CHARLES MARTIN SMITH ON ‘PAT GARRETT’ AND ‘CULPEPPER’, PLUS 'ANGEL AND THE BADMAN’ REMAKE IN THEATRES OCT. 9, MICHAEL KEATON DIRECTS/STARS IN 1ST WESTERN, JOHN SAYLES DIRECTS NEXT WESTERN, AND MORE!

ANGEL AND THE BADMAN REMAKE IN THEATRES OCTOBER 9^TH!

 

The new one

A very entertaining remake of the very first film that John Wayne produced, 1947’s Angel and the Badman, will be opening in theatres across the country on October 9^th, the first Western to receive a full theatrical release in the United States in two years.  The original was the first of 15 film collaborations between Wayne and writer/director James Edward Grant, which would include The Alamo, The Comancheros and McClintock!  It’s the story of a Quaker girl who nurses a wounded outlaw back from the brink, while both villains and lawmen are searching for him. The original stars Gail Russell as the angel, John Wayne as the badman Quirt Evans, and Bruce Cabot – the one who saved Fay Wray from King Kong – as the far worse badman, Loredo. Playing the lawman who’s just dying to hang Quirt is a mentor of Duke, the legendary Harry Carey.  

John Wayne, Harry Carey and Gail Russell in the original

The remake, appropriately from Angel Studios, stars Zachary Levi in Duke’s role. I didn’t recognize him at first with a beard, but you may remember him in the title role of the series Chuck. He’s also starred twice as Shazam, and was the romantic interest to the divorced Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He co-stars with Liam Neeson in the action film The Fix, which just opened in theaters on September 11.

Here's the trailer!

Australian actress Meg Fraser has the Gail Russell role, and as the worst badman, it’s the often-terrifying Neal McDonough, of the pale blue eyes and platinum blond hair, from Minority Report, Justified, Yellowstone, and several of the DC Comics series. And the great Tommy Lee Jones takes on the role of the lawman relentlessly tracking Quirt – come to think of it, it’s kind of a variation on his character in The Fugitive. I had the pleasure of interviewing Zachary Levi and Neal McDonough for my True West article on the movie, which will be in the November/December issue. 

Lou Diamond Phillips and Luke Perry in the 2009 version

Surprisingly, Angel and the Badman had already been remade not that long ago. In 2009, Lou Diamond Phillips played Quirt, and the late Luke Perry was Loredo in a pretty good TV movie version. If you’re wondering why this film keeps getting remade, it’s because someone at John Wayne Productions goofed, didn’t renew the copyright, and the film fell into public domain: that’s why you can find the original on practically all streamers

‘DRUMMER BOY’ – A HISTORICAL MUSICAL – ALSO COMING FROM ANGEL STUDIOS

 

Angel Studios is a very interesting company. They’re a streaming service, they make their own movies with top talent onscreen and behind the camera, they theatrically release many of them, and if you’re a subscriber, you actually get to vote on what projects they greenlight. Back on the 4^th of July, Angel Studios got a lot of attention for their film Young Washington. On November 6^th they have another picture in theaters, Drummer Boy, a musical, directed by the Smallbone brothers, a Grammy-winning Christian pop duo better known as For King and Country. The story is about two brothers who find themselves on opposite sides of the American Revolution, and one is a drummer boy. These Angel folks are smart in the old Hollywood way. Both Drummer Boy and Young Washington were shot in Ireland, I assume back-to-back, with 50 of the same crew members, and I suspect some of the same sets and costumes.

 

MICHAEL KEATON DIRECTS AND STARS IN RODE TO RUIN, HIS 1^ST WESTERN – CO-STARRING MORGAN FREEMAN AND LAURA LINNEY

Next, Michael Keaton will not only star in his first Western, he will also direct it, and he’ll be co-starring with Morgan Freeman. Freeman has only done one Western before, but it was Unforgiven, so he chose wisely. In Rode to Ruin, Keaton will play a retired US Marshall who has spent 40 years hunting his wife’s killer. Freeman is an aging outlaw who may know something about the crime, but his memory is fading. Just added to the cast this week is Laura Linney, who plays a frontier trader, who is one of the very few people Freeman’s character trusts. It will be Linney’s first Western, but she is no stranger to period stories, having so memorably portrayed Abigail Adams in the John Adams miniseries.

Screenplay is by R. Dean McCreary, produced by Lori McCreary, who has a long history of successful collaborations with Freeman. Oh, and guess who has acquired Rode to Ruin? That’s right, Angel Studios!

 

I PASSED THIS WAY SET TO PASS BEFORE CAMERAS FOR JOHN SAYLES BEFORE YEAR’S END – AMY MADIGAN, CHRIS COOPER, RON PERLMAN TO STAR

I Passed This Way is based on Eugene Manlove Rhodes’ novella Pasó Por Aquí. Although he is not so well known today, in the 1920s and ‘30s, Rhodes was a commercially popular and much-revered Western writer. Adapting and directing is long-time Rhodes admirer John Sayles, the twice Oscar-nominated writer/director of Lone Star. It’s about a young fellow who impulsively robs a bank, and ends up with Pat Garrett on his tail.

At this point, who plays whom is guesswork, but you can’t go wrong with this cast. Amy Madigan, who just won this year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Weapons, was wonderful with husband Ed Harris in the 1996 adaptation of Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. Chris Cooper, in addition to starring in Sayles’ Lone Star, is an Oscar-winner for Adaptation, and was July Johnson in Lonesome Dove. Ron Perlman, two-time Emmy nominee for his star-making role in the Beauty and the Beast series, was in 1994’s Cisco Kid, starred from 1998 to 2000 in the Magnificent 7 series, and more recently played Judge Henry in 2014’s re-imagined The Virginian.  

The very fine first film version of Pasó Por Aquí 

It's to be shot in Spain’s Canary Island, which might sound like an odd location for a Western. But they have great mountains and deserts, and were the location for the popular 1975 Western Take a Hard Ride, which starred Lee Van Cleef and Jim Brown. Pasó Por Aquí was first filmed very successfully in 1948 as Four Faces West, starring husband and wife Joel McCrea and Frances Dee. Their grandson, Wyatt McCrea, tells me that it was one of their personal favorites.

 

CHARLES MARTIN SMITH ON HIS ADVENTURES WITH PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, AND THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO.

 

Kris Kristofferson, Charles Martin Smith and Rudy

Wurlitzer in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

The film that put teenaged character actor Charles Martin Smith on the map was 1973’s American Graffiti. The role was Toad, the nerd who seemingly had no chance with lovely Candy Clark, but won her nonetheless. That wasn’t his first film, but it was close. In 1971 he’d debuted on The Brady Bunch, played a bellhop on Monty Nash, then made his first Western appearance with a featured role in The Culpepper Cattle Co. There were parts in Fuzz, Room 222, Go Ask Alice; then Sam Peckinpah chose him to play Bowdre in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Smith quickly became so in-demand in all genres that he did 4 tv episodes, voiced 16 cartoons, and was in Spain, starring in his third Western, The Spikes Gang, before American Graffiti was even released!

Two years after The Brady Bunch --

Charles was romancing Candy Clark in

American Graffiti

Since then, Smith has played over 90 different roles on big screens and small. In 1988, while continuing to act, he stepped behind the camera to direct Trick or Treat, and has gone on to direct 18 movies and TV shows, with a special expertise in ‘man versus the elements’ and animal-centered stories, an interest he developed while starring in the legendary Never Cry Wolf, directed by Carroll Ballard.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Martin Smith on Labor Day weekend of 2024. I was writing an article for True West on the restored Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid from Criterion (you can read that article HERE https://www.truewestmagazine.com/article/pat-garrett-billy-the-kid-the-way-it-should-be-seen/). I took the opportunity to discuss all of his Westerns with him because, happily, “These are films I'm interested in talking about.”

A recent picture of Charles Martin Smith

(Note: Since the interview, a number of people discussed, including Kris Kristofferson, Matt Clark, and L.Q. Jones, have passed away.)

Henry Parke: Do you remember how old you were when you did Pat Garrett?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, I was 19.

Henry Parke: You'd already done the Culpepper Cattle Company. Did that help you get the part of Charlie Bowdre?

Charles Martin Smith: I have no idea. That would be a question that you'd have to try to <laugh> ask Sam from ‘Beyond the Grave’. Culpepper was the first film that I'd ever done, and I'd gotten cast when I was 17. And then that following year we did American Graffiti, where I was 18. I turned 19 then in October of that year, and then we shot Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid around the holidays. We were all stuck in Durango, Mexico over the holidays, which made for some very memorable experiences, <laugh> getting there on that film.

Henry Parke: Do you remember auditioning for Culpepper Cattle Co?

Charles Martin Smith: Yep. Very well. I'd only had a couple of auditions for things before that. I got the call, went in, it was at the 20th Century Fox, in the main executive building there. And I remember (director and co-writer) Dick Richards just sat behind his desk and looked at me. There was no chit- chat, there was no talk. It was very uncomfortable. I'm not quite sure what Dick was doing, <laugh>, except we had a very strange first meeting. Then he gave me the scene to read, I came back and did the audition, and ended up getting the part, which was pretty exciting for me. It was my first paid acting job, in a film for 20th Century Fox, and I got to join Screen Actors Guild. It was a good experience, and it was a kind of a cool movie to work on, actually. You know, it didn't have any big Western stars. It wasn't John Wayne or anything, but it was a collection of really cool, interesting actors who had done a lot of westerns; Geoffrey Lewis and Luke Askew and really great stunt guys. They were wonderful, just a great bunch of guys. They were good to me. I only worked a week on it, but it was a great introduction to being in the movies, down there in Mexico and shooting this thing. Dick Richards was very much a visual stylist kind of director. When I think about some of the shots that he got, it's pretty amazing. When we were doing that buckboard race, he did one shot where the cameraman was strapped underneath the buckboard, shooting through the wheels. And this was a full-size camera. This was 1971. There were no remote heads or anything. This was a guy strapped underneath with a huge camera. He got some amazing shots in that movie. And I thought it was a really interesting, dark look at the West. There was a wonderful line where somebody tells Gary Grimes, “Cowboyin's something you do when you can't do nothing else.” Sort of took the glamor out of it. <laugh>.

Charles with Gary Grimes in Culpepper Cattle Co.

Henry Parke: When you got there, did you already know how to ride and shoot, or did they teach you that?

Charles Martin Smith: Well, on Culpepper I didn't have to do anything except drive a buckboard, which I thought was gonna kill me. I didn't really know any of that stuff. My early childhood was spent in Paris, in France. And then I lived in the (San Fernando) Valley, in Northridge. I was just a Valley kid. I didn't have any particular knowledge, but my father's younger brother Hank had been a cowboy. He was in the Agoura Ranch area, and it was all still pretty rural. He usually had three or four horses at his place up in Thousand Oaks. So I called my uncle Hank, and he taught me how to ride a horse, and how to do some things. It was really, really helpful. Hank had been a cowboy on these ranches, although he was an artist like my father. He was shocked to see in the movies, one of his buddies. He said, “What the hell? That's old Dick Farnsworth! What's he doing in the movies?” And they got together again after all those years and, and palled around some, when they were much older guys. It was kind of cool. So, yeah, Hank was my cowboy advisor.

Henry Parke: Someone else in Culpepper Cattle Co. was Matt Clark.

Matt Clark in Culpepper Cattle Co.

Charles Martin Smith: He was quite a guy. When I did Culpepper and didn't know anything and was really awkward; I'd never been on a film set in my life. There were all these old cowboy actors, and Matt Clark really befriended me. He said, any questions that I had, I should ask him. And if I needed any help with anything, Matt was great. He was really good and really good to me. I've never forgotten how kind he was to me on that movie when I really was scared to death and didn't know anything. And the other guy that I remember was really good was one of the stunt guys. His name was Walter Scott. He was great to me. And again, as a kid, on Culpepper, well, I didn't know what I was doing. Matt Clark and Walter were the two guys that really befriended me. And I've always been grateful to those guys for it.

Stuntman Walter Scott

Henry Parke: Did you watch Western movies as a kid?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, some. I watched all kinds of movies as a kid. But I wasn't particularly drawn to Westerns any more than any other genre.

Henry Parke: When you went up for Pat Garrett, had American Graffiti come out,? Did you know what a tremendous hit it was going to be?

Charles Martin Smith: No, it hadn't come out. We shot in June of ‘72, so they were editing, so Pat Garrett would've been November, December, January ‘72 into ‘73.  Graffiti was still editing and nobody knew anything about it. I remember telling some of the people on the show that I'd done this movie with kids cruising in cars and all that, but nobody knew anything about it other than that I'd done it. Now the story on Pat Garrett was, that I went in for the role of Alias, the part that Dylan ended up playing. In the script, he’s written as a 19-year-old, very shy kid with a stammer. And I went in and auditioned for Sam, and I had a very memorable meeting in his office in the back part of MGM.

Henry Parke: How was it memorable?

Charles Martin Smith: I mean, you have a good idea of what kind of a guy Sam was. He was volatile, unpredictable; some kind of edge about him. You just didn't know what he was gonna do. He went on a long discussion about Mexico. We're gonna shoot this movie in Mexico, and he's got a bunker down there, and when the shit hits the fan, that's where he's gonna go, he's gonna be in his bunker. And I'm sitting, a 19-year-old kid thinking, I might be over my head here with this guy. He was very intense. But I read the scene for him, and he really liked it. So I felt pretty good about it, and I thought there was a chance that I'd get offered the part. But I didn't hear anything for a while. And then I did hear from my agent that (Kris) Kristofferson's buddy, Bob Dylan, wanted to be in the movie, and Alias was really the only part that they could find for him. So they were rewriting Alias for Dylan to play the part. But they said, Sam really loved your audition, and he'd like to offer you a different part, the smaller part of Charlie Bowdre. So I said, sure, I'll be happy to do that. I don't think I would've normally been up for the role of Charlie Bowdre if I hadn't met Sam on the role of Alias.

Henry Parke: So Pat Garrett was your second Western to shoot in Mexico?

Charles Martin Smith: We shot Culpepper in Sonora somewhere. I can't remember the name of the town. We moved around a couple of towns in Mexico. We had some standing Western sets, beautiful sets, which had been built for some John Wayne movies (in La Joya Ranch). You might know more than me. Lot of weapons there.

Henry Parke: Was going to Mexico, working for Dick Richards, much different than to go to Mexico and worked for Sam Peckinpah?

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah. Everything was different. Sam Peckinpah was different from everything. With Dick Richards, I was only down there for a week, and I did my scene, and went. On Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the schedule kept changing. And Sam kept changing what he wanted to do, and rearranging things, not shooting what was on the call sheet, but deciding to shoot something else. Very much an artistic, auteur sort of approach to filmmaking, which I gather didn't really go over very well with the executives.

Henry Parke: Not a great deal. No.

Charles Martin Smith: He got into a lot of hot water there, and there was a lot of stuff going on. And as a result, I went down there, but I would sit around for weeks without working. Because he'd planned to shoot a scene that I was in, and then they'd shoot some other stuff. And so I ended up just sitting in Durango for a long time. Sam was unpredictable and wild, and had a terrible temper. You never quite knew what you were gonna get. And on the days that I did work, it was pretty intense. I think Sam liked to keep a sense of tension on the sets. I think it was intentional. I think he felt like it translated onto film, that kind of energy, that kind of real intense, edgy kind of energy. And so he kept his sets that way. That was a new experience for me. I hadn't been around much, but it was certainly a hell of a lot different from the way George Lucas directed. Sam was kind of dangerous. And I remember a lot of guys that had worked with him. 'cause the cast in that was just about every great Western actor living. And a lot of them had worked for Sam a number of times, guys like R.G. Armstrong. And a lot of 'em said that was it: they weren't gonna do another movie with him because it was just too stressful, with his temper and just the general sense of tension on the set.

I got to be pretty good friends with Kris Kristofferson. There didn't seem to be any issue with the tension with Kris. He kind of rolled along, happy-go-lucky. He was a really sweet guy. And, you know, I was just a kid, I was only 19, and most of the cowboys didn't really want anything to do with me. But Kris did. He really befriended me in a great way. And then 40 years later, I ended up directing him in Dolphin Tail and the sequel to that. We'd sit around on set and talk about Sam.

Henry Parke: Now your big scene is in and out of the cabin, but you were in other sequences too, so let me ask about them first. Like the ‘shooting the chickens’ heads off’ scene and the cantina scene, with Billy and Pat. Do you remember if those were done before or after your big scene?

Charles Martin Smith: No, I don't remember the order. In fact, it seems to me that it was all kind of split up and shot piecemeal. That business, the chickens’ heads being blown off, that was very disturbing. Then there was another scene where we're all inside the cantina. The cabin was a practical set, meaning we could shoot it like a real location. That cabin sequence took a long time to film, over a week, I think, partly because of all the on-set effects, the squibs and all the gunfire and stuff.

Henry Parke: Now, you were, as you say, 19, but you were already an experienced professional actor. And in that scene, you're playing with Kris Kristofferson, a great songwriter, but almost his first time acting. And Rudy Wurlitzer was a great screenwriter, but not an experienced actor. Did that make it difficult for you?

Charles Martin Smith: It made it a little different, but you know, I wasn't that experienced an actor. I had only been working in films for a year, maybe. I'd done a couple of shows, but I wasn't like some seasoned pro. And Kris had been acting, he'd been in other stuff too. So no, that was all good. And we enjoyed doing the scene. I remember Sam saying that he thought it was the best single scene that he'd ever had to direct. He loved that scene, just the idea of it. And the guy is getting pinned down and Bowdre, as he's dying, taking a gun and going out, 'cause they can't hurt him anymore; they already have, he's dying anyway. Sam just loved that. We spent a long time on that scene and got a lot of coverage. We filmed a much longer scene than ended up in the movie. The scene in the film is probably only about half of what we shot, maybe even less.

Henry Parke: After you're shot the first time, as you're bleeding, you're looking at some small things in your hands. I was wondering if you remembered what they were.

Charles Martin Smith: While we're waiting there and we can't do anything, we start playing cards, most of which was cut.  And then talking about me in the past tense; it was really a lovely scene. I wonder if I still have the script around somewhere. It might in storage. Talking about me in the past tense, as though I'm already dead. And I had the idea that as I was dying, as the guy is dying, he's looking at all the little details that you're never gonna see again; you know, a piece of straw in your hand, or just even just looking at your own hands and your own fingers and thinking, sort of saying goodbye. I remember I had that idea and played that a little bit.

Henry Parke: I'm sorry that so much was taken out of it. It's a wonderful scene as it is.

Charles Martin Smith: It is a good scene as it is. It was, I think, even better before. Whether Sam cut it or whether the studio cut it down, I never knew. But Sam loved it, and we spent a long time on it with that long drawn-out card game. Maybe it was too long, especially at the start of a film. Typically, you want to get the first act moving; you don't want to be spending a long time lingering on scenes early in a film. But I wonder if a full-length version of that original scene exists, whether there would've been a rough cut or even just a first assembly by the editor. Because it was pretty cool.

Henry Parke: Gosh, it sounds like a great scene! When you were shot, was that your first time working with squibs?

Kris Kristofferson, Charles Martin Smith, and Rudy

Wurlitzer in Pat Garrett 

Charles Martin Smith: Yeah, I guess it would be. And they squibbed me up and down. I mean, they took a long time. <laugh>. But I was kinda looking forward to it, 'cause it's a Sam Peckinpah movie, and I'm getting the full Peckinpah treatment, you know? Slow motion, with the bullets and the blood flying and that real Wild Bunch kind of stuff. But they didn't trust me to set them off myself. In later films where I had squibs on, there's a battery pack, and you’ve got a little button hidden in your hand, and you set off your own squibs. That's the way we did it later in The Spikes Gang, and other things I did where I was getting shot. But they didn't trust me to do that 'cause -- and I don't blame them -- I was a kid, and I'd never done this before. So the effects guy was setting off the squibs, and what they did was they ran an extension cord down my leg and taped it to my boot, and then plugged in a cord that then ran off-camera so the guy could set the squibs off. He said, we're gonna set the squibs off and then yank the cord and unplug it, and then you can fall back and everything. And I said, when you yank that cord, how do you know it's gonna come out? You're probably just gonna pull my legs right out from underneath <laugh>. They said, no, no, no. It'll work, it'll work. Well sure enough, they pulled my legs out from under <laugh>. I landed right in that doorway with that happening. But I was scared to death that I wouldn't do it right. It took most of the day to rig the shot. And you know, the cardinal sin with that is reacting to the shot before it hits you. That's a thing. Because actors get nervous and they'll react to the gunshot before it actually hits them. That'll ruin a take. And I was nervous that it would be painful. I didn't know; I'd never had those squibs before. You know, they put a little backing plate on each individual charge so that it doesn't burn your skin. But still, I was nervous about it. And it turned out fine.

Henry Parke: Now in the cantina scene and then with the chickens, there you are as part of the gang, with Luke Askew and L.Q. Jones, Donnie Fritz, Harry Dean Stanton, all these really interesting guys --

Charles Martin Smith: -- Richard Bright, I think was one of them.

Henry Parke: That’s right.

Charles Martin Smith: Those guys, they were great.

Henry Parke: Did you get to know any of them? You said you'd worked with Luke Askew before.

Charles Martin Smith: I had worked with Luke Askew, but I didn't have any scenes with him on Culpepper, and I didn't really know him. L.Q. Jones was a very gregarious, chatty, kind of funny guy.

Henry Parke: L. Q. was very friendly with me, and very generous with his time, in his later years.

Charles Martin Smith: Great guy. And he was that way as a younger guy. So I kind of knew him, but the only guy that I really kind of hung out with and got to know better was Harry Dean.

Henry Parke: Terrific actor. What was he like?

Harry Dean Stanton in Pat Garrett 

Charles Martin Smith: He was always terrific in everything. And then we did a movie called Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins a couple of beers later, with Alan Arkin. We shot that in Arizona for a couple of months. So Harry Dean and I got to hang out. And I knew him socially too, outside of film. He was a really wonderful guy and an actor that other actors really appreciated; one of those guys. And I'd worked with Bo Hopkins on Graffiti. He was the leader of the Pharaohs. I called him when I was going to do Pat Garrett, because obviously he'd done The Wild Bunch.

Henry Parke: That was his first film, I think.

Charles Martin Smith: I think it might've been.

Henry Parke: About Sam purposely creating tension on the set --

Charles Martin Smith: -- That's my theory. It was also his personality. He was just kind of out of control that way. And he would get angry very quickly and easily. He fired the second A.D. (assistant director) before I got there. And then the second A.D. that was there when I was working said, well, I'm not gonna be around much longer <laugh>. He said, 'cause every movie Sam fires the first second AD, and then he'll fire the next second A.D. and keep the third one. I'm the second, second A.D. on this, so he'll fire me too, because he just needs to fire people to <laugh> keep everybody on their toes. And sure enough, Sam fired him.

Henry Parke: With all the tension from that already, were you aware of the political problems between Sam and Jim Aubrey and everyone at MGM?

Charles Martin Smith: Not really. I heard rumors about it, when we changed the shooting schedule, and then I knew there were some issues. I remember at one point a couple of executives did come down, but nah, I wasn't really in the middle of it enough to be part of all that. And I want to say that with Sam firing people, and yelling at people, and of that tension, none of it was ever directed at me. I don't know, maybe it's 'cause I was the kid, but he was great with me. He would yell at other people, and he'd turn and kind of wink and smile, like ‘this is just part of my deal, you know?’ I had a lot of respect for him. He was a very good director, very meticulous. Every piece of set dressing had to be just right. Everything. He really was very painstaking and very careful and very creative. He was not just some crazy guy. He was a really fine director. He just had this way of working that kept everybody tense.

Henry Parke: Right. But it works on the screen. You can't argue with that.

Charles Martin Smith: You can't. I'd love to see what his cut would've looked like before the executives got it.

Henry Parke: You got along well with Kris Kristofferson. How about James Coburn?

Charles Martin Smith: I hardly talked to Coburn once or twice. But again, we didn't really have scenes together. And I was one of a group of cowboys, so I never really got to know Coburn like I did Kris. Coburn was very grand. I remember he always smoked a cigarette in a long cigarette holder. The impression he gave you was that he was a grand Hollywood actor of the old school, and he'd be out there with his cigarette holder.

Henry Parke: There were so many terrific actors in there: Jason Robards, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam. 

Charles Martin Smith:  Some of them I worked with, and some of them I didn't. One guy that I was particularly interested to get to know was Elisha Cook Jr.

Henry Parke: Yes, my hero.

Charles Martin Smith: Man, he was a very cool guy. I only really chatted with him once, but of course I remember him from Maltese Falcon and all that. I just was so happy. And I remember having dinner once with Chill Wills, and how on Earth he and I ended up in the dining room of the motel where we were all staying, having dinner, just the two of us, I don't know. But he spent the most of the time ranting about these damn college hippies who were protesting the war and all that. Here am I, sitting there, having been to a bunch of Vietnam War protests myself, <laugh>, and having long hair myself. And having been in rock and roll bands, <laugh>, all that. I'm thinking, oh, this is a little uncomfortable. There were some characters there. There were definitely some characters. I would've liked to have gotten to know Slim Pickens, too, but I didn't really, I just sort of met him just to say hello.

Henry Parke: How about Bob Dylan, who got the part you went for?

Sam Peckinpah directing Bob Dylan as Alias

in Pat Garrett

Charles Martin Smith: Dylan was great. Extremely shy, kind of awkward. And we were all told early on, don't talk to him. Do not take his picture. Just leave Dylan alone. But we ended up having some good conversations, and I did kind of get to know him. And he was fascinated by movies. He really wanted to know more about film. He was interested in making them. (Note: Dylan would go on to direct the feature Renaldo and Clara, and 5 of his music videos.) He was writing some songs for the film, which we thought was great. He was very into it. And then he was talking with Kris and Sam about Sam's next movie, which was going to be bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. I remember Bobby talking about what a great script that was, and how much he wanted to be a part of that, too. He was really into it. And he had never really acted before. Actually a couple of times he asked me for little acting tips, which I thought was pretty nice; giving acting tips to Bob Dylan was pretty cool. <laugh>. I liked him. He was a good guy. It took a while to get to know him; he didn't open up very easily. He was very…I guess the best word for it is introverted.

Henry Parke: Any other thought about Pat Garrett?

Charles Martin Smith: The way Sam worked was pretty chaotic. I think if I was a film executive, I wouldn't have been happy about it either. I later worked with (director) Carroll Ballard on Never Cry Wolf, and Carroll had a lot of similar qualities, in that he was very creative, and he would change his mind about what he wanted to shoot that day, and do everything differently than he'd planned. Caroll's a great guy; he didn't have the personality that Sam had, but just that kind of creativity, and letting the movie kind of grow organically as he's making the film. That's the way I remember Sam being. And I can imagine that the studio didn't like it, and he didn't want anybody interfering with him or his process. I respected that. But I can see that in the film business, which is a business, that would rub people the wrong way.

Henry Parke: Sam Peckinpah was first a successful screenwriter, then a hugely influential director. Those are two branches of filmmaking that you would also excel in. Did you learn anything in particular from working with Sam?

Charles Martin Smith: Absolutely. I learned a lot from every director I worked with, 'cause I was trying to pay attention. But I really was fascinated by the way Sam ran the set and, and how he would do things. And his meticulousness, his attention to detail, and very much about how is that gonna look through the lens? Not just how does it look to the naked eye, like you're doing a play, but we put together a scene and just his talking about the camera, where he was putting it in, what kind of a lens he was going to use, and how this was all gonna look on film. That was the first time that I ever really gave a lot of thought to that. I didn't even really on Graffiti so much because of the way that was shot. But Sam would be so careful about where that camera was, and exactly what it was seeing and what was at the edge of the frame. And every shot was like a painting practically, the way Sam did it. I learned a lot just by watching him do that.

 My interview with Charles Martin Smith will conclude in the October issue of Henry’s Western Round-up with his memories of making The Spikes Gang, Never Cry Wolf, Streets of Laredo, working with Lee Marvin, James Garner, Sam Sheperd, George Carlin, Wes Studi, director Carroll Ballard, and his own extensive directing career!

 

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Please check out the September/October True West, featuring my article, Citizen James, where I take a look at some of the more unusual film portrayals of Jesse James and his killer, Bob Ford!

 

And please give a listen to my most recent Rendezvous With a Writer podcast appearance, where Bobbi Jean and Jim and I talk with One Armed Bandit author Michael Knost. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/live/UP8RA0i2ml8?si=iOp4jDLlW_WWsr3Y or you can hear it here: https://www.latalkradio.com/sites/default/files/audio/Rendezvous-090326.mp3

Much obliged,

Henry

 

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

Not to be used for AI training!

THREE FATHERS DAY WESTERN PREMIERES! CASPER VAN DIEN’S “WARRANT” INTERVIEW, KEVIN COSTNER ON “YELLOWSTONE” CHARACTER’S APPEAL, “A SOLDIER’S REVENGE” AVAILABLE NOW, PLUS WILLIAM CASTLE DOUBLE-FEATURE REVIEW, GREGG PALMER ESTATE SALE!

KEVIN COSTNER ON “YELLOWSTONE” AND THE APPEAL OF THE DUTTONS

On Sunday night, Fathers Day, Kevin Costner returns to the Paramount Network for a third season of Yellowstone, the contemporary Western family drama that pits the Dutton family against the government, developers, American Indians, and anyone else who’d try to wrest away control of their humongous ranch.  It is the most beautifully photographed show on the air today.  Co-created and largely written by Taylor Sheridan, who brought you Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River, it’s a highly entertaining, slick, loud update of the Dallas type of TV drama, and the body count is truly amazing.

On Tuesday I took part in a virtual screening and group Q&A with Kevin Costner, presented by Deadline Hollywood, and moderated by Peter Hammond.  I had already covered much of what was discussed in my interview with Costner for True West magazine (you can read it HERE), but there were a couple of interesting questions about what he takes away from the role of John Dutton, and the appeal of the whole Dutton clan.

"It's a dysfunctional family, and what your take away is that if you don't pay attention, your children can go in (all) directions; and nobody's perfect. I want to try to avoid that kind of drama in my own life. And I probably don't need to be killing anybody in my life either. But what do I take away? Maybe just the joy of knowing that I have been able to do things that other people wish that maybe they had been able to do. I'm really aware of how lucky I've been.

“I think people enjoy watching a level of dysfunction. They enjoy hearing outrageous things come out of somebody's mouth in a really critical moment. There are moments in time we wish we were saying what these characters are saying. All of us are confronted with daily issues and we usually have to walk away from them. And it's only in walking away when we decide what we wished we would've said to somebody who really deserved it. In Yellowstone, we actually get to say things to people that I think people (at home) wish they could say to somebody else. I think one of the reasons why Yellowstone has caught air, is that we live in a world where, when we have problems, people turn to their lawyers to solve it. We turn to our agents to arbitrate a problem, to PR people to try to clean something up, when there's really nothing to clean up, when really in our own life, I'd like to confront the person who is really bothering me personally. We put so much distance between being able to find a level of justice that we feel is appropriate for somebody who is really bugging us. To be honest, I think that people would like to arbitrate their own problems. So when we see somebody like John Dutton arbitrating his problems, sometimes we can live precariously through people like that. I wish we could do that; I wish I would've said that; I wish I would've smacked that guy myself. I think that Taylor captures that level of escapism. It's tapping into a nerve where we wish we could solve some of our own problems. That might feel really good to tell somebody who's been bothering us really what time it is.”

‘A SOLDIER’S REVENGE’ NOW ON SALE AND READY FOR DOWNLOAD!

You may remember that back in March I told you about A SOLDIER’S REVENGE the post-Civil War tale of a former Confederate soldier, Frank Connor (Neal Bledsoe), whose PTSD has made him unable to adapt to civilian life util the unwanted responsibility thrust upon him by a chance meeting with two desperate children leads him to uncover a gun-running scheme operated by former friend and comrade-in-arms Briggs (Rob Mayes).  

This week the film arrived in your choice of DVD and Blu-Ray at Walmart, Best Buy, and all of the major VOD platforms, including Apple and Amazon.  If you missed my interview with Director Michael Feifer (or are just dying to read it again), go HERE.  And you can order it direct from its distributor, Well Go USA Entertainment, HERE.

HOLLYWOOD STORY and NEW ORLEANS UNCENSORED

A Blu-Ray Double-Feature Review

Director William Castle is so beloved for his delightfully schlocky horror movies – Homicidal, Straight-Jacket, I Saw What You Did and I Know Who You Are – that few fans realize what a range he had.  As a producer, he brought you Orson Welles’ Lady From Shanghai, and Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby.  As a director of B programmers at Columbia, he honed his considerable skills on The Whistler and Crime Doctor series, gave Robert Mitchum his break with the noir When Strangers Marry, and directed a slew of Westerns (HERE is a link to the 8 film collection, Fastest Guns of the West, from Mill Creek Entertainment).

Bookending his 1950’s Westerns are a pair of noirish stories that Mill Creek has beautifully restored and released as a Blu-Ray set, Hollywood Story (1951) and New Orleans Uncensored (1955).  Hollywood Story, scripted by Frederick Kohner (who penned Deanna Durbin musicals, created Gidget, and also wrote the first screen version of Donovan’s Brain, 1944’s The Lady and the Monster), and Frederick Brady (a prolific early-TV writer), it’s the story of independent producer Larry O’Brien (Richard Conte), who is looking for a story to film, and stumbles into the true unsolved case of a director who was shot while making a film, just at the dawn of talking pictures. 

And more people start dying when O’Brien pulls together all the survivors who were associated with the film, a terrific cast that includes Henry Hull as the screenwriter, Paul Cavanagh as the aging leading man, and lovely Julie Adams as the daughter of the leading lady (you can read my interview with the late Julie Adams HERE), plus non-comic performances by Jim Backus and Fred Clark, and Richard Egan as the cop.  Clearly inspired by the truly unsolved murder of Director William Desmond Taylor, this is Castle’s Sunset Boulevard, and he peppers the film with cameos by silent stars like William Farnum, Francis X. Bushman, Betty Blythe, Helen Gibson, and Elmo Lincoln.

The story and performances are solid, but in a way, the biggest star is the locations.  Though a Universal film, it was mostly shot at the quaint old Charlie Chaplin Studio on La Brea, plus scenes during 1950’s Santa Claus Lane Parade on Hollywood Boulevard, and in the chic, now gone, restaurants in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, all captured in wonderfully crisp black and white by Carl E. Guthrie.  Edited by Virgil E. Vogel, it’s a pleasure from beginning to end.

New Orleans Uncensored is, sadly, not in the same league.  An expose’ of longshoreman’s rackets in New Orleans, this poor man’s On The Waterfront is ploddingly plotted. It is cast with a mix of non-actor government and Union officials playing themselves, badly; and cultured actors like Arthur Franz, William Henry and Stacy Harris laughably miscast as tough-guys.  Beverly Garland and Helene Stanton are pretty to look at, and Michael Ansara and Mike Mazurki are believably tough, but not enough to save this bore.  On the plus side, like Hollywood Story, its location work features landmark’s like Café du Monde.  I recommend the set, but Hollywood Story is the fun one.  You can order it from Mill Creek HERE. 

WESTERN ACTOR GREGG PALMER’S ESTATE SALE

Big, handsome, intimidating actor Gregg Palmer died on Halloween, 2015, at the age of 88.  The son of Norwegian immigrants, he was a cryptographer during the Second World War.  Afterwards he became a radio announcer, then decided to give acting a try, was a contract player at Universal for a while, and much more successful after he decided to freelance.  Although he acted in all genres, he’s best remembered for his Westerns.  He did four with his friend Audie Murphy: The Cimarron Kid (1952), Column South (1953), Murphy’s autobiographical To Hell and Back (1955), and The Quick Gun (1964). 

Wardrobe test from Column South

He was particularly lucky to become part of the John Wayne stock company, and do six films with the Duke: The Comancheros (1961), The Undefeated (1969), Chisum (1970), Rio Lobo (1970), The Shootist (1976), and the one he’s best remembered – and reviled – for, Big Jake (1971).  He’s the one who shoots John Wayne’s dog!

Last weekend there was an estate sale at his beautiful Hollywood Hills home.  I was happy to pick up a couple of his scripts, from episodes of The Lawman and Gunsmoke.   But I’m sure glad I didn’t have my heart set on a mug.  Starting in the 1960s (I think), John Wayne famously commissioned a commemorative coffee mug for each movie, with a personalized mug going to each and every cast and crew member.  They had four, Gregg’s mugs from Big Jake, Chisum, Undefeated, and Rio Lobo.  I asked to see them, and they handed them to me in a shoebox.  How much, I asked?  $5,000.  Each.  I gave them all back.  I told my daughter one would make a great Fathers Day gift, but I think I’m getting a necktie.

In case you’re interested in seeing what they had, I’m including a link to the estate sale HERE, but it’s just for your curiosity; the sale is over.

CASPER VAN DIEN ON ‘THE WARRANT’, WESTERNS, AND A LITTLE MOVIE CALLED ‘STARSHIP TROOPERS’

INSP’s The Warrant premieres on INSP on Saturday night.  The new Western stars Neal McDonough and Casper Van Dien as former Union soldiers who now find themselves on opposite sides of the law: McDonough is a lawman, and Van Dien runs a band of outlaws still fighting the Civil War.  And just to be clear, although Van Dien’s character is nicknamed The Saint, there is no connection with the Leslie Charteris detective stories.  In the previous Round-up (the last Round-up sounds too ominous), I interviewed McDonough (HERE).

Here is my interview with Casper Van Dien.  I told him that it was a beautiful day to be quarantined in Los Angeles, and asked him where he was.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  I'm in Florida and it's just beautiful down here. I moved out of California.

HENRY PARKE: You're happier in Florida?

CASPER VAN DIEN: Yes, I am.

HENRY PARKE: Let me just say at the outset that I've always enjoyed your work. When I told my daughter at the interviewing you today, she said to ask you about Starship Troopers and I had to admit I hadn't seen it, so I watched it yesterday afternoon. What a picture!

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Oh yeah! That's actually just like a Western in space. That's was a fun movie to do. And your daughter told you to see that? That's awesome.

HENRY PARKE: I particularly loved you riding on the back of that huge bug and throwing the grenade into it.

Van Dien and a bug in Starship Troopers

CASPER VAN DIEN:  It's almost like the hull of a boat but upside down, on top of a Caterpillar truck, moving around on four pistons, going side to side, backward and forward. And I think the reason I was able to ride it at such a high speed -- and I did it for three days, like 12 hours a day -- was because I ride horses. So I think that helped. I also sail, and I surfed a little but, so I had a couple of different things that helped me to be able to stand up on that. I mean, I fell down a lot, and had wires attached so I wouldn't fall off  because I was twenty-five feet up in the air on this thing while it was going. But it was a blast to do.

Dr. Quinn can tell Van Dien's up to no good

HENRY PARKE:  So that just goes to show that The Warrant is not your first Western.  But then again you did a Western Western even before Starship Troopers didn't you? I'm thinking of Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman.

CASPER VAN DIEN: Yes, I did a Dr. Quinn. Cattle Drive (1994); I was a cattle rustler. And then they came to me after two days of filming, and said they want to make this a two-part special. Can you work next week? That was a lot of fun for me. And then I got to do Aces 'N' Eights (2008), which was with Ernest Borgnine and Bruce Boxleitner. Which was a lot of fun to do as well. It was co-written by one of the guys who wrote Pale Rider (1985), Dennis Shryack. That was fun Western to shoot, too. I loved meeting, working with Ernest Borgnine, just being on set with him and hearing his stories. He was quite a character.

HENRY PARKE: Terrific actor. So, you had experience with horses?

CASPER VAN DIEN: I did. I had my own horse for a while, and I love riding. I rode for years over by the Equestrian Center in Burbank.

HENRY PARKE: Growing up, were you a fan of the Western genre?

CASPER VAN DIEN: Yes, very much so. I loved John Wayne, John Ford films. I just love Westerns; I watch them all the time. Edward Neumeier, who wrote Starship Troopers, and Robocop (1987), he is a huge John Wayne, John Ford fan. And we do little homages to them in that movie. We did things from They Were Expendable (1945) and Westerns like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). When I was reading the scripts, because I read all the different versions he wrote for that, and it was just amazing, because he'd write these different homages to different John Wayne and Ford films. And I was like, oh my God, you did that? And he's like, yeah: you remember everything! But it was fun for me because I just love old Hollywood and John Wayne's my favorite actor. So I love being a part of that. It was just a blast to be in The Warrant, because for me it's just like a wholesome, old fashioned Western.

HENRY PARKE: From Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers to the Saint in The Warrant, you've played a lot of characters with a military background. I read that you attended military school.

CASPER VAN DIEN: I did; I went to Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida.

HENRY PARKE:  Did that experience help you playing characters with a military background?

CASPER VAN DIEN: I think it helped. I grew up in a family with a lot of men who served in different branches, Marines, Air Force, and I was in the Coast Guard as well. My grandfather, my father, my grandfather that I didn't get to meet was in the Navy, too. My brother-in-law was in the Army up until recently, and my cousin was in the Army Air Corps. My dad's a Navy pilot, so I grew up in that lifestyle. And I think it was a great, solid upbringing and helped me playing each character, and also just being an actor. So I attribute that a lot to military school and military family.

HENRY PARKE: You've played a wide range of characters, even a werewolf recently. But considering Johnny Rico and Tarzan especially, I usually think of you in good guy, hero roles. With that in mind, how did you like playing the villain in The Warrant?

CASPER VAN DIEN: I think The Saint, he has a lot of depth, and a lot of history. The way he's written, there was probably something a little bit askew with him from the beginning. But the tragedy that happens, the man he turns into, I had a lot of sympathy for him, and I think that helped me be able to play the character.

HENRY PARKE: That tragedy, of course, is the death of your son from a Confederate bullet, and you go AWOL to seek revenge. The scene where John Breaker has brought you back, and is lecturing you about how you shouldn't be going after revenge, and you break down. Your scene is, to me, the dramatic high point of the picture.

CASPER VAN DIEN: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. That scene was the one that really sold me on the picture. And when we were doing it, there was a Vietnam vet there, a relative of the guy who was in charge of our guns. He left the set while we were filming. And later he said, I'm sorry, I had to leave. You took me back to a place where -- I don't cry. But I did twice, once was for the guys in Vietnam, and the loss of my wife was the other time. I was sorry I, just had to leave, and I just want to say thank you. I appreciated that a lot. You know, you get older, you live through losses, and divorces, and life experience that helps you bring more depth to certain roles. You're not grateful for some of the things that happen in your life, but when you get to certain scenes in a movie, you can hit something like that, and where'd that all come from? You can feel it. I guess you learn to appreciate life's journey in doing that. But yeah, that scene was a day. My wife was, was there on-set, too, and she was just like, I was nervous, afraid that you were just going to be really destroyed. Afterwards I was okay. When you're doing a physical thing, all the fights and things, at the end you're just physically tired. But when you something where you cry, and you really go there, that's more draining. You get more exhausted from something like that.

HENRY PARKE:  You also have some physically demanding scenes. You have a lot of good fighting. Did you enjoy that?

CASPER VAN DIEN: Yeah, and Neal really wanted to go with it. When you have an actor who steps up like him -- I'm a huge fan of Neal -- he's a really solid actor, and he really put everything into it when we were doing a fight sequence. We had so much fun doing it.

HENRY PARKE:  With Neal as the hero and you as the villain, did you feel like you were playing each other’s parts?

CASPER VAN DIEN: Usually I would play the John Breaker role, but when they offered me The Saint I was really grateful for the opportunity. There's a lot to that character. You know, 32 years as an actor right now, and when somebody says something like, that's the highlight of the movie, that means a lot; I appreciate it.

HENRY PARKE: Any other people that you worked with on the shoot, that were memorable? Any other memorable events?

CASPER VAN DIEN: Well, I loved working with everybody on this movie. I mean, Steven R. McQueen, who's the grandson of Steve McQueen.  I really loved Gregory Alan Williams, my sidekick or my partner or whatever. He's an actor who's been around a while, and I really just wish I had had more with him, but I liked all the characters that they had. I didn't get to work with Annabeth Gish, but she's awesome. But you know, it's good to be in the movie with her. There's a lot of good people in there.

HENRY PARKE: You've certainly done a lot of contemporary stories, as well as futuristic ones and period stories. Do you have a preference?

CASPER VAN DIEN: I think I probably watch more old Westerns than a normal person, (laughs), so I would probably say I liked period best. Because I love history. I look at history of films. Our film industry almost went belly-up during the Great Depression, and the only thing that kept us alive were Westerns. I think of Star Wars as like a Western. Paul Newman and Robert Redford -- I got my daughter to watch them in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and she just loves them, and watched all of their films. There are so many wonderful Westerns, from Blazing Saddles to Tombstone to Shane. I just love watching them, and I'm thrilled to be a part of them. Director Brent Christy is a great guy, and I'd love to work with him again, and do more Westerns. He started out as a cinematographer, and he had such beautiful shots; I only wish we had more time, and I think everybody always says that on films. And I wish I was on it for longer, but I was thrilled to be a part of it.

HENRY PARKE:  Now this is completely off The Warrant, but in Sleepy Hollow (1999), you worked with two of my absolute film heroes. No offense to Johnny Depp, but I mean Hammer horror stars Michael Gough and Christopher Lee.

CASPER VAN DIEN:  Well, I didn't work with Christopher Lee, but Michael Gough was amazing. Johnny was amazing on that film, and I got to ride a horse in that one. And funny enough, when I went over to England (to film), my horse was the original Black Beauty from the TV series. Steve Dent was the horse coordinator on Sleepy Hollow, and the horse's name was Sam. And then when I did an Outer Limits, we did a scifi Western thing called Heart's Desire, and the horse in that was also called Sam; that was in Canada.  I had a horse for two and a half years, I rode her every day, and she was Sam. So I've, I've had a lot of experience with Sams. I did another movie not too long ago called Roped. There were all these Cowboys around, but I wasn't a cowboy, which was frustrating. I'm not the lead, I'm the father of one of the leads. It was a lot of fun. Modern day, so they're all modern-day cowboys, which I don't mind either, but I like the old west. I like that genre; I like that time period. And The Warrant was fun to do because we had the Civil War, and we had Civil War reenactors. And they have all their authentic gear, and uniforms. That's a cool part of our history. (laughs) I mean, it's cool that we got through it.

HENRY PARKE: The country survived it. The reenactors are great to work with because they just bring so much knowledge onto set

CASPER VAN DIEN: And they love it. They love being a part of the movie. They want it to be authentic, and they have so much pride and that's awesome. Sometimes you hire extras, and they're not that into it. I mean, most people want to do a good job acting. But when it's reenactors, it's just another level of commitment. I once had somebody at a convention going up to me and asking what do you think of these people that come to these cons and dress up as characters? And I'm like, what do you mean, what do I think of that? That's what I do for a living. (laughs) That's my job. I think that's awesome. Here's these people that're doing their reenactments because they really love it. I think that's just beautiful. And I get to hang out with them, and they were really supportive.

If you don’t get INSP, or if you’d like to own a copy of The Warrant, you can buy it at Walmart, or direct from Mill Creek Entertainment HERE.

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Ida Lupino directing

And maybe it’s a little early, but check out my article in the July/August 2020 issue of True West magazine, about the fistful of women who’ve directed Westerns, HERE.
And I hope all you dads out there have a wonderful Fathers Day!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright June 2020 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved