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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Ranking Movies Since 2011
We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
Below is my selection of the STILLS that I consider the cream of the crop though the standard is consistent throughout so “Voted Up!” – big time!
1/Blood on the Arrow
2/Stage to Thunder Rock
3/He Rides Tall
4/The Quick Gun
5/2 for Mail Order Bride – wow!
6/ALL for Advance to the Rear
7/Apache Rifles
8/Old Shatterhand
9/The Outrage
10/Bullet for a Badman
11/Winnetou
12/Invitation to a Gunfighter
13/2 for A Distant Trumpet
14/ALL for Rio Conchos
15/ALL for Fistful of Dollars
16/ALL for Cheyenne Autumn “I have enjoyed many of the movies I have been in but the most enjoyable were the 3 westerns that I made with Jimmy Stewart.” – Arthur Kennedy.
17/wonderful opening photo of the very-handsome Ty Hardin – most famous for playing Bronco Layne from 1958-1962 in the western TV series. He was in Jeff Chandler’s final film Merrill’s Marauders and Jeff who didn’t admire him tried to get him removed but the studio heads insisted he stay.
“Next to a four-square Texas twister
You’d call a cyclone meek and mild.
You’ve never seen a twister Mister
Till someone gets him riled.
Bronco! Tearing across the Texas plain
Bronco! Bronco Layne!”
For me this has been the best entry so-far in Steve’s run of 1960s westerns videos. It contains a number of unusual westerns which are unfamiliar to me and whilst most of them would probably not be to my personal taste they have yielded a glut of exciting materials which overall I rate 99% and have already viewed it 3 times. Here is my perception of the very best POSTERS:
1/Blood on the Arrow
2/Stage to Thunder Rock – A C Lyles movie
3/He Rides Tall
4/Law of the Lawless – A C Lyles movie
5/2 for The Quick Gun
6/1st one for Advance to the Rear
7/2 for 3 Ruthless Ones
8/ALL for Apache Rifles
9/Old Shatterhand
10/ALL for The Outrage – really excellent pictorials
11/2 for Bullet for a Badman
12/All for Winnetou
13/Invitation to a Gunfighter
14/Rio Conchos – note the compromise billing
15/1st one for Cheyenne Autumn
16/Entire great set of foreign language ones for Fistful Dollars
17/First one for a Distant Trumpet – “Three cheers for the Officer Commanding and his Lady!” Only the Yanks could end a movie with a line like that – or the Brits! I actually watched that one at an open-air cinema on a Royal Air Force camp in a desert on the Persian Gulf in 1965. I printed out and distributed round the camp the programs for each week’s shows complete with descriptions of the movies so they gave me free passes Ah nostalgia!
THE 13 A C LYLES WESTERNS 1964-1968 INCLUSIVE
[Box office figures quoted for 9 movies are the Cogerson Adjusted Domestic grosses.]
ARIZONA BUSHWACKERS $4.3 million
Howard Keel/John Ireland/Yvonne DeCarlo/Marilyn Maxwell/Don Red Barry
Narrated by JAMES CAGNEY as favour to his pal A C Lyles. I am disappointed the box office figure has not been credited to Cagney’s Cogerson grosses.
FORT UTAH $7.9 million
John Ireland/Virginia Mayo/Scott Brady/Don Red Barry
BUCKSKIN
Barry Sullivan/Corrine Calvet/Lon Chaney Jr/Barbara Hale
HOSTILE GUNS
George Montgomery/Yvonne DeCarlo/Brian Donlevy/Don Red Barry
LAW OF THE LAWLESS $22.1 million
Dale Robertson/Yvonne De Carlo/William Bendix/Lon Chaney Jr
STAGE TO THUNDER ROCK
Barry Sullivan/Marilyn Maxwell/Scott Brady/Lon Chaney Jr/John Agar the former Mr Shirley Temple
TOWN TAMER $21.9 million
Dana Andrews/Pat O’Brien/Lon Chaney Jr/Terry Moore
APACHE UPRISING
RORY/Corrine Calvet/Lon Chaney Jr/Johnny Mack Brown
BLACK SPURS $13.4 million
RORY/Linda Darnell/Scott Brady/Terry Moore
YOUNG FURY $9.1 million
RORY/Virginia Mayo/William Bendix/Lon Chaney Jr
JOHNNY RENO $ 18.8 million
Dana Andrews/Jane Russell/Lon Chaney Jr/John Agar
WACO $8.7million
Howard Keel/Jane Russell/Brian Donlevy/John Agar
RED TOMAHAWK $6.1 million
Howard Keel/Joan Caulfield/Broderick Crawford/Scott Brady/Don Red Barry
In his 1964 westerns video Steve has included 2 A C Lyles films: Law of the Lawless and Stage to Thunder Rock. I’ve mentioned before that the calling card of Lyles westerns which have been dubbed “Old Geezer Graveyard” productions is that they are awash with faded figures from the past all hired at cut price.
For the record the 13 westerns A. C. made between 1964 and 1968 inclusive are listed in Part 2 of this post and it will be seen from the list how heavily-laden they are with “golden oldie” performers of both genders.
Indeed stooping down to playing supporting parts in them as the “over the hill” hero’s love interest are Hollywood sex symbols and great beauties of the 1940s and 50s such as Jane Russell and Yvonne DeCarlo.
Also in small roles are the almost-fixture Lon Chaney Jr [The Wolf Man aka Lawrence Talbot in 1940s cheap horror films] and a number of B western heroes of bygone days such as Don “Red” Barry so nicknamed because he played the legendary fictional cowboy hero Red Ryder in the 12-episode 1940 serial.
Red Barry had in fact made droves of westerns in the late 1930 thru the 1950s when for example he produced , directed, and wrote the script for himself as Jesse James in 1954’s Jesse James Women.
But his big final splash was in in 1955 when he became embroiled in a scandal when then-mega-star Susan Hayward and another actress got into a physical fight over him after the latter supposedly caught Susan sneaking “into Barry’s dressing-room for morning coffee”.
The occurrence became the subject of insider jokes for some time; and I have often wondered if Susan [who went to school with Jeff Chandler] was really caught GOING IN or had she been in Red’s company all night!
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooh), info, trivia, quotes and lyrics, much appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Good stats on the A C Lyles westerns, have to admit I wasn’t familiar with this
B-movie producer. Maybe you should be making these videos not I. 😉
I take it you’re not a big fan of spaghetti westerns and more of a traditionalist. You could argue the glut of spaghetti westerns coming out of Europe did spell the end for the western as a popular genre. But it wasn’t going to last forever anyway. Audiences were turning to gangsters and disaster films in the 1970s and than Star Wars came along which was basically cowboys in space.
George Peppard’s character in Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars was called ‘Space Cowboy’ and he was wearing a cowboy getup too. Who needs subtlety?
One film scored 10 out of 10 from one of my sources (Radio Times) – A Fistful of Dollars, none scored 9 but a few scored 8, they are in the top 5.
My Video Top 5 –
A Fistful of Dollars 8.2
Cheyenne Autumn 7.0
Rio Conchos 6.8
A Distant Trumpet 6.6
Invitation to a Gunfighter 6.5
The UMR critics top 5 –
A Fistful of Dollars 8.1
Rio Conchos 6.8
A Distant Trumpet 6.7
Cheyenne Autumn 6.4
Law of the Lawless 6.4
Cheyenne Autumn trivia (IMDB) – “Years earlier Richard Widmark had the historical subject matter researched at Yale. He brought the material to John Ford, who didn’t want to make it. Years later Ford, who had kept the research, changed his mind and asked Widmark to star.”
“The usually puritanical John Ford contemplated filming a nude scene with Carroll Baker bathing in a river, but ultimately it wasn’t shot.” (damn!)
“According to both John Ford and James Stewart, Ford added the segment with Stewart in place of an intermission. He didn’t want people leaving the auditorium to go the bathroom or concessions counter, even though the film was long, and so he came up with the Wyatt Earp segment. He later quipped to Stewart that the actor was the “best intermission” in the movies. “
HI STEVE: Thanks for the thoughtful feedback and the very interesting additional trivia most of which I was unaware. As Peppard is called Space Cowboy in it are you going to included Battle Beyond the Stars as a western at some stage!!!?
You are right that I am not a big fan of spaghetti westerns. However I enjoy watching movies with my grandchildren and my grandson was keen to see Fistful of Dollars and Good the Bad and the Ugly so I recorded those two and we watched them together recently. I will concede that they were very-well-made especially The Good the Bad—- with its haunting music which I supposed you have somewhere on CD.
I am glad that the A C Lyles filmography interested you but you are too modest: I may be able to remember the names of movies, their stars and things like order of billing but I would have neither the knowledge nor the skills to provide viewers with the feast of great art work that you have been doing for as long as I have been aware of you.
Besides if I were a site moderator like you I would say what I thought: not what some guy like Joel tells me I should be thinking! Parts 2 and 3 of this post can be considered my first “Christmas posts” this year!
TIMOTHY FRANCIS McCOWN: ADJUSTED DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE GROSSES FOR TOP 21 OF HIS FILMS
1/ 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire $337.7 million
2/ 1945 Nob Hill $232.2 million
3/ 1954 River of No Return $216.2 million
4/ 1944 Sunday Dinner for a Soldier $184.7 million
5/ 1952 With a Song in My Heart $152.7 million
6/ 1945 The Great John L $148.7 million
7/ 1945 Where do We Go from Here? $131 million
8/ 1947 That Hagen Girl $121.6 million
9/ 1947 The Red House $113.7 million
10/ 1951 I’d Climb the Highest Mountain $112.5 million
11/ 1951 Meet Me After the Show $104.7 million
12/ 1955 The Spoilers $70.5 million
13/ 1952 Way of a Gaucho $64.8 million
14/ 1955 The Treasure of Pancho Villa $57.9 million
15/ 1955 Ain’t Misbehavin $50.3 million
16/ 1953 Powder River $46.3 million
17/ 1984 Angel $46.2 million
18/ 1954 A Bullet is Waiting $44.1 million
19/ 1947 Adventure Island $32.1 million
20/ 1961 The Colossus of Rhodes $31.5 million
21/ 1992 Pure Country $29.64 million-His Final movie at age of 69.
TOTAL ADJUSTED GROSS FOR THE 21= $2.33 billion
AVERAGE GROSS PER MOVIE = $111 million