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 :):)
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