THE ROUND-UP CHRISTMAS GIFT SUGGESTIONS FOR 2016!

I’ve decided to try something different this wintertime, and make some gift-giving suggestions for the Western fan.  Most of my recommendations are actually gifts I’ve received, that I was particularly taken with -- and I’m told I’m a difficult guy to shop for.  If you have any suggestions for gifts, please leave them as a comment!  And of course, while more American people celebrate Christmas at this time of year than the holidays of other religions, if you’re looking for gifts for Chanukah, Ramadan, Kwanza, or any other religious or secular occasion, these suggestions are for you as well.

GENE AUTRY – A MELODY RANCH CHRISTMAS

Gene’s weekly Melody Ranch radio show ran from 1940 through 1956, a delightful blend of music, stories and humor.  Christmastime was always special on the show that starred the man who brought us Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer, Here Comes Santa Claus, and so many others.  The fine folks at Gene Autry Entertainment have cherry-picked from years of Christmas episodes to bring you the ultimate Gene Autry Christmas program.  Gene is joined by his frequent band in his movies and TV shows, The Cass County Boys, as well as Carl Cotner’s Orchestra, The Pinafores, Gene Autry’s Blue Jeans, Rosemary Clooney, and of course, sidekick Pat Buttram.  Pat sings All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, and gives his own answer to Did You Ever Have to Sleep at the Foot of the Bed? 

Included among the twenty-four cuts are carols like Joy to the World, O Little Town of Bethlehem, and Silent Night, traditional songs such as White Christmas, Jingle Bells, and Winter Wonderland.  The included booklet tells the history of Gene’s Christmas shows, pointing out songs that were taken from The Sgt. Gene Autry Show, the show’s wartime title when Gene was serving in the Army Air Corps. 

Here’s a sample of the show, Gene singing a medley of Rudolph and Here Comes Santa Claus.

The album is from Varese Sarabande, and available direct from the Gene Autry Museum HERE,

as well as on iTunes and Amazon.  And Gene Autry now has an official Facebook page – check it out HERE.

SHOTGUN: THE BLEEDING GROUND

By C. Courtney Joyner

Adventurous Westerners and Steampunks alike will enjoy this second adventure in the kick-ass series of paperback originals about the surgeon who lost his right hand and replaced it with a shotgun!   This time Dr. John ‘Shotgun’ Bishop and his Cheyenne sidekick White Fox are on the trail of the good doctor’s despised brother Dev, and going to work for John Chisum.  In recent years, the paperback original Western market has taken a serious beating, but the SHOTGUN series has pumped much-needed blood – literally and figuratively – into the genre, and the folks at Kensington Books have committed to several more volumes.  You can buy both SHOTGUN volumes, and the prolific Mr. Joyner’s other books, at Amazon, HERE.

SILENT VIDEO – LIFE IN HOLLYWOOD

On one disc are seven short documentaries made less than a year before the coming of sound would turn the movie industry inside out.  Sort of like ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT only not insipid, L.I.H. released a one-reeler every week, featuring tours of many long-ago vanished studios, views of Hollywood from the air, many on-set visits, animals brought from Africa to make jungle films, the opening of a Hollywood hangout – the celebrated Yamashiro’s – and much more.  Along with many forgotten faces, many of the top stars of the day – Tom Mix, Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson, Buster Keaton, Colleen Moore and Lupino Lane – are on hand.  German film titan Max Reinhardt visits the set of LOVES OF CARMEN, visiting with director Raoul Walsh, and stars Victor McLaglen and Dolores Del Rio.  It’s wonderful fun, and if the image quality is spotty, it’s remarkable that this footage still exists.  It’s one of many fascinating videos available from Alpha Home Video HERE.

 JAMES A. FITZPATRICK’S TRAVELTALKS

If you’ve enjoyed the dazzling Technicolor travelogues TCM shows between features, you can now own them!  From the early 1930s through 1954, Fitzpatrick’s short films were America’s window on the world.  Now the Warner Archive has released three sets of these films, with sixty short films in each set – 66 in the final collection!  Beyond the sheer beauty of these wonderfully restored films, they freeze moments in time and place that are now gone.  Some of the pre-war visits to our soon-to-be Axis enemies are, by turns, poignant and ironic.  And because many shorts focus within our borders, the American West of the ‘30s and ‘40s is handsomely preserved.  They provide a first-hand introduction to 20^th century history that you can find nowhere else.  You can order them HERE.

ROD SERLING’S ‘THE LONER’

It’s amazing to think that Rod Serling didn’t believe that his TWILIGHT ZONE would last more than one season!  Not wanting to take any chances, and seeing the success of Westerns, he started planning his own Western series in 1960.  He put it on the shelf when TWILIGHT ZONE proved a hit, but in 1964, when TZ finally folded after five season and 156 episodes, Serling dusted off that Western script again, hired Lloyd Bridges, not exactly wet behind the ears after SEA HUNT, and produced one of the finest of one-season Western series. 

While Western stories are generally post-Civil War, THE LONER is specifically six months after Lee’s surrender, the country is still seething in bitterness, and Bridges plays William Colton, an ex-Union officer roaming the West, trying to get his bearings.  In today’s parlance he’d be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   Bridges was always an underrated actor, and in THE LONER half-hours he does some of the best work of his career.  There were only 26 episodes produced, and Serling wrote more than half of them himself. 

Among the guest stars were James Whitmore, Anne Baxter, Jack Lord, Sheree North, Burgess Meredith, Brock Peters, Dan Duryea, and Katherine Ross.  The whole series, plus two informative documentaries, is produced by Shout! Factory, and sold exclusively at WalMart.  You can order it HERE.

CANADIAN PACIFIC – STARRING RANDOLPH SCOTT

This very enjoyable 1949 Western from 20^th Century Fox was unavailable for years, except in black and white, because it was shot in an obsolete color process, Cinecolor.  Now it’s been restored to its previous, heavily green but very attractive glory.  Scott is the railroad builder, Jane Wyatt is the ‘Lady Doctor’ who despises him (at first), and Victor Jory is, as usual, the guy who will stop at nothing to block Scott.  It ain’t CITIZEN KANE, but it’s a lot of fun.  And among the special features is the Castle Films 8mm home movie version!  You can order it HERE.

AND HERE’S A PERFECT WESTERN CHRISTMAS VIDEO!

The Carolyn Sells Combo does a brilliant mash-up of Christmas and the West with their song, Ghost Reindeer in the Sky!  Enjoy!

ONE MORE THING…

Earlier this week, I was teaching a 4^th grade, and I heard something wonderful that I rarely hear from young kids.  A boy saw that I was reading the William Dale Jennings novel THE COWBOYS, on which the John Wayne movie is based.  The kid lit up with excitement.  “I love THE COWBOYS!” he said, the words spilling out in a torrent.  “I love Westerns!  I’ve seen TRUE GRIT and THE MAGNIFICENT 7 – ‘1’ and ‘2’.  And I really liked ‘1’ much better.  With Yul Brynner.  And I’ve seen UNFORGIVEN – that is, I’ve seen the appropriate parts…”  I was thrilled; thrilled that his parents are obviously exposing him to Westerns, and being careful of how much of the darker elements he’s exposed to.  But I couldn’t help thinking what a pity it is that, as we are having a rebirth of Westerns, so few of them are appropriate for kids.   Most of the theatrical ones, many of them fine films, are far too brutal and sexual for young kids.  I loved HELL ON WHEELS, love WEST WORLD, and looking forward to season two of UNDERGROUND, but the last TV Western series I remember that I’d show to a kid was PARADISE, which went off the air in 1991.  We need a ‘gateway’ Western to safely bring kids into the genre.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

A week ago today I was invited to see the premiere screening of a new Western, GONE ARE THE DAYS, starring Lance Henriksen, Tom Berenger and Steve Railsback.  I had a friendly chat with Lance – don’t believe the picture!  We got along fine!  Anyhow, more about GONE OUR THE DAYS, and Lance, coming soon to the Round-up!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright December 2016 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved

22ND SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FEST, PLUS ME AND ‘TRUE WEST’!

22ND ANNUAL SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FEST AT WILLIAM S. HART PARK

Sheri Keenan, son, and a rubber gun 

As I write, the 22nd annual Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival is coming to a close, after a wonderfully enjoyable weekend of music, poetry, art, literature, history, and fun.   When the tradition first began, it was simply as a celebration of cowboy poetry, presented at a high school auditorium.  When the 1994 Northridge earthquake struck, demolishing the auditorium, the event was almost cancelled, when the Veluzat family, owners and operators of the Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio, offered the ranch for the event.  They’ve generously hosted the Festival at the Ranch ever since.  Melody Ranch reached its greatest fame when Gene Autry owned it, but it had previously been Monogram Ranch, and its early history stretches well back to the silent movie days.

