'EASTERN WESTERN' -- INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKERS THE GROZDANOVA SISTERS, WHO'S TRYING TO SUPPRESS 'YOU'RE NO INDIAN'? PLUS CRAIG JOHNSON ON 'RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER'

 

FROM BULGARIA WITH LOVE – OF THE AMERICAN WEST!

FILMMAKERS BILIANA AND MARINA GROZDANOVA ON EASTERN WESTERN

 

Eastern Western is a beautiful, inspiring immigrant story, but then, so are the lives of the sisters who made it, Biliana Grozdanova and Marina Grozdanova. Marina elaborates, “We’re from Bulgaria originally. We immigrated when we were very young with our parents, and we lived many, many different places, from Australia to Canada, Spain, and then we finally landed in the U.S. We're based in Brooklyn, New York.” Certainly a journey that might help one appreciate the United States, but why the western part of the country? “The Western, I think was the perfect genre for us to start with because it's a genre in which you can talk a lot about those issues, specifically immigration and coming to new lands.”

Biliana says, “We grew up with the ‘90s Westerns. One of the first films I remember seeing was Dances with Wolves, by Kevin Costner. Then we discovered Clint Eastwood, then we started moving backwards to Sergio Leone and Redford. The Western has been an iconography in our creative process. And as Marina said, it's the perfect genre: to tell a story of coming to America in the Western is as old as cinema. And we found that throughout these films that we love so much, you don't really hear the immigrant's perspective. Specifically the Eastern European journey to America was something that we wanted to tell, in this re-imagining of this man coming to America. The main character, Igor, he's from Bosnia and Herzegovina. So we kind of fused our two paths, from Bulgaria, from Bosnia, and made this imaginary tale.”

In the story, in the late 1800s, we find the recently widowed Igor (Igor Galijasevic), and his 2-year-old son Ivo (Leonardo Galijasevic), in a frozen Montana, trying to survive the winter on their farm, and to make a life for themselves in America. They befriend a horse breeder (Duncan Vezain) and his family, and throw in together. The tale is told chronologically, with some abrupt forward leaps.  

Henry Parke: In making this film, were there any particular filmmakers or films that were key references to you, that influenced you?

Marina Grozdanova: I would say no. I would say going into making this film, I specifically was not thinking of any films, only because when you enter a landscape such as Montana, the landscape itself is what inspires the basis of your story, and then the characters you bring into it. Maybe tangentially the cinematic practice of recent filmmaker Chloe Zhao (note: director of The Rider, Nomadland, Hamnet); she does a lot of non-actor films, and she started off by making non-actor Westerns. And perhaps that was in the back of our minds, but I would say that in making this particular movie, I would like to think that it came purely from our minds and our hearts.

Biliana Grozdanova: I echo what Marina says. We didn't set out to make a movie like any other, but deep down, my personal inspiration does come from Kevin Costner. It does come from Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes, the first modern novel, Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. Just as general inspiration of the myths of the West, I do think influences are in the aura of Eastern Western.

Henry Parke: Your style of filmmaking tends to be very, naturalistic, not heavily plot-driven. I was wondering how you went about writing the screenplay.

Marina Grozdanova: To be perfectly honest, our screenplay was a very, I won't say short or rough, but it was an outline. We had a starting point. We had a midpoint; I would say the end point came after a few weeks of shooting, actually. We did one test shoot, and then we did our first shoot in November of 2022. And in that time period, we had maybe half of the outline of the screenplay thought out. And as we did our first shoot, we made the story as we were getting to know our real characters, our non-actors. Igor and his real-life son are the protagonists of the film. And then we incorporated another real-life Montana family to be featured later on in the film. And so we really allowed the story to mold around them. Therefore, the screenplay started off as an outline, then it developed more in detail as we met new characters throughout the shoots.

Biliana Grozdanova: And to piggyback off of that, we fluctuate between documentary and fiction. We come from a documentary background, and we are really open to -- we say this a lot -- the magic of cinema, where you can write the best script. Of course we love scripted cinema, but always being open to improv and discovering new twists and turns for your story was something that we worked with.

Henry Parke: The first sequence that you shot were the things with Igor and his son alone?

Biliana Grozdanova: Yes. Well, actually the first day of filming was the grizzly bear. We thought, if we can get this top list, we'll be good to go.

Henry Parke: Oh my God! Traditionally in Hollywood, you do that scene last, in case your lead gets eaten by the bear.

Biliana Grozdanova: Exactly.

Henry Parke: So you took a big chance there. Shooting a Western under any circumstances is a challenge, but some of the scenes shot in the snow must have been very challenging.

Leonardo Galijaseviv as Ivo

Biliana Grozdanova: It was. Winter was our probably hardest portion because of the cold. We were working with limited hours of daylight, and as you said, naturalistic is our style. We also don't really light any of our scenes, and heavily rely on daylight and moving with the characters and flowing with the characters. So it was difficult. We were also working with kids and horses and animals, which they tell you not to do, because there are lot of factors there. But the elements in Montana very much dictate your shoot, as well as the baby. The young Evo in the film, Leonardo in real life, we were on his schedule. If he has a nap, we'll film the napping scene. If he's crying, we'll film the crying scene. That, plus winter in a tiny cold cabin, was rough. But I think that those winter images are some of my favorite images of the film.

Henry Parke:  Oh, they're just beautiful. The whole film is beautiful, and I was struck by the fact that your cinematographer and editor are the same guy, Cameron Wheeless, which is very unusual, although maybe that would help with the cutting ratio.

Biliana Grozdanova:  We are a small production team. We never hide that. We are very nimble on set and also in post-production. And it did help. We cut the film along with our cinematographer and editor, the three of us together in a room, making some really hard decisions. A lot of scenes were left on the cutting room floor because of the nature of how we film, the improvt. But it's a special way of working. Maybe we're too close to the material; maybe he's too close to the material because he shot it, but in the end, I think it really worked out having a small team.

Igor Galijaseviv

Henry Parke: Was the epilogue sequence also shot in Montana?

Marina Grozdanova: The epilogue actually is shot in Bosnia and Hetzagovina. That portion of the film came out after we shot everything, and we knew that we were not done yet with the story of this spirit of the horse, of the child that grows up. We knew that there had to be some connection to home and a return to Bosnia. Therefore, we said, let's go to Bosnia. Let's shoot the end of this film and really make it a return to home. And also demonstrate that the 1800s led the way into the 20th century. And we had to also tell the story of the beginning of the 20th century, how the World War really showcased a new use for horses. The horse, as it existed in the Western, now had to go serve and help out the forces in Europe. And we thought that that was something that had to be told to really tell the full story of the horse. And also Igor's homeland Bosnia; you know, Eastern Europe is where everything started for World War I.

Henry Parke: How many shooting days did you have?

Marina Grozdanova: We shot over the course of three different chapters. The winter, then we took eight months off, shot in the summertime. We wanted to showcase the seasons, and then the epilogue was shot in the fall in Bosnia. So we had approximately, gosh, 35 shoot days. Which is probably more than you should have for an indie feature. But we were small and nimble, so we could do that.

Henry Parke: Were you shooting film or digital?

Biliana Grozdanova: Definitely digital. We actually have a great little doc style camera that really did wonders with the style of the film, primarily filmed with one wide angle, prime lens. And really, I think we're able to capture intimacy with the characters because we got so close to them. Our cinematographer got so close to them, and the vastness of Montana, really both of those and the nature in general were captured well with the style that we chose.

Henry Parke: Any favorite memories of the shoot?

Marina Grozdanova: I would say the winter, only because it was the start of the adventure. And the start is always, at least for me, less stressful than the middle, because you don't quite realize the avalanche you're gonna be a part of. And also, I really enjoyed the challenge of filming in the snow. I did sound for about 70% of the movie, and all that snow, right next to our cinematographer. We were running through fields and that was fun.

Marina Grozdanova

Biliana Grozdanova: I would say filming with Adam the Bear, who passed recently. Adam the Bear had a very great life, was part of a sort of animal sanctuary in Montana that was really special. And working with the horses in general, and discovering things that we weren't expecting as part of this magic of cinema. You know, some of the greatest lines in the film are improvised. Like when they're having the dinner conversation, Duncan says, we have to go west. Olivia ends that with, 'you Don't forget family.' That was not scripted. And that was one of my favorite lines of the film. So the, the magic magical moments that we didn't expect are, are some of my favorites.

Henry Parke: Most of the characters use their real first names. I was wondering if that was to loosen them up, with that kind of improvised dialogue?

Biliana Grozdanova: As directors we made that choice to leave their actual names, because each character is a version of themselves 150 years in the past. To a great extent they helped us create those characters. So Igor is Igor in the past. Duncan is Duncan in the past, and the only person who doesn't carry the same name is little Evo, because he grows up and he's played by two different real-life people. Everyone else carries their own names.

Henry Parke: There’s very little music in the film, and  certainly not the sort of sweeping Western kind of score that people tend to expect. What was your intention with your score?

Biliana Grozdanova: Thank you for noticing the music. We really are proud of the choice that we made. Six out of the seven tracks in the film are by a former Yugoslavian artist, Baranko Mathia, who passed in the 2000s. He was an immigrant from former Yugoslavia to the American West, I think California. And he built custom guitars, even for Johnny Cash. He had only two albums, I believe you can find him on Spotify, but it was very unique sound, which kind of fluctuates between the East and the West. It's a little rough and analog-y, and it reminded us of certain tones of the Spaghetti Western. And the fact that he was from Eastern Europe and came to America really fit with the motifs in our film. So that's six of the tracks, and then the seventh track that is during the gun battle is actually a Bulgarian composition. We have polyphonic singers in Bulgaria that are a very special type of niche music. And that's our stamp. The only Bulgarian element in the film, besides us, is that Bulgarian composition during the gun battle.

Henry Parke: Among your previous credits is a documentary about the heavy metal band Hessler.

Marina Grozdanova: It’s called Last Kamikazes of Heavy Metal, which features Igor Galijazavic, the main character of Eastern Western. He had a heavy metal band like 12 years ago in Chicago. We met him, we toured, and it was lovely. We became really good friends and when we started Eastern Western, we knew that we wanted him to play our lead cowboy.

Henry Parke: Does he want to have an acting career now?

Marina Grozdanova: I think he really enjoyed the process, and the fact that we made a film with his son, who is already now two years older. I mean, we work in family obviously, and he really discovered his love for acting since the Kamikaze days, but specifically with Eastern Western. I hope we do get to work together again. And I hope he does get roles because he's really talented.

Henry Parke: Is there anything else that I should know about Eastern Western?

Biliana Grozdanova, right

Biliana Grozdanova: Primarily to say that this film lives in a space between fiction and documentary, and the majority of everyone you see on screen there are non-professional actors. So they really left their souls on our screen and helped us create this truly ensemble cast-based picture. So we're really proud of our cast, and also really thankful for our crew. And we hope to continue making cinema as sisters.Henry Parke: I should say something about how good Duncan, your second male lead, was. He's quite a find.

Biliana Grozdanova: Duncan is an incredible horse wrangler and rancher from Montana. All the horses on screen are Duncan's. That's his family, his wife, his daughters. He has had small roles in other pictures where he's wrangling, and maybe delivers a few lines but I know that this is his biggest role yet, and he really did an incredible job and we loved having cast him.

Marina Grozdanova: And I just want to add one last thing. Thank you so much, Henry, for this interview. As independent filmmakers, I think for all of us, other filmmakers besides us, it's a really tough moment. And I think through articles such as this, and press, l think that audiences should support independent cinema and I really hope we're moving in that direction.

Henry Parke: I sure hope so. It was a real pleasure to speak to you both and, and to see your film and I wish you all kinds of luck with it.

WHO DOESN’T WANT YOU TO SEE ‘YOU’RE NO INDIAN’?

If you’ve read my article, A Century of Tribal Disenrollment, in the September/October 2025 issue of True West – and if haven’t, HERE is the link – you’ll know that documentarian Ryan Flynn has made a fascinating and infuriating film, You’re No Indian. It reveals an insidious form of ‘cancel culture’: the widespread practice, especially among tribes which own casinos, of disenrolling members without legitimate cause, for the purpose of increasing the casino share among those remaining. About 11,000 members have been disenrolled from various tribes.

When I spoke to Ryan on Wednesday, December 10^th, he was just back from The Anchorage International Film Festival. “We had a sold-out crowd (of) about 250 people. You could feel it in the audience watching the film; they were moved. The Q and A was powerful. It was interesting; about an hour before the screening, the Film Festival received a ‘cease and desist’ from the lawyers representing Macarro.”

Mark Macarro is the Chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians. “He's the president of the NCAI (National Congress of American Indians). He was just reelected.” As an Indigenous leader, he’s been a familiar face on television and in the news for decades. And unlike You’re No Indian Executive Producers Wes Studi and Tantoo Cardinal – Cardinal narrates the documentary – Macarro does not want you to see it.

At least they weren’t able to stop the screening. Earlier in the year, You’re No Indian was to premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. “We had sold out two screenings, and we were working on our third, and just weeks before this major film festival, they said there was a scheduling issue. And basically said, there's nothing you can say to get this film screened.

I am not going to accuse anybody of doing it, but it's not hard to think that this is part of an effort to silence us.”

You’re No Indian has since played in several film festivals. At the Red Nation International Film Festival in Hollywood, “we received the Impact Award.” And in November, they received something else. As Flynn emailed supporters, “On November 24, we received a cease-and-desist letter from attorneys representing the Pechanga Band of Indians and Chairman Mark Macarro. The letter demands that all screenings and distribution of the film be stopped, citing concerns about research and representation.” The irony is that, not only did Flynn and company reach out to Macarro during the making of the film “multiple times. We've documented every instance because we thought reaching out to him might be a part of the film. We have ourselves on camera trying to call him, emailing him, texting him.  In the film, in its current form, we say that Mark didn't respond. At an NCAI conference a couple years ago, I introduced myself, shook his hand, and he invited us to give him a call. And we did. He didn't respond. Well, he did respond <laugh>: we got a cease and desist.”

When I suggested that, at any rate, a response two years later would be useless, Flynn responded, “I disagree. Responding now, it's still useful. (If Macarro would do an interview), we will include his perspective in the film, and as I've said, we will release the entire interview, our conversation uncut, so that everybody can see exactly what the conversation was. And I think that's fair.”

“You know, this is not about Mark Macarro, or the Pechanga tribe. This is about raising awareness for disenrollment, and part of that conversation is, what are we here to protect? What are we fighting for? We're fighting for the preservation of what disenrollment claims to protect, which is culture.”

Please check out the trailer below. To find out where you can see You’re No Indian, visit the official website HERE. 

CRAIG JOHNSON ON 'RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER' PODCAST!

I join Bobbi Jean and Jim Bell on the first Thursday of every month for their Rendezvous With a Writer podcast, and this month we had the great pleasure of speaking with Craig Johnson about his newest Longmire novel, Return to Sender. I'm giving you a choice of links below, depending on whether you just want to hear our voices, or prefer to stare at our happy smiling faces (previewed above).

VIDEO -- RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER

https://www.latalkradio.com/sites/default/files/Videos/Rendezvous-120425.mp4

AUDIO -- RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER

ONE MORE THING...

HOW COOL IS THIS! INSP has created an author page for me, linking to a bunch of my articles! https://www.insp.com/authors/henry-c-parke/

They’ve even created a Henry Parke avatar, which will never change, even if I go all Dorian Gray!

And please check out the November/December 2025 True West, featuring my article, Val Kilmer in His Cups, about the making of Tombstone from the perspective of costume designer Joseph Porro, and my review of the new Blu-Ray release, Hopalong Cassidy, the Legacy Collection, Vol. 1.

AND THAT'S A WRAP!

Have a very Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever you celebrate! And wishing you a very Happy New Year!

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright December 2025 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved

KEVIN COSTNER ON HOPES FOR ‘HORIZON 1-4’, CRAIG ‘LONGMIRE’ JOHNSON ON HIS NEWEST NOVELLA, 'GUNSMOKE' AUCTION, PLUS AUSSIE WESTERN SERIES ‘TERRITORY’, UPCOMING ‘FRONTIER CRUCIBLE’!

 

KEVIN COSTNER ON ‘HORIZON’

“I love what I do. I feel privileged to be able to do it. It has been a struggle, but it was a struggle for my crew too. Just to give you an example, I shot Dances with Wolves in 106 days. And Horizon, the first one, is arguably as big as that, if not bigger. We shot it in 52 days. No one stopped working. No one was late. [Everyone] was ready.” -- Kevin Costner

 

On Tuesday night, November 12^th, at the Angelika Theatre in New York’s West Village, Horizon, an American Saga, Chapter One, was screened for an audience of mostly members of various film guilds. Afterwards, star, director and co-writer Kevin Costner took to the stage with actress Ella Hunt, and Mara Webster of In Creative Company. Mara interviewed Kevin and Ella about making Horizon, and the following quotes from Kevin Costner are in answer to Mara’s questions.

Ella Hunt, Kevin Costner, Mara Webster

For those who have not yet seen Horizon, Chapter One, the title is the name of a town-to-be which an unscrupulous and thus-far unseen businessman has promoted as heaven-on-Earth to many would-be pioneers. Costner, who doesn’t appear for the first hour, plays Hayes Ellison, a horse trader who inadvertently gets thrust into a feud. Ella Hunt plays Juliette Chesney, a privileged Englishwoman travelling by wagon-train with her artist husband, both of them woefully unprepared for the trip, and clueless as to what’s expected of them. Costner’s and Hunt’s characters do not meet in Chapter One, but doubtless will in Chapter Two.

Mara Webster began by pointing out that Costner had been trying to put together Horizon since 1988, and wondered how having a 35-year gestation period affected the project. (Note: I spoke to Kevin Costner in 2019 for True West – here’s the link: https://truewestmagazine.com/article/kevin-costner/ -- an updated version of my interview is in my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made and the People Who Made Them -- and we had discussed Horizon, a project that he wanted to make: “I have a Western that I really want to make; I just can’t find the rich guys that want to make it—an epic Western.”)
“Well, I was certainly ready to make it. I wasn't sure I'd find somebody like Ella. And I'm not sure Ella was born when I started thinking about this thing (note: Ella Hunt was born in 1998). It's an unusual story about Ella. It hasn't happened to me very often -- it happened to me once in Dances with Wolves. Robert Pastorelli (note: Candice Bergen’s useless apartment maintenance man from Murphy Brown) came in to read a part. And he came in spats, he had his bowling shirt on, and his gold ‘goomba’ stuff. And the part I had picked out for him -- I just looked at him -- he started reading and I said, ‘Robert, just stop for a second.’ I took his sides out of his hand. There was another (role), this dirty teamster, and I handed him those sides, and he made history with it. He was such an incredible actor. (Note: Pastorelli died in 2004, at age 49.) And when I first met Ella, she was going to read for the daughter (of a pioneer family), and I didn't take the sides out of her hand, but I made a switch right there, that she would play this incredible character, that we would be asking to do so much. She just has this incredible beauty and youngness about her. But there's some incredible maturity about her too.”

Tom Payne and Ella Hunt

“I thought he was joking,” Hunt responded. “And then was incredibly flattered, and daunted, as Juliette is a character who is very tested over the course of these films… I think one of the very special things about Kevin as a director is…the belief that he invests in all of the people around him. I'm so grateful that you looked at me and thought that I could do that. And now, because of Juliette, I've gone on to do things that I wouldn't have allowed myself to. I've just played Gilda Radner (note: in the new film, Saturday Night).”

In answer to Webster’s question about how Costner chooses when to shoot closely, intimately, and when to “see the impact of the landscape,” he replied, “Well, we did go to places that still exist in America. It's if you're willing to get out of chasing a rebate. For me, that was important, to have these landscapes that went on forever. But you know, we're not making a travelogue. And eventually it boils down to what is the story, and it shrinks down. And when someone can dominate the horizon, this giant landscape, you have to find scenes that are so intimate to set against it. And so we created scenes where my actors swallow this horizon. They're so strong that you forget about how far the country goes. You realize the pain and what they're going through. I like to think of the Western as our Shakespeare. This is not a series of ‘yeps’ and ‘nopes’. It was a Victorian age and people did have the ability to express themselves really beautifully. You have Danny Houston giving us a speech, which I equate to James Earl Jones' speech in Field of Dreams, Danny explaining Manifest Destiny. And you get someone like Ella, who shows the most intimate moment of a woman who is just tired of being dirty, and just the feel of water. And when you watch her perform that moment, and look in that mirror, (you) also understand how cold that night was. You know, that scene has as much place for me in a Western as a gunfight. It had to be there.”

Asked how he gave familiar genre elements a deeper context, Costner replied, “Well, I tried to break with Westerns because I don't like a lot of Westerns; most of them aren't very good. And the black-and-whites that we grew up with, they were so simple, they were a mainstay of our televisions, our theater. But they often were too simple for me. The black hat, the white hat, the way people dressed. But the thing that stood out for me, what had been missing almost in every way -- and it took a while for it to dawn on me -- is every western has a town. But they're not like mushrooms: they didn't just come up. There was a terrible struggle that took place. And it took place from sea to shining sea. Every inch of that land was fought for, was contested. Where our great cities exist, (there) were (already) people. They know where the good places were to live. And we did too, and we kind of wiped them out. But that was not ever talked about in any Westerns: the towns always exist. And I started wondering, what would it be like to see the beginning of something? There was nothing there, there was a (new) group of people that had found a level of equilibrium that made peace with the (native) people to such a degree that they were getting along. [As the film begins,] the first image is a surveyor stick that goes into an ant hill. And we disrupted their way of life. And what you'll see when you see all four -- and I hope that you do -- is you'll see the struggle: this town burns and is rebuilt and burns and rebuilt, and finally there's a tipping point in the West. And it was just simply numbers. They (the natives) never stood a chance. But I also don't want to be embarrassed about the ingenuity and the bravery and the spontaneity and the courage that it took for people to cross that Mississippi and go there. It's not a land in Disneyland; it was contested, it was real. The country was founded in the East, but its character was really formed in the West with this constant battle.

Tom Payne, Ella Hunt, Kevin Costner 

“I think we've had enough of heroes having buffoons to knock down. When you face formidable people, it makes for a more interesting movie. When you believe in the behavior -- it's not really possible for one guy to beat up everybody in the bar. Everybody assumes that everybody could ride a horse, or fix a wagon, or make a fire. If you stick with the reality, there can be a lot of drama in the West, and a lot of danger. Something that I gravitated to when I was little, was when I saw children in a movie being able to survive in an adult world; I leaned into the movie more. But when children were stupid in movies, where directors or writing made them stupid, I leaned away. And I think that with all our CGI, with all our great effects that we have to build our movies up, when we don't invest in character, in behavior, those things aren't any good to us. When we see ourselves is when our greatest joy happens in the theater.

“I do like to make these movies, and when I started writing this with Jon (Baird) in 1988, it's safe to say that no one really wanted to make it. And in 2003, the studio wouldn't make it for 5 million more dollars. And I was distressed about that. I went on to make other movies, but I couldn't leave this one behind. And I was so mad that they didn't understand the first one, that I decided to write four more. (The audience laughs.) And everybody goes, oh yeah, that's Kevin! Jon and I, we started writing, and again, I wasn't writing to please anybody, I was trying to please myself because I think that's my best chance at pleasing you.

“I do love horses running fast. I do love the mountains and rivers that never end. And I do love the gunfight if it's orchestrated correctly. But what surprised me was when I looked up or looked down, with Jon Baird, who I am completely indebted to, was that every story had women running right down the middle. So here I had these Big Four Cowboy Movies, and women almost dominate -- and Ella dominates Chapter Two.  I just found that I couldn't tell the story that I was trying to, without making women dominant. It was a surprise to me. I don't know if fate was just moving my hand. I go, ‘Not another woman! Come on! Where's the gun fight?’ But I loved how their struggle fit so perfectly in the West. I'm proudest of the script, that Jon Baird allowed these actors to feast on with myself.”

An audience member asked if all four parts of Horizon are written. “They're all written, so this is not a case of ‘we don't know where it's going.’ We know exactly where it's going. I don't know why four movies is what's in my head, but that's what it is. And so I will push the rock uphill to find the money to do this. So that one day you'll have these four, and I hope this is a Treasure Island on your bookshelf of electronic films. I hope you have it to show your friends, to revisit it and see the details, see the nuances and choices that these actors made because it was really extraordinary acting going on in an American Western. There's a notion that things are easy for me. I guess maybe they are, if I do the things that people want me to do, and it's not that I am a contrary person. I'm not even an avant garde person for crying out loud. I make movies with horses and campfires, but I do it with an edge. It's not always in vogue. But I'm so happy to be able to do it. And I won't rest until I'm done. And I will figure it out. If I can't find that billionaire, I will look to myself like I did on One and Two. But there will be four.”

An audience member asked Costner how he made period films seem so contemporary. “Well, I think that in every generation we have abusive people. We have peeping toms -- we had them on the wagon train. So I can blend the same difficulties that we have in life and bring them right into the frontier. We have the sociopath; we have acts of kindness. There were guns and there was alcohol and a lot of times there weren't very many women. People were angry. And you run into a person that's just killed somebody and there's a bloodlust. (Note: the following refers to a scene where he’s going up a hill to see the prostitute Marigold, played by Abbey Lee, and is stalked and goaded by gunman Jamie Bower playing Caleb Sykes.) Jamie Bower, who walked up that hill with me – that actor's amazing. So we have a gun fight -- I’m not trying to reinvent the Western. But what I was really interested in was the walk up the hill; that this was a bully, and we've all encountered them in school and at work. And this was somebody that was coming out of a blood lust. He had just killed someone. He'd just been humiliated by his brother. And that was just as interesting to me. A studio might say, ‘Just get to the gunfight for crying out loud, Kevin!’ And I'm in love with the walk. I think I'm always going to be in love with the walk.”

Jamie Bower and Kevin Costner

An audience member notes the industry’s lack of interest in passion projects, and asks Costner where his wellspring of determination and hope comes from. “I just believe. I believe in story so much. I believe I have a secret in my pocket, and I just can't wait to share it). The only thing that's disappointing to me is I can't be you, and see this for the very first time like you just saw it: I wanted people to make a movie like this for me. But I can't lose my enthusiasm. No one can break me, break my spirit. I do get down, do wonder how I'm going to go on, but I love my actors. I just love that I found my Yellow Brick Road a long time ago, when I didn't figure to have any future. I got D’s and F’s in high school, where you're supposed to at least be kind of good.

“I found myself. And to be here in front of you, to be able to share what I love with people who share and have a passion that runs so deep, it's so personal, every detail. And I hope that you see them, (the Horizon films) and you revisit them the same way. When I watched Wizard of Oz, I didn't know the horses change color. I should have, because there's the line, ‘A horse of a different color.’ Every time I watch that, I see something new. And that's what I want from my movies. My movies. They have to be more than just an opening weekend. They have to be a lifetime.”

 

CRAIG ‘LONGMIRE’ JOHNSON JOINS ‘RENDEZVOUS WITH A WRITER’ TO DISCUSS HIS NEWEST NOVELLA, ‘TOOTH AND CLAW’

On the first Thursday of every month, I have the pleasure of being ‘in the limelight,’ joining hosts Bobbi Jean and Jim Bell on their weekly Rendezvous with a Writer podcast, where I present the month’s news in the world of film and TV Westerns, and take part in their interview with a guest writer. On November 7th, that guest was Longmire creator Craig Johnson, who was announcing the publication of his newest novella, Tooth and Claw. This story takes Longmire and Henry Standing Bear back to the Vietnam War years, and their adventures in Alaska among polar bears and bad men. The link below will bring you to the podcast: 

https://www.facebook.com/bobbi.j.bell/videos/8753051584737954

 

AUSSIE WESTERN SERIES ‘TERRITORY’ ON NETFLIX

Robert Taylor, Sam Corlett

Actor Robert Taylor, who starred as the title character on the phenomenally popular Longmire, has two series this year. He plays Jackson Gibbs, a continuing character on NCIS: Origins, and for Netflix, he stars as Colin Lawson, the patriarch of the Lawson family, who are 5^th generation owners of the largest cattle-station in Australia. (Note: what Americans call ranches, Australians call stations.) It’s stated in the first of six episodes that it’s the size of Belgium, which I suspect is roughly the size of Yellowstone. In the opener, the son that Colin has been grooming to take over the family business meets an ugly fate, and the others scramble to take his position. I found the first episode gripping, and will definitely watch more.    

JANET ARNESS DISCUSSES JULIEN’S ‘GUNSMOKE’ AUCTION

On November 15^th, Julien’s held a Western-themed, largely Gunsmoke auction in the Hollywood Museum, former home of Max Factor glamour empire. There were 568 lots up for bids, 230 from the estate of TV’s Matt Dillon, James Arness. I had the pleasure of discussing the auction before the fact with Jim’s widow, Janet Arness, for an article for the INSP blog. Here is the link: https://www.insp.com/blog/what-janet-arness-thinks-of-the-gunsmoke-auction/

Incidentally, I’m writing another INSP follow-up article on how the auction turned out.

 

THOMAS JANE, ARMIE HAMMER TO STAR IN ‘FRONTIER CRUCIBLE’

Thomas Jane from Murder at Yellowstone City

Johnny Depp and an un-masked Lone Ranger, Armie Hammer

Shooting in Monument Valley and Prescott, Arizona beginning this month, Frontier Crucible will be rolling camera under the direction of Travis Mills, who gained attention when he made good on his audacious pledge to make 12 Westerns in 12 months – during Covid, no less! In the post-Civil War drama set in Arizona Territory, Myles Clohessy is an ex-soldier who throws in with outlaws lead by Jane, and a couple, Mary Stickley and Ed Brown, to fight against common enemies. The role for Hammer, the screen’s most recent Lone Ranger, was not specified. Also in the cast is Eddie Spears. Producer Dallas Sonnier pitched the project as Reservoir Dogs meets Bone Tomahawk, and he in fact produced Bone Tomahawk, as well as 2022’s Terror on the Prairie. (Click HERE to read about my visit to the Bone Tomahawk set, and my interview with Dallas Sonnier https://henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2015/10/bone-tomahawk-review-interviews-plus.html )

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the new November/December issue of True West Magazine, featuring my article celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Sam Peckinpah’s classic, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid – I was fortunate enough to interview Peckinpah’s assistant Katy Haber, film editor and historian Paul Seydor, and one of the movie’s last living stars – although he’s the first one killed onscreen – Charles Martin Smith. And the next Round-up will feature my interview with Michael Feifer on the eve of directing his 8^th Western!

Much obliged,

Henry C. Parke

All Original Contents Copyright November 2024 by Parke – All Rights Reserved

 

TOM WOPAT ON HIS INSP ‘COUNTY LINE’ MOVIES, VITAGRAPH -- THE PERFECT GIFT BOOK FOR THE MOVIE-HISTORY LOVER, I’VE GOT A BOOK DEAL, AND MORE!

TOM WOPAT – NOT JUST A GOOD OL’ BOY

TOM WOPAT ON HIS INSP ‘COUNTY LINE’ MOVIES, BEING LUKE DUKE, HIS WESTERNS, AND MUSICALS

By Henry C. Parke

On Monday, November 28^th, at 10 p.m. Eastern time, the second of INSP’s County Line movies starring Tom Wopat, County Line: All In, will play on INSP.  It’s also streaming on Vudu, and is available to purchase on Amazon.

No disrespect to Waylon Jennings, there’s nothing wrong with being a good ol’ boy, but fans who know Tom Wopat by his portrayal of rural characters in movies like County Line and series like The Dukes of Hazzard may be surprised to learn that he’s also a major Broadway musical star. Tom certainly has his country credentials, growing up in Lodi, Wisconsin, “On a farm.  Every other farmer had a little dairy farm.”  But his goals would soon draw him beyond his state’s border, and he credits Wisconsin’s education system for preparing him.

TOM WOPAT:  Back in the sixties. you remember when Kennedy said we we're going to the moon in nine years?  We did, you know. I think that our schools in Wisconsin were exceptional, in that decade especially. And I was fortunate enough to have really fine music teachers, even when I was a little kid.  The local music teacher kind of took me under her wing and encouraged me to learn songs and do solos. And then a guy from North Carolina came to the University of Wisconsin, and he, again, took me under his wing and taught me. I sang opera, I sang German Lieder art songs. I had a really wonderful musical education in our little high school.

HENRY PARKE: So you were first attracted to music, rather than acting?

TOM WOPAT: Definitely. I did my first musical when I was 12.  I kinda learned acting just in self-defense (laugh). I started getting better and better parts and, when I went to the University, (I did) West Side Story, and Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar -- I played Judas in that. It was amazing. And also there were guys that, again, took me under their wing. I was directed towards the summer stock theater in Michigan, where I could get my [theatre actors’ union] Equity card. After I got my Equity card, I took my ‘68 Chevy and 500 bucks and two guitars and drove to New York.

When I got to New York, it was pretty quick. I got there in the fall of ‘77, and by the spring of 78 I was in an off-Broadway musical. I left that one to go to D.C., where I played the lead character in The Robber Bride Room, the Bob Waldman musical. I left that to go back to Broadway and replace Jim Naughton in I Love My Wife. So within six or seven months of being in New York, I was on Broadway in the leading role.

HENRY PARKE: When you were doing so well on Broadway, why did you go to Hollywood?

TOM WOPAT: To quote Larry Gatlin, they made me an offer I couldn't understand (laugh). It was shortly after I finished an off-Broadway run in Oklahoma. I read for Dukes, and that afternoon they called and said, you want to fly to LA and do a screen test? I said, I guess so. I don't know (laugh), I'm just a farm boy from Wisconsin. So I packed up a few things in a paper bag and got on a plane. And 10 days later, we were shooting in Georgia.  I mean, I went from Wisconsin in the fall of '77 to New York, and was on Broadway in the summer of 78. And in the fall of 78 we were making the Dukes of Hazzard.

Tom Wopat and John Schneider

HENRY PARKE: That's amazingly fast.

TOM WOPAT: Yeah, it was a bit of a whirlwind. When I found out I got the part, I was more frightened than relieved. I had just put my toes into the water in New York City, doing Broadway, and then all of a sudden I gotta go and do a role in an action series. I had no idea how to approach television. It's a different ballgame than being on stage.  But I figured I'd make a little money and go back to Broadway, but not so: Dukes was a big hit immediately. So then I moved to LA for a few years.

HENRY PARKE:  You mentioned going to Georgia to shoot. I thought the series was shot at Warner Brothers in Burbank.

TOM WOPAT:  We shot five shows in Georgia, and it was a little grittier, a little more adult show than what it ended up being. They started preaching to the choir a little bit. And some of the scripts got fairly cartoonish for a while. We even had a visitor from outer space in one episode (laugh), which is really bizarre.

HENRY PARKE:  How did you get along with John Schneider? 

TOM WOPAT:  I’ve got six brothers, but I count John as number seven.  I really, really enjoyed my time. I enjoyed our cast. Our cast was very close and still is, really a nice bunch of people.

HENRY PARKE: You worked with two of my favorite actors in that regularly, Denver Pyle as Uncle Jesse, and James Best as Sheriff Rosco Coltrane.

TOM WOPAT: Terrific actors, terrific. And Sorrell Booke [Boss Hogg] might have been the best of the bunch.  Denver and Jimmy probably had more visibility, but Sorrel was kind of ubiquitous for a while. He's in What's Up, Doc? He was on M.A.S.H. And he was a really, really talented guy. All three of them were very talented and very helpful to the younger crew.

HENRY PARKE:  Why did you and John Schneider famously walk out?   

TOM WOPAT: Well, they [the Dukes producers] sell all the dolls and the cars and all that merchandise stuff, and we were supposed to get a pretty good taste of that.  But the way they did it is they had a series of shell companies.  So they would buy the company that made the toys, they would buy the company that licensed everything. They were making half a billion dollars a year, and we were getting a check for a couple of grand. So we thought we were being cheated. And unfortunately, that's the word we used in our lawsuit, and they took umbrage to that and then sued us. In retrospect, it might not have been the best bunch of decisions that we made. However, it was the first time that two stars of a show had walked out together, and that meant something to other actors in the business.  We didn't really get a raise (laugh). They just dropped all the lawsuits. And we did get a couple of new writers, and I was able to direct a half a dozen episodes. I very much enjoyed that.  We had a little more control of the artistic input into the show. I mean, that could be an oxymoron for Dukes of Hazzard, but John and me, we had a lot of skin in the game. We were out there every week doing this stuff, and they kept shortening the shooting schedule.  And they wanted to use miniature cars and barns and stuff. They were doing stunts that weren't stunts, filming stuff with toys and presenting it like it was real. And that was kind of an insult. So, for one of my last episodes, I took out all the miniature stunts that they were gonna do, and I put in footage from earlier shows, different angles of jumps and crashes that we did that weren't used.  We had this huge backlog of stuff like that, and I put it to good use. And John got to direct; John directed the final one. In retrospect, we may have shortened the life of the show a little bit with our walkout, but you know, hindsight's 20-20. We moved on and had a lot of success. I started making records, and from 1991 until 2013, I was probably in a dozen different shows on Broadway.

HENRY PARKE:  Including your first historical Western role, as Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun. 

Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat

TOM WOPAT:  We had so much fun!  Bernadette Peters is the perfect leading lady, and I worked with her for almost two years.  That's really the high point of my Broadway career.   Then Glengarry Glenn Ross opened up a whole different territory of parts to me. People were not aware that I had any range. They're used to seeing me as the big dog in a musical. And in Glengarry, I was the patsy, I was the one who got taken advantage of. That was interesting; that was hard. Because I'm so used to playing the hero.   Playing somebody that gets skunked, it's not a feeling I wanna walk around with all day (laugh), but I've had other interesting parts. I did a thing with Cicely Tyson, The Trip to Bountiful. That's the last time I was on Broadway.

HENRY PARKE:  And you played Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls.

TOM WOPAT: Oh man, what a dream cast. Nathan Lane was Nathan Detroit, Faith Prince was Miss Adelaide, Josie de Guzman was Sister Sarah.  One of my favorite parts is playing Billy Flynn in Chicago, because he shows up late and leaves early, and he wears one outfit.

HENRY PARKE:  In 2010 you did the film Jonah Hex, which is certainly an edgy Western --somewhere between historical and steampunk.

Tom Wopat in Django Unchained

TOM WOPAT:  It's like, metaphysical.  I read for it and they decided I could wear a dental prosthesis and (laugh) pull it off. That was kind of a complicated situation. I think they went through three directors getting that thing filmed.  We worked in Louisiana.  I enjoyed it. It wasn't the most fun I've had; I'll tell you the most fun I’ve had doing a Western was Django Unchained. Oh my gosh. That was great. Basically, my part [as a U.S. Marshall] is kind of a one- trick-pony, but what I did in the movie is exactly what I did in the audition.  Tarantino was very, very gracious. People don't know, but Tarantino used to study acting with James Best. [Tarantino] would take a bus up from Torrance, and he would have a class on Thursday night, and then Jim would let him sleep in the classroom.  Then he would come over to Warner Brothers the next day, I think he's 18, 19 years old, and hang out on the set being one of Jim's guests. So now he has a habit of using TV stars in his films; like Don Johnson was so super in Django. I enjoyed Longmire, another Western.  I'm playing kind of a villain in a sense. It's always implied that I'm taking money from the oil companies to let them do what they want in my county. That was a quality organization. And one of the producers was the daughter of one of the people that worked on Dukes at Warner Brothers.

Tom Wopat in Longmire 

HENRY PARKE: You shot Django at Melody Ranch.

TOM WOPAT:  Right, the Gene Autry place.

HENRY PARKE:  As a singer, did you feel any Gene Autry vibes there?

TOM WOPAT:  No. But you feel the vibes of his horse that's buried there standing up -- you know that?  He buried Champion standing up. We had a good time. One notable thing that Tarantino does is, when you go to the set, you check your phone. There's no cell phones on the set.  Which I thought was genius, and it's not brain surgery to do that.  You want everybody focused on what they're supposed to be doing, not checking their email.

HENRY PARKE: Right. And there's way too much of that on sets these days.

TOM WOPAT:  When I was doing A Catered Affair one time, there was a kid down in the front row and he was looking at a cell phone and I was like six feet away.  I'm sitting at a table right at the edge of the stage and I just looked down there and I just shook my head back and forth and he put the phone away.

HENRY PARKE:  I was surprised to realize that the first County Line movie you made for INSP was four years ago.

TOM WOPAT: Yeah, it was a while back, and it was actually their first action movie. Their previous movies had largely been romcoms, maybe with a little bit of drama to them.  Ours was the first action one. I had so much fun. I had such a great time. And then, they asked if I wanted to do two more, two sequels back-to-back. I said, yeah, you bet. So we filmed them down in Charlotte and around there. And again, a lot of fun, the most fun, really, I've had since Django or Dukes. Because in these shows I'm kind of the big dog, the leader of the pack and I enjoy being able to set the tone on the set, and making sure everybody has a good time. So I take the cast and crew out bowling, or I'll bring in a big pot of chili that everybody has to have a taste of, or make ribs for everybody. I enjoy that kind of hosting situation, and being the alpha male.  It's not probably the most attractive thing to be the alpha male, but (laugh) I enjoy it.

HENRY PARKE: And you need one.

TOM WOPAT: Usually there's a leader on the set. When we were doing Dukes, the leader on our set was a director of photography, Jack Whitman, may he rest in peace. He set the tone. He had come from shooting Hawaii 5-0, so him and his crew had all come from Hawaii. And there was a certain vibe on the set that was focused but gentle. And erudite. He was a real leader in a very soft-spoken way. He was a good guy to learn from.

HENRY PARKE: For folks who haven’t seen the first County Line movie, and don’t know your character, Sheriff Alden Rockwell, what does the title refer to?

TOM WOPAT:  There’s a café, basically a diner, that sits on the county line, on the road.  There's a line that runs down the middle of the café, a line drawn across the table exactly where the county line is, so if I have a beer, I have to put it in the other county, because we don't drink in my county.  There was cooperation between me and the sheriff in the next county [Clint Thorne, played by Jeff Fahey], and we had actually served together in Vietnam as Marines, so we’re heavily bonded. 

HENRY PARKE:  I don’t want to give away too much, because it’s a good mystery as well as a rural crime story.

TOM WOPAT:  It's a little bit like Walking Tall. 

HENRY PARKE:  Yes. Alden Rockwell became a widower in the first film.  And the diner’s proprietress, Maddie Hall, is played by Patricia Richardson. 

Patricia Richardson

TOM WOPAT:  And Pat Richardson has a really nice quality. It gives you a sense of comfort to see somebody that you know and recognize. I mean, being kind of my girlfriend and also running a diner and looking after my health, there's a comforting part of that. I think one of the real attractions of Dukes to families is that it's about family, and it's about taking care of your family, and making sure that nobody comes to harm. And when we're talking family, we talk extended family. So if Boss or Rosco got their tail in a crack somewhere, Jesse would make sure that we helped them out of it. I liken it to The Andy Griffith Show.

HENRY PARKE:  Oh, I can see that immediately. In the County Line films Abby Butler plays your daughter, and it’s a very interesting and very unusual relationship between you two, with her as a recently returned Iraq War vet. 

TOM WOPAT: Well, she's a pistol, man! She didn't take any guff off me. I'm proud of her for joining the service, but I'm frightened for her at the same time.

HENRY PARKE: Right.

TOM WOPAT:  There's that one scene in the original County Line where we're out on the porch and breaking down pistols that we've just taken from a bunch of nefarious dudes. And I asked the director, I said keep this in a two-shot. Because it really works, and any cuts back and forth would be more of a distraction than a help. If you look at old movies, a lot of the really good scenes are shot in a two shot.  They let you decide who you want to watch for the reactions and who you want to listen to. It's not like [single close-up] ‘talking heads’, which television in the eighties got into a lot. We had a lot of fun making County Line and we had just as much fun making these two new movies.

Tom Wopat and Kelsey Crane

HENRY PARKE:  Someone who’s new to the mix is Kelsey Crane, who plays Jo Porter, who is now the sheriff across the county line.

TOM WOPAT:  She's terrific. She's got a lot of talent and she also has the moxie to know how to work a set and how to let people do their jobs without getting in their stuff. Cause a lot of actors will kind of try to be the center of attention all the time. And that gets pretty old.

Tom Wopat and Denim Richards

HENRY PARKE:  If there are going to be more County Line movies, or possibly a series, the determining factor will probably be how audiences relate to your character.  Why do you think viewers will keep coming back?

TOM WOPAT:  Because Alden is the kind of a guy who, if he sees an injustice, he's gonna try and do something to make it right. Whether he really has the power to do that, the agency to do that, that doesn't matter. He's going to do what he can, legally, mostly.

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE MOVIE-HISTORY LOVER:

VITAGRAPH – AMERICA’S FIRST GREAT MOTION PICTURE STUDIO

BY ANDREW A. ERISH 

ARTICLE BY HENRY C. PARKE

 

NOTE: The videos you’ll see embedded throughout the article are not merely clips, they are complete films, some running just three minutes, others nearly half an hour.

While most film biographers and historians set out to teach you more about the films and personalities you’ve already grown to love, educator, historian and author Andrew Erish has set himself a more ambitious task: he seeks out the film pioneers who have been undeservedly written out of the histories.  The depth and detail of his research is astonishing, and his prose is accessible and entertaining.  With his previous tome, the fascinating Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood, he told of the life and work of a film pioneer whose name belongs alongside D.W. Griffith, Jesse Lasky, and Cecil B. DeMille.  He wants to save Vitagraph from the same sort of obscurity. 

The output of this initially Brooklyn-based movie studio was remarkable.  “They were leading the way,” Erish explains.  “From 1905 on, they were producing more movies than anyone else in America. They were the first to consistently release a film a week; then it became two films a week until, by 1911 or 1912, they were releasing six shorts and one feature every week. It's just an astounding output, and covering every kind of movie imaginable.”

The men who formed Vitagraph were unlike any of the other movie moguls.  Sam Goldwyn was a glove salesman. Louis Mayer was a nickelodeon theatre operator. They all came to movies from business.  But not Vitagraph’s J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith.  “They started out as vaudeville entertainers.”  Both English immigrants, who arrived in America at the age of ten, Smith was a magician, ventriloquist, and impressionist.  Blackton was a cartoonist and quick-sketch artist.  “They understood the aesthetic that ruled vaudeville, which was a variety of entertainment that would appeal to the widest possible audience, with something for every segment of the audience. And understanding firsthand what audiences reacted to, as stage performers, they had insight that really no mogul coming after them had; they had experience.”

Erish makes a convincing case that Blackton created the first animated films.  “There's absolutely no doubt about it,” he asserts. “A lot of history books mistakenly credit, a Frenchman named Emile Cohl, but Cohl's first animated film was made after Blackton had already made four or five. And Cohl's very first film is actually aping a film which Blackton had made a year earlier.”

Below is Blackton’s wonderful 1907 film, The Haunted Hotel. 

The Haunted Hotel – 1907 dir. Blackton

While Blackton was pioneering animation, “Smith, on the other hand, was very interested in making action-oriented films, and great with moving camera ideas and staging dramatic moments and action to their greatest effect, in real locations, so that these stories would appear more real. And if he was staging something at a steel mill, he would photograph at real steel plants, and put real steel workers mixed in with his lead actors, and it all looked real.” 

They excelled in Westerns, eventually. “The very first Westerns Vitagraph made were in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. And they're really bad, there’s just no getting around it. But they had a great story guy named Rollin Sturgeon, who they promoted to director. The guy had such a strong story sense and such a strong visual sense, and they sent him out to Los Angeles to open up a second studio, primarily to make Westerns. He made a film about the Oklahoma land rush called How States are Made.  When the starting cannon is fired, he covers everything in an amazing, extraordinary wide-angle shot that starts with an empty hill.  And you start to see the crest of the hill is covered in these little dots.  Then they start to move down the hill and you realize these are people on horseback, covered wagons, the horse-buggies -- they're all coming towards the camera. That shot lasts over three minutes and it's absolutely stunning to let it play out in real time in a single shot.”

How States are Made -- 1912

While Thomas H. Ince is credited with “inventing” the Western, and the studio system (and for dying on William Randolph Hearst’s yacht while sailing with Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin), his younger brother Ralph Ince was one of Vitagraph’s finest Western directors. “I think Ralph Ince is second only to [D.W.] Griffith (for) his contributions to the language of cinema.  In The Strength of Men, with the two guys shooting the rapids with no protection, and then fighting in the midst of a real forest fire! It's in front of your eyes, the way it would be if that dramatic story were really happening for real.”

The Strength of Men – Ralph Ince -- 1913

Vitagraph also excelled in comedies, creating the first great movie comedian with John Bunny, here seen assisted by fourteen-year-old Moe Howard!

Mr. Bolter’s Infatuation – John Bunny -- 1912

Another huge comedy star was cartoonist-turned-actor Larry Semon.  Although his hilarious sight-gag comedies are forgotten in America today, “Around the world, Larry Semon's movies have been shown, non-stop to this day on TV in Spain, Germany, throughout South America, and Italy.” 

You can watch Semon perform with a yet-to-team Stan Laurel…

Frauds and Frenzies – Larry Semon, Stan Laurel --1918

… and Oliver Hardy.  If you’re offended by black-face jokes, you can skip Hardy.

The Show – Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy – 1922 Norman Taurog

While the story of the demise of the Vitagraph company is by turns infuriating and heartbreaking – they barely survived into the sound era -- their influence on film is inestimable.  Many of their discoveries went on to notable careers both in front of and behind the camera.  “Edward Everett Horton made his first movies at Vitagraph, and became a big silent star. Adolph Menjou started at Vitagraph, playing suave, debonair characters. Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard of Oz, got his start in Vitagraph movies, as a much younger man, back in the teens. And Larry Semon hired a young guy who had directed one or two films, a kid named Norman Taurog, to be his co-director and co-writer. And Northern Taurog went on to have an illustrious career. He directed Bing Cosby and Bob Hope, he directed six Martin and Lewis movies, he directed nine Elvis movies – he was Elvis' favorite director.”

Vitagraph is the winner of the 2022 Peter C. Rollins Book Award and received an award from the Popular Culture Association as one of the best books of 2022.  It’s available directly from The University Press of Kentucky, in hardcover and paperback, here: https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813195346/vitagraph/

It can also be ordered from independent bookstores, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

I’VE GOT A BOOK DEAL!!!!!!!!!

I am thrilled to announce that I am writing a book for TwoDot Publishing!  Tentatively entitled The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, it will feature many of my articles from True West magazine.  It’s the perfect Christmas gift – but not this Christmas.  It will be in book stores in the spring of 2024.  

THE INSP ARTICLES

Just about a year ago, the very fine folks at The INSP Channel, whom I’ve known for a decade, and written for a little bit, hired me to write a couple of articles about Westerns for them every month.  I’ve been having a great time doing it, although between writing for them, and being the Film and Television Editor for True West magazine, I am sure you can understand why The Round-up has been appearing less frequently than it used to. 

One really exciting thing that has come from this was to chance to interview John Wayne’s son, Ethan, on camera.  I’m including below a link to that interview, and links to several of my INSP articles enjoy!

ETHAN WAYNE INTERVIEW:

w

ROBERT TAYLOR

https://www.insp.com/blog/robert-taylor-hollywood-star-husband-to-barbara-stanwyck-and-cowboy/

LANA WOOD INTERVIEW

https://www.insp.com/blog/exclusive-interview-with-lana-wood-child-star-of-the-searchers-with-john-wayne/

KATHARINE ROSS AND SAM ELLIOT

https://www.insp.com/blog/katharine-ross-and-sam-elliott-marriage-careers/

REDFORD, NEWMAN, AND GEORGE

https://www.insp.com/blog/redford-newman-and-george/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&mi_u=a53c941bef4f26da066e8b43bd542dac4f7d4aa4&_hsmi=223373055&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9u5a1POqAkJUmj5-acWe7hQ2uqDPvfq6xoKeDFNl_IU_kisDRtZglcWJBc8fB08X&fbclid=IwAR0L1CTWJn3jfFYfWiOAzwxnz2Acf1Thyffg1zmpvb_IzXrniWqxG4YAi4s

JOHN WAYNE AND JAMES ARNESS - WHEN THE STARS ALIGN

https://www.insp.com/blog/john-wayne-and-james-arness-when-the-stars-align/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ddom0520&mi_u=%25%25emailaddr%25%25&_hsmi=213805588&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8WdYG89h0ACFnY5hsam7usu14ojQcTfqAPuo_uWTHfO_0NjUhbaeFlGKLdUyC9ZFk46i2sxSUiwM7YbjAuikuqfXDpjOfZ3CbNUVgXcIEPRphq_b8&utm_content=213805588&fbclid=IwAR21saXKfQ-vXHEyCBRguGzUJhueMeq2rSuaNqtctgXyciqyimMeFHGRdSc

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

What better possible way to follow up my interview with Tom Wopat?  I’ll be talking with John Schneider about Dukes of Hazzard, his Westerns, and his new movie, To Die For.  Please check out the December 2022 issue of True West, with my article on the best mountain man movie ever made, Jeremiah Johnson!  And if I don’t get to post before the holidays, have a very merry Christmas, a happy Chanukah, a happy New Year, and a joyous anything and everything else that you celebrate!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Content Copyright November, 2022 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved