Last night, a good one from Bob Steele called "Brand of the Outlaws"(1936). As Bob is riding through Placerita Canyon, a shot rings out. Coming to the victim's aid, he sees its the local Sheriff (Ed Cassidy). He's been ambushed by Charles King and his cadre of cattle rustlers. After tying off the Sheriff's wound (it's just a shoulder shot so don't worry), Bob helps him back to town and then leaves, hoping to find a job. Back in Placerita, he runs into Charles King, who warns him to be on the lookout for cattle rustlers in the area. "They'll shoot ya, kid." King knows whereof he speaks, of course, and is setting Bob up, because when he tries to rides away, a hard-nose deputy shows up and accuses him of being the guy who shot the Sheriff (cue Eric Clapton). The deputy (Jack Rockwell) brands Steele with a red hot iron and tells him to leave town or else. "Next time you'll eat lead".
But Bob doesn't leave. Instead, he rides back to town to tell the Sheriff, who fires the deputy. "That kid was the man who saved my life, you idiot!"
While Bob is talking to the Sheriff, Charles King steals his horse. King is a family man this time around (lol!), with a wife and pretty stepdaughter to support. Since he can't find a job, rustling is the only way he can make money, but being Charles King, something tells us he'd be doing it anyway. Bob tracks his missing horse to King's abode, and a punchout ensues, with King's wife and stepdaughter within earshot. The fired deputy happens on the scene, because he's in cahoots with King in the rustling scheme, and he takes advantage of the King/Steele fight, to shoot King when Steele leaves. That way, King's wife and stepdaugheter - who heard the fight from the house - will think it was Bob Steele who killed him. That will get Steele out of the way, and remove King in the bargain. Poor Charles King! He's a relatively sympathetic figure in this film.
The real bad guy is Jack Rockwell, the former deputy. He finagles a job with the stagecoach office, so he'll be delivering the rancher's payroll. Then he arranges for his rustling gang to set up a robbery outside Walker Ranch, but Bob Steele foils it by robbing the stage beforehand. It's the old Tom Tyler trick of preempting a robbery by robbing the target first, then taking the money back to it's rightful owner. The fired deputy is pure evil in this flick, he tries to kidnap Charles King's stepdaughter after his stage robbery plan is foiled. He wants to "force marry" the stepdaughter, who hates him, and he's framed Bob Steele for Charles King's murder. so the stepdaughter - as much as she hates the deputy - holds Steele at gunpoint because she thinks he murdered her stepdad (King). This allows the deputy to get away, until Bob, the Sheriff, and the stage driver track him down. It's top notch stuff, directed by Robert Bradbury, Bob Steele's dad (Bob's real name was Robert Bradbury Jr.) Two Big Thumbs Up for "Brand of the Outlaws", the picture is very good. ////
The previous night, we went with Chester Morris in "Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood"(1942). Blackie and Runt (George E. Stone) are preparing for a Florida vacation when they get a telegram from Blackie's old friend "Arthur Manleder" (Lloyd Corrigan), who's in a jam over a stolen diamond. Manleder owes some crooks 60 gees because he lost the diamond before delivery. He asks Blackie to go to his apartment and get the sixty thousand out of his safe, but his apartment is in Hollywood, so there goes the Florida vacation. Blackie doesn't want Inspector Faraday getting wind of his activity, so he and Runt board the plane under assumed names and in disguise. Blackie is using his trademark Distinguished Professor look, while Runt is dressed in short pants and a child's hat. He's supposed to be Blackie's newphew "Junior". To make Runt's getup look more convincing, Blackie buys him some toys in the airport lobby, including an ant farm that will create hijinx, when Faraday and Sgt. Matthews stow away on the flight with the help of a stewardess (Shirley Patterson). Blackie releases the ants in the baggage compartment where Faraday and Matthews are hiding, which makes for an ants-in-your-pants guffaw scenario that gets a lot of mileage even after the plane lands.
Once Blackie and Runt get to Hollywood, they have to get inside Arthur Manleder's apartment. Knowing that the manager will never let them in, they sneak in, and when they take the 60 grand out of the safe, Faraday finally has a reason to arrest them. But by now, they've already given the money to Manleder, who's infatuated with the gal (Constance Worth) who stole the diamond from him in the first place.
This installment is all about the slapstick, which is running in high gear this time, in a shell game to find out who's got the sixty grand. Of course, Inspector Faraday thinks it's Blackie (and for once, Sgt. Matthews sides with Blackie because he's tired of being called a dunce by Faraday, even though he is a dunce). Blackie devises a Dummy-out-the-Windum set-up, to make it look like he murdalized the Runt for chiseling him out of the money. Look for a very young Forrest Tucker in a hoodlum role. This is not major league Blackie, because the locations are mostly nondescript hotel rooms and elevators. The "Hollywood" in the title is misleading, because there is no location shooting. The production values are cheap for a Boston Blackie film, but Morris and Stone give their all as usual, and the jokes are in full supply, going by so fast that you'll miss a few dozen. Therefore Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp. ////
There are two bonus movies tonight because Grimsley took me to see a Retro Night screening of "Blazing Saddles" at the Granada Theater as a belated birthday present. It's funny, because we just used some Saddles quotes as cliches in recent blog reviews, and having seen it for perhaps the 20th time tonight, I must say that not only does it hold up, but it does so in spades at an astoundingly high level. After the movie, I said to Grim, "you know, that entire script is part of the lexicon". I mean, think about it : how many lines from that