Last night, we saw Johnny Mack Brown in "Undercover Man"(1936), in which he shows a tougher, more cynical side to his character. JMB usually displays that Alabammy charm to everyone, even the criminals he's shooting it out with, but in this movie he's a little more blunt in his dealings. As the movie opens, he's riding the stage into town, sitting across from the beautiful "Linda Forbes"(Suzanne Kaaren, one of the original Rockettes). He tries making conversation but can't get a word out of her, so he pulls out his harmonica and starts playing. That makes her laugh and they get acquainted, but then there's an attempted robbery when four masked men ride up and demand the strongbox. As "Steve McLain", Johnny Mack shows himself to be handy with a shootin' iron and plugs two of the bandits. Then he stops off in Linda's town to alert the Sheriff to what happened.
When he he gets there, the stage driver exalts his courage. "If it wasn't for Mr. McLain here, we'd a lost the strongbox". He's lauded by "Ace Pringle" (Ted Adams) the owner of the saloon, but then the Sheriff looks in McLain's bag and finds a whole mess of badges. Steve's a lawman! And the Sheriff is a crook (of course). It turns out that he's in the pocket of Ace the saloon owner, and are you surprised that there would be a crooked Sheriff in a 60 minute western? The Sheriff and Ace are behind all the stage robberies, but every time they try to kill Steve McLain, something goes drastically wrong. They try to shoot him, hang him, drug his beer, you name it. There's a hilarious bit when the Sheriff is supposed to set him up for an ambush, but the gunman gets caught in a canvas tent. You have to see it to know why it's funny, but you can trust me that it is.
There isn't a developed plot, and Suzanne Kaaren's character doesn't seem to have a central conflict. There's no father figure to disapprove of Johnny Mack, or romantic rival to steal her away. The script focuses on the Sheriff and Ace against Steve McLain, and each side's attempts to get the strongbox, so in that sense it's a thin script, but the direction is top notch, making this one of the best JMBs we've seen so far (they're all the best). Many fans feel, and I agree, that he was the #1 cowboy star of the movies, even higher than John Wayne. Wayne was made for a later era. But as we have discovered, the best Westerns were the early ones, and Johnny Mack Brown is the king of the early Western era (with Tom Tyler a close second). For comic relief in "Undercover Man", there's "Dizzy" (Frank Darien), Steve's accordion playing sidekick. Ted Adams is his usual Snidely Whiplash self as Ace Pringle, evil personified. It's mentioned early on that Suzanne Kaaren is the judge's daughter, but there's almost no follow-up to that subtheme. She's always shown alone or with Steve. There's very little character development other than what I mentioned, but it's still one of the best of the JMB Westerns and I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. Give it a look and see why. With beautiful location footage from Kern River, it's very highly recommended and the picture is a little soft but not bad. ////
The previous night, we watched Tom Tyler again, in "The Laramie Kid"(1935), another 20th century Western with cars in it. Was Tyler the only one who made these? Here he plays "Tom Talbot", who goes to see his girl "Peggy Bland" (Alberta Vaughan) at the beginning of the movie. She's hoping they'll get married, but Tom has gambled away all of his savings. Peggy is broken hearted, though Tom's lack of fiscal responsibility isn't her only trouble. The bank is about to foreclose on her Dad's ranch, unless Peggy will play sweet with the banker, which Dad encourages her to do. Tom leaves the house before Dad (Murdock McQuarrie) gets home, because Dad doesn't like him anyway, but before he leaves, he vows to earn back the 2000 dollars he lost gambling, so he can marry Peggy like he promised. While he's outside hiding from Dad, he overhears that Dad and Peggy are gonna lose the ranch, which makes him vow to bail them out too. In addition, he told Peggy that he's gonna quit gambling.
Well, bad luck strikes when he rides into town, just as a bank robbery is happening. The robbers knock him down and he loses his hat. An old geezer I.D.'s it as belonging to Tom, so the Sheriff thinks he was in on the robbery. He's tried, convicted and sentenced to five years on a work gang. Here's where we know we're in the 20th century because they're constructing paved roads with tractors. Peggy visits him in jail and promises to find the real robbers. On the work gang, Tom meets an old pal named "Shorty" (Snub Pollard), who tells him that a guy up in Black Rock Canyon is bragging about committing the bank robbery. There's a shack up there owned by the banker, and it turns out that he's behind the robbery of his own bank! He set it up to cover the fact that his bank was in arrears. When it's robbed, he can blame the losses on the robbery. What a colossal crook! But now that Peggy is hot on the trail, riding up to Black Rock Canyon to find the robber, he's gotta shut her down, even though he tried to bargain for her as "collateral" for her Dad's ranch, earlier in the movie.
While Tom is working on the road gang, several escape attempts are made by other prisoners. In one of these attempts, Tom happens to be driving a truck, and the prisoners force him to be their getaway driver. Now it looks like he was trying to escape, too, and he's gonna get years added to his sentence, so he figures he might as well escape for real and help Peggy catch the bank robbers. Well, by this time, the guy in Black Rock Canyon at the shack is in bad shape from being shot during the bank robbery. Peggy finds him and he's coughing up blood. He doesn't have long to live so he confesses everything. He tells her about the crooked banker, he tells her that Tom had nothing to do with it. But just then the banker rides up with his henchmen and catches her talking to the robber. Even though he wanted her when the movie began, now he has to kill her so she wan't talk, but Tom and Dad and the Sheriff all ride to the rescue for what turns out to be a whale of a grand finale. This is great, great stuff folks. Filmed in Santa Clarita, I recognized Rice Canyon and Placerita, and maybe even Whitney Canyon too. Life should be one big 60 minute Western, doncha think, and how great would it have been if they made one starring both Johnny Mack Brown and Tom Tyler, and with a Zane Grey script! Man oh man, I tell ya. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Laramie Kid". The print is a tad soft but quite watchable. ////
That's all I have for tonight. The next blog might be one or two days late; here's why. In my building, they've been doing repair work on the ceilings of all the units. My turn has come up, so starting Monday, I have to temporarily stay in the vacant unit next door for three days. I'll be taking my essentials with me (food, books, my computer, etc), but the thing is, I don't know if my wi-fi will work in there. If it does, I'll write the blog as usual, and I'll also be able to watch movies. But if the wi-fi doesn't work, the blog will be delayed to Wednesday night, and the only time I'll be online is at FB for an hour at the library. Hopefully the wi-fi will work, so check back to look for a blog at the regularly scheduled time (pronounced shedge-yooled). If it's not there, it will definitely be up on Wednesday night.
I hope you are enjoying your weekend, and I send you Tons and Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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