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.
I used to confuse Buck Jones with Tom Mix as both usually wore trademark high hats. Today Buck is probably less-recalled than Tom. Anyway best STILLS in Steve’s selection [which includes many pleasing vintage lobby cards] are in my opinion:
1/Down Texas Way
2/Stardust on the Sage
3/Thundering Hoofs
4/Johnny Mack Brown in his prime! He became quite rotund in later westerns. Next to Rory Calhoun Johnny at his peak may well have been my fave B movie cowboy.
5/Heart of the Rio Grande
6/2 for Wild Bill Hickock Rides
7/Home in Wyoming
8/American Empire
9/Romance on the Range
10/Man from Cheyenne
11/Tombstone
12/2 featuring The Duke In Old California
13/ALL for Joel’s Lady
14/ALL for The Spoilers – strange outfit The Duke is sporting in one print!
15/2 for Sin Town. I think this was one of the few movies where Brodie ever had the male lead the main one being of course All the King’s Men
16/The set for Ride em Cowboy. Lou Costello in particular was for my money a huge bore; but there is no doubt the A & C franchise was the source of some top-notch posters and stills. The ones that Steve has included in his video are in my opinion little gems and if he has to pretend the movie concerned is a western – so what?
As before Steve’s 1942 westerns video is predominately comprised of B movies but he showcases them with quality material worth overall 98% rating to me. Here is my pick of the POSTERS.
1/Raiders of the Range
2/Riding the Wind
3/1st one for Down Texas Way
4/1st one for Thundering Hoofs
5/2 for Wild Bill Hickock Rides
6/1st for Home in Wyoming
7/1st for American Empire
8/1st for Cowboy Serenade
9/1st for Romance on the Range
10/2 for Man from Cheyenne
11/1st for Tombstone
12/1st one for In Old California
13/All for Great Man’s Lady
14/ALL for The Spoilers.
15/2 for Jackass Mail-it always mystified me what audiences ever saw in Beery though Clark Gable idolized him because Wallace flashed wads of dollar bills all over the place in real-life. Such arguable-vulgarity obviously appealed to Clark.
16/1st one for Ride em Cowboy. Not a western in my book -nor a comedy either being quite unfunny so if it is to be included it might as well be called a western!
17/Sin Town. The only film in Steve’s 22 that I can actually REMEMBER watching as there was much of a sameness about many of the others in the selection. Down the years though I have never remembered it as a western. Dietrich was originally scheduled for the female lead and was replaced by Constance as Steve’s posters show. The film lasts just 73 minutes in running time.
“Cometh the hour cometh the man!” NO Steve, I am not getting in another plug for our mutual Brexit idol and leader de Pfeffel but towards the end of his days Bing Crosby remarked that musical tastes had changed so much that “I wouldn’t have made it today.”
The same could probably be said of many other great stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age of Musicals because when the attraction of the traditional Hollywood musical ebbed in the mid-1950s most of the musical mega-stars of the 1930s-1950s period vanished from our screens almost overnight-
For example Esther Williams, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell, Howard Keel, Donald O’Connor etc and the careers of even dancing wizards and perennial Hollywood Legends such as Fred and Eugene also went into terminal decline though they hung Around for a bit in mainly supporting roles, shadows of their formers selves. Sinatra turned to drama comedy and “rat pack” movies to survive in films. “I never left the movies. The movies left me!” – Jane Powell.
The same could probably also be said of a host of the cowboy stars of the early decades: they too would likely not have “made it” today as movie westerns are now almost non-existent and those that do come along are not of the kind that the old wild-west movie hands used to specialise in.
Randolph Scott and Audie Murphy for example were indelibly associated with the genre and they specialised in playing well-dressed and courteous cowboy heroes – “Good morning maam” with a polite tip of the hat.
Things were starting to change from the mid-1950s onward. In the 1956 western Dakota Incident, heroine Linda Darnell is going to climb onto the stagecoach when she drops her bag and politely waits for hero Dale Robertson to pick it up and hand it to her. Instead he kicks it over to her so that it lands at her feet and then he turns his back and climbs aboard the coach!”
“Everything passes and everything changes” sang Bob Dylan. Possibly a slight exaggeration but certainly I could not see today’s audiences queuing-up for those old exaggerated and unfunny Al Leach-type screwball ‘comedies’.
Mind you I could never fathom what people saw in my in ANY era and I’m surprised that guys like WH still hold them in high esteem today. But hey that’s old Bob for you: a chap of unusually sophisticated tastes!
“I can’t help the era in which I was born.” – Marlon Brando.
Hi Bob. late again sorry about that. Thanks for the review, generous rating, info, trivia and quotes, much appreciated.
Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Nearly all B-westerns in 1942, but things do get better towards the end of the 40s.
What was John Wayne wearing in that last still? I like the way Randolph Scott is smirking at him, he was billed above Wayne in a couple of films. Little did he know that Wayne would become one of the most popular movie stars of all time.
James Cagney must have been a little shocked at Bogart’s ascendancy during the 1940s after playing supporting roles as no.1 baddie in a number of Cagney’s films.
No films scored 10 or 9 from my sources, one scored 8 – The Spoilers.
My Video Top 5 –
The Spoilers 6.8
The Great Man’s Lady 6.6
Ride ’em Cowboy 6.5
In Old California 6.4
Sin Town 6.3
The UMR Critics Top 6 –
Jackass Mail 6.4
Ride ’em Cowboy 6.3
Sin Town 6.2
The Spoilers 5.9
The Great Man’s Lady 5.6
In Old California 5.6
“There were tensions between Scott and Wayne during filming of The Spoilers. Scott’s contract with Universal entitled him to billing above Wayne who was on loan from Republic, but he too had wanted the role of Glennister. Wayne was also depressed by his recent separation, and Dietrich sought to distract him with outings to restaurants and sporting events as well as hunting and fishing trips at weekends. The climactic fistfight is one of the longest in cinema and lasts just under four minutes, the fight scene took five days to plot and shoot.”
HI STEVE: “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” – Princess Leia Star Wars 1977.”
Given your other heavy commitments the replies to my main posts that I invariably get from you within a day or at most come within a perfectly reasonable time-scale – and at least they always arrive!
On the other hand if you check the Forums page you will see that [at least as far as I can make out] WH has responded to just one viewer’s post in the last 13 days, one of the posts to get the ‘silent treatment’ being your own 28 November one about Michael Mann. However I too experienced the ‘cold-shoulder’ in recent times: twice about a month ago I requested information from WH but my requests have gone unheeded.
Therefore EITHER he is not bothering to read what viewers are saying at times OR ELSE he doesn’t always feel inclined to respond to appeals for assistance and other approaches. Either way the situation does not seem very flattering to his followers.
Accordingly as YOU wondered out-loud in a previous post to me “Why bother?” and in fact the last time I commented on a new page was over 3 months ago in early Sept and there have been 57 new pages since then by my own maths.
Ironically all the new pages still ask viewers to give a reply! – but it has been some time since I have noticed replies from a number of the ‘old hands’ who were prolific in commenting when I first joined the site.
Accordingly whilst this site is still great for movie information and facts and especially comprehensive stats about box office etc I am sad that the camaraderie of those joyful early Halcyon days seems but a practice of the long-past; and at times I am awakened at night by the sound of my own voice plaintively screaming out “John! John! Why hast thou forsaken me”? [The Bible Matthew 27:46]
Anyway great trivia about Scott-Wayne which is all new to me. Whilst The Duke and Marlene obviously got on well together when making The Spoilers in a interview of later years she appeared to be derisory about what she regarded as his extreme right-wing politics which she cattily implied had made him as “rich as Croesus”. Please take care.
HI STEVE: Thanks for the feedback. As Fern Persons said in the 1986 Hackman sports drama Hoosiers aka Best Shot “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s a** everyday” but everone is entitled to a little moment in the sun now and again so I was well-pleased that you introduced a lot of B movies in your last couple of videos.
Mind you ironically I never saw any of the Tim Holt ones because the stalwart B movie coboys of Holt’s day were going out of fashion even when I started going to the cinema in the early 1950s. Consequently I remember Tim from only 3 major classics: Bogie’s Treasure of Sierra Madre; 1946’s My Darling Clementine in which he played Virgil Earp, Wyatt’s brother; and Welles’ The Magnificent Cogersons in which Holt playyed spoilt upstart brat George Amberson Minafer who ultimately “got his comeuppence when all those who had for years longed to see him punished were no longer around to witness it!”
I’m appreciative also of the interesting trivia about Martha Scott. Borgnine, and Roger Moore in relation to how Hollywood savagely eschewed age chronology in its movies. Moreover they almost reinvented the appearance of factual historical characters. For example photos of Billy the Kid suggest that he was not at all the ‘magnificent manly specimen with film-star looks’ that Robert Taylor the self-proclaimed Cowboy of the Century was.
Instead Bill Bonney in real-life looks to have been a furtive weedy specimen more like Joel Hirschhorn seems to have been judging by HIS internet photographs. Check it all out for yourself.
The Cowboy of the Century himself though is said to have been to some extent a “momma’s boy” in real life and was in fact forced to spend his honeymoon first night with mom instead of with his new wife Babs Stanwyck.
Where Hollywood and it’s stars are concerned “Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see” as Burt advised at the beginning of 1952’s far-fetched seafaring yarn The Crimson Pirate.
That’s why it always amazes me that guys like The Work Horse takes things like the Oscars so seriously. Indeed WH’s own idol Archibald Alec Leach seems to agree with ME.
According to Archie’s one-time wife [1965-68] Samille Diane Friesen he was excessively-withering about the fact that a large number of stars at an Oscars ceremony that both she and AL watched in a hotel bedroom gave false impressions of their appearance via face-lifts, toupees and false teeth!
Mind you I have always thought that it was somewhat ironic Archibald ranting on the subject as he did because in many of his later movies he had romantic leading ladies young enough to be his own daughter – for example 23-year-old Joan Evans who ultimately became his wife and bore him 4 daughters in 1959’s Operation Petticoat when Arch was over 55.
Anyway I look forward to Monday’s video and meanwhile have a good weekend and keep safe especially keeping in mind de Pfeffel’s latest ‘scientific’ advice to avoid snogging under the mistletoe at Christmas parties!
BEST STILLS IN 1941 WESTERNS VIDEO
1/Two for In Old Cheyenne
2/Gauchos of El Dorado
3/ Wide Open Town
4/White Eagle
5/Riders of the Purple Sage
6/The Bad Man
7/ALL for Badlands of Dakota
8/ ALL for Belle Star
9/ALL for Billy the Kid
10/ALL for Texas
11/2 for Honky Tonk
12/2 iconic Duke ones for Shepherd of Hills
13/2 for Western Union
14/ALL for They Died with their Boots On
15/2 for Outlaws of the Cherokee Trail
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my 1941 westerns video, the generous rating (ooh), info and trivia is much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
More B-westerns than A-westerns on this chart, and probably the previous chart too. If it wasn’t for the B-westerns I’d probably just produce one video covering the whole decade of the 40s.
I had to smile at the foreign poster for They Died With Their Boots On, Anthony Quinn first billed, followed by Errol Flynn.
Roger Moore said he had to resign from her majestys secret service when Bond Girl Tanya Roberts mother visited the set of ‘A View to a Kill’ (his last Bond film) and she was younger than he was. The Bond girls were getting younger while he was getting older.
No film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources, but one film scored 9 from one of my sources – Western Union.
My Video Top 5 –
They Died With Their Boots On 7.8
Western Union 7.1
Shepherd of the Hills 6.9
Honky Tonk 6.7
Texas 6.5
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
They Died With Their Boots On 7.7
Honky Tonk 7.5
Western Union 6.8
Back in the Saddle 6.4
Shepherd of the Hills 6.0
More trivia –
Martha Scott played Charlton Heston’s mother in The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, and she was only 11 years older than him. Ernest Borgnine played Kirk Douglas father in The Vikings and was actually a few months younger than him.
Bob, next video on monday.