spring, then took the summer off, to raise more money, because we knew we didn’t have enough money to shoot the whole thing.  So we took a real risk in saying, let’s shoot about a third of the movie, and we’ll cut the footage into a trailer, and try to excite more interest to bring everyone back together.  So we came back in the fall and shot for close to a month; five or six weeks shooting (altogether). 

H: What sort of scenes did you shoot in those first two weeks, to raise the rest of the budget?

J:  We shot almost entirely interiors.  We realized that the weather was going to change vastly from spring to fall, so if we shot outdoor scenes, they would look very different (and not match).  And the only exterior scene in the movie that we shot that first spring period was a nighttime shot, because no matter what the weather, it will look like night.  It’s when he’s sneaking out of the bunkhouse with his boots off. 

H: What was your budget?

J: We’re really not supposed to say.  If we hadn’t gotten so much from people giving their time, their services, their resources, I would say it would be a two to four million dollar movie, if we had to pay for everything.  The explosion alone would have been a good portion of a million, probably, if Warner Brothers had done it. 

H: The production is very impressive.  You really feel like it’s all on the screen.

J: That’s why we ran out of money so often.  Like when we finished in the fall, we had to raise money to do post (production), because we wanted to do it right; we didn’t want to short-change what was on the screen.  We were so lucky to have so many good people.  And Don Swayze, Patrick’s brother, became such a great force on set; I think he gave just a riveting performance. 

H: He was terrific.  I love that he was a villain that doesn’t think of himself as a villain.  And I think it’s a tribute to your writing; I’m sure what appealed to these actors so much is that everyone is playing a really solid character. 

J: On a practical level, too, when you’re doing a small independent movie, you don’t have a lot of money to throw at actors.  You want good actors, and the only other way to get them is if they feel like these are really meaty roles to play.  It’s not what I set out thinking, but in retrospect that’s really important, I think, not to overlook the practical side of filmmaking.  When I started on the story I knew that we would be limited, that we wouldn’t have a cast of hundreds.  We’re not going to have a big town like DEADWOOD or anything like that.  So I realized that every character becomes more important, because you have so few.  I first thought, what kind of western do I like?  And I thought THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.  Well, what’s that about?  It’s about three guys after the same thing.  That’s the whole story in a way.  And if you stick to something simple like that, then each of their motives – it’s less about plotting and more about who they are and how they collide with each other.

H: It’s like the MALTESE FALCOLN isn’t about the falcon; it’s about all the people who want to get it. 

J: Like the gold or the falcon, it really doesn’t matter: it’s about the people, and what they’re willing to give up, or do to each other. 

H: How did you get your cast together?

J: We cast over a period of, like, six to nine months.  We saw tons of people.  Some of the small characters, Pearl, the blonde in the saloon, and the deputy, Joel Barry and Cecelie Bull, they were friends of mine and Megan’s, and I wrote those parts with them in mind.  Everyone else came in various ways.  For Gwendoline, we had a friend who had acting classes with her, so he sent her the script, and she was cool enough to come to an audition.  And she was responsible for bringing us Don Swayze and Boyuen, who plays her husband in the movie.  Again, she had had acting classes with them in the past.  The moment she saw the Col. Sherman Rutherford role, she’s like, I know the perfect guy for this.  Don came in and auditioned with Gwendoline, and he’s throwing her against the wall, and they’re beating up on each other, falling on the floor, and I’m like oh my God, these two are perfect together. 

When we were shooting in the spring, Don’s brother was dying.  And he was really just filled with rage and sadness and fury, so he said he kept himself sane by pouring it into that character, just letting it go.  Every night he was on the phone with his brother, and hoping that Patrick wasn’t going to die when he was up there, and Patrick kept telling him, you’re doing the right thing, this is a good role for you.  Patrick didn’t die until the shoot was over, so Don, thankfully, was able to be with him. 

H: Andrew Simpson, the male lead, is interesting because he has virtually no credits.  But he’s very good; he’s someone the camera really likes. 

J: He’s doing a web series now, but we get to say he’s our discovery, because he hadn’t done much.  When we were looking at guys for the lead, I realized, and Megan realized that the great western leading men of the 1960s, like Clint and Burt Reynolds and Charles Bronson – those guy were real men, and you could believe that they had killed people, you know?  Or they could live for a week in the forest.  Whereas it’s hard to find leading men of that age-range now that feel like that.  Even when you look at the big Hollywood movies now, they’re all too pretty. 

