I'm seeing a bit better quality of Western today. Recently I had picked up Volume 2 of Classic Western Round-Up used at a local shop. I found Volume 1 at Amazon for only $4.49. I ordered it and it came Sunday. I watched it through the day today. Both the Classic Western Round-Up sets have 4 movies. Each set has one movie from the 1930s, one from the 1940s, and two from the 1950s. The 1930s movie is in Black & White and the rest are all color. The movies are longer than the public domain movies on the Mill Creek 50 Movie Pack that I'd been watching for the first 2 blog posts of Western Wednesday. They're usually about an hour. In this set 2 films are just over 80 minutes and the other 2 are over 90 minutes. Most of the public domain films I had been watching are in pretty sad shape. They're watchable but grainy and noisy. These Universal movies are so much better in all ways, picture and sound quality, bigger budgets and stars, great locations.
The Texas Rangers is a 1936 film from director King Vidor. It's based on a story by Walter Prescott Webb. Vidor wrote his version with Elizabeth Hill and Louis Stevens turned that into a screenplay. Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie are a couple of stage robbers who join the Texas Rangers when things get too hot for them. They plan to use the info on gold shipments and feed it to their pal Lloyd Nolan. He'll do the robbing and give them a split. Slowly Fred and Jack go straight from being in the Rangers and that causes a rift with Lloyd. There's a bit of a romance between Fred and Jean Parker but that takes a long time to develop. It's a good solid western and better than most.
Canyon Passage is a 1946 film directed by Jacques Tourneur of Cat People fame. It's based on a novel that Ernest Haycox wrote for the Saturday Evening Post. Ernest Pascal wrote the screenplay. Dana Andrews plays an Oregon businessman who has a store and runs cargo wagons from town to town. He gets into one bit of a pickle after another. Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, Lloyd Bridges, and Ward Bond are in the cast. Hoagy Carmiachel wrote some songs for the movie and he has a fair size role in the film. It's a rather brutal film with women and children killed by the local Indians. This was after Ward Bond had raped one of the Indian women. It's a good looking film, with interesting scenery and color. Worth seeing.
Kansas Raiders is a 1950 film about Jesse James and Quantrill's Raiders. It's written by Robert L Richards and directed by Ray Enright. Audie Murphy plays Jesse. He's got a hatred of the Yankies for killing his parents and burning their farm. Brian Donlevy plays William Quantrill and he's way too old. Quantrill was 27 when he died. He was pretty much a piece of shit and Jesse doesn't care much for the man's ways but he stays with him up to the end. Jesse and his gang would go on to be bank robbers and scum. Tony Curtis, Marguerite Chapman, Richard Arlen, Richard Long, James Best and Dewey Martin are in the cast. Good movie but not much of anyone to root for. I wouldn't encourage anyone to watch it.
The Lawless Breed is a 1953 film about John Wesley Hardin with Rock Hudson in the title role. It's got a script by Bernard Gordon and Raoul Walsh is the director. They make Hardin out to be a mixed up guy who killed those guys in self defense, honest. Julie Adams, John McIntire, Hugh O'Brian, Dennis Weaver, Lee Van Cleef and Glenn Strange are the ones I knew in the cast list. Even with that cast it's the least interesting movie in the lot. I'm not sure what they were thinking to white wash Hardin like that but there you go. Hollywood bio pics are dicks. Not really recommended.
I'll probably wind up watching the first two films again someday but I'll be less likely to watch the last two films again. What's the point.
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