"The Lone Gun" + 29/Same

Tonight another Western. I recently acquired 17 of 'em, in various 4, 6 and 7 Pack collection sets, so I had to binge watch a few, haha. Plus, they're just plain good. I haven't seen too many bad Westerns; probably could count 'em on one hand. Most of the bad ones would've come from the 1970s, when they began to use a lot of graphic violence and modern style acting, so that the bad guys often resembled 20th century hoodlums more than outlaws from the Old West. 70s Westerns took all the classic elements out of the films and replaced them with dirty, gritty so-called realism.

But I didn't watch a 70s Western, so fuggeddabouddit. No, I watched another classic B-Western from 1954 called "The Lone Gun", starring George Montgomery, Dorothy Malone and Neville Brand, who would turn up 23 years later as a total psycho in Tobe Hooper's "Eaten Alive".....but that's another story. If you wanna see why my friends and I revered Neville Brand in 1977, you should see "Eaten Alive". Better yet, don't see it, because it's really sick and twisted (though good). It's a horror film, made by Tobe Hooper, director of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

But don't see it, because it's probably too gross and cheesy for you. Certainly too cheesy, something that "Chainsaw" definitely was not.

Instead, watch Neville Brand in "The Lone Gun". He plays the head honcho of a cattle ranch, one of three brothers who get most of their cows by rustling them from other ranchers and then re-branding them. Brand is dismayed when good guy drifter George Montgomery rides into town looking for a job and is named Sheriff. Unlike past Sheriffs, Montgomery won't look the other way at cattle rustlin', especially when the victim is pretty Dorothy Malone, who owns the main cattle ranch in town along with her wimpy brother Skip Homeier (a Western movie regular).

This sets up quite a confrontation between the serious and handsome Montgomery and the square headed and toothy (but personable) Brand, who has the townspeople and the Mayor in his pocket because he has a way of framing all of his crimes onto other people. He would have fit in well today!

Top Character Actor Frank Faylen is along for the ride as Montgomery's card sharp sidekick, ready to make a bet on any situation, including the odds on his survival when he becomes a hostage of the Brand brothers. Faylen ends up stealing the show but I'll not tell you why.

I'm 96% sure that the majority of the outdoor scenes were filmed at Garden Of The Gods in Chatsworth, which was then called the Iverson Ranch, so the movie has that going for it also.

Two Major League Thumbs Up for "The Lone Gun", and now I've gotta find more George Montgomery Westerns because he is a new favorite. ////

We had good singing in church this morn, and next week I will be singing my first solo. It's only one verse, of a Contemporary Christian song called "Everyone Is Welcome Here", but it will be only me on that verse, and if I do good, then hopefully it will lead to more solos in the future.

I wish I had more exciting stuff to tell ya, but you know how it is. I am a caregiver, so things are "everyday same" on that score, and then on the other extreme, I send my occasional FOIA letters to the CIA, which they decline to confirm or deny, so things are "samey same" on that score, too.

I'm just a caregiver who wants information from the CIA so that I will know what happened to me in 1989.

And nothing much happens on either front, so I have nothing to report but the movies I watch.

This weekend is the 29th anniversary of What Happened In Northridge, the biggest secret in America.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)