PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 890

Strangler Vs Strangler 1984 Written and directed by Slobodan Šijan. A dark Serbian comedy about madness and strangling. We watched the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray that's coming out mid June.

The guy with the eyes is Pera the carnation seller. He goes about Belgrade with his basket of flowers and tries to sell them. Sadly the carnation has gone out of favor with the younger crowd. He doesn't sell out and on returning home he has to face his domineering mother. They have quite the life together. It's filled with yelling and hitting. Mama is a monster, it's no wonder that Pera cracks and starts strangling those that spurn his flowers.

The guy with the glasses is a musician, he's penned a song about the strangler and it's become a local sensation. Even Pera likes it, mama doesn't, so Pera strangles her too. The guy with the little mustache is the police detective on the strangler's trail. He's not having any luck getting any leads and it's slowly driving him bonkers. The local host of a popular music show gets tossed into this mess when she has the musician on her show.

It all comes to a head one evening and just about everyone gets strangled. Even the detective's cat gets strangled. Despite that I was laughing much of the way through it. It's a film filled with chaos and I enjoyed that well enough. I'm debating getting a copy. You can pre-order it from Deep Discount for about 22 smackaroonies, it's 30 bucks on Amazon right now.

Riders Of the Whistling Skull 1937 Based on a novel by William Colt MacDonald, original story by Oliver rake and Bernard McConville, screenplay by Oliver Drake and John Rathmell, directed by Mack V Wright.

A part of the Three Mesquiteers series from Republic. There were 51 films in the series with various actors in playing the Three Mesquiteers, including John Wayne for 8 films. Bob Steele, Rufe Davis, Jimmie Dodd, Sid Saylor and Tom Tyler also were part of the trio. I'd seen several of the series, including this one, back in 2010 but I've pretty much forgotten what they were all about. I watched about 350 westerns that year but I didn't blog about many of them.

For this film we've got Ray Crash Corrigan, Max Terhune and Robert Livingstone from left to right.

With a plot that seems right out of King Solomon's Mines, a young woman asks the Three Mesquiteers to help find her father. He's gone deep into the mountains where a dangerous tribe lives. He was looking for the lost city of Lukachukai. One of the men from the expedition arrives with news. They'd found the lost city but got captured by the local natives. Her father hid some of the treasure and made a map. The man drops dead.

The trio lead an expedition to the area and they find the natives hostile. Several people are killed before the locals are slaughtered. There's all the usual horse riding, gun shooting and punch ups you'd expect plus a little bit of torture, some music and a few gags. I enjoyed it but agreed that they were kind of weak on the lost city. It was a skull on the side of a mountain and a cave. We all liked the skull matte painting. Who wouldn't want that for a place to hang out. You can watch the film on YouTube, link above.

 

Attack Of The Undead is a short film by Michael and Peter Spierig. It was included on the Umbrella Blu-ray for their 2003 zombie film Undead. That was a fairly decent film that we watched at FNM night in 2006. This movie has a similar plot and characters but is only 37 mins. It was fairly entertaining but vastly inferior to the feature film. Good extra for the Blu-ray.

Aces And Eights 1936

Aces And Eights 1936 Story by George Arthur Durlam, screenplay by Joseph O'Donnell, directed by Sam Neufield. Sam's a prolific director of films and TV, I've seen many of his Westerns and Crime films. Aces and eights refers to the dead man's hand that Wild Bill Hickok was supposedly holding when he was killed by some scumbag.

Tim McCoy plays a cardsharp who's a good guy. He gets involved with a young Mexican man who's father is being swindled out of the family ranch.

There's some gambling, some gun shooting, some horse riding and a bit of romance. Nothing to unusual, not a big budget picture, just a solid story with typical production values of the time. Worth a look for the Western fan.

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Abilene Town is a 1946 Randolph Scott film. I'm watching a crappy DVD that still has the tape skew on the top of the image. It's based on a book by Ernest Haycox called Trail Town, the screenplay is by Harold Shumate, the director is Edwin L Marin. Edwin directed several of the Maisie pictures with Ann Southern. He directed the 1950 Randolph Scott picture Colt 45. That was a pretty good one.

In Abilene Town Randolph is the town Marshall. Edgar Buchanan is the county Sheriff and Lloyd Bridges is the leader of the homesteaders. Rhonda Fleming is the pretty gal at the mercantile and Ann Dvorak is the dance hall singer. They both have a bit of a thing for Randolph.

Randolph's up against some scummy cattlemen that will kill people to stop the homesteading. It's a pretty horrific scene, when the cattlemen burn the wagon train and kill men women and children. Randolph finds out who lead the baddies and goes after him. Edgar tries to slow down the investigation but he fails. There's some fighting and shooting and horse riding.

There's plenty of tension in the town as the locals decide what side they're on. The merchants figure out quickly that more homesteaders the more customers. There's a great scene at the end when the town gathers together with the homesteaders and stand up to the cattlemen. The West is a little better place to live.

Wagon Wheels is another Randolph Scott Western, this time from 1934. Zane Grey wrote the novel Fighting Caravans, Carl A Buss and Charles Logue adapted the book, Jack Cunningham wrote the screenplay and Charles Barton is the director.

Wagon Wheels is a remake of the 1931 Gary Cooper movie called Fighting Caravans. It takes footage from the original and puts in a new cast.

Randolph is one of three men who are leading a wagon train to Oregon. They face the usual hardships, long slow travel, tension in the ranks and Indian attacks. One member of the wagon train is secretly riling up the Indians to attack the train.

Interestingly, at least to me, some of the scenes are filmed in country with snow on the ground. It makes sense, they are traveling a long way at 6 miles a day, and they are crossing the Rockies. Eventually the good guys prevail and most of the wagon train gets to Oregon. It was a pretty good movie, worth a 6 to me, but I do wish there were better copies to watch. So many of these old Westerns look pretty poor on DVD, no one cares to make them better, no money in it.

Third today is yet another Randolph Scott movie. Don't worry, I have plenty more to watch. Man In The Saddle is a 1951 Western based on a Ernest Haycox novel of the same name. The screenplay is by Kenneth Gamet and it's directed by Andre De Toth.

Randolph is a rancher, Alexander Knox is another, Alexander is marrying Joan Leslie, for whom Randolph has feelings. Alexander is ruthless, cold hearted, he wants all the land around him. He forces Clem Bevans off his land and then goes after Randolph.We all know it won't go so well for Alexander in the long wrong.

Ellen Drew plays a nice local rancher. Cameron Mitchell, Tennessee Ernie Ford, John Russell, Richard Rober, Richard Crane, Frank Sully and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams are also in the cast. It's a good story with some good action. Worth a look to me.

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7 Men From Now is a 1956 Budd Boetticher film. He directed and Burt Kennedy wrote the story and the script. Randolph Scott is the lead and Lee Marvin and Gail Russell are the co-stars.

As the movie opens Randolph comes across two men sitting at a campfire. From the little bit of conversation we start to learn about a robbery in a town. $20,000 in gold is gone and there was a killing. The encounter ends with the two men dead.

Randolph meets up with a couple heading to California. He helps them get out of the mud and joins along in their trip to Flora Vista. They're joined in their journey by Lee Marvin and Don 'Red' Barry. They're criminal types who have an interest in the gold. We learn from Lee that Randolph had been a sheriff in the town where the robbery happened. It was Randolph's wife who was killed during the robbery. She'd been working because he wasn't and he feels guilty about her death.

Randolph encounters the rest of the criminals and you can guess it's not going to go so well for them from Randolph's billing in the movie. There's even a hint of romance at the end. It was a good picture that's got re-watchablity.

I'd say the same for Hangman's Knot. It's a 1952 Randolph Scott picture that was written and directed by Roy Huggins. It's set a month after the Civil War ended. It's got Randolph Scott, Lee Marvin, Donna Reed, Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Frank Faylen, Richard Denning, Jeanette Nolan and Ray Teal.

As the picture opens Randolph leads a bunch of Southern soldiers in an ambush of a gold delivery by the Northern Army. They find out from the last living Northerner that the war had ended a month earlier. Are they criminals? Who would believe them that they didn't know the war was over? It creates some discussion on what to do among the men but they realize they need to get away.

Men come after Randolph and company. The chase ends in a stagecoach way station. It's a pretty good story and there's a good bit of action between the sitting, waiting, and looking out the window scenes. I was happy to see it and would enjoy it again down the road.

I'm less likely to re-watch When The West Was Young too often. It's 1932 Randolph Scott film that was directed by Henry Hathaway. It was Henry's first credited directorial job. I'd just watched the Randolph Scott film Man Of The Forest, that's one directed by Henry, and he would direct True Grit near the end of his career. WTWWY is based on a Zane Grey novel which was adapted by Harold Shumate and Frank Partos.

The local baddie wants the Naab spread in the canyon. He uses Naab's gambling addicted son to get his way. It would have worked except for Randolph's interference. It's a pretty standard story that isn't helped by the poor quality of the Alpha Video DVD. The two earlier DVDs have much nicer pictures and better stories.

The film was called Heritage Of The Desert when it was new and the 1952 re-issue had the When The West Was Young title. The cast had a couple of people I recognized: Sally Blane (only from a Charlie Chan picture) and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams. You can see it on YouTube.

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I found this 3 pack of George O'Brien Western films during the Half Price Books coupon sale. It's one of those Warner Brothers Archive Collections, it's on DVDr. I hadn't recalled running across George before. He's fairly entertaining, he's a big guy with a pleasant personality. I put his other multi movie Warner Brothers Archive Collection on my wish list. It's got 9 movies for 30 bucks. Maybe if there's a sale soon I'll have it.

The Marshal Of Mesa City 1939 The movie was directed by David Howard and the screenplay is by Jack Lait Jr. David directed 46 films in his 11 year career. Many of them were Westerns, three of them are in this set. David died in 1941 at age 45. Jack wrote 7 films and died at 52.

George arrives outside Mesa City just in time to prevent the kidnapping of the local school teacher by the henchmen of the corrupt sheriff. She decided to leave after the sheriff hit on her too many times. He is creepy. Since the stage was damaged in the ruckus George takes the school teacher back to her boarding house. George finds the sheriff has his fingers into the local judge. The sheriff threatens George and George fights back. The sheriff's days are numbered and that school teacher is mighty pretty.

The movie has one of the weirdest shootouts. George and his deputy go up against the sheriff and a few of his henchmen, in the fog. That's George and his deputy on the right, they walk into the fog, you can see gun barrel flashes for a while. Then it's all over and the gang are dead and so is the deputy.

That's his grave. I liked that shot. The camera rises up to reveal the mayor, George and the school teacher paying their respects.

Legion Of The Lawless 1940 The screenplay is by Doris Schroeder and it's directed by David Howard. Doris wrote a bunch of films in her career and then she wrote a whole pile of Whitman Kids novels. I've read several and they were all pretty good.

George arrives in Ivestown to hang up his law talking guy shingle only to find that the town is in the hands of a vigilante committee. The head guy doesn't like the law and he tries to run George out of town. That goes south for him and George has to blast him down in the end. It's a nice tight story. I have to say these prints of the film are fairly decent. All three come on one disc. They're all short, 62, 60, and 68 minutes.

Triple Justice 1940 It's directed by David Howard and the screenplay was written by Arthur V Jones and Morton Grant, the story was by Arnold Belgard and Jack Roberts.

George goes to Star City to be best man at his pal's wedding. He winds up getting mixed up with a bank robbery. There's plenty of Western action and a bit of romance.

All the movies were entertaining and I'd certainly watch them again.

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I picked up a four pack of Randolph Scott Westerns from Amazon. Three are from the 1930s and the other, from 1955, is the only one in color. Three of the films in this set that is based on the novels of Zane Grey. I can't remember ever reading a Zane Grey novel but I have seen plenty of the stories on film. I just wasn't a Western novel reader, in general, until more recently. When I was young I liked Western films, TV shows and comic books, then I kind of lost interest by the 70s. I hadn't totally abandoned the genre, I still would watch the occasional Western. A few years ago I discovered that there were oodles of free Westerns to be watched on the internet and I've watched a shit load of them since. I've also read several Western novels in that same time period. Most all of them published by Whitman and featuring TV and Film characters like Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers.

The Fighting Westerner is a 1935 Western with Randolph as a mining engineer who helps the local deputy solve a murder. First of the three Zane Grey adaptations.

Chic Sale plays the deputy. He does need a lot of help. There's a bit of comedy, some action, and a bit of romance. A bit more humorous than a lot of the Westerns. Fun.

Man Of The Forest is a 1933 Western that has Randolph break up the evil scheme of Noah Beery Sr. There are lions and their cubs in the film. I liked the wooded areas used for the locations. Another Zane Grey. When I was younger there was the Zane Grey's West Society which reprinted 75 of his books in nice hardcovers. You can buy a complete set on Amazon for $455 right now.

Barton MacLane and Buster Crabbe are in the cast. There are the usual antics of a Western of the time and it's fairly good. Randolph has a mustache that I didn't care for but it didn't seem to bother the lady in the blue dress. The villain is pretty villainous and deserved to get blasted.

Rage At Dawn is the 1955 color Western. Randolph is a special agent who's after the Reno Boys who killed his wife. He posses as a train robber to get in with the gang. We've got a good cast, Forest Tucker, J Carrol Nash, Ray Teal, Denver Pyle, Trevor Bardette, Kenneth Tobey, Edgar Buchanan, with Mala Powers as the romantic interest. Once inside the gang Randolph finds out that the local officials are corrupt, taking bribes from the Reno Boys. He soon puts an end to their doin's.

Buffalo Stampede is a 1933 Western based on Zane Grey's The Thundering Herd. The movie was originally released under that name. Randolph and Harry Carey are looking for some buffalo hunters who have kidnapped his girlfriend. The local natives are keen on attacking the buffalo hunters so there's some danger from that. It was fairly good. All in all a nice bunch of Westerns that I might get around to again someday. Who knows.

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A four pack of Roy Rogers movies today. Island View Entertainment is another of those public domain packagers. All the movies on the disc were Platinum releases first. I wouldn't be surprised if IVE is the same people behind the scenes. They both are in Chaska, a local suburb. This is volume 25 of 30 in the Cinema Classics series.

Jesse James At Bay 1941 Roy plays two parts in this retelling of the Jesse James legend. He's Jesse and he's a good guy. Gaby Hayes plays the sheriff. The local banker has a plan to legally steal the land from the locals. There's a couple of plucky lady reporters that mix into the story. Roy and Gaby will put a stop to the banker's plan and Roy will get one of the reporters. The end of the movie was shot at Vasquez Rocks.

Night Time In Nevada 1948 Roy is a rancher who's herd of cattle are missing. He's also working with Andy Devine, who plays the sheriff. It's set modern day and there are many cars as there are horses. There's a baddie who first kills his partner in a gold mine. The partner left the baddie in charge of the trust fund for his daughter. Then he steals Roy's cattle stealing. He'll soon get his. Roy and Andy sing Rock Candy Mountain.

Rough Riders' Roundup 1939 Roy and the Rough Riders are after stage robbers that smuggle the gold into Mexico. They have their own ghost town to hand out in. There's plenty or riding and shooting in this one. There's also a gal who's being cheated out of her fortune. Roy lends her a hand too.

Silver Spurs 1943 Roy works for Jerome Cowan, the son of an old friend, the guy is a big dick. John Carradine is his pal, he's got a eye for the ranch, and he's got a plan to kill Jerome. Roy gets framed for the murder. Between songs Roy tries to keep out of jail and figure out who framed him.

All were pretty entertaining but I'm a bit of Roy Rogers fan. You can check out any of them on YouTube. There's plenty of other Westerns on site.

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Retromedia put out a 4 movie Weird Western DVD set called Creepy Cowboys. It's a collection of what they think are Weird Westerns. They're aren't very weird, even for the 1930s and 1940s. The movies are all in the public domain and available online or in various DVD collections. Lucky for me I only paid a couple of bucks for this DVD. It's $6 to $23 on Amazon. Crazy, huh. All these films are available on YouTube for free. I know I downloaded some from The Internet Archive several years ago, I suspect they're still there. I think the cover to the DVD sucks too. What a lack of effort.

Tombstone Canyon 1932 Ken Maynard is a guy who is looking for clues to his family. He arrives in a town where there's a crazy guy, dressed up in black robes, shooting people in the canyon's near the town. He calls himself The Phantom and he leaves notes with the dead. It was fairly good, a bit of action, some romance and plenty of riding through the interesting rocks of the canyons.

Vanishing Riders 1935 Bill Cody plays the sheriff who adopts the son of a man he killed in the line of duty. His real life son, Bill Cody Jr, plays the son. Together they help a lady rancher fight back against some local baddies. The weird part is Bill and Bill Jr dress up as skeletons to scare the simple cowpokes they're up against. It's an OK picture but it isn't quite up to average. You can check it out on YouTube to see if you like it more than me.

The Rawhide Terror 1934 Some settlers get attacked by some fake Indians. The two boy survive and years later the oldest son has tracked down the gang that did the deed. They now hold positions of authority in a town. The Rawhide Terror doesn't care, he's slowly killing them, one at a time. It's enjoyable seeing a man having a good time at his job, he's doing such good work, you hate to see him stop. Sadly the movie is a bit below average. It's still watchable, though it's not that weird.

Wild Horse Phantom 1944 It's a modern Western, one with cars, and Buster Crabbe and Al "Fuzzy" St John star. The pair are lawmen after some robbers and some gold. They engineer a prison break so the men lead them to the gold. It doesn't work out so well as the guy what knows where the gold is, has forgotten. This is the best of the lot, Crabbe and St John have a good chemistry and their more personable than many of their Western counterparts. The Devil's Bat prop from the 1940 Bela Lugosi movie is used in the mine to attack Fuzzy. He survives. That's the weird aspect of the film. Not too weird.

All in all, not that great a collection. Yay, that it only cost a couple of smackers. It just shows Retromedia is happy to charge a lot more than Mill Creek when delivering PD movies. No wonder I hardly buy any of their DVDs.

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The last disc of the 50 Movie Pack Cowboys And Bandits has 5 movies on it. Now I'm finally done this set and I can pack it away.

I Killed Wild Bill Hickok 1956 Johnny Carpenter wrote and stars in this average Western that retells Wild Bill's demise. Richard Talmadge is the director. Johnny appeared in the 1951 TV series Adventures Of Wild Bill Hickok but I don't think he killed the man in that. He does shoot the gunslinger down in this movie. It's told as a flashback. Hickok was just another crook that sided with a greedy rancher to run things his way. Johnny plays Johnny Rebel under the name of John Forbes. Denver Pyle plays the baddie and Helen Westcott provides the romance for our hero. Johnny comes to town and cleans up the baddies. Pretty standard fair there, only average, but watchable.

Marked For Murder 1945 Written and directed by Elmer Clifton. The name didn't ring any bells but a quick gander at the IMDb tells me that he directed a pretty famous film. I'm not talking about the 1944 Captain America, no, it's the 1937 exploitation film Assassin Of Youth. It might not be famous to everyone but anyone who buys DVDs, new or used, had probably seen that movie, especially back when there were DVD stores. It was in all the rental houses. I'm sure many were disappointed when they saw it. At least Marked For Murder delivers what it set out to do, here's a good average Western with plenty of shootin', ridin', singin' and a bit of romance. Ranger Dave O'Brien and his pal Panhandle join their law talking hombre Tex Ritter in putting a stop to a range war between the cattle and sheep men.

Ridin' The Cherokee Trail 1941 Here's another Tex Ritter picture. This one is also about average. Tex goes undercover for the Rangers to catch an outlaw who's working out of the Cherokee Strip. Tex and The Tennessee Ramblers provide some songs between the usual Western plot points.

Thunder In The Desert 1938 Bob Steele is a cowboy who returns home to find his uncle dead and someone trying to get hold of the ranch. He manages to get into the gang and he works to find out who's really behind the whole plot. It's written by George H Plympton and directed by Sam Newfield. A good one but I like Bob Steele as a cowboy most of the time.

The Boss Cowboy 1934 Buddy Roosevelt was a name I didn't recognize but I see he's in a lot of Westerns, especially all the TV shows of the 50's and 60's. He played a lot of barfly's and Townsmen. There's not much good to say about this one, other than it might be a good thing there isn't a copy on YouTube to watch.

Yay! Another one bites the dust.

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Here's another batch of Westerns from the Cowboys And Bandits 50 Movie Pack. Disc 11 has 5 movies crammed onto one disc. Luckily they are all short.

Last Of The Warrens 1936 The movie opens with a montage of WWI footage before cutting to Bob Steele in the hospital. He returns home to find people thought he was dead and his father's ranch has been foreclosed. No one had received his letters. The local greedy crooked business man, who also runs the post office, has eyes on Bob's gal. He has some henchmen try to kidnap Bob to stop him getting to see his gal.

The crooked business man has a grudge against Bob's father and he's mad that Bob's gal knows Bob's alive. He shoots Bob's dad and leaves him for dead. The wounded dad has a plan to get his ranch back by tricking the baddie to confess to cattle rustling in front of witnesses by pretending to be a ghost. Bob and the others go along with the plan. You can find out if it works by watching the movie in the link in the title. A good watchable Western with plenty of rootin' and tootin'. I learned something new today. The habit of dropping a letter at the end of a word is called elision. You'd have thought I would have known that by now, what with me dropping my g's all the time. The movie was directed by Robert N Bradbury, he directed 125 movies, mostly Westerns, in a career that started in 1919 and ended in 1941. He also wrote a lot of the works he directed.

 

Roll On Texas Moon 1946 Roy Rogers, Dale Even and Gabby Hayes star is this cattlemen vs sheepherders Western. Roy comes to town to stop the trouble and finds romance with Dale.

I'd seen it before and blogged about it last December. Worth a look for the Rogers fan.

Code Of The Cactus 1939 Here's another movie directed by Sam Newfield. He directed well over 200 films including the cult favorite The Terror Of Tiny Town. Tim McCoy plays Lightning Bill Carson in one of the 10 movies with the character. He comes to help some friends with cattle rustling. The rustlers use trucks to steal the cattle. About average but I'm not much of a Tim McCoy fan as I am a fan of some of the other Western stars.

Tombstone Canyon 1932 Ken Maynard and his horse Tarzan star in this world wide picture. The company logo is a pretty lady holding a couple of globes. They spin to reveal the name of the company.

Pretty goofy, huh. Still they make up for it with a nice vista so introduce Ken. The movie is filmed at Red Rock Canyon State Park in Canti California. Must be nice there.

Ken comes to town to find a man who can tell him about his past. He doesn't remember anything but he's disappointed to find the man dead in his cabin. There's a baddie and for some reason he's gunnin' for Ken. The Phantom in the title is a crazed man with a mad lust for revenge. That's him on the bluff.

Ken has a heap of trouble along the way to his past. You can find out what happens if you click the link in the title and watch the movie. Worth a look.

West Of Cimarron 1941 Here's another Bob Steele picture. Bob and his pals The Mesquiteers are in Texas after the Civil War and plenty of people are still fighting. Plenty of gun shootin' and horse ridin' in this one. 

A good batch of oaters on this disc.