PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Western Wednesday 27

Colt .45 was the first movie up on the three pack of Randolph Scott Westerns that I picked up a week or two ago. Colt .45 has a script by Thomas W Blackburn and the director is Edwin L Marin. Randolph Scott is a gun salesman for the new repeating Colt .45 pistols. They need to be loaded with powder, but having 6 bullets to everyone else's one is a bit of a nice advantage.

Zachary Scott is a gunslinger who's in jail when Randolph is visiting with the sheriff. While transferring Zachary from the jail to the stage Zachary grabs Randolph's guns, shoots the sheriff, and runs off with them. The deputy thinks Randolph is in with Zachary and locks him up. Four months later a judge lets him go and Randolph starts on Zachary's trail. It's not hard to follow, there aren't many repeating pistols out that way, and Zachery has left a trail of dead bodies. Along the way Randolph helps Chief Thundercloud, who had been shot by Zachary, and the Chief proves to be a good alley. Ruth Roman and Lloyd Bridges are a couple caught up in Zachary's path. Lloyd is weak and he let's Zachary push him around. You know he'll come to a bad end.

I usually like Randolph and here is no exception. The movie has plenty of the things you want in a Western, punchin', ridin', gunshootin', a lady and a good villain. Zachary Scott plays a mean son of a bitch who's only a man when he's got a gun in his hand. Another person's life means nothing to him. No one's sad when he gets his. It was a good film, glad to have picked it up.

Tall Man Riding is a 1950 Western with a script by Joseph Hoffman and direction by Lesley Selander. Randolph Scott plays a guy who returns to his home town to  get his revenge on a rancher who publicly whipped him out of town ten years earlier. Randolph was spending too much time with the rancher's daughter, played by Dorothy Malone.

When he returns Randolph finds the rancher a broken man, blind and in the middle of loosing his ranch for not having filed his land claims with the federal government. The villain finds this out and the land goes up for grabs. There's too be a land rush and the local head villain, played by John Denher, is going to cheat to get the rancher's nice house. Randolph helps the rancher get his house back and he gets Dorothy too. Another decent story with good actors. Nice to have seen it.

Fort Worth is a 1951 Western with Randolph as a man who's hung up his guns. He's gone into the newspaper business because the pen is mightier than the 6 shooter. Randolph returns to Fort Worth and opens a paper. The two large ranchers in the area have a rivalry over a rail line coming to the town. It leads to fighting and dead people.

Randolph has to take up his guns after the villains kill his editor. There's plenty of the usual Western stuff going on. There's even a bit of a romance. It was entertaining. The script was by John Twist and it was directed by Edwin L Marin.

All in all a nice trio of films. Glad to have it and might get around to seeing it again.

Western Wednesday 26

Don't Fence Me In 1945 Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes are at it again. It's a modern Western with Dale as a magazine reporter who goes to Roy's Dude Ranch to get a story on an outlaw who died decades ago. He might be alive and he might be Gabby. Roy helps Gabby and Dale makes their life difficult. There's some songs, punching, horse riding and some gun play.

This disc came from the Happy Trails Theatre DVD series and in the intro to the film Roy tells a story about being pushed into the pool three times because they didn't get the shot the first two times. Trouble was, it was freezing up in the high mountains. The title song Don't Fence Me In was written by Cole Porter.

Desert Pursuit 1952 I'm not sure that I remember ever seeing any other Wayne Morris movies in the past. A quick look at this IMDb listing and nothing looks familiar but some 1950s and 1960s TV. I did read that he was a decorated WWII fighter pilot. The disc is from the Warner Brothers Archive. Luckily for me I found it used and it was in good shape. The movie was based on a novel by Kenneth Perkins. The screenplay is by Scott Darling and it's directed by George Blair.

He was OK here, playing a gold miner with 80 pounds of gold to get to San Bernadino. Virginia Grey is a card dealer fired from her job in Carson City. They head out over the desert together. They are followed by George Tobias, Anthony Caruso and John Doucette, they are playing Arabs who were part of the US Cavalry's Camel Corps experiment. I had heard about this when I was a kid and was reminded about it several years ago from an episode of Have Gun - Will Travel. The Arabs heard about Wayne's gold back in Carson City and they want it. Trouble is they have no ammunition and part of the chase through the desert involves them trying to steal ammunition as they go along. At one point they run across some California Mission Indians having a Christmas Eve Mass. Some Indians have continued on with the Catholic faith after the missions were shut down. The three Arabs on camels make a big splash at that. There's a bit of a peace while everyone is in the village but the the chase is on once they leave. Luckily for our heroes they get some help from the tribe. There's plenty of good gun battles and running about, and as usual when your being chased in a Western, a romance develops between Wayne and Virginia. It was interesting enough, and a bit quirky, to be above average and I found it entertaining. I was glad to have picked it up.

Down Dakota Way 1949 Roy Rogers comes up against a cattle rancher who wants to sell his herd, unfortunately the cows have hoof and mouth disease. The rancher and his cronies will kill to keep that secret.

Roy is passing his old home town with the Riders of the Purple Sage. Roy wants to stop off to visit the town's school teacher. She was Roy's old teacher when he used to live there. Sadly, she's been fired and on top of that she's also the mother of the evil rancher's main henchman. He's the guy who does the rancher's murderin'. You can see how that's going to go. I liked it. You can catch it on YouTube in the link above. It's nice to see Roy and Dale in color, though the version on YouTube isn't as nice as the DVD. The DVD isn't any great shakes so there you go.

Western Wednesday 25

A five pack of Roy Rogers from Cinema Classics today. I actually only watched 4 of the films in the set.

My Pal Trigger 1946 Roy is a horse trader. He wants to mate a mare to a palomino stallion that rancher Gaby Hayes and his daughter Dale Evans have. Gaby says no. The villain of the piece wants the same thing. Gaby says no. The baddie steals the palomino and it gets away. It finds Roy's mare and they run off into the hills. Roy gets framed for the death of the palomino who was shot accidentally by the baddie. Roy is on the run with the mare. After Trigger is born int he high country Roy returns to give the colt to Gaby. He doesn't want it and that all takes a while to sort everything out. Better than average. I had seen this back in 2010, that's long enough ago that I had forgotten enough of the story, so I wound up enjoying it all over again.

King Of The Cowboys 1943 Roy turns undercover spy in this World War 2 era Western. He goes on a mission for the Governor to get proof of a sabotage ring. Lloyd Corrigan plays the baddie in this one. Like the previous movie I had seen this in 2010 when I was going through the Westerns at the Internet Archive. I'd watch one before work every morning and another in the evening. I did enjoy it and I'd watch it again someday.

Roy had talked about switching time periods in one of the intros to the Roy Roger's movies I watched last week. He said they'd make a period Western and the next film was a modern day Western. They continued this through his career. I never thought that was weird or anything.

Song Of Texas 1943 Roy plays a version of himself and the first part of the movie has him visiting a children's ward at the hospital, with Trigger. He sings and plays the guitar while being backed up by the Sons Of The Pioneers. In town Roy foolishly offers some help to a down and out friend to impress the man's daughter. Sounds very Runyonesque don't it. Roy lets the man pretend that he's co-owner of Roy's ranch. Due to poor planning on Roy's part he lets the daughter make up a legal document to make sure the partnership is in writing. This is a bad idea and sure enough, the daughter sells the father's "half" to a rancher that Roy doesn't like. Roy and the baddie will have a chuck wagon race to settle who gets the ranch. I hadn't seen this one before. It was OK.

Utah 1945 Dale Evans is part of a Broadway stage show that's having money troubles. They lay everyone off to refinance so Dale heads west to see the ranch she;s just inherited. She thinks she might be able to sell it to raise money. Roy is the foreman and he doesn't want her to sell the ranch. He tricks her into believing that Gaby's shack is the ranch house. It all blows up in his face and she sells off the ranch for next to nothing. Roy has to ride hard and fast to fix that screw up. Not as good as the others but still fun enough. Roy's particularly dim in this one.

Under California Stars 1946 This was in the Roy Rogers film set that I watched last week.

Western Wednesday 24

Here's a nice 5 pack of Roy Rogers films that I picked up at the Bloomington Police Book Sale. It cost me 7 bucks and there are 5 movies, each introduced by Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and their son Roy "Rusty" Rogers Jr. Two of the DVDs there are guests, one the director of the picture and the other being their long time agent and friend. I enjoyed the reminisces and stories they all tell, often they're accompanied by bits of home movies, stills and the like. Each DVD has a copy of the same three extras: Roy Rogers And Dale Evans Biography, Sidekicks Feature, Roy Rogers Museum Tour. The bio piece isn't quite a half hour but it's fairly full of material. The sidekicks short was an entertaining look at actors like Smiley Burnett, Andy Devine, Pay Hingle and Gabby Hayes. The DVDs were sold separately as well as in the set.

Like a lot of kids in the 1950s & 1960s I was a big Roy Rogers Fan. We watched his TV show at our house, and when there were movies on, we watched them. During the 70s I moved onto other things and didn't watch Westerns much. I did the like the Italian Westerns like Clint Eastwood was doing. After VHS and DVD it became easier to see these older movies but I didn't watch them much until a few years ago when I went on a big Western glut after finding them to download and watch online. Of course the Multi Movie Packs have given me a few hundred oaters to watch when I get around to them.

Click to see what movies were featured. There's a lot of pictures so I hid the long post behind the link.

Western Wednesday 23

The last disc of Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection has 4 more movies and no matter how you add it up the dozen movies on the set don't have anywhere near 10,000 ways to die. Mostly they just get shot. Oh well. It's what is to be expected from Mill Creek Entertainment. The quality of these films is good to poor. MCE isn't a company known for the quality of their products. There's just a lot of stuff in each set. At least this set has only four movies per disc, the discs are single layer and dual sided, there are 2 movies per side. Single layer discs give two movies more bytes, as opposed to putting 4 movies on a dual layer disc which has about a gigabyte less space than the single layer dual sided disc. Some of their current offerings have 5 movies on a dual layer disc. Mind you I still buy these DVD sets when I see them on clearance. It's often the only way to get some of these films.

Beyond The Law 1968 Turns out I had seen this one too. Back in 2010 I had watched a MCE set of Italian Westerns and this was one of 4 or 5 films in this set that were on that set. Mill Creek sure does re-issue the same films often.  Lee Van Cleef is a gunslinger that wants to go straight. He gets a job as a sheriff in a town. His old gang thinks they can use him as a cover for their criminal activities but that won't work out for them so well. Lionel Stander, Gordon Mitchell and Bud Spenser co-star. Best film on the disc but barely above average.

The Great Adventure 1975 Jack Palance and Joan Collins are the big stars in this one. They aren't the main characters, it's that kid and his dog. He gets orphaned and him and his sister hook up with a couple of nice trappers. They wind up in a town where Jack runs the saloon, and lords over the town, and Joan is a dance hall girl. Things get worse before Jack lies in the dirt, a slug in him. It's got a poor script and nothing much else is better. Not worth watching once. They have the film on YouTube but they are asking $1.99 to see it. I didn't pay that for the whole 12 movie set and I couldn't recommend anyone bother with this film.

His Name Was King 1971 Klaus Kinski is a bounty hunter. He kills a guy and the guy's brother kills Klaus's brother and rapes the sister-in-law. Klaus goes on a revenge trip but winds up getting used by a government agent to catch another crooked guy. It's only so-so. 

Jesse And Lester 1972 Jesse is a crook and Lester is a Mormon. Estranged half brothers they are drawn together because of an inheritance. It's the worst looking film in the bunch. The transfer is probably from an old tape. Mill Creek doesn't much care, it's bulk before quality. Besides the poor quality of the film there's a so-so script. Not one worth bothering with.

All done with that set now, not a great set, certainly not for more than a couple of bucks. It's nice that the Italians liked the American Western so much that they continued to make them after Hollywood cut back production on their own oaters, it's just too bad that the Italians were so poor at it. Not every film is as poor as many of these are, there are some great Italian Westerns. Some films had better budgets and better film makers at the helm. Clint Eastwood's Dollar series is worth seeing and Once Upon A Time In The West is out and out brilliant. You can't go wrong with the original Django and the Trinity films, with Terrance Hill and Bud Spenser, are worth a look. After that, your guess is as good as mine.

Western Wednesday 22

Four more Italian Western's today, all from the Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection. Sadly, I had already seen them. I had gotten another Mill Creek Entertainment collection called Spaghetti Westerns and these four were all in that that. None of the other 8 films in the current set I'm watching were in that other collection. Mill Creek makes a lot of different size collections and they mix and match the same films over and over again. A film collector has to watch what they buy when it comes to MCE.

The Grand Duel 1974 Lee Van Cleef is an ex-sheriff who helps a guy framed for murder get away from two brothers who believe he killed their dad. It's a bit better that average and Lee is A-OK. Music from the score is used in Kill Bill Vol 1.

Johnny Yuma 1966 Johnny Yuma, played by Mark Damon, comes to his Uncle's ranch to work, only to find the man dead. Johnny suspects his Uncle's younger wife and her brother. The pair send their henchmen to kill Johnny, he's the heir, but that doesn't work so well. Johnny can take care of himself. Another one that was a bit better than average.

God's Gun 1975 This ones got a hat trick of Western stars; Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance and Richard Boone star in this only barely average Italian Western. The rest of the cast includes Sybil Danning and Lief Garrett. Lee is an ex gunfighter turned priest. Lief is the older version of a young man who was there when Lee was killed by Jack. He grows up and hunts Jack down. Nothing special here.

It Can Be Done Amigo 1973 Bud Spencer and Jack Palance are the names I recognize in this comedy Western. Bud helps a kid get his inheritance and Jack wants Bud to marry his sister. There's a few laughs but not that many. Bud's made better comedy Westerns before. You can check it out, and two of the other titles, on YouTube.

Western Wednesday 21

Four more Westerns, this time they're of the Italian variety, and not surprisingly they're all about average. All of these movies are in a 12 movie set called Ten Thousand Ways To Die - The Spaghetti Western Collection. It's from our old pals at Mill Creek and it came out in 2010. The movies are paired two a side on three double sided discs. These older Italian Westerns are plentiful and many of them have been collected in these movie packs. I have some other collections I've either watched or will watch. One of these days. The quality of the transfers is often pretty poor. There's a second volume in the series, with another dozen movies. I don't have it but I would pick it up if I see it cheaper than the 7 bucks it's currently listed for on Amazon. Nowadays it's likely that these low budget sets will turn up used, for cheap.

Now They Call Him Sacramento 1972 Michael Forest plays a train robber named Sacramento, he's joined by his brother Big Jim, played by Fernando Bilbao, and his father Old Tequila, played by Luigi Bonos, in robbing a train. Old Tequila runs off in the night. He starts freely spending the money at a cantina. He's robbed soon after That. The sons catch up to him and they all go after the money. It's light hearted with plenty of fights, shoot outs and explosions. In fact, they blow up or burn down most of the town. It's very much like a Terence Hill and Bud Spenser type movie. The most famous films from the two are the Trinity series. Worth checking out and much better than this movie.

Four Dollars Of Revenge 1965 Robert Woods is a Captain in the US Cavalry. He's guarding some Confederate gold coins when the shipment is attacked. He is the only survivor and the military suspects him to have engineered the robbery. He gets put into jail for life. He escapes and finds the guilty party to clear his name. I didn't find it very interesting and my mind wondered. I think it was mostly the characters.

Seven Guns For Timothy 1966 Sean Flynn is the son of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita. He made 10 movies between 1960 and 1969, in 1970 he was in Vietnam as a journalist when he and Dana Stone disappeared near the Cambodian border. They were never seen again. Some say that the Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now loosely based on Flynn but others say it's based on the English photographer Tim Page. Seven Guns For Timothy is about a group of gunslingers that join Timothy to protect his gold mine from a scummy villain. It's got all the usual stuff that you'd expect and I liked the characters. It's like a fun version of The Magnificent Seven but nowhere near as good.

The Last Gun 1964 Cameron Mitchell is a big name gunslinger who gives it up. He settles into a town that eventually has some trouble with baddies and he has to get his guns out. It wasn't that interesting.

Western Wednesday 20

Back at the Westerns again, this time I've got a 4 movie marathon of James Stewart films from Universal. It's a step up in quality compared to the batch of Western's I had been watching. They all had budgets that were in the 1-2 million dollar range. Compared to that the price of the DVD was pretty darn cheap, only a fiver on Amazon. Universal has a whole slew of these Western 4 movie marathons available for about the same price. Well worth it.

Bend of The River is a 1952 Western directed by Anthony Mann and written by Borden Chase. Jimmy is a guide for a wagon train. He used to be a criminal but he's trying to go straight. The train leader, Jay C Flippen, makes a deal with a dealer in Portland to ship food and supplies to their location up river via riverboat. When they don't come Jimmy and Jay head to Portland.

Turns out someone struck gold and the supplies are now much more valuable than when they were bought. Jimmy leaves town with the supplies and he has the fight of his life to get them to the settlement. Arthur Kennedy plays another criminal, Jimmy befriends him, and of course he dies in a hail of bullets when he double crosses his new pal. Rock Hudson plays a gambler who was too soft, to stop some slugs. Julie Adams plays the plucky gal who's just right for Jimmy. There's plenty of other great stars: Chubby Johnson, Harry Morgan, Lori Nelson, Stepin Fetchit, Frances Bavier, Jack Lambert and Royal Dano.

This is the second film that Stewart and Mann worked on together, the first was Winchester '73B in 1950. Jimmy had created a darker character for that film, a man who was edgier,  but still likeable. He's a bit like that here. The story has all the elements one likes in a Western, some horse ridin', gun shootin', train robbin' and it all works well. There's plenty of pretty scenery from around Mount Hood in Oregon. Well worth watching.

The Far Country is a 1954 film that was also directed by Anthony Mann and written by Borden Chase. Jimmy is taking cattle to Dawson City when he ticks off Skagway's powerful Judge Gannon. The judge confiscates Jimmy's cattle but Jimmy steals them back. The Judge hesitates following Jimmy into Canada, he has no power there, but eventually he shows up in Dawson, gunmen trotting along behind him. Gannon's power grab for the town leads to the big showdown at the end of the film.

There's plenty of nice scenery, they shot in Jasper National Park and the Athabasca Glacier in Alberta.

Walter Brennan plays Jimmy's pal, Ruth Roman plays a shrewd business woman who makes all the wrong choices, John McIntire plays Judge Gannon with relish, Jay C Flippen is the broken down Marshal. Others in the cast that I knew are: Harry Morgan, Steve Brodie, Robert J Wilke, Chubby Johnson, Royal Dano, Jack Elam and Kathleen Freeman. Corinne Clavert plays the pretty French gal in between Walter and Jimmy in the above picture. That's Ruth Roman in the sack with Jimmy. He's such a cowboy he leaves his clothes on all the time. The movie was easily as good as the previous one. Either one of these is worth the price of the set, though it's all relative. The single DVDs for these movies cost more than the 4 movie set.

Night Passage is a 1957 film that was directed by James Neilson and written by Borden Chase. Anthony Mann was supposed to be the director but he backed out over casting Audie Murphy. James Neilson directed a lot of TV, shows like Adam-12, Bonanza, Batman, Zorro, The Rifleman, Adventures In Paradise, Walt Disney's Wonderful World and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also directed a few interesting movies, like Dr Syn, Alias The Scarecrow, The Moon-Spinners, Moon Pilot and Bon Voyage! In 1948 Borden had written the Howard Hawks film Red River. If a writer should have been given an award for penning a script it should be Borden for that film. Borden was nominated for an Oscar, and a Writers Guild Of America award, but didn't win either. Night Passage has a score by Dimitri Tiomkin and it's pretty darn good.

Jimmy is joined by Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Diane Foster, Elaine Stewart, Brandon deWilde, Jay C Flippen, Herbert Anderson, Robert J Wilke, Hugh Beaumont, Jack Elam, Paul Fix and Ellen Corby. Jimmy gets a job from his old railroad boss to bring $10,000 to a mining camp. The payrolls been robbed three times already and they haven't caught the bandit.

Jimmy runs into trouble along the way, the train is held up by Dan and a few other baddies. Audie's in the gang and he has a connection to Jimmy. He doesn't quite want to give up the bad life and you know that can't go on like that. The question is does he get smart before he gets dead. There's the usual Western stuff going on as well as some nice stuff between Jimmy and the kid he takes under his wing. The railroad stuff was filmed near Durango Colorado, other outdoor stuff was filmed near Silverton, and more in the Iryo National Forest and Cerro Gordo in California. It's all nice country, but rough, I was glad to see it on TV, as opposed to riding through it on a horse.

The Rare Breed is a 1966 Western that was written by Ric Hardman and directed by Andrew V McLaglen. Ric was mostly a TV writer and mostly westerns of the 1960s. The story in the movie is loosely based on the life of rancher Col William Burgess. Andrew worked on TV shows like Perry Mason, Rawhide, Have Gun - Will Travel, The Virginian and Gunsmoke. He directed a good bunch of films, I think the best known might be John Wayne's McLintock!, I know I saw that but did I see Andrew's Monkeys, Go Home! MST3K fans would be familiar with another of Andrew's films, he directed Mitchell. It was one of John Williams earlier scores and it was OK. His film credit says Johnny Williams, fitting for a Western.

Jimmy meets up with the Price's, a mother and daughter, who have traveled to the US to introduce Hereford cattle to the West. It was her husbands dream but he died on route. She's determined to carry on. She sells Vindicator, the bull above to Scotsman Alexander Bowen, played by Brian Keith, and she goes along to make sure the bull is delivered to his Texas ranch. Maureen O'Hara plays Martha Price and Juliet Mills plays her daughter Hilary. Jimmy is hired to deliver the bull. He takes $1000 from another rancher to steal the bull and then gives that money to an old pal who was screwed over by that same rancher. He doesn't actually hand over the bull, or return the money.

Bowen says the bull must be able to stand on his own out on the range and Vindicator is set in the pasture. Bowen doesn't think he'll survive the winter and there won't be any mixed breed calves. There's a bit of romance mixed in there, some father son noise between the over bearing Bowen and his more normal son, some of the usual Western activity, and more humor than the rest of these films in the set. It's a good natured, light hearted film worth taking a look at. 

Western Wednesday 19

The Echo Bridge Western Collector's Set has 4 movies on one 2 sided disc. I got it for a couple of bucks but it turns out that first 3 movies are already on a Mill Creek 50 Movie Set I watched back in 2010. All these movies are in the public domain and usually such movies are available on YouTube or the Internet Archive. I watched the ones I'd seen again because I didn't remember much of the stories.

Death Rides A Horse is a 1967 Spaghetti Western with Lee Van Cleef and John Phillip Law. When John was a boy some baddies came to his house and killed his family. They didn't know John was hiding when they torched the house. Years later John is grown up, he finds a clue to the whereabouts of the men that killed his family. He tracks them down. He gets a bit of help from Lee, who also has a score to settle with the same scum. It was OK, nothing special, about average.

The Gun And The Pulpit is a 1972 Marjoe Gortner movie. He plays a gunslinger who impersonates a preacher to hide from the law. He helps the town rid themselves of some bandits. It's good natured and fairly fun. It's got a good cast with Slim Pickens, David Huddleston, Geoffrey Lewis, Estelle Parsons, Pamela Sue Martin and Jeff Corey. The interesting thing about Marjoe is that he used to be an evangelical preacher, he started as a child, but gave it up about when he turned into an adult. He wrote a book in the 70s about his preacher experience, that put him on interview shows, like Johnny Carson, where I saw him.

Kid Vengeance is the original title of this 1977 Golan-Globus Production Western, and the movie appeared as Vengeance and Take Another Hard Ride. Lee Van Cleef, Jim Brown, Leif Garrett and John Marley are the actors I know. Lee and Leif team up to get some bad guys. It's about average.

Vengeance Valley is a 1951 Burt Lancaster Western. It's based on a Luke Short novel. Beside Burt we've got Robert Walker, Joanne Dru, Sally Forrest, John Ireland, Ray Collins, Ted de Corsia, Hugh O'Brian and Will Wright in the cast. Ray, whom some will remember fondly as Lt Tragg on Perry Mason, is the owner of a nice big cattle ranch. He takes Burt in as an orphan and raised him along with his own son, played by Robert Walker. Robert is jealous of Burt and he turns mean. Things turn deadly by the end of the film. I thought it was the best of the lot, it's got a good solid story, and a good ending. It's a good reminder that the sons of rich men ought to be gunned down when they step out of line. It would make the world a better place, that's for sure.

You can watch all of them on YouTube but if you only watch one, watch the last one.

Western Wednesday 18

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.