A Rough Riders Double Bill: "Arizona Bound" and "Ghost Town Law" (Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton)

We've got a Rough Riders double bill this time, beginning with "Arizona Bound"(1941), the first film in the series. U.S. Marshal "Buck Roberts" (Buck Jones) is all set to retire on his Arizona ranch, when he gets a telegram from his captain "Bat Madison" (gotta love that name), asking him to come back one last time to help out on a case involving a Wells Fargo stage line in Mesa City. Buck is loyal to the Riders (and the Marshal's Office) and can't say no, even though he'd rather be kickin' up his heels over a plate of ribs n' beans. One thing you have to understand about the Rough Riders is that they work separately at first, and by deception. Each Rider plays a role to deceive the bad guys, so at first, Buck goes to Mesa City posing as a cattle rancher who needs livestock. Through "Ruth Masters" (Luana Walters), the gal that runs the stage, he finds out that the town is going under. It's lawless, they don't have a Sheriff, and the last seven stage drivers have been killed. Buck already knows this, of course, but he has to maintain his cover. Ruth explains the relentless string of stage and gold robberies. Buck volunteers to drive a stage himself. "I want to start my ranch and I'd like to help clean up the town". At the same time, an itinerant preacher shows up at the local saloon. He's "Marshal Tim McCall" (Tim McCoy), in disguise of course. McCall is another one of the Riders. The tough guys in the bar call him a Sky Pilot. I've wondered where that phrase originated, as my brother and I liked the song of that name by Eric Burdon and the Animals, and we had our own version, so it was interesting to hear the phrase used as an epithet, and in an Old West movie to boot.

McCall shows the hoodlums who's boss when he whips out his six gun and shatters a honcho's beer mug. "Pilot that!", he exclaims. Then he challenges the owner of the saloon to a card game, 500 bucks a hand. "I need a new church and you're gonna pay for it when you lose." The saloon owner is of course the crook behind the stage robberies. We can repeat the Western Hierarchy of Criminals if need be, but saloon owner is in the top 5. When Tim wins enough hands to score five gees for his church, he quits. "Pay up by tomorrow", he tells the guy.

Raymond Hatton plays "Marshal Sandy Hopkins", the third of the Rough Rider trio. He always disguises himself as a disheveled bumbler of one sort or another, but his nickname as a Marshal is Killer. In a pinch, he can always be counted on to save Tim and Buck, and in many cases, he's the one who does the investigative work while the other two are duking it out with - or being framed by - the bad guys. Killer is the Columbo of the group.

I got a huge kick out of the saloon owner (Tristam Coffin) being named "Mr. Taggart". "Blazing Saddles" fans will get the reference. The plot is simple, just the Riders against the stage bandits. There's no romance until the very end, when Buck points his gun at Ruth Masters and her boyfriend and orders them to get married, which is also part of the comic relief. Also funny is Ruth's "Aunt Mildred" (Kathryn Sheldon), who huffs and puffs about going back to Kansas City, a "civilized town". Buck Jones has a great line at the end of the movie when she finally leaves, now that the stage line has been saved. He tells Aunt Mildred to "get your hoofs up" on the bench seat, and the line goes by so fast that she does a double take (my hoofs?!) and it's a total crack up, worthy of a comedian's insult. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Arizona Bound". The picture is soft but watchable. ////

The previous night, the Rough Riders investigated the murders of two Marshals in "Ghost Town Law" (1942), a mysterious Western with spooky overtones. Something weird is going on in the town of Pickwick. "Keep Out" signs are everywhere, including the graveyard, but no one goes there anyway; it's a ghost town and the only resident is old lady Pickwick, who lives in a Victorian joint resembling the Psycho house with her creepy Indian assistant "Pawnee" (Frank Lackteen), who skulks around and makes coffee. This is one coffee drinkin' movie; someone's always downing a cup, and as the movie opens, we find out there's people in Pickwick after all. Outlaw "Red Larkin" (Tom Corbett) is hiding out in the tunnels of the old Pickwick mine, along with his henchmen (including Charles King, thank goodness).

Red knows that old lady Pickwick has gold stashed in her creepy house. He aims to get it, and the rest of the gold in the mine, but first he has to get rid of the foreman at Pickwick Ranch, a young guy who's in love with "Josie Hall" (Virginia Carpenter), Lady Pickwick's niece, who's just arrived in town to inspect the mine after the old lady falls dead.

Meanwhile, the Rough Riders have convened per their captain, Bat Madison. Tim McCoy is always the overt one. Here he works openly, as he usually does, as a US Marshall, in this case to investigate the old lady's death. Buck Jones appears later on as a bedraggled drifter, covered in dirt, who's "near death" when he stumbles to the Pickwick doorstep. It's a ploy to get inside the house, but at first you don't know that he's a good guy.

Raymond Hatton similarly ingratiates himself with an old geezer named "Luke Martin" (Milburn Morante), who lives in a shack near the mine, and knows the goings on of the ghost town. A masked rider is trying to kill Buck Jones (the drifter), and then the young ranch foreman. Of course, the rider is Charles King, and when King finally takes on Raymond Hatton, the two tumble down a mine shaft, and Hatton discovers the labyrinth of tunnels. When Luke Martin finds out that Hatton is a Marshal, he actually utters the line "what in Tarnation are ya doin' here?"

At first, there's confusion in the plot, because the mission of the Riders isn't specified at the beginning, as it was in "Arizona Bound". Also, Tim McCoy's role is minor this time. Mystery is the key aspect over plot, but once the Rough Riders come together in the last fifteen minutes, it all begins to make sense. The bottom line is that movies don't get better than the Rough Rider series. They're all about the camaraderie between the three leads, and their different specialties in crime solving. They always go their separate ways when the case is over: McCoy to Wyoming, Hatton back to Texas, and Buck Jones to Arizona, where he retires at the end of every movie. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Ghost Town Law". The print is very good. I can't recommend this series highly enough.   

That's all for tonight. I'm listening to Glenn Gould play the French Suites by Bach, and I wish you a very nice weekend. I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Randolph Scott (you sing the chorus) in "Rocky Mountain Mystery", and "Between Men" starring Johnny Mack Brown

How about a mystery/Western hybrid? Zane Grey pulls it off with aplomb, in "Rocky Mountain Mystery"(1935), starring the great Randolph Scott. At this point, I'm trusting you to sing the Randolph Scott chorus on your own, and please don't do it halfheartedly. Give it all you've got, okay? Thanks. Scott plays "Larry Sutton" a mining engineer, called to the Ballard Radium Mine in Big Bear as a replacement for his brother-in-law Jack Parsons, who's walked off the job without notice. When Sutton gets there, he learns there's been a murder. Adolph Borg, the mine's manager, has been killed on site and in a most gruesome way, by being placed under the stamp mill, a giant ore-smashing machine. Needless to say, there isn't much left of him to examine. Nevertheless, Sutton meets "Tex Murdoch" (Chic Sale), an old geezer living in a shack who claims to be the town Sheriff. He's got what's left of Mr. Borg laying in a back room. The first ten minutes of the movie is an extended scene between Sutton and Tex in Tex's shack. In a semi-comic turn, actor Sale plays Tex as a crotchety "Festus" type, who swears he's gonna solve him the "gol' durn" case if its the last "dad gum" thing he ever does, goldurnit! He shares a ham steak supper with Larry Sutton, who then leaves to introduce himself to old "Mr. Ballard" (George F. Marion), the mine's bedridden owner.

Ballard bemoans the death of Adolph Borg, and tells Larry that someone may be out to get him too. A masked rider has been seen in the area. Radium has turned out to be worth a lot of money, with the advent of modern medicine.

The Shur-ff (Sheriff) suspects Jack Parsons in the murder. As mentioned, he was the mining engineer before Sutton. Sutton doubts it. "I know Jack. He's going to marry my sister. He isn't the murdering type". Sutton then meets Ballard's granddaughter "Rita" (the great Ann Sheridan in one of her first roles), who lives at the mine. She seconds Larry's opinion. "Jack Parsons didn't do it. He was a good employee for my grandfather." She thinks it could have been a brother and sister nephew/niece team who stand to inherit Mr. Ballard's estate, now that Adolph Borg is out of the way. But then the nephew is murdalized, once again under the stamping machine. That lets him off the hook as a suspect, but what about his sister? She can't stand Mr. Ballard, wants his money, and doesn't want to share it with anyone. But that doesn't mean she'd kill her brother. And what about "Mrs. Borg" (Leslie Carter), the housekeeper? Mr. Ballard kept her on, after her husband's death, and a long-ago affair is rumored. A son is involved, is he illegitimate? You'll have to ask Zane Grey and he's probably not talkin'. The plot is Ten Little Indians, but it isn't confined to one room. The movie was filmed on location at an actual stamping mine in Big Bear, the Kober-Dober mine.

The acting is superior by all involved, and we have not one but three of our earliest actors ever, including......drum roll please.....the new record holder, Leslie Carter, born in 1857. She was three years old when the Civil War began, imagine that. In addition to Miss Carter, we also have Charles F. Marion, born in 1860, and Florence Roberts (as "Mrs. Ballard"), born in 1861. Just to give you an idea of how far out that is, in a mindblowing way, consider my great-grandmother Catherine Kelly, who was born in 1859. Now imagine her at 6 years old, when a child is fully aware of what's going on and is able to form lasting memories. Great-Grandma Kelly would've been 6 in 1865. Imagine her shaking hands with her own great-grandma, or any woman who was 90 years old at the time. That woman would have been born in 1775, or one year before America became a country. Mozart was 19 then. So if that lady shook hands with great-grandma Kelly, and she shook hands with Dad (she helped raise him), and Dad shook hands with me, then I'm only three handshakes away from Mozart and the American Revolution. You are too, in your own family tree. Isn't that far out? I think it is, because when we think of "history", it always seems like such a long time ago, and yet here, in this case it's within three handshakes. In any event, Two Big Thumbs Up for "Rocky Mountain Mystery". The picture is very good. ////

The previous night, we saw another great Johnny Mack Brown drama, "Between Men (1935). With JMB you always get stories with extra heart, and in this film the feeling goes deep, as the Johnny Mack character (also named "Johnny") loses his father as a child. His dad is blacksmith "John Wellington", and you might think he's no good, because he's branded little Johnny with a horseshoe on his chest. But despite that (and he may have done it for a reason, i.e child theft in the Old West, though no reason is ever given) he does love his son, that much is obvious. But one day, "Sir George Thorn" (Lloyd Ingraham) rides into town with his little granddaughter on their buckboard. A lowlife named "Trent" (Earl Dwire) and his honchos insult them, making cracks about the little girl's absent mother (i.e. that she was a harlot). 

Big John Wellington the blacksmith won't stand for that kind of talk. He storms the men and beats them up, but there's four of them, and eventually one gets free. He takes a shot at Wellington and hits his little son instead. Wellington, thinking his beloved little Johnny is dead, goes after the hoodlums with a gun. He shoots one guy dead, then runs off and becomes a fugitive. He has nothing more to live for with his son dead, but what he doesn't know is that a doctor was able to save little Johnny's life. The boy is then adopted by old Sir George Thorn, who leaves him his estate in his will. By now, little Johnny is all grown up and is Johnny Mack Brown. Sir George, on his deathbed, has one final wish, that Johnny locate and return with his granddaughter, who left him years earlier after a falling out over her mother. Johnny heads out, and asks around about "Gail Winters", who would now be in her early twenties. In a twist of fate, he discovers she's been living with an older man named "Rand" (William Farnum), who been acting as a father figure/protector. Rand has been at war with the Trent gang, who steal from everyone in the area, but men on his own meager crew have had their eyes on Gail for a long time. While Johnny is searching for her, a harrowing scene takes place, in which some of Rand's men decide to rape her while he's out of town.

This scene is no joke, and is about as realistic as could be portrayed in a 1935 Western. The men never get ahold of Gail, but she overhears what they're planning and runs for her buckboard. The horses take off, she's slapping the reins as hard as she can, and before long she's out of control. The hoodlums are chasing her down on their horses, and it's a terrible but realistic scene, and you can imagine a woman trying to flee from such men, and in this case the actors portrayed them as absolute Wild West lowlifes. Beth Marion was a great actress also, and the whole scene is just awful. But then Johnny Mack rides in and saves her at the last minute, just as she's about to ride off a cliff.

After that, it's easy to despise Trent and look forward to what's coming to him when JMB and Rand finally catch up to him. There's also gonna be a huge plot twist that I can't reveal, but Johnny does tell Gail that Sir George wants to reconcile with her before he dies.

There's also a conflict between Johnny and Rand. They get into a punchout over Gail, when Johnny tells Rand he wants to marry her. Rand thinks of Gail as a daughter and doesn't want any rank-and-file cowpunch taking her away. Johnny Mack says he loves her, and that leads to the fight, which leads to the humongous plot twist. That's all I can tell you, but again this is a first-class Western drama, with more depth than your standard cowboys & crooks plot. We'll have to look for more from William Farnum, who plays Rand. He was a well-respected Silent actor and is excellent in this film. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Between Men". The picture is very good. ////

That's all for tonight. I'm listening to "A" by Jethro Tull, a fantastic album that I hadn't heard before. Tull and Uriah Heep are this year's Binge Bands, I'm hooked on both. :)

I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Tom Tyler in "Coyote Trails", and "The Two-Gun Man" starring Ken Maynard (plus Alice Cooper at The Greek)

Last night, I did go to the Alice Cooper concert (more on that at the end of the blog), but I got home at 11:30, which meant there was time for a Tom Tyler movie. In the misleadingly titled "Coyote Trails"(1935) - because there is not a single kye-ote in the film - Tyler plays "Tom Riley", a cowpoke lookin' for a job. As the movie opens, he and his partner "Windy" (Ben Corbett) are riding through Newhall when they see a runaway horse. The female rider is about to fall off. Naturally, being the gallant gents they are, they ride to her rescue. It turns out she's "Helen Baker" (Alice Dahl), the daughter of "John Baker" (Lafe McKee), the owner of the Bar-X ranch. Mr. Baker is mighty pleased that the boys have saved Helen, and he offers them jobs. "But, I don't know how long I can keep you on. We're losing a lot of our horses. A whole corral broke loose last night and ran off. There's a wild horse in the area that's aggravating them, a horse who's a horse thief if you think about it. We call him The Phantom". The audience knows, however, that Phantom isn't the problem. We've already seen another rancher, "Mack Larkin" (Richard Alexander) using Phantom for his own benefit, to steal horses from the Bar-X. John Baker's foreman tells him it's on account of Phantom, and Baker believes him, but the foreman is in cahoots with Mack Larkin, who cuts him in on the profits. How it works is that Larkin has his henchmen coax Phantom to the Baker's corrals, where he frightens the other horses into breaking out. Then he chases them away. Larkin commiserates with Baker, claiming he's lost horses to Phantom also. But in truth, he's behind the whole plot. He and Baker's foreman hide the stolen horses in Bronson Cave, and Larkin hides some of his own his horses in there too, to make it look good, like Phantom is the real horse thief who is causing all the trouble for the ranchers.

When Tom and Windy get jobs at Bar-X, Tom examines the corral and tells John Baker, "Your thief has two legs, not four; horses don't carry wire cutters in their pockets". The fence wire has been cut, but Baker can't think of a suspect. He still believes Phantom is responsible. He puts a 1000 dollar bounty on Phantom's head, but Tom says, "don't kill him, give me a chance to catch and break him. Then I'll prove the thief is a human being." He becomes suspicious of Mack Larkin because Larkin keeps trying to free Phantom every time Tom ropes him. Larkin can't afford to have Phantom tamed. This leads to enmity between Larkin and Tom and a whole lot of punchouts ensue, more than in most of these movies. They overdo that aspect, and it gets tiresome, but the real star is Phantom himself, a trick horse to rival Ken Maynard's Tarzan.

He's the main reason "Coyote Trails" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, though Tom Tyler is great as always.

The previous night, we watched Ken Maynard in "The Two-Gun Man"(1931). A shootout is blazing in the middle of the street after a card game gone wrong in the saloon. When "Blackie Weed" (Maynard) saves a woman who is caught in the open, her father - Mr. Markham, a wealthy cattleman - offers Blackie and his partner "Joe Kearney" (Lafe McKee) jobs as two-gun men, protectors of the ranch. A two-gun man is like an unlicensed lawman. A rep for a cattle conglomerate has already come into town and told Mr. Markham (Murdock McQuarrie) that his company is moving in 40,000 steers, "whether you like it or not". It's free range land, as decreed by the federal gubment, and there's nothing that Markham can do about it. Plus, the cattle corporation has a dozen two-gun men on its payroll. Marham decides to get his own men, and that's when the range war starts. The conglomerate rep is a crook. He has his henchmen run hundreds of Markham's cows off a cliff.

There are a lot of diversions in this film, such as a romantic subplot where Joe Kearney decides to do the talking for Blackie. Joe proposes to the gal in Blackie's place, because he's too shy to do it himself. That's part of Ken Maynard's onscreen persona, he's a nerd around girls. He's the most "aww, shucks ma'am" of all the movie cowboys.

Charles King gets his butt kicked once again by Tarzan, but as the movie opens, for a minute you think he's gonna play a good guy. This is very early King, 1931, so he's reasonably thin, with a full hairline and minimal jowls, and in the opening scene, it looks like he's gonna be the one to save Mr. Markham's daughter, but when the shootout gets too intense, her ditches her to save his own life. That's the Charles King we know best, haha. That's when Ken Maynard runs in to save her.

This movie is big on chases and action. There's little plot, save for the cattleman's repeated attempts to have Blackie killed and/or frame him. Lafe McKee gets ample screen time as the elderly Joe Kearney, an expert gunfighter, who at one point instructs two-gun recruits on the fine points of "snap shooting". This part of the movie was fascinating, because, when you watch these 60 minute Westerns, a lot of the cowboys, and especially the stars, tend to shoot with a floppy wrist, like they're "flipping" the shot out of the gun. As a viewer, you watch and think "there's no way he could ever hit anybody, he's just flopping the gun around". I am in no way a gun person, I don't like guns, but I Googled "snap shooting" and it's a real thing. So, rather than the modern cinematic way of depicting it, where an actor takes a stance, extends his or her gun arm, grabs the shooting wrist for support, and makes a perfect shot - all of which takes time - the "snap shot" technique is in fact what most gunfights were like, just guys in the middle of chaos hoping to hit something.

To finish off the plot, of course Ken Maynard finds out that Charles King is working for the cattle corporation (he's a double crosser). And of course they try to frame Ken for the murder of the ranch foreman. Tarzan escapes captivity to expose Charles King's involvement, and the newly trained Two-Gun recruits form a posse to track down the cattle corps henchmen. It's great stuff, filmed entirely in Placerita Canyon. Lafe McKee is another guy who should have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's not just the 450 movies he was in, it's his screen presence. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Two-Gun Man". There are several versions with that title, so make sure you look for the one from 1931 with Ken Maynard. It's highly recommended!

Now, for the concert. Me and Grimsley left at 5:30. There was little traffic on a Sunday evening, so we were parked off Los Feliz by a little after 6pm. Tip for concertgoers, never pay to park at The Greek. Park for free on sidestreets near Vermont and walk up the hill. It's only about 3/4s of a mile. Grim wanted to go to the box office so he could buy tickets for Bikini Kill and Ringo Starr,  but we were in our seats by 6:45 and chilled out until Ace Frehley came on at 7:38. This is the second time I've seen Ace open for Alice Cooper, and you might not imagine it cause I'm not a Kiss fan, but I really like Ace in concert. You know why? Because he's 100% for real. He plays '70s hard rock with a 70s sound, nothing fancy, he's not the greatest guitarist but he does a solo anyway, Ace-style. His between-song banter isn't forced, he just sounds like a New York guy talking to you on the street. "The world's so messed up these days", he mumbled. "What can you do? Say a prayer, I guess." Then he launched into a song. Or how about, "we played Paso Robles last night. Anybody know where the hell that is?" Or: "Paso Robles was bad, but I'm never goin' to Reno again. We played there two nights ago. The motel was a dump. My room wasn't even cleaned, towels all over the floor", then he starts another song. He's like a guy talking to ya on the subway. So yeah, Ace rules. And he may not be the best guitarist ever, but he's not half bad and he played for almost an hour. See him next time he opens for The Coop.

Alice Cooper came on at 8:56pm, and man, what a show. The stage set was like a cross between a Horror Hotel and a haunted pirate ship. Alice never breaks character, he never talks to the audience, not even to say "how ya doin', L.A.?" or introduce a song. The show is completely worked out, with stage positions choreographed for each band member, and the set moves forward seamlessly from song to song, there's no dead air in between. Something has to be said straight up : Alice Cooper has the best hard rock band in all of rock n' roll, and what's really incredible about that is they are a group of assembled musicians, hired guns. There are three guitarists: Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen, and Nita Strauss, each of whom is amazing. Nita has the most modern style of the trio, she plays fast in the EVH two-handed style, but she adds her own twists and does not come off as another clone. The other two guys play in a classic-rock, Aerosmith style, but they know just how to play those kind of licks to fit the Alice Cooper songs. The three trade solos, and with a rhythm section of Chuck Garric on bass and Glen Sobel on drums, it's the tightest "studio" band you'll ever see. At the end, when Alice finally did say hello, he introduced the band members, calling Sobel the best drummer in Los Angeles, and he's not kidding. The drum solo he did was in a league with Neil Peart, he's that good.

They played 25 songs, about half from the classic period, half from AC's solo career. Rare gems included "My Stars" from "School's Out" and "Devil's Food" from "Welcome to My Nightmare." The guillotine segment at the end, which is usually reserved for "The Ballad of Dwight Frye" was this time set to "Dead Babies", in which Coop was carried away in a straight-jacket before he could use his meat cleaver on Little Betty. Then they chopped his head off, only to see him resurrected for "Steven", one of the eeriest songs he's ever recorded. Two different Frankensteins made appearances, one to open the show (during "Feed My Frankenstein"), and one at the end ("Teenage Frankenstein"). Then they encored with the famous Coop/Pink Floyd medley of "School's Out/We Don't Need No Education". Alice's wife Cheryl Cooper was, as always, the featured dancer, who performed the roles of The Nurse and The Black Widow, among others. A new feature was a giant Billion Dollar Baby that waddled around the stage during said song. The whole thing was one big Nightmare and the crowd loved it! As I said to Grim on the way to the car, "Alice Cooper is the Ultimate Rock Star". He's just as great as ever at age 74, and this was the best time I've ever seen him, which is saying something. Man, that band is just incredible, and that stage show, and those songs.......and Alice Freakin' Cooper. He's as good as it gets, and that's all I know for this evening.

I hope your week is off to a good start, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Tim McCoy in "The Texas Marshal", and "Without Honor", a serious pre-Code Western w/Harry Carey

Last night, Tim McCoy was back in "The Texas Marshal". A businessman named "Moore" (Karl Hackett) has formed a civic group in Cactus Creek. Called "The League of Patriots", it claims to support law and order. Joining is encouraged, and is especially promoted to the local ranchers. But one rancher accuses Moore of being a phony. "You're just hiding behind the flag so you can steal our land"! Moore has found out about a large deposit if tin ore in the soil in Cactus Creek. He started The League of Patriots to create an infallible reputation as a Real 'Murican, because as anyone knows, no American Patriot would ever break the law, wink nudge (and as a side note, it must be mentioned that it's interesting to see phony flag-waving exposed in a Western movie, especially in 1941. Having said that, I am not against flag-waving or patriotism. Only the phony kind.) Back to the plot, Moore is buying up ranches on the side, for the usual cut-rate prices. Ranchers that won't sell turn up dead, and Moore then buys their estates. If they do sell, they find out that Moore knew there was tin on their land. This one rancher threatens to expose him. Moore has Charles King shoot him dead. 

Moore is using a local country singer to promote The League of Patriots. Art Davis has a radio show and is also a member of The League. When the citizens rebel against the rancher being shot, Marshal " 'Trigger' Tim Rand" (Tim McCoy) is sent in to restore order and solve the case. He starts by searching the dead rancher's house. There, he finds rocks containing tin ore. Right away, he goes to the assayer's office and asks to look in the safe, but Moore and his gang have found out about the house search, and they've already removed all the tin out of the assayer's office. Marshal Tim takes fingerprints, which lead him to Charles King. But there's another set of unidentified prints. Tim believes King must be working for someone, because he's too much of a thug to be behind a mining scheme all by himself. Art Davis knows that King works for Moore, so Tim uses a radio broadcast - at which Moore be the MC - to try and get his prints off the mic stand. When Moore finds out he's suspected, he and Charles King kidnap Art Davis. This leads to a chase and the final showdown out in Placerita Canyon. As always, you can't beat Tim McCoy. You also get music, though -while Art Davis has a pleasant voice - I prefer the Western swing of groups like The Jimmy Wakely Trio. Still, with McCoy you can't go wrong, and this is also another big role for our buddy Charlie King. He gets lots of dialogue and screentime, and he's even cleaned up this time around, with a trim moustache instead of his usual walrus. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Texas Marshal". The picture is slightly soft. ////

The previous night, we watched a pre-Code Western with Harry Carey called "Without Honor"(1932). This one is dead serious. Carey plays "Pete Marlan", a "bad man" accused of stealing 1000 dollars in a crooked card came. It isn't true. Pete may be fast with a gun, but he's honest. He just likes to gamble, and that puts him at the table with criminals. His brother Jack is a white hat, a straight arrow Texas Ranger. They meet at a river as the movie opens. After some "long-time-no-see" small talk, Pete crosses over into Mexico, for some easy money card playin'. Jack heads back to the Ranger outpost, where "Captain Frank Henderson" (Lafe McKee) sends him out to investigate a smuggling ring. Jack is killed in an ambush. Pete gets word in Mexico, and heads back immediately to find out what happened. Captain Henderson tells him "Sorry, Pete, but it looks like your brother was part of the smuggling gang".  He gives Pete a note that was in Jack's pocket, implicating him in a payoff. But it's easy to see it's a framejob, and the Captain ends up agreeing. Pete joins the Rangers on the spot, to avenge his brother's murder.

Right away, the head of the Mexican bandito gang tries to kill him. They are the other half of the smuggling ring. Pete escapes by hiding out at the ranch of old flame "Mary Ryan" (Mae Busch). Then, the Captain's brother "Steve" finds him there. Steve is a Ranger also. He tells Pete that Jack is to be buried the next day, and that he'd better come out of hiding if he's gonna attend the service. Steve promises to have every Ranger available at the service, to protect Pete from the Mexican bandits. But when Pete goes to the funeral, he's told that Jack is being buried "without honor" (hence the title) because he is believed to have been a criminal. Pete is infuriated at the accusation, and the disrespect Jack is shown by the Rangers, and he sets out on his own to find the truth behind Jack's death, and who is behind the smuggling ring. On his way through the desert, he find a girl who has fallen in a creek. She's "Bernice Donovan" (Mary Jane Irving), and though she's injured from her fall, she begs Pete not to take her home, because her father is a monster who beats her.

This is where the movie takes a turn and the plot becomes even more dead serious. Pete does take Bernice back to the shack she lives in, with her big Irish brute of a Dad (Gibson Gowland). This leads to a long but incredible acting scene in which Irving, Carey and Gowland pull off, in a single extended take, a depiction of domestic violence that's terrifying yet gripping for it's pre-Code realism. I looked up Mary Jane Irving when the movie was over. She was a popular child actress in the Silent era. She's about 18 here, and super talented. Cute and funny, too, in other scenes. We'll be looking for more from her, and from Gibson Gowland, even though he's a terrible person in this movie. It turns out that he has a trained dog that takes messages back and forth across the border, along with cash payments, that are placed in the pockets of a waterproof vest that the dog wears when crossing the river. The dog is the key to the entire smuggling plot, and unfortunately I can't tell you who's behind it. Hint: it isn't the mean Irish Dad. But man, the emotion is raw in this film. The long scene between the aforementioned trio is worth the watch alone. 

One small problem I had is that I wasn't exactly sure what they were smuggling. Sometimes in these movies, when they're trying to pack a lot of story into a one hour framework, they'll have a character toss off, say, one or two lines about - in this case - a smuggling job. Then they'll mention the generic "smuggling", in general, for the rest of the movie, but if you aren't right on top of the dialogue for that brief moment when they specify the commodity, you won't remember what is being smuggled. In major A-list releases (and in novels and any kind of popular writing) the details of major plot points are repeated in different ways, at intervals, so that the readers (or viewers) never lose track of the important details. But in 60 minute Westerns, that's one drawback that you have to be ready for. If you miss a single line of dialogue, you might not know, in this case, what exactly is being smuggled. But anyhow, it's not about the smuggling per se, (although the swimming messenger dog steals the show). It's about, first, Pete's determination to prove that his Ranger brother Jack was not a crook. Secondly, it's about the theft of Mae Bush's ranch by the ring leader, and the fact that her daughter has been taken from her in infancy, and raised as the daughter of the big Irish madman. This is hard core pre-Code filmmaking, and everyone involved knocks it out of the park.

We're gonna give "Without Honor" Two Huge Thumbs Up instead of the usual Two Big. It's very highly recommended and the picture is quite good for it's age. Don't miss it!

That's all for this evening. Tomorrow night I am going to see Alice Cooper at the Greek Theater. This will be the fifth time I've seen The Coop, though I never got to see the original band, one of the great miss-outs of my concert going career. I always am amazed by the time factor, though, and this will be 47 years since the first time I saw him, in the summer of 1975 when he first went solo with Welcome To My Nightmare. I should be home before midnight, and that means we'll watch a movie!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Ken Maynard in "Branded Men", and "Rip Roarin' Buckaroo" starring Tom Tyler (with the great Charles King in both movies)

Last night we went way back to 1931 with Ken Maynard, in an early Western talkie called "Branded Men". It starts with a punchout at a stable. One ranchhand insults Ken, another hand defends him. Ken emerges to settle the fight, along with "Ramrod"(Irving Bacon) and "Half-A-Rod" (the diminutive Billy Bletcher), his two rodeo partners. The stable owner is impressed with Ken's people skills, and suggests that the trio head over to Steep Gulch, where the cowpunchin' jobs pay 75 bucks a month. "That's better than I can do for you here." But he warns Ken to be careful on the way, because horse thieves hang out on the trail, and they might just shoot you in the process.

Well, the stable owner's prediction comes true, in part, because when the guys get to the middle of the Brandeis Movie Ranch in the Santa Susana Pass, Charles King is laying in wait with his honchos. They trick Ken and company with a fake call for help, then ride off with their horses. King has his eye on Tarzan (who you know by now is Maynard's trick horse), and after he and his thieves leave our boys high and dry, he takes Tarzan back to the gang's hideout, where he tries to make him obey. But Tarzan won't tame up for King, so he does what you'd expect Charles King to do in this situation. He pulls out a bullwhip and......thank goodness they don't show it.

Of course, Tarzan escapes, and finds Ken and his partners walking to Steep Gulch on the trail. When Ken sees Tarzan's welts, he vows to find out who stole and whipped him, and when they get to Steep Gulch, the three cowboys volunteer to become the new Sheriffs. Steep Gulch is lawless. The last seven Sheriffs have been killed. "Three is better than none", Ken tells the town elders, who don't wanna pay for a trio, but end up glad they did, because a bank robbery takes place, and now all their money is gone. Good thing Ken and the Rods are there to get it back. Half-A-Rod gets shoulder-shot in the bank robbery shootout, and is taken to the home of the Wilson siblings, "Bud" (Donald Keith) and "Dale" (June Clyde). Bud works at the bank as a clerk. While Half-A-Rod is being nursed back to health by Dale, he finds out that "Ramsey" the saloon owner (Hooper Atchley) used Bud as a dupe for the bank robbery. Ken is focused on finding Charlie King, the enforcer of the gang, but it's really the saloon owner behind the whole thing.

Comedy relief comes in the form of Ramrod being tall, Half-A-Rod being short, and Tarzan gets revenge on his own, when he spots Charles King in the street. He runs after King and stomps him. That they do show, though not in any graphic way. King manages to escape by shooting at 'Zan, but Ken chases him to a cliff above Chatsworth Park, where a final struggle takes place involving death defying stuntwork.

It's a very simple plot, mostly to do with Ken Maynard finding Tarzan, but it's well executed by director Phil Rosen, and you get more speaking lines than usual from good 'ol Charlie King, who will also be featured in our second movie. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Branded Men". The picture is good but slightly damaged. ////

The previous night had Tom Tyler as a boxer-turned-bronco buster in "Rip Roarin' Buckaroo"(1936), another of his contemporary Westerns set in the 1930s. In the opening scene, he's winning an important match but then suddenly he goes down for the count. He loses the fight and passes out in the locker room. His dog Alexander wakes him up, he  discovers he was drugged and runs out to catch the other boxer and his manager. He beats them both up, then the trainer too, then he quits the boxing business, knowing all the fights are rigged. The next we see him, he's hitching a ride in the Alabama Hills, looking rather spiffy in a hat and three-piece suit.. A car comes along - in an usual place for a car - a jalopy driven by a goofy gent named "Frozen Face" (Sammy Cohen). Mr. Face just so happens to work for the nearby Hayden Ranch. He tells Tyler he can get him a job as a cowpunch, but only if Tom can drive the car (Frozen is a lousy driver). Tyler says yes. He puts Alexander in the back, and off they go. But the car stalls in a rut in the middle of the Alabama Hills. Another car pulls up behind them, though it's the last place you'd expect a traffic jam, and wouldn't you know it, it's driven by "Betty Rose Hayden" (Beth Marion), the impatient daughter of the ranch owner Frozen Face works for. She's a cutie, but boy is she rude. "Get that heap outta my way," she yells at Tom Tyler. He gets the car moving, and the next thing you know, he's got a job at the ranch in spite of Betty Rose. But because they've already met and argued, romantic friction has been established. 

Tyler disguises his identity when her Dad asks if he's "Scotty McQuade" the famous fighter. "No, I'm not," says Tom. "We just have the same name". He doesn't want anyone to know about his boxing career, because he went out with a loss. Who would believe him if he said he lost because he was drugged?

All he wants wants a fresh start, and he gets it in the form of an uppity horse named Blue Belle. Blue Belle is irascible. None of the ranch hands can tame her. Charles King, the ranch foreman, tries to ride her and is thrown (which makes two movies in this blog where Charlie gets his butt kicked by a horse, haha). Tom asks for a chance and he's thrown too. Then he gets a second try and breaks Blue Belle. After a rip snorting ride, she accepts Tyler and takes off on an open field run. The owner sees this and is thrilled. He decides to enter Blue Belle in a horse race. But meantime, Charles King, who is jealous of Tom Tyler, helps expose him as the former boxer. Mr. Hayden the ranch owner finds out he's been lied to. He won't stand for it and fires Tyler, who leaves the ranch along with Frozen Face and Alexander. He gives Blue Belle back to the Haydens.

Then, the enemy boxing manager shows up in town, the guy that drugged Tom to begin with. He's got a horse in the race, and he's also got a new boxer to promote. He challenges Mr. Hayden to a bet: "My horse against yours, for your ranch or 50 thousand dollars." But the only one who can ride Blue Belle is Tom Tyler, and Hayden fired him. Betty Rose says "I'll get him to come back", but he won't because he's tired of being treated like dirt. When he finds out the enemy boxing manager is in town, however, he does come back to enter the horse race. The manager frames Tom, by telling the Sheriff he's a fight fixer (even though the opposite is true), and Tom gets thrown in jail. Then we have a gender bender twist, as Frozen Face dresses up as his wife to break him out. Hollywood knew camp, even in Westerns, and everyone hams it up as the cross-dressing Face helps TT enter the horse race. He and Blue Belle win, but there's still the boxing match to settle. Alexander the dog is the hero in that one. 

This is one of the very best Tom Tyler movies, and a special note must be made about Charles King, who gets extra screen time and dialogue in this movie too. Although he's especially dislikeable in both films in this blog, because he's mean to horses in each one, he does get his comeuppance, and it was his job to be the bad guy in pretty much every flick he was ever in, which included hundreds and hundreds of 60 minute Westerns. He's been in, I'd guess, about 70% of the ones we've seen, and you just know when he comes onscreen that he's gonna deliver the goods as a surly, mustachioed, beer-bellied galoot. And then he's gonna start a punchout and get his butt kicked. You can lay money down on it, and because he's Charlie King, you can't wait for his appearance. After seeing him for about the two dozenth time, about a month ago, i said to myself "who is this guy? He's in every movie we've seen!", and I had to look him up. Sure enough, just as I suspected, he got his start as a comedian. Watching him as a bad guy (again and again), I said to myself, "he's gotta be a nice guy in real life", because nobody could be this mean. And nobody was ever meaner than Charles King. As a Heavy, he could show any one of today's bad guys (or from any period) how to do it. So he had to be a good guy in real life. He was also an alcoholic, and died of cirrhosis in his early '50s, and no one remembers him now, but I've become a huge Charles King fan in the last few months, and I think he should have a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Especially considering some of the (ahem) "talent" who've secured a spot on the Walk of Fame in recent years. Charlie King could show most so-called thespians a thing or two about acting. It's time he was given his due.

Two Big Thumbs Up for "Rip Roarin' Buckaroo". The picture is very good.

That's all I know for tonight. I'm listening to "Sweet Freedom" by Uriah Heep, one of the first albums I ever bought at College Records. I also listened to Ken Hensley's "Proud Words on a Dusty Shelf" for the very first time and it is quite good, very song-based in a classic 1970s way. Give it a shot if you haven't heard it.

I hope your day was good and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Johnny Mack Brown in "Raiders of San Joaquin", and "A Close Call for Boston Blackie" starring Chester Morris

Last night, in "Raiders of San Joaquin"(1943), Johnny Mack Brown and Fuzzy Knight are riding through Corriganville when they see four men chasing a lone rider. Always on the side of the underdog, they join the fleeing horseman and safeguard his passage to his ranch.There, he explains that the men were from the railroad police. He's "Gil Blake" (Tex Ritter), son of the ranch owner "Jim" (Joseph E. Bernard), who claims that the A and M railroad is trying to force them off their land. The railroad police then show up at the door to give their side of the story. They say that Jim Blake has been paid fairly and squarely for his ranch. When Jim reaches for his deed, to show that he never signed it over, one of the officers thinks he's going for his gun, and shoots him dead. Son Gil swears vengeance. Johnny Mack tries to talk him down. "Let the law handle it, Gil". Gil's girlfriend "Jane Carter" (Jennifer Holt) agrees. "If you go after them, you'll only get yourself killed." Jane's Dad is "Bodine Carter" (Henry Hall), the owner of another local ranch. He's trying to hold out against the railroad takeover by legal means. The last thing he needs is a showdown involving his future son-in-law.

But Gil is hell bent. He's going after "Gus Sloan" (George Eldridge), the town representative, who's acting as an agent for A & M. Sloan is forcing all the ranchers off their land by offering them fire sale prices for their ranches. If they won't accept, he has the railroad police serve them eviction papers. Johnny Mack Brown is curious as to where Sloan is getting the money to buy all these properties, so he assumes the character of a masked "Black Rider", who accosts Sloan at gunpoint, and makes him open his safe. Johnny Mack - as the Rider - finds a whole bunch of "reseda-ed" documents inside (that's what he calls 'em, reseda-ed documents, like somebody reseda-ed them) that reveal the money source behind Sloan's power plays.

Through some complex exposition, in which you need a scorecard to keep track of the characters, we discover that the owner of the general store is using Sloan as a front to steal the land. I don't know what he's selling out of that store, but he must be doing a land office business to be able to pay out 10 to 15 Gees per ranch in 1885 money. Holy smokes! Along with the plot, you get the sidetrack (not subplot) of Fuzzy's lunch wagon, which looks like an 1885 version of a food truck, complete with wagon wheels. You also get the Jimmy Wakely Trio, doing their great western harmonies. Tex Ritter sings a song, but he's downright mean in this movie. He even gets in a punchout with Johnny Mack, which you never wanna see, but in the end he realises Johnny was right. And there's a reason Johnny's been wanting Gil to follow the law and not seek vengeance. No, it's not because he's secretly the Sheriff, but he does have a secret. I won't tell you what it is, but you'll find out at the end of the movie. As noted, it's an ultra complex plot, much of which is explained through character names in dialogue, so if you get mixed up between the numerous Blakes, Carters, Rogers and Morgans, don't worry. Just have a bowl of Fuzzy's special soup, and the tangle will smooth itself out. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Raiders of San Joaquin". It's one of the dozens of Westerns JMB made for Universal in the 1940s, so the sets are better looking and you get extras like the lunch wagon. Some of that early Johnny Mack boyish charm is missing, because now he's ten years older and in his mid-30s, but it's still great stuff and the picture is razor sharp. ////  

Sunday night was Boston Blackie night, and boy did we love "A Close Call for Boston Blackie"(1946). As the movie opens, Blackie and Runt are riding in the back of Inspector Faraday's police car, but for once they aren't under arrest. Faraday is giving the boys a ride home after they teamed up to close out a case. Imagine that - the Inspector and Blackie cooperating! But no sooner do Blackie and Runt gets upstairs to their apartment than they hear a commotion on the street. Three thugs are pulling a girl from their car. Blackie and Runt run down there to find her unconcho. In a screenwriter's coincidence, she turns out to be "Gerry Peyton" (Lynn Merrick) a girl Blackie was sweet on, while her old man was locked up in prison. When Gerry wakes up she spills the beans; "I've got a child by him, Blackie". Blackie says, "What were you thinking, Gerry? You never should've married that crook! But who were those men who attacked you"? "They're trying to kidnap my baby for John. Blackie, he just got paroled!" Blackie wants to help her, and takes her up to the apartment to recover. But just then, her husband John kicks the door in. Blackie gets the jump on him, and slaps the cuffs on, but just as he's about to take John back to jail, one of the street thugs comes back and shoots John dead through the doorway. Blackie and Runt give chase, and the caper is on. Runt hides the baby at the apartment of "Mamie" (Claire Carleton) a blonde bombshell ditz, who's a waitress at the local sandwich shop.

Anytime you've got two men and a baby, and a fast talking smart-but-dumb blonde, the Screwball train is running in high gear, and it doesn't let up for a second in this movie. The bottom line is that Blackie finds out that the baby does not belong to Gerry, the girl he rescued. It's really the infant son of a man she's in cahoots with, as part of a plan to extort money from her dead husband's wealthy father.

Hilarious performances are the standard, all the way through. Standouts are Frank Sully as the dumbell "Sergeant Matthews" (who's such a nitwit they could've given him his own series), and Claire Carlton as Mamie the Waitress. Chester Morris shows his comedic range when he disguises himself as the elderly, rich father of Gerry's dead husband John. He looks and reminds one of Kelsey Grammer in this sequence, but actually it's the other way around. If you're not already a Blackie/Chester Morris fan, you will be after this movie. Two Big Thumbs Up for "A Close Call for Boston Blackie". The picture is razor sharp. //// 

That's all for tonight. I'm dealing with a sprained hand that isn't healing because I can't rest it. My left hand is all bent with Dupuytren's, and when they did the ceiling repairs in my apartment, I had to move a ton of stuff (and clean and rearrange), and my right hand (which has a Dupuytren's pinkie), got overused and I sprained two fingers. That was five weeks ago, and they aren't healing because I'm right handed and I have to use them to do dishes, etc. I mean, your hands are your hands. You have to use them. I've tried using my left hand for stuff, but only my thumb and two fingers work on that hand, and I'm not left handed. So I'm really hoping my right hand will heal. As of now, I'm down to about 60% capacity of what my hands used to be before I got Dupuytrens, which was a genetic "hand-me-down" (pun intended) from my parents, both of whom had the condition.........ahh, what can you do? Sorry to complain and it could be a whole lot worse. I'm just hoping my right hand will heal. And, I'm listening to Uriah Heep. David Byron was one hell of a singer.

I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.  

Tim McCoy as a Cop, in "Police Car 17", and "Dawn on the Great Divide" starring Buck Jones, Harry Woods, and Mona Barrie

Would you believe Tim McCoy as a cop? Yes you would; the only difference is the type of uniform and a squad car instead of a horse, but the no nonsense persona is intact, and so are the consequences for bad guys as he patrols the streets of Los Angeles in "Police Car 17"(1933). As the movie opens, he and his partner Ward Bond get a call about a child abduction. A woman is reporting that her ex-husband has taken their boy, who she has custody of. In truth, all the guy did was pick the kid up from school. He has visitation rights, and drove off a few minutes early, is all. McCoy is ready to arrest the guy, because he follows procedure, but you can tell he wants to give him a break, because the charge is trivial. The man simply made a mistake. McCoy leaves it up to the ex-wife if she wants to press charges. Then he asks their little boy what he would like to have happen. The kid says: "I wish my Mom and Dad would go home together", and that's the message of the scene. McCoy saves the day, and maybe the marriage. 

During the stop, he meets "Helen Regan" (Evalyn Rapp) a teacher from the school who was present as a witness. He and Bond offer her a ride home, and are impressed to learn she's the daughter of the legendary police lieutenant "Dan Regan" (Wallis Clark), who worked at the same station as McCoy and Bond years earlier. McCoy asks Helen if he can meet her Dad, she says yes, and he's shocked to discover that the old Lt. is confined to a wheelchair with a bullet in his spine, courtesy of master criminal "Big Bill Standish" (Edwin Maxwell). Standish is doing life for the shooting, but later that night, McCoy hears on the radio that he's just escaped from prison. We see Standish in a barber shop. The barber's a compadre of his, he trims Standish's hair so it looks like he's balding, gives him a fake Van Dyke beard, and voila - he's now incognito, posing as a college professor. He's on a mission to pay back the chief, who put him in prison. The first time he shot him, he only paralyzed him. Now he's gonna finish the job. The entire force is on the lookout for Standish, but in the meantime McCoy is also forming a relationship with Helen Regan, the lieutenant's daughter. She also has a boyfriend on the side, a car dealer who knew McCoy when they were kids.

A bank robbery takes place, and the car dealer might be involved. Is he a pal of Big Bill Standish? In the way the cronies are associated, the plot is similar to our 60 minute westerns. But the difference, besides genres, is that you get some utterly fantastic location footage with all the police chases. It looks like the movie was shot in Pasadena and the east Valley, and man, oh man I would love to know the streets because there's some very old storefronts. The action camerawork for 1933 is outstanding. Columbia was the studio so perhaps they gave 'em a bigger budget.

Tim will of course find out that Helen's car dealer boyfriend is a criminal. There is one horrible scene where he beats the tar out of the guy, and it's way too realistic (i.e. pre-Code). You can imagine that this was the way cops dealt with hoodlums in the old days, but even though they speed up the footage, it's still hard to watch. Arrest the guy, give him life in prison, but don't beat him to a pulp, it's just not right. Dan Regan the lieutenant has to get an operation on his spine (another Western plot go-to) and the criminals send a fake ambulance to pick him up and take him to their hideout instead of the hospital. McCoy has to find him for the final shootout with Big Bill Standish. Take the Western plots we know and love, and transfer them to an Adam 12 scenario, and there you have it - Two Big Thumbs Up for "Police Car 17". The picture is so-so, but don't miss it, not only for the movie but the aforementioned old-time locations.  ////

The previous night, we watched Buck Jones and Raymond Hatton, who make up 2/3rds of the "Rough Riders" franchise (Tim McCoy is the other third), guide a wagon train through Indian country in "Dawn on the Great Divide"(1942). As the movie opens, their associate "Jack Carson" (Rex Bell) is having a pow-wow with the elders of the local tribe. They smoke the peace pipe, and the chief tells Carson, in sign language, that it isn't Indians attacking settlers on the Oregon Trail, but white men dressed as Indians. Carson thanks the chief, then rides off to warn Jones and Hatton. A lengthy interlude takes place, as we are introduced to the settlers in the wagon train itself. Buck and Hatton ride past each coach, as a Happy Trails-type soundtrack plays. Buck says "hi" or "mornin" to each family, and we get introduced to the characters. From this intro, it is clear that a saga is ahead of us. Another clue is the 69 minute running time. This is not an ordinary Cowboys and Crooks Western.

On his way to the wagon train, Carson the Indian Scout stops in Beaver Creek to talk to "Jim Corkle" (Harry Woods), the proprietor of the general store and gambling house. Carson is now posing as a gambler, to fish for info on Corkle's possible connection to the attacks. If white men are posing as Indians on the trail, there aren't any other outposts in the area, so chances are good that Corkle knows something about it. We already know he's a crook. We've seen his henchman stopping the supply wagons from reaching Beaver Creek. They don't want settlers coming in because there's a gold mine they want all to themselves.

The wagon train settlers' saga is a plot unto itself, and - as we've talked many times about packing a ton of story into a short film format - this movie, at one hour and nine minutes, has enough story to fill a motion picture twice it's length. It's so complex, with the plot lines of the settlers intertwined with that of Jim Corkle, that to be honest I was unable to take in every detail, being used to the less complex plots of our recent White Hat/Black Hat Westerns.

The main subtheme involves a woman who dies in the back of a wagon belonging to "Sadie Rand" (Mona Barrie), a singer who - along with her husband - is on her way to Oregon to open a saloon. The dead woman leaves behind a baby that is a child of Jim Corkle's son. Corkle's brother, a crooked judge, and his harridan wife are also traveling in the wagon train, and they have a feud with Sadie Rand and her husband. Once Sadie has custody of the child, she has a wedge into the Corkles' hold over everyone in Beaver Creek. She demands half of Jim Corkle's gambling empire, otherwise, she's gonna expose his son, who has a bastard child and will no doubt have to pay child support in addition to the loss of his reputation.

Buck Jones gives a heartfelt performance in what was his last film before he died in the Coconut Grove nightclub fire, and I'll bet they passed out Kleenex when it was shown posthumously, due to the "wave goodbye" ending. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Dawn on the Great Divide", but you've really gotta pay attention because there is twice as much stuff going on as usual. The picture is razor sharp. /////

That's all for tonight. I hope you had a good weekend and a nice Easter Sunday. I had a nice birthday yesterday, I'm listening to Jethro Tull live, and I send you Tons of Love as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Tim McCoy in "The Prescott Kid", and "The Feud of the Trail" starring Tom Tyler (twice)

Last night, in "The Prescott Kid"(1934), Tim McCoy gets "dry gulched" on his way to Laredo by a henchman fronting for the head of a stage robbery gang. The gang boss has called for the ambush because he'a under the assumption that McCoy, as "Tim Hamlin", is the new Marshal, sent by the Feds to clean up Laredo and put him and his honchos in the slammer. But Hamlin is not the incoming Marshal. He's just a cowpoke looking for a job as a 'puncher. The stage driver calls him The Prescott Kid. "I seen him in Arizona". And, he just might be The Kid. He is quick on the draw. He heads straight for the saloon upon arrival and tells all the black hats, "I'm serving notice on the man who shot at me. He put a hole in my hat, and I really liked this hat." McCoy is again in "don't mess with him" mode. The owner of the saloon wants the customers to rough him up, but another man steps in to mediate, a rancher named "Ed Walton" (Stephen Chase). "Here now!" he says. "this man just wants a job". Walton sends Tim over to the Ortega Ranch, where he's hired as a foreman.

However, someone is trying to eliminate the Ortegas. The stage carrying their bank deposits is robbed, and "Don Rafael Ortega" (Carlos De Valdez) is knocked unconscious. His daughter "Delores" (Sheila Mannors) turns to the new foreman for help. Tim doesn't know what's going on, so he goes back to the man who ambushed him. "He thought I was the new Marshal, so he must be a part of the gang". Tim corners the guy at gunpoint, and forces him to talk, but just as he's about to name the leader, the old "open window shot" trick is used. A rifle barrel appears, a shot is fired through the windum and the dry gulcher dies before he can reveal who the boss is.

Tim runs out to chase the shooter, and bumps into a stranger, who tells him, "I could've caught the guy if you hadn't stopped me."

That stranger turns out to be the real Marshal (Joseph Sauers) who was sent to Laredo. He teams up with Tim Hamlin in a ruse to trap whoever is running the gang, who are now out to eliminate the peaceful Ortega family in order to steal their gold. Ed Walton offers to help the Marshal and Tim. He again acts as a mediator, but it seems like he's ignoring the obvious; there's nothing to mediate. The Ortegas are innocent victims. The black hats at the bar seem to know who's been targeting the family, but they aren't intimidated enough to talk. This is a situation where you have to cut the head off the snake, and of course we know where it will lead; Ed Walton is the gang leader, he's been playing both sides against the middle. Before the Marshal can prove this, because Walton has money for a lawyer, Walton frames Tim Hamlin for the theft of the Ortega's gold. A vigilante group is about to string him up, but the Marshal steps in for the very reason he was hired - to prevent lawless behavior.  Tim McCoy has maximum screentime in this one, it's all about his White Hat persona. Besides being an actor, he served in both World Wars and rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army Air Corps, so he was a hero in in real life, too. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Prescott Kid". It's highly recommended and the picture is very good. Charles King is great as always as the main henchman. ////

The previous night, it was Tom Tyler's turn to do the dual role thing, but with a twist. Instead of playing twin brothers, inevitably good and bad, in "The Feud of the Trail"(1937) he plays two men on opposite sides of the law who happen to look exactly alike, but are unrelated. "Jack Granger" (Tyler) is part of a criminal gang who are committing robberies in the Chatsworth Park area. Other members of the gang include the brothers of the neighboring Holcomb family, whose matriarch (Vane Calvert) is a rough and tumble Ma Barker type. She runs her sons with an iron fist and an attitude that would make Wyatt Earp back down. The Holcomb boys discover gold in a mine on the Granger property, and well, Jack Granger is up for stealing, but not from his own Pa and family. When he tells the Holcombs to leave this one alone, they shoot him dead. Then a cattlemen's security officer named "Tom Wade" (also Tyler) rides up with his sidekick "Jerry McLane" (Milburn Morante). They find Jack dying. He tells them the Holcombs did it. McLane says to Wade, "By jiminy, Tom, he looks just like you"! Wade gets an idea, to impersonate Jack Granger, in order to draw out the Holcomb brothers, who thought they had killed him.

But he's torn, because as an honest lawman, he feels it's necessary to inform the Grangers of his plan, and to tell them that their son is dead. When he goes to do this, "Dad Granger" (Lafe McKee) - who's just been "shoulder-shot" by a Holcomb - immediately thinks he's Jack, the prodigal criminal son, and he welcomes him back to the family. "I don't care what you did before, you're my son. From now on all is forgiven, let's move forward." Tom Wade is so caught up in the old man's joy at seeing his "son", that he can't bear to tell him the truth - that he isn't his son, his son is dead. He's just Tom Wade the lawman. So, he goes along with the charade and allows old Mr. Granger to think he's Jack. His daughter also thinks he's Jack, and he spends the night at their house, in Jack's bedroom, where he contemplates Plan B.

Prior to Wade's arrival, The Holcombs had already tried to bully Pa Granger into selling them his ranch for 25 thousand dollars. They know of the gold mine on his property. Pa's daughter says "No Dad, don't sell!" But the Holcombs are ruthless. Dad knows they will take his ranch one way or the other. He also knows the deal is a hoax. As soon as he accepts the 25K in cash and signs the deed, the brothers will return and steal back the cash at gunpoint. Then he won't have his ranch, or the money. Ma Holcomb is making sure her boys do their job. "We gotta have that gold!" she hollers. But by this time, Tom Wade has moved into the Granger house. He rides over to the Holcombs and pretends to be Jack. They thought they killed him and are astonished to see him alive.

Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Feud of the Trail" another Western classic from Tom Tyler. For all his onscreen heroics, though his persona is that of a nice guy, you might think he led a life not unlike that of Tim McCoy. But although Tom Tyler was a top weightlifter and Olympic athlete, his life was cut short by tragic health problems. He developed severe rheumatoid arthritis at 40 and died only ten years later. But he lives on forever in his long list of movies, and I can't recommend them highly enough. The picture on "Feud" is very good. ////

And that's all I know. I'm on a Tull kick, listening to "Heavy Horses". I'm very much enjoying "The Lyrics" by Paul McCartney , which I highly recommend if you're a Beatles fan. I've also been browsing the Barbara Stanwyck biography ("Steel-True" by Victoria Wilson), and I say "browsing" rather than reading because it's 1000 pages and I'm still working on McCartney, but in browsing I've come across a lot of info about the Marwyck Ranch, the property now known as the Oakridge Estate on Devonshire near Reseda. What I didn't know is that, when Barbara Stanwyck bought the property (which she named Marwyck) at the time it ran all the way to Lassen, and had a racetrack and 22 outbuildings. It was one of the biggest horse breeding ranches west of the Mississippi. Yesterday, as I was coming back from Trader Joes, I was driving on Devonshire so I thought, "I'll stop at Marwyck". There's a park now, next door, that I think I have mentioned. From there, you can walk around the back on a trail, so I did. You can see the tennis court, and it was fun to imagine Barbara Stanwyck and her husband Robert Taylor playing a game of tennis in the 1930s. You can also see the landscape all the way down to Lassen, and you can imagine the ranch, when there was nothing else there. In the book, it says that Barbara Stanwyck and Marion Marx, Zeppo's wife, used to ride their horses to Van Nuys on dirt trails. The Marxes lived next door on what is now the Chevrolet dealership.

Holy smokes, I can't believe I'm 62, officially a senior citizen. But when I think about it, it's also kind of cool.

I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Johnny Mack Brown in "Oklahoma Frontier", and "Code of the Rangers" starring Tim McCoy (plus Happy Ritchie Blackmore's Birthday)

Last night we were back with the King of the Cowboy Stars, Johnny Mack Brown, in "Oklahoma Frontier"(1939), a story of the land rush of 1889. As the movie opens, Johnny Mack - as "Jeff McLeod" - quits his job as a U.S Marshal. He just doesn't like having to shoot people, especially old friends who've gone bad. When he quits, so does his sidekick "Frosty" (Fuzzy Knight). Where Jeff goes, Frosty goes too, and they head out to Oklahoma City on the recommendation of their Captain: "They're givin' away free land". Jeff thinks he'll try his luck as a farmer. Meanwhile, young "Tom Rankin" (Bob Baker) and his sister "Janet" (the legendary Anne Gwynne) are departing their ranch, which has gone bust from the drought. They're gonna join the land rush too, though their Dad has to stay behind due to rheumatism. He tells Tom to take care of his sister, and to make sure and grab some land in a sector he's reserved for them, with a stream crossing. This will give Tom water rights that will lead to a prosperous farm.

But a crook named "Frazier" (James Blaine) is also vying for that land. Frazier is a big shot, with enough money to hire a claim jumper - "Saunders" (Bob Kortman) - to secure the land in his name, even though he'll be stealing it from the Rankins, who have that plot reserved as mentioned. Frazier promises Saunders five grand if he can jump their claim. Frazier says "no problem", but then Jeff McLeod and Frosty meet Tom Rankin in town. Jeff and Tom go way back. He asks Tom about Janet, who he remembers as a "little squirt". Janet is all grown up now, and what Jeff didn't know is that she had a crush on him back then, and still does. When Tom reintroduces them, she says to Jeff: "I've been proposing to you in my dreams every night since you moved away". He doesn't take her seriously at first, because he still thinks of her as a kid. Besides, he and Frosty are too busy to settle down. "We're gonna get some of that free land that's comin up", Jeff tells Tom. "Yeah, so are we", Tom replies. "Maybe we'll be neighbors". But then, in the saloon, Saunders the claim jumper overhears Tom and Johnny talking about the sector with the stream, and he interrupts to tell Tom, "you better not try for that land, a bunch of gunmen want it, and are gonna kill anyone who tries to stake a claim". Jeff, being a former Marshal, understands the insinuation and decks Saunders. A punchout ensues. Saunders later kills Tom Rankin, and - you guessed it - frames Jeff for the job in retaliation, by planting a map of the sector in Jeff's pocket, which makes it look like he killed Tom for the map, even though he drew it for the Rankins to begin with. Army soldiers guarding the land rush starting line arrest Jeff, and now that it's "proven" that he killed Tom Rankin, he's sentenced to hang in the morning.

Janet wants to marry him the night before, so she can rightfully claim the plot, because at that time, in Oklahoma, a woman could not own land unless she was 21, or married. Janet hates Jeff, because the frame job has worked. She believes Jeff killed her brother for the map. But she can't get the land unless he agrees to marry her, and he won't do it unless she'll hear him out. "I didn't kill Tom", he says. "Just marry me and make it right so I can get the land", she responds. "It's the least you can do before you die." But all may not be lost. Frosty has a plan to break Jeff out of the slammer before he swings. He sets himself up to blow the bugle call that will start the land rush in the morning. He does this ahead of schedule, with the help of "Mushy" (Horace Murphy), a drunk who hangs out at the saloon. Mushy is constantly badgering Frosty to play him some songs on the piano. I won't give away the gag, but it confuses the soldiers at the jailhouse. Frosty blows the bugle, the rush begins five minutes early, the soldiers run out to investigate and get caught in the massive covered wagon stampede. Frosty runs in and breaks Jeff out of jail. He's saved from the gallows, and they ride out to the indicated sector of land to shoot it out with Saunders and Frazier. Jeff clears himself with the soldiers, then of course he marries Janet, who now can claim the land in her name. As always, you get a complex plot in a Johnny Mack Brown Western, and some great music in addition, from a band called The Texas Rangers. Fuzzy Knight, when playing for Mushy the Barfly, sings a song about Cincinnati that made me think of my parents. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Oklahoma Frontier". It's highly recommended though the picture is a little bit soft. ////

The previous night, we had Tim McCoy in "Code of the Rangers"(1938), in which he plays Texas Ranger "Tim Strong". Subtle name, eh? If Johnny Mack is the overall King of the Western Cowboys, McCoy might just be the toughest. He certainly comes across as the most authoritarian, the dude you'd least want to have chasing you down the dusty trail if you were a bad guy. In this movie his brother "Jack" (Rex Lease), who he's looked out for since childhood, has become involved with a gold robbery and money laundering gang. In the opening scene, gang leader "Blackie Miller" (Wheeler Oakman) is wanted all over the territory. He's accused, among other crimes, of robbing the "Chatsville" bank, haha. At their hideout, Blackie pays his henchmen, but one of them has been caught during the robbery. "Don't worry", he tells the men, "he'll be out of jail before sundown". How is that possible when the guy's been caught red handed? It's because the gang has a plant in the jailhouse. Yep, it's Jack, who's also a Ranger but only because he's Tim's brother. Everyone knows Jack's a ne'er do well. The Sheriff thinks he let Blackie's henchman out of jail in the middle of the night. Tim asks Jack if this is true. Jack swears it isn't, but his response is so disingenuous that it gives his deceit away. Jack is then fired and threatened with jail himself. Only because he's Tim Strong's brother is he allowed to remain free. In fact, Tim covers for him once again. He pretends to be part of the robbery gang and takes the blame in Jack's place. When he goes to jail, then gets let out because the Sheriff knows he's fronting for Jack, Tim makes Jack promise to go straight.

But he doesn't. Instead he goes right back to Blackie's gang, which we find out is being assisted by "Mr. Price" (Edward Earle) the owner of the bank. That's how they are able to trade their loot for gubment bonds, which the banker then launders in Mexico. Finally, Jack screws up one too many times for Tim to continue bailing him out. He gets shot, and that's when McCoy turns up the revenge meter and lowers the boom on Blackie Miller. You don't want Tim McCoy on your bad side, as noted, which Blackie finds out at the end. Let's rank our gunslingers just for fun : If Johnny Mack Brown is the King, and Tim McCoy the Toughest, then Tom Tyler is the most Athletic. Buster Crabbe is the most Serious, or Dashing (whichever the role calls for). Ken Maynard is the most Earnest, and gets the Saturday Matinee Award as probably the most popular cowboy among kids (and, he's got Tarzan, the best horse). Harry Carey is the most Taciturn, the Loner of the bunch. Tex Ritter is certainly the Smoothest, and William S. Hart is the Grand Old Man of the whole bunch, the Artiste, and probably the best actor among the lot. He made A-level Westerns in the Silent era and invested them with genuine emotion, and he was one badass gunslinger to boot.

So there you have it. Two Big Thumbs Up for Tim McCoy and "Code of the Rangers". The picture is good and it's very highly recommended. I'm listening to "Fish Rising" by Steve Hillage. Tomorrow, I wish you a Happy Ritchie Blackmore's Birthday, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Chester Morris and Rochelle Hudson in "Meet Boston Blackie", and "Texas Gun Fighter" starring Ken Maynard, Tarzan and Harry Woods

Last night, we watched Chester Morris in the first Boston Blackie movie: "Meet Boston Blackie"(1941). There was another version of the series in the Silent era, but it's most identified with Morris (he made 14 of 'em), and I think it'll be our new Sunday night go-to. In this first installment, he and "Runt" (Charles Wagenheim) are on an ocean liner, returning to New York. Blackie is coming down the staircase when he sees a woman being harassed by a big goon in a suit. Ever the gentleman, and a prime picker-up of chicks, Blackie goes to her rescue. He shoves the goon away, then walks arm in arm down the hall with the dame. He asks "when will I see you again?" She says "you won't", then she goes to her room. Blackie is undaunted, but he has bigger problems that night, because his old nemesis "Inspector Faraday" (Richard Lane) is on board the ship, trying to nail Blackie for the robbery of a string of pearls. Faraday cuffs Blackie, who then shows him how easy it is to break out of the cuffs. Blackie tells him "I've gone straight. I'm out of the jewelry business", but with Faraday and Blackie, there's always an element of mistrust. Faraday decides he has no choice but to trust him without the cuffs, but when they reach port, Blackie is going to jail.

Then Blackie goes back to his cabin on the ship, where he finds the big goon dead (the guy who was accosting the woman). Not wanting the Inspector to blame him for that too, he escapes the ship when it docks, and carjacks "Cecelia Bradley" (Rochelle Hudson) who happens to be driving by. She's shocked at first - "who are you and what do you want?!" - but after a minute, she's not too perturbed because he's quick with a quip and seems to know his Caper Flick business. Thus, let the hijinx begin! You couldn't have a better Screwball team than this one.

Blackie drives them to a hotel where he reunites with Runt, who's learned about the dame from the ship. "She's a spy, Blackie! They're trying to steal the new Navy bombsight!" Blackie decides to follow her. Cecelia is enjoying the adventure and wants to tag along. Blackie doesn't want an amateur risking his neck, so he shoves Cecelia into the hotel room bed, a retractable fold-up. Then he pushes the bed into the wall and closes the door. Cecelia is folded up into the bed and out of his way, or so he thinks.

Now Blackie locates the spy woman from the ship. She's walking to a carnival on the nearby boardwalk. He stops her and says "so, we meet again. I know you're a spy. Who was that dead man in my cabin"?

"He was trying to kill me. I got him first. He was sent by the man I am working for." In other words, the gal wants out of the Spy Business. Blackie is willing to help her, but just then they are followed by two more goons in suits, who chase them into a funhouse ride, where they shoot the gal dead with poisoned darts. Unfortunately for Blackie, he throws one dart back at the pursuers. Now his fingerprints are on it, so when Inspector Faraday finds the dead man in his room, along with the dart and the dead gal in the funhouse, he has two reasons to pin both murders on Blackie, who's running against the clock, as always, to stay one step ahead of the Inspector and also to break up the spy ring. Luckily, the dead woman has left him a clue. "Look for the Mechanical Man". I won't give away his role in the plot, but you'll know him when you see him : a mannakin-like carnival performer who appears every time someone dies.     

After the movie was over, I found an interesting tidbit on Wiki. While reading the bio of actor Richard Lane, who plays Inspector Faraday, I saw that he was also known professionally as Dick Lane, and that rang a bell. Then - holy smokes! - I remembered him from Roller Derby in the early 70s ! Man, when was the last time you thought of Dick Lane, and how far back does that take you? He was the announcer and according to Wiki, he coined the phrase "Whoa Nellie"! when the action got crazy on the skating track. Dick Lane! He was balding and older on Roller Derby, which if I recall was live on Channel 5 or 11 on Saturday nights. In the movie he's early middle age and looks entirely different. That's why, as Richard Lane, you'd never make the connection. Anyhow, Two Big Thumbs Up for "Meet Boston Blackie". We're gonna be watching 'em all; it's the best crime caper series since "The Whistler" and "Crime Doctor" from last year, and with Chester Morris in the lead, it may be the best Screwball Crime Series yet. Highly recommended, the picture is razor sharp. ////

The previous night we had Ken Maynard again, in "Texas Gun Fighter"(1932). We're really getting to like ol' Ken, and he's great in this early talkie. As the movie opens, "Mason" (Harry Woods), a gang boss, is paying off his honchos for their help in the latest gold robbery. "This is just peanuts", he tells 'em. "wait until the mine re-opens. That'll be a real take." "Bill Dane" (Maynard), just wants his cut so he can quit. Mason isn't happy: "Why're you cuttin' out on me, Dane?" He replies, "I told you after this job I was through. Me and Banty are goin' straight." "Banty" (Lloyd Ingraham) is Dane's old riding buddy, a geezer with an injured spine. "We just want our cut and then we're done", Dane tells Mason. Mason doesn't want Dane to quit, because he's a dead shot, better known as the Texas Gun Fighter. With Dane on their side, Mason knows no lawman can stop his gang. Now Dane wants out. What's Mason gonna do? He acts like it's okay and tells Dane "thanks for everything", but then he sends one of his henchmen out to follow Dane and Banty and kill them. The henchman, "Drag" (Jim Mason), tries to ambush them at Dane's house, but "Tarzan", Ken Maynard's trusty horse, sees Drag and knocks him for a loop. Tarzan saves the day once again.

Now that Dane knows Mason is out to get him, he and Banty head for the rocks, where they shoot it out with Mason and his gang, and manage to hold them off. But during the shootout, the  wagon carrying the mine's gold bullion rides by. Mason and his men chase it down, and the trailer wagon goes off a cliff. The main wagon keeps going but is out of control (like Reege). Mason and his boys, thinking the bullion is in the fallen wagon, ride down in the gulley to grab the bullion and split. Dane and Banty chase the runaway wagon, to help the driver bring it to a stop. Of course, the driver is a pretty lady, and a daughter on top of that. It's always a daughter in any wagon that's out of control. In this case, "Jane" (Sheila Mannors) is the daughter of the mine owner "Frank Adams" (Edgar Lewis). She tells Dane, "I've never had a problem delivering the bullion before". He feels guilty for having being part of Mason's gang, but he keeps his identity quiet and helps her get the bullion back home.

When Mr. Adams the mine owner sees what Dane and Banty have done, he's mightily impressed, and offers the two a reward. Banty gets an operation paid for to fix his spine, and Dane becomes the toast of the town. Mr. Adams also makes Dane the new Sheriff after telling him he knows he's the Texas Gun Fighter. "I am hoping you've truly gone straight". Dane says he has, but there's still the temptation to steal the bullion. If it wasn't for Jane Adams and Banty keeping him on the high road, he just might revert to his old ways. But his better angels hold, and he honors his commitment. Mason then corners him one day in the bank at gunpoint, and says "C'mon Dane, you're just pretending to be Sheriff, aren't you?" He thinks, once a crook, always a crook: "You're trying to steal the bullion for yourself". Dane, knowing he has to agree with Mason or be shot, tricks him by saying "yeah you're right, I fooled that old dummy Adams. I'm gonna steal the bullion and I'll cut you in". In fact, he offers to give all the bullion to Mason and his men, and pick up his own cut when they remove it. But after they take it all out of the bank vault, Dane leaves a note for Banty that he's been forced to assist in the robbery. Banty tells Jane, but her Dad isn't yet aware what has happened. He forms a posse to track down Dane and Mason, saying "I never should have trusted him. He's gone back to his old gang". Tarzan, who is psychically linked to Dane, knows exactly what's going on. By now, Mason has found Dane's note to Banty, and knows he's been double crossed. He's got Dane tied up on horseback, and plans to shoot him when they get to the hideout. But Dane jumps in the river to escape, and Tarzan arrives by himself to untie him. Tarzan is a one-horse army. He even pulls Dane's hat out of the river with his teeth, then he leads Mr. Adams and the posse back to Dane so they can see that he isn't part of Mason's bullion heist.

This of course leads to punchouts, then shootouts and the ending, in which Tarzan helps Bill Dane stop the bad guys. Two Big Thumbs Up, Ken Maynard rules; movies don't get better than this, 60 minute Westerns at any rate, which, when all is said and done - because so many hundreds of them were made - just might be the lasting image of the movie industry. I was just thinking that our Western Movie Cowboys were, as a group, the first genre of Movie Stars, and if you go to Youtube and read the comments, people are still seeking out these films almost one hundred years later. Though the budgets were low, they really held up, and that's because they promoted all the best values.

That's all I know for tonight. I'm listening to St. John Passion by Bach, reading Paul McCartney, and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

William S. Hart in "Wagon Tracks", and "Headin' for the Rio Grande" starring Tex Ritter

Last night we watched the great William S. Hart in "Wagon Tracks"(1919), another of his Silent masterpieces. Hart plays "Buckskin Hamilton", a frontiersman riding cross country on his horse, to meet his brother "Billy" (Leo Pierson) near St. Louis. Billy is traveling by riverboat; Buckskin is going to guide him from the landing to the start of the Santa Fe trail so he can move west to become a doctor. But during Billy's trip, he gets involved in a card game with a gambler named "Washburn" (Robert McKim) and his partner "Merton" (Lloyd Bacon), who helps Washburn cheat. Merton signals him with clues to Billy's hand, and Billy catches them in the act. He pulls a gun, Washburn's sister "Jane" (Jane Novak) gets between them and tries to wrest the gun from Billy. A shot is fired - bang! Billy falls down dead. Jane Washburn passes out from shock. Her brother the card sharp, and his henchman Merton, arrange the scene to make it look like an accident.

When the boat's captain arrives below deck to investigate the sound of the shot, he is told by Washburn that his sister accidentally shot Billy. The card came is never mentioned. The two men have cleared the scene of all traces of gambling. Billy is portrayed as a man they just met, who had too much to drink and came on to Jane, who got scared and accidentally shot him. The captain accepts this, and when the steamboat reaches the landing where Buckskin awaits, he accepts her answer also, even though he is crushed by the death of his brother Billy.

Forlorn and with nowhere to go, Buckskin signs on as the leader of the wagon train that will take the boat's passengers to settled land. He's is an experienced trailmaster and can get them where they are going. He accepts that his brothers death was an accident, but there's one thing he doesn't understand about the shooting. "My brother was white", he tells Jane, meaning Billy was pure and led a clean life. He didn't drink, nor abuse women. It doesn't make sense that he would've accosted a lady he didn't know, especially one with two men at her side. As the wagon train proceeds, Jane's guilt intensifies, then comes to a head when she sees Buckskin caring for the wagon train's animals. This scene is particularly touching, as dogs and horses share a scant pail of water. It's masterfully shot and directed to accentuate the animals' cooperation with one another and lack of competition or aggression. Jane watches Buckskin tend to the critters, and internally compares him to her criminal brother and his sidekick. The guilt overwhelms her, and she approaches Buckskin to tell him she's been lying the whole time about the death of his brother.

When she names her brother and his partner as having forced her to lie about the shooting, Buckskin becomes enraged. He takes the two men out behind the wagons at knifepoint, where he ties them up and marches them them into the wasteland of the desert. This part of the movie is brutal. It becomes a war of attrition between Buckskin and the gamblers until whoever killed Billy tells the truth. Buckskin is even willing to sacrifice himself by going without water in the desert heat, just as the bad guys are doing. Whatever they suffer, he will suffer too, until they tell the truth. Finally, Washburn sees a mirage, and a fight breaks out. Merton the henchman gives up and tells Buckskin that Washburn was the one who shot Billy, then convinced his sister Jane that she did it.

Satisfied, Buckskin turns his captives around so they can all begin the long walk back to the wagon train. There, they can get water and Washburn can face justice, whatever form it will take in the middle of nowhere. But by this time, the wagon train has been surrounded by a pack of Kiowa Indians. During the standoff, one of the braves has intimidated a settler woman. She thinks he's going to attack her and screams. Actually he only wants her shawl, but it's too late; her husband shoots the brave dead, and now there's big trouble. The Kiowa Chief demands an eye for an eye. "You must give up one white man in exchange, otherwise we will attack you at dawn."

Buckskin and the two bad guys are just about back to camp by this time. When they arrive, one of the settlers explains their dilemma with the Indians. "We either turn one of us over, or their going to come back and kill us all". Buckskin thinks it over, then gives Washburn a choice : he can either kill himself and avoid being released to the Indians, or he can refuse and be turned over in the morning. Either way he's going to die; that's his punishment for killing Billy. Buckskin expects Washburn to take his offer and kill himself. That way he'll escape the Indians' torture ritual, which is horrifying. If Washburn does shoot himself, the settlers will still need a sacrificial lamb to give to the Indians, otherwise they're all gonna get massacred. Buckskin considers this, and says "I'll be the sacrifice." Man, what a powerful movie. I can't reveal what happens with Washburn, nor how the movie ends, but this is some tremendous stuff anyway you look at it, Silent film or no Silent film. If you haven't ever watched a Silent movie, I urge you to try William S. Hart. Start with this film or "Hell's Hinges". I guarantee you won't be looking at your watch, or getting bored from the lack of dialogue. The title cards will keep you up to speed on the plot, and you hardly even need them because the action is self-explanatory. The cinematography is next level, it jumps from the screen like 3D. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Wagon Tracks, a fantastic film. William S. Hart is an expressive actor on par with any of the greats of sound cinema. The picture has been restored with an emotive soundtrack. Don't miss it, highly recommended!  ////

The previous night, we saw Tex Ritter in a starring role, in his second ever film : "Headin' for the Rio Grande"(1936). Having been introduced to him as a supporting player in "Cheyenne Roundup" (reviewed last week), we thought it was time to add him to our list of regulars. He's got the  goods - he's handsome, with a boyish face, he's lightning fast on the draw and he can ride a horse. He's also a legendary country and western recording artist, so you get the added bonus of music, and a different take on the persona of the fearless gunslinger. Instead of playing it macho, Tex goes the smooth route. Everything he does is smooth. Not slick, mind you. He's not a showboat but an easygoin' hombre with the confidence to lay back. His singing is like velvet, ditto his gun hand, and when he's not chasing bad guys, or shooting at 'em/punching 'em out, he's a polite helper to the underdog. "Yes ma'am, no sir". Those are his kind of phrases. He even addresses the bad guys with courtesy, as in "you'd best keep your hand away from that holster, my friend", because it's only fair to give 'em warning before they make a big mistake. As this movie opens, he and his partner "Chili" (Syd Saylor) are doing what the title says, heading for the Rio Grande, not the river but the town, to look for cowpunchin' jobs as always. Chili is getting hungry, and wants to know how Tex can sing a song when they haven't eaten for 36 hours. Then they encounter "Senator Black" (Budd Buster!) and his daughter "Laura" (Eleanor Stewart), who are traveling in a covered wagon. They've just been approached by a crook named "Rand" (Earl Dwire), who heads up a protection racket. Rand's informed the Senator that he can either spend a dollar a head on protection for his cattle, or lose the herd to rustlers who are operating in the area. Gee, I wonder who the rustlers are?

Now that Tex and Chili are riding with them, the Senator and Laura are safe for the time being. Tex demonstrates his gun skills when Rand comes back to demand the money from the Senator. Rand and his boys leave empty handed and go back to Rio, and we find out who he's working for, a saloon owner named "Travis" (Warner Richmond). Travis tells Rand not to worry about Tex. "I'll take care of him when he gets to town". In the meantime, he sends another henchman (Charles King) out to ask for a job as the Senator's foreman. King infiltrates the cattle run to find a good place for Travis to intercept it. But then Tex catches King trying to rebrand a beeve, and an extended punchout ensues. It goes on for much longer than even the long punchouts do in these movies, and I found it too long, to be honest. Tex wins, of course, even though King is a legendary Western movie thug, and outweighs Tex by at least 50 pounds. Now King returns to town, to let Travis know what they're up against. "The boy's a tough customer". Then Rand makes a further discovery - Tex is the brother of the Rio Sheriff. Rand resigns from Travis's gang, saying "I don't mind a-tellin' ya I'm skeered. That guy's too fast on the draw, and along with his brother, them two are trouble! If we don't leave town now, we'll all wind up in the noose."

Travis isn't scared, as long as his henchmen continue to do his bidding, and he's got plenty of them, even when Rand flies The Coop. He now tries another tactic, because he's aware that you don't challenge Tex to a gunfight. What he does is shoot the Senator, then he frames Tex for the job. I ask you: what would a 60 minute Western be without a frame up? The Senator's daughter Laura knows Tex didn't shoot her father, but the local Marshal believes he did. That's because Travis is like Shakespear's Iago; he's a master at pitting power players against each other. Up until now, Tex wasn't aware that Travis is behind the protection racket. Chili clues him in, and when he gets the Marshal on his side, he and his brother the Sheriff ride out to the desert, where they are met by the Marshal and a deputized Indian troop, who have been out rounding up renegades (i.e.Indian criminals). The Marshal and his Indians agree to help the brothers with the Travis cattle rustling gang, and a final battle takes place amidst a massive stampede-to-end-all stampedes.

Tex sings three more songs in the meantime, and at the end he rides off with a grateful Laura. What more in the Western world could you ask for? Two Big Thumbs Up for "Headin' for the Rio Grande". We now add Tex Ritter to our growing list of classic Cowboy Stars. The picture is razor sharp on this one, and it's highly recommended. ////

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. Tonight I am listening to "Warchild" by Jethro Tull, another of their classics. I'm reading Paul McCartney's "The Lyrics", and browsing a biography on Barbara Stanwyck, which includes a lot of detail on her years at the Marwyck Ranch, when she was married to Robert Taylor. It's fascinating stuff for Hollywood and Northridge fans, and the book includes a photo of the property, when the ranch extended from Devonshire to Lassen, with nothing else around it. Oh to have lived here then. 

That's all I know for now. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Ken Maynard (and Ken Maynard) in "Honor of the Range", and "Border Devils" starring Harry Carey

Last night it was Ken Maynard's turn to do the dual role thing, playing twin brothers in "Honor of the Range"(1934). Brother "Clem" (no last name) is a timid-but-shifty store clerk who allows himself to be talked into a scheme to rob a businessman named "Mr. Turner" (James A. Marcus)  of 30 thousand dollars. Turner is a friend of Clem's brother Ken, the local Sheriff. Ken offers to put Mr. Turner's money in the safe at Clem's store until it can be taken to the bank. It seems a safe enough place, except that a brute named "Rawhide" (Fred Kohler) knows Clem has the combination, and leans on him to provide it so that Rawhide and his gang can steal the 30 grand in cash. Rawhide offers Clem a cut, but after he agrees to the deal, and the job is pulled off, brother Ken the Sheriff rides in with his posse. Rawhide and his henchmen are trapped in Clem's store and have to try and shoot their way out. They start a fire in the store as a diversionary tactic, and Clem is already tied up in the back room, because Rawhide has screwed him over. He only gave Clem a measly 500 dollar cut out of 30 grand, and told him to "take it or leave it". When Clem threatened to tell his brother about the robbery, Rawhide tied him up. As the fire burns, it looks bad for Clem, but then Ken's horse "Tarzan" (Tarzan), who is trained and very smart, runs around to the back of the store and unlocks a door. Then he rings a bell to alert Ken, who runs in the back way with his men to save his brother.

Later, Rawhide and his henchmen capture Sheriff Ken at gunpoint, tie him up, and appoint one of their own guys as the new Sheriff. "It's nice to have a Sheriff who drinks", says Rawhide of "Boots" (Frank Hagney), and now he wants to have Ken's gal, as well. She pretends to fancy him, because what else can she do? Ken is captive; she's all by herself, and Rawhide is a big, mean outlaw. But she tricks him by playing the organ, which alerts Clem, because she's playing his favorite tune : "A Bird in a Gilded Cage". Clem also loves her, and even though he's a nerd, he tries rescuing her from Rawhide. Sheriff Ken, meanwhile, has been placed in a mine deep in Bronson Canyon.

There's song and dance segment in the local saloon that allows Ken Maynard to stretch his acting chops, which aren't great, but he has the charisma to make up for it. In the scene, he captures the male singer of a girlie revue, an old guy, who he then impersonates so that, as Clem, he can get close to Rawhide and his henchmen who are watching the show. He cuts off the handlebar moustache of the singer and glues it onto his own upper lip, then he impersonates the old man on stage while the dancing girls kick up their heels all around him. It's a fantastic bit, and adds extra comedic flavor ala "Blazing Saddles" to what is otherwise a standard 60 Minute Western plot. You seem to get extras like this in Maynard's films, and it probably helped him to become one of the most popular of the early cowboy stars, as we noted in a previous blog. A lot of the last third of the movie takes place in the torch lit Bronson Caves, as the search is on for Sheriff Ken, and there is also an interesting photographic feature in this flick : a lot of night riding, which looks cool onscreen and which I haven't seen before in the Westerns we've been watching. Tarzan pulls all kinds of tricks, and delivers messages, his specialty. This is an "everything but the kitchen sink" western, where situations are the bulk of the film instead of plot, which is minimal and all about stealing the 30 grand. But man, it's a blast, and without giving away the ending, which has to do with nerdy Clem's attempt at heroics, it has to be said that Ken Maynard must now also be added to the list of our favorite Western Stars. He's great, whatever his offscreen problems may or may not have amounted to. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Honor of the Range". It's highly recommended and the picture is very good. Lastly, James A. Marcus, who plays "Mr. Turner" is one of our top five oldest actors, born in 1867.

The previous night we had Harry Carey in "Border Devils"(1932). If you can figure out what's going on, you're a better Western fan than I, lol, but I'll give you the rundown as best I can. Carey plays "Jim Gray", a gunslinger who's on the lookout for a gang leader known as The General. As the movie opens, Gray and his partner "Bud Brandon" (Art Mix) stop at Brandon's house. Thirsty from the heat, they ladle themselves a drink, only to collapse from poisoning. Bud dies; Gray is arrested for his murder, which is framed by an unseen person who shoots Bud after he collapses. He's already dead from the poison, and Jim Gray is unconscious, but the killer puts the gun in Gray's hand, so that when the Sheriff arrives, it looks like Gray shot Bud Brandon. Now Gray's in jail and calls for his friend "Neil Denham" (Jack Gallagher), who can surely vouch for his character. Even the Sheriff agrees. "I know he didn't kill Bud, but I had to arrest him. He was holding the gun. Until I can clear him, he's gotta stay in jail. You'd better talk to him, he's pretty upset".

Denham counsels Gray in his cell, and sneaks him a gun. "Use this to break out, and meet me at Rocky Pass". Gray does break out, not by holding up the Sheriff but by climbing out the windum (some jail ya got there, Sheriff). He and Denham continue the search for The General, who they assume is behind the killing of Bud Brandon, but when Gray rides out to the pass, he finds Neil Denham dead. Gray can't afford to get framed again, but fortunately for him, another man is at the scene as a witness, a miner named "Squint Sanders" (Gabby Hayes) who Gray hereafter refers to as Dude. Dude accompanies him back to town, and testifies to the Sheriff that Gray found Denham dead.

Now, there's a separate investigation going on, being carried out by a Federal Inspector. He's looking for Neil Denham, because Denham broke Jim Gray out of jail. Gray, you'll recall, was being held on the frame job for the murder of Bud Brandon, so when Gray escaped that's why the Feds stepped in. Gray tells the Inspector (Albert J. Smith) that he's Neil Denham, so the Inspector won't know Denham's dead. He even practices Denham's handwriting so he can fool the Inspector with a note supposedly written by Neil Denham. The plot is similar to the one we saw in the Boston Blackie movie the other night, where the protagonist is being framed, and has to stay one step ahead of the cops so he can uncover the real murderers.

In this case, it's a gang headed up by The General, who we now know is a Chinese guy who dictates barely intelligible marching orders to his henchmen from behind a silk screen, while smoking with a cigarette holder. How in the heck is he calling the shots to a bunch of big Western tough guys? Jim Gray has a hunch, and he pursues the so-called "Inspector", whom he suspects is not a genuine Federal agent.

What I didn't get in all of this was the motivation of the Inspector and his assistants. I sat there wondering what it was they were after. Were they swindling land? Is there a gold mine they're trying to steal? Why did they kill Neil Denham, or for that matter poison Bud Brandon? Yes, to frame Jim Gray, but why? It's never made clear just what the bad guys are doing. The movie, which is awesome other than the unclear plot, has a super early look and feel. It was made in 1932, just three years into the Sound era. Carey wears the pancake makeup and eye liner associated with Silent film, and the actors also do that "dialogue pause" thing we talked about, where they wait a beat before responding to each others lines. When we saw this previously a few months ago (and whether it was in a Western or other pre-Code movie I don't remember), I mentioned that I thought it had to do with the unfamiliarity of sound technology, or some technical snag involving same, and I am doubling down on that prognosis after watching Harry Carey in this movie. You can see, especially in the early scenes, that he is deliberately pausing in between lines, including his own lines too. He'll speak a sentence in what would normally be a paragraph of dialogue, but instead of continuing uninterrupted, in the way a person would normally speak, he pauses after each sentence.

It's got to have something to do with the sound technology at the time, and also, you can hear a "whirring" noise in the background, as if the sound machinery itself was large and cumbersome, and making a racket.

Anyhow, Two Big Thumbs Up for "Border Devils", confusing plot and all. Gabby Hayes is great, too. He's young here, comparatively speaking, to how we generally know him as a geezer, and he has an incredible head of hair. The bottom line? Harry Carey rules, even when you don't know what's going on.

In a final note, the screenplay was written by a guy named Murray Leinster, who went on to become a cult-favorite sci-fi novelist in the 1950s. He was a favorite of the teenaged Stephen King, who mentioned him in his own book, "On Writing". Filmed at Kern River and in the high desert near Palm Springs, the photography is excellent, and the picture is doggone good. Highly recommended! ////

That's all for tonight. I'm listening to the Steven Wilson remix of Jethro Tull's "Minstrel in the Gallery", a somewhat forgotten classic in their catalogue. Man, it sounds great. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)