‘MEN FROM SHILOH’ REVIEW, PLUS ‘GENE AUTRY CHRISTMAS BOOK’, LONE PINE FEST!

THE MEN FROM SHILOH – A Home Video Review

The good folks at Shout Factory/Timeless Media Group have released a ‘special edition’ of THE MEN FROM SHILOH, the 9^th and final season of THE VIRGINIAN series.  The nine disk set includes all twenty-four episodes, as well as a disk of interviews.

The TV series THE VIRGINIAN was ground-breaking in many ways when it arrived on NBC in 1962.  It was the first Western series with a literary pedigree, being based, however loosely, on the Owen Wister book which many consider to be the birth of the serious Western novel.  It was the first TV series of any genre to star an actor with the stature of Lee J. Cobb, who’d created Willy Loman on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s DEATH OF A SALESMAN, and was twice Oscar nominated for his work in ON THE WATERFRONT and THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.  And while it was preceded by brilliant anthology series like PLAYHOUSE 90, which did live full-length plays on television, THE VIRGINIAN was the first series to do a feature-length, color film, single camera, largely outdoor action movie every week!  They did thirty of them that first year, and by the end of their 9^th and final season, they had produced 249 movies.  

The title character was played by James Drury, from the first to the final episode, and to a great degree the series rose and fell on his portrayal of the mysterious man who never revealed his name, or much else about himself outside of the state of his birth.  I’ve heard Drury comment that he was the original ‘man with no name,’ and it’s true; his and Eastwood’s subsequent, quietly confident, sardonic, mysterious characters have much in common.  The Virginian was the foreman of Judge Henry Garth’s (Lee J. Cobb) Shiloh Ranch, outside of Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  Doug McClure, like Drury, was there from the first episode to the last, playing the top hand after the Virginian and his best friend, Trampas – an ironic choice of name, considering that, in the novel, Trampas was the Virginian’s most despised enemy.

Many of the successful Western series up to that date had focused either on families, like BONANZA and THE RIFLEMAN, or groups of working men, like RAWHIDE.  THE VIRGINIAN wisely did both; there were plenty of men in the bunkhouse, and in the big house, Judge Garth, a widower (this is 1960s television after all), always had nieces and nephews to help raise and/or tame.  Among the ‘youngins’ who graced the series were Roberta Shore from 1962 to 1965, Diane Roter from 1965 to 1966, Sara Lane from 1966 to 1970, and Don Quine from 1966 to 1968.  There always needed to be a patriarch, and when Lee J. Cobb left after 120 episodes in 1966, he’d be replaced first by Charles Bickford, and then by WAGON TRAIN’s John McIntire.  Among the many fine actors who appeared as regulars for a few seasons as lawmen or drovers were Clu Gulager as Sheriff Emmet Ryker, Gary Clarke, Randy Boone, L.Q. Jones, and Tim Matheson. 

I had the pleasure of attending the 50^th Anniversary Celebration of THE VIRGINIAN series, and its move to the INSP Network, at the Gene Autry Center.  These links will bring you to my four-part coverage of the event, and several interviews:   PART ONE; PART TWO; PART THREE; PART FOUR.

Eight years was a terrific run, but by 1970, a lot of the world had changed.  The once-dominant Western genre was no longer TV’s favorite, at least in part as the result of an anti-violence policy at the networks that restricted how much action an episode was allowed.  WAGON TRAIN and RAWHIDE were gone for five years, THE BIG VALLEY had just ended, and HIGH CHAPARRAL would only last one more season.   GUNSMOKE, which had begun in 1955 and would run until 1975 (plus TV movies), had saved itself from extinction by refocusing its plot-lines around guest stars rather than regulars, and BONANZA had added semi-brothers David Canary and Mitch Vogel to perk things up.

(Here's the VIRGINIAN theme from season three by Percy Faith)

Plus, the freshness and youthful energy of the spaghetti westerns tended to make Western TV appear a bit staid and tired.  That’s when the powers-that-be at NBC decided to try and re-think THE VIRGINIAN (now they’d say re-brand or reinvent), and turned it into THE MEN FROM SHILOH.  Unlike any of the other Western series of the time, SHILOH took its revamping cues from Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah.  Gone was the sweeping heroic theme by Percy Faith, replaced by a new, beautiful theme by Leone’s signature composer, Ennio Morricone which was, by turns, wistful and relentless.  Gone was the familiar title sequence with each star riding on horseback towards camera. Instead there was a mix of sunrise footage, historical photos and high-contrast graphics that could have come straight out of the previous year’s THE WILD BUNCH. 

(Here's the MEN FROM SHILOH theme by Ennio Morricone)

Then there were the stars – a new patriarch in one-time big-time MGM leading man Stewart Granger; Lee Majors, fresh from THE BIG VALLEY, as Roy Tate, sporting a big, mean-looking mustache; Doug McClure, back as Trampas, sporting an even bigger mustache; and James Drury as the Virginian, sometimes sporting a gun the length of his leg!  McClure’s and Drury’s wardrobe, unchanged since 1962, were completely different.  Granger played a retired British colonel who had bought Shiloh Ranch, and was maintaining its personnel – but there would be no more nieces and nephews to clutter up the place: this was now a series strictly about men.

The bosses at NBC scored quite a coup in signing Granger.  Not only was he a talented and popular actor, although no longer a leading man, his presence would make the show more valuable in Europe.  Though the films were largely unseen in the United States, Stewart Granger had starred in two of the immensely popular German Westerns which gave birth to the spaghetti westerns.  Based on Karl May’s WINNETOU novels, Granger played the beloved character of Old Surehand.  With Granger, the series had a built-in European fan-base.

As had been the pattern of the series for some time, most episodes focused on one of the younger men, sometimes with and sometimes without Granger.  The first, THE WEST VS. COLONEL MACKENZIE, is noticeably influenced by the spaghetti western.  In the aftermath of the lynching of an accused rustler, the colonel is out to catch the culprits, and the town’s class division between the ranchers and the rabble, bordering on the divine right of kings, is distinctly European rather than American, and the filmmakers have fun with the fact that it’s an upper-class Brit who is trying to see justice done.  The second episode, THE BEST MAN, centers on Trampas, and his efforts to help a friend marry the senorita of his dreams.  As would become clear, in show after show the producers were willing to spend money for an exceptional guest cast; this one included James Farentino as the friend, and Desi Arnaz and HIGH NOON’S Katy Jurado as the bride’s parents. 

In GUN QUEST, a very well-written (by Robert Van Scoyk) and produced (by GUNSMOKE creator Norman MacDonnell) noir episode featuring the Virginian trying to prove himself innocent of murder, the cast is again staggering: CITIZEN KANE stars Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead are reunited (although, as in KANE, they have no scenes together), joined by Brandon DeWilde, Anne Francis, John Smith –late of LARAMIE, former Western leading-man Rod Cameron, and Neville Brand, whose LAREDO series was a spin-off of THE VIRGINIAN.  And when Monte Markham, as the man the Virginian has been misidentified as, shows up, he is wearing -- I kid you not -- the Virginian’s red shirt and black leather vest from the first eight seasons! 

Former VIRGINIAN regular L.Q. Jones and James

Drury in the SHILOH episode TOWN KILLER

LADY AT THE BAR, this time with Trampas accused of murder, stars Oscar winner (for MRS. MINIVER) Greer Garson as his lawyer, E.G. Marshall as the judge, twice Oscar-nominated James Whitmore as the judge’s marshal, along with Kenneth Tobey, RIFLEMAN’s Paul Fix, Ian Wolfe, and Oscar-nominated (for THE BIG SKY) Arthur Hunnicut as the assayer. 

Not that the producers never cut corners.  THE MYSTERIOUS MR. TATE, which introduced Lee Majors’ character, had a good cast, with Majors and Granger joined by Robert Webber, Dane Clark, and young and blossoming Annette O’Toole, but it takes place almost entirely on-board an interior train set.  Similarly, in WITH LOVE, BULLETS AND VALENTINES, Trampas ‘wins’ a riverboat in a poker game, and Universal must have pulled stock footage from every film they ever had with a paddle-wheel – some of the mix of different film-stocks in jarring.     

Among the many other fine actors that turn up in the series are Susan Strasberg, John Ireland, Jane Wyatt, Lew Ayres, Elizabeth Ashley, and many others. 

Lee Majors' character makes an

inauspicious entrance in

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. TATE

As with any series, some shows are better than others, but all of the MEN FROM SHILOH episodes I’ve seen are worth watching, and some are extremely good.  The changes were an attempt to invigorate the series, and not a matter of ‘jumping the shark,’ by any means.  Of course, that raises the question of why it was the last season of THE VIRGINIAN.  At least a partial explanation is suggested by James Drury in the interview disk: many fans of THE VIRGINIAN didn’t even realize that MEN FROM SHILOH was THE VIRGINIAN, so they didn’t watch it. 

Another theory also came from James Drury at the 50^th Anniversary Celebration.  When moderator Boyd Magers of Western Clippings  put the question to Drury, this was his reply:

“They gave the show a new look, and everybody kind of signed on to it.  I got myself a new horse and a longer gun.  (big laughs from the audience) From a 5 ½ inch barrel to a 7 ½ inch barrel.  Longer sideburns. Much bigger hat.  A sense of accomplishment or…a sense of entitlement – let’s put it that way.  I smoked cigars on the show.  And I just mowed down anybody with my firearms.  But the thing is, we all thought it was a good idea at the time; it was a terrible idea.  And the worst of the terrible ideas was putting Stewart Granger in the same position that Lee Cobb had occupied, that John McIntire had occupied, Charles Bickford had occupied; that John Dehner had occupied.  These were truly great western actors.  Stewart Granger came in and decided that he was going to be the big star of the show:  fired my crew, fired my Academy Award-winning cameraman, got all new people.  He pissed off everyone in the entire organization.  And he sunk the show.  So thank you, Stewart, wherever you are.”

Indeed, there is a smugness and pomposity to Granger’s character that grates on you at times.  My feeling is that after 249 movies, there wasn’t a whole lot left to say.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the shows, and one of the high points of this collection is the disk of interviews, featuring James Drury, Clu Gulager, L.Q. Jones and Roberta Shore.  They run from 20 minutes for Shore to 45 for Drury.  Each interview covers the subject’s life and career in general, and THE VIRGINIAN in particular, and the insights are often fascinating.  They’re all good, but James Drury’s is the best; in fact, it’s one of the very finest career interviews that I’ve ever watched.      

You can learn more about, or purchase, THE MEN FROM SHILOH, or many other Westerns series and movies, from Shout Factory, HERE. 

THE GENE AUTRY CHRISTMAS BOOK – Just in time for Christmas!

If you’re not a fan of Gene Autry’s Christmas music, then you either (a) hate Christmas, or (b) don’t realize how many of the best Christmas songs can be traced back to Gene.  Gathered together for the first time are twenty-five Christmas classics that Gene performed and helped popularize, each with sheet-music arranged for piano, vocal and guitar. 

Gene was inspired to write the lyrics to HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS in 1946, when he was Grand Marshal of the Santa Claus Lane Parade in Hollywood, and heard children chanting for their other favorite, just a couple of floats behind.   He had one of his greatest hits with RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER, when he sought the song out after everyone had passed on it.  Some of the most amusing songs are not that well remembered – can you sing HARDROCK, COCO AND JOE (the three little dwarfs) without checking the sheet music?  How about SANTA’S COMING IN A WHIRLYBIRD? 

Some of the included songs are available in sheet music for the first time – eight of them, including WHIRLYBIRD and THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (IN TEXAS, THAT IS) were transcribed from Gene’s recorded performances.  Published by Hal Leonard, with an introduction by Gene Autry Entertainment President Karla Buhlman, and featuring photos, including some of Gene’s own Christmas cards, this book is sure to give the musically inclined something new to play and sing around the piano at that special time of year when we all like to think we can carry a tune.  You can buy it wherever you buy your sheet music, or direct from Gene Autry Entertainment HERE.  

And even if it’s a few months early, it’s never the wrong time to hear Gene sing HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS!

25^TH ANNUAL LONE PINE FILM FESTIVAL OCT. 10-12!

Come join the stars and other fans at one of the world’s prime Western movie locations, Lone Pine, this coming weekend.  Since the 1920s, hundreds of Western movies and TV shows have been shot in and around the famed Alabama Hills.  Stars from Tom Mix to William Boyd to Gene Autry to Roy Rogers to John Wayne – the list goes on and on! 

Among the guests who will be attending are Bruce Boxleitner, stuntman and author Dean Smith, stuntman Diamond Farnsworth, Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, THE RIFLEMAN star Johnny Crawford, Republic Western stars Peggy Stewart and Donna Martell, seven-time John Wayne co-star Ed Faulkner, THE SHOOTIST screenwriter Miles Swarthout, plus Clayton Moore’s daughter Dawn Moore, Roy and Dale’s daughter Cheryl Rogers Barnett, Randolph Scott’s daughter Sandra Tyler, and many more.

To learn about all the events and all of the movies to be screened – from THE MACCAHANS to GUNGA DIN – visit the official website HERE

And if you've never been to Lone Pine, here's an excellent featurette to show you why you shouldn't miss it!

THAT’S A WRAP!

As we near 200,000…

This weekend The Round-up surpassed 190,000 hits!  Thank you to all of you folks who keep visiting the site week after week.  We’re read in well over 90 countries these days, and we added two this week, Luxemburg and Bahrain.  And this week’s new Facebook followers are from L.A.; Running Springs, CA.; New York City; and Moscow.  It’s great to know the appeal of Western stories is still international!  Have a great week!

Much obliged,

Henry

All Original Content Copyright October 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

‘FRONTERA’, ‘WESTERN UNSCRIPTED’ REVIEWED, PLUS ‘TRAIL OF BLOOD’, ‘BONE TOMAHAWK’, ‘WESTWORLD’ CASTING NEWS!

FRONTERA – a Movie Review

Ever since the birth of theatre in ancient Greece, the classical tragedy has always been about people of social importance: if they don’t have social status to begin with, how can they fall?  And implicitly, if they’re not important, who cares about them?  That all changed in 1949, when Arthur Miller wrote DEATH OF A SALESMAN, and showed that the lives of ‘nobodies’ could be as compelling as the lives of ‘somebodies.’ 

FRONTERA is a tragedy about regular working people on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border – a retired lawman and his wife tending their ranch; a family whose father must travel north when there is no work at home, and another hungry mouth to feed on the way. 

To the south, the pregnant wife (a beautiful but de-glamorized Eva Longoria) dreads having her husband (Michael Pena) make the dangerous trek through the desert, even though he’s done it before.  And Pena has an extra worry – his father-in-law is saddling him with the son of a friend (Michael Ray Escamilla) who is stupid and irresponsible at best, and maybe much worse.  To the north, Amy Madigan has saddled her horse for a ride, and while her husband, Ed Harris, would come along, his knee is still healing.  He asks her not to take the best trail, because it runs along the border, but he knows she will.   Her meeting with the two men from the south is both cordial and cautious.  She kindly gives them water bottles, and a blanket from her horse against the coming cold of night.  The difference in the two Mexican men is most clear here: Pena is formal and respectful; Escamilla flirts childishly. 

Michael Pena, Eva Longoria

All would have been fine, each going their separate ways, until a series of gunshots shatter the silent desert air.  The woman is dead.  I am loath to give away too much more, because this is a highly compelling, masterfully told story.  It’s not a mystery – you always know who is committing what act, but not what the results will be, and yet the tale is told by writers Louis Moulinet and Michael Berry and director Berry with a self-assurance that makes the outcome of each scene seem both inevitable and infuriating: you can easily imagine yourself making many of the mistakes that the characters do.  For Moulinet, best known as an art director, and Berry, directing his first feature, it is a highly auspicious debut.

Ed Harris and Amy Madigan are actually husband and wife – they met on the set of PLACES IN THE HEART, and have since worked together frequently, including co-starring in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE and the recent SWEETWATER.  Though here Madigan’s time on the screen is cut short, in a few strokes she etches a character that you like and miss.  Harris, Longoria, Pena and Escamilla bring humanity and dignity to their characters, and you care about them all.  Longoria in particular, when she tries to join her husband, pays a coyote to take her, and goes through sheer hell. 

And the movie plays fair with the highly controversial subject of unsecure borders, something I did not expect in the politically correct world of Hollywood.  Not all of the ‘secure the border’ crowd are portrayed as redneck racists.  Not all of the illegals coming across are people that anyone would want in their country.  In one stunningly effective but almost throw-away scene, two men out of a dozen traveling across the border with a coyote separate themselves from the others, throw down prayer-rugs and  begin bowing towards Mecca, underlining how little we, or even the coyotes, know about who is coming across the desert, and what their motives might be. 

I’ve described FRONTERA as a tragedy, and it is full of tragic events, yet it is not a ‘downer,’ nor are the characters without hope.  Cinematographer Joel Ransom gets plenty of atmosphere into the often moon-like border desert, and editor Larry Madaras bridges the gaps between places and moments seamlessly.  This fine film is receiving a sporadic release, and is very much worth the trouble of seeking it out. 

WESTERN UNSCRIPTED – A Stage Review

It’s kind of hard to know how much to tell you about Saturday night’s performance of THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED, because you’re never going to see that story.  In fact no one will ever see it again – because it’s an improvised story, performed by members of The Impro Theatre, and no two performances are alike! 

The FALCON THEATRE, comedy legend Garry Marshall’s venue in Burbank, was packed – all 120 permanent seats were filled, and ten more chairs were put in place.  And no wonder; The Impro Theatre has quite a following, having already tackled CHEKOV UNSCRIPTED, SONDHEIM UNSCRIPTED, and L.A. NOIR UNSCRIPTED among others – coming in December is the return of TWILIGHT ZONE UNSCRIPTED!

As the audience took their seats, the mood was set with instrumental themes from THE WILD WILD WEST, TRUE GRIT, and HOW THE WEST WAS WON.  I was struck by the quality of the sets immediately: a projection screen in the back for the sky, a two-story saloon exterior on the left, and a two story building on the right.  Then the lights went down, a campfire bloomed center-stage, and an old sourdough explained that the rest of the cast would soon come onstage, and they would improvise an evening’s entertainment based on suggestions from the audience.  Then he picked up his campfire and left. 

A moment later, the cast cantered out like SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, handsomely period-costumed, and one of them, Lisa Frederickson, addressed the audience, asking for suggestions for a reason for a lot of town-folk to gather.  Audience voices called out, “A hanging!”  “A funeral!”  “A shotgun wedding!”  “A shotgun wedding.  I like that,” Lisa responded.  

Having seen a fair amount of improvisational comedy, I thought I knew what was coming: a brief sketch about a shotgun wedding, followed by more audience polling, and more sketches.   But I was wrong – this was a feature western, not a short subject, and they played the story for a full two hours, minus intermission, and never slacked the pace.  Within moments an actor had opted – or been appointed – to be the reluctant spouse.  A reason for the urgent marriage – a baby – was improvised with a rolled-up blanket.  The conflict was created – three other men became his accomplices in a series of train robberies.  There’s a big payroll coming, and they’ve been waiting for him to get this marriage done so they can pull the big job.  He wants to go straight, but this one job could help save her family’s farm…you know, that’s a darn good plot: I can see George Montgomery or even Joel McCrea doing it!  It already made twice as much sense as JOHNNY GUITAR!

It was hysterical -- wonderfully silly fun, without ever being juvenile.  On-the-fly, actors created characters and relationships; clearly the cast is well-versed in the common elements of westerns.  And as has often been said, comedy acting is hard, and if you can do it, you can certainly do drama.  One sequence involved a matriarch who’d disguised that she was dying until one of her daughter’s had married.  As the three daughters gather around their dying mother, even with the jokes, we got choked up: they were that good. 

Many of the jokes grew out of western clichés, and some grew out of anachronisms.  One of the actors, desperate to think up a name for a hideout, came up with Smuggler’s Cul-de-sac; I think they’re still needling him about that.   One of the lead bandit’s sisters-in-law gets the idea of smuggling him back to town dressed like a woman; the idea of seeing him in a dress becomes something of an obsession to several characters, even when it no longer serves the plan.  And the actors certainly challenge each other.   When the bandit’s accomplices taunt him for not re-joining them sooner, one says to him, more or less, “I think you’ve been away from it too long.  I think you've forgotten the plan.”

“I remember the plan.”

“Then tell it to us, all of it, to be sure,” forcing him to create off-the-cuff a four man plan to rob a train!  THE WESTERN UNSCRIPTED plays Wednesday through Sunday, October 5^th.  Wednesday through Friday the curtain is at 8 pm; on Sunday it’s 4 pm.  I loved it, and I’m going to try to catch it once more, to see how different the second performance will be!  Here’s the link for information and tickets: http://improtheatre.com/shows/western-unscripted/

‘LUCKY’ BARRY PEPPER TO FOLLOW ‘TRAIL OF BLOOD’ TO NEW WESTERN SERIES!

Barry Pepper in TRUE GRIT

Barry Pepper, who played Lucky Ned Pepper in the Coen Brothers’ TRUE GRIT, and appeared in THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA and THE LONE RANGER, is set to star in TRAIL OF BLOOD to run on CINEMAX for Endemol Studios, the folks who bring us HELL ON WHEELS!  He’ll portray a frontier preacher in search of his teenage daughter, who has been kidnapped by the Harpe brothers, real-life infamous serial killers who were active in the late 1790s.  It’s written by Ross Parker, and he and Christina Wayne, who was producer on the mini BROKEN TRAIL and the BBC-America series COPPER, will produce. 

‘BONE TOMAHAWK’ STARRING KURT RUSSELL ROLLS CAMERA MONDAY! 

Kurt Russell in TOMBSTONE

Western horror novelist S. Craig Zahler will make his debut as a writer/director with BONE TOMAHAWK.  The western tale of four men trying to rescue captives from a group of cave-dwelling cannibals has long been set to star Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins, who will now be joined by Patrick Wilson and Matthew Fox.  Peter Sherayko is consulting producer -- he and Kurt Russell last worked together on TOMBSTONE, which turned out rather well.

MICHAEL HORSE GIVES DEPP’S TONTO THE BIRD ON ‘HELL ON WHEELS’!

The Depp Version

The Michael Horse Version

I was catching up on the last three episodes of HELL ON WHEELS – thank goodness for the DVR – and was delighted to see Michael Horse, who was the best thing in 1981’s LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER, playing Tonto.  In the H.O.W. episode THE BEAR MAN he plays Old Porcupine, and a little bird told me he was poking fun at the new LONE RANGER movie, and Johnny Depp’s dead-bird headdress.    

GILLAM PLAYS SLIM PICKENS IN B’WAY-BOUND ‘BLAZING SADDLES!’

Pickens & Gillam in BLAZING SADDLES

Great news via our good friends at Westerpunk!  They tell me that when Burton Gillam, the toothy and goofy star of BLAZING SADDLES, PAPER MOON, and many comic turns in westerns, appeared at their Weird West Fest, he revealed that he’ll be in the up-coming Broadway musical version of BLAZING SADDLES, playing Slim Pickens’ role from the movie!

SPEAKING OF ED HARRIS – HE TAKES ON YUL BRYNNER’S ‘MAN IN BLACK’ CHARACTER IN ‘WESTWORLD’ REMAKE

Yul Brynner in WESTWORLD

Ed Harris in APPALOOSA

Remakes of terrific shows are usually a bad idea, especially when they involve recasting iconic characters: you don’t want to follow John Wayne or Steve McQueen or Yul Brynner into a role, no matter how good the paycheck.  But whoever thought of casting Ed Harris in Brynner’s role in WESTWORLD is a genius.  Movie also stars James Marsden and Evan Rachel Woods and Anthony Hopkins as the lead humans.  And if you don’t understand that reference, you need to run out and see Saul David’s original 1973 production of Michael Crichton’s WESTWORLD, posthaste.   Here's the trailer from the original.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

I’m trying to get some script revisions finished this week, but I know I’ll have some interesting news next Sunday, including a review of a new book on the Christmas music of Gene Autry

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Content Copyright September 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved

‘REDEMPTION OF HENRY MYERS’, ‘NAMES YOU NEVER REMEMBER’ REVIEWED, PLUS SAM ELLIOT TO ‘JUSTIFIED’, ‘DAN’L BOONE’ ANNIVERSARY, TIM MCCOY MARATHON!

REDEMPTION OF HENRY MYERS – A Movie Review

THE REDEMPTION OF HENRY MYERS is an unexpectedly powerful and effective Western, with uniformly strong performances by a largely unfamiliar but very talented cast.  Its co-writer and director Clayton Miller – he wrote with Charlie Shanian and Chris VanderKaay – has only directed one feature before, but he draws absolutely natural and effecting performances from the early-teenaged Jaden Roberts and Ezra Proch who, while not the leads, drive a great deal of the story.

Drew Waters, who had a small but showy role as Champagne Charlie Austin in LEGEND OF HELL’S GATE, plays Henry Myers who, with accomplices Clay (Beau Smith) and Mac (Rio Alexander), pull a bank job that turns needlessly bloody.  They separate, and Henry is trying to hide the loot in a church, when he’s startled by the minister (Michael McCabe), and accidently shoots and kills him. 

A year later, his accomplices track him down, looking for the loot and all but kill him before he escapes.  A family finds his nearly lifeless form, and the young girl, Laura (Jaden Roberts), overrides her brother Will’s (Ezra Poch) and their mother Marilyn’s (Erin Bethea) doubts, and insist they take him in and nurse him back to health.  And while Henry heals, now living with the first real family he’s ever known, he is being hunted by his ex-accomplices for the loot, and by Sheriff Tom (Luce Rains), for the robbery, and the murder of the minister. 

Erin Bethea & Drew Waters

This is an elegant production, and a savvy one.  The filmmakers have mounted the size of movie that they can effectively afford to produce: not too many characters, not too many locations.  Filmed at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the breathtaking cinematography is by Reynaldo Villalobos, who also shot HOUSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS, which premiered on INSP in August (read my review HERE http://www.henryswesternroundup.blogspot.com/2014/08/insp-premieres-house-of-righteous.html )  Special credit also goes to production designer Sean Cunningham and his crew for unself-conscious realism, and the make-up crew headed by Mandy Danielle Benton for giving us some of the truly dirtiest, scummy-bearded villains I’ve ever seen outside of a Sergio Corbucci Spaghetti Western.

This is a faith-based production, and while that used to be a warning to expect poor production values, amateur acting and sappy plots, faith-based filmmaking has improved tremendously over the last several years, I believe because Tyler Perry showed the way, his films bursting from church screenings to mainstream theatres by virtue of the fact that they were hysterical and accessible comedies.   Though not a big box-office name, Erin Bethea is a superstar in the faith-based film world, having starred opposite Kirk Cameron in the ground-breaking FIREPROOF, and several others.  Among the supporting players, Rio Alexander has been seen in INTO THE WEST, 3:10 TO YUMA, LONGMIRE and the modern Western THE LAST STAND.  Luce Rains has had the most sagebrush experience, having been seen, often with a star, in DESPERADO: AVALANCHE AT DEVIL’S RIDGE, INTO THE BADLANDS, THE YOUNG RIDERS, LIGHTNING JACK, WYATT EARP, WILD BILL, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, 3:10 TO YUMA, APPALOOSA, SHOOT FIRST AND PRAY YOU LIVE, DOC WEST, DEAD MAN’S BURDEN, and last year’s SWEETWATER! 

Jaden Roberts & Drew Waters

If I have any criticism of the recent crop of faith-based Westerns, it is that too many have ‘redemption’ in the title: there was 2011’s excellent REDEMPTION: FOR ROBBING THE DEAD, the current THE REDEMPTION OF HENRY MYERS, and last month I acted in BOONVILLE REDEMPTION.  It gets confusing!

REDEMPTION OF HENRY MYERS has appeared on the Hallmark Movie Channel, and is also available on DVD.

NAMES YOU NEVER REMEMBER – WITH FACES YOU NEVER FORGET by Justin Humphreys – A Book Review

It’s been said that since the passing of the cinema’s Golden Age, roughly from the coming of sound to the 1950s, character actors are a dying breed – even a dead breed.  Author, interviewer and raconteur Justin Humphreys has given the lie to that claim, with his fascinating, informative, and wonderfully entertaining collection of interviews, NAMES YOU NEVER REMEMBER – WITH FACES YOU NEVER FORGET.  Published by Bear Manor Media, it should take its rightful place on your bookshelf, beside Leonard Maltin’s REEL STARS and Jordan Young’s REEL CARACTERS, tomes which interviewed and profiled the great character actors from previous decades. 

Mark Lawrence on THE RIFLEMAN

The final interview of the book, with the wonderfully villainous and delightfully gutter-mouthed Marc Lawrence, is the only conversation that goes back to the early 1930s.  The rest are with actors whose careers began post-war, and I was particularly surprised and pleased to learn quite a bit about two men I’d seen, but never known their names – Don Pedro Colley, whose imposing height and menacing presence made him a natural for sci-fi films and Blaxsploitation; and Buck Kartalian, whose diminutive stature on a body-builder’s frame has given him a long career in action, horror and sci-fi.  Both men have unforgettable roles in PLANET OF THE APES films – Buck as the cigar-puffing ape who abuses Heston, and Don, in BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, as one of the ‘A’ bomb-worshipping mutants – and James Franciscus’ torturer.   

Royal Dano on THE RIFLEMAN

This is clearly a labor of love done over a long string of years – many of the books’ ten subjects are gone; one, Royal Dano, to whom it is dedicated, for two decades.  Western fans will be particularly interested in the interviews with Dano, R.G. Armstrong, Bo Hopkins, and L.Q. Jones – all Western specialists on the big and small screen, all frequent collaborators with Sam Peckipah, and L.Q. even wrote the forward. 

These are not Red-Carpet chats but detailed career discussions – R.G. Armstrong’s at 34 pages is only a little longer than average.  And in it you’ll learn about his desire to be a poet rather than an actor, how his time spent as a hobo would inform his performances as a lawman dealing with hoboes, how Peckinpah used Armstrong’s serious religiosity to create his hypocritical and fanatical religious roles in films like RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY. 

Dick Bakalyan takes the kill-shot in CHINATOWN

Dick Bakalyan, the pre-eminent juvenile delinquent of the 1950s, later Jack Nicholson’s nemesis, Detective Loach, in CHINATOWN, really grew up as a tough-guy – hence the famously flattened beak – and is endlessly cheerful discussing his strings of Sinatra films and Disney films.  But as with many of the interview subjects, his projections for the future of the industry are bleak for directors as well as actors.

Many of the subjects’ best stories are not about themselves, but about their co-workers.  Don Pedro Colley’s adventures working with Jack Palance in the deep south, and Palance’s sticking his neck out for the black members of the cast, are all the more impressive for being so unexpected.  High points of both Royal Dano’s and Mark Lawrence’s interviews are their memories of ‘Cookie,’ the great Elisha Cook Jr., the movies’ perennial victim and, to my surprise, a drunkard of epic proportions.  Another surprise is to find how funny in real life Royal Dano, almost always a tragic figure on-screen, really was.  His insights into working with directors Nicholas Ray on JOHNNY GUITAR and Alfred Hitchcock on THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY are revealing as well. 

Roger Corman made Jonathan Haze a genre star, casting him as the lead in the original LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, and he starred in easily a dozen more for the low-budget mogul.  But I was surprised to learn that, rather than sinking into obscurity afterwards, he moved behind the camera, often partnered with Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler, and has had a series of successes.

Bo Hopkins in THE WILD BUNCH

Bo Hopkins had just as tough a beginning as Dick Bakalyan, a frequent runaway, in and out of homes, then reform schools, then given the choice of jail for a robbery, or joining the Army.  He fought in Korea, came back with acting scholarships that led to do plays from Kentucky to South Carolina to New York to Hollywood.  He made a smash in his first film role, playing Crazy Lee in THE WILD BUNCH, but he actually earned his S.A.G. card on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW.

L.Q. Jones in THE WILD BUNCH

Speaking of THE WILD BUNCH, L.Q. Jones, half of my absolute favorite bounty-hunting team (with Strother Martin), reveals that he took his name from the character he played in his first movie, BATTLE CRY.  His story of how, as a non-actor, he got the part, and his dealings with director Raoul Walsh on BATTLE CRY and THE NAKED AND THE DEAD are too delicious to give away.  He also credits his buddy Fess Parker with getting him in the door and having his back (Morgan Woodward would tell me the same about Fess).  A man with many more facets to his personality than his screen villainy would suggest, L.Q. would also write and produce the wonderfully creepy THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN, and write, produce and direct the sci-fi classic A BOY AND HIS DOG, from Harlan Ellison’s novella. 

Buck Kartalian’s story of how we went, with no intervening steps, from being a professional wrestler, to acting onstage opposite Olivia De Havilland and Jack Hawkins in ROMEO AND JULIET is alone worth the price of admission. 

German-born, Canadian-raised Paul Koslo became a familiar, menacing face starting with OMEGA MAN, and has done a wide range of horror, action, sci-fi films, and Westerns like JOE KIDD, ROOSTER COGBURN and HEAVEN’S GATE.  His stories about Charles Bronson are as astonishing as they are disappointing – Mr. Deathwish comes off as an absolute bastard.  And yet, Bronson would hire Koslo for two more films!  Of equal interest is Koslo’s convincing analysis of the demise of the character actor: the tremendous rise of star salaries has reduced everyone else, regardless of their fame, experience and talent, to scale – take it or leave it.

It’s clear in the tone that some of the subjects were more eager to talk than others – Marc Lawrence continually interjects comments like, “I think you’ve got enough there to write fifteen articles.  What else do you want?”  But author Humphreys charmed and persuaded and cajoled the anecdotes out of them.  Along with the faces, there are a hundred stories you will never forget.  NAMES YOU NEVER REMEMBER – WITH FACES YOU NEVER FORGET, will give you hours of pleasure, ten unique perspectives on the film industry, and will send you searching for dozens of movies – ones that you’ve never seen before, and others you know well, but will appreciate on a whole new level.  I recommend it highly.    

SAM ELLIOT JOINS CAST OF ‘JUSTIFIED’!

Sam Elliot, the actor with the best ‘western’ voice to come along since Bill Conrad voiced Matt Dillon on radio’s GUNSMOKE, will be joining the cast of JUSTIFIED as a continuing character for its sixth, and final, season.  His character is Markham, an ex-gangster who has turned over a new leaf – the cannabis kind – and made a fortune growing legal weed in Colorado.  Also joining the cast is Garret Dillahunt, who played Ed Miller in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES, Wendell in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and Sheriff Baskin in WINTER’S BONE.  His character, Walker (not a Texas Ranger), is a special ops-turned-security maven for a not-so-clean businessman.  JUSTIFIED returns to FX in January.

‘DANIEL BOONE’ JOINS INSP LINE-UP ON 50^TH ANNIVERSARY!

Fess Parker 

This coming Sunday, September 28^th, INSP will bring back DANIEL BOONE, within four days of its NBC premiere in 1964. In the title role, Fess Parker had become a superstar on early television as Davy Crockett on a series of WALT DISNEY’S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR episodes, and for insurance, NBC decided to have him wear the same wardrobe playing Boone, coonskin cap and all.  (As a result, virtually no member of my generation can separate the exploits of Boone and Crockett.) 

Fess Parker and Ed Ames 

For six seasons and 165 episodes, the series told the sometimes true, sometimes fanciful tales of the pioneer frontiersman who lived from 1734 to 1820, fought in the Revolutionary War, was captured by Shawnee warriors who planned to kill him and ended up adopting him, and who blazed his famous Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains.  Most of the stories take place in the town of Boonesborough, Kentucky. 

Starring along with Fess Parker was Patricia Blair as his wife Rebecca, Veronica Cartwright as their daughter Jemima, and Darby Hinton as their son Israel.  (For the record, Boone and Rebecca actually had ten children, and this past Friday at the Silver Spur Awards, host Darby Hinton explained that there were going to be two sons in the series.  But the producers were so pleased with his work in the pilot that they wrote the other son out.)

Over the years, Dan’l had several friends and sidekicks that drifted in and out, refreshing the series, including Ed Ames, of the singing Ames Brothers, as Mingo, Boone’s Oxford-educated half-Cherokee friend; crusty old Dal McKennon – incredibly, the voice of Archie Andrews in cartoons – as Cincinnatus; Albert Salmi as Yadkin; pro-football player Rosey Grier as Gabe Cooper; and country singer and sausage purveyor Jimmy Dean as Josh Clements.      

Patricia Blair, Darby Hinton, Fess Parker, Veronica Cartwright

Daniel Boone’s life, and hence the series, covered a period in American history that was not often shown, and the battles with the British military, and stories about slavery in a pre-abolitionist society, are pleasantly unfamiliar.  It started in black & white, and I prefer these tougher and darker tales than the later ones.  (I feel the same way about the first noir-ish episodes of SUPERMAN for that matter.) But there is plenty to recommend in the entire run of the series. 

As Doug Butts, SVP of Programming at INSP says, “DANIEL BOONE is not only entertaining. It embodies the timeless values and positive entertainment audiences have come to expect from INSP.  We couldn't be more thrilled to bring DANIEL BOONE to our lineup during the 50^th anniversary of the series, and we believe it will be a great opportunity for a whole new generation of viewers to enjoy this family drama.”

INSP will begin with a star-studded 6-hour marathon on Sunday, September 28th, opening with the two-parter from the second season, THE HIGH CUMBERLAND, about the blazing of the Cumberland Trail.  It’s directed by Western specialist (he directed John Wayne eleven times) George Sherman, and written by D.D. Beauchamp, who started out with Abbott & Costello before becoming a Western pro.  The series will run Monday through Thursday at 10:00 a.m., ET.  If you don’t know if you get INSP, follow the link: <http://www.insp.com/insp-channel-finder>.

GET-TV TIM MCCOY MARATHON NEXT SATURDAY!

On Saturday, September 27^th, Get-TV will present an eight-film marathon featuring some of the very best of Col. Tim McCoy’s Columbia Westerns!  These were the absolute zenith of his career in talkies, and to have such a block of them is unprecedented!  It starts off with a bang at 9:00 a.m. PDT with 1932’s END OF THE TRAIL, featuring both an involving a story and, remarkable for its time, the Colonel speaking, as I recall, direct to camera, delivering a stunning indictment of the Federal Government’s failure to honor the terms of virtually any of the treaties it made with the Indian tribes.  It’s followed by THE PRESCOTT KID, SHOTGUN PASS, THE FIGHTING FOOL, TEXAS CYCLONE, TWO-FISTED LAW, DARING DANGER, and FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE, all from 1930-1933.  And they’re followed at 7:30 by three westerns I don’t know, RELENTLESS        (1948) starring Robert Young, THE PHANTOM STAGECOACH (1957) starring William Bishop and directed by Ray Nazarro, REPRISAL (1956) starring Guy Madison, and one we all know, THE OUTLAW (1943ish) starring Jack Beutel, Jane Russell, Walter Huston, Thomas Mitchell, and directed by the two Howards, Hughes and Hawks.  And here’s a link to find out if you can get GetTV: http://get.tv/get-the-channel

‘SPIRIT OF THE COWBOY’ FESTIVAL!

This great picture from the ‘Spirit of The Cowboy’, held in McKinney, Texas on September 14^th, was sent to me by CHEYENNE WARRIOR author Michael Druxman.  What a great gathering!

Upper row: Dan Haggerty, Michael Druxman, Clu Guhlager, James Stacey    
Middle row: Marshal Teague, Robert Fuller, Darby Hinton, Ken Farmer,  Bo Hopkins
In front: Alex Cord

THAT’S A WRAP!

Coming to the Round-up ASAP are an article on BOONEVILLE REDEMPTION, THE CINECON SALUTE TO CLAYTON MOORE, THE SILVER SPUR AWARDS, and tons of other good stuff! 

Have a great week!

Happy Trails,

Henry

All Original Content Copyright September 2014 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved