We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
Added Steve’s George Montgomery You Tube video to this page. Our thoughts on Montgomery and the video found below.
“Wow….I have only seen one George Montgomery movie….but at least it was number one…The Battle of the Bulge. It looks like many of his moves were B westerns….which is probably movies that Bob has fond memories of. Good posters. Good video. Voted up and shared.
HI BRUCE: So you have seen just one of George’s movies and equally so that is the total number Steve says he is familiar with. Modesty being a strong characteristic of mine I will not boast about the 20 or so that I have seen across George’s career; but you would be right in assuming that most are westerns and in fact only one of them is not – 1957’s crime drama Street of Sinners with Monty as a rookie New York cop taking on juvenile delinquents and his superiors in the force Clint Eastwood style.
Apart from not being a braggart like you guys another reason that I won’t boast about my “have seens” in this case is that about one third of them didn’t makes Steve’s Montgomery cut Steve’s lowest critically rated being 1952’s The Pathfinder with just 50% [ie 5/10]. IMDB is a little kinder but not much with 57%. I HAVE seen The Pathfinder.
I think I WILL though be generous to myself and quietly still boast about being a 1950s Montgomery fan because in just one day Steve’s Monty video had attracted 521 views when I last looked a few moments ago. Any viewer of this site who has gotten the impression that you guys and Joel are always right and that I am always wrong should take a look at some of the view figures for a number of my personal faves whom Steve has profiled. Anyway Keep safe.
I mentioned in my previous posts how George Montgomery appeared in the television western series Cimarron City in an effort to cash in on the developing craze for TV cowboys and western series/programmes that started to develop in the mid to late 1950s; but that his series was taken off after just one season [26 hour long episodes] in the 1958/59 period. Here is IMDB’s take on how George may have missed out on an earlier opportunity to become a popular TV cowboy star.
“Had George Montgomery played his cards right, he could have had a place in TV history as the first-ever star of an adult western. When Desilu began planning their series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, they had Montgomery in mind for the lead. As a veteran of countless B westerns that played theatres in the early fifties, he certainly seemed to be the most likely person to star in a TV show at that moment when the ‘small’ western was about to explode onto the ‘small’ screen, and filmed westerns would, more and more, be of the ‘big’ variety with Wayne, Stewart, etc. Perhaps surprisingly, Montgomery turned them down (the role of course went to Hugh O’Brian) and continued to make B western movies, though the choices soon became fewer and further between.”
Anyway I’ll still take what I can get in relation to the old western heroes so I look forward to your video tomorrow with my fingers crossed that it might be another of my old idols
Great posts Bob, thanks for reviewing my George Montgomery video, the generous rating, anecdotes, info and trivia are very much appreciated.
Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
As I was telling Flora I only really knew GM from Battle of the Bulge, he was very adept at western heroes and also played romantic parts too.
Someone on my channel was wondering if GM was the father of Elizabeth Montgomery, as Flora will tell you it was the other Montgomery, Robert.
There are no 10s or 9s in GMs filmography from my sources. There are 4 films scoring 8 out of 10 – Roxie Hart, Three Little Girls in Blue, Coney Island and Battle of the Bulge.
Roxie Hart is tops at IMDB and Orchestra Wives is no.1 at Rotten Tomatoes.
GM was married to singer Dinah Shore for 20 years. Which reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite musicals ‘On the Town’, Gene Kelly and friends accidentally knock down a dinosaur skeleton at a museum. It’s reported on the radio as “collapse of dinosaur” and a shocked police officer cries “Collapse? That’s terrible. She’s my favorite singing star, that Dinah Shore! ”
Another western hero on video tomorrow.
HI STEVE: Thanks for the usual attentive feedback. I had a good laugh at the Dinah Shore story. It reminded me in a way of an occasion when my father and I went to a shipping terminal to meet my daughter arriving in Belfast from England and without realising it we had arrived an hour early and nobody was about except seemingly one uniformed stewardess standing behind the locked doors of the terminal building in a darkened corner of the lighted reception area.
My father called out and asked her when the ship would arrive but she didn’t answer and eventually he became enraged. He could be as bad tempered and cantankerous as Tracy and he finally started to shake the door handles and shouted in “We only want to talk to you. We’re not here to rob the ******* place! Open the doors for a moiment” I then moved closer to the doors and peered in more intently and realised he was shouting at just a cardborad cutout of a stewerdess put there simply for decoration.
See Part 2 of this reply.
EXCELLENT STILLS/LOBBY CARDS
1/Opening solo one.
2/Steel Claw
3/Samar
4/Still for Battle of Rogue River – saw it on double bill with Saracen Blade starring Ricardo Montalban
5/Lobby card for battle of Rogue River
6/China Girl
7/Basher Doubloon
8/Coney Island
9/Three Little Girls in Blue – I like that title
10/Roxie Hart
11/Battle of the Bulge -not my type of flick but like still and all posters
12/Orchestra Wives – lusciously coloured offering
13/Closing solo still – he was a handsome devil in his day!!
MY PERSONAL SATISFACTION RATING for overall video – 98%
TOP 20 BEST POSTER SETS in VIDEO
1/FL one for Pathfinder
2/Steel Claw
3/Toughest Gun in Tombstone
4/Pawnee
5/Man from God’s Country [aka Man from Manchester]
6/two for Davy Crockett
7/first for Canyon River
8/first for Dakota Lil
9/FL for Battle of Rogue River
10/Watusi
11/first for Indian Uprising
12/two for Cadet Girl
13/2 for China Girl – George well into A movie leading man roles.
14/first for Brasher Doubloon – horrible title for my money!
15/ Coney Island
16/Orchestra Wives
17/first one for 10 Gents from West Point
18/Roxy Hart – very leggy!
19/Set for Battle of Bulge – I forgot he was in that one.
20/Gun Belt – I stood one Saturday night and watched the stills for that being inserted in the showcase by an attendant at my local cinema in 1953 – ah nostalgia!