THE MAN WHO IS MANOLITO!

An Interview with HENRY DARROW

To those of us who grew up in the sixties watching THE HIGH CHAPARRAL, the actor Henry Darrow and the character of Manolito Montoya are inseparable.  Manolito, with the infectious laugh, was everything a teenaged boy in the audience wanted to be: handsome, suave, confidant, smart, competent with fists or firearms, a devil with ladies – and remarkably lazy!  He was the successful ‘slacker’ long before the term was popularized.  Growing up in Puerto Rico and New York, coming to California to act, his big break came when David Dortort, the creator of BONANZA, decided to do another Western series, also centered on family.  Feeling the Cartwrights were almost too ideal a family, Dortort decided to create a series about a dysfunctional family – again, a term which hadn’t yet been coined.  And unlike the comparative safety of The Ponderosa, The High Chaparral was located on the border with Mexico, and on what had been Apache land, land the Apache would not give up without a fight.  The constant sense of danger gave the show a considerable edge.

With INSP airing episodes on weekdays, weeknights, and Saturdays, old fans are becoming reacquainted with the show, and a younger audience raised on Spaghetti Westerns is discovering both its edginess and its story-telling quality.  I recently had the pleasure and privilege of talking with Henry Darrow about Manolito and his other roles, including his three different portrayals of Zorro!   Every bit as charming and witty as Manolito, he had me laughing from ‘Hello.’

 PARKE:  When you were a teenager growing up in Puerto Rico, you wrote a fan letter to Jose Ferrer.  Why was he so important to you?

DARROW:  Jose Ferrer was the first Puerto Rican to win an Oscar, for CYRANO DEBERGERAC.  When I first competed at University in Puerto Rico, for an acting scholarship, I did some of his speeches and I copied his voice.  And then I did a little bit of DEATH OF A SALESMAN, playing the older character.  Then I did Mercutio from ROMEO AND JULIET, and I had fun doing it – it was a good time.   And I got to meet Ferrer, and we worked together in a film, that was in Puerto Rico.  It was called ISABEL LE NEGRA (A LIFE OF SIN), and Isabel, she was a lady who ran a ‘house,’ (brothel) and she donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Catholic Church.  And they didn’t bury her on property that belonged to the church. 

PARKE: At what age did you decide to be an actor?

DARROW: I always wanted to be an actor, even as a kid.  I remember being in shows, and one of my first shows, I was a tree-cutter, and another boy played Santa Claus.  That was in front of the whole school.

PARKE: You’ve gained your greatest fame playing characters in western stories – Manolito in HIGH CHAPARRAL, and Zorro and Zorro’s father in several different productions.  Prior to starring in them, were westerns of particular interest to you?

DARROW:  There was a theatre called ‘Delicious’ -- this was in Puerto Rico, and they would charge twenty-five cents.  I would take my brother. The theatre was packed and we’d wind up having to sit in the front row to see three westerns, and I got to like and understand Tom Mix, Charlie Starrett – The Durango Kid, Johnny Mack Brown, etcetera.  And The Cisco Kid – Gilbert Roland.

PARKE:  Oh, he was the best.

Darrow with Gilbert Roland

DARROW:  Yeah, I really liked him, and he….I don’t know what it was about him.  He bought all his films, so you’ll see films about Cisco Kid with Duncan Renaldo, Cesar Romero, but you won’t see any of Gilbert Roland.  When I played Manolito I copied one of his bits, which was he was taking a shot of tequila, and he was with a girl, and he gave her a taste, and then he turned the glass, and took a taste from where she had been drinking.  And so I thought, ‘I could do that.’  So I tried it, but unfortunately I had a beer mug, and it just didn’t work.  The director said, “What the Hell are you doing?”  I said, “I saw Gilbert Roland do this, and he did it with a shot glass.”  He said, “Henry, you look like you’re drunk.”  So that came to a quick ending. 

PARKE: When you came to California, you joined the Pasadena Playhouse, where so many great actors got their start. 

DARROW: I picked California; I found out that the Pasadena Playhouse was about sixteen to seventeen miles from (Los Angeles), actually.  I got to work in lots of plays, and do lots of scenes, and there were many classes, and I really got a chance to expand – ten or fifteen scenes a year, a couple of plays.  I’d work with the second year students and do plays with them, and it was an important experience for me.  Eventually that became the criteria for the Pasadena Playhouse, that we hit our marks; we overacted a little bit (laughs), so we had to be careful,

PARKE: Your first feature Western was the very eerie CURSE OF THE UNDEAD (1959) with Eric Fleming, later of RAWHIDE, and Michael Pate.  Any memories of either man?

DARROW:  Eric Fleming and I, we played chess.  And he was a very good player.   Michael Pate played a Dracula character, and I played his brother.  And that was my first (screen) kiss.  I kiss the girl, and (laughs) by coincidence, my first death scene, because that was Michael Pate’s girlfriend, and he came and killed me.  I don’t remember Michael Pate too well, other than he was Australian, with the accent. 

PARKE: Before your breakthrough with HIGH CHAPARRAL you did several other classic Western series: WAGON TRAIN, GUNSMOKE and BONANZA.  Any particular memories of those shows, and the characters you played? 

DARROW: In WAGON TRAIN I had two lines. Ward Bond took my one of my lines!  It was like, “Giddyap,” getting the wagon going.  And I said, “Hey, that’s my line!”  And the whole set got quiet.  It was like ‘What?’  And he turned and looked at me, and I said, “Well, yeah, you took my line, and I only have two.”  I didn’t know.  So the next day the production manager comes up to me and says, “You have an extra line with the wagon.”  I guess he was shocked too, that I called him on it.  But I did get my extra line.  And in GUNSMOKE I did about three separate episodes.  One was a killer, one was a hangman – I played a Hispanic in that.  And I couldn’t bring myself to hang the guy, but he tried to get out, people tried to free him, and he got killed in the process.  I worked on the show CIMARRON CITY with Dan Blocker.  I was supposed to fight him.  And he said, no, no, so they brought in another guy who was six foot two to fight him.  He picks the both of us up arm-by-arm and throws us on the ground!  Kicks the Hell out of us! 

PARKE:  How tall are you?

DARROW: (laughs) I used to be six feet, but now I’m five-ten.  You lose height and flexibility.

PARKE: When and why did you change your name from Enrique Delgado to Henry Darrow?

DARROW: ‘Delgado’ did Latins.  I had an agent named Carlos Alvarado and he only got scripts that had Latin parts.  During the sixties and seventies there were lots of Latin parts floating around, and that’s all I ever did.  I played a non-Latin once, in a TV show with Victor Jory, and the character’s name was Blackie; that was it.

PARKE:  Let me ask you about Victor Jory, one of my absolute favorite villains.

DARROW:  Oh God, he was wonderful to work with.  But I was a smug little son-of-a-bitch.  He gave a speech at the Playhouse, and I thought, “Oh God, what’s he talking about?”  But he talked about everything that ever happened, later, for me; to do character work, to continue to work, and never turn down a job – work everything, do everything.  He was one of the guest stars on HIGH CHAPARRAL, one of the first episodes, with Barbara Hershey. 

PARKE: How did you come to David Dortort’s attention?  How did you win the role of Manolito Montoya?

Darrow, Leif Erickson, Linda Cristal, Cameron Mitchell

DARROW: Dortort had already created the successful BONANZA, and then came HIGH CHAPARRAL.  And CHAPARRAL had to do with two families.  Back in the sixties, the casting people used to see plays, and producers would see plays, so it was a good start for me.  David Dortort saw me in a play, THE WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT, by Ray Bradbury, in a theatre called The Coronet, in West Hollywood, on La Cienega.  I then left and did a year of repertory at the Pasadena Playhouse.  I was no longer a student.  I had been around town for a while, and I’d given myself five years.  And then I gave myself another set of five years, and I was currently working on my third set of five years, to stick it out.  It was then that I changed me name from Delgado to Darrow.  I looked through the phone book, and there weren’t that many Darrows, and so my agent at the time, Les Miller and I we came up with Henry Darrow. 

PARKE:  I understand that, looking for you under the wrong name, it took Dortort months to find you.  What did you think when he finally tracked you down?

DARROW: Dortort asked me, what do you think about Manolito?   They sent me the script, and all of a sudden I’m doing another Latin!  I just changed my name!

PARKE:  How was David Dortort’s vision for CHAPARRAL different from the many Western series that came before?

DARROW:  He came up with this concept.  The Civil War had just ended. We had the Mexican family of high esteem south of the border, and then we had the Tucson family, the (socially lower) Cannons.  And the man who played my father, Frank Silvera, negotiated a romance between his daughter, Linda Cristal and the old man, John Cannon.  Dortort had such an affinity for Latin actors, and he used us.  On BONANZA he hired many.  He hired almost every Latin that I had ever known of.  He hired them as Federales and bad guys, one after another, and they all played on CHAPARRAL, about a hundred-odd people a year.  And he had Ricardo Montalban on twice, and Alejandro Rey came on, and there was Fernando Lamas and there was Barbara Luna – there were a number of other people that he brought into the show. 

He made the character of Manolito a sort of a wastrel, and Linda Cristal as my sister, oh, she was just incredible.  She was wonderful to work with; she was the only other one who spoke Spanish, so if we were short in a scene, ten or fifteen seconds, they would say, “You guys get into an argument.”  Go “Ayyy, Manolito!”  “Ahh, Victoria!”  And so we’d work it that way.  Frank Silvera was a delight to work with, and the relationship Frank and I had as father and son was most well-liked in Europe. 

PARKE:  Were you an experienced horseman before the show?

DARROW:  My experience as a horseman – I think I was about eleven, and I got on a horse in Central Park, and it ran away with me (laughs).  (For HIGH CHAPARRAL)  they taught me how to ride a horse in the sand, in the Valley, someplace. 

PARKE:  I was 13 when HIGH CHAPARRAL started, and I loved it.  Your Manolito and Cameron Mitchell’s Uncle Buck, ‘The Loose Cannon’, were my favorite characters by far. 

DARROW:  Cameron Mitchell was like what you call him, ‘The Loose Cannon,’ that’s certainly like him.  He loved gambling, and he loved his pitchers of Margarita, and we’d drive down to the dogs, at Tubac, near Tucson.  I was on a film directed by Cam where one of the stars that had guest-starred on our show, Rocky Tarkington, played a Christ-like figure, and I think it was finished, but it was held up in the courts.  Luckily I got my money up front. (laughs)  And working with Cameron Mitchell – we wound up doing an episode called FRIENDS AND PARTNERS, where we bought a little ranch that had some silver on it.   We thought we were conning the owner about getting the silver out of the ground.  He said, “Well, if you did that, if you do this, if you do whatever, it’s gonna cost you guys a lot of time and work to get that silver out of the ground.”  That’s when we looked at each other and, ‘What?  He knows about the silver mine?’ 

PARKE:  What memories do you have of the other cast members?  Was Leif Erickson as stern as he seemed?

DARROW:  Leif Erickson was pretty good.  He was a straight-shooter.  He helped me invest some moneys in Hawaii.  I remember, with Leif Erickson I was always up and around, and here we are, working on location in 105, 110 degree heat.  I had gotten woolen pants, I had a suede jacket, a heavy black hat, and Leif Ericson would say, “You’re just up too much.  It’s not good for you, not good for your health.  You should sit down.”  So I started to sit down a little more, and he said, “You know what?  I think you should lie down.  Go into your air-conditioned dressing room and lie down.”  So I learned fast, going into the second year, to sit down, lie down, and it worked out okay.  And I got a chance to work with a lot of actors, TV actors who had been around, like Jack Lord, Bob Lansing, Steve Forrest, Victor Jory like I mentioned, Barbara Hershey – it was good.  I had a good time. 

Mark Slade, Blue, he eventually was written out.  He asked to be let go because of a film he wanted to do; he was going to do a film with Willie Nelson, and then it fell through.  The ranch hands, the buddies, were Don Collier, and Bobby Hoy, who recently died.  And there was Roberto Contreras, died, Ken Markland died, Jerry Summers died, Roberto Acosta died.  We used to have get-togethers and go to the western shows.  Don Collier would say to me (deeply), “Well Henry, you’ll be doing what I’m doing, and blah-blah-blah-blah.  You’ll do rodeos and…”  And I said, “No, I’m a serious actor; I don’t do that crap.”  (laughs)  And he taught me how to do some shooting, and then there’s a drum-beat, and somebody with a pin – Pop! -- the balloon pops.  (laughs) I did everything he said that I would do. 

PARKE:  Speaking of actors who you’ve worked with, what was Barbara Luna like? 

DARROW:  Oh, she’s a funny lady, a funny lady.  She has so much energy – I worked with her in soaps, too.  She once came up to me in a restaurant – she was with Michael Douglas – and she said, “Michael’s with some people from Sweden, and they know you.  And he wants to know why.”  Well, they saw HIGH CHAPARRAL.

PARKE: What were your favorite episodes?

DARROW: One with Donna Baccala; she played a love interest.  It was a good show, and she unfortunately died in my arms.  Favorite directors?  Billy Claxton.  He was the best – he did more episodes than anyone else.

PARKE:  In the late 1960s, there was great pressure to tone down the violence on television.  Did that have a good or bad effect on the show? 

DARROW:  There was great pressure to tone down violence, and we did.  And in some instances it brought out different patterns of my character.  We didn’t shoot; you couldn’t point a gun.  That became a little weary, because if you pulled your gun out of the holster you had to aim it at somebody.  So you just took the gun out and held it across your lap, and c’mon, that’s not right! 

PARKE:  It goes against everything western, the idea that you don’t pull your gun unless you intend to use it. 

DARROW:  We had one producer, his name was Jimmy Schmerer, and we had a great fight scene.  All the Indians in the world were down in the valley, they were shooting, and people were getting shot, and then he panned around, and there wasn’t one body – not one body!  The network said, ‘What the Hell is going on?’  And he said, ‘You told us we were not allowed to shoot anybody and kill them.’  And what you saw was six or eight shots of people getting shot in the shoulder, going down, getting up, somebody got shot in the leg; somebody helps him get on a horse. 

PARKE: After four seasons and 97 episodes, HIGH CHAPARRAL was cancelled.  Did you know it was coming?

DARROW:  I read it in Variety – that’s how I found out.  That really hurt, oh man did that hurt.  We used to win the first half-hour, opposite THE BRADY BUNCH, when we were on Fridays.  And then (ABC) added another show, THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY.  And once they added that show, we were done.  Even though we had Gilbert Roland coming on next season as a regular.  I had a good run; I had a beautiful run.  (But after) CHAPARRAL, people sort of stayed away from me because I was so tagged as Manolito, that character, that they didn’t hire me right away.  But then all of a sudden, someone on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE hired me, nine months, ten months into the year, and that changed the whole outlook.  I then got a lot of guest shots, I did HARRY O, and then I did a number of other series. 

PARKE:  Would it be indelicate to ask about the residual situation on CHAPARRAL?

DARROW:  Well, we came in right when they changed the ruling, that you could show the episode ten times, and you’d get paid ten times.  And then all of a sudden you wouldn’t get paid anything.  And they’re showing it hundreds of hours around the world, and I just think of the people who did THE LONE RANGER, and they don’t get piss.   They got nothing.  I thought, well, at least did it, and they had a buyout of some kind, say two hundred bucks, three hundred bucks an episode, and it was worth it; it was worth the anxiety. 

PARKE:  I understand you went to Sweden after HIGH CHAPARRAL ended.

DARROW:  I had talked with Michael Landon because he had done a show in Sweden, and made a lot of money.  And I thought, what the Hell, I can do that.  And he did a couple of fight scenes for the people.  So I wound up singing some songs, and using whips.  I did about twelve shows in Sweden.  I sang in Swedish.  I first started in my regular Manolito wardrobe, and then the second half of the show was ‘Henry Darrow Sings,’ in modern clothing, and the people were talking while I was performing!  As the producer said, “You’ve gotta put on the outfit!  They don’t know Henry Darrow, they know Manolito.  So if you don’t wear your outfit, they won’t know who the Hell you are.”  And I started to find out.  I’d call the kitchen and say, “This is Henry Darrow; we’ve got no service.”  He said, “No, tell them you’re Manolito,” and then they were there – bam! 

I was the second most famous man in Sweden.  The King was first and I was next. I was in this helicopter, and they put me down near the water, and there was a band starting to form together, and I asked, “When do they start playing my theme?”  And they said, “They’re not; they’re waiting for the King.”  (laughs)  They asked me to leave, and that was the end of that.  There was one Mexican restaurant in Sweden, in Stockholm, and we went to it, and they had elk tacos!  It was fun, and that lasted for a while. I lost about eight or ten pounds.

PARKE:  You’ve gone on to do many movies, plays, TV series like HARRY O and THE NEW DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, but apart from Manolito, the character you’re most identified with is Zorro!  Culturally, what is the significance of your playing Zorro?

DARROW: I was the first Latino to play Zorro. And I think that I am the only actor who has been in three productions of Zorro.  I was in the animated series, and then I was in ZORRO AND SON, where I played the over-the-hill Zorro, and then I played Zorro’s father in Spain in several different productions, and I replaced Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 

 

PARKE:  Didn’t you actually audition for the Disney ZORRO series back in the 1950s?  What role were you up for?

DARROW:  I had read for the part of a heavy in ZORRO back in the fifties, with Guy Williams.  And I actually wore Guy Williams’ wardrobe in ZORRO AND SON in 1983, except they had to take it up three inches, because he was three inches taller than I was. 

PARKE: You first played Zorro in the Filmation cartoon series in 1981.  What was it like doing cartoon voices?

DARROW:  It was different, because you don’t work with anybody.  You just work by yourself.  They lock you in; you do your stuff.  And I remember Lou Scheimer said, “CBS says you’re a little suggestive.”  I said, “Like what?”  “Like senoriiitah.  Buenos noches.”  “I have to give it a little something.”  He said, “No, no.  It’s got to be straight.”  So it became (monotone) ‘senorita, buenos noches.’  With no inflection; that’s exactly what they want.  So now I listen to the animated series, that’s why it sounds so flat, monotone and one-note.  I replaced Fernando Lamas.  I don’t think he did any; I filled in for him before he even started.  I was going to be not-cast, when I started with the inflection. 

PARKE:  Did you work with Don Diamond, who played Sergeant Garcia?

DARROW:  No, I never did.  He may have played on CHAPARRAL, but I don’t remember.  He was a funny man, did voices –

PARKE:  Played Crazy Cat on F-TROOP. 

DARROW:  That was good.

PARKE:  It’s funny because he was one of those guys, who were so identified as a certain kind of Hispanic character, and of course he wasn’t, but he did nothing but that for decades. 

DARROW:  I know, and that was the funny part of it.  And of course it was the same with Bill Dana; Jose Jimenez. 

PARKE: With whom you did ZORRO AND SON.

Zorro and Son

DARROW:  Yes, in 1983.  We had a short-lived series, ZORRO AND SON.  It was unfortunate that the pilot was one of the first episodes, and one of the best episodes was the last one.  Where Greg Sierra puts on an outfit like Zorro, and takes over my house, and chops up my furniture with a sword.  And I chopped up my furniture, because it annoyed me that he was cutting my furniture the wrong way.  I said, “No -- yah!”  And I slammed down and cut a chair in half.  Anyway the episode ended, we were both in the cantina, I say, “I’ll pay for this.”  And he says, “No, I will.”  And I said, “No, no, no senor, por favor.”  And he said, “No you won’t.”  And the episode ended with both of us arm-wrestling to see who would pay for the drink.  And it was fun working with him, and it was fun working with Bill Dana (as Bernardo); it was delicious.  It was a good five episodes that we did, and unfortunately the last one was the best.  And I showed the pilot to a wonderful producer, Garry Marshall.  And he said, “Henry, if they concentrate on you and your son and play that relationship, that’ll work.  But if they’re going to make fun of Zorro, I don’t think it’s going to last long.”  And that is exactly what happened.  The writers didn’t know what to do with it, if it was a half-hour cartoon show for the kids, for Saturday morning.  We did have a little heavy-build scene here and there.  But they never decided what kind of a comedy it was.  (At the end of an episode) there was a beautiful girl, and he kissed the girl, and I got to hug the priest.  Then both of us were on our horses, and I turn to him and say, “Next time I kiss the girl and you hug the Padre.”  (laughs)  Some of it was comedic, and it worked, but other stuff didn’t.  It’s like you’d say, “The walls have ears,” and – BAM! – they’d cut to plastic ears on a wall.  Oh man!  It was just too corny.  But Bill Dana was a delight to work with.  And he wrote a lot of his own dialogue – he came up with lines.

PARKE:  He wrote for Steve Allen.  If you can write for Steve Allen you can do anything. 

DARROW:  That’s right! 

PARKE: In 1990 you went to Spain to star as Zorro’s father in the New World ZORRO series for four seasons, and over sixty episodes.  How did you enjoy the experience?

In the New World ZORRO

DARROW:  That was a delight.  Duncan Regeher was just delightful.  He was the most thorough actor I ever worked with.  He got up at four o’clock and worked for an hour with his weights, with his stretching, with his yoga.  He was incredible.  And Michael Tylo, his Alcalde was like Iago.  He was threatened.  And then the guy that replaced him was John Hertzler, and he made him a little more of a braggart.

PARKE:  I just watched the TV movie cut from the episodes where you don’t know that you have a second son – great fun, great stuff!

DARROW: Oh my gosh!  That was a good show.   And that guy (James Horan, who played the second son) voted for me – part of my Emmy win for SANTA BARBARA was from doing the soaps with him.  He had seen some other shows that I had done, and he said, “That’s it!  That’s it!” 

PARKE:  In 2001 you starred on stage in THAT CERTAIN CERVANTES.   How did this project come about? 

 

DARROW:  Harry Cason was a waiter when I lived in Pasadena, California, at a very exclusive restaurant.  He provided some free desserts over a couple of months, so we got to talking, and sure as nothing, he’s an ex-actor, and an excellent waiter, and all of a sudden he became a writer, and he produced the show (a production of THE DRESSER), and I wound up working on it.  I said hey, can you write a character for me?  He came up with a hard-nosed young guy, and I said no, no, no; he’s got to be my age, in his sixties.  And came up with Cervantes, and he did three or four drafts.  It was a one-man show, and I played about six characters:  I played the horse, I played my wife Catalina, I played an official from the court, and I had just a great time, and it got fantastic reviews. 

PARKE:  We’ve got a friend in common.  Morgan Woodward was the lead villain in SPEEDTRAP, the first movie I ever wrote.

DARROW:  Morgan was a delight, just a delight.  And he did the most GUNSMOKES in the world.  He got us together, my wife and I.  His ex-wife had a theatre in Midlands, Texas, a dinner theater.  And I played THE RAINMAKER, and I had a ball.  We had a good, good cast; we played it for a month, and it was great, I mean working in Texas was really something.  One of the lines that I liked, that they said about themselves was, “Hank, if you lose your dog, you can see your dog get lost for three days.” (laughs) Then we went to a party, and Holy Cow, we drove for hours, and it was just land – land and the wind and dust and tumbleweeds rolling around.  I got a chance to do a lot of things because of CHAPARRAL, thank goodness. 

PARKE:  Why did you and your wife, Lauren, relocate to South Carolina?

DARROW:  Because my hair had gotten white.  I was looking older, and all of a sudden, there I was competing for one and two and three lines.  When I’d go to a reading, there were guys who had done series like I had.  We all looked at each other and said, ‘What the Hell are we doing here?”  Here we are for three lines; for two lines.  We’ve got all the credits in the world, and the guys that are hiring us are in their late 20s, their early 30s, and it was like, ‘What have you done?’    Oh man, to have to start all over again.  I just couldn’t, I couldn’t hack it.  So we had a friend who was doing a series on the Kentucky Derby, and she talked to us about Screen Gems being here, and a lot of theatre being done at the University, etcetera, so we chose here, came and bought an old two-story Carolina house, with a little bit of land – nothing great, just a large backyard.  We got into cats, and the all of a sudden we got into the real estate game.  But we got into the real estate game just before the bottom dropped out, so we’re stuck with about eight houses. 

PARKE:  Do you ever get back to Los Angeles?

DARROW:  I went to the Gene Autry Museum, sold my biography, and had a great time – some guys showed up that I hadn’t seen in decades.  They made a nice event of the thing.  Then I won the ALMA Award, for Latins.  I won (The Lifetime Achievement Award), I guess, for still being alive.   I’ll be eighty years old this next year. 

PARKE:  I recently got over to Old Tucson Studios, and it’s nice to see that there is still so much standing from HIGH CHAPARRAL. 

DARROW:  Yes; I’m supposed to go there in March, for the 41^st reunion.  And this will be my last visit, because it’s just too strenuous for me.  Well, that’s the way it is.

PARKE:  Do you know who else is attending?

DARROW:  The only two are alive are Rudy Ramos, who plays Wind, and Don Collier.

PARKE: Would you do another Western if you were offered the right script?

DARROW: I’m doing a series on Daniel Boone, a five-parter on PBS.  I told the producer I can’t memorize anymore.  She said, “Can you read cue-cards?”  I said yes, she said, “You’re hired.”  They hired me as the Cuban tavern owner.  So I’ve got a job coming up some time next year.  And it’s nice to get back into it.  And on occasion I’ve done some movies for film students at the University.  8, 9, 10-minute films.  Because I go down there and I coach and I teach, and I go to talks.  So I still keep my hand in it as best I can.

BOOK REVIEW --  HENRY DARROW – LIGHTNING IN THE BOTTLE by Jan Pippins and Henry Darrow, is the delightful biography of the actor we all discovered as Manolito Montoya on THE HIGH CHAPARRAL.  Of course, his life is so much more than that, and his childhood in Puerto Rico and New York, his chess mastery, his relationship with a doting mother and the rest of his family, would be entertaining all by itself, without his being cast in the ground-breaking Western series.   

For fans of CHAPARRAL, Jan Pippins’ meticulously detailed telling of the history of the show, from concept to casting, from the rise to the demise, is a compelling book within a book.  But there is another dimension to this story as well.  As a white guy watching Westerns in the sixties, I hadn’t a clue of the great significance, to a sizable minority of our population, of having Latin characters who were not banditos or servants or Federales, but people of equal or higher wealth and social standing than the whites.  Throughout the book the testimonials to Darrow’s importance to the careers of so many Latino actors, sometimes by example, sometimes by personal involvement, is as moving as it is unexpected. 

Darrow’s career did not end with CHAPARRAL, and the stories about his TV, film and stage work are enlightening, amusing, and sometimes are cautionary tales, as are some elements of his personal life.   HENRY DARROW – LIGHTNING IN THE BOTTLE is a book that will be heartily enjoyed by fans of the man, of the show, and documents through him a unique and significant time in the history of American entertainment.  I highly recommend it.

‘DJANGOMANIA’ SWEEPS THE NATION!

Even as weepy-whiners call for a ban on DJANGO UNCHAINED action figures, fearing small children will be encouraged to play ‘slave and master’ games, Tarantino’s Western continues to entertain.  His own theatre, the New Beverly Cinema revival house, offers an exclusive design t-shirt, $20 for short sleeves, $25 for baseball sleeves.  And at Amoeba Records in Hollywood, the purchase of the soundtrack includes an exclusive poster (I haven’t been able to find out what it looks like yet).  

That's about all for tonight!  Sunday night's Golden Globes were good for Westerns -- Best Actor for Kevin Costner in HATFIELDS & MCCOYS, Best Screenplay for Quentin Tarantino for DJANGO UNCHAINED, Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz for DJANGO, and Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis in LINCOLN.  

Next week, in time for Hallmark Movie Channel's GOODNIGHT FOR JUSTICE 3: QUEEN OF HEARTS, the best film yet in the series, I'll have a review, plus interviews with Luke Perry and Ricky Schroder.  Have a great week!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright January 2013 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved 

HELP FOR SPAGHETTI-CHALLENGED ‘DJANGO’ FANS!

I’ve loved Westerns for as long as I can recall, but I must admit, somewhat sheepishly, that I was not always a fan of Spaghetti Westerns.  It wasn’t that I disliked them – I was too much of a snob to give them a chance.  (Ironically, I had seen and enjoyed several, and not realized where they were made.)   My great awakening came with a wonderful show at The Autry Museum of Western Heritage in 2005, ONCE UPON A TIME IN ITALY, the first major museum show anywhere on the films of Sergio Leone.   

After I devoured all of the Leones, I went to the fabled video store Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee http://www.ebsmvideo.com HERE , which has a tremendous selection of DVDs and VHS Westerns for rent and for sale, and asked for recommendations.  They turned me on to DJANGO, THE HILLS RUN RED, and many others.  It’s seven years later, and I’m an addict of the pasta genre.

Despite my reputation, I occasionally speak to people who are not particularly Western movie fans, and it’s always great to introduce them to this wonderful genre.  Coming up to the release of DJANGO UNCHAINED, I’ve talked to many Tarantino fans, not normally western-watchers, who wanted to be emotionally prepared for the film.  Others have seen it, been intrigued by the genre, and are eager to see more.  For them, and for those of us who have seen a lot, but would like some suggestions of further fun, I’ve asked several Spaghetti Western aficionados from around the country which films they would recommend – and I’m asking you, the Round-up reader, to send me your suggestions. 

I’ll start the suggestions by saying that seeing the films of Sergio Leone (FISTFUL OF DOLLARS; FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE; THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY; ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, DUCK, YOU SUCKER, and MY NAME IS NOBODY) is a must, and the films of Sergio Corbucci (DJANGO, et al) are a must as well.

Here is Quentin Tarantino’s top twenty list (with my comments after some titles):

1)      THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966), starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, and as with all the Leones, with a brilliant Ennio Morricone score

2)      FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965), starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef

3)      DJANGO (1966), starring the European icon of Spaghetti Westerns, Franco Nero

4)      A PROFESSIONAL GUN/THE MERCENARY (1968), directed by Corbucci, starring Franco Nero, Jack Palance and Tony Musante

5)      ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968), Leone’s epic Western, starring Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, and Jason Robards

6)      A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964), the one that started it all in the U.S., starring Clint Eastwood

7)      DAY OF ANGER (1967), starring Lee Van Cleef and Giuliano Gemma

8)      DEATH RIDES A HORSE (1967), starring Lee Van Cleef and John Philip Law.  This is on practically everyone’s list.  With a great Ennio Morricone score.  I’m told Wild East Productions has the very best quality version.

9)      NAVAJO JOE (1966), directed by Sergio Corbucci, starring Burt Reynolds and the great Aldo Sambrell (read a fascinating interview with Sambrell in Courtney Joyner’s excellent book, THE WESTERNERS)

10)   THE RETURN OF RINGO (1965), starring Giuliano Gemma

11)   THE BIG GUNDOWN (1966), starring Lee Van Cleef, directed by the 3^rd Sergio, Sergio Sollima

12)    A PISTOL FOR RINGO (1965), starring Giuliano Gemma

13)    THE DIRTY OUTLAWS (1967), starring Andrea Giordana (as Chip Gorman)

14)    THE GREAT SILENCE (1968), starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Frank Wolff, Vonetta McGee, directed by Sergio Corbucci.  Instead of the usual sun-parched desert, his one takes place during a blizzard, and concerns a  deaf mute gunman facing a string of bounty-hunters.

15)    THE GRAND DUEL (1972), starring Lee Van Cleef

16)    SHOOT THE LIVING AND PRAY FOR THE DEAD (1971), starring Klaus Kinski

17)    TEPAPA (1969), starring Tomas Milian and Orson Welles.  Yes, that Orson Welles.

18)   THE UGLY ONES (1967), starring Tomas Milian

19)    DJANGO, PREPARE A COFFIN/VIVA DJANGO (1968), starring Terence Hill.  Starting out as Mario Girroti, playing villains in Karl May German Westerns, when Franco Nero wouldn’t play Django again, Hill was made up as a dead ringer for Nero, and became Django.  He’d soon become a huge star in the TRINITY films, and still makes Westerns today – he starred in TRIGGERMAN and DOC WEST back-to-back in 2009!  

20)  GATLING GUN/DAMNED HOT DAY OF FIRE (1968), starring Robert Woods and John Ireland, and some of the best work by both men – the Dorado Films DVD is fantastic!

Rick Knight, of DORADO FILMS http://doradofilms.com/index.php HERE and FIRST LINE http://firstlinefilms.com/index.php HERE provided me with the Tarantino list, “…seven of which we at First Line own the rights to.” DORADO and FIRST LINE specialize in European action films of all sorts, including Spaghetti Westerns, meticulously restored.  Dorado has an innovative ‘screener’ program at their website – you can watch some of their movies on-line for free, to help them decide which ones are worth releasing. “We just showed ANY GUN CAN PLAY and GATLING GUN at the Spaghetti Fest in the Clinton Street Theater (in Portland, Oregon) last weekend and plan on showing more of our catalog of 65 to 70 titles around the country as we pick up more theaters who want to participate.

“My favorites for are ANY GUN CAN PLAY (1967, directed by Enzo Castallari, starring Edd Byrnes, George Hilton and Gilbert Roland), which contains all the key elements of a classic Spaghetti Western: greed, bounty killers, double and triple crosses, train robbery, military verses rebels or bandits, flighty women and of course unlikely partnerships. The opening scene has the three mock-ups of Clint Eastwood, Franco Nero, and Lee Van Cleef, all who get shot down by a bounty hunter they call ‘the stranger.’  Another film doing really good on our screeners is Anthony Steffen and Mark Damon in A TRAIN TO DURANGO (1968).  A PISTOL FOR RINGO is a great film with Fernando Sancho and Giuliano Gemma battling, one man against a bandit army. DJANGO SHOOTS FIRST, DJANGO, GATLING GUN, SEVEN GUNS FOR THE MCGREGGRORS all make my list, along with THOMPSON 1880, which includes the history angle of the Gatling and Thompson guns.  They’re always great.  The impossible odds of the lone gunman is usually found in all the genre, making them a man’s favorite and of course the usual love story, of a women falling for the bad boy.”

Wanting the input of someone who was actually involved in the making of the films, I contacted Spaghetti Western star Robert Woods, told him GATLING GUN was one of my favorites, and asked him what his favorites were, among his own works and others. “Good of you to include GATLING GUN, it is fun and one of my favorites. Others include SEVEN GUNS FOR THE MCGREGORS, BLACK JACK, MY NAME IS PECOS, FOUR DOLLARS WORTH OF VENGEANCE, STARBLACK and EL PURO.  There are over forty more Westerns to choose from...including some that I liked and some I didn't... and a bunch of others, including some Italian Comedy, Adventure, the Jess Franco films I did and of course, BATTLE OF THE BULGE.  My favorite Westerns of the past are VERA CRUZ and THE WILD BUNCH.  My favorite Italian Westerns made by other actors include almost everything Tomas Milian did and Clint's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.”   

I asked C. Courtney Joyner, screenwriter, director and author of THE WESTERNERS, a fascinating book of interviews with Western filmmakers and stars, for his ideas.  He told me he’d worked up a list for his column in the Western Writers of America Round-up.  “I mentioned, in no particular order: CUT THROATS NINE (1972) , HELL BENDERS (1967, directed by Corbucci and starring Joseph Cotten), A MINUTE TO PRAY, A SECOND TO DIE (1968, starring Alex Cord and Robert Ryan), FACE TO FACE (1967, directed by Sollima and starring Tomas Milian), THE BIG GUNDOWN, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL (1966, directed by Damiano Damiani starring Gian Maria Volonte and Klaus Kinski),  KEOMA (1976, starring Franco Nero, Woody Strode, and directed by Enzo Castellari), DUCK, YOU SUCKER (1971, starring James Coburn and Rod Steiger), MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973, starring Terence Hill and Henry Fonda),  SARTANA - YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH (1969, starring Gian Garco) , COMPANEROS (1970, directed by Corbucci, starring Franco Nero, Tomas Milian and Jack Palance), DEATH RIDES A HORSE, THE GRAND DUEL and NAVAJO JOE.”  Incidentally, a remake of the very violent CUT THROATS NINE, starring Harvey Keitel, was announced more than a year ago, but I’ve heard nothing since.

Andrew A. Erish teaches film history and aesthetics at Chapman University, and recently wrote the terrific biography COL. WILLIAM N. SELIG – THE MAN WHO INVENTED HOLLYWOOD.  “Off the top of my head, how about BLINDMAN (1971) with Tony Anthony and Ringo, the TRINITY films (BOOT HILL (1969), MY NAME IS TRINITY (1970), TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME (1971)) with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer --especially the first one.  Another Terence Hill film I recently saw called THE MAN FROM THE EAST (1972 - not to be confused with the Tom Mix film made for Selig!), the film with John Philip Law and Lee Van Cleef,  DEATH RIDES A HORSE, James Coburn and Bud Spencer in A REASON TO LIVE, A REASON TO DIE (1972). I'm sure the Round-Up readers are big fans of Corbucci - COMPANEROS is always worth mentioning - one of my favorites, as well as the original DJANGO.”

Now located in Baton Rouge, Eric Spudic operated Spudic’s Movie Empire in Van Nuys, California, and now runs it on-line.  He used to have Friday night screenings at his store, and introduced me to many of my now favorite Spaghetti Westerns.  “I loved DJANGO UNCHAINED, Henry! Maybe a bit long, but it does the trick. I would recommend DEATH RIDES A HORSE, starring Lee Van Cleef and John Phillip Law;
MASSACRE TIME (1966), starring Franco Nero; A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL, starring Klaus Kinski; GRAND DUEL, starring Lee Van Cleef.  And of course the TRINITY series with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. I just found out that films like THE UNDEFEATED and ALVAREZ KELLY were partly filmed here in Baton Rouge. Maybe I'll have to hunt down the locations!”  If you’re trying to track down hard-to-find movies on DVD or VHS, visit Eric’s site: http://www.spudicsmovieempire.com

Rick Knight of Dorado films put me in touch with Jason Zachary Pott, who runs an independent comic publishing company called NEOtrash Comix.  Based in Portland, Oregon, he brought comic artists and writers together.  “I found that we all had a common interest in Spaghetti Westerns and being a former Film Student, I decided to start a group based around these films: The PDX Spaghetti Western Assoc. & Support Group.” 

Among Jason’s suggestions are DUEL IN THE ECLIPSE (1968) Directed by Jose Luis Merino. “A strange SW where the Gunslinger is into astrology, and times his revenge killings to take place during a solar eclipse. This is, by far, one of the weirdest SW's I have seen in awhile and you either love it or hate it. I choose love.  THE UNHOLY FOUR (1970).  Four inmates in an insane asylum inmates (one played by Woody Strode) are set free when some bandits set fire to their sanitarium as a diversion so they can rob the bank.  THE DIRTY FIFTEEN (1967) A bounty hunter and a group of bandits he is after are all blamed for a family's slaughter by an angry town. A very solid SW and worth the viewing time.  THE FORGOTTEN PISTOLERO (1969)  This is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE Spaghetti Westerns! This was the SW that introduced me to Lenard Mann and instantly I became a fan! The whole film is based on a Greek Tragedy and is absolutely brilliant!   GOD FORGIVES…HIS LIFE IS MINE!  (1968)  A solid bounty killer tale with the lead played by Dean Reed (ADIOS, SABATA!), written by Euro-Crime filmmaker, Fernando DiLeo and by the director of the Spaghetti Western classic, GATLING GUN. I love the grimness of this film.  BANDIDOS (1967) directed by Massimo Dallamano. Story about an expert gunslinger whose hands are mangled by his protege. He joins a circus sideshow to find another young gun to tutor in the way of the pistol so he can use them as a weapon of revenge. Love this one. Dallamano was Leone's director of photography on the first two "Dollar" films but was shut out of the third film by Leone himself. It is said Dallamano made this SW out of anger towards Leone and even though it was made with a minimum budget compared to the "Dollar Trilogy", some consider it equal to Leone's works.  RED BLOOD, YELLOW GOLD (1967) George Hilton, Edd "Kookie" Burns and George Martin play Union soldiers who get caught selling arms to the South. Before they are executed, they are given the choice to go on a suicide mission for a pardon. I love George Hilton SW's and this is one of his best!”

In New York City, Ally Lamaj’s WILD EAST PRODUCTIONS (http://www.wildeast.net/spaghetti-western-collection-c-1.html) has a staggering twenty-six volumes of Spaghetti Westerns, most of them double-features, and with the highest possible standards of quality – often with interviews and other special features.  When I asked for his recommendations among recent releases, he suggested NEST OF VIPERS (1969), starring Luke Askew, which is double-billed with TAILS YOU LOSE (1969) starring John Ericson.  THE BRUTE AND THE BEAST/MASSACRE TIME (1966) stars Franco Nero and George Hilton, and their version features two different English-language soundtracks.  KILLER ADIOS (1968) comes paired with KILLER CALIBRE 32, both starring Peter Lee Lawrence, the German-born star of many Spaghetti Westerns, who died at just thirty.

I would also strongly recommend, from Wild East, KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE, starring Chuck Connors, and ARIZONA COLT, starring Giuliano Gemma, which is paired with ARIZONA COLT – HIRED GUN, with Anthony Stephen in the lead.

WESTERN VIXEN BARDOT HEADIN’ FOR RUSSIA TO SAVE FRANCE’S ELEPHANTS

Brigitte Bardot, lovely star of such westerns as VIVA MARIA! (1965), SHALAKO (1968) and FRENCHIE KING (1971), may be heading to Russia in Gerard Depardieu’s wake -- and what a wake he would make!  Depardieu (has he made any westerns?) announced his intention to become a citizen of Belgium to escape France’s 75% tax rate on the wealthy.  When he was denounced by the French government, he joked that he already had heard from Russia’s Vladamir Putin that his passport was in the mail.  Unexpectedly, Putin agreed and said Russia would be delighted to have him.  Bardot’s reasons for following are quite different.  A longtime animal activist, she denounced Lyon Zoo’s intention to euthanize a pair of 42 year-old elephants dying of tuberculosis.  On her foundation’s website Bardot says that should the elephants be put down, she will request Russian citizenship, “…to flee this country that is now just a graveyard for animals.”

JOSH BROLIN ARRESTED ON NEW YEARS EVE!

The New York Daily News and TMZ have broken the story that Western star Josh Brolin, of YOUNG RIDERS/NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN/JONAH HEX/TRUE GRIT - fame was arrested just before midnight in Santa Monica on New Years Eve for ‘public intoxication on New Years Eve for 'public intoxication.' Isn't that like arresting someone for wearing green on St. Patrick's Day, or for voting on Election Day? Aside from Roy and Gene and Hoppy, in today's world, how many of our cowboy heroes would have been locked up for 'public intoxication' once a week? HAPPY NEW YEAR!.’  Isn’t that like arresting someone for wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, or for voting on Election Day?  Aside from Gene and Roy and Hoppy, in today’s world, how many of our cowboys heroes would have been locked up for ‘public intoxication’ once a week? 

CONGRATULATIONS TO RFD-TV FOR 2ND ROSE PARADE WIN!   

For the second year in a row their float won the Exceptional Merit in Multiple Classifications Award! This year it was for CLASSIC TRACTOR FEVER! Last year it was a Roy Rogers Tribute, featuring the actual Trigger and Bullet on the float! RFD-TV shows Roy Rogers episodes and movies every week!

I'm having some software problems -- it won't let me upload pictures to go with the articles.  Well, it's almost one a.m., so I'm giving up for now.  I'll try again on Monday. (It worked on Monday!)

Happy Trails!

Henry

All Original Contents Copyright January 2013 by Henry C. Parke -- All Rights Reserved

'DJANGO' UNCHAINS TARANTINO!

DJANGO UNCHAINED -- Film Review

 

Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx

 

It’s virtually impossible for any film to live up to the anticipation of whatever is the next Quentin Tarantino project, but DJANGO UNCHAINED makes a pretty good stab at it.  The long-awaited ‘Spaghetti Southern’ would seem to owe as much of a debt to the Blaxploitation Westerns of the 60s and 70s as it does to the Spaghetti Westerns.  But in truth, the black Westerns of that period were so uniformly lousy that the debt is pretty thin, whereas the skills of the best Spaghetti Westerns filmmakers – the Leones, Corbuccis and Castellaris – were so fresh and original that virtually all good Westerns of the last few decades owe them plenty, this one included.

DJANGO UNCHAINED is neither a sequel nor a remake of Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 classic DJANGO, which established Franco Nero as Europe’s greatest Western star.  While to Americans, ‘Spaghetti Western’ has always been synonymous with Clint Eastwood and ‘The Man With No Name’, in Europe I am told that Nero and the character of ‘Django’ have always had a slight edge.  (You can read my brief chat with Franco Nero about his Corbucci Westerns HERE ) This led to roughly forty so-called Django films, and I say ‘so-called’ because European copyright laws are different from the U.S. ones, meaning anyone can call their film and their character Django. 

 

Franco Nero as DJANGO (1966)

 

Nero played many similar characters in other westerns, and a pre-TRINITY Terence Hill, made up to pass for Nero, played Django, but Nero only played Django once more, twenty-one years later, in 1987’s DJANGO STRIKES BACK, shot in Columbia, and co-starring Donald Pleasance.  Fortuitously, the new interest in the original Django character stimulated by the Tarantino movie has created the possibility of Nero playing him once again (see last week’s Round-up HERE  ). 

 

 

Franco Nero in DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012)

 

While Nero’s Django roamed the Spanish West dragging a coffin, and searching for his wife’s killers, Jamie Foxx plays a slave whose wife is very much alive, but after being caught trying to escape together, they’ve been recaptured and in a bit of cruel revenge, owner Bruce Dern sells them separately. 

 

As the picture opens, Django is among a group of slaves being transported by brothers James Russo and James Remar.  Dentist Dr. King (Christoph Waltz) meets up with them, offering to buy one of the slaves who came from a particular plantation – but it’s a ruse.  He’s quit dentistry for bounty-hunting, and when they won’t sell Django, who can identify three high-bounty brothers for Waltz, the guns blaze.

Bounty hunter and slave become friends – their friendship is the heart of the movie – and strike a deal: Django will assist Dr. King, learning the trade, and when the change in seasons permits, they’ll go to Candieland, the brothel-cum-plantation of the thoroughly despicable Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), where they will try to liberate Django’s bride, German-speaking Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).  

 

From here the story is a swirling Techniscope kaleidoscope of beautiful vistas, invigorating action, unexpected humor, and a thirst for revenge.  While the plot, in broad strokes, holds no startling surprises, there are plenty of jolts for seen-it-all western fans, both in stirring fond memories of favorite shootings, and I-never-saw-it-done-quite-that-way moments. 

I’ll let the other critics point out each and every real and imagined reference to specific Spaghetti Westerns (“Is Christoph Waltz’s Dr. King a German in a nod to Klaus Kinski, or in a nod to the German Western stories of Karl May, or because Waltz has a German accent, and is he a dentist because Doc Holliday really was one, or because Bob Hope played one in THE PALEFACE…?) 

 

DeCaprio, Waltz, Jackson, Foxx

 

As is true in the best Western work of Leone and Corbucci, and Peckinpah and Hawks and Ford for that matter, there is plenty of humor.  Among the high points are a just-freed slave’s choice of clothing, and a pair of sequences, one beginning with a mixed-race visit to a saloon, and another, reportedly tacked on at the last minute, involving Klansmen and their hoods, that clearly contain a nod to Mel Brooks’ BLAZING SADDLES, even utilizing a Slim Pickens sound-alike. 

 

All must inevitably lead us to Candieland, the Mandingo fighters -- slaves who fight to the death for the entertainment of the decadent plantation owners -- the rouse to try and liberate Broomhilda, and the film’s ultimate climax.  There’s a lot of buzz about DeCaprio’s performance, and there is a lot to like in it.  In fact, there is too damned much to like in it, and in much of the film.  While Tarantino doesn’t present his story in chapters, as he has in previous films, there are several set-pieces, all of them good-to-excellent, and all of them a little too long.  One of the toughest jobs for a writer is to tell when a scene needs to end, no matter how much more good dialogue you’ve thought up.  There needs to be a sense of urgency to get to the next event, especially in a story where a man is trying to save his wife from ‘a fate worse than death,’ and the easy-going pace undercuts that urgency.  It’s true that Spaghetti Westerns tend to run long, but in Europe they were always shown with an intermission.  DJANGO UNCHAINED doesn’t need an intermission, but it needs a half-hour of trims of the excessive good stuff.

The performances are excellent – Foxx, Waltz, Don Johnson as a plantation owner, Dennis Christopher as DeCaprio’s consigliore.  DeCaprio is particularly striking in his Ante Bellum metrosexuality – the epitome of the rich and privileged guy who surrounds himself with hired real men, and kids himself that he is one.  Samuel L. Jackson, hardly recognizable, made up to look like the face on a box of Uncle Ben’s Rice, is chillinging real as the ‘old family retainer’ who terrorizes all of the other slaves.  In fact, one of the very effective themes throughout the movie is the social position of blacks: free blacks versus house slaves versus field hands, and can any black man be allowed to ride a horse?

 

Two Djangos meet.

 

The cast not only of characters but of cameos was impossible to keep up with.  Franco Nero makes much of his part, long on camera but with just enough dialogue.  James Remar plays two characters, and while I caught Tom Wopat, Michael Parks and Tom Savini, I missed Russ Tamblyn, Lee Horsley, Don Stroud and Robert Carradine.  I’ll try again on the next viewing.

In a movie world that largely believes that only the lead characters matter, Tarantino continues to think that all men are created equal – a capper line is as likely to come from an unnamed character as it is a star.  He excels in directing actors and action.

 

Thrice-Oscared DP Robert Richardson does his usual magnificent job, as he has repeatedly for Tarantino and Scorcese. 

 

The score is a mix of some new music, a new Ennio Morricone song, and others snagged from other sources, including of course Luis Bacolov’s original DJANGO theme, as well as his HIS NAME WAS KING theme, and one of the very best, Morricone’s theme from TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH.

I highly recommend DJANGO UNCHAINED.  No, it’s not Tarantino’s very best, but what he does is always so good, and so off-center from the mainstream that its faults are forgiven.  I’d just like to have seen what he could have done with less money and time.

Also, I feel I must comment on Tarantino’s recent interview, where he denounces D.W. Griffith, and says he’s no fan of John Ford.  The Griffith comment saddens me, because it’s kicking a man not only when he’s down, but when he’s dead and unable to defend himself.  Yes, Griffith directed BIRTH OF A NATION, the nation in the title being not the U.S., but the Ku Klux Klan.  I certainly understand and agree with the criticism for glorifying such an awful organization.  But it should be remembered that Griffith was widely denounced at the time, and not only apologized, but had his eyes so opened that he made the film INTOLERENCE as an apology, and a denunciation of man’s intolerance of man.  One of his very last films was an excellent portrait of his former ‘villain’, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, starring Walter Huston, scripted by the great Stephen Vincent Benet.  And while his artistry and contributions to the language of film can not be overestimated, Griffith’s even had his name stripped from a Director’s Guild annual award.  He didn’t murder anyone, and it’s been just shy of a century: will we never accept his apology?

As for John Ford, Tarantino criticizes him for being an extra in BIRTH OF A NATION, and playing a Klansman.  C’mon!  And despite what Tarantino may think of some of the portrayals of Indians in some of his films, even when they were playing the enemy they were always treated with respect.  Certainly the Indian actors who worked for Ford loved the experience and we eager to do it again.  John Ford is the one who made CHEYENNE AUTUMN, portraying the mistreatment of Indians by a hostile and contemptuous government who consistently signed and then violated treaties with the Indians.  And as for his treatment of blacks on film, Ford made SERGEANT RUTLEDGE in 1960, when the story of a black sergeant falsely accused of the rape and murder of a white woman was unbelievably daring.

 

MARK OF THE GUN – Film Review

 

 

One of the fascinating things about a time capsule is that, when someone opens it years after it was buried, the contents are a complete surprise.  MARK OF THE GUN is such a time capsule.  Made in 1966, forty-six years ago, this tiny, independent black & white Western was not only forgotten, it was as far as can be ascertained, never even seen!

Ross Hagen, a big, handsome tough guy with a trademark gravelly voice, was a prolific character actor in television and drive-in movies.  On film he appeared with Elvis in SPEEDWAY.  On television he guested frequently on GUNSMOKE, THE VIRGINIAN, HERE COME THE BRIDES, LANCER, as well as on many cop shows.  He produced, starred in, and sometimes wrote and directed, a number of low-budget epics like THE SIDEHACKERS, PUSHING UP DAISIES, BAD CHARLESTON CHARLIE and WONDER WOMEN.  Apparently, the first film he produced and starred in was MARK OF THE GUN.  Shortly before Hagen’s death in 2011, he found the negative of this never-released oater.  Director, producer and close friend Fred Olen Ray decided to snatch this film from the gaping jaws of oblivion, and give it its very first release through his company, Retromedia Entertainment. 

One of the novelties of a period picture that was made some time ago is that it reflects two periods, when the story was set, and when it was shot, and that is a lot of the campy fun of MARK OF THE GUN.  Set around the 1870s, but shot in the 1960s, all the girls have heavily sprayed hair, and many of the bad guys act more like juvenile delinquents than outlaws.  This is backed by the anachronistic jazz score by low-budget music stalwart Jaime Mendoza-Nava.  In fact, they treat the outlaws’ hideout so much like a nightclub that a girl gets upset that her sister won’t let her sing there, as if it’s a swank dinner spot rather than the hangout of the gang. 

 

Amazingly, this tiny black & white orphan of a movie is photographed by none other than the great Hungarian-born cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs.  Just before he made his mark shooting TARGETS for Peter Bogdonavich, EASY RIDER for Dennis Hopper and FIVE EASY PIECES for Bob Rafelson, Laszlo shot a number of soft-porn, biker, and no-budget horror films, although as far as I can determine, this is his only black & white feature.  He does a marvelous job composing his images and, as the great cameramen always did, using rich contrast in place of color.

 

Ross Hagen

 

Not willing to risk the audience making any mistakes about who to root for, the opening credits announce, ‘The Hero – Ross Hagen.  The Villain – Brad Thomas.’  The other actor title-cards are headed, ‘The Girls’, ‘The Gang’, and ‘The Law.’  There aren’t a lot of familiar names and faces, but there are at least a few: the goofy member of the gang is comic character actor Buck Kartalian, the man who, in the original PLANET OF THE APES, said of Charlton Heston’s behavior, “Human see, human do,” and then sprayed him with a high-pressure hose.  Another outlaw, Ned Romero, has played many an Indian, cowboy, and the occasional Klingon.  Tony Lorea, yet another outlaw, has played many a bartender, and specializes in Humphrey Bogart characterizations.  Under ‘The Law’, Paul Sorenson had a long career playing cops, deputies and gunmen, and ended up as a regular on DALLAS, playing Andy Bradley.  Among the ladies, Rita D’Amico did a lot of television in the 1960s, but only pretty blonde Gabrielle St. Claire is familiar, and she was Ross Hagen’s wife, usually acting as Claire Polon, and seen in many of Ross’ films.

 

The story begins with Ross getting the crap beaten out of him by Sorenson, as two deputies watch, until he gives them the slip.  He ends up at what he takes for an inn, but it’s actually the hideout for a gang of bank-robbers.  Being an outlaw himself, he fits right in, and they decide to take him into the gang for the next job – they’re down one man since he inadvertently shot one.  But there are problems within the gang.  There may be a spy in their midst – the last couple of jobs they cased were pulled off by a mysterious rival gang using their same plans.  Also, there are too many women around, which leads the men to constantly fight over them, and when Ross goes after pretty young Abigail, he is sternly warned off by her older sister, who owns the house.

 

Claire Polon as Abigail

 

When the gang heads out, they start fighting amongst themselves, and then they reach the scene of the planned crime just in time to see the rival gang pulling the heist.  Naturally, all Hell breaks loose.

 

The budget being tiny, most of the film takes place at the hide-out – they don’t head out for the bank robbery until halfway through the movie.  And when they get to the town, apparently the Iverson Movie Ranch, they don’t actually enter town, but watch it from above – I’ll bet money they didn’t pay the Iversons!

The horse riding is professional, the rural scenery attractive, and the gun- and fist-fighting is good except when it’s bad.  I won’t pretend MARK OF THE GUN is a great Western.  Author Earl Graves never wrote anything again, to my knowledge, and director Wally Campo quickly went back to what he did best – acting in Roger Corman movies.  But it’s a fun, camp Western, and everything that’s wrong about it makes it fun to watch, especially with friends.  Included in the special features are a collection of trailers for some of Ross Hagen’s wildest films, and an excerpt from his action-comedy PUSHING UP DAISIES.  It’s available from Retromedia Entertainment and Amazon.

 

HARRY CAREY JR. DIES

 

THREE GODFATHERS - Harry Carey Jr. flanked

by John Wayne and Pedro Armendariz

 

Sad news -- a last link with the films of John Ford is gone. Harry Carey Jr., son of silent Western star Harry Carey, was a fine actor and a good man. He appeared in sixty-nine television series and nearly ninety movies, the majority Westerns, and he always brought an understated integrity to all of his roles, serious or comic.  He wrote an excellent book, A COMPANY OF HEROES, about the John Ford stock company.  I met him at several signings, but actually got to know him better through e-mails. Some years ago, seeing that it was his birthday, I emailed him, wishing him well, and commenting that my wife and I always knew a movie that he was in was worth seeing.  Within minutes I’d heard back from him: “You obviously haven’t seen BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA.”  He was not exactly crazy about his work in it, but he was proud of his mother, Olive Carey, who played the mad scientist in it.  We exchanged a number of emails after that, and he was always warm, funny and insightful.  Then a year or so ago, an email bounced back with a message that he wasn’t up to answering emails anymore.  All of us fans of Westerns, SPIN AND MARTY, and everything in between, will miss him.  Here’s to you, Dobe!

 

ENCORE WESTERN FANS UP IN ARMS OVER CHANGES

Encore Western Channel’s Facebook page is full of angry comments over two series being dropped from the line-up; RAWHIDE and WAGON TRAIN.  The good news is that METV will begin showing WAGON TRAIN on Saturdays, although they’re dropping BRANDED to make room for it.

 

HAPPY NEW YEARS, ROUND-UP ROUNDERS!

 

All Original Contents Copyright December 2012 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved