RIDING WITH ROOSTER COGBURN & COWBOYS & ALIENS

(Updated Wednesday 12/8/2010 -- see SCREENING: RED AND WHITE)
Soon you’ll be seeing Cody Jones in TRUE GRIT and COWBOYS & ALIENS, but he jokes that you may have to look real quick. The stuntman and actor is an Eastern Shoshone tribal member of the Wind River Indian Reservation. He first rode across the TV screen in The History Channel’s CARSON AND CODY: THE HUNTER HEROES. Many American Indians have strong feelings about Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill. When I asked Cody if he did, he laughed. “Well, actually I’m named after Buffalo Bill Cody. I think it’s pretty cool. Buffalo Bill first incorporated Indians into the Wild West Show, and I think overall it was a good opportunity for those Indian guys back then. I know at one point he was considered an Indian fighter, when he was a scout. But from what I know, Buffalo Bill tried to be a friend of the Indian. I look on it as an honor to be named after him.

“Originally I’m from Wyoming, Fort Laramie Wyoming. And I also grew up in Texas, once my folks divorced. My dad went back to Texas, and my mom stayed in Wyoming. I ended up graduating from high school in Texas. I used to rodeo. I was down in Weatherford College, riding bulls for a little stretch of time. It’s something that I wanted to try when I was in high school, but I was playing a lot of other sports, and my parents were kind of discouraging me from doing it. I’d ridden a few bulls in high school, got real serious about it afterwards. I did that for a while, went pretty good at the start, then I went through a stretch when I wasn’t covering my bulls, wasn’t making a full ride, and then ended up being hurt. Got sort of banged up. So I took some time off, went back up to my grandpa’s place in Wyoming, stayed at the ranch.

“I was training horses on our family ranch, breaking them for other people to ride. It’s what we call ‘starting colts,’ getting the horse started. When they’re three, three and a half, you’re getting on them, riding them for the first time. Normally you put on sixty to ninety days, depending on who it’s for. If it’s for someone who’s pretty experienced I might only put thirty to sixty days on a horse, and they’ll take them from that point. If it’s somebody living in town who’s not very experienced, I might keep them ninety days, or even longer than that, get them really lined out and going good. At that point they can get on and usually handle the horse pretty well. And while I was working on our family ranch I did some college, at Eastern Wyoming College.”

(Photos - from top, Cody Jones, Cody Jones on horseback, DEADLIEST WARRIORS break for lunch, Will Rogers, William S. Hart, Red and White poster)

His work with horses is what eventually led him to the screen. “I was at home in Wyoming, in the summer of ’02, and I got a call from my cousin, Nobby Brown, who’d done stunts in a lot of movies – he’d done DANCES WITH WOLVES, GERONIMO – and he said, ‘Come down to Oklahoma to do this thing for The History Channel.’ It was CARSON AND CODY: THE HUNTER HEROES. They had a wagon we chased. They had us riding across a big wide-open prairie. They’d just tell us to ride from one point to another. I was just one of the guys in there, riding. I did that, and the next summer I toured in some Wild West shows. It was patterned after how Buffalo Bill did his show. They had their Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill. That took us into the Midwest. The biggest one we did was a ten day show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Lot of fun – two performances a day, and on the tenth day we road through downtown Milwaukee in a big parade. They wanted to keep it going every summer. But it was that time when oil prices were steadily rising. The cost of getting the horses and all of the guys to each location was too much, and the show folded.

“The next year, Steven Speilberg was doing a miniseries for TNT called INTO THE WEST, so I worked stunts in that. They hired a bunch of Indian guys to do stunt riding, especially episodes 4 and 5. Episode 4 was the one where they had the most riding – it was called HELL ON WHEELS.”

Steve Reevis, from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, an actor with a long string of credits, is a good friend and mentor to Cody, and convinced him to move to Los Angeles. His first job in L.A. was a film called THE HIRED GUN, which sounds like a Western, but isn’t. “It was a modern-day crime movie. That was fun; that was the first thing I worked on. I knew a stunt guy by the name of Kerry Wallum, down in Texas, and he was coming here around the same time that I was, to work on that movie. He got me on that, maybe two weeks after I came out to California, so I thought, ‘Alright – two weeks and I’m already on a film set.’ (laughs) I spent the rest of the year working at Home Depot in Burbank.

“Mostly on HIRED GUN I was doing a lot of driving. It was my first chance to do something besides riding horses – they had a lot of hard driving scenes in there. I had a scene where I had a fight with a couple of cops. They ended up giving me some lines, but they got cut from the movie: when I went to the premiere, they weren’t in there.” He’s also done some modeling. “I was in the Native American Men’s Calendar for 2009.” I asked him what month. “It was actually May and December. (laughs) Yeah, I got two months out of that one. They called me for this year’s, but I’ve been gone so much I missed out on being in the 2011 one.

“When I came out here I just wanted to be a stuntman, that was my big thing, but you know they’re just not making enough westerns these days. And being labeled an ‘Indian stuntman’ can make it even tougher, because then you’re afraid they’re only going to call you if they need Indian guys who can ride or whatever. I’ve done six different things this year, and every one has been Indian-related. I realize that’s my look, how people see me. I can change my hair, but I can’t grow much facial hair. I came out looking just to be a stuntman, but Steve pointed out, you can act a lot longer than you can be a stuntman, so I’ve been giving acting a try. I started acting classes about a year ago, and I’ve really switched my focus to acting. It’s kind of half and half right now.”

I asked him about TRUE GRIT. “I was actually working on another set when I got the phone call, on a show called DEADLIEST WARRIOR: AZTEC JAGUAR VS. ZANDE WARRIOR, for Spike TV. I played the main Aztec warrior in that episode. I was supposed to work background stunts that day, but I got there, and they ended up making me the main guy, so that was pretty cool. So I was on the set, and I got the call, the lady said the Coen Brothers were down in Austin, going through (pictures) picking out people they’re going to use in Texas. And they like me, and a friend of mine, Picarni Reevis, Steve’s son. They were picking six Indian men and six Indian women. I was told there’d be horse riding, a scene in a Wild West show. When we got there, they had changed their minds, and we wouldn’t be riding. So we’re just standing around in this area where they do the Wild West show. That’s the scene. The other four guys were hired local, from the Austin area. They were going to just use Texans, but the Coen brothers like our looks, so they brought us in from California. At one point they had us six guys and the six women lined up, and the camera goes by us. Then there were shots of us mixed in with the cowboys and Annie Oakley. So now I don’t know what you’re going to see in that scene – and if you see any of us, it’s going to be kind of quick, I’m afraid. But Pikuni and I were there, and we got introduced to the Coen brothers. They were asking, ‘How’s your father, Steve?’ Because they’d used Steve in FARGO back in ’93.”

I asked him if he’d seen the original TRUE GRIT, with John Wayne. “Yeah, I actually saw it for the first time in May, when we were in Texas. My mother is living in Texas now, and when I was visiting with her, we watched it. I liked it. I didn’t know I was going to see a young Robert Duvall – I didn’t know he was in the original. And Dennis Hopper – he got killed early.” Did he like westerns before he started working in them?

“Yeah, I really did. For me, growing up, I really remember YOUNG GUNS. GERONIMO, of course DANCES WITH WOLVES. I’ve always loved those movies. I want to eventually make my own western, and I hope to do it on my grandpa’s place. He ranches on a little over ten thousand acres, so he’s got some pretty scenic-looking areas, places where you could have a camera and not see any modern stuff. I’ve got one I’m writing right now, and I’d like to take a shot at directing it. But if I could find someone who’s experienced, and saw my same vision, I’d be willing to let them direct it, as long as we could get the thing made.”

I asked him about COWBOYS & ALIENS. “That’s one that a guy named Rod Rondeau brought me on. He’s from the Crow Reservation in Montana. He knew me from when we did INTO THE WEST. He did a lot of stunts in it, and he had a big acting role, as Roman Nose. In episode four we had horses, we’re laying down, then we jump up, ride them up next to this wagon, and a guy jumps from his horse to the wagon, throws a couple of guys off, and then he jumps from the seat to some of the horses – that was Rod. Rod called me back in April, said he was putting together a group of guys to go to New Mexico. I rode with him most of the summer, and he said, ‘You’re going to be one of my guys I go to New Mexico with.’

“In COWBOYS & ALIENS I was one of the Apaches riding in the group, where the Apaches and the cowboys get together to fight off the alien invasion, in the town of Absolution. It’s supposed to be set in Arizona, but they shot it in New Mexico. A lot of hard horse-riding. They had us shooting down arrows at aliens that weren’t there, that they’ll add later. There was also some wiring going on, where someone would be pulled back out of their saddle or up into the air, supposedly by aliens. I’d see Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig or director Jon Favreau in passing. I got to meet Olivia Wilde, our female lead, and she was very nice. But a lot of the stuff we were doing was stunts, was 2nd unit. Terry Leonard was 2nd unit director, and I did get to meet and talk with him several times, which is very cool because he’s kind of a legend, because he started out doing stunts in Westerns, and now he’s 2nd unit director. He doubled for a lot of the western stars – he’s our Yakima Canutt.”

What else is in the works? “WUSS is a film we made in Dallas, Texas this summer, and we’re supposed to hear pretty soon if it’s accepted into SUNDANCE. The director already had one of his films shown there last year, so SUNDANCE is expecting him to come back with this one. It was cool because I did get a real acting role, and if it does get accepted into Sundance it would be some good exposure. And WARRIOR’S HEART is a modern film that I got to do some stunt-work in as a lacrosse player. They were looking for native guys who had played lacrosse in the past. Adam Beach is the main native guy in that one, mentoring a kid who lost his father. He also plays Nat Colorado in COWBOYS & ALIENS.”

And there’s one more Western. “DAWN OF CONVICTION is supposed to come out after the first of the year – it’s just going to go film festivals first. It’s made by a production company called Companion Pictures, in association with The University of Fairfield, in Connecticut. A couple of guys graduated from the university, and then went back there with this Western they’d written. And the film program director liked it so much that they got the University, and some more money, behind it. It’s kind of a student film/independent film. And the crew was students working for credit for their class. We filmed it in June of 2009, in and around the Black Hills of South Dakota, kind of close to Mt. Rushmore. That’s one I’m kind of excited about, it’s the one that I call my first acting role. It’s a small role, but I was on set for a couple of weeks, and it was a great experience, with a lot of other young actors. I’ve been on some really big sets, really grateful for that, but this had to be my funnest shoot ever. We shot with really nice Sony HD cameras from the university. We’re out on a 70,000 acre ranch, just a sea of grass. At base-camp they had cabins and trailers for us to stay in. A lot of the actors and crew were from New York and Connecticut, who’d never done any camping. The night we wrapped filming, a bunch of them didn’t stay in their cabins – they got around a big campfire and slept out there – they just wanted to sleep under the stars. It was a real experience for a lot of them. I don’t know if it’s going to be as good as TRUE GRIT, but it’s going to be a good one.” CLICK HERE to see a trailer for DAWN OF CONVICTION and visit the official website.

WILL ROGERS TRIBUTE AT LASKY-DEMILLE BARN WEDNESDAY 12/8

Cowboy Will Rogers became a vaudeville star with an astonishing rope-tossing routine that was billed as a ‘dumb act’, that is, one performed silently. Eddie Cantor said it was Ziegfeld Follies co-star W.C. Fields who convinced him that he was funny enough to talk on stage, and the rest is history. On Wednesday, at 7:30 p.m., the Hollywood Heritage Museum will present An Evening With Will Rogers, featuring his great-granddaughter, Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, who will discuss her predecessor’s legacy in film, print and radio. Also on hand will be Todd Vradenburg, Executive Director of the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation and Board President of the Will Rogers Foundation.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will premiere several documentaries produced for their Will Rogers DVD Collection, including ‘Back To The Ranch’, with family interviews, and ‘Jane Withers Remembers’, with reminiscences from Withers about their friendship when they were both making movies at Fox. Additionally, film historian Stan Taffel will screen rare film clips from his collection. The event costs $10 for the public, $5 for Hollywood Heritage members, and is, delightfully, located in Hollywood’s original studio, right across the street from the Hollywood Bowl, at 2100 Highland Avenue. For more information, CLICK HERE.

FREE THURSDAY LUNCHTIME SCREENING OF 'RED AND WHITE: GONE WITH THE WEST' DOWNTOWN

The Jules Verne Adventures folks -- the ones who brought you last year's WILD BUNCH 40TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING, and last month's Steve McQueen event, are presenting the documentary film narrated by Ernest Borgnine. They describe the movie as, "A journey unto the American Wild West, between past and present, from Buffalo Bill's last gleaming hopes to the Native Americans ressurection." It's at the Jules Verne Pocket Theatre at 7th and Figueroa. For details, CLICK HERE.

WILLIAM S. HART’S ‘THE DARKENING TRAIL’ AT THE EGYPTIAN SATURDAY 12/11

Hart, the first great actor of the Western screen, starred and made his directorial debut in this 1915 story of unrequited love, infidelity and revenge in frontier Alaska. Showing at 7:30 in the Speilberg Theatre (which I think is the smaller one in back), it is part of the Egyptian’s Retroformat Series, screening movies in obsolete formats, because that’s often the only way they are available. They’ll be showing an 8mm film print. Also in the program, a 1915 Pacific Electric film on trolley safety, and D. W. Griffith’s OIL AND WATER (1913) starring Blanche Sweet. For more information, CLICK HERE.


It's almost two a.m., Monday morning, so I'm not going to get the rest of this week's report up until later in the day. But please check back, there's more interesting stuff!

Adios,

Henry

All Contents Copyright December 2010 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved

COWBOYS TO APPEAR ON POST OFFICE WALLS!

On April 17th, the U.S. Postal Service will issue COWBOYS OF THE SILVER SCREEN, four stamps honoring all-time favorite cowpunchers William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Robert Rodriguez is the artist for all four portraits. It's been a noteworthy time for Roy Rogers in particular, whose Under Western Skies (1938) was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry, along with The Mark of Zorro (1940), Once Upon a Time In The West (1968) and The Revenge of Pancho Villa (1930-1936). Ironic that both happy events should happen so close to the closing of the Roy Rogers Museum in Branson, Missouri. If you'd like read Roy Rogers Jr. statement about the closing, click here. And if you'd like to nominate movies for the National Film Registry, click here.

SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FESTIVAL!

The 17th Annual Festival will be taking place at the fabled Melody Ranch, of Gene Autry fame, April 22nd-25th. There are many different events and activities, including eating, shopping, touring the Melody Ranch Museum, a wide range of music and dance performances -- including my personal favorites, The Quebe Sisters Band, screenings of High Noon, and of The Shootist - featuring screenwriter Miles Swarthout. There are a ton of different individual events and packages, so for more information and tickets, click here.

BOOK REVIEW - THE WESTERNERS by C. COURTNEY JOYNER

C. Courtney Joyner’s collection of interviews, entitled THE WESTERNERS is, simply, one of the best books ever written about the western film. While most such books are written by one of two kinds of outsider – either a goofy fan with enthusiasm but no knowledge, or a pretentious academic with a wealth of pointless statistics – in this one the story told by the men and women who actually made the movies, interviewed by a man who knows what questions to ask.

Joyner is a screenwriter with more than twenty produced films to his credit, and he’s directed a couple as well. He’s written extensively about his two favorite film genres – westerns and horror – in Wildest Westerns, Fangoria and Famous Monster of Filmland. Joyner’s book covers a wide range of western entertainment in terms of year and budget. He speaks to Glenn Ford, one of the biggest stars to ever ride the range, and to the great character people like perennial John Wayne sideman Edward Faulkner, and accountant-turned-villain-turned-comic Jack Elam. Elam’s story of what happened during the filming of the train-station opening of Leone’s Once Upon A Time in the West (1968) is a jaw-dropper.

Then there are the subjects whose families span generations in the film business. Harry Carey Jr., a solid presence in westerns from Red River and Three Godfathers, both 1948, to Tombstone (1993) – with Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula (1966) in between – is the son of silent western star Harry Carey Sr. You’ll learn what it was like working with John Wayne and John Ford, how an innocuous, overheard comment from Ben Johnson got him banned from John Ford sets for fourteen years. You’ll read about how Dennis Hopper got blackballed after storming off the set, because director Henry Hathaway was mocking his recently deceased pal James Dean. Another second generationer, director Andrew V. McLaglen, son of actor Victor, has plenty of stories to tell.

Joyner’s talk with Elmore ‘Dutch’ Leonard traces his career from the pulps, to Hombre, to the phone-call he got from Clint Eastwood: “Dirty Harry is going to make an awful lot of money. I want one just like it. A guy with a gun, only different.” That’s what led to Joe Kidd(1972). Writer-director Burt Kennedy talks at length about his collaboration with director Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott, which gave us, arguably, the best series of westerns ever made – a subject Kennedy glossed over in his autobiography.

This volume is clearly a labor of love. It contains the only extensive interview I’ve ever read with Warren Oates, who died back in 1982. We are fortunate that Joyner managed to interview Oates while still a college student, as part of a class project!

Also represented are two of the great beauties of the western screen, Virginia Mayo and Julie Adams. While most actresses whine about dust in their hair and eating outside, both of these women enjoyed the often down-and-dirty work, and Mayo won my heart by referring to westerns as ‘outdoor pictures,’ the term John Ford preferred.

Producer A.C. Lyles, the grand old man of Paramount Pictures, discusses his highly successful series of small-budget westerns that kept a slew of old-timers in front of the camera. The television side of westerns is not slighted either. Joyner speaks to Andrew J. Fenady, who in addition to writing Chisum (1970), also wrote and/or produced series like The Rebel, Branded and Hondo.

And spaghetti westerns are welcomed into the fold. Aldo Sambrell, the greatest of the banditos in the Sergio Leones, and so many others, tells the story of why he had to pull a saber on Jim Brown during the making of 100 Rifles(1969).

THE WESTERNERS is a trade paperback published by MacFarland, 256 pages, $39.95, with a forward by Miles Swarthout, the screenwriter of the wonderful The Shootist (1976), from his father Glendon Swarthout’s novel. If you click this link, you’ll be connected to the Westerners’ website, and can order the book from MacFarland or Amazon – and you can watch the trailer for The Wild Bunch (1969)!

FESS PARKER DIES MARCH 19TH, AGE 85

The ruggedly handsome actor who would forever blur a generation's identification of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone was born, appropriately, in Fort Worth, Texas in 1924. Walt Disney, searching for an actor to play Crockett, was considering pre-GUNSMOKE James Arness, and watched him in a 1954 sci-fier, THEM! There he apotted Fess Parker in a small role, and the rest is legend. He became a star over-night, and nearly every kid in the world sported a coon-skin cap for a few years. His rendition of 'Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,' was #1 for sixteen weeks, for which he was paid $150.00. After the seven CROCKETTS he starred in Westward Ho The Wagons (1956), and Old Yeller (1957), both for Disney. He wanted to be let out of his contract to play a role in Ford's The Searchers, and to star opposite Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop, but Uncle Walt nixed both. In the 1962 season he starred in a TV adaptation of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Starting in 1964 Parker began playing Daniel Boone, and would continue for 159 episodes. He only took a few roles after Boone, before shifting his business interests to real estate. He had a tremendously successful development in Santa Barbara. He'd drop in there every weekend, and talk for hours to the many aging kids who grew up with him as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.

ROBERT CULP DIES MARCH 24TH, AGE 79

Although handsome leading man Culp is best remembered by the public for his long-running series, I SPY, he appeared frequently in western movies and TV shows. He starred in 70 episodes of Trackdown, guested on The Rifleman and Peckinpah's The Westerner, and played Wild Bill Hickok in The Raiders (1963). He starred in Castaway Cowboy (1974) and the comedy The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday (1976). His best western role was ine starred in Hannie Caulder (1971), where he plays the gunslinger who teaches Raquel Welch to shoot. In addition to acting, Culp was a talented writer, and wrote episodes of Trackdown, I Spy and The Greatest American Hero. He also wrote a pilot, Summer Soldiers, for Sam Peckinpah, but they never got it made. He also directed episodes of I SPY, Greatest American Hero, and the feature Hickey and Boggs(1972), in which he co-starred with his old I SPY pal Bill Cosby. I remember hearing him speak at a Writers Guild rally about twenty years ago, where he revealed that he became a director not so much to direct as to protect the integrity of the scripts he had written. If you, like me, haven't seen Culp in the saddle in a while, you can click here and watch The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday.

BUTCH CASSIDY AT THE BILLY WILDER

The Billy Wilder Theatre at UCLA has an occasional series of screenings entitled The Movie That Inspired Me. David Fincher, who has directed Benjamin Button (2008), Zodiac (2007) and Fight Club (1999), has selected Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969), directed by George Roy Hill, written by William Goldman. And in case anyone forgot, it stars Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katherine Ross and Strother Martin (I love to point out that Strother was in both Butch Cassidy and The Wild Bunch, both films about the same guys in the same year). David Fincher and series curator, director Curtis Hanson, will attend. For details and tickets, click here.

SWEETGRASS AT LANDMARK THEATERS

Here is the official blurb about a new documentary. "SWEETGRASS is an unsentimental elegy to the American West. The documentary follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. The astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times calls the film 'a really intimate, beautifully shot examination of the connection between man and beast,' while Ronnie Scheib of Variety considers it 'a one-of-a-kind experience...at once epic-scale and earthbound.'" Okay, none of those Brokeback Mountain (2005) cheap-shots -- I'm sure these poor cowboys have heard 'em all. Sweetgrass is playing at the Varsity Theatre in Seattle, the Nuart in Los Angeles, and will open this week at the Kendall Square Cinema in Boston.

I don't know how many of you went to see Ernest Borgnine at the North Hollywood Library on March 20th, but he played to a packed house. As one of the librarians commented that they'd never seen so many people at the library, nervous firemen slipped in and out of the auditorium where MARTY was being screened. The sign on the wall allowed an occupancy maximum of 116, but there were probably 150 or more. After, the big man answered questions about his career in general, talked a bit about The Wild Bunch, Vera Cruz(1954), and Burt Lancaster, and signed a helluvah lot of copies of his autobio, ERNIE.

WESTERN MOVIES ON TV
Note:AMC=American Movie Classics, EXT= Showtime Extreme, FMC=Fox Movie Channel, TCM=Turner Classic Movies. All times given are Pacific Standard Time.

Monday March 29th

FMC 3:00 a.m. Call Of The Wild (1935) Clark Gable, Loretta Young, Jack Oakie, Buck, D:William Wellman, W:Gene Fowler - from Jack London's novel. (Great stuff, and Gable at his best - no wonder Loretta got impregnated by him on the shoot!)

Wednesday March 31st

TCM 8:00 a.m. TWO RODE TOGETHER (1961) John Ford directd James Stewart and Richard Widmark in this story of two tough characters bringing home a group of freed Comanche hostages. Screenplay by Frank S. Nugent from the novel by Will Cook.

FMC 3:00 A.M. DRUMS ALONG THE MOWHAWK (1939)
John Ford directed with gusto from the Lamar Trotti, Sonya Levian script, based on the Walter D. Edmonds novel. Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda star in one of the finest of 'eastern' westerns, a Revoltionary War story packed with Ford stock company greats like John Carradine, Arthur Shields and Ward Bond. In a more normal year, it might have been named Best Picture, but in 1939 it received only two Oscar nominations, for Edna Mae Oliver's comic turn as Best Supporting Actress, and for Ray Rennahan and Bert Glennon's glorious Technicolor photography -- and it won neither. Highly recommended.

FMC 9:00 a.m. THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES (1957) Nicholas Ray directed this remake of the 1939 classic, starring Robert Wagner as Jesse, Jeffrey Hunter as Frank, and Alan Hale Jr. as Cole Younger, with Hope Lange and Agnes Moorehead. Scripy by Walter Newman, adapted from Nunnally Johnson's original.

Thursday April 1st

FNC 7:01 a.m. SHERIFF OF FRACTURED JAW (1959) Comedy western, D:Raoul Walsh, W:Howard Dimsdale, starring Jayne Mansfield, Kenneth More, Henry Hull, Bruce Cabot.

AMC 7:00 p.m. BLAZING SADDLES (1974)Mel Brooks directed and co-wrote, with Norman Steinberg, this delightfully broad western comedy about a town getting it's first black sheriff, Cleavon Little, helped only by Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. With Slim Pickens and Madeline Kahn, and featuring a rousing theme sung by Frankie Laine.

Friday April 2nd

TCM 1:15 a.m. MEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES: HOWARD HAWKS (1973) Docymentary directd by Richard Schickel.

TCM 6:16 a.m. GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST (1938) Theatre impressario David Belasco's play about a frontierwoman sheltering an outlaw becomes a vehicle for the voices of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. With Buddy Ebsen. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, script by Isabel Dawn.

TCM 10:15 a.m. THE KID FROM TEXAS (1939) A playboy turns cowboy, and sets up a polo match with an Indian tribe. Stars Dennis O'Keefe, Buddy Ebsen and Jack Carson. Directed by S. Sylvan Simon, story by Milton Merlin and Byron Morgan, screenplya by Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allen Woolf and Albert Mann Heimer.

AMC 12:30 p.m. BLAZING SADDLES (1974)Mel Brooks directed and co-wrote, with Norman Steinberg, this delightfully broad western comedy about a town getting it's first black sheriff, Cleavon Little, helped only by Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. With Slim Pickens and Madeline Kahn, and featuring a rousing theme sung by Frankie Laine.

TCM 12:45 p.m. FRONTIER RANGERS (1959) This movie and the next are cobbled together from the excellent TV series NORTHWEST PASSAGE, based on Kenneth Robert's novel about Robert's Rangers and the French and Indian War. Starring Keith Larsen, Buddy Ebsen and Angie Dickinson, directed by the great Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay by Gerald Drayson Adams.

TCM 2:15 p.m. FURY RIVER (1961) See above, the same cast, this time with four directors and several writers.

Saturday April 3rd

AMC 7:00 a.m. The Culpepper Cattle Company (1972) Directed by Dick Richards from his own story, scripted by Gregory Prentiss and Eric Bercovici. Young Gary Grimes talks a trail boss, Billy Green Bush, into taking him on a cattle drive. With Luke Askew, Bo Hopkins, Charles Martin Smith and Matt Clark -- how many westerns is Matt Clark in, anyway? As many as Gabby Hayes?

TCM 9:00 a.m. LITTLE BIG MAN (1970) LITTLE BIG MAN (1970) As a little big fan of director Arthur Penn and screenwriter Calder Willingham, I couldn't wait to see this adaptation of Thomas Berger's novel about an incredibly old Dustin Hoffman recalling his upbringing by Indians and fighting alongside Custer. But it's just ghastly, nearly unwatchable, and absolutely pointless, for 140 minutes! It strives to be funny on occasion, but fails utterly. Hoffman doesn't suck, but he can't save it. Faye Dunaway is fetching as she seduces Hoffman. Chief Dan George was nominated for as Oscar, in a performance that reminds you of Bela Lugosi's later work -- when he was at such a higher level of professionalism than those around him that you wondered how he could stand it. Great make-up by Dick Smith. Burn the negative.

AMC 9:15 a.m. THE COMANCHEROS (1961) John Wayne arrests Stuart Whitman, but they must join forces to defeat evil gun-running comanchero Lee Marvin. Great fun, written by James Edward Grant from a novel by Paul Wellman. It was Michael Curtiz's last film. When he became too ill, John Wayne took over the directorial reins, but refused credit. Fine Elmer Bernstein score. Biggest weakness: Lee Marvin is supposed to be horribly scared from surviving being scalped, but he actually looks like he's wearing a horse-shoe crab on top of his head.

AMC 11:45 a.m. LAST OF THE DOGMEN (1995) - Tab Murphy wrote and directed this story about a bounty hunter tracking three escaped convicts, and supernatural events that ensue. Starring Tom Berenger, Barbara Hershey, Kurtwood Smith and, Parley Baer, the original 'Chester' from the radio drama GUNSMOKE.

AMC 2:30 p.m. JEREMIAH JOHNSON (1972) Sydney Pollack directs Robert Redford in the story of a real mountain man, culled from several different writers: Vardis Fisher, Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker. The screenplay is by John Milius and Edward Anholt, and is co-stars Will Geer. Probably Redford's best western role (yes, I know SUNDANCE KID is good, too), and it was a wise move to eliminate his character's nickname: Liver-Eating Johnson.

AMC 5:00 p.m. THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES (1976) Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, with Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, John Vernon and Sheb Wooley. Clint's a Missouri farmer who becaomes a Confederate guerilla -- reportedly Clints favorite among his films. Screenplay by Philip Kaufman, from Forrest Carton's novel.

AMC 8:00 p.m. THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES (1976) Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, with Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, John Vernon and Sheb Wooley. Clint's a Missouri farmer who becaomes a Confederate guerilla -- reportedly Clints favorite among his films. Screenplay by Philip Kaufman, from Forrest Carton's novel.

AMC 11:00 p.m. JEREMIAH JOHNSON (1972) Sydney Pollack directs Robert Redford in the story of a real mountain man, culled from several different writers: Vardis Fisher, Raymond W. Thorp and Robert Bunker. The screenplay is by John Milius and Edward Anholt, and is co-stars Will Geer. Probably Redford's best western role (yes, I know SUNDANCE KID is good, too), and it was a wise move to eliminate his character's nickname: Liver-Eating Johnson.

Adios,

Henry