MY INTERVIEW WITH BAT MASTERSON – INSP ‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ STAR JACK ELLIOT, PLUS ‘NEWS OF THE WORLD’ AT THE AUTRY JULY 13TH, ‘RIP ROARIN’ BUCKAROO’ AT LONE PINE IN OCTOBER!

MY INTERVIEW WITH BAT MASTERSON – INSP ‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ STAR JACK ELLIOT

On a day in January, I visited Morning Star’s studio in Acton, California, to watch a day’s shooting of two INSP series, Elkhorn, about the early formative days in Teddy Roosevelt’s life, and Wild West Chronicles.  

For three TV seasons, actor Jack Elliot has brought legendary lawman Bat Masterson to life on INSP’s Wild West Chronicles, and he’ll be returning for a fourth season starting on Wednesday, September 4^th. He plays Bat engagingly, with an air of gravitas backed by a sense of humor, and an unwillingness to suffer fools and liars.

A glance at photos of the historical figure and of the actor reveals another likely reason for his casting.  “It's freakish,” Jack acknowledges with a laugh, referring to his startling resemblance to Masterson. “I assumed I looked a little bit like him.” After all, in 2015 he portrayed Masterson on an episode of Gunslingers. “But then I'll look at photos from set and compare that to the original: even down to the mustache, the nose. It's a little creepy.” Or to put a more positive spin on it, “It was meant to be.”

Jack Elliot...

...and the real Bat Masterson.

Later in life, Bat Masterson became a journalist, and wrote about his friends and acquaintances and adversaries, and his book, Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, was the inspiration to have the character of Bat interviewing his contemporaries, and be the conduit for telling each episode’s story. And in another example of life imitating art, Jack Elliot has become a writer, scripting his first episode of the series.  “I have: The Hunt for John Wesley Harden. So many of the stories from the old West are bad guys, and we don't want to glorify that. We want to glorify the good guys. So it's a buddy cop drama basically, about the hunt for John Wesley Harden. We start filming today. Actually, they're filming it right now. You wouldn't think it'd be such a departure from acting, but writing is truly a departure. Realizing that every single word that goes into a script, especially a 22-minute script, is important. It has to be packed with information. You can't have any fat. And you still have to be able to make it interesting, make the characters compelling.”

Jack Elliot watches himself on playback.

HENRY PARKE: When you were chosen to play the character of Bat Masterson, were you very knowledgeable about him?

JACK ELLIOT: Not super knowledgeable, but I did my due diligence, tried to read as many biographies as I could, and watched a bit of the series, but I also didn't want to do Gene Barry's Bat Masterson. I wanted to make him my own. I didn't want a preconceived notion of who he was.

HENRY PARKE: What do you think the Gene Barry show got right, and what did they get wrong?

JACK ELLIOT: I don't want to judge his work. I think that he had a great character for the time. You know, the, the gambler, suave, debonair. Of course he didn't have a mustache. But I think he did a lot right.  Hopefully we're just kind of adding to the history of the guy. Definitely doing our own thing, but I think they got a lot right.

HENRY PARKE: In your research, were there things about Masterson that surprised you?

JACK ELLIOT: So many things. The guy was a renaissance man. A lot of these guys were renaissance men and women, that didn't just do one thing. He did so many things. And after 40 years of successful life in the Old West he decides to move to New York and become a newspaper man. And he did that successfully for 20, 30 years. And hobnobbed with all these greats. He was great friends with TR, called to the White House. Teddy made him a U.S. Marshall for the district of Manhattan.  I think he had to sit in on trials; just a really interesting cat.

I'M PRESENTING 'NEWS OF THE WORLD' SATURDAY, JULY 13TH AT THE AUTRY!

Come join me at 1:30 pm on Saturday, July 13th for a screening of the excellent 2020 Western NEWS OF THE WORLD, starring Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel, directed by Paul Greengrass, co-written by Greengrass and Luke Davies, based on the wonderful novel by Paulette Jiles. For more details, go to The Autry Museum website HERE. 

I will also be signing copies of my new book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made Them. You may be able to buy them at the Autry Bookstore, or you can buy a copy from Amazon HERE. 

TOM TYLER IS A 'RIP ROARIN' BUCKAROO' AT LONE PINE!

Details are still being finalized for the annual Lone Pine Western Film Festival, October 10th through the 13th, but I've just learned that on Friday the 11th at 11 a.m., I'll be interviewing Sandra Slepski, niece of Wester star Tom Tyler, then we'll be screening his 1936 film Rip Roarin' Buckaroo, which I believe was shot in Lone Pine. I'll have a whole lot more information as the Festival gets closer.

...AND THAT'S A WRAP!

Please check out the July/August issue of True West, featuring my article celebrating the 75th anniversary of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. 

And here's a link to my most recent article for the INSP blog, about the Joel McCrea Westerns, Stars in My Crown.

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright June 2024 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved

TCM FEST, INTERVIEW WITH ELKHORN'S TR - MASON BEALS, PLUS JOIN ME AND GREATEST WESTERNS EVER MADE AT L.A. BREAKFAST CLUB!

COME TO THE L.A. BREAKFAST CLUB ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, FOR ‘THE GREATEST WESTERNS EVER MADE’, WITH TRUE WEST’S HENRY C. PARKE

That’s right, my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made Them, has been published by TwoDot, and I’ve been asked to speak about it. If you like Westerns, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t, and you’re in the L.A. area, we’d love to have you join us, have a delicious breakfast, and you can purchase a book if you’d like. The Los Angeles Breakfast Club is a fascinating organization, started 99 years ago, to promote friendship, and the illustrious members over the years have included all of the studio heads, from Disney to Zanuck, not to mention Tom Mix. You can buy tickets, and learn all about the Club, here: https://www.labreakfastclub.com/event-details/greatest-westerns-ever

I’ve been the Film and TV Editor of True West magazine for nine years, and the book is based on about eighty of my articles. I don’t mean to brag, but here are a few reviews:

“Film and TV critic for True West, Parke presents a collection of his essays that will be a treat for western film fans… There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes detail and also sharp examination of the cultural impact of western films and of the social changes that affected their content… Parke’s enthusiasm is infectious.”

― Booklist

"A great read... a comprehensive, carefully curated look at the western genre on film and television. Chock full of personal anecdotes that bring humanity to its pages."

-- Patrick Wayne, Actor, The Searchers

"Honored to be featured in this new book by Henry C. Parke, film and TV editor for True West magazine. It’s an in-depth, on point, and eclectic review of the Western film and TV genre, from John Ford to Taylor Sheridan. If you love Westerns, you’ll get lost deep in this one."

-- John Fusco, Writer, Young Guns and Young Guns II

Here are links to a couple of places where my book is available:

https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Westerns-Ever-Made/dp/1493074393?_encoding=UTF8&linkCode=sl1&tag=insptv-20&linkId=40670747d047d3241c54003bcabb179f&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-greatest-westerns-ever-made-and-the-people-who-made-them-henry-c-%20parke-true-west-magazine/18667151?ean=9781493074396

TCM FESTIVAL BEGINS THURSDAY!

The TCM Classic Film Festival is back in Hollywood, from Thursday, April 18^th, through Sunday the 21^st, and as usual, they will be headquartered at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The venues where films will be screening are the Chinese Theatre IMAX, several of the Chinese Multiplex Theatres, the Egyptian – newly refurbished by Netflix, the El Capitan, and there will be poolside screenings at the Roosevelt.   Check out their website here -- https://filmfestival.tcm.com/programs/schedule/20240418/

They have, as always, a wonderful array of films that are almost never shown in theatres. While the packages are insanely expensive, if you go on the stand-by line for a movie that isn’t THAT popular, or one that’s in a HUGE theatre, you can often get in: those tickets are only $20, and with a valid student i.d., only ten!

Among the screenings that will be of particular interest to Western fans, on Friday at 9:30 a.m., at the Multiplex 4, they’re showing MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, the 1949 follow-up to SON OF KONG. A western? No, but it stars Ben Johnson, and it’s introduced by John Landis, director of not only ANIMAL HOUSE, but THE THREE AMIGOS! At 12:15 p.m. in the same theatre, Leonard Maltin is introducing the 1936 version of THREE GODFATHERS. This is not the John Ford, John Wayne 1948 Technicolor version. It’s directed by Richard Boleslawski, and stars the movies’ Boston Blackie, Chester Morris in the Wayne role, plus Walter Brennan before he was cute and folksy, and Lewis Stone, when he was playing outlaws instead of Mickey Rooney's father in the HARDY family films. Very tough, very gritty, very good.

That night at 6, still in theatre 4, it’s John Ford’s 1936 film THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, starring Warner Baxter as Dr. Mudd, who treated John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Lincoln, and was sent to prison for it. The cruel prison guard is the great John Carradine, and his son, Keith Carradine, will introduce the film.

Robert Taylor teaches the women to shoot in

WESTWARD THE WOMEN

Saturday morning they’ll be showing a rare 35mm nitrate print of ANNIE, GET YOUR GUN at the Egyptian Theatre. At 6:15 at the Egyptian, it’s WESTWARD THE WOMEN, with Robert Taylor leading an all-female wagon train, directed by William Wellman, and written by Frank Capra – he wanted to direct it himself, but couldn’t get it set up. Its premise might sound cute, but it’s a serious film, beautifully done, and Robert Taylor does some of his best work as a man who truly doesn’t expect many of his charges to survive. If you’d like to read the article I wrote about Robert Taylor’s Westerns for the INSP channel, here’s the link: https://www.insp.com/blog/robert-taylor-hollywood-star-husband-to-barbara-stanwyck-and-cowboy/. WESTWARD is introduced by this year’s honoree for the Robert Osborn Award, Jeanine Basinger. I was not familiar with her until I interviewed Dana Delaney, who told me of her college experience, “Wesleyan is more of an academic school than a theater school. But they had a wonderful film department run by Jeanine Basinger, and that was where I really developed my love of westerns.”

Sunday at 9:30 a.m. in the Multiplex 6 they’re showing 1932’s LAW AND ORDER, the first talkie version of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, starring Walter Huston as Wyatt Earp, and Harry Carey as Doc Holliday, introduced by Brendan Connell Jr., C.O.O. of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

And at 3:15 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, see the premiere of the 70mm restoration of John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS, introduced by the director of THE HOLDOVERS, and two-time Oscar-winner for scripting SIDEWAYS and THE DESCENDANTS, Alexander Payne.

 

MASON BEALS – THE MAN WHO WOULD BE TEDDY ROOSEVELT

ELKHORN, the new INSP series which airs on Thursday nights, stars Mason Beals as 25-year-old Teddy Roosevelt, a well-educated, socially prominent urban up-and-comer with a happy homelife and a growing political career, who saw his life shatter when, in one day, his mother died of Typhoid, and his wife died giving birth. Determined to rebuild his life, the frail, sickly young man abandons east coast city life and travels west, settling in the Dakota Territory.

Mason Beals, who plays Teddy has, to put it mildly, followed a non-traditional route to stardom. His self-generated career began as a reaction to desperate boredom. “For about nine months, I lived in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, in this town called Bonners Ferry. That’s because my dad had traded a Jeep for an acre and a half of property. My parents wanted to live debt free, so we built this place that looked like Noah's Ark, and lived there when the building was three-quarters finished. We were really trapped inside in the wintertime, and my younger brother and I were as bored as could be. I was just chopping and stacking firewood all winter, and I just started making YouTube videos, doing silly little vlog type things, and eventually started making stuff that was more scripted. That's where I learned how to edit and shoot.”

Mason Beals as Teddy Roosevelt

When his family moved back to his hometown of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, the performing bug had bitten him, “but there wasn't much of an acting scene out there, so if you wanted to act, you had to make your own stuff.” He moved to Austin, “and I worked for a production company as an editor, as a shooter, sometimes producing, directing, and continued to make short films,” until his final move to Los Angeles, when he “started to do work with other people.”

Unlike many men his age, the Western genre is not foreign to Mason. “My dad’s a really big movie fan. He’s a blue-collar guy, did hardwood floors for 30 years.  I was reminiscing about how we were going to Blockbuster every week, and I remember he and I had watched 3:10 TO YUMA for the first time and I just loved it. And TRUE GRIT is great. So there were a handful of westerns, and I always enjoyed them. And now having done one, anytime I watch a Western, it's very much like, now I know how the sausage is made a little bit more. So it's very fun to watch it from that angle; they’re such a fun genre.”

He credits his father’s example in preparing to take on the responsibility of playing a lead in a series. “A hard work ethic is needed for something like this, and I definitely got that from my dad. I did hardwood floors with him for a good period of time. I mean, he's just the hardest worker that's ever graced this earth, and so learning from him, it teaches you a little bit of grit, and learning how to be a little bit rough and tumble, going with the flow of things. Keeping a positive attitude when things go wrong; he would always keep a good demeanor. That kind of psyche skill.”

In what ways was does Mason think he and Roosevelt are alike? “You know, when I was reading about his time (in Elkhorn), he talked about how scared he was when he came out here. And he said, by pretending to not be afraid, he became not afraid. I really did relate to that, because the role is intimidating in a lot of ways because he's such an icon. It's definitely an adventurous kind of a shoot. I really relate to the fish out of water element. I was bullied in school and TR was bullied.”

Teddy at his wife's deathbed

Mason brought some Western-ish skills with him, but others he’s had to learn as he goes. “Horseback riding was definitely new for me. Even though I had grown up around people who had horses, I just had never had the opportunity. But it was a pretty quick learning period; I had just a handful of lessons, and then the experience came just being on-set. I learned a lot; I feel very comfortable on horses now in a way I didn't really think I was going to. I'm kind of a coward in a lot of ways. Riding, that's probably the biggest skill that I've like taken away from this. But I grew up shooting guns, growing up in Idaho.”

 

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Coming in the next Round-up, my interview with TOMBSTONE costume designer Joseph Porro!

Happy Trails!

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright April 2024 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

 

 

  

INSP’S ‘ULTIMATE COWBOY SHOWDOWN’ RETURNS WEDNESDAY – INTERVIEW WITH TRACE ADKINS; WESTERNS FRANCAIS – INTERVIEW WITH ‘SAVAGE STATE’ DIRECTOR DAVID PERRAULT; PLUS DVD REVIEWS!

INSP’S ‘ULTIMATE COWBOY SHOWDOWN’ RETURNS WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday, February 24^th, season two of The Ultimate Cowboy Showdown returns to INSP.  Some of the best working cowboys from around the country compete in teams and as individuals in a wide range of challenges – riding, roping, driving cattle, and complex relay-races.  Country music legend Trace Adkins is once again the host and, with the input of experts in various specialties, the ultimate judge, and Trace sends at least one competitor home every week. This time the field of competitors is larger – fourteen instead of a dozen – and the already valuable winnings are bigger as well: the last man standing wins a $50,000 herd of cattle, a Rawhide Portable Corral, an Arrowquip Q-Catch 87 Series Cattle Chute, not the mention the coveted Ultimate Cowboy Showdown belt-buckle, and a lifetime of bragging rights. 

I had the opportunity to talk with Trace Adkins about the new season, and also spoke with Jennifer Hudgins, one of this season’s four female competitors.

HENRY PARKE:  Back in 2019, I visited you on location in Alabama. And now the shows moved to Texas. Why the move?

TRACE ADKINS:  They just wanted to do it in a different place this time. And we had a lot, a lot open ground out there in Texas that we could utilize.

HENRY PARKE:  How did the change of locale change the show?

TRACE ADKINS:  We were planning on shooting it in March, and then COVID happened.  We finally got everything figured out, how we could do it during COVID. That took until the 1st of July. So doing this show in Texas in July was challenging, I'll tell you: it was hot.

HENRY PARKE:  I'll bet. Were you folks all quarantined?

TRACE ADKINS:  Yeah, once everybody got there, the first day everybody took tests, and then quarantined, and when all the tests came back negative, we just stayed in our little bubble and did our thing.

HENRY PARKE:  What's the best part of doing the show?

TRACE ADKINS:  Just the opportunity to watch these professionals at work. I mean, it's still amazing to me. There are still working Cowboys in this country that still do it, the old school way. And it's just really fun to watch.

HENRY PARKE:  Has the success of season one changed the kind of competitors you get?

TRACE ADKINS:  Yeah, and I knew that it would. As I went around last year, after the first one came out, I ran into a lot of cowboys that were like, “You didn't have no good cowboys on there! I could do that.” And I was like, come on, we're gonna do another one. You can throw your hat in the ring and see what you got. Nothing against the contestants that we had the first season. But, once you got down to that cream of the crop last year, those final four we had; we started out with 14 of that caliber at the very beginning of this season. So it was a horse of a different color this year.

HENRY PARKE:  On every show, after the elimination competition, you send at least one cowboy packing. In addition to being the host, you're also the ultimate judge. When you question the competitors in the arena before announcing your decision, are you actually making your final determination based on their answers?  Or have you decided who's going out before you come out and tell them?

TRACE ADKINS:  It was different; it could go two ways.  Either I would go into the arena at sundown pretty much having made up my mind, and then it was going to be up to them to fight, to stay, or to say something that was going to change my mind. Or sometimes I would go in not knowing who was going to go, and not even leaning toward anybody. And then it was totally up to them as to how they conducted themselves in the arena, as to who was going to go home. It was always my decision.

HENRY PARKE:  Your father was a rodeo cowboy. Does this show bring back a lot of memories?

TRACE ADKINS:  Well you know, he quit riding before I was old enough to remember. I think my mother probably told him he needed to stick with that good job, and stop chasing those rodeos around. But he was a good horseman: he was the real deal.  I know that he would've really enjoyed this show.

HENRY PARKE: Did you ever compete?

TRACE ADKINS:  No.

HENRY PARKE:  If you were as young as the contenders that you have on the show, what competitions do you think you'd have done best in?

TRACE ADKINS:  Probably just the strong back and the low skill level type chores. (laughs)

HENRY PARKE: In the first episode of this new season, someone says that it's pasture cowboys versus arena cowboys. Is that accurate?

TRACE ADKINS:  Yeah, some of it. But the way that the competition was structured, nobody really had the upper hand because the tasks were so varied.

HENRY PARKE:  How life-changing do you think winning the herd, the ranch equipment, and of course the buckle, can be?

TRACE ADKINS:  Oh, I think it means a great deal to these folks. That's why they just poured their heart and soul into trying to win. It was very, very important to them.

HENRY PARKE:  Was there anything you learned from season one not to do in season two?

TRACE ADKINS:  That's been the case and throughout most of my career: the best lessons I've learned have been what not to do.  But I don't think in this case that was applicable.

Incidentally, I also spoke to Trace about his Western movie career – you can read about that soon in True West.  He has two more Westerns in the can, Old Henry and Apache Junction, and is currently shooting a third, The Desperate Riders, in Nashville. 

I watched the first three episodes of the new season of Ultimate Cowboy Showdown, and saw Jennifer Hudgins get roughly stomped on by a large calf, that left her hurting.

Jennifer Hudgins

HENRY PARKE:  How are you feeling? The trampling that you took looked pretty rough.

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  It was pretty rough, and I was pretty sore right after, but I'm good now.

HENRY PARKE:  Very good. Pretty early on, someone makes the point that the competition in a sense is arena cowboy versus pasture cowboy. Is that true?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  In a lot of ways, it kind of was.  You know, so many of the challenges were kind of geared towards the arena, and the pasture cowboy is kind of a little different game.

HENRY PARKE:  Where do you fit in?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  I'm definitely more of pasture cowboy rancher.  I'm not that much of an arena cowboy, and haven't been for several years.

HENRY PARKE:  What exactly is a cow boss?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  A cowboy. Most people refer to the cow boss as the guy who kind of runs things on the ground. The cow boss is the person you're going to look to when you're gathering cattle, when you're sorting in the pens; day-to-day, hands-on type operations like that.

HENRY PARKE:  What’s a top hand?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  A top hand would be somebody that sure enough good at what they do. Good horseman, good cowboy, knows how to handle cattle the correct way. Keep things quiet and get things done efficiently.

HENRY PARKE:  Do you know how much competition there was to make one of the 14 spots in the show?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  I really don't. At one point I heard that thousands of people applied and sent in videos, but I never heard an exact number.

HENRY PARKE:  How did you audition? Did you send in a video?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  They called me. A friend of mine had given them my information and they reached out to me and then we did a Skype interview. I did two or three Skype interviews, I believe.

HENRY PARKE:  Did you do anything special to prepare for the competition?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  Not really. I wouldn't say I did anything that I don't really do all the time. I just tried to really prepare mentally more than anything.

HENRY PARKE:  How do you prepare mentally?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  Sometimes you just have to put your big girl panties on and get your game face on and know you're going down there to win.  And you're going to be competing against people that are just as good or better than you. You really don't know. And you just have to get yourself in the right head space.

HENRY PARKE:  Sometimes there's touchiness us about terminology. Do you prefer cowboy, cowgirl or something else?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  I prefer the term cowboy. There's nothing wrong with the term cowgirl, but when you say it, people automatically picture in their head like you're a rodeo queen type person. And while that's fine, that's not who I am. I'm day-to-day doing a man's job in a man's world, and can do it just as well as they can. So I feel like I should be on the same level.

HENRY PARKE:  As a dad of a daughter myself, I love what you said about working with your dad being your daycare. Tell me a little about growing up with your dad in the cattle business as a kid.

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  You know, my dad has been in the cattle business my entire life.  He is definitely old school cowboy all the way to the core. And he's a tough man. He expected a lot out of us growing up. From the time I was little bitty, he took me along with him. He might be catching wild cattle for people, and he wasn’t going to put me in harm’s way.  He'd tell me, “Stay right here on the back of this pickup, and do not get off for any reason.” And by gosh, I stayed there. I'd have my crackers and my pop and toys and just play there, as long as it took. Now on the days I could go, I had a pony, and that pony knew to stay right behind my dad and I just went everywhere they went.

HENRY PARKE:  Growing up, what sort of things were you learning to do on your ranch?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  We learned a little bit of everything. My dad, he's pretty versatile.  He knows how to run a cow calf operation. He knows how to run yearlings. And we did all that my entire life. I grew up learning how to ride a horse, how to gather cattle, how to rope, how to sort, learning how to do all those things correctly and keep the cattle quiet. We learned to process cattle the right way. I have a younger brother, and any aspect of ranching, we grew up watching my dad do that and we just tried to mimic him.

HENRY PARKE:  Well now forgive me, because I'm a Brooklyn-born city slicker, so there's a whole lot that I don't know about cowboying. I didn't know you're not supposed to ride your horse in front of somebody, but I sure learned it from the show.  Why not?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  That's a big no-no. You don't ever ride in front of another person like that. It's a major respect thing. When you're out there gathering cattle, everybody has their spot and everybody needs to stay in their spot. Because if we go to try and jump ahead, then we're leaving holes for the cattle to get away from us. And by riding in front of another cowboy, you're basically saying, you're not doing your job, so I'm going to ride up here in front of you, cut you off because I feel like I need to be here, and you don't. It's incredibly disrespectful.

HENRY PARKE:  From the brief biography I read, work-wise it sounds like you have a pretty full plate. Why did you decide to enter this competition?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  I was kind of back and forth on whether I really wanted to do it or not, because you just don't know what to expect. I'd never in my life done anything like that. I had seen the previous season of the Ultimate Cowboy Showdown, but I was a little leery, but then my dad kind of pushed me and was like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  You go down there and win it and you've got $50,000 worth of cattle, and that's a big deal.

HENRY PARKE:  And the equipment that comes with it must be very valuable,

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  Like the portable set-up pen, those can be a game changer, that can open opportunities for getting more land where there weren't pens available, and not having to invest a bunch of money right off the bat in building a full set of pens, because you have that portable corral.

HENRY PARKE:  The show starts with 14 contestants, 10 men and 4 women. Have you made any friendships? 

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  I really got to know Morgan and have a lot of respect for her.  She comes from a totally different part of the country (Shell, Wyoming), and the way they do things and the way we do things here in Oklahoma are vastly different, but I had so much respect for the kind of cowboy that she is.  I got to be really good friends with Ora (Brown) and JP (John Paul Gonzalez) and we still keep in touch. We still talk two or three times a week. Really good guys, good family men. And I will cherish those friendships for life.

HENRY PARKE:  I'm pretty sure you made at least one enemy with Tyler Kijac.

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  Yeah, Tyler is probably not my favorite person, but at the end of the day, this happens when you're ranching and you have guys come day-work for you. Sometimes there's a class clash of personalities, like in any job in an office setting, or in the middle of the pasture gathering cattle. Sometimes things get heated, you have somebody that doesn't really know what they need to be doing, and they can't take direction and it generally will get you in a bind. And that happened many times with Tyler. He's not a pasture cowboy. He doesn't know how to read cattle. He's not ever in the right spot when you're gathering or sorting. And so that causes a problem for everybody trying to work with him. And I did get in the middle of him a few times, but when it's all said and done, I just leave it there. I don't carry it with me.

HENRY PARKE:  Have you ever tried out for any other TV reality show?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  No, I have not. But yes. I love reality TV. I probably watch more reality TV than anything.

HENRY PARKE:  Were you disappointed that there was no rose ceremony?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  At the end of the day when Trace calls us all down there to the arena and sends someone home, that was a pretty intense situation at times.  They didn't need to give me a rose. I was happy to go sit on the fence. (Note: if Trace tells you won’t be eliminated, you go sit on the fence.)

HENRY PARKE:  How does cowboying in Texas compares with Oklahoma?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  I would say there's a lot in common.  The way they do things there is very similar to the way we do things here.  It gets really, really hot in the summertime and it was that way there. Extremely hot. So you kind of have to work around that, so you don't stress the cattle and you're not overworking your horses. The heat does come into it.

HENRY PARKE:  How did you like Trace Adkins?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  He was really, really intimidating at first. He's such a big guy and he has such a deep voice.  When he first walked up, I was like, Oh my gosh!  A very commanding presence.  But after the first few days, when we were around him a little bit more, he really seems like a good guy. He joked around with us a time or two, kind of laid back and pretty easy going for the most part. But when, when he gets down there in that arena at elimination time, he means business.

HENRY PARKE:  Can you tell me anything funny or interesting that happened that we might not see in the show?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  When I got trampled by the calf, it ripped my pants pretty much completely off of me on one side. So I don't know how much of that will actually be on the TV because, literally, my whole butt is hanging out and here it is like our first immunity challenge. That was something that you just have to laugh about it and go on; you can't change it.

HENRY PARKE:  Did you learn anything of value from your competitors?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  There were a lot of things that I took away from the competition.  I have a lot of respect for some of my fellow competitors that they are outstanding arena cowboys. They're good at what they do, and being able to watch them in their element when we had that type of challenge, you can really take a lot away from that. Maybe they don't do what I do, but that doesn't mean they're not good at what they do.

HENRY PARKE:  Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently in the competition?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  After it's all over with, you can always see your mistakes. I think there's some things I would've done a little differently. Maybe thinking things out a little longer instead of just reacting.

HENRY PARKE:  Were there any big surprises?

JENNIFER HUDGINS:  Going into it, I don't think any of us were prepared for how mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting it would be. We know we have to work hard, because we do every day. But being in that situation, you’re away from home, away from the people that you care about that, are your support system. And you're thrown in with all these strangers in this competitive environment. It can be very, very mentally challenging at times. And I don't think any of us were prepared for that.

If you’d like to start with season one, you can find every episode at INSP.com,  HERE https://www.insp.com/ultimate-cowboy-showdown/?=homepage_hero

If you’d like to read what I had to say about season one, including my earlier interview with Trace, go HERE.

 https://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2019/10/ultimate-cowboy-showdown-premiere.html

SAVAGE STATE – A NEW FRENCH WESTERN

Several European nations have had a long association with Western filmmaking – Germany, Italy, Spain.  But France is among them.  True, many Spaghetti Westerns were international co-productions that included French financing and therefore some French cast members.  But aside from a pair of Brigitte Bardot films, 1965’s Viva Maria, and 1971’s The Legend of Frenchie King, there are very few Westerns from French filmmakers.  So I was surprised and delighted to learn that Samuel Goldwyn Films had acquired a new French Western, Savage State, which is now available On Demand and Digitally. 

It’s the story of a French family in Missouri at the start of the Civil War, who make the tactical error of allying with the Confederacy.  They quickly determine their safety demands that they return to France as quickly as possible.  They hire a mercenary to lead them, and find themselves confronting not only Union soldiers, but the former associates of their mercenary.  The cast includes Alice Isaaz, Deborah Francois, Kevin Janssens, and Kate Moran.  With striking exteriors, from town to forest to snow-covered fort, and elegant interior sets, particularly a ballroom where a celebration goes startlingly all to Hell, Florian Sanson’s art direction and Christophe Duchange’s cinematography combine to make one of the most beautiful Westerns in recent memory.

Writer-Director David Perrault first garnered admiration for his 2013 film Our Heroes Died Tonight,  a 1960s crime drama about a man who leaves the Foreign Legion to drift, reluctantly, into a career as a masked wrestler.   Savage State is a heavily atmospheric film, sometimes almost dream-like, and with that dream-like feel are some apparent lapses of logic.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Perrault, and learning about his passion for the genre, and his adventures making Savage State.

 

HENRY PARKE: I was surprised to learn that Savage State is not your first Western – that was No Hablo American.  France has produced great filmmakers since the Lumiere brothers, but not usually Westerns.  Why have you chosen this genre twice?

DAVID PERRAULT: I love westerns since I was a child. I had a Super 8 projector, and one of the 3-minute reels was the Indian Attack in John Ford's Stagecoach. Much later I discovered his films and he remains the greatest American filmmaker for me. Even though in writing and filming Savage State, I tried to forget all of those classics and move towards something almost radically opposed. We cannot redo what has already been done, it is unsurpassable!

HENRY PARKE: Is there actual history behind your story?  Were there French nationals in the U.S. who thought it best to leave when the Civil War broke out?  Are your characters based on real people? Or are they your invention?
DAVID PERRAULT: While writing the screenplay, I researched French settlers during the Civil War. The demand for neutrality by Napoleon 3 during the conflict is very real, for example. On the other hand, the characters are completely fictitious.

HENRY PARKE: I thought you actually shot in the U.S., but IMDB says you filmed in Canada, France and Spain.  Have you been to the United States, specifically the American west?
DAVID PERRAULT: Yes, that was the challenge of making people believe in the United States by filming in such different places. My wife has an American aunt so it's a country that I know well. But I know it especially through the films and in particular the classics of the Hollywood golden age.

HENRY PARKE: I believe your previous film, Our Heroes Died Tonight, while period, was not so long ago, and was shot in town.  Savage State, by contrast, is set 150 years ago, in a foreign land, requiring all manner of difficult-to-find costumes and props and locations, and was filmed in three countries, on two continents.  What were the biggest challenges?  What sort of unexpected problems did you have to overcome?

DAVID PERRAULT: The biggest challenge was the weather. You never knew what to expect. In Canada, for the final shootout scene, it was snowing and extremely cold. The team was going crazy in these extreme conditions. The guns, the kerosene lamps, the filming equipment… everything started to freeze. The camera was covered with a survival blanket, but the optics froze too!

HENRY PARKE: The film is beautifully lit and shot, wonderfully atmospheric, sometimes almost dreamlike.  What look and mood were you going for?  Do you storyboard extensively? 

DAVID PERRAULT: No storyboard. I am an extremely visual person, I have the film in my head and when I arrive on the set I adapt to the actors, to the weather. At one point in Savage State, we see the convoy going through the haze, it was not planned, but I jumped at the chance to make an iconic shot. Overall, I wanted it to have a gothic feel, close to fantasy cinema. As you say, the film is constructed as a daydream, sometimes nightmarish. This was really the line I wanted to follow.

HENRY PARKE: You have such a strong cast, so many talented women.  Is it hard to find performers who are convincing in historical stories?  Can you say something about the casting process?

DAVID PERRAULT: I wanted to create a very strong group of women on screen. So I chose actresses from very different horizons to create relief. During the casting, I am very sensitive to the voices and the way they go together. It's a very musical way of working.

HENRY PARKE: I understand why the smugglers were masked during crimes, but why were they masked even when sitting around the campfire, and presumably eating?

DAVID PERRAULT: It's an unrealistic bias that takes part in the nightmarish and hallucinatory atmospheres that I wanted to give to the film.

HENRY PARKE: Do you have plans for your next movie?  Is it a Western?

DAVID PERRAULT: It's not a western, nor a movie. It's a TV show about dreams precisely.

DVD REVIEWS

DON RICARDO RETURNS – or, if Zorro and the Cisco Kid had a baby…

With his story The Curse of Capistrano published in 1919, Johnston McCulley created Zorro, the prototype for the swashbuckling Mexican hero in Westerns for years to come.  Douglas Fairbanks played him to great success the following year, and he would later be portrayed by Tyrone Power, Guy Williams, Alain Delon, and twice by Antonio Banderas, among others.  McCulley would continue to write until his death in 1958, and many of his stories were turned into movies.  He was only credited with one produced screenplay, ironically based on another writer’s famous character: Doomed Caravan (1941), starring William Boyd as Clarence Mulford’s Hopalong Cassidy.  

In 1946, P.R.C. released Don Ricardo Returns, original story by McCulley, about a wealthy young nobleman, Don Ricardo (Fred Coby), who is Shanghaied, and when he escapes and returns to Monterey, learns that the culprit, his cousin Don Jose Luerra (Anthony Warde), has had Ricardo declared dead, and is trying to claim his property, and woo his intended, the lovely Dorothea (Lita Baron, aka Isabelita), who is handy with a sword herself.  While the film is itself a poor cousin to 20^th Century Fox’s Mark of Zorro (1940), and Fred Coby is no Tyrone Power, it is an entertaining 63 minutes, with good dialog and swordplay. 

Look quick, and Fred Coby looks like Tyrone Power.

That's the San Fernando Mission behind them.

Rather than being studio-bound, director Terry O’Morse  makes ample and effective use of two historical landmark locations, The San Fernando Mission, and the Andres Pico Adobe, both of which are happily still standing, and open to visitors.

Of particular interest is that the screenplay is co-written by Renault Duncan, the nom de plume of actor Duncan Renaldo, famous for his portrayal of O. Henry’s the Cisco Kid in eight movies and 157 TV episodes.  Renaldo also was associate producer on the film.  He would go on to write three more swashbucklers, Bells of San Fernando (1947), The Lady and the Bandit (1951), and The Highwayman (1951), all with cowriter Jack DeWitt.  Don Ricardo Returns is available from Alpha Video HERE. https://www.oldies.com/product-view/8366D.html

THE PHANTON PINTO – my first car

I’ve always had a fondness for Westerns made during World War II, where the characters were simultaneously fighting range wars and Nazi spies.  In the tiny budget Phantom Pinto, when rancher Wade (Milburn Morante) balks at selling apparently worthless land for a high price to German accented Kurt Hank (Sven Hugo Borg), he turns up dead.  Wade’s daughter (Dorothy Short) is eager to sell, but dad’s old confidante Jim (Dave O’Brien) and Wade’s 10-year-old son Buzzy (Robert “Buzzy” Henry) smell a rat, or maybe a Schweinhund, and discover Hank and his minions want the land to mine valuable deposits of strontium!  Jim says that’s something used to make fireworks, but the remarkable thing is that this film was released in May of 1941, long before the U.S. entry into the war, and Strontium 90 is a radioactive isotope produced during nuclear explosions!  I don’t know who screenwriter E.G. Robertson was listening to, but it was someone who talked too much!

Buzz Henry as a kid.

So cheap and crudely made that it seems more like an early 1930s rather than ‘40s film, it even features silent-movie style open-air sets pretending to be interiors, the most appealing thing about it is Buzzy Henry.  A talented for-real child cowboy, in addition to riding and roping, he gets all the best lines: “Get along there, you un-American polecat,” and “C’mon, Mr. Hand-kisser!  You’ve got a date with Uncle Sam!”

As an adult, Buzz Henry would become a much in-demand stuntman and stunt coordinator, and was second-unit director on Our Man Flint, The Wild Bunch and Macho Callahan, and in 1971 was doing the same job on The Cowboys when he was killed in a motorcycle accident, at age 40.  The Phantom Pinto is available from Alpha Video HERE.

https://www.oldies.com/product-view/8377D.html 

And that's a wrap!

Please check out the current True West, February/March 2021, featuring my interview with actor Graham Greene.

Happy Trails,

Henry

All original contents copyright February 2021 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved