JOSEPH PORRO – THE MAN WHO DRESSED ‘TOMBSTONE’ INTERVIEWED! PLUS, I’M INTRODUCING ‘NEWS OF THE WORLD’ AT THE AUTRY!

 

I’LL BE INTRODUCING ‘NEWS OF THE WORLD’, AND SIGNING MY BOOK, AT THE AUTRY ON SATURDAY, JULY 13^TH

Helena Zengel and Tom Hanks

I was delighted to be asked to introduce a film in The Autry’s long-running ‘What is a Western?’ series. I chose News of the World not only because it is an exceptional Western but, because of the pandemic, so few people had the chance to see it as it should be seen: in a theatre, on a screen. The title, which admittedly doesn’t sound particularly Western, refers to the profession of Captain Kidd, played by Tom Hanks in his first Western. He’s a former Confederate Civil War officer, now barely making a living by travelling from town-to-town with a sheaf of newspapers, reading them to the public. He meets a young girl (Helena Zengel), a former captive of the Kiowa, and is given the unwanted responsibility of returning her to her family. It’s a tale that echoes John Ford’s The Searchers, focusing not on the search, but the challenge of a long-time captive’s return to her former world. The Autry bookstore will have copies of my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made Them, which I will be signing after the film. The link to The Autry, with all of the particulars, is HERE.

And if you want to buy my book right now, you can get it  HERE.

JOSEPH PORRO – THE MAN WHO DRESSED ‘TOMBSTONE’

Joseph Porro

Joseph A. Porro’s costume design career is astonishing. Since 1985, beginning with no-budget films like Neon Maniacs, Porro has used his amazing design skills and style in a wide range of genres, from horror films like Fright Night Part 2 (1988) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), to crime thrillers like The Thirteenth Floor (1999) and The Lizzie Borden Chronicles (2015), science fiction like Stargate (1994) and Independence Day (1996). And there’s his international work. “I’ve spent three years in Hong Kong and seven years in mainland China and India. I'm probably one of the most traveled designers, because early in my career I worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lungren, who didn't like to pay taxes in the United States.” His designs for the 2003 version of The Music Man, and 2020’s The Mandalorian earned him Emmy nominations.  But his most appreciated designs? “I still get fan mail from Tombstone all the time.”  He also designed costumes for the Western comedy Shanghai Noon, and even the unsold pilot for the space western Martian Law. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Jospeh about his wide-ranging career, and especially his Westerns.

HENRY PARKE: I've just been rewatching Tombstone, and I love your work in it. It just doesn't look like any other Western; the costumes just seem to breathe authenticity. I understand that you're from Boston. Is it the movies that brought you to California?

JOSEPH PORRO: No, not at all. My mom was living out there with my uncle and my cousins, and I wasn't doing well financially in Boston. So I went out just to see if I could get some work out there. I said to myself, you have a design degree from Parsons in New York. Maybe you should look into costume design. I was making animal costumes like Bugs Bunny for Warner Brothers, actually sewing, in the factory in North Hollywood. And this lady, a designer, drove up in this brand new 450 SL Mercedes, and I was like, wait a minute. I'm on the wrong end of this business. (laughs), I quit the job that day. It was very scary, very lean years, the first years in Hollywood, but I was determined to be a designer.

HENRY PARKE: What was your first costume job? I mean designing, not Bugs Bunny.

JOSEPH PORRO: Near Dark was, probably. I did some stuff that went directly to video, but this was for Catherine Bigelow, who's won an Oscar (for The Hurt Locker). It was a modern-day western vampire kind of thing. Very unique in its day. That was my first decent movie.

HENRY PARKE: One of your earlier direct-to-video films was Neon Maniacs which was written by a high school friend, Mark Carducci.

JOSEPH PORRO: That was my first film as a designer and it was quite a disaster. We didn't get paid. They owed us four- or five-weeks salary and I was living in my car then. That was not my favorite film, but you know, whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

HENRY PARKE: Absolutely true. With Independence Day, Stargate, now The Mandalorian among so many others, you've specialized in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Was that your primary interest in film at that point?

JOSEPH PORRO: I liked movies where you actually designed, where you didn't go to the store to buy the outfit. You actually took a pencil and paper and did your own thing. Which I did on Tombstone, and it wasn't how I originally wanted to approach it. At the time I was hired, Kevin Costner was doing Wyatt Earp, and they were doing Geronimo. So literally every single western (rental) costume was gone. The only place that had any left was American Costume. So I go to Luster Bayless (who owned American Costume). “I've just been hired on Tombstone.” And he sits me in his office and tells me that when hell freezes over is when he will give me a costume for that movie! (laughs) Luster Bayless had interviewed with (writer/director) Kevin Jarre as a designer for Tombstone, and (not been hired).

All the big costume houses were empty, so how the hell am I going to do this movie? I said, I can get Victorian clothes in England. I think you need to put me on a plane because there's nothing here. I said, I'm from a fashion design background, so I ‘get’ manufacture. I was in New York for four years working with the designers, and we made things. So everything was manufactured, and that's why I think it had that look. There's things I would change today. I'm much more persnickety about period men's suits and coats and how they're done. Then I was just happy to get someone to make it. So we built it: we built the whole show. And Kevin (Jarre) wanted it much more Technicolor. He was very into the history. He really knew his shit. He got fired, of course, like a week into it. But he wrote the original script too. I was very sad to see that happen. And then they brought in George Cosmatos. He was a piece of work, that one. (laughs) He'd walk on this new set, he'd turn to the set dresser. He'd go, “You see that painting? You see that chair? When we're done with the scene, I want those sent over to me.” He just cleaned the place out! He said that to me with the sketches, too. He said, “I want all your sketches.” And designers were allowed to keep their sketches back then. Now everything's on a computer, but back then they were all original drawings. And in 40 films, he was the only one ever to say to me, “I want your sketches.” I gave him some, I let him think it was all of them. It was either that or be fired. He was not a nice person, but he liked me. I think he fired about 40 or 50 people. Cleaned house. I don't think he's got a devoted fan club, but he finished the film right, and it did look good.

HENRY PARKE: Did he have the kind of strong feelings that Kevin Jarre did about costumes? Or did he just go with what had been planned?

JOSEPH PORRO: He went with. He said what he'd seen in the dailies totally worked and just stay with it. He wasn't persnickety about what I did. He gave me free rein.

HENRY PARKE: Obviously the costumes for all of your characters were very different. I'm thinking particularly about characters like Curly Bill or Ike Clanton.

JOSEPH PORRO: I built all of it. What I rented from England were background, Victorian costumes for people doing crosses (background extras). I built all the chaps.  We did the hat thing with Stetson. I had a glove manufacturer downtown doing the western gloves. I had guys doing all the hand tooling on different things. Guess who it ended up with? This is the part that's great.

HENRY PARKE: Who?

JOSEPH PORRO: Well, the line producer wanted Luster (Bayless) to be on it. It was some serious kickback kind of thing going on. At the end of the show I was given two days to wrap, and it all went to American Costume. Everything. I swiped one pair of cowboy boots, and Charlton Heston's neck scarf I kept for myself because I paid for it with my own money. American took everything. That would never happen today in a studio film. But back then it was different.

HENRY PARKE: Right.

Design for Dana Delany's lilac dress

JOSEPH PORRO: But there was that interesting mix of characters there. Dana Delany was absolutely wonderful. All the ladies, the wives were all great. And Bill Paxton, that first film I did, Near Dark, Bill Paxton was in that. I loved Bill. God, it's so sad he's not with us anymore; such a great guy. Fun, enthusiastic, and he worked your costume, you know what I mean? He got into it, and it helped him become a character; he really was just a joy to be around. Really fun.

I ended up spending literally the whole year with Kurt Russell because I did Stargate with him right after Tombstone. I got to know Goldie (Hawn) pretty well because I'd see her like 20, 30 times at the house for the fittings. She was absolutely lovely. From the crew perspective, boy, Sam Elliott worked the whole room. He knew everybody's name -- the guy who was doing the coffee in the morning, and his wife's name. All the girls thought he was the most charming thing that ever walked, and I thought he was wonderful too.

Billy Zane was an absolute joy, just fun to be around. And so was Powers Booth, absolutely lovely. Stephen Lang, Jason Priestley, Thomas Hayden Church. Michael Biehn was nice, very polite, but he was kind of reserved. What's the name of the other guy who became a much bigger star? Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah, he's a great guy. And so was Charlton Heston. I was kind of in awe. It was originally going to be Robert Mitchum. He couldn't pass the medical; that's the only reason he wasn't in it. And I think it was one of Heston's last films. It was a real joy to dress the guy. Because I was a kid who saw Ben Hur, and he was such a big, big, big star for so long. Planet of the Apes and all these great films he did. He was lovely. He was with his wife every second of the time. And she was a lovely lady. She was by the camera, and as soon as they stopped, she would be with him and she'd go get him a cup of coffee. The two just were very close. You could tell he was having fun. I think it was like a bunch of overgrown kids, playing. And I saw this again when I did Shanghai Noon too. It was like, these really are a bunch of overgrown kids, they get their toy guns and they get on a horse and they get to ride over the hill and shoot the gun, and they're having a ball. It's that kind of environment when you're on a Western. There was only one real pain in the ass on (Tombstone). And you know who that was.

HENRY PARKE: No, I don't.

JOSEPH PORRO: Val Kilmer. And I think he had a lot to do with Kevin Jarre getting kicked out. He didn't think (Jarre) was up to snuff. He stole my father's watch-fob chain, which he was wearing in the movie. He took everything that he could of his (character’s) stuff. He stole the guns that were genuine pistols of the period; a big gun collector was a gun guy on the show. And he brought in the real deal and Val stole 'em. I don't know if those got back, but I called the producer and I said, he's got my grandfather's watch-chain; it's a family piece. I didn't get it back. He said, I'm going to send you a check for a thousand dollars. He had been dealing with props and everyone with Val. I'll tell you one thing he did do well. He was definitely the one who worked out (twirling) the silver cup. I'm the one that supplied the silver cup. I still have it.

HENRY PARKE: I particularly loved Dana Delany's costumes. Was it fun to design for her?

JOSEPH PORRO: It was. We used the Tucson Opera House to build the clothes for her and the other ladies. And the cutter fitter there, the head person, ended up staying with me. She was on The Mandalorian with me. We stayed together for 30 years. Her name is Maggie McFarland. Lovely, lovely lady. And she's still working in Hollywood. I'm retired, but she's still working.

My favorite day on Tombstone was the day that they all rode over the hill -- that big crowd of cowboys. Because that was a big setup, and very early on in production, the third or fourth day of shooting. I was so desperate: how am I gonna get clothes on these guys? And when I saw them all come over the hill and thought, I still haven't been fired! That was my, “I did it!” day. It was one of the toughest films I've ever worked on in my life. It was 18-hour days and a 40-minute drive to that set. The last two, three weeks of shooting Tombstone, the Stargate people wanted preliminary sketches. <laugh>. So then I was getting three to four hours of sleep, because I'd have to do drawings at night. It was a tough show.

HENRY PARKE: Did the success of Tombstone have a big effect on your career?

JOSEPH PORRO: Well, no. You would think I would get 20 westerns after that, right? It doesn't work that way in Hollywood. So many directors liked it, but they weren't Western directors. It was definitely a feather in my cap. And they would be like, oh, he did Tombstone. So it did not hurt my career at all.  And here I am now looking back; it's probably, movie-wise, the one I'm going to be known for, you know? I've done television things that were costume-wise better than Tombstone. Much better.

HENRY PARKE: What was your favorite part of doing Shanghai Noon?

JOSEPH PORRO: The barroom scene in Shanghai Noon is something that I'm incredibly proud of, because that was hysterical. It took three weeks to shoot, as it was like 40 people in the fight, and everything that they've done in every movie for a hundred years with barrooms they did in that one. And they did it with a great sense of humor.

HENRY PARKE: Was doing a comedy Western a lot different from a serious western?

JOSEPH PORRO: No, there was no difference at all. What the joy for me was to actually see Jackie Chan still in his golden years, working at a level of choreography and magic that I've never seen in my life, on anything else. I mean, I worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme and those guys, a lot of action stars early on in the eighties. And none of them could put a show on like Jackie Chan, like him in a fight. His choreography and his sense of humor -- like, I can't believe that he just did that, you know?  <laugh>  I mean, he jumped over this or tumbled -- it's like, what the hell?

 

A Shanghai Noon design for Jackie Chan

HENRY PARKE: When you did Shanghai Noon, did you actually get to go to China?

JOSEPH PORRO: It's the first time I was in China. It was an absolute nightmare: they forgot to get me a Chinese visa. I didn't know I needed a visa because I was just a guy from L.A. I didn't need a visa when we shot in Canada. So here I am at the airport for 18 hours, and Jackie Chan made one phone call and I was let out! <laugh>. He was that powerful. Since Charlton Heston did 55 Days at Peking (1963) the only American to do the Chinese Imperial Court was me, in Shanghai Noon. And I did the full-on court. I did 500 guards, all different levels, with generals. I did the whole royal family, I did a Chinese opera troop, and I did all the servants and the eunuchs. It was roughly 700 costumes to pull those scenes off. My God. And I had 'em all built in China.

HENRY PARKE: Amazing!

JOSEPH PORRO: That it was! It was fun!  <laugh>. And I made friends from that first trip and then, they called me for something else, and I ended up doing seven Chinese movies. I was the American in China doing Chinese movies. I'm so proud of some of them. No one's ever going to see the Chinese movies in America, some of my best work. But they paid literally double what they were paying me in Hollywood. So I took the work, which was bad because that kept me out of the loop in L.A. It kind of took me out of the picture. You need to be seen and be around. It was bad on that level, but otherwise it was great.

HENRY PARKE: We’ve talked about Jackie Chan, but how was Owen Wilson to work with?

A Shanghai Noon design for Owen Wilson

JOSEPH PORRO: Oh, dreadful, horrible. Me and my crew wanted to just slit our throats every five minutes we spent with (Kilmer and Wilson), they were that obnoxious. Owen Wilson: you're doing an 1870s western and I've done all these sketches, and we have all these materials that are authentic. I've got actual pieces from the period, to show him how the real shit looked. And lots of black and white photos from the period, and sketches. And he comes in and he goes, "Oh, I was just on Rodeo (Drive) yesterday" -- and he actually talked like this -- “I was just on Rodeo and I saw these white Gucci jeans, and I really feel that is direction we should go in." Could you hear me? 1870s western male lead wants to wear white Gucci jeans? How is he with Jackie (Chan)? Amazing. The two were perfect together. The chemistry was great. How was Val Kilmer in Tombstone? He was amazing. You watch him, and he's the perfect person for this role. Could I stand him? No. It wasn't just me; it was hair and makeup. He drove all of us crazy.

Val Kilmer would just sit in front of the mirror staring at himself like he was a Greek god, and we have five other fittings to do today, and this is a film done on a tight little budget. I’ve got to get shit done nonstop around the clock, and he is sitting there and asking you, can you get sushi in Tucson? I go, you've got 28 (costume) changes; we need to lock them in and do the alterations on them <laugh>. And we didn't know what he was wearing till 10 minutes before he was in front of camera.  Everybody has their tough times on a shoot. And if you're good at what you do, you have a vision, you fight for it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Take it for what it is, but it's a hell of an exciting business to be in. For every person that's difficult, I had 500 that were a joy. And I never had two days that were alike in 45 years.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Happy Trails,

Henry

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

NEW CHARLES LUMMIS DOC., ‘6 BULLETS’ FILM & GAME RELEASE, PLUS ‘UNDERGROUND’ FINALE, MEL GIBSON’S ‘BARBARY COAST’, AND MORE!

MUST-SEE TV -- CHARLES LUMMIS DOCUMENTARY AIRS ON KCET TUESDAY!

On Tuesday, May 10^th, at 9 pm, the California arts documentary series ARTBOUND returns to KCET with CHARLES LUMMIS: REIMAGINING THE AMERICAN WEST.  While not a name on the tip of many tongues today, Lummis’ contributions to the history of the Southwest United States, particularly Los Angeles, would be hard to overstate.  On Saturday, a panel featuring many of interviewees in the film discussed Lummis and the documentary at the first museum in Los Angeles, which Lummis built, The Southwest Museum, surrounded by one of the world’s finest collections of American Indian art and artifacts, which Lummis collected.

Lummis watches over producer Juan Devis' shoulder

Charles Fletcher Lummis, born in Massachusetts in 1859, grew up at a time of individualists.  He was classmate of Theodore Roosevelt at Harvard, but dropped out, wrote for a Cincinnati newspaper, but quit when he got a better offer – working for the Los Angeles Times.  He proposed that he walk to L.A. from Cincinnati, and became a media sensation from the newspaper columns he posted en route.  His contact with American Indians along the way would greatly influence the rest of his life. 

Lummis' granddaughter, poet Suzanne Lummis

After 143 days afoot, he arrived and was made city editor of Times.  It was 1885, which was, as Lummis’ granddaughter pointed out, the year that RAMONA-author and Indian rights activist Helen Hunt Jackson died.  It was a passing of the torch.  Los Angeles was in a time of transition – it had a population of only 12,000 when Lummis arrived – and he saw, with concern, that as the numbers quickly swelled, the history of the Indian and Mexican and Spanish people who had lived there before the Anglos was disappearing.  While a sincere and enthusiastic booster for Los Angeles, he did not want to see a homogenized city, and used his skills as an anthropologist, writer, poet, and photographer to both preserve the rapidly fading past, and make a convincing argument that this past should be incorporated in the city’s future.  Neither a paralyzing stroke – he healed, nor blindness – it proved temporary, could slow him down.  I highly recommend this documentary, and hope it will soon be available for viewing outside of L.A.

‘6 BULLETS TO HELL’ MOVIE AND VIDEO GAME PREMIERE TUESDAY!

In a very clever bit of synergy and cross-promotion, Tuesday, May 10^th marks the release of both 6 BULLETS TO HELL the movie on iTunes, and 6 BULLETS TO HELL the video game.  The film stars Tanner Beard, Crispian Belfrage and Russell Cummings, and Round-up readers have been following 6 BULLETS since it rolled camera in 2013, and as I said in my review – read it HERE – 6 BULLETS is a new Spaghetti Western filmed in the holy ground of Almeria, Spain, and masterfully captures the spirit of the originals.  Here’s the trailer from the movie.

CHECK OUT MY MOTHER’S DAY COLUMN AT INSP

I had the pleasure of writing a guest Mother’s Day column for the INSP-TV blog, honoring actress Barbara Stanwyck, and one of her most famous characters, Victoria Barkley from THE BIG VALLEY.  It gave me the opportunity of interviewing her co-star from TROOPER HOOK, Earl Holliman, and Kate Edelman, whose father, Louis Edelman, co-created and produced THE BIG VALLEY, who both shared their memories of ‘Missy’ with me.  You can read it (and I wish you would) HERE.

‘UNDERGROUND’ SEASON ONE ENDS WED. WITH A MARATHON

If you, like me, were late to discover WGN’s series about slaves escaping through the Underground Railroad, you can catch up starting Wednesday, May 11^th at 10 a.m. (check your local times).  As I reported in the last Round-up, UNDERGROUND has been picked up for a second season.  

MEL GIBSON, KURT RUSSELL, KATE HUDSON TO STAR IN WESTERN SERIES ‘BARBARY COAST’!

Mel Gibson will be co-writing and directing as well as starring with Kurt Russell and Kate Hudson in BARBARY COAST, based on the history book of the same title by Herbert Asbury, whose GANGS OF NEW YORK was filmed by Martin Scorcese.  The story of the wicked early days of San Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1849, it will be produced by the Mark Gordon Company , who currently produce QUANTICO, CRIMINAL MINDS and GREY’S ANATOMY. 

While the beautiful and talented Hudson is a newcomer to the genre, her co-stars are not.  Mel Gibson played the lovable scoundrel MAVERICK (1994), the Revolutionary War hero in THE PATRIOT (2000), and even voiced John Smith in Disney’s animated POCAHONTAS (1995).  Kurt Russell is a Western icon ever since playing Wyatt Earp in TOMBSTONE (1993), has recently starred in both HATEFUL 8 (2015) and BONE TOMAHAWK (2015), but hasn’t done a Western series since he co-starred with Tim Matheson in THE QUEST (1976).

CELEBRATE JOHN WAYNE’S BIRTHDAY WED. MAY 18 AT THE AUTRY!

Rob Word’s Word On Westerns will salute the Duke with a gathering of friends and family, including son Patrick Wayne, granddaughter Anita Wayne LaCava Swift, and co-stars Robert Carradine (THE COWBOYS), Paul Koslo (ROOSTER COGBURN), and author and historian Chris Enns.  These one-of-a-kind events have been so packed of late that there have been some wise changes made.  It will begin at eleven – not noon – and at the Wells Fargo Theatre.  The program will begin with a performance by Will Ryan and the Saguaro Sisters, and eventually everyone will segue across the courtyard to the Autry Crossroads Café for lunch.  Doors open at 10:30 a.m. – don’t be late!

DOUG FAIRBANKS IS ‘WILD AND WOOLLY’ SAT. MAY 21 AT THE EGYPTIAN!

Douglas Fairbanks stars in this delightful comedy from nearly a century ago, as a sophisticated New Yorker who wants to experience the Wild West – and boy, does he!  It was written by Anita Loos, the first brilliant screenwriter, and her husband John Emerson.  Loos started her career  young – some say as young as 12 – when, hanging out in her father’s nickelodeon theatre, she wrote a scenario and sent it to the name and address on a film can in the projection booth – to D.W. Griffith at Biograph Pictures.  (Forgive my digression, but back in the 1970s, Anita Loos became a good friend of my mother’s, and although I only met her briefly, it was a thrill – and I can remember every word she told me about a nightmarish dinner party with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.) The film is directed by Emerson, and the cinematographer is Victor Fleming, who in 1939 would direct both GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ!  Presented with a live piano accompaniment by the Cliff Retallick, this is part of the Egyptian Theatre’s long running Retroformat series, showcasing long-unavailable silent films shown in 8mm or 16mm.  Learn more HERE. 

THAT’S A WRAP!

Coming soon to the Round-up I’ll have coverage of my visit to the set of IMPULSION, the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival, the TCM Festival, and a bunch of great interviews I haven’t had a chance to transcribe.   Have a great week or two!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Material Copyright May 2016 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved 

‘HATEFUL 8’, ‘KEEPING ROOM’ REVIEWED, PLUS BIG DOINGS AT THE AUTRY!

Kurt Russell & Samuel L. Jackson

THE HATEFUL 8 – A Film Review

In Wyoming, in the dead of winter, a chartered stage-coach is flagged down by Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a bounty hunter with a stack of frozen outlaw cadavers – he needs to get them to town for the rewards.  But the renter of the coach, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell), wants no more passengers, living or dead: he’s already transporting murderess Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) whom he intends to hang, and the company of another bounty hunter holds no appeal.  John Ruth finally gives in, and the trio of passengers are barely on the road when who else appears, thumbing a ride, but Sheriff Clay Mannix (Walton Goggins), the new lawman at the town where both Ruth and Warren are expecting to collect their bounties. 

Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh

The group arrives at a stagecoach stop, and find it full of an interesting and sinister mix of characters: Bob (Demian Birchir) is minding the place while the owners are away; Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) is a British traveling hangman; Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) is a hard-looking cowboy and would-be writer; and General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) is a former Confederate officer still clinging to his past status.

Bruce Dern

Guess what?  They’re snowed in: everyone will have to spend the night.  This concerns John Ruth because he’s convinced that someone, perhaps more than one someone, is not who they say.  Someone is there to free Daisy Domergue, and will willingly commit murder to do it.  And he’s right, of course.  From there, 99% of the movie takes place in the one big room of the log house stagecoach stop, as characters confront each other, secrets are revealed, and people die. 

That’s right, it’s what’s known in the TV vernacular as an ‘elevator show’ or a ‘bottle show.’  It’s a funny and audacious decision by Tarantino to do a big-budget theatrical feature version of what is done on TV to save money.  Tarantino explained in an interview with DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD that his influences were series like THE VIRGINIAN, BONANZA, and THE HIGH CHAPPARAL.  “Twice per season, those shows would have an episode where a bunch of outlaws would take the lead characters hostage. They would come to the Ponderosa, or go to Judge Garth's place — Lee J. Cobb played him — in The Virginian and take hostages. There would be a guest star like David Carradine, Barren McGavin, Claude Akins, Robert Culp, Charles Bronson, or James Coburn . I don't like that storyline in a modern context, but I love it in a Western, where you would pass halfway through the show to find out if they were good or bad guys, and they all had a past that was revealed. I thought, 'What if I did a movie starring nothing but those characters? No heroes, no Michael Landons. Just a bunch of nefarious guys in a room, all telling backstories that may or may not be true. Trap those guys together in a room with a blizzard outside, give them guns, and see what happens.”

Samuel L. Jackson & Walton Goggins

What happens, very entertainingly is the HATEFUL 8 – it’s full of the droll characters and crackling dialogue that helped make Tarantino famous.  And this kind of claustrophobic DESPERATE HOURS sort of story is the kind that he excels in, as he proved in RESERVOIR DOGS (1992).  Are the characters over the top?  Sure, but they’re meant to be: this is stylized story-telling, not docudrama, and the ensemble is a delight to watch. 

Tarantino loves to shock us, of course, and there is a lot of blood and vomiting, and there is an extended sadistic story-telling sequence where Warren psychologically tortures General Smithers with what may be a real story, or one as invented as the characters’ identities.  It’s too ugly, and too long, but at least its flashback gets us out of the cabin for a bit. 

Michael Madsen

Of course, Tarantino has fun with his inside jokes.  Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Major Marquis Warren, is a nod to novelist, independent Western filmmaker and screenwriter Charles Marquis Warren, a protégé of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was one of the great story talents behind GUNSMOKE, RAWHIDE and THE VIRGINIAN series.  Tim Roth plays Oswaldo Mobray as a delightful impression of British character Alan Mobray.  And Michael Madsen’s Joe Gage character is a wink at Nick Adams’ character, Johnny Yuma, from THE REBEL series, a former soldier roaming the West and writing about his experiences.

The acknowledgment of THE REBEL is particularly interesting because, while this sort of snowed in ‘Zane Grey meets Agatha Christie’ story can be found in other series – the STOPOVER episode of THE RIFLEMAN, directed by Budd Boetticher and written by Arthur Brown Jr, is particularly memorable – an episode of THE REBEL, entitled FAIR GAME (1960), written by Richard Newman and directed by Irvin Kershner, is unexpectedly close to HATEFUL 8.  It’s fascinating to see what Tarantino does expanding what was a thirty-minute plot to 168 minutes.  The entire run of the exceptionally good THE REBEL series is available from Timeless Video, and after you’ve seen the feature, it’s definitely worth your time to watch the short, as well as the whole series.

One of the great joys of HATEFUL 8 is the new score by the maestro Ennio Morricone.  Although he made his name putting music to Sergio Leone’s ‘man with no name’ films, he hadn’t scored a Western since MY NAME IS NOBODY, forty years ago. 

One of the great virtues of HATEFUL 8 is the beauty and grandeur of its outdoor visuals for the brief time that the story is out of doors.  Thrice Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson has shot several other films for Tarantino, as well as for Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone: he knows how to get details and definition out of what could simply be a whited-out snowscape in other hands.  It may seem like a crazy film to shoot in 70mm Panavision, but that decision halted Kodak’s plan to shutter their movie film stock production entirely. 

The whole presentation sentimentally harkens back to the time of road-show movies of the 1950s and ‘60s, when seeing a big movie was a big deal, like going to the real theatre.  People dressed up, the seats were reserved, there was a musical overture, and an intermission.  Moviegoing, like the rest of life, is less ‘special’ today.   People go to real theatre today attired in a way I wouldn’t dress to mow the lawn.  So, see HATEFUL 8, and if you can, see it in the longer road-show version, with the overture and intermission.  And maybe dress up.  Just take off your Stetson when the lights go down and the curtains part.

THE KEEPING ROOM – a Film Review

Brit Marling takes aim

In 1865, in a location identified only as ‘The American South’, three women survive on a crumbling plantation, trying to keep body and soul together, and just barely managing.  Augusta (Brit Marling), perhaps twenty, is the daughter of the plantation’s owner who has gone off to war.  She hunts rabbits for stew.  Mad (Muna Otaru), a young slave, searches the overgrown fields for edible vegetables.  Louise, (Hailee Steinfeld), is sixteen, Augusta’s baby sister, and unable or unwilling to face the realities of war; she refuses to work, and seems at times to drift into a fantasy world, donning her late mother’s elegant clothes when she should be dressed for picking and planting.  When asked by her sister to work, she refers tersely to the woman who helped raise her.  “The nigger should do it.”

Her sister Augusta responds, “Like I told you, Louise.  We all niggers now.”

Unbeknownst to the three women, greater danger than starvation is on its way.  Union General William Tecumseh Sherman is coming, cutting his bloody slash “…from Savannah to the sea.”  And in advance of his army come his foragers, or as they were known, ‘Bummers,’ men sent to seize supplies or destroy them, to prepare the ground for invasion.  Mostly they are unregulated, many of them destructive, sadistic, and homicidal.   A pair of them, Moses (Sam Worthington) and Henry (Kyle Soller) introduce themselves with an apparent rape and several murders that mark them as men without conscience. 

Sam Worthington

Back at the plantation, the power shifts between the three women with each challenge they face, until everything comes to a head with a potentially disastrous accident: Louise is bitten by a raccoon, and they lack the medicine to treat the infected wound.   Augusta heads to town looking for medicine – the ‘town’ being a single business, a store, saloon and brothel – and comes to the attention of the Bummers.  She barely escapes, and soon the Bummers are on the hunt for Augusta and the other women.

Not a traditional Western or War Movie by any measure, THE KEEPING ROOM is also a suspense and adventure story, and above all a character study of three finely drawn, very different women.  Elegantly written by first-timer Julia Hart, it’s directed by English-born Daniel Barber, whose previous Western, the short THE TONTO WOMAN (2008), from the Elmore Leonard story, garnered Barber an Oscar nomination. 

Muna Otaru

Cinematographer Martin Ruhe, known for filming crime thrillers like HARRY BROWN   (2009 – directed by Barber), and THE AMERICAN (2010), worked with natural light and source light – lanterns and candles – to give an authentic and often beautiful look to  the interiors.  The exteriors, forest and field, are equally convincing.  Remarkable to think that they were found not in Georgia but in Romania, where COLD MOUNTAIN (2003) and HATFIELDS & MCCOYS (2012) were also filmed.

The structure is unusual, and often admirable.  Among the highlights are a pair of intercut sequences where the women are separately stalked.  Author Hart has a fine ear for dialogue, and the script is at times unexpectedly generous, allowing a humanizing of the Bummers, and raising intriguing questions of how life might have been, had the characters met under different circumstances. 

Hailee Steinfeld

The cast is tiny – only seven actors have speaking parts, and only two scenes have any extras at all.  This serves to make the story intimate and personal, and it also puts a great burden on a very few individuals to carry the entire story, which is fraught with tension and suspense.  Fortunately, the triumvirate of actresses are up to it.  Muna Otaru, a relative newcomer, seems all the more powerful for her halting, soft-spoken performance.  Hailee Steinfeld, playing a weak and self-centered character diametrically opposed to her Matty Ross in TRUE GRIT, turns us off, then wins us over when her character rises to the occasion.  And blonde and beautiful Brit Marling, half Matty Ross herself, and the better half of Scarlet O’Hara, is who we all wish we’d be when the chips are down.

Of course, no film is perfect.  The smallness of the cast can be a problem: would Sherman ever send just a two-man force, and if he did, why didn’t the Southerners just pick them off?  And as smart as Augusta is, why does she keep ignoring warnings to leave the store, and why does she keep making eye contact with men she should know to avoid?

Highly recommended, THE KEEPING ROOM, from Alamo Drafthouse, will be available on VOD in early January.

PLENTY HAPPENING AT THE AUTRY IN JANUARY & FEBRUARY

Kenneth Turan, renowned film critic for The Los Angeles Times and NPR, will be introducing the first two film programs for 2016 in the Autry’s monthly What is a Western? series.  On Saturday, January 16^th at 1:30 pm he will introduce the John Ford/John Wayne classic THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962).  On Saturday, February 13^th, at 1:30 pm he will host a double feature, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (1956) and RIDE LONESOME (1959).  Star Randolph Scott and producer Harry Joe Brown had formed the Ranown production company, and these two films are part of the fabled ‘Ranown cycle’ of exceptionally fine, tiny budget Westerns, all starring Scott, all directed by Budd Boetticher, and written by Burt Kennedy. 

Also screening at the Autry on February 27^th at noon are a double-bill of Gene’s films, BACK IN THE SADDLE (1941 Republic) and RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING PINES (1949 Columbia).

On Wednesday, January 20^th at 12:30 pm, Rob Word will present the Cowboy Lunch @ The Autry.  After lunch it’s Rob’s A Word on Westerns discussion.  This time the topic is KINGS OF THE COWBOYS, and as we get closer to the date I’ll let you know what exciting guests Rob has lined up. 

For folks who still remember how to read (there are still quite a few of us), One Book, One Autry  is a year-long series of programs focusing on Owen Wister’s genre-creating THE VIRGINIAN.  The first two events are Saturdays, Feb. 20^th & 27^th, with more to come.  If you don’t have your own copy, you can get one at the Autry Store.  (And you can read it, and learn that the great HIGH NOON is actually plagiarized from the last seven or eight chapters). 

Sunday, January 3^rd is the last day to see the magnificent exhibit Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and The West.  From February 6^th through March 20^th you can enjoy Masters of the American West, and if you have deep pockets, you can buy! 

Between book signings, performances and other events, I’m barely scratching the surface.  You can learn more by visiting the official Autry website HERE.  

And admission is free on Monday, New Years Day, and free Saturday and Sunday, the 2^nd and 3^rd, to Bank of America card holders.

THAT’S A WRAP! 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas (see above, a favorite gift from my wife), and I wish you a Happy New Year!  I’ve got a lot of stuff cookin’ but I don’t want to say too much and jinx myself.  But I’m very excited that I’ll be a guest of Jim Christina and Bobbi Jean Bell on THE WRITERS BLOCK radio show on Thursday, January 7^th at 8 pm, when the BIG guest will be LONGMIRE creator Craig Johnson!  If you haven’t tuned in to this entertaining and informative interview show about the art and craft of writing, here’s the link:  http://latalkradio.com/content/writers-block.

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Content Copyright December 2015 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved