Today I did things backwards. I watched my movie in the early afternoon, then I went for my hike at 6pm. I can do that because it's my day off and because in July it's light out until 8:45. Hooray for July! Anyway, the movie was called "The Plainsman" (1936), a Western Epic directed by our old pal Cecil B. DeMille. I've been meaning to see "The Plainsman" ever since I became a DeMille fan late last year, and now that I have seen it I can tell you that it's every bit as spectacular and big budget as his more famous Biblical blockbusters. Gary Cooper stars as "Wild Bill Hickok", the real life Old West hero who was renowned as a gunman, a soldier, a scout and friend to the Indians. As the movie begins, President Lincoln has just been shot. A group of arms merchants, who have recently lost a huge source of profit with the ending of the Civil War, decide to sell their new repeating rifle to the Cheyenne Indians. This is a Federal crime, but - led by Jack McCall - they figure they can get away with it due to the temporary instability in government caused by Lincoln's death.
"Wild Bill" gets word of this treasonous action and sets out to stop the gunrunners, with the help of his friends "Buffalo Bill" Cody (James Ellison) and "Calamity Jane" Canary (the great Jean Arthur again).
Now, I do not know the real life relationships between the three lead characters. In reading about the movie, it is mentioned that DeMille and his screenwriters combined some famous historical scenarios to create a composite theme for the movie, so we have Custer's Last Stand as part of the plot, and the previously mentioned Lincoln assassination. In Googling just now, I see that Will Bill and Calamity Jane knew each other. In the movie, she is in love with him, though her rough-riding nature puts him off at first. She and Buffalo Bill were real people, too. You can Google all three to see for yourself.
Come to think of it, my friends and I saw a play about Wild Bill Hickok, called "Fathers and Sons", at a theater in Beverly Hills in 1980. We went because we were big fans of Richard Chamberlain, who had recently starred in Peter Weir's "The Last Wave", which we all loved. In the play, Chamberlain was playing Wild Bill. The character of Jack McCall was featured in the story, too, so I suppose that in "The Plainsman", Cecil B. DeMille is not taking too many liberties with the historical facts, just compressing them together so they fit into a two hour movie.
The plot is more or less what I've told you, the trio of the two Bills and Calamity Jane have to stop the sale of the repeating rifles to the Cheyenne. This is a new semi-automatic weapon that even the army doesn't yet have, and of course all the arms merchants care about is their profit. War is good business for them, and selling guns to either side works just as well.
The great character actor Charles Bickford does a sinister turn as the middleman for the gunrunners. You've seen him in dozens of old movies, almost always playing a fatherly role, or that of an upstanding lawyer or banker. Here, he looks and acts like he was chiseled out of the dirt of the Old West. He is tough as nails, uncaring about where the guns are going, only wanting to get paid so he can go get a drink. Talk about a great actor, wow.
Jean Arthur steals the show by playing Calamity Jane as an amped-up but good hearted broad who can sling a rope or a whip with the best of 'em. Once she meets Buffalo Bill's wife, she tries to be more feminine, which in the end helps her to win over Bill Hickok.
The Western sets are very realistic, big money was spent as was always the case in a DeMille film. Even the locations vary, from the mountains of Montana to the Kern River just north of L.A., to the oft-used sites of Agoura and the Iverson Ranch here in the Valley.
"The Plainsman" is a very early Western, so it is important to keep in mind that the line reading and physical stances of the actors will, in places, seem a bit stiff and stylized as a remnant from silent film acting. This is never the case with Jean Arthur, who was a natural in front of the camera in any role or format, silent or sound, and with the other actors it's just a minor quibble, more a result of DeMille's direction than anything else. I only mention it because there is a stark difference between the Westerns made in the 1930s from those that came 15 to 20 years later, when the genre got a whole lot tougher, more realistic and more psychological.
Still, I have here Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Plainsman", another crowd pleaser from DeMille, featuring life-size battle scenes and stare-down card games in Deadwood saloons. ////
Highly recommended for fans of Westerns and DeMille. /////
I had a nice hike at Towsley Canyon this evening at 6pm, after which I went to visit Grimsley at his abode in Mission Hills. He is outraged at the return of Mumford and Sons, who I had thought were long gone but Grim informed me that - no! - they are not only back but have sold out the Los Angeles Coliseum, which is a terrible development. I'm surprised that the guy has not broken his wrist yet, with his overly enthusiastic way of strumming of the guitar.
I was so dismayed by the news of the return of Mumford and Sons that I thought a little Hair Of The Dog was in order, so I went home and Youtubed "Shipping Up To Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys, which irritates me even more. :)
I hope your day was a good one. May you watch a classic Western and have a nice hike.
See you in the morning with non-stop love sent through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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