Lat night, another classic Zane Grey: "Wanderer of the Wasteland"(1945) once again starring James Warren, one of the best of the ZG leading men. Warren plays "Adam Larey", a man out to avenge the killing of his father. The movie opens with his character as a boy. Adam is shown wandering Death Valley and is about to collapse when he's rescued by the Rafferty family, who happen to be driving their wagon across the desert. Here we get some family history on Zane Grey's mainstay character "Chito Rafferty", who's also shown as a child. He's riding with his Irish pa and Spanish ma. The Raffertys rescue Adam, who directs them back to the site where his own parents were killed, in a robbery carried out by a man whose horse was shot dead by Mr. Larey. The horse bears the brand for the CJ Ranch. Adam Larey the boy vows to find the man behind that brand if it takes him the rest of his life. The Raffertys adopt Adam and he stays with them for a while, until he's fifteen. Then he sets out to find his pa's killer.
Fast forward ten years. Chito is now a grown man. One day, he's in the town of Randsburg, California, near his parents' sheep ranch, when someone throws a ball of paper at him. Lo and behold, it's Adam. They haven't seen each other in years, but they're blood brothers, so they catch up over a beer and make plans to go see Ma and Pa Rafferty, who are delighted when Adam shows up. While he's in town, he spies a pretty girl (Audrey Long) checking into a hotel. Her suitcase bears the CJ brand. He stops her and asks the name of her ranch and where it's located. C stands for Collinshaw. J stands for "Jeanie", her name. Adam asks her about a job, so he can look around and investigate. She takes him there and he meets Harry Woods, the foreman.
He also meets Jeanie's brother "Jay" (Robert Clarke), a angry young man who gambles and drinks too much (a Robert Clarke specialty). Jay doesn't like Adam because Adam showed him up earlier, in a quick draw contest at a bar. Adam sees Jay as a distraction to his real goal; to find out who at the CJ ranch killed his father. So far, it's looking like the culprit is Old Man Collinshaw (Robert Barrat), who's confined to a wheelchair. Adam thinks his infirmity is a result of having his horse fall on him, when it was shot by Mr. Larey during the robbery/murder all those years ago. There's a subplot involving money that keeps disappearing from the CJ safe. Jay Collinshaw is taking it without telling his father, so he can gamble at the local casino. but the casino is rigged (do you sense a Zane Grey Theme here?), with marked cards supplied by CJ ranch foreman Harry Woods, who gets a cut of the crooked profits. Adam Larey finds this out, too, and because someone's been shooting at him out in the desert, he starts to suspect Woods is the culprit. Adam keeps a rifle shell he found out in the rocks, and compares it to rifles owned by old Mr. Collinshaw, and Harry Woods. He also rides into town, to check property records on the CJ ranch, and discovers it was paid for with 10K in cash by the old man, right around the time his dad was robbed and murdered.
Adam is ready to confront old Mr. C, and wants to kill him to uphold his vow, made as a little boy. But he remembers what Mama Rafferty once told him, that only bad things come to those who seek revenge. Also, by now he's in love with Jeanie Collinshaw. He can't bring himself to kill her father, so he forces a confession out of the old man and leaves.
Then old Mr. C is shot dead. I can't tell you by whom, but the murder is blamed on Adam Larey, and a posse is formed to hunt him down. Luckily, Chito is a witness to what happened. He knows who the real killer is, and has evidence to prove it.
I probably don't have to tell you that this is as good as it gets, but I'm doing so anyway, just so you won't miss this movie. The plot is all business this time, with no comic relief or dancing girls, likely due to the revenge motif. A little bit of humor is interjected through the banter between Mama and Papa Rafferty (he's a happy Irish drunk, she's an emotional Spaniard), but overall it's serious stuff. James Warren is the quintessential Western hero; I wish they'd made more ZGs with him in the lead, and Harry Woods is as blandly evil as ever. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Wanderer of the Wasteland". Shot in the Alabammy Hills as always, the picture is razor sharp. /////
The previous night we saw a crime film, late-50s style with a swingin' jazz score and a youthful angst theme. In "Four Boys and a Gun"(1957), four young pals, all down on their luck in different ways, conspire to rob the box office of a boxing arena. "Johnny" (James Franciscus) is a champion amateur boxer. The ringleader, "Ollie" (Frank Sutton aka Sergeant Carter) works for a bookie. "Stanley" (William Hinnant) is a dorky little guy with immigrant parents who bust their tails to make ends meet, but he doesn't wanna get a job and his Dad is ready to kill him. "Eddie" (David Schwimmer doppleganger Tarry Green) has a job as a truck driver but he hates it, and to make matters worse, his boss steals his girlfriend. Sergeant Carter owes the bookie 300 bucks. He's already been beat up for it. The bookie gives him one more week to pay. Then the friends get an idea, from a bunch of frat boys, to throw a dance at the loft they hang out at. They're gonna raffle off a TV set to attract a big turnout. They get a good crowd of young people, but then the bookie has his thugs rob the take. As an aside, I should mention the great musical performance at the dance, by a swingin' bunch of cats called Stan Rubin and His Tigers. Johnny the boxer has a wife to support, and a child on the way. He was counting on the dance money to pay his bills. Sergeant Carter still owes the bookie, and is in danger of being killed if he doesn't pay it back. Eddie is completely fed up with life by this point, and Stanley just wants to look cool in the eyes of the other three. He's up for whatever they decide to do. After a night in which Johnny wins the amateur championship, they decide to rob the arena, after he's told by his manager that he'll never make it in the pros. Eddie is out of a job and is sick of eating pancakes (his mom is poor). Stanley's never had a job and doesn't want one, and Sergeant Carter is in deep trouble with the bookie.
So, they rob the arena and kill a cop in the process. We already know this because it's the first scene in the movie, which then goes into flashback mode to tell how each of the boys got to this point in their lives. It's one of those 1950s "This Could Be You!" juvenile warning films, except that these guys are a little older than teenagers, they're all around 20.
They all get caught right after the robbery/murder of the cop, and are locked up together when the prosecutor visits. He tells them "one of you is going to The Chair, if he talks. If no one talks (admits to the murder) you're all going to The Chair". The movie then, for the final fifteen or twenty minutes, turns into a 12 Angry Men-style debate over who should cop to the killing. It was dark in the arena when the officer was shot, but it looked like Sergeant Carter had the gun. The four decide to roll dice to see who will take the blame (one of them just happens to have a pair of dice in lockup). When Eddie loses, he says he won't talk after all. "Why should I?" he says. "I didn't shoot the cop". He's right, but he already agreed to the dice game. This is in keeping with his petulant nature as the whiner of the group. He keeps bitching to his Mom about the pancakes, among other things. I can't tell you what ultimately results from the dice game, but if you think of the Three Musketeers slogan, or "I Am Spartacus", you'll get the general idea.
The actor playing the bookie is really good, and in fact this is a New York-style method acting flick, quite good for a B movie. Sergeant Carter is the best of all, showing the vulnerability of a young man in his position. We never see if he has parents, or a place to live. After he kills the cop, he goes to a bar where an older woman picks him up. He goes with her to her apartment, to have a place to hide, but she figures out that he was part of the robbery gang (it's all over the news) and she calls the cops after sending him to the liquor store. Then his night spirals out of control and the next thing you know, all the boys have been apprehended.
It's great stuff in a late 50s jazz score kind of way, a mixture of "How did such nice boys go wrong"? with some slammin' Be-Bop blazing in the background. Well, the truth is, not all of them were nice. Eddie was the most messed up, followed by Carter. Stanley is a misfit who only feels comfortable in his clique, and Johnny is the odd man out, the married boy with a chance for success (at boxing). He's never done a wrong thing in his life.
But now, they're all gonna go to The Chair. The Chair, I tell you! Two Big Thumbs Up for "Four Boys and a Gun". It's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. /////
That's all I know for tonight. I hope your week is off to a good start, and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment