‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ PRODUCERS TELL ALL, TCM FEST STARTS TONIGHT! PLUS DUELING BILLY THE KIDS!

 

THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL IS ON RIGHT NOW!

The TCM Festival began today, Thursday, May 6^th, at 5 pm Pacific time, 8 pm Eastern time, with West Side Story.  The real one, not the one that hasn’t opened yet.  For the second year in a row the Festival is, of necessity, virtual.  They have a terrific line-up of films, both on TCM itself, and on HBO Max.  HBO Max is doing it as a so-called ‘hub’, which apparently means that they list all of their programming, and you can watch any of it whenever you wish, not just during the four days of the festival, but for the entire month of May.   

Following West Side Story, TCM has gathered three of the film’s stars for a reunion: Rita Moreno, who appeared in a lot of Westerns TV series in the 1960s, often playing an Indian; George Chakiris; and Russ Tamblyn, who of course starred in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, as well as the Spaghetti Western Son of a Gunfighter. 

The Western offerings are a little light this year.  Friday morning at 8:45 Pacific time, TCM is premiering a 4K restoration of Irving Berlin’s musical Annie Get Your Gun, from the original Technicolor negative.   It should look great, but it’s a rather stagey musical, and while poor Betty Hutton, the rushed replacement after Judy Garland was fired, works like crazy to please, it’s pretty disappointing.   

Saturday morning at 7, Pacific time, it’s arguably Sam Peckinpah’s finest Western, Ride The High Country, starring Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, and introducing Mariette Hartley. (Mariette was such a wonderful discovery that two years later, Alfred Hitchcock would also introduce her in Marnie.) The ideal supporting cast includes James Drury, LQ. Jones, Warren Oates, John Davis Chandler, John Anderson, R. G. Armstrong, and Edgar Buchanan.  HBO Max will be featuring John Ford’s The Searchers, which will include a discussion by Ben Mankiewicz and Bruce Springsteen.  That’s it for Westerns.  For the whole TCM Festival schedule, go HERE.

 

‘WILD WEST CHRONICLES’ PRODUCERS TELL ALL!

Every couple of years, a cable channel announces a new series with a title like Old New True Legendary Outlaws Lawmen Gunfights of the Old West.  They’re usually okay; they throw a little income to western movie-town operators, reenactors, and historians.  They’re also interchangeable and forgettable.  When producers Craig Miller of the INSP Network, and Gary Tarpinian of MorningStar Entertainment got together, men who specialize in documentaries and reality shows, they might have done something awfully similar.  In fact, they meant to.  Gary calls it, “How we went from non-fiction to fiction in three shows.”

They were well into preparing just such a show, Craig recalls, “When Gary sent over a short list of the expert historians and authors that he wanted to use.  And these people are great, literally the world's greatest experts on the West.  But you know what? I've seen them in three or four other series already. So why do we want to do this? Is there a way to not use talking head experts, and still do a docu-drama?”

Byron Preston Jackson plays Bass Reeves

Another concern was, “we needed to stay on-brand for INSP, which means to not leave the 1800s.”  Craig explains, “Our viewers like to surf into INSP and get lost in the old West. And every time you put a talking-head historian in there, you're snapping them right out. So I called Gary and I said, what if we had a frontier reporter? And instead of talking-head experts, they're interviewing eye-witnesses to the West's most notorious events?”

Gary liked the idea, even though, “We were going to shoot (our experts) in about a week at The Autry. My partner thought I'd lost my mind when I said to her, we've been wanting to get into ‘scripted’ (shows) for a long time.”

From The Real Lone Star Ranger

Craig remembers, “Gary, a stickler for accuracy and truly an expert on the West, came back with was the solution.  He said, ‘there was a real guy who did this. His name was Bat Masterson.’”

What they’ve created with Wild West Chronicles is a lot less like those previous documentary series, and a lot more like the half-hour Western anthology series of the 1960s, like Zane Grey Theatre and Death Valley Days.  Actually a good deal like Stories of the Century was meant to be, had it stuck closer to the actual history. 

“I knew we would be pretty good at it,” Gary says.  “We are very well equipped to tell a story that's based on a true story, with real people, in a certain time period, faithfully reproduced, based on our research, and tell the story accurately. Because when you're doing non-fiction, that's what you do.  We've taken creative liberties, no doubt about it. We weren't there, so we're putting words in their mouths. But other than that, we're trying to tell the stories accurately and to show how much we love this world and these people, these characters.”

In Wild Bill Hickok and the First Quick-Draw Duel,

flirtation, and a gold watch... 

Another problem they avoided while moving away from the standard talking-heads docudramas was to not be a ‘greatest hits’ show: so far at least, they are NOT doing Jesse James and Billy the Kid and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.  “I'll let you in on a little inside baseball,” Craig shares. “When we first created the concept, we actually focus-tested three of the episodes and almost unanimously, the respondents said what they were interested in were stories they had never heard, about little-known characters of the West. Or if we were going to tell the story of a famous character, they wanted it to be a little-known story about that famous character. We intentionally kept our format to a half an hour. Because we don't want to do a birth-to-death biography of each character. We just wanted to take one slice of life, one story. And then that also allows us to do multiple episodes with the same characters.”

“Exactly,” Gary agrees. “And we think the audience is going to love it, because we're going to have the same actors play those people. For example, one episode we have a coming up is on the death of Dora Hand, in Dodge City, at the hand of Spike Kenedy. And one of the guys in the posse is Bat's deputy Bill Tilghman. And later on, Bill Tilghman's one of the Three Guardsmen (of Oklahoma), going after Bill Doolin. So it's the same actor.  And Bass Reeves -- there are so many great stories we can do with him, how we used his head to capture people, the story of him going after his own son, who was involved in domestic violence.  It has been particularly enjoyable working with INSP. Diversity is very important to us at Morningstar; my partner is not only a woman, she's Chinese. We met in film school at Loyola Marymount here in LA, and we’ve always felt that it's important to send a proper message and that just meshed perfectly with what the network wanted to do. That same focus group (said) we'd like to hear more about black cowboys, and women.   In season one we've been able to do Bass Reeves, Stagecoach Mary.  We're doing Elfego Bacca, probably the most famous Mexican-American law man. (Pioneer doctor) Susan Anderson.”

...lead to a showdown.

Craig adds, “This sense of diversity also includes the types of stories.  Because this is an anthology series, it allows us to do a wider spectrum of stories from the West. For instance, the last episode this season is on Charles M. Russell, the cowboy artist, and probably not something you're going to see in a traditional series that’s all Jesse James and Billy the Kid. It allows us to paint, no pun intended, a more accurate picture of what the West was like.”

Wild West Chronicles stars Jack Elliot, who doesn’t look or dress much like Gene Barry (who starred in Bat Masterson from 1956 to 1961), but looks a lot like the photographs of the real lawman-turned-journalist.  The episode Dr. Susan Anderson – Frontier Medicine Woman, airs Friday at 9 p.m., Pacific Time.  On Sunday at 2:30 p.m., Pacific Time, Bat Masterson & The Dodge City Deadline, Part 1, premieres.

Jack Elliot as Bat Masterson

If you’d like to read some of Bat Masterson’s actual writing, his collection, Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier is available from Dover Books, and other publishers.

 

JUST ONE MORE THING...

COMING SOON – DUELING BILLY THE KIDS!

Emilio Estevez, who was unforgettable as Billy the Kid in 1988’s Young Guns, and 1990’s Young Guns II, has spread the word that he’s coming back!  Screenwriter John Fusco, who wrote both Young Guns films, is hard at work on Guns 3: Alias Billy the Kid, which Estevez will direct as well as star in.  And this week the Epix Channel announced an 8-part limited series about Billy, to be written and produced by Michael Hirst, of The Tudors and Vikings fame.  Updates on both projects coming soon!

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

And please check out the May issue of True West, on newsstands now. It features my interview with author Paulette Jiles, whose News of the World is the basis for what many – including me – consider the best film of the year!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright May 2021 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

NEW WESTERN – ‘A SOLDIER’S REVENGE’, INTERVIEW W/DIR. MICHAEL FEIFER, PLUS RANDOLPH SCOTT DOUBLE-FEATURE REVIEW!

WRITER-DIRECTOR MICHAEL FEIFER ON 'A SOLDIER'S REVENGE':

GUN-RUNNING, AND POST-CIVIL WAR P.T.S.D.

With 64 feature directing credits, and 37 screenwriting credits since 2005, you can safely call Michael Feifer prolific.  From action films to true crime to horror to Christmas movies, to ‘dog-who-saved-various-holidays’ movies, he’s delved into most genres. On Tuesday, June 16^th, just in time for Father’s Day, his newest film will be coming out on home video, from Well Go U.S.A., available from Walmart and other retailers, as well as VOD download. It’s Michael’s third Western. His first was the contemporary SODA SPRINGS (2012), starring Jay Pickett and Tom Skerritt, followed the same year by WYATT EARP’S REVENGE, whose cast includes Val Kilmer and Trace Adkins. Partnered with co-producer and Western expert Peter Sherayko, in addition to A SOLDIER’S REVENGE, Michael has a fourth Western, SHOOTING STAR, in the can, to be released later this year, and three more Westerns set to go before camera: one would be rolling by the end of this week if not for the Coronavirus.

A SOLDIER’S REVENGE is a post-Civil War tale of a former Confederate soldier, Frank Connor (Neal Bledsoe), whose PTSD has made him unable to adapt to civilian life. He’s lost his marriage, isolated himself, and survives by taking assignments as a paid gunman.  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).  

Back in 2011 I had the pleasure of spending a few days on the set of WYATT EARP’S REVENGE, at Caravan West Ranch and Paramount Ranch.  (If you'd like to read those articles, go HERE and HERE.) Just a day ago I had the chance to catch up with Michael, telephonically, about A SOLDIER’S REVENGE, and his other Westerns in the pipeline.

Frank (Neal Bledsoe) and Griggs (Rob Mayes) as 

Rebel comrades 

HENRY: You wrote the script for A Soldier’s Revenge some years ago, and as another genre.

MICHAEL: I just wrote a low-budget action movie. There wasn't particularly a plan; I was just starting to write scripts. I've written now 40 or so scripts. It's just been sitting around for 10 years. And then, Peter Sherayko called me up and said, Hey, I have an investor, Rick Pihl, for a Western. You got any Westerns sitting around? I said, I don't, but I do have this action movie that I think I can convert into a Western. So I made a bunch of changes, but it’s basically a similar storyline. The action movie was based on an Iraq War soldier. It was a PTSD story. I changed the SUVs into wagons and horses, and changed the city of L.A.  into a Western town. The original script had a DARPA, secret Defense Department compound, and that changed to Briggs' compound. Peter read it, and brought in all his Western-isms: Frank saying, I roll my own hoop, a hard-boiled egg is yellow on the inside, stuff about a curly wolf -- things like that. Peter brought that actual Western lingo to the script, which was really nice.  And Peter's like, if you want to be true to the timeline, the men who ran guns, they ran women, too. So there's the scene where Frank pulls up the stagecoach, and my wife, Caia Coley, plays one of the prostitutes. Peter came in and brought in his lingo and the right types of guns and the right timeline and the right geographical settings,  we changed Briggs into a gun runner.

HENRY:  How did you like shooting the Civil War scenes?

MICHAEL:  I really enjoyed them. You know, usually on a low-budget movie, you really don't have the money for practical effects (note: practical effects are effects that are done on-set and on-camera, as opposed to CGI). Most of the effects you see in a movie are visual effects. But we actually had Christian Ramirez, my production designer, put together some canons to blow material in the air, which is really, really nice. The civil war reenactor guys, they come ready to go with all the accoutrements and costumes, and so truly quick and easy to get into and start shooting. I would love to shoot another war movie that's just Civil War, trench warfare, or a  World War One movie.  It's just so visual and visceral and textured.

HENRY: Frank Connor's character, today we would say he had PTSD. What did they call it after the Civil War?

MICHAEL: They called it Soldier's Heart, the original name of the film.  Peter was the one who named the film Soldier’s Heart. They didn't really have an understanding of what it was, but they knew that something traumatically would happen to you in war, and seeing such terrible things. The movie is being released as A Soldiers Revenge because that title had a little more of an action feel to it than a drama feel to it.

HENRY: When I talked to Peter about it, having been a Vietnam War veteran himself, and  having friends who suffered from PTSD, the theme was very important to him. I was wondering if you've had a response from any other vets.

MICHAEL: Oh, you know it's interesting. Peter's a gang of background actors that work on the movies, we call them Peter Sherayko's Buckaroos, many of them are vets, and many of them came to me during the shoot and thanked me for making a story where you have a character who's suffering from PTSD, suffering from soldier's heart. They found a lot of moments that really expressed their feelings, and appreciated that it was being explored. And the more light you put on the subject, the more people could come out from their own personal shadows and get help and feel that there's others like others like them. So a lot of guys actually came up and, and, and thanked me.

Neal Bledsoe and AnnaLyne McCord

HENRY: You've certainly taken us far out of the 21st century with this one. Where did you film it?

MICHAEL: We filmed on three ranches in Los Angeles. Caravan West Ranch, which is Peter Sherayko's production facility, in Agua Dulce. We filmed at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, which is where The Little House on The Prairie was filmed. We shot at Rancho Deluxe, in Santa Clarita. Big Sky Ranch is where the yellow house that's where Briggs' house is. People might be familiar with that from Westworld ‘s first season. There used to be more Western towns in Los Angeles. In fact, Paramount Ranch burned down, and another fantastic West town was torn down. So there were more options, but you know, L.A. is where they shot all the old westerns and what we're still doing here.

HENRY:  How long was your shooting schedule?

MICHAEL:  17 days.

HENRY: Wow -- that's tight!

MICHAEL: Not for me, (laughs). Actually that's four days longer than my normal schedule. Shooting Star, the last one, I actually did that in 19 days, which was even nicer. You know, a studio film, they might shoot 45 to 90 days. When you shoot independent films, specifically Western, you’ve just gotta work fast, you've got to have a well-oiled crew working together. You could tell when a movie is gonna really work out when you're on on-set, when everybody's really enjoying the process.  And the fruits of our labor will be revealed to the world on June 16th.

Val Kilmer, Michael Feifer, Neal Bledsoe

HENRY : What part of making a film is the most fun, or the most challenging?

MICHAEL: Actually the most fun and the most challenging is directing. I just thoroughly enjoy putting the pieces together, conceptualizing scenes, picking my lenses, camera movement, telling my crew, my cast what I need them to do. Everybody works together for one final goal. It’s just the complete creativity of directing a movie. I went to school for architecture, I was a graphic designer as a kid. I was a photographer and sculptor and drew, and directing movies is the aggregate of all of that together into one. If I couldn't direct movies, I would want to be a professional baseball player. It's like being a pitcher on the mound and you're in control of that game. And you only have those 17 days. That's it. There's no pickups or re-shoots on independent films; there's no budget for it. I'm so hyper-vigilant about getting the day started as quick as possible and shooting everything I can within a day.

HENRY: What is your favorite part of the finished film?

MICHAEL: There's a part where the kids are sleeping on a horse, and Frank leads them, comes to a spot and stops. He's leaning on the horse and he tells the kids, basically tells himself, and tells the kids while they're sleeping (something crucial that would give too much of the plot away!) There's something about the scene's really beautiful to me. I think Neil Bledsoe, his performance just hearkens back to Westerns of the ‘40s and ‘50s and ‘60s. It's just a sweet moment, one of the kids kind of looks up and then looks down again cause she was listening. That’s Savannah Judy -- Savannah and Luke Judy play the kids. You know making moments where people are shooting each other and riding quick and killing somebody are really fun to do and really exciting. But when you could draw the emotion in the middle of a big Epic Western, and it's just him with the two kids, I think I might like that scene the best.

Luke and Savannah Judy

HENRY:  I was delighted to see Jimmy Russo in the film.

MICHAEL:  Well, he's a fascinating guy, really a legendary actor. I was just watching him in Open Range the other night, with Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner. My favorite part of his was in Extremities, with Farrah Fawcett. We have a friend in common, Jay Pickett, who's also in Soldier's Heart, and Jay Pickett and James Russo coached baseball together; their kids were on the same baseball team. I needed a really, really strong actor to start off the movie. Frank goes to take care of one of his bounty hunting jobs, which is to take out James Russo's character, Artemus Walsh. It's a long scene and it's a tension-filled scene and it has great moments. I needed someone to really start the movie off with a bang, no pun intended, and a really strong performance. Someone who's gritty and just real, and James came to mind.

And onset was actually fascinating to watch him. We get onset, rehearse it, block the scene, and once we shoot the master, you kinda know what you're doing. When you get to the mediums and close-ups, you can evolve the moments more. Russo grabbed Neil and just set out a couple of directors chairs while the guys are lighting the set and just started working with Neil: let's work it, let's work it, let's do it again, let's do it again. Generally with independent films there's no rehearsals, there's no money to do rehearsals ahead of time. But we had this moment in time because we were lighting the set and James was just working with Neil and was like, let's do it again, and Mike, do you mind if I change the words here?  And Neil's really an actor's actor too, and he was loving it.

HENRY:  It was so nice to see Val Kilmer as Frank's father. Haven't you guys worked together before?

MICHAEL:  We worked together on Wyatt Earp's Revenge. And I did that in 2011 and filmed him at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. One day, 13 pages. It's one of those just sort of amazing experiences. But we had so much material to do. I didn't have time to get to know Val, to talk to him. Fast forward, eight years later, and I emailed him and said, Hey Val, do you remember when we got together for Wyatt Earp's Revenge? I’ve got another Western. And he emailed me back, yeah, I remember, good times.  In fact, if you watch, I'm sure a lot of people recognize that Val's gone through some health issues, but there's a certain sort of pathos to his character, that he was able to bring out, that I think is really just fascinating to watch. Even with the health issues he's been having. I'm just so impressed with Val, he's such a good guy. Such a nice, a nice person who's really very giving and just wants to do the best he can and help his fellow actor. And it was a pleasure to work with him.

HENRY:  I understand you have several other Western movie projects in the works.

Mike Feifer and Peter Sherayko

MICHAEL:  We shot Shooting Star in October, and it's in post. Shooting Star stars Drew Waters, Heather McComb , Peter Sherayko and Michael Pare, Jake Busey, but it also stars two young actresses who've never acted before and just blew me away. They were brilliant. One is Lyana Ferrino who plays the young girl, Blaze, who gets hurt at the beginning of the film, and is sort of the impetus for the entire story of the film. And then the lead actress is Brooklin Michelle. We'll probably complete post production in a couple of months. Then I have three more Western's coming up: Catch the Bullet, Desperate Riders, and The Siege at Rhyker's Station. We were supposed to shoot Catch the Bullet April 6th, but unfortunately with the Coronavirus and the quarantine, we have to delay that. And Val Kilmer was going to be in that movie too.

You asked about something challenging. Probably the most challenging thing other than just directing a Western movie, is the horse-riding. It's very hard to find experienced actors who can also ride horses; not just ride a horse, like gallop a horse, but control a horse. And it's very difficult to get. So on Catch the Bullet, there's a gang of bad guys and there's three good guys chasing down the bad guys and they all have to ride horses. So for Catch the Bullet, I'm hiring cowboys and stunt men who ride horses to play the roles, rather than actors and teaching them how to ride. I want these guys to be able to ride like there's no tomorrow, so the scenes just feel more dynamic and more real.  (laughs) In Shooting Star, I used a yoga ball. I’d put the actors on a yoga ball and have them bounce up and down, and make like their on a running horse. Sometimes we put the yoga ball in the back of the pickup truck and drive the pickup truck with the yoga ball. There's all sorts of techniques you have to use.

Jake Busey takes aim!

Shooting Star is going to be entirely in black and white, going to be reminiscent of westerns of the fifties and sixties, and we're going to do the music a very similar way. It looks spectacular in black and white. I'm really excited, really excited, and I'm not going to change it. People think, if you do it black and white, you're not gonna make any money. I'm like, ah, no, we're actually going to make a lot more money!"

“TO THE LAST MAN” AND “THE FIGHTING WESTERNER”

A RANDOLPH SCOTT DOUBLE FEATURE FROM ALPHA VIDEO DVD $7.98

Jack LaRue and Randolph Scott

Back in the early 1930s, Paramount brought ten Zane Grey Westerns to the screen, all starring young leading man Randolph Scott. Low-budget, but not B-Westerns in the usual sense, not aimed strictly towards kiddie matinees, some very fine films were made, all with strong casts, some with fine directors. Alpha-Video has released a double-feature pair, TO THE LAST MAN (1933), and THE FIGHTING WESTERNER (1935).

TO THE LAST MAN, directed by the wonderful Henry Hathaway (TRUE GRIT 36 years later!), it opens after the Civil War, with Mark Hayden (Egon Brecher), going home to the Kentucky hills, but only long enough to take his three kids to live somewhere away the deadly feud that has killed many in his family, and the opposing family, the Colbys, led by Jed Colby (Noah Beery Sr.). When Jed murders Mark’s father, Mark’s decision to have Jed arrested and tried rather than shooting him, is considered cowardly and dishonorable by both sides, and when Jed gets out of prison after fifteen years, he’s determined to destroy Mark as slowly and painfully as possible.

Randolph Scott, as Mark’s eldest son, doesn’t appear until 20 minutes into this just-over-an-hour movie, but when he does the film belongs to him, and to lovely Esther Ralston as Jed’s daughter Ellen – if you sense a Romeo and Juliet vibe, you’re not wrong. The supporting cast is delightful, with many actors you’ve never seen so young before, including Fuzzy Knight, Jack LaRue as Jed’s former cellmate, Buster Crabbe as Mark’s kid brother, Gail Patrick as their sister, and Barton MacLane as Mark’s son-in-law. It features a very early role for John Carradine, and the very first screen appearance for Shirley Temple, who is utterly charming.

Delmar Watson, Randolph Scott, and in her very first

scene in a movie, Shirley Temple

It’s a pre-Code film, which means, yes, Esther Ralston really seems to be skinny-dipping, and some of the violence is startling brutal. There’s one moment as tough as the scene in LITTLE CESAR when the gangster is brought home. Most interesting is a moment where Ellen asks cousin Eli (James Eagle) how a fine lady dresses. As he describes how his mother would dress, we realize what neither he nor Ellen do, that his mother was working in a brothel.

THE FIGHTING WESTERNER was originally released as THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN MYSTERY, and is in fact more of a Mystery than a Western, and not a very involving one at that. Randolph Scott is a mining engineer who arrives at a radium mine to find he’s there to replace a murdered man. All of the heirs have come for the reading of the will, and someone is bumping them off. Scott plays Watson to Sheriff (and vaudeville comic) Chic Sale’s Holmes. Also in the cast are lovely Ann Sheridan very early in her career; lovely Kathleen Burke, best remembered as the Panther Woman in ISLAND OF LOST SOULS; and David Belasco discovery Mrs. Leslie Carter.  It was the second film directed by talented journeyman Charles Barton, who the previous year won an Oscar for Best Assistant Director – yes, they used to give Oscars for that job. He would make his reputation directing some of Abbott & Costello’s funniest films, including ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. He has one wonderful sequence here, a fight-to-the-death at the mine’s stamp mill. Both films are from badly scratched but high-quality prints. Alpha Video’s offices are currently closed due to the Coronavirus. But when things get back to normal, you can order them HERE.

…AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Have a great week, keep washing your hands and hiding from your neighbors!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Material Copyright Mach 2020 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

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