Tonight's "Durango Kid" movie was called "Bonanza Town" (1951). The complex plot made up for last night's rather lightweight story, and involved the brother of a local judge who is leading a criminal gang from behind the scenes. The control of land is another big theme in Western movies, right up there with Indian wars and cattle rustling, so in the plot, the town's land office administrator throws his weight around to enforce the silence of the citizens as he covers up stage robberies and real estate ripoffs. The land office guy, a macho sort, is working for the judge's brother, who in turn has his bro the judge securely in his pocket through blackmail for an earlier crime the judge himself covered for.
Now you can understand the complexity I was referring to. These crooks have a nice little scheme going, running the town the way Trump would run America if he were competent enough to do so. You could picture Brett Cavanaugh as the judge and Matt Whitaker as the thug town boss. Durango could be a substitute for Bob Mueller, as he learns of the land scheme, discovers the hidden crime boss, and methodically works his way through the underlings until he nails the main man.
Smiley Burnette is running a barbershop this time, and besides having his musical duties restored (cause last night he didn't sing much), he also commits a major comic gaffe when he accidentally shaves off the ZZ Toppian beard of a customer who only wanted a trim. The man is justifiably pissed and gets revenge on Smiley by shaving his head. At the end of the film, we see Smiley experimenting with combinations of various hair tonics, and voila! - his hair is thoroughly restored......though not the way it was, and it is actually quite funny because it might remind you of someone you know. :)
There was also a funny moment during an action sequence in the last fifteen minutes. It wasn't meant to be funny, because the reason for the humor had yet to exist when the movie was made. But here I was, watching it in 2019, and......
"Steve" (Charles Starrett) is chasing down the judge's henchmen, and he yells at Smiley to "go get Bob Dillon", meaning go get him and tell him what is happening.
This was a minor character in the story up to this point. He had only been called "Bob" in the few scenes he'd been in. This moment near the end was the first and only time I heard his full name spoken, and I had to do a double take. I had to rewind and replay the scene to make sure I had heard it correctly.
"Go get Bob Dylan"!
That's the way I heard it, and it turned out that my hearing was right. When I IMDBed the cast to double check, I saw the correct spelling was Dillon. But the pronunciation was the same.
I wonder if young Robert Zimmerman ever saw this movie. He would've been ten years old when it came out. Of course the the story goes that he took his stage name from Dylan Thomas the poet.
But it would be interesting to know if he's heard of this Durango Kid reference, and if he hasn't, it would be funny to show it to him. :) /////
I think we need to do a list, just cause we haven't done one in a while, and for tonight's list we are gonna name our Ten Favorite Classical Composers. I was inspired to make such a list while listening to KUSC this afternoon. They are having a fund raising drive, and Brian the DJ was mentioning some of the great works of various composers as a come-on for the station, and it got me to thinking, "who are my favorite composers"?
We've all done Top Tens of our favorite rock bands, so this time we will do classical composers, just because half the music I've been listening to since about 2003 or so has been classical.
In a future blog I will list a favorite piece by each composer (tonight I am too tired), but for my Top Ten, here goes:
1) J.S. Bach
2) Schubert
3) Chopin
4) Mendelssohn
5) Beethoven
6) Tchaikovsky
7) Mozart
8) Scarlatti
9) Rameau
10) Wagner
That's a rough draft, because of Rachmaninov and Couperin, and Poulenc and Faure and Debussy and a few others, but I imagine these ten would hold up as my favorites.
There is so much great classical music. Who are your favorites, and are you a fan? Maybe you have a few pieces that you like, at the very least.
Well, that's enough for tonight. Next time I will list a favorite work by each composer.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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