H:  Pretty and soft.

J: Yeah!  We don’t want an Orlando Bloom, someone like that.  When we met Andy, at first we weren’t sure what we thought of him; he came to read for Moses, the man in black.  Then we saw him and said, why don’t you read for the lead.  We tried him against Gwendoline, and again, of all the guys we put against her in the audition, (he was) the only one that seemed really able to handle her.  He felt to me like he was tough, but also had that wounded element to him, like a prize-fighter, who’s had some rough knocks in his life.  And we felt he had the right presence, so let’s see if he can carry this feature. 

This isn’t explicit in the movie, but in my mind, this story was, you have your archetypal ‘man with no name,’ but how did the guy become that guy?  Where did he come from?  And in a way, Andy’s character, Saul, I feel is the guy that, the next time you see him, he’ll be riding into one of those dusty towns, a man with no name, cold and hard, but with maybe a little bit of warmth inside him.  But he’s a killer now; he’s a hero and a killer.  To me the story was about getting him there.  Even the name, Saul.  Biblically, he’s Saul before he becomes Paul, becomes that transformed guy.  This is his Saul stage.  That’s not something everyone’s going to look into and see, but for me, creatively, those were sort of important elements to his arc.     

 

TYRONE POWER in MARK OF ZORRO at the AUTRY Sept. 8

As part of their continuing series, What is a Western?, the Autry will screen one of the greatest of swash-bucklers, THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940), starring Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell, and directed by the maestro of BLOOD AND SAND and DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Rouben Mamoulian.  It even features, from THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, the greatest of all sword-wielding villains, Basil Rathbone, and the most delightful friar of them all, Eugene Pallette.   Jeffrey Richardson, the Autry’s Gamble Curator of Western History, Popular Culture, and Firearms, will lead the discussion before the film, which screens at 1:30 in the Wells Fargo Theatre. 

 

And if this one puts you in the mood for more of the bold renegade who carves a Z with his blade, come back to the Autry on Saturday, September 15^th, when, as part of the Latino Heritage Month celebration, the Autry will screen episodes of the 1990s ZORRO series, and of THE HIGH CHAPARRAL, all featuring actor Henry Darrow, who will be signing his autobiography.

 

EASTWOOD AT THE AERO SANTA MONICA

 

The American Cinemateque at the Aero is featuring several Clint Eastwood Westerns in September.  On Wednesday, Sept. 5^th it’s THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES; on Monday, Sept. 10^th it’s a 20^th anniversary screening of UNFORGIVEN; and on Tuesday, Sept. 25^th it’s TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH, co-starring Shirley Macaine, directed by Don Siegel, scripted by Budd Boetticher, with an amusing score by Ennio Morricone. 

 

‘THE VIRGINIAN’ RETURNS ON INSP!

 

Not content to rest on their laurels, after announcing the return to the airwaves of THE HIGH CHAPARRAL, INSP has announced that THE VIRGINIAN will be added to their Saddle-Up Saturday schedule!   Coinciding with the series’ 50^th Anniversary celebration at the Autry on September 22^nd, a VIRGINIAN marathon will play on INSP, and the following Saturday it will become part of the regular line-up.    Premiering in 1962, it was the first western series to run 90 minutes; in effect, it was a weekly movie.  Based on Owen Wister’s novel, it ran nine seasons and 249 episodes, all of them starring James Drury as the title character without a name.  Drury says, “I am thrilled that THE VIRGINIAN is coming back to television.  And there’s no better place to call home than INSP.  They have brought back so many of the shows that America still loves, and THE VIRGINIAN is sure to fit right in with their western line-up.  INSP and THE VIRGINIAN prove that good television never goes out of style.”

That's all for this week!  Next week I'll have info about an upcoming RAMONA event, The Western Writer's of America's Round-up Magazine's take on direct-to-home-video westerns, my review of two different published screenplays for CHEYENNE WARRIOR II, and more!

Hope you had a great Labor Day!  Uh-oh, it's dark, and I' haven't brought the flag in yet!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright September 2012 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved