INTERVIEW WITH MATT CLARK, PLUS COWBOY SHOW AT THE REAGAN, PODCASTS, COMMENTARIES AND MORE!

 

Matt Clark as doomed lawman J.W. Bell in 

PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID

INTERVIEW WITH MATT CLARK

Character actor Matt Clark has died at age 89, in Austin, Texas, after having broken his back some months ago. If you don’t know his name, you’ll definitely recognize his face, from roles in The Cowboys, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Culpepper Cattle Company, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, Jeremiah Johnson, and if you’re younger, Back to the Future III and A Million Ways to Die in the West. From 1964 to 2014, he played 120 different characters onscreen: good guys, bad guys, losers and heroic types, all of them entirely believable. I had the pleasure of interviewing him back in 2020, when I was writing an article about Monte Walsh (1970) for True West.

Whenever I have the chance to interview someone with the extensive credits of a man like Clark, I ask him about as much of his career as I can, and I’m glad I did. I tried to follow up later on, but between phone problems and health problems, it never happened again.  While editing this interview it struck that, although not so long ago, everyone we discussed, whom I’d interviewed for the Monte Walsh article – Bo Hopkins, Mitch Ryan, casting agent Lynn Stalmaster, and of course Matt – is now gone. Here’s what Matt shared with me.

MATT CLARK:  One day I'm on the set of The Cowboys. I'm standing around the chair where John Wayne sits, and there were three or four people that follow him, his entourage, standing around. He wasn't there, and they're saying, “God damn, those damn bastards! Why don't they leave that Lieutenant Calley alone?” (Note: U.S. Army Lieutenant William Laws Calley Jr. was convicted of murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians on March 16, 1968, in the My Lai Massacre.)  “God, the man's a hero! You never know when one of them gooks is gonna pull a hand grenade out, blow you up!” “You’re damn right! Shoot 'em, kill 'em all! Burn 'em all: women, children, everything!” So here comes Wayne lumbering up. And I really disliked Wayne at that time. ‘Cause he was so right wing, and it was during the war, and all of these statements he'd made. I liked his acting, liked it before. But when he started to get really politically crazy, I turned off. So here he comes, and I think, Oh my God, what is he got to say about this? And the guy said to him, “What do you think, Duke? We're just talking about Lieutenant Calley.” And Wayne said, “They ought to hang that murdering little coward up by his balls.” Everything went silent for a minute. And they all went well, “You're right about that, Duke! You got that one, right! Yeah, that was wrong!” I always liked Wayne a lot more after that. Anyway, let's get back to what you want to hear instead of my politics.

Jerry Gatlin, Walter Scott, and Matt Clark as the 

ranchhands who desert John Wayne in THE COWBOYS

HENRY PARKE: I understand that you're from Washington D.C. and you went to George Washington University.

MATT CLARK: I didn't go long. I made it about a year. I had this G.I. Bill after Korea. That's when I went. But I think I lasted a little over the first semester. I was in an economics lab with 300 people in an auditorium. I just got so bored, and all I wanted to do was be an actor. I said, I'm outta her,e and I up and left and never came back. So all that going into the Army in order to get the GI Bill, a lot of good that did me!

HENRY PARKE: You studied with Herbert Bergoff, did a lot of off-Broadway theater in New York.

MATT CLARK: I got a half a dozen shows, maybe all together. Only one that was The Living Theater.  (Note: The Living Theatre, founded in New York in 1947, is the United States’ oldest experimental theatre company) I was with the Living Theater for about a year and I didn't do much there. I stage-managed and I played tiny parts in a couple of things. And then I left to go into a play, playing James Joyce in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And that was a wonderful experience. I did that for eight months. Then I understudied Martin Sheen in The Subject Was Roses. And then I got a tiny part in a movie called Black Like Me, which was shooting in Washington, D.C. So I drove down to Washington. I had one day's work playing some nasty little Southern punk in an alley, who threatens (James) Whitmore. (Note: It’s the true story of a White reporter who dyed his skin to pass for Black in the 1960s South, to write articles about his treatment). I go down and I'm doing that. Then they call lunch, one hour. The crew, they were all going into a Ruth's Chris-type steak house. I said, that's a little over my pay grade. I was used to Flame Steaks on 42nd Street. I got a steak and a baked potato for $1.70. Remember that?

HENRY PARKE: I remember Flame Steak there and on 8^th Street in the Village.

MATT CLARK: Exactly. I went in with (them) and I sat down and I just was so uncomfortable, ‘cause I was, a hillbilly, I was a redneck. These guys were ordering prime rib, And I thought, I like ribs. I'll take the prime rib too. And they brought me this uncooked slab of meat. And I looked over and people were cutting into it with their fork. And I cut into it and I never put anything like that in my mouth. I said, and I don't pay for this? Whoo! I'm going to Hollywood! Up until that moment, the idea of being in the movies was foreign to me as being an airline pilot. I had a good time. Had a good life.

HENRY PARKE: With your background, I wouldn’t have guessed you go into Westerns, but you certainly had an affinity for them. Did you grow up with them?

MATT CLARK: No more than anybody else. Cowboys and Indians as a kid, but it was certainly a hell of a lot more Westerns available, even on TV. Now people won't watch the Western, young people, for some crazy reason.

HENRY PARKE: Unless Quentin Tarantino makes it. Your first Westerns were episodes of Dundee and the Culhane, and then Will Penny, and then the episodes of Death Valley Days and so on. What did you like in your early ones in particular? What's memorable?

MATT CLARK: Nothing. The only one was Will Penny. It was the only time I ever had a screen test in my life, and I got all excited, doing this film with Charlton Heston. So I went in, they said, thank you very much, then my agent says, yes: they want you. I said, that's great. Well, it turns out I don't have any lines. I just played a guy who gets shot by Charlton Heston, and I tumbled down the hill and into the river. And then take two, get up there, put on some dry wardrobe, bang, down the hill again. I did it three times. I thought, why were you getting a screen test just to be shot and fall in the river and have no lines? I don't get it. Then I began to realize I had saved them a bunch of money over having a stunt man, if nothing else. And I was doing Rat Patrol when that picture opened, with the same director, Tom Gries. I flew in (for the premiere), I didn't even see myself ‘cause it was halfway over. So I've never seen the movie.

HENRY PARKE: What an incredible string of Westerns you made in the early seventies, Monte Walsh, The Beguiled, The Grissom Gang -- sort of a Western, The Cowboys, Pocket Money, Culpepper Cattle Company, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid. From 1970 to ‘73, you were in every Western worth seeing.

MATT CLARK: (laughs) I just got lucky.

HENRY PARKE: You were directed by every director worth remembering: Bill Fraker, Don Siegel, Robert Aldrich, Dick Richards, Sydney Pollock, John Huston, Sam Peckinpah -- it’s just astonishing.

MATT CLARK: Well, there were a lot of good ones. John Huston was my favorite. What a masterful person he was. And you want a couple of stories?

HENRY PARKE: You bet!

MATT CLARK: Well, no, I'm not going to give them to you, because I'm writing them in a memoir.

HENRY PARKE: I understand how that is.

Matt Clark in Back to the Future III

MATT CLARK: And you know who I loved, and thought would make a great (subject for a) Western, and I've never seen a good one about him? It was Quantrill. I don't know whether it would work today. His was kind of a gentleman, you know. When he went into Northfield, Minnesota, they didn't kill all the women. They shot a bunch of men up. I think Bloody Bill was with him, wasn't he?

HENRY PARKE: Oh yes

MATT CLARK: I just thought he was a genius and a good guy from everything I read. I must've read 10 books on him, but nobody ever has made a decent movie about him. Another thing they have never shown, which was part of the founding of the West, was the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

[Matt Clark suddenly launched into a 10-minute, detailed dissertation on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the subject of the recent miniseries American Primeval. Although he hadn’t studied it in years, he easily recalled a very complex timeline of events, names of participants, distances between locales, outcomes and sentences.]

MATT CLARK: I thought that's an interesting story.

HENRY PARKE: Absolutely! Let's talk about Monte Walsh. Did you audition?

MATT CLARK: Yeah, I'm sure I auditioned. It wasn't like it is today. I guess there must be a hundred casting directors in LA. now. Back then there were like two or three that had any majors (studios), and one of them was Lynn Stallmaster, who cast all that stuff. When I first went out to California, I ran into Martin Sheen, who I had understudied in New York. He was with a touring company of The Subject Was Roses. And somebody wanted him to play a part in In the Heat of the Night. (Note: Matt would play that part, of Packy Harrison, in the film). This is a little sidebar; you don't have to print this. But for years I got residual checks that I guess they didn't have enough room to write In the Heat of the Night on. So it was In the Heat of the Nig.  This went on for years. Good God! Is this the way they printed checks that they send to Poitier? Anyway, that's when I met Lynn Stalmaster and he cast me for years, and he was still casting not too long ago.

HENRY PARKE: I met him a few years ago --  
MATT CLARK: He's 90, I think. He was such a gentleman, such a sweet guy, and he got me started. I wouldn't have been an actor without him. And why he liked me, I have no idea. I'm happy as I sit here in quarantine, and don't have a worry in the world. I have my S.A.G. pension and my Social Security. (Note: Lynn Stalmaster died in 2021 at 93.)
HENRY PARKE: Tell me why Monte Walsh was one of your favorites.

MATT CLARK: Just because it was a Western and I loved them, and I learned to ride in Westerns, which I really enjoy. I love when you were sent out on your horse, and you sat on your horse for an hour before the shot, and that they wave you in, they shoot it, and then you go back, sit on the horse again! The most fun I ever had in a Western was on The Cowboys, which I'm only in the credits of, but it took a long time to shoot. You remember in the opening they had a zoom, multiple lenses, multiple shots of cowboys working horses, bulldogging and everything. And everybody with me was a stunt man or a rodeo cowboy. So I got to hang around for almost three weeks with all these famous rodeo cowboys. The most famous was Casey Tibbs, who was my stunt double. There was a simple shot that I wanted to be in, because I could ride all right, which was riding with a group in and amongst a group of cattle crossing over and rounding, playing around with them and out, across a field. I wanted to do that shot, and the stunt coordinator wouldn't let me because he said it was too dangerous. I said, "come on, it's riding a horse!" He said, "No, I'm going to have Casey do it.” So Casey doubled for me, and in the shot, Casey's horse stepped in a gopher hole and went head-over-heels. And Casey was laid up for a bit with that. And I thought, wow, these stunt guys know what they're doing sometimes.

HENRY: I was just talking to your Monte Walsh co-star, Mitch Ryan, yesterday, and he said to say hello to you. (Note: Mitch Ryan died in March of 2022 at age 88.)

MATT CLARK: I talked to him three or four days ago and asked him whether or not you had contacted him.

Matt Clark in The Culpepper Cattle Company

HENRY: Good; we're all on the same page. What was Lee Marvin like to work with?

MATT CLARK: Lee Marvin became one of my best friends. We did a few things together, but I remember the first time I met him, he'd been always one of my favorite actors, in the classic sense of an actor alcoholic. But we just hit it off. When I came up, he was in a chair, telling a story and it was a funny story, kind of; not overly funny. But I was so impressed that I was actually standing next to and talking to Lee Marvin, that I kinda went, "Heh-heh-heh." And he stopped talking, he looked up at me and he said, “Well, that's a pretty guilty laugh.” And I got kinda sheepish. I said, “Yeah, I guess it was.” And I think we became friends right there ‘cause I wasn't bullshitting him, you know? We became fairly close after that. Here's something I'll tell you. Mitch (Ryan) and Billy Green Bush and I were all going to be doing a scene, and we were riding to the set together from Tucson. It was about an hour drive. So Lee Marvin gets in the car and he is drunker than Cooter Brown. It's like eight o'clock in the morning, and we start to talk about the scene that we're going to do. How should we do this? We're discussing what the scene's about. And Lee had some really good ideas. We talked about it for the hour. We finally get to the set, he steps out of the car, he's completely sober. He had the most incredible metabolism of anybody I ever saw. I've never seen anybody go drunk to sober so quick. And he turns to us and he says, “All right, we've talked about it. Forget all that crap, just do the damn scene.” And he walks away. And it was a real interesting lesson for an actor, which is, you examine, investigate the scene, you decide what you're going to do. And then once you've done all that, forget all that crap and just do the scene. I thought it was really a great, great acting lesson. So that was one thing I'll remember Lee for.

I don't know whether you remember the scene that Billy Green Bush and I are standing at the bar, we're kind of bad company. We're questionable, unlawful cowboys, if you will. We'd been fired, too. And then Mitch was also fired, so he had joined up with us, and we're in a bar. Leroy Johnson, the stunt man, comes in and he's playing the marshal. He comes in to arrest us for bank robbing. And the scene is, we are supposed to pull guns and shoot at him, but he's standing there with a gun on us. I said, “This doesn't make any damn sense. I'm not going to pull a gun and shoot somebody who’s got a pistol on me, and take a chance on being shot.” I wasn't going to do anything like the script called for, because we're supposed to shoot at him, dive, shoot at him, and then Mitch stands up and kills him. But I couldn't figure out how in the hell can we do that? (Note: Lee Marvin is not in the scene. He’s just giving advice.) So Lee said, “Matt, what if you have your right arm on the bar. Billy is lighting a cigarette, with his left gun obvious. But he reaches over and pulls his other gun out of his holster on the right-hand side, flips it, turns it and drops it into your palm, and the marshal can see your gun all the time. You're not going for your gun.” That's brilliant. That really shows a couple of bad guys that work together, you know? And I must say, if Lee did have alcohol problems, they never seemed to affect his work. Jesus, he got an Academy Award for it.

HENRY: For playing a drunk in Cat Ballou?

MATT CLARK: That's right. I never saw him that he wasn't completely professional. Never saw him screw up a line or come late to a shoot. I never saw him do anything like that. So that's one of my Lee stories.

HENRY: That scene you were just talking about is one of my absolute favorite scenes in the film. And you look so terrified, and him slipping that gun to you is so unexpected. Then it's a whole explosion of action. Your director on Monte Walsh was Bill Fraker, a great cameraman directing for the first time. What was he like to work with?

MATT CLARK: I like Bill a lot. I was a little disappointed that he didn't cover that transfer of the gun, ‘cause you really don't see it. I thought it was so important to show these guys are two really bad guys, but the film, as far as I'm concerned, it’s one of the most beautiful Westerns ever made. Just cinematically, it's shot so beautifully.

HENRY: When you were doing it, did you think it was going to become a classic?

MATT CLARK: I never thought of anything except acting, I mean, what I was doing. Just like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, I knew that if I'm working with Peckinpah and (Bob) Dylan and all the rest of them that were in that film, I knew that I was headed for a really special experience. Or when I did Judge Roy Bean and was going to work with John Huston, I knew it was going to be extraordinary. Number one, Mitch (Ryan) and I had known each other for a long time, we knew each other in New York and we did a two-man scene at the Actor’s Studio once years ago. We went back a long way, so I was looking forward to seeing him again. But I was also looking forward to working with Lee who I guess still I think of as my number one actor. And after that, solving that question of how do you pull a gun on the sheriff who's got the drop on you, without it being just some crazy movie bullshit, I thought his solution was just great. And I thought, if he'd been interested in anything other than catching big blue Marlins and drinking, he could have been one of the best directors going.

HENRY: How about Jack Palance?

MATT CLARK: Jack was a character. We were in Bisbee, Arizona, which is a hard-rock mining town, and it's certainly not the most beautiful place I've ever been. We're in this bar, we're drinking, all these locals are saying, “Oh my God, Jack Palance!” These hard-rock miners are tough fuckers, and they're all talking with Jack. And they would look out and they'd say, “Jack, have you ever seen anything that beautiful?” And it's not really great. And Jack said, “Jesus, how do you people live here? That is awful! You think that's nice? Good God!” And they're getting ready to punch the shit out of him. He was a tough guy, but those people were not gonna be demeaned like that. And as soon as they started to get angry, he said, “I'm just joking with you guys.” He said, “No, it really is beautiful!” And they would be all, “Oh, Jack, Jack, Jack!” He would just spin them like that. He played with them that way. And I thought, you are a character. That's my big Jack Palance memory.

HENRY:  Of course, director Bill Fraker you worked with later in The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

MATT CLARK: Well, you know, that was interesting, and I don't know whether you want to use this or not, but they cast as The Lone Ranger, a guy that looked like a million dollars, Clinton Spilsbury. But he was nervous, you know. He'd never really had a lot of acting chops. And so he was scared. It was obvious that they didn't think much of him, but they kind of all kind of ganged up on him, I thought. And I said to Fraker, good God, this guy is already scared enough. You should be building his confidence rather than taking his confidence away. And I think that was the big problem with the picture, Clinton Spilsbury's performance as The Lone Ranger. Otherwise I think it would have been a better film. And I agree with you, it wasn't much of a movie.

HENRY: Is there anything else you want to share about Monte Walsh?

MATT CLARK: You know, I ordered the thing from Amazon. Sellick obviously redid it, but I made sure that I was ordering the Lee Marvin version. And they still sent me the Tom Sellick. I watched the opening of it, which wasn't bad; then I sent it back. I've done a couple of things with Tom, Magnum P.I.  He's a nice guy. But Monte Walsh was a special film and looking at it and realizing, God, I remember how beautiful this was, what fun it was.

HENRY: Was it a rough shoot physically?

MATT CLARK: Not for me at all. Another thing I remember was Bo Hopkins. Did you talk to Bo?

HENRY: I was thinking of it. His part is so small. I wasn't sure what to ask. (Note: For the record, I did subsequently interview Bo Hopkins about Monte Walsh.)

MATT CLARK: Oh, you should talk to him anyway. He always loves to talk and he's still in show business. You know, I think he did a movie last year. I'm so glad that I'm not one of those people waiting for my agent to call, but you know, I've had other things in my life. And I'm real happy to have had the joy and the luck that I had, to have done what I did at the time I did it. I can't imagine having had a better life. You know, we all enjoy being little boys and playing cowboys and Indians or let's pretend. And to be able to do that into your sixties is a pretty, pretty remarkable thing. Yes, indeed. At one point I directed a film in Ireland, Da. (Note: Martin Sheen stars as a Broadway playwright who returns to Ireland when his father, his ‘Da’, Bernard Hughes, dies, and encounters him as a spirit.) Did you see it?

HENRY: I saw it when it originally came out, but it's been a few years.

MATT CLARK: It only played for several weeks in five theaters around the country, but I have had so many people strangely enough to come up and tell me that it’s one of their favorite films. And it's mainly because of Barney Hughes's performance, which is extraordinary, and the script. And I was just given that as a great gift. But there's a character in it, Drum, who I thought of Lee (Marvin) playing ‘cause he could play any damn thing. And I asked him about it. I had done a movie, Pocket Money, with Lee and Paul Newman, and the script was by Terrence Malick, the guy that wrote and directed Badlands. Great filmmaker.

I just had a small part in that movie, where I play a prisoner in a jail in Mexico, and they play these two losers who go down to Mexico to bring back rodeo cattle. And they're stopped at the border, because the cattle have a disease, like the clap, like syphilis for cattle. But anyway, they played these two losers who bounce off of each other. I thought they were closer to who I had seen them, as people, than anything else I had seen them in. I thought it was a terrific movie. When I was playing that guy in the jail, Lee came up to me one day, I had been in wardrobe, and I had regular leather shoes, but I stepped on the back of the heels, to turn them into what are called jailhouse flippers. You just have to slip your feet in them to get around. And Lee looked down at me and he said, “You're a fucking rag actor.” And I thought he was insulting me. And he says, “I'm gonna tell you a secret. I do half of my performance in the wardrobe fitting.” So he meant it as a big compliment, you know: choose what you're going to wear as this character. Anyway, I went to ask him if he would play Drum, which would have been a real stretch for him, to play this snob Irishman; but I thought he'd have been just great. He said he would like to do it, it looked like it would be fun to do, but he said, “I can't do it. Because I have learned that it would just be counterproductive to the show, because people do not accept it. Once you're a star and you've established your personality, your star character, that's what people expect from you. And if they don't get that from you, they're pissed off and think that you have screwed them.” He said, “I'm afraid I'm already Lee Marvin. It’s who I am.” And unfortunately, when I was in Ireland is when he died. It’s a great lesson about films and how they work. And you don't see many people that have broken that rule. Daniel Day Lewis, they're very rare actors who are movie stars and big stars who can (play) completely different people. It's like Meryl Streep, these kinds of actor actors, who can get away with it, and they've done it from the get-go. They start out and they never do the same thing twice. So that's what's expected of them. Whoa, what are we going to get from Daniel Day Lewis this time? What are we going to get from Meryl Streep? And you can get anything from My Left Foot to There Will Be Blood. You get characters that diverse. But you don't find many stars that can do that. If you're looking at Paul Newman movies, he’s pretty much always Paul Newman, you know? Everybody is who they're set to be, and that's who the public expects them to be. That's why being a character actor was so much fun, because you're playing different characters all the time. You're not playing the same kind of thing each time.

HENRY: Speaking of which, I really enjoyed you in The Outlaw Josey Wales, where you got to play a nice guy for a change. There was a really interesting little world in that ghost town with you and Royal Danno, Sheb Wooley and all those people. How did you like working with Clint Eastwood?

Matt Clark and Royal Dano in

The Outlaw Josey Wales

MATT CLARK: I did three films with Eastwood. The first one, I don't remember that much. That's The Beguiled, when he was a prisoner in the Civil War. I do remember Josey Wales. And then I played in Honkytonk Man. I played his brother, I think. And the thing that I liked about him, because I thought that this is a profession, and you should act professionally. So you should really at least know your lines and be able to get through the scene. It's not that you have to do it the same way the next time, but you should be able to get through it and say your lines, so you have to be prepared enough to do that. And so many times you'll work with an actor, and I'm not talking about stars necessarily, but just other actors in the film. You'll be doing a scene and you’re all ready and you do your thing and they're doing theirs. And then they fuck the take up, and they say, okay, cut. Let's go again. And you have dumped; you've put it all out there. And you do that maybe 8 or 9 or 10 or 12 or 14 times when they can't get it right. And finally they get it where they get through, and they haven't absolutely stomped on their dick in the scene. The director said, that's it; move on. Meanwhile, you have just blown your wad 14 times in a row. So the thing I loved about Clint is that he doesn't mess around. I'm telling you, I think that if the camera doesn't fall over, you shoot it, that's a print, that's it. So you know that you’d better be ready to work, or he'll cut around you, cut you out of the Goddamn thing. So that's who he is as a director, and I really enjoy that about him. And while politically we're not maybe on the same page, I liked him as a person a lot. I think he's a good man.

HENRY: I've never gotten to speak to him, but he’s a great talent.

MATT CLARK: You better get moving, ‘cause he's gotta be ninety. (Note: at this writing, Clint Eastwood is 96.) Here's the thing I couldn't believe about him. He's a big guy, but he looks put together, not like a big fat guy. But in the scene (in Honkytonk Man) he was drunk, passed out, and we had to pick him up and carry him in the house. I remember trying to lift him, and it was like trying to lift 500 pounds. He was the heaviest, because he's so dense, I guess. And so he’s a strong guy, mentally, physically, artistically. So that's my Clint Eastwood. Give Bo Hopkins a call. Tell him Matt said that you should call him.

HENRY: I sure will. He actually,he gave me a good interview about a year and a half ago about making The Wild Bunch. (Note: Bo Hopkins died about 2 years after this interview. In 2020 he came out of retirement to play his last role, Pawpaw, for Ron Howard in Hillbilly Elegy.)

Matt's final role was as a prospector in

A  Million Ways to Die in the West

MATT CLARK: It's tough to be at that age. He doesn't work much, and he wants to. His drive for show business, his drive to be a star is so much stronger than mine ever was. I never had frankly much interest in it. I had a great life doing what I did. You know, the stars have to work all the time, and I could go to Europe for three months and work two weeks. A lot of people would like to have done it, I'm sure. Now there's so many, I don't know how you could keep track of all the actors today, with all these streaming services, you know? It’s overwhelming. Just so much shit being done all the time. When you either made feature films or you did television series for the three networks when I started, that was it, you know? There were damn few jobs. I know movie stars that can't quit and you've seen them do other things. You've seen them do commercials; they will do anything. You'll see a movie and you go, Holy Christ, this guy was a big star. What the hell? Why is he doing something like this? The reason I quit acting when I did, said “enough,” and walked away, and I wouldn't even let my ex-agent know when I was in town out of fear that they would send me out to act again. I had had it, because the only thing I was getting, the last few jobs, the parts were so not fun. Insignificant, either television crap or what movies I would get, there wouldn't be any significance to the characters. I’d play a judge, and that kind of shit. And all the parts for people over 60, that used to go to us character actors, that we would compete for, now they were being taken by stars who were too old to be leads in movies, but they can't give it up. They'll do commercials and they do things that you think, why would somebody like that do that? And I think it's just the nature of being an actor. There's something so addictive about it, and so different from anything else. Maybe it's like politicians: most of them don't know when to quit and can't quit. And I know one guy that I joke that he would do a Kotex commercial if he didn't have anything else going on.

HENRY: I remember when Ray Milland was doing The Thing with Two Heads, and an interviewer asked him, why? And he said, well, I did Love Story. That was the last one where I had a real acting part, and I proved I can still do it. And I just like to work, and I'll frankly do anything they will pay me to do.

MATT CLARK: Exactly. Fortunately I never had that disease. And I've worked all over the country and all over the world, and met so many wonderful people. And all I did was play cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians. And what a way to make a living, huh?

 

COWBOY – HISTORY AND HOLLYWOOD AT THE REAGAN!

Trigger, Buttermilk and Bullet waiting to

greet you at the Reagan Presidential Library

Here’s a True West article that hasn’t run on the page yet! We tried to squeeze this piece, about a terrific show at the Reagan Presidential Library, into the March/April issue, but that issue was just too packed! It’s running in the upcoming May/June issue, but the show is only going to be at the Reagan is only running until April 19^th! From there it’s moving to the Mulva Cultural Center in De Pere, Wisconsin. To give West-coasters the best chance to see it, True West took the unusual step of posting the article ahead of time, at their website. Here’s the link: https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/cowboys-history-hollywood-at-the-reagan/

 

HAPPY PASSOVER!

Because this site obviously leans kinda Western, it’s worth noting at Passover that the very first Western movie star – actually the first movie star of any genre – was Jewish! Broncho Billy Anderson, born Maxwell Henry Aronson, was in The Great Train Robbery (1903), the first movie with a plot, and would produce and star in 148 silent Westerns. His studio, Essanay, was the phonetic spelling of S.N.A., and the A stood for Anderson. The link below is for Broncho Billy’s Sentence, and you may be surprised to find that Broncho Billy is definitely not a good guy at the story’s start. Enjoy!

RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER!

On the show coming up this Thursday, April 2^nd, Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Bell and I will be joined by Peter Sherayko, author of Prove it Safe: Gun Safety For the Movies, and Manuela Schneider, author of Dr. Goodfellow: Bullets, Blood, and the Gunfighters’ Famous Surgeon. Here’s the link to follow the show, which airs at 6pm Western time.

 https://www.facebook.com/rendezvouswithawriter/ 

TRUE WEST – MARCH/APRIL 2026

As you can tell from the cover, the heart of this issue “The Mother Road”, aka Route 66. Please enjoy my article, T.R.’s Return, about premiering season 2 of INSP’s Teddy Roosevelt series, ELKHORN, in the actual town in North Dakota where the story takes place. And check out my review of Classic Flix’s Blu-Ray of 1958’s The Proud Rebel.  

 

MORE COMMENTARIES ON THE WAY!

Once again, filmmaker/novelist/film historian C. Courtney Joyner and I have tag-teamed on a couple of new Blu-Ray commentaries. 1971’s Red Sun is directed by Terence Young, and stars Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, Alain Delon and Ursula Andress. 1959’s Last Train from Gun Hill is directed by John Sturges, and stars Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones and Earl Holliman. I’ll update you when I find out when they will be available.

 

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

 

Happy Trails,

Henry

 

All Original Contents Copyright March 2026 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

Not to be used for training A.I.

MOVIES REWRITE HISTORY AT TCM FEST! PLUS SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FEST UPDATE, WILLIAM WELLMAN FEST AT UCLA, AND MORE!

MOVIES REWRITE HISTORY AT TCM FEST!

The theme of the sixth annual TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL was “History according to Hollywood,” and a fine time was had by all who attended.  This is the third year that I’ve attended, and nowhere else do I meet so many people so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about movies.  The center of this cinematic orgy is the fabled Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, it’s next-door multiplex, and the Roosevelt Hotel across the street, but the screenings spill out to quite a few other venues. 

The fun started at 5 pm on Thursday, March 26^th, with a Red Carpet before the Chinese Theatre, leading to the premiere of the new restoration of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, with stars Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and several portrayers of the Von Trapp kids present.  I enjoyed covering the red carpet the first two years, but could not convince myself that THE SOUND OF MUSIC was a Western.  So I skipped it in order to attend a screening of John Ford’s THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, introduced by a son of one of its stars, and a major star in his own right, Keith Carradine.  Keith Carradine began his professional acting career with MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER, and went on to play Jim Younger in THE LONG RIDERS, Buffalo Bill Cody in WILD BILL, and many others.  He created the role of Will Rogers on Broadway in THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES, and was sorely missed by DEADWOOD fans when, as Wild Bill Hickok, he drew aces and eights after only  five episodes – dumbest mistake the series’ producers could have made!   

Keith Carradine introducing THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE

He was delighted to see the theatre entirely packed.  “I cannot tell you what it does for my heart to see this many people here to see this movie – oh my gosh!  I am a huge John Ford fan, and he only made two more feature films after this, DONOVAN’S REEF and CHEYENNE AUTUMN.  I have a particular attachment to this film for a number of reasons.  It has an amazing cast, obviously, with Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne.  Lee Marvin, who was a pal ever since we did EMPEROR OF THE NORTH together – the incomparable Lee Marvin.  And in fact I just paid homage to him.  We did a concert production, the Encore series in New York, of PAINT YOUR WAGON, in which I played Ben Rumson (note: Lee Marvin’s role in the film).  Anyhow, as Orson Welles said when he was asked who his influences were, “Well, I studied the great masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford.”  This is one of his great works, and in addition to that great cast, and my friend Lee Marvin, my father is in this film.  I can’t thank you all enough for being here to support what TCM has been doing so brilliantly now for lo these many years, burnishing, maintaining; preserving the legacy of the motion picture.  Thank goodness for them, and for what they do.  This stuff is where all the movies came from.  And to give us the opportunity to see them the way they were originally meant to be seen, in a theatre, surrounded by other people, on the big screen – it’s incomparable.  So, enjoy THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, and I’ll see you down the road.” 

Andy Devine and Woody Strode in LIBERTY VALANCE

As many times as I’d already seen LIBERTY VALANCE, I’d never seen it on a big screen before, and there are a thousand little details that are invisible on a smaller image – like how many flies were on Andy Devine!  Incidentally, Andy’s son Dennis has some fascinating details on the making of this film in his book YOUR FRIEND AND MINE, ANDY DEVINE (read my review HERE), including why it was shot in black and white – to try and hide the advanced age of Wayne and Stewart in the ‘young’ sequences.

As always, the TCM Fest is an embarrassment of riches, and you cannot possibly attend all of the events you wish.  At 9:45 pm, the Australian Western-ish film BREAKER MORANT screened, introduced by its director Bruce Beresford, whose other credits include TENDER MERCIES, BLACK ROBE, and AND STARRING PANCHO VILLA AS HIMSELF.  Fifteen minutes later, Rory Flynn, daughter of Errol Flynn, was introducing one of her dad’s classics, THE SEA HAWK. 

Peter Fonda and Keith Carradine for CLEMENTINE

Friday was the big Western day, starting at 9:30 am with Ford’s MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, featuring an introduction and audience Q & A with Peter Fonda and Keith Carradine, again sons of the stars.  At 12:30 pm, THE PROUD REBEL screened, introduced by David Ladd, who co-starred with his father Alan Ladd in the film.  At 2:30 pm, while Rory Flynn discussed her father at Club TCM, Peter Fonda was introducing another Ford classic, YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, starring Henry Fonda.  Two blocks to the east, at Sid Grauman’s other great Hollywood theatre, The Egyptian, Ann Margaret was introducing her Steve McQueen co-starrer, THE CINCINNATI KID, to a packed house – I know it was packed because I couldn’t get in!  

PINOCCHIO stars Dickie Jones and Cliff Edwards

study character sketches

I headed back to see what I could squeeze into, and entered another movie palace that they were using, the El Capitan, to see Walt Disney’s PINOCCHIO.  I was halfway through the movie before I recalled that Pinocchio was voiced by Dickie Jones, later to star in many Westerns, including Errol Flynn’s best, ROCKY MOUNTAIN, and the series THE RANGE RIDER and BUFFALO BILL JR.  He also had a small role in YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, showing in another theatre at the same time.  Jones just passed away a few months ago.  And Pinocchio’s sidekick, Jiminy Cricket, was portrayed by Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards, who sidekicked for Charles “Durango Kid” Starrett and Tim Holt. 

Another tough choice came at about 6 pm.  Legendary stunt man Terry Leonard was introducing RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, where he recreated Yakima Canutt’s famous under-the-coach whip-drag and climb-up from STAGECOACH.  Instead I attended FONDA THE ACTOR, FONDA THE MAN, with Peter discussing his father Henry with Scott Eyman, author of PRINT THE LEGEND – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN FORD, and JOHN WAYNE – THE LIFE AND LEGEND.  Put kindly, Henry was not the best or most consistent father, but his son still had many positive memories, and shared them with startling candor; several times he had to stop when his emotions overtook him.  

Here are some of the highpoints.  The first movie he saw his father in was CHAD HANNA, made in 1940, the year Peter was born.  “I think I was five, and there was my father on-screen.  And he wasn’t in the Pacific theatre (of the war) – he’d run away with Linda Darnell to the circus!  We had home movies, but my dad was never in the home movies, because he was operating the camera.  This is the first movie I’ve seen on the big screen.  So I didn’t know about Linda Darnell.  I didn’t know about the circus.  So all these questions are building up in this little boy’s mind.  The moment I remember best is (when) Chad went into the lion’s cage to clean it out.  What Chad didn’t know, and which I could see and the rest of the audience could see – it was a small screening room at Fox – is that the lion was in the cage.  So by this time I don’t think it’s Chad, I think it’s Dad.  And my God, he’s gonna get Dad.  I got so upset I ran down to the screen yelling, ‘Daddy! Daddy!  Daddy!  The lion’s there!’  Of course they had to take me out of the theatre.”  His mother calmed him down, telling him it was not Dad, but Chad Hanna, a character in the movie.  At the time, Henry Fonda was away at war, in Naval Air Intelligence.  When he came home on leave, he went by Peter’s school to pick him up.  “I saw the family’s ’38 Buick limousine.  It opens, and out steps Chad Hanna.  I had a tremendous problem, because here was Chad with the family car, and I sure as Hell did not want to drive with someone who was so stupid that he’d get into a lion’s cage.  So I hid in a bush.  I was a skinny kid and they couldn’t get me.”  Later he gained a much better understanding of his father from watching him do theatre, particularly MR. ROBERTS, rather than in movies.    

He described his first visit to a film set.  “I actually went on the set of FORT APACHE.  I went driving on the set and it was amazing – I told this story to John Wayne, Duke, and he was amazed that I could remember the detail of the car he was driving.  It was a crème-colored Cadillac, with red leather seats, and me and my sister (Jane) sat in the back, which was a smaller seat than in front, with John Wayne driving, my dad, and Ward Bond.  This was the first time I’d gone on a set.  And it didn’t mean anything; nobody explained it.  But I remember the car, John Wayne’s lovely Cadillac, and it was beautiful – four door, convertible, top down.  Now people say, what was it like growing up as Henry Fonda’s son?  My fast remark is, did you see FORT APACHE?  Do you know who Colonel Thursday is?  Do you know what kind of a man he was?  I’m joking – but unfortunately some people think, ‘Oh, he hates his father.’  I loved my father.  I love him now.  I miss him.” 

James Stewart was a good friend of the family.  “Jimmy Stewart was my godfather, and we all called him Uncle Jimmy.  He and my father were very close friends, and before they got heavy into filming, they were flying around in airplanes.  Although politically at opposite ends, they were very tight friends.  Whenever (Dad) was off in the Pacific, Jimmy would come back from his tours in the European theatre, flying a B-17, and come and see us all.  You have to understand that in 1945, ’46, Los Angeles was very small, and the air was extraordinarily clean.  My sister and I used to climb up on the roof – it was a pretty steep roof, on a very big house, but my sister and I had a way of getting up there.  And my mother would freak out if she knew.

“ One day, it’s Christmas Eve, there’s Uncle Jimmy.  He’s at the house, having a wonderful time.  We all knew him, all loved him – he was a funny man.  We were sent up the stairs of course, because it’s Christmas Eve.  We don’t get out until they let us in the morning.  Jane’s in her room, I’m in mine, and I hear some banging around on the roof.  I went to her room, I said, ‘Santa Claus is here, I think!’ We got out the window, on the roof, and there is Santa, at the chimney, with the Santa hat, the big bag.  But on closer observation, it was Uncle Jimmy.   Ho-ho-ho-ho!  But we’re on the roof, no one else is gonna hear this, so this performance is just for us.  And that’s when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but I kept believing in Uncle Jimmy.”   

Next Round-up I’ll have the rest of my TCM coverage, and part two of FONDA ON FONDA, including Peter’s memories of his father making ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, and directing Henry in WANDA NEVADA.  

FORD’S ‘IRON HORSE’ A ROUSING SUCCESS AT THE AUTRY!

It was quite a week for John Ford!  In addition to all of his films that were screened at the TCM Fest (and I’ve only talked about half of them), Thursday night saw The Welles Fargo Theatre at The Autry packed for the silent THE IRON HORSE, presented with an original score, a combination of live and programmed music by Emmy Award-nominated composer Tom Peters. 

Composer Tom Peters

Curator Jeffrey Richardson told me, “The Autry was proud and excited to host the debut of Tom Peter's score for John Ford's THE IRON HORSE. The audience, myself included, was captivated by the kaleidoscope of sound that magnified the power and intensity of the silent classic.” Senior Manager of Programs and Public Events Ben Fitzsimmons added, “Tom Peters certainly deserved his standing ovation after almost two and a half hours of playing his new score. He took folk songs of the era and combined them with other musical inspirations to create an epic piece of music to accompany an epic movie.”  

  

Although his IRON HORSE score is not yet available to hear, to give you an idea of the work Tom Peters does with silent film, here is a sample of his score from THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI.

GENE AUTRY DISCUSSION ADDED TO SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FEST!

It’s less than two weeks until the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival, on Saturday and Sunday, April 18^th & 19^th, and a new conversation has been added to my schedule at the Buckaroo Book Shop.  On Saturday at 5 pm I’ll be chatting with Karla Buhlman, President of Gene Autry Entertainment, about the legacy of America's Favorite Singing Cowboy, Gene Autry.  Karla knew Gene very well, and I’m sure she’ll have a lot to tell us.  Karla will also be joining the previously announced Saturday 2 pm panel discussion, Unsung Heroes of Film: The Hollywood Stunt Horse, where I’ll also be chatting with with Karen Rosa -Senior Consultant at the American Humane Association's Film & TV Unit, and authors Petrine Day Mitchum, Audrey Pavia, and National Cowgirl Hall of Fame Honoree Shirley Lucas Jauregui.  For a complete schedule of events at the Buckaroo Book Shop, go HERE

For the official Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival site, go HERE

WILD BILL WELLMAN HONORED AT UCLA APRIL-JUNE

One of the most independent voices in the golden years of Hollywood, William Wellman will be honored at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theatre with a 21 film retrospective, mostly double features.  While many of the ‘social commentary’ directors of the era had a tendency to preach, Wellman entertained while exposing society’s flaws, and certainly won more converts that way.  The series, entitled WILLIAM A. WELLMAN – HOLLYWOOD REBEL opens this Friday, April 10^th, at 7:30 pm with a wonderful double-bill: A STAR IS BORN and NOTHING SACRED.  They’re both in 35mm, both in color, and both from 1937 – can you imagine any director today making two such landmark films in one year?  (Of course, two years later, Victor Fleming made GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ – but with a lot of help!)  Starting at 6:30 pm, William Wellman Jr. will be selling and signing his book, Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel. 

On Saturday it’s WINGS (1927), with a live piano score by Cliff Retallick.  Westerns included in the series are CALL OF THE WILD, THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, THE TRACK OF THE CAT, YELLOW SKY, THE GREAT MAN’S LADY and WESTWARD THE WOMEN.  Non-Westerns of particular note include NIGHT NURSE, THE PUBLIC ENEMY, BEAU GESTE and WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD.  You can get the complete schedule HERE.  

THAT’S A WRAP!

Happy Passover and Happy Easter!  Next Round-up I’ll have the rest of my TCM coverage, which will include more Peter Fonda, plus some interesting comments from Christopher Plummer on John Huston, Sean Connery, and the making of Kipling’s THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING; and insights from a pair of Oscar-winning special effects men about the filming of Kipling’s GUNGA DIN in Lone Pine’s Alabama Hills!

I’m sorry I don’t have any good Western Passover clips, but here are three nice Easter pieces from the folks at Gene Autry Entertainment.  Enjoy!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright April 2015 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

L. A. ITAL FEST; 2 NEW HALLMARK WESTERNS

LOS ANGELES ITALIA FESTIVAL 2013 CELEBRATES ‘SPAGHETTI WESTERN MASTERS’

Franco Nero and Joan Collins at last year's Festival

The festival, which runs from Sunday, February 17^th through Saturday, February 23^rd, will honor Al Pacino with the first Jack Valenti – Los Angeles Italia Legend Award, and will be held at the Chinese Theatre 6 in Hollywood.  The screenings are free, on a first come, first served basis, although you may need to RSVP for events with live appearances.  Those of particular interest to Western fans begin on Sunday morning at 9, with the documentary ONCE UPON A TIME…SERGIO LEONE, directed by Giovanni Minoli.  That evening, at 10:40 p.m., the world premiere of another documentary, GIULIANO GEMMA: AN ITALIAN IN THE WORLD, directed by Vera Gemma.  Giuliano Gemma was a popular star first of gladiator movies, then of many Spaghetti Westerns, including A PISTOL FOR RINGO, ARIZONA COLT and ALIVE OR PREFERABLY DEAD. 

On Monday, February 18^th at 10:30 a.m., TEXAS, ADIOS, directed by Ferdinando Baldi and starring Franco Nero, will be screened.  On Tuesday, February 19^th at 9 a.m., DJANGO KILL…IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!, starring Tomas Milian and directed by Giulio Questi will screen.  At ten p.m., the short documentary FRANCO NERO: THE MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, directed by Carlo Gabriel Nero will screen, followed by the original DJANGO, starring Nero, and directed by Sergio Corbucci.  On Wednesday, February 20^th, at 10 p.m., RINGO THE KILLER, directed by Duccio Tessari and starring Giuliano Gemma, will screen.  On Friday, February 22^nd, at 8 p.m., Franco Nero will attend a screening of LETTERS TO JULIET (not a Western), in which he costars with his wife, Vanessa Redgrave, and Amanda Seyfried.  Finally on Saturday, February 23^rd, 3:40 p.m., Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (a gangster film, not a Western) will screen.  To learn more about these screenings, or about the many non-Western screenings and events, go HERE.

HULU TO MAKE A WESTERN!

Hulu, the online service for downloading and viewing TV episodes and movies, is entering the world of original programming with a Western!  Entitled QUICK DRAW, there is nothing else that I can reveal at this time, except that they will be shooting eight episodes over four weeks IN Southern California.  When I can share more, I will!

TWO NEW WESTERNS ON HALLMARK THIS MARCH!

Clearly no network has a greater commitment to the Western genre than the Hallmark Movie Channel.  Last month they aired QUEEN OF HEARTS (read my review HERE ),the third annual entry in their GOODNIGHT FOR JUSTICE franchise, co-created by, and starring Luke Perry as a 19^th Century Wyoming circuit judge.  Last June they premiered HANNAH’S LAW (read my review HERE ), and in March they’ll premiere two new Westerns: no other outlet has produced four new Westerns in a year.  No one else comes close.

The first, airing Saturday, March 9^th, is WILD HEARTS stars Ricky Schroder and his real-life daughter Cambrie Schroder.  Written by Ricky and Andrea (Mrs. Ricky) Schroder and directed by Ricky, it’s a present-day Western tale about a young girl who leaves Malibu for the Sierra Nevada Mountains to find her father, and hopefully establish a relationship.  He’s a professional wrangler, and they are both drawn together and apart over the future of a wild mustang named Bravo.  Also featured in the cast of this Schroder Family Production are three of Cambrie’s siblings, Holden, Luke and Faith.  Also lurking in this film is one of the current West’s most effective villains, Martin Kove.  I spoke with Ricky about his appearance in the most recent GOODNIGHT FOR JUSTICE film (you can read that HERE ) and hope to interview Ricky again, along with daughter Cambrie, very soon, and we’ll also be discussing LONESOME DOVE and his other Westerns.

‘SHADOW ON THE MESA’ will premiere on the Hallmark Movie Channel on Saturday, March 23^rd at 8 p.m.  Star Kevin Sorbo trades in his Hercules sandals for cowboy boots; co-starring with TRUE BLOOD’S Wes Brown; Gail O’Grady, thrice Emmy nominated for NYPD BLUE; Meredith Baxter, thrice Emmy nominated for FAMILY and A WOMAN SCORNED: THE BETTY BRODERICK STORY; Greg Evigan, well-remembered for B.J. AND THE BEAR and MY TWO DADS; and Barry Corbin of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and many others, and twice Emmy nominated for NORTHERN EXPOSURE. 

Wes Brown plays a bounty hunter searching for his mother’s killer, and enlisting the aid of the father he never knew, Sorbo.  Director David S. Cass Sr. knows westerns from the inside out.  Before he began directing 2^nd unit on HERE COME THE BRIDES, he started out at Old Tucson, stunting for Sam Peckinpah in DEADLY COMPANIONS, and later doubling for John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.  Incidentally, much of the cast has more Western experience than you might guess.  Gail O’Grady’s first screen role was in THE THREE AMIGOS, but don’t go crazy looking for her: her part was cut.  Greg Evigan was effective in the underrated but quite watchable 6 GUNS, playing a sheriff (read my review HERE ). Barry Corbin has many Western credits, but he has two very recent ones of particular interest: in REDEMPTION: FOR ROBBING THE DEAD (read my review HERE ) he’s very moving as a sympathetic judge.  In Ernest Borgnine’s last film, THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE HAND OF VICENTE FERNANDEZ (read my review HERE ) he’s hateful and funny as the Rascal-riding head outlaw bullying the other denizens of a retirement home.  And in 2012, Kevin Sorbo donned a beard to play Lincoln opposite Barry Bostwick, who plays the title character in F.D.R. – AMERICAN BADDASS (there are some questions as to the historical accuracy in this one, but it is a comedy).

NEW BEVERLY CINEMA DOUBLE-BILLS ‘DJANGO UNCHAINED’

‘DJANGO UNCHAINED’ has been screening at Quentin Tarantino’s own Hollywood revival house, The New Beverly Cinema, since the movie opened.  Now they’ve announced that starting on this Friday the 15^th, it will continue for two more weeks, but in a double-bill.  It’s not been disclosed what the second feature(s) will be , nor whether it’ll be two weeks with one other movie, a different double-bill every day, or something in between.  There is much speculation that DJANGO UNCHAINED will be paired with Spaghetti Westerns.  Stay tuned!

MORE MOVIES ANNOUNCED FOR ‘WHAT IS A WESTERN?’ AUTRY SERIES

The once-a-month screenings, now in their third year, will continue, while skipping the month of March, preempted by the play THE BIRD HOUSE, written by Cherokee playwright Diane Glancy.  The series is curated by Jeffrey Richardson, Gamble Curator of Western History, Popular Culture, and Firearms, who always leads a discussion of the film’s history prior to the screening.  All of the screening are on Saturdays.

April 20^th, RAMROD (1947), directed by Andre De Toth, starring Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea.  Also on hand, guest presenter James D’Arc, Curator of the Motion Picture Archive at Brigham Young University. 

May 11^th, HUD (1963), directed by Martin Ritt, starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal.

June 8^th, DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), directed by Billy Wilder, starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson.  (Great noir, but I wouldn’t call it a Western)  Guest presenter, Glynn Martin, Exec. Director of the Los Angeles Police Museum.

July 13^th, BLAZING SADDLES (1974), directed by Mel Brooks, starring Cleavin Little, Gene Wilde and Slim Pickens.

August 10^th, QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER (1990), directed by Simon Wincer, starring Tom Sellick, Laura San Giacomo and Alan Rickman.

And now, the Sergio Leone, ‘Man With No Name’ Triptych, on September 14^th, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, on October 12^th, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and on November 2^nd, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.

But wait, there’s more:  On Saturday, February 23^rd, at noon, there will be a double-feature screening of Gene Autry movies, as there is on the last Saturday of every month.  This time it is  BLUE MOUNTAIN SKIES (1939), and GENE AUTRY AND THE MOUNTIES (1951). 

And, not a screening, but a book talk and signing, on Saturday, March 9^th, at 2 p.m., Pulitzer Prize winner Glenn Frankel discusses his latest book, THE SEARCHERS, THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN LEGEND, with documentary director Nick Redman.

‘HEAVEN’S GATE’ TO SCREEN AT FILM FORUM, NEW YORK!

Praised as a masterpiece, mocked as a bomb, what is certain is that director Michael Cimino is one of the finest directing talents of the 20^th century, yet this movie cost an unheard-of-for-the-time fortune, and crashed and burned.  For one week, from March 22^nd through the 28^th, New Yorkers can see a new 4K restoration of the complete director’s cut, and judge for themselves.  I’ve never seen it, and am leery of watching an epic for the first time on a TV screen.  If I could get to New York, I’d be first in line.

LEE MARVIN MOVIES, AND THE SIEGE AT THE ALAMO, AT THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE!

On Saturday, February 16^th, 7:30 pm at the Egyptian, catch a double bill of Lee Marvin’s Oscar winner, CAT BALLOU and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.  UPDATE!  JUST FOUND OUT 'CAT BALLOU' DIRECTOR ELLIOT SILVERSTEIN WILL BE PRESENT TO SPEAK BETWEEN MOVIES!  Same time, same date at the Aero it’s GONE WITH THE WIND.  Thursday the 21^st at the Egyptian, Lee stars in HELL IN THE PACIFIC and THE PROFESSIONALS.  And on Saturday, February 23^rd, to mark the 13-day siege that began on this date in 1836, the Egyptian will screen Budd Boeticcher’s THE MAN FROM THE ALAMO, starring Glenn Ford.  Co-star Jeanne Cooper will be signing her autobiography beforehand, and after will join co-star Julie Adams, and Glenn Ford’s son Peter Ford for a discussion.

WESTERN WINS AT BAFTA

BAFTA, the British Oscars, were awarded tonight.  Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay, and Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for DJANGO UNCHAINED.  Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor for LINCOLN.

TCM FANATIC - WESTERN NOW ONLINE!

And speaking of TCM (okay, nobody was), have I mentioned that the segment I was interviewed for is now viewable here?








THE AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER

Built by cowboy actor, singer, baseball and TV entrepreneur Gene Autry, and designed by the Disney Imagineering team, the Autry is a world-class museum housing a fascinating collection of items related to the fact, fiction, film, history and art of the American West. In addition to their permanent galleries (to which new items are frequently added), they have temporary shows. The Autry has many special programs every week -- sometimes several in a day. To check their daily calendar, CLICK HERE. And they always have gold panning for kids every weekend. For directions, hours, admission prices, and all other information, CLICK HERE.



HOLLYWOOD HERITAGE MUSEUM

Across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, this building, once the headquarters of Lasky-Famous Players (later Paramount Pictures) was the original DeMille Barn, where Cecil B. DeMille made the first Hollywoodwestern, The Squaw Man. They have a permanent display of movie props, documents and other items related to early, especially silent, film production. They also have occasional special programs. 2100 Highland Ave., L.A. CA 323-874-2276. Thursday – Sunday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $3 for senior, $1 for children.



WELLSFARGO HISTORY MUSEUM

This small but entertaining museum gives a detailed history of Wells Fargo when the name suggested stage-coaches rather than ATMS. There’s a historically accurate reproduction of an agent’s office, an original Concord Coach, and other historical displays. Open Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Admission is free. 213-253-7166. 333 S. Grand Street, L.A. CA.


WESTERN ALL OVER THE DIAL


INSP’s SADDLE-UP SATURDAY features a block of rarely-seen classics THE VIRGINIAN and HIGH CHAPARRAL, along with BONANZA and THE BIG VALLEY. On weekdays they’re showing LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, BIG VALLEY, HIGH CHAPARRAL and DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN.


ME-TV’s Saturday line-up includes THE REBEL and WAGON TRAIN. On weekdays it’s DANIEL BOONE, GUNSMOKE, BONANZA, BIG VALLEY, WILD WILD WEST, and THE RIFLEMAN.


RFD-TV, the channel whose president bought Trigger and Bullet at auction, have a special love for Roy Rogers. They show an episode of The Roy Rogers Show on Sunday mornings, a Roy Rogers movie on Tuesday mornings, and repeat them during the week.


WHT-TV has a weekday afternoon line-up that’s perfect for kids, featuring LASSIE, THE ROY ROGERS SHOW and THE LONE RANGER.


TV-LAND angered viewers by dropping GUNSMOKE, but now it’s back every weekday, along with BONANZA.


WRAPPING UP…

Spent Saturday afternoon at The Autry, watching LAST OF THE MOHICANS in beautiful – if a little scratchy – 35mm.  I hadn’t seen it in its entirety since it opened twenty-one years ago, and I think I may have to add it to my regular every-two-years rotation, along with the best of Ford and Hawks, LONESOME DOVE and TOMBSTONE.  Amazing that after two decades, Madeline Stowe looks as beautiful in the current REVENGE as she does here, and Daniel Day-Lewis, though not as ‘ripped’ in his Academy Award-nominated LINCOLN as he is here, has aged well.  Russell Means, who we recently lost, turns in a fine performance, as does the terrifying Wes Studi, and whose name jumped out of the end titles but HELL ON WHEEL’S Colm Meany as a British officer.  As Curator Jeffrey Richardson pointed out, classifying it as a Western is iffy, unless you go back to the original designation of west of the thirteen original colonies.  But that’s good enough for me.  If you haven’t watched it in a while, it’s well worth tracking down.  And Jeff also says director Michael Mann is thinking of doing another Western.  I’m crossing my fingers!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright February 2013 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved