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.
.Wow! 3 years’ westerns in the one package– it’s bumper-bundle time in the Steed Lenswoman OK Corral! The ones which were mainly of special interest to me were [surprise! surprise!] The Duke’s Train Robbers though Steve’s visuals are as usual uniformly splendid and worth an 98% rating to me with 2 views so far.. Great stuff!
The Duke was in physical action both on-screen and off in 1973. When Brando sent to the 1973 Oscars young Indian political activist Sacheen Littlefeather [born Marie Louise Cruz] to reject on his behalf the Best Actor Oscar for Godpop The Duke went ballistic and moved to haul her off the stage.
Statham not being around then, it took 6 burly security guards to restrain The Duke and Sacheen was terrified as the audience had erupted in protest and as she knew Big John was not ferociously trying to claw his way towards her to befriend her as his “Kemo Sabe”!
After the ceremony Chuck Heston [though a Brando good-friend and admirer] and Royal Dano [sometimes confused with Eldred Peck] denounced Brando’s stunt in a joint press conference; and Clint Eastwood [riding aloft with High Plains Drifter that year] quipped that he would lodge a counter-protest about all the cowboys the Indians had killed in movies!
Continued in Part 2.
BEST STILLS IN STEVE’s 1972 WESTERNS VIDEO – in my opinion!
1/Wrath of God – both Big bob and Hayworth in decline.
2/2 for Pocket Money
3/2nd one for Magnificent 7 Ride
4/2 for The Revengers-Cogerson adjusted domestic gross of just $25 million. A far cry from Golden Holden’s heyday from 1953-1960 when it was said that “everybody loved him” and his 13 greatest hits of that period attracted a combined adjusted domestic gross of $3.13 billion which is a magnificent average per movie of $241 million.
5/Reason to Live/Die
6/Buck and The Preacher
7/JoeL Kidd
8/3 for Chato’s Land – one obviously off screen with the director. “The only actor I have ever addresses as ‘Sir’ on set is Marlon Brando [1971’sThe Nightcomers].” – Michael Winner.
9/ALL for Roy Bean
10/Entire set for Culpepper Cattle Company
11/Junior Bonner
12/2 for Ulzana’s Raid
13/ALL for The Cowboys
14/ALL for Jeremiah Johnson
BEST POSTERS STEVE’s 1972 WESTERNS VIDEO
FL = Foreign Language version of poster]
1/Two for Pancho Villa
2/1st one for Wrath of God – never knew this was a western
3/Set for Pocket Money – note the compromise billing. Based on a novel called “Jim Kane,” that was the working title of the film and was the name of the character played by Paul. The title was changed to take the emphasis off of one character and to stress the partnership of Paul and Lee . See also additional trivia below which may be of interest to viewing fans of Steve Lensman!!
4/2 for Magnificent 7 Ride
5/2 for Santee
6/1st one for Reason Live/Die
7/FL for JoeL Kidd
8/ALL for J W Coop
9/ALL for Roy Bean
10/2 FL ones for Junior Bonner
11/1st one for Ulzana’s Raid
12/The entire set for Bad Company
13/FL for The Cowboys
14/ALL for Jeremiah Johnson – I tried to watch this one but after a quarter of an hour found it too uninteresting for my money.
ADDITIONAL TRIVIA
Pocket Money’s publicity still with Paul Newman and Lee Marvin was photographed by British photographer Terry O’Neill In the book, O’Neill recounts how when he arrived on the set to shoot his publicity stills Lee Marvin was hungover and in a foul mood. Most of the production personnel were steering clear of him. When O’Neill gingerly approached Marvin and introduced himself Marvin asked, “Are you English?” What O’Neill didn’t know at the time was that Marvin was a lifelong Anglophile–he LOVED the British. After that brief encounter Marvin’s mood changed and, according to O’Neill he couldn’t have been more cooperative for the rest of his assignment.
HI STEVE: I don’t know whether you follow boxing but I see that Brit Tyson Fury won the heavyweight contest last night and declared himself the “greatest” of the present era.
It has struck me that his name, in one variation or another, would have been a good screen name for a modern action star: Jason Fury/Tyson Statham/ or even better still Titan Statham.
Sadly whilst visually your 1972 video is as usual of the highest standard with a 98.0% artistic rating from yours truly the only Titans for me in the movies you have selected are once again The Duke and Burt Lancaster in The Cowboys and Ulzana’s Raid respectively.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating, info, trivia and quotes, much appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
There will be less and less westerns in the remaining years of the 70s. I might have to merge a few of the remaining years together in one video. I had to add a couple of ‘modern westerns’ to this chart to make it a top 20.
I’ve only seen 4 of the 20 films on this chart, you’ve probably seen more than I have.
John Wayne’s The Cowboys is a favorite. I hated Bruce Dern in this film. He was so effective as the villain and what he did to Wayne I hated the actor too, silly I know.
But I’ve long since grown out of that and Dern has become one of my favorite character actors.
Lee Marvin an Anglophile, who would have guessed?
No film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources, three films scored 9 – Ulzana’s Raid, Bad Company and Junior Bonner. But Jeremiah Johnson had the best overall rating.
My Video Top 5 –
Jeremiah Johnson 7.8
The Cowboys 7.6
Bad Company 7.5
Ulzana’s Raid 7.2
Junior Bonner 7.1
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
Jeremiah Johnson 8.4
Bad Company 8.1
Ulzana’s Raid 7.8
The Cowboys 7.7
The Culpepper Cattle Co. 7.3
IMDB trivia – “Roscoe Lee Browne was urged by his friends not to work with the right-wing John Wayne on The Cowboys. He ignored them and the two actors refrained from discussing politics during filming. Despite their political and social opinion differences, John Wayne and Roscoe Lee Browne shared a love of poetry. They sometimes quoted their favorite verses between takes.
Mark Rydell originally sought George C. Scott for the role of Wil Andersen because he despised John Wayne’s views on the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Ironically, some critics in 1972 believed that the way in which Wayne’s character drafts the children out of school was a pro-war allegory for Vietnam.
Bruce Dern said while he was making The Hateful Eight that he still receives hate mail thirty five years later for killing John Wayne.”
HI STEVE:
Thanks for your comprehensive feedback including some more meaty trivia about Wayne.
I have seen outright just 3 of the 1972 movies listed by you and can reach your total of 4 only if I allow myself Jeremiah Johnson despite having watched just 15 mins of it.
Anyway we are lucky Flora is not in the count or she would probably wipe the floor with both of us combined.
Keep safe.
BEST STILLS IN STEVE’s EXCEPTIONALLY CLASSY 1971 WESTERNS VIDEO – in my opinion!
CAUTION: Ideally only viewers aged 18 and above should watch this video as there is a lot of kinky material the best of which I have marked with a WOW below.
1/The set for Town Called Bastard
2/Bad Man’s River – some very raunchy scenes in this movie itself.
3/Captain Apache
4/Return of Sabata
5/WOW! – 2 for Frenchie King
6/2 for Something Big – never knew this was a western
7/ALL for Catlow
8/WOW! – ALL for Hannie Calder
9/Royal Dano’s Shoot Out
10/A Gunfight-I didn’t like the gimmicky alternative endings to this one both of which were actually in the film: in one version Kirk wins the Gunfight and in the other Johnny Cash wins! The Duke would never have stood for that in one of his movies! “Jason Statham being able to outdraw ME – get real!”
11/WOW! The entire set for Red Sun – sound like an old Ladd anti-“commie” title!
12/Wild Rovers – Golden Holden ageing rapidly due to heavy drinking in real life.
13/Skin Game-sound like a horror movie –‘ horror western’?
14/Big Jake – “They don’t make em like this anymore” When I see a Duke movie I am always reminded of the old cliche that reviewers and biographersoften use “We shall never see his like again!”
15/The Beguiled
16/Duck You Sucker
17/McCabe and Mrs Miller
18 & 19/ Lawman and Valdez is coming. Two of the few post-1960s westerns that I have really liked largely because of Burt’s powerhouse performances. “Working with Burt on Trapeze was like being constantly near a furnace!” Bernard Schwartz speaking in 1956.
Hi Bob, sorry I’m late again, well better late than never. 🙂
Thanks for the review, generous rating, (ooh), and info, always appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
I haven’t seen Bad Man’s River, good, bad, you had me at “raunchy scenes”. 😉
I haven’t seen Captain Apache either but Return of Sabata was pretty awful. I did like the first Sabata. I do remember seeing a Lee Van Cleef western ages ago where he was paired with a kung fu star, I think it was called Blood Money.
btw there’s a good view of Leonard Nimoy’s naked backside in the film ‘Catlow’ if anyone’s interested. No I’m not posting pictures.
“Royal Dano’s Shoot Out” hehehe poor Bruce must have regretted creating that UMR page by now.
One film scored 10 out of 10 from my sauces and that was McCabe & Mrs. Miller. No films scored 9.
My Video Top 5 –
McCabe & Mrs. Miller 8.1
Duck You Sucker! aka A Fistful of Lasagna 7.5
The Beguiled 7.2
The Hired Hand 7.2
Big Jake 7.1
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
McCabe & Mrs. Miller 8.1
Duck You Sucker! aka A Fistful of Linguini 8.1
Man in the Wilderness 7.6
The Beguiled 7.5
The Hired Hand 7.5
Big Jake did not get much love at the UMR with a lowly 5.5 score. I thought it was one of Wayne’s better ‘newer’ westerns. I enjoyed it more than True Grit.
[IMDB Trivia] “Big Jake was John Wayne’s last film with Christopher Mitchum. The two actors fell out when Mitchum disagreed with Wayne’s conservative views during a television interview, and they never spoke again. Mitchum tried to get in touch with Wayne in 1979 when the veteran star was dying of cancer, but did not receive any response. Ethan Wayne, who plays Big Jake’s grandson, is actually John Wayne’s son. The million dollar ransom in 1909 would be almost an unbelievable sum for the time In 2019 dollars that ransom would be $27,777,582. A huge sum in either era.
This was the first of only three John Wayne films (the others being Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973) and McQ (1974)) to receive AA certificates by the UK censor, meaning that they could only be seen by persons 14 and over. All other Wayne movies were rated ‘A’ (PG) or under. “
HI STEVE:
Thanks for the comprehensive feedback and naturally I liked your informative quotes about The Duke as everything that was in there was new to me. He really made life difficult for himself over politics, didn’t he? As you know he’s my idol but I was always a bit disappointed that with him it seemed to be a case of “Don’t do what I do. Do what I say.”
I mean he was always going on about America being the “land of the free” which if it means anything must include free speech. One wouldn’t expect him to embrace Che Guevara or Mao Tse Tung with open arms; but provided a guy was just verbally disagreeing with him and wasn’t a practising terrorist or enemy of the state why couldn’t Big John have lived and let live? For example all he had to do was ignore the other guy’s views [just like I’ve learned to ignore what Joel says] or simply agree to differ.
Why did he have to take everything so personally? I mean you told me recently that Duke hated Kennedy. Well the Kennedy’s were and are millionaires if not billionaires and have always sought to preserve that status so they were not The Duke’s enemy at the heels of the hunt.
You also say “Royal Dano’s Shoot Out hehehe poor Bruce must have regretted creating that UMR page by now.” Hey Steve: show a bit of reverence and appreciation! Having given us Joel, the Work Horse with his Royal Dano project did good work in creating for the site in a way ANOTHER new character to mention for a bit of fun.
That means we for variety can give the likes of Archie and The Thin Woman, and all those mega grosses WH convinces himself she generated on her own, a rest every now again and let Royal have a turn. Variety of subjects and topics IS helpful and even Bernardo Bertolucci complained once “I am tired of hearing and talking about my Last Tango!”
When I read the following from you I kept laughing so much that I had to pause this post for a while when I tried to write about it:
“there’s a good view of Leonard Nimoy’s naked backside in the film ‘Catlow’ if anyone’s interested. No I’m not posting pictures.”
I am reminded of a 1999 episode of the TV sitcom Frasier in which a misleading remark by him about his physique causes a pair of impish radio DJ pranksters to sponsor a state-wide contest to find the best wide-angle photograph of Frasier’s rear-end.
Frasier is subsequently pursued by others trying to take the necessary photo and reaches the point where he can no longer just grin and bear it and starts retaliating. He corners his brother Niles and demands to know “Are you trying to photograph my posterior?” to which Niles replies “No – but it’s great to be in at the birth of a new phenomenon!”
As I’ve mentioned before I alwys get a lot of welcome new stuff from your feedback which in turn often brings other loosely-related anecdotes back to my mind
So your Leonard Nimoy comment reminded me too of a country n western song that used to be played a lot over the airwaves. Isn’t it amazing how most of the popular songs in that genre seem to be hard luck stories about guys who become losers in one way or another? No refreshing “mush” for a sentimental feel-gooder like me!
This one was about a simple cowboy who left the range to go to the big city looking for a bride to take back. However the love that he found bled him dry and then two-timed him and he had to slink back to his prairie with his tail between his legs:
“So I’m goin back to Texas
To my herds of cows and grass.
I’m goin back to Texas
To be just one more horse’s a**!”