Bill Hart watches SONS AND BROTHERS

Happily, more and more Westerns were being filmed, and filmed at Melody Ranch.  When Quentin Tarantino booked the ranch for a full year to shoot DJANGO UNCHAINED, it was feared that the Festival would be cancelled, but they worked around it.  Last year, with the start of work on the HBO miniseries WESTWORLD, the Festival was held, but with much of the western street off-limits.  With WESTWORLD now utilizing all of the ranch, many of us regulars worried about the future of the Festival.

Well, that future, now the present, is bright indeed.  The Festival was moved to Old Town Newhall, centered at William S. Hart Park, once home to one of the greatest stars of the Western silent screen.  The venue is large and beautiful and varied, with plenty of space for shops along Sutler’s Row, an extensive Civil War encampment, Indian lodge, pioneer living display, four music performing stages, and activities like archery, hatchet-throwing, quick-draw laser-tag, and much more.

One of my favorite surprises, the folks from Logix Banking, generous sponsors of the Festival for several years, had a booth where you could dress up in cowboy clothes, have a shoot-out against a green screen – a western street added in the background, and be presented with a flipbook of your movie in a minute!  There’s even a link to email it to your friends!  There was so much going on, in fact, that I attended both days, and probably took in less than half of the events, and a tiny fraction of the musical offerings – and I definitely have to come back and tour the Hart Mansion sometime soon.

The 'bells' on the dancer above are actually coiled

tobacco-tin lids!

Part of the park is a cluster of historic buildings called Heritage Junction, and I spent most of my time there at the Pardee House, built in 1890, where Jim and Bobbi Jean Bell, of the OutWest Boutique, were again operating their Buckaroo Book Shop, packing the two days with a wonderful mix of poetry and prose discussions, enjoyable and enlightening to Western writers and civilians alike.  There I led four Western-themed panel discussions and interviews on Saturday and one on Sunday, and it gave me a rush to know I was working in a building used as a film location by Tom Mix, John Ford and Harry Carey.

With my wonderful 'Stunt Horse' panel --

Human Association's Karen Ross, HOLLYWOOD HOOFBEATS

authors Audrey Pavia and Petrine Mitchum, and Autry 

Entertainment Pres. Karla Buhlman

Authors Miles Swarthout, C. Courtney Joyner

and Jim Jones

Authors Stephen Lodge, J.R. Sanders, D.B. Jackson,

Jim Cristina, and Miles Swarthout

Right next door was the Kingsbury House, with art displays upstairs and down, and right beyond it the Saugus Train Station – relocated to avoid demolition – where Charlie Chaplin filmed parts of THE PILGRIM in 1917; nearby, in 1936, Chaplin would film the very last scene of MODERN TIMES, the very last ‘official’ silent movie.  The station holds the compact and charmingly eclectic Santa Clarita Historical Society Museum featuring artifacts from the Indians who once lived in the region, mementos of the silent film industry, a diorama of one of California’s oldest oil refinery, and a trunk that belonged Buffalo Bill Cody.

Union Soldiers pass train station

The beautiful Mogul steam engine was whistling away at the station, and over the hill just above it, a bloody Civil War skirmish was fought, twice a day, with thundering cannon that shook the ground beneath your feet.

There was a several-day run-up to the Festival, with the walk of fame honoring stunt legend Diamond Farnsworth and poet and singer Waddie Mitchell, screenings and tours, and concerts at four nearby theatres, all of them well-attended.  THE LAST SHOOTIST novelist Miles Swarthout packed a theatre with his talk about the making of John Wayne’s final film, THE SHOOTIST, which Miles scripted.  Peter Sherayko’s CODY: AN EVENING WITH BUFFALO BILL was sold out at the Hart Mansion.

Peter Sherayko performing Robert W. Service poems

There was a wide variety of appetizing fare, the most crucial being the Cowboy Coffee in the commemorative tin cup, and Cowboy Peach Cobbler, both by the Visalia Cowboy Cultural Committee, who are celebrating their first quarter-century.   And much of the fun at this kind of event is the people you run into – Michael F. Blake, author of HOLLYWOOD AND THE O.K. CORRAL; Jeffrey Patterson, producer and star of HOT BATH AN’ A STIFF DRINK 1 & 2, and doing some casting on 3; and celebrating her birthday at the event, the lovely star and co-writer and co-producer of YELLOW ROCK, Lenore Andriel – incidentally, YELLOW ROCK was shot at nearby Veluzat Movie Ranch.    

Jeffrey Patterson

Living history on break

About 3:30 on Sunday, my wife and I started to head out, but I made one more stop, back at the Buckaroo Book Shop.  I was feeling a bit guilty that here I was, enjoying the largesse of the great William S. Hart, and yet I’d never seen one of his movies in its entirety.  So I picked up a DVD double-bill, to familiarize myself with the founder of the feast.  I’m closing with the short movie below, which was shot there at the Hart Ranch, in 1939, and is one of the very films made with Hart speaking.  It was a new introduction for the re-release of one of his greatest silent successes, TUMBLEWEEDS (1925).  “The thrill of it all!”  Give Fritz a pat for me, Bill.






‘TRUE WEST’ GETS A NEW MOVIE COLUMNIST – ME! 

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve just become the new film columnist for the finest Western history magazine in history, TRUE WEST.  You can imagine what a pleasure this is, considering that I started reading TRUE WEST when I was about ten years old, picking it up at newsstands when my Brooklyn family would take summer vacations in the West.  My first column will probably appear in the August 2015 issue – but you may want to start your subscription now, to make sure you don’t miss it!

THAT’S A WRAP!

WESTERN RELIGION dir. James O'Brien

It’s a short one this week, because I’ve got to get that August column done, but I’ve got a lot of interesting things coming up, including book reviews, movie reviews, and an interview with director James O’Brien, whose WESTERN RELIGION is, to the best of my knowledge, the only Western movie premiering this year at Cannes.  Of course, if you can’t get to France, just keep reading the Round-up – I’ll be reviewing it before Cannes!

Happy Trails,

Henry

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

CLAIM-JUMPERS BE DAMNED! ALMERIA INTERNATIONAL WEST FILM FEST RIDES AGAIN -- ‘6 BULLETS TO HELL’ TO PREMIERE AT FEST!

(Updated 8-18-2014 -- see KARL MAY story)

As you may have read in the June 15, 2014 Round-up (and if you missed it, HERE is the link ), the 4th Annual Almeria Western Film Festival was cancelled because Tabernas Mayor Mari Nieves Jaen stole it from its creators!  She registered the Festival name under her own name, and proceeded to plan her own event, one which would presumably be politician-friendly, and more dedicated to photo ops than film history.   

I don’t know if her festival is going to proceed, and could not care less!  But I was delighted to hear from Original fest co-creator Danny Garcia.  “We've decided to carry on and we'll celebrate this year’s Almeria Western Film Festival next September 11-13.  We'll have a new website and a new name as we'll add 'International' to the name to make it different from the fake one.”

The very next day I heard from the star/writer/director of the excellent LEGEND OF HELL’S GATE (click HERE for my review), Tanner Beard, with news about his next Western film.  “6 BULLETS TO HELL will have a European Premier in Almeria, Spain on September 12^th.  We are finding out about our US premier, which should be happening sometime in October, and there is another European screening at the Aberdeen Film Festival in early October.” 

Crispian Belfrage

There can be no more fitting place for the film to premiere, since its conception is tied to the Fest, when Tanner attended in 2012.  As Danny Garcia, both the Fest’s co-creator and the film’s exec producer, explained to me in 2013, “The first contact between us and Tanner happened at the… Festival, where Tanner won the audience prize with THE LEGEND OF HELL’S GATE.”  They started talking story, and before you knew it, they had a movie in the works.  “We used Mini Hollywood (the set built by Leone for the film FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE) and Fort Bravo (used in hundreds of Spaghetti Westerns as well: DEATH RIDES A HORSE, BLINDMAN, CHATO’S LAND, etc.) and we shot in the desert of Tabernas and the mountains of Abla for the epic final duel.” (You can read more details about the production HERE )

Tanner Beard

6 BULLETS TO HELL is a revenge tale, about a peaceful man who must put on a badge and track down the men who destroyed his world.  It’s made very much in the spaghetti western manner and style.  It was shot in Spain and edited in the U.S.  It has five credited writers: Chip Baker, Jose L. Villanueva, Tanner Beard, Danny Garcia, Russell Quinn Cummings, and it’s co-directed by Tanner Beard and Russell Quinn Cummings. 

Don't let them in!

The stars are Crispian Belfrage as the lawman, Tanner Beard as an outlaw with no conscience, and Magda Rodriguez, Aaron Stielstra, Russell Quinn Cummings, and long-time Euro-western regular Antonio Mayans.  I had the pleasure of watching the first half hour of the film (note: they didn’t hold back on the rest of the film; I just couldn’t get the rest to play.  I HATE watching movies on-line!), and enjoyed it a helluvah lot!  Spaghetti Western fans will be ‘all in’ as soon as they see the titles roll, and hear the first dubbed line of dialogue!  It manages the very dicey balancing act of being enough of an homage to bring the knowing smiles, while still maintaining its own integrity as a dramatic story.  I’ll have more information on the Festival in the coming weeks.  

WEDNESDAY COWBOY LUNCH @ THE AUTRY CELEBRATES ‘MELODY RANCH’!

On Wednesday, August 20^th, at high noon, Rob Word will present, as he does on the third Wednesday of every month, the Cowboy Lunch @ The Autry, which this time out will celebrate that legendary location for Western films for 99 years, Melody Ranch!  A working ranch from the 19^th century, and a movie ranch since 1915, it was the stomping ground of silent stars like William S. Hart and Tom Mix, and with the coming of sound, it became Monogram Ranch.  Incalculable sagebrush sagas were shot there, and it gained its greatest fame when Gene Autry bought the property in 1952, and rechristened it Melody Ranch after his long-running radio show. 

In addition to Gene’s own movies, just about every western TV series shot episodes there, and among the many series that called the lot home were GUNSMOKE, BRET MAVERICK, and DEADWOOD.  Hundreds of features have been shot there, including the recent DJANGO UNCHAINED, and currently the miniseries WESTWORLD is lensing there. 

Among the guests attending will be one of the great child stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Jane Withers, who starred with Gene Autry in SHOOTING HIGH!  The event is free, but you have to buy your own lunch, and I’d advise you to get there early, as the tables do fill up.  The good news is, if you end up at one of the outdoor tables, there will be a live video feed.  See you there!

Gene and Jane in SHOOTING HIGH!

WIN TICKETS TO SEE JOHN BERGSTROM LIVE ON THURSDAY AUG. 21^ST!

Thursday night at 8 (tho’ the doors open at 7), Cowboy balladeer John Bergstrom will be celebrating the release of his fourth CD, BUTTERFIELD STAGE, with a concert at The Rep, a.k.a. The Repertory East Playhouse, 24266 Main St., Newhall, CA 91321.  Tickets are just $20, and you can buy them by calling 877-340-9378. This concert is being presented by the excellent folks at OutWest Western Boutique and Cultural Center, our sponsor with the logo at the top left of the page – and you can buy all of John Bergstrom’s CDs at that site. 

But wait – there’s more!   I caught OutWest honcho Bobbi Jean Bell in such a good mood that she told me she’ll give away two free pairs of tickets to the first two folks who email me and ask for them!  Just send me a note at swansongmail@sbcglobal.net, and be sure to put ‘John Bergstrom’ in the subject line, so I don’t think you’re one of those Nigerian Princes who keeps contacting me!

FREE GENE AUTRY DOUBLE-FEATURE SAT. AT THE AUTRY

At noon on Saturday, August 23^rd, The Autry will screen a pair of Gene’s movies in the Imagination Gallery, BOOTS AND SADDLES (Rep. 1937) and GOLD MINE IN THE SKY (Rep.1938).  In BOOTS, an English kid inherits a ranch, and wants to sell it, but Gene wants the boy to become a westerner, and help him raise horses for the Army.  Another man wants to buy the ranch, and when his and Gene’s bids are the same, they decide to settle it with a race.  The best part is, the kid actor, New Zealander Ronald Sinclair, would in fact give up his acting career to join the U.S. Army when war broke out, and would return to be a very successful movie editor.  And the other bidder is played by Gordon Elliot, who would become a big star a year later, when Republic changed his name to Wild Bill Elliot.   In GOLD MINE troubles ensues when Gene is made the executor of a will, and has to decide who a high-spirited heiress may and may not marry!  Both co-star Smiley Burnette, and are directed by Republic action-ace Joe Kane.  

GENE AUTRY COLLECTION #5 REVIEWED

GENE AUTRY ENTERTAINMENT continues to release four-packs of Gene’s films, and I’ve just received volume 5 (I’ve also received 6&7, which I’ll be reviewing in the near future).  Made from 1949 to 1953, they’re all Gene Autry‘Productions released by Columbia Pictures.  As always, each features a beautiful female lead – Barbara Britton, Elena Verdugo, Virginia Huston, and Gail Davis.  And they all feature Champion, the World’s Wonder Horse.  Two star Pat Buttram, one stars Smiley Burnette, but in the first, Gene rides sidekickless!

LOADED PISTOLS (Col 1949) is an unusual Gene Autry entry in a number of ways, most noticeably that it’s a legit murder mystery, opening with a shooting when the lights are switched off during a crap game.  There’s even one of those fun THIN MAN-styled, “You’re probably wondering why I brought you all here tonight,” scenes where the crime is reenacted!  The victim is a friend of Gene’s, and the suspect is such a jerk that you realize Gene is stepping in more to make sure the guilty party doesn’t get away, rather than to see the innocent jerk freed.  This is the first Autry I recall seeing without a sidekick, and much as I like Smiley and Pat, it’s an interesting change.  Barbara Britton, the beautiful female lead, had already made an impression opposite Joel McCrea in THE VIRGINIAN, and done a pair of films with Randolph Scott so, unlike his other ladies, she receives title-card billing with Gene.  She’s probably best remembered for costarring with Richard Denning in the MR. AND MRS. SMITH series.

Also of note in the cast are Chill Wills as a lawman who keeps confiscating Gene’s guns; old western leading man Jack Holt; Robert Shayne before he’d become Inspector Henderson on SUPERMAN; ace geezer character actor Clem Bevans; and one of my favorites silent movie comedians, Snub Pollard, he of the handlebar mustache, and he even takes a pratfall – pretty impressive at sixty!  This is truly an outdoor picture, with little time wasted between walls.  Full advantage is taken of the beautiful Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, and the beautiful Champion.

As the title suggests, GENE AUTRY AND THE MOUNTIES (Col 1951) shifts the action north to Canada, or actually to heavily pine-forested Big Bear Lake.  In a story that today would be described as ‘suggested by actual events,’ Gene and Pat pursue into Canada a group of French Canadians who are heisting U.S. banks to fund a Canadian Revolution.  The boys encounter a startling world where Mounties are reviled and despised.  When their Mountie friend Terrie Dillon (Richard Emory) is nearly killed by the bandits, the nearest help is lovely Marie Duvol (long-time Universal starlet Elena Verdugo), whose juvie brother (Jim Frasher) and uncle (Trevor Bardette) are among the Mountie-haters.  And wouldn’t you know, their ring-leader Pierre LaBlond (Carleton Young) has plans for Marie that make her shudder.  

Unusual for the amount of seething hatred in the story, even easy-going Gene loses patience with the brother who is mean to his own dog.  When the kid asks if Gene plans to beat him up, he says it wouldn’t be fair for a grown man to beat a boy.  But he adds, never changing his smile, “If I were your size, I’d skin you alive.”  Directed by John English, as is LOADED PISTOLS, there’s a very dramatic out-of-control fire sequence towards the end. 

Again reflecting history, NIGHT STAGE TO GALVESTON (Col 1952) focuses on the days after the Civil War, when the Texas Rangers were disbanded, replaced by a corrupt State Police service, in the movie run by suave but villainous Robert Livingston.  With the support of newspaper publisher Porter Hall and his daughter Virginia Houston, Gene and Pat gather criminal evidence from ex-Rangers.  But Livingston won’t go down without a fight.  By turns effective and cloyingly adorable is twelve-year-old Judy Nugent as a child orphaned by the homicidal State Police.  Nugent would do two films for Douglas Sirk, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION and THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW, at twenty be a continuing character on the Billy the Kid series THE TALL MAN, and later marry, and divorce, GUNSMOKE star Buck Taylor. 

Almost unrecognizable without his mask in a small, uncredited role, is Clayton Moore, THE LONE RANGER (Robert Livingston was also the Lone Ranger in a Republic serial).  Moore had been dropped from his series over a salary dispute in 1950, and while John Hart was wearing the mask for 54 episodes, generous men like Gene Autry gave Clayton small roles in movies and TV episodes, often unbilled or as ‘Clay Moore’, until the LONE RANGER producers came to their senses and brought him back. 

The final movie in the set is one from Gene’s last year of filmmaking, GOLDTOWN GHOST RIDERS (Col 1953).  The story of a gold-rush town built on a foundation of fraud, it’s an unusual entry for a number of reasons.  Gene plays not only a rancher, but a circuit judge.  Also, the story is told largely in flashback – the tale begins with a man looking for revenge after being imprisoned for a decade, and most of the story concerns the events that led to his imprisonment.   It also raises an interesting legal quandary that would be revisited in 1999’s DOUBLE JEOPARDY: if you’ve already served a term for the murder of someone who it turns out is alive, is it then legal for you to kill them?  There’s even a supernatural element; Smiley Burnette tells the story of an ethereal pack of ‘Ghost Riders’ who haunt the area and jealously guard their claims. 

The film features Gene’s nemesis from GENE AUTRY AND THE MOUNTIES, Carleton Young; a very young Denver Pyle; and as a young Mexican miner whose claim is jumped; Neyle Morrow.  A favorite of the great ‘guy story’ filmmaker Sam Fuller, Morrow would appear in fourteen of his crime thrillers, war movies and westerns.  The female lead is Gene’s lovely frequent co-star Gale Davis, who would soon shed her gingham in favor of fringed buckskin and star for Gene’s Flying A company as ANNIE OAKLEY.    

Special features with each movie include a montage of stills and posters, inside info from producer and film historian Alex Gordon, an episode of the GENE AUTRY MELODY RANCH RADIO SHOW, and Gene and Pat doing on-camera introductions from MELODY RANCH THEATER, a TV series they hosted on The Nashville Network in 1987.  Personally, I like to listen to the radio shows on my computer, but you can also run them on your DVD player.  My favorite of this group is one where Jack Benny is guest, plugging his switch of radio networks.  The TV intros are fun and informative; the boys have a lot of amusing memories of performing in Canada.  Also there’s a surprisingly direct discussion of the importance of non-whites in the settling of the American West.  Released by Timeless Media Group, this and the other  Gene Autry Collections are available from OutWest HERE and other fine retailers.

A TERRIFIC N.Y. TIMES DOCUMENTARY ON KARL MAY

Lost in Translation: Germany’s Fascination With the American Old West

HERE is the link --  I’m sure you’ll find it fifteen minutes very well-spent!

THAT’S A WRAP!

That’s it until next week!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright August 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

GERMAN WESTERN ‘GOLD’ REVIEWED, PLUS ‘DOC HOLLIDAY’S REVENGE’ FIRST LOOK!

GOLD – A Film Review

When I heard that a new German-made Western had just been completed, “…visions of Winnetou danced in my head!”  Though most Americans are not aware of it, Germany has a long history of American Western story-telling, Karl May being the most popular Western writer in the world, easily eclipsing American Western writers from Max Brand to Louis L’amour with his non-English-language following. 

Emily and Carl

German Western film, likewise not well known in the States, has been tremendously influential.  The success of a dozen Karl May Western films made in the early 1960s, starring French actor Pierre Brice as Apache Chief Winnetou, opposite American and British actors like Lex Barker, Rod Cameron and Stewart Granger, were such a smash that they inspired the Italians to create the Spaghetti Western genre.  

GOLD, written and directed by Thomas Arslan, could not be further from the melodrama of WINNETOU, but that is by design.  It is a movie that strives for realism and naturalism.  Filmed where the tale is set, in British Columbia, Canada, GOLD surprisingly is not a gold-field story, ala the recent miniseries KLONDIKE, but a tale of people on their way to the gold-fields.  Near the turn of the century, when an improbably large nugget is found by a panner, Argonauts head for the Klondike, and fortune, anyway they can.   (When I saw Indians waiting at the railroad's end, wrapped in blankets with the distinctive design of the Hudson Bay Company, I knew that production designer Reinheld Blaschke knew his stuff. )

German-born Wilhelm Lasser (Peter Kurth), an experienced guide, advertises his services to other German-Americans, assembles five prospective prospectors and, with wrangler Carl Boehmer (Marco Mandic), sets out for glory. Among them is Emily Meyer, who has tired of being a house-maid in New York.  She’s played by Nina Hoss, a major star in German cinema who, appropriate to the role, bears a striking resemblance to Lillian Gish, who frequently played pioneers for D. W. Griffith; not by chance, Hoss wears her hair in the same distinctive manner.

Tension builds, a bit, as the travelers begin to suspect that wagon-master Lasser is no master at all.  He becomes upset when they reach a river that’s not on his map.  It’s almost as if he’s never been there before.  In fact, he’s greatly exaggerated his experience, and it is only through the assistance of the occasional Indian, for a five-dollar payment, that they stay anywhere near on the path.  Further, as we see at around the half-hour mark, in a scene that calls to mind Hemingway’s THE KILLERS, a pair of riders is tracking the group, or rather the wrangler.  It’s a scene with both menace and humor, and it’s about all we see of either element. Because the major flaw of this film is that, beautifully made though it is, not nearly enough happens.  

There is hardship aplenty, but damned little conflict.  The characters are so stoic that they never get impassioned enough about anything to get the viewer involved.  Cinematographer Patrick Orth makes the most of the varied and beautiful forests and vistas of British Columbia – much of the photography is spectacular, especially a scene in a forest of barren trees.  But there are so few close-ups that the viewer rarely has the sense that he knows what a character is thinking.  While the wide-screen process – the image here is more than twice as wide as it is tall – is perfect for landscape, when it comes to actors, as Leone taught us, you have to jam the camera all the way into the center of a face to fill the screen.  We never get half that close.  And I don’t ever recall seeing a movie where more screen-time is spent watching a small group of riders ride across the screen, over and over again.

In a ‘Ten Little Indians’ manner, their numbers drop.  Some give up; one goes mad, strips off his clothes and runs pell-mell into the forest.  In one of the most affecting scenes, a man’s injured leg must be amputated before gangrene sets in.  The use of sound rather than gory visuals is evocative and effective.  Finally we get a sense of passion, and the stoicism is truly moving.  But sadly we quickly soon lose him.  We also get one good shoot-out, but it’s a long time coming.     

If you’ve seen MEEK’S CUTOFF (2010), starring Michelle Greene, Bruce Greenwood and Paul Dano, this may all sound familiar; that film also involves an incompetent wagon-master leading a group of pioneers, and getting them lost.  But while MEEK’S had Rod Rondeaux as the menacing Indian following them, and a dramatic payoff, in GOLD, once we meet the men following the wrangler, they disappear until too late in the story to save it. 

The score by Dylan Carson is portentous and effective, but is often missing in scenes where it could have helped.  And not one of the voice-actors chosen to dub the film into English uses a German accent, a strange choice considering how much their ‘Germanness’ is a part of their character, and how everyone they meet immediately knows they are German.

GOLD will be available in May from Screen Media Films.

‘DOC HOLLIDAY’S REVENGE’ FIRST LOOK!

June 17^th will see the release of DOC HOLLIDAY’S REVENGE, from two very talented and prolific filmmakers, writer Rolfe Kanefsky and director/producer David DeCoteau (pronounced ‘Dakota’).  It’s exec produced by Barry Barnholtz (see my interview HERE  ) and Jeffrey Schenck, who previously produced WYATT EARP’S REVENGE among many other Westerns. 

The film features the very talented and busy Eric Roberts, and Tom Berenger, who won the Outstanding Supporting Actor EMMY for 2012’s HATFIELDS & MCCOYS. 

I’ll be sharing my interview with Kanefsky soon, but in the meantime, here’s the first trailer.

ANTHONY MANN RETROSPECTIVE ENDS SUNDAY 3/30

The final program of the UCLA/Billy Wilder Theater two-month retrospective entitled Dark City, Open Country: The Films of Anthony Mann, will be MAN OF THE WEST (1958) and THE TIN STAR (1957).

SEE YOU AT THE ‘COWBOY FESTIVAL’ APRIL 26 & 27!

After attending the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival and covering it for the Round-up these last three years, this year I’ll be a participant!  At the OutWest Buckaroo Book Shop, in the heart of Veluzat's Melody Ranch’s fabulous Western street, I’ll be moderating a couple of authors’ panels.  On Saturday from 1:30 to 2, the topic is THE WEST IMAGINED, and I’ll be talking with Western novelists Edward M. Erdelac, author of COYOTE’S TRAIL; Jim Christina, author of THE DARK ANGEL; and C. Courtney Joyner, author of SHOTGUN.

And on Sunday, from 1:30 to 2, the topic is THE WEST LIVED, and I’ll be talking to non-fiction writers Jerry Nickle, great-grandson of the Sundance Kid; JR Sanders, author of SOME GAVE ALL; and Peter Sherayko, author of TOMBSTONE – THE GUNS AND GEAR. 

On Saturday at 12:30, and Sunday at 2:30, I’ll be chatting with Miles Swarthout, who wrote the screenplay for THE SHOOTIST from his father, Glendon Swarthout’s novel.  Miles is also involved with the upcoming movie THE HOMESMAN, directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones, from a novel by Glendon Swarthout.  You can learn all about the events at the Buckaroo Book Shop by going HERE.  

ADOPT A BURRO AT TRONA CENTENNIAL MARCH 28-30!

The mining town of Trona in San Bernadino County’s Searles Valley marks its first century with a historical symposium, parade, car show, street fair, and on-site Bureau Of Land Management Wild Burro adoption!  Learn more by calling 760-372-4091.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ‘RED SUN’ STAR URSULA ANDRESS!

Ursula Andress & Alain Delon in RED SUN

The first gorgeous Bond Girl turns 78 today! She starred in THREE Westerns -- RED SUN, 4 FOR TEXAS, and mexico on fire -- but to me she’ll always be SHE! When I was ten or eleven, and madly in love with her, she was in New York for the premiere. I had this goofy idea to send flowers to her hotel – I had no idea what it would cost – I called MGM’s New York office to find out where she was staying, AND THEY PUT HER ON THE PHONE TO ME! I’ve never fully recovered. Happy Birthday!

THAT’S A WRAP!

Have a great week! 

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright March 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved