Tonight's Western had the cheery title of "Gun Fury" (1953). It was directed by Raoul Walsh in Sedona, Arizona, and was apparently filmed and released in theaters in 3D, which would explain all the driver's eye view shots, as the movie began, of a team of horses pulling a stagecoach at high speed through the Painted Desert. Such "tunnel vision" p.o.v. enhances the 3D effect, and it is used expansively throughout the movie, which looks gorgeous in Technicolor.
Rock Hudson stars as man on his way to meet his bride-to-be, in Arizona (town unnamed). She is played by Donna Reed, who we saw last night, and she is arriving in 'Zona on a stagecoach originating from down South. She is from Atlanta, which has just been burned to the ground by General Sherman. We are at the end of the Civil War, just like last night, and the other passengers on the stage are all male, all from the South, all full of resentment, and one in particular is covetous of Miss Reed, even though he knows she is on her way to meet her fiance.
It turns out that the possessive man is legendary outlaw Frank Slayton (a sly trick by the writer, incorporating "slay" into his name). Slayton is played by handsome, decades long Soap Star Phillip Carey. He has a gang with him; they take over the stage. He takes Donna Reed hostage and decides to head to Mexico, where he will force her to stay with him. They will live off the gold stolen from the stagecoach.
I have gotta interject here to say that it seems like a wonder that any money or any gold ever arrived safely at a bank in those days. It seems to me if you were driving or riding in a stagecoach, you were a ready target, because an outlaw could hide out any place he wanted to, basically.
Except, no matter how deadly the outlaw may have been, he would never get away with his plan in the long run, because of guys like Rock Hudson.
First of all, how in the world could you have a name like "Rock"? Did Mr. and Mrs. Hudson think that would be a fine name for their baby boy? Well.....not exactly. He was born Roy Scherer, so "Rock" was a concoction of some Hollywood Mogul, but boy did they ever get it right, because Rock Hudson could only have ever been "Rock Hudson", in the movies at any rate. He was one of the handsomest leading men in Hollywood, and he always played a steadfast good guy, therefore he was a "Rock".
And he was a big dude, so in movies like the unfortunately titled "Gun Fury", they matched him up with other post-6 footers like Phillip Carey, who was also handsome but had the vibe of the Bad Guy.
When they say, "what's in a name", I think a lot is in a name. A name helps describe a person.
That is why Hollywood from the very beginning wanted to create custom names for their stars.
But think of the reverse : what if you knew a regular guy named Rock? Would you think that he had a weird name? Or would it be fitting?
Sorry to go off on a Rock Hudson tangent, but I felt it necessary because the phonetics of his name were thought out. It wasn't "Rick Hudson", or "Ron Hudson". The Hollywood folks know all about the power of hard consonants in combination with different vowels, and things like that. And they know about metaphors, too. I think it's more intuitive than planned; a savvy producer just hits upon a cool sounding name in the same way a songwriter decides on a title. They pull it out of thin air, and it sounds perfect.
I am just jabbering away now, as I do when I have exhausted my supply of sensical talk.
Elizabeth, I am glad to see that you are right back at it, staying fit and ready for the next project and adventure.
Not that there was any question of either, not for someone who poses on mountaintops and in volcanic caves, etc. :)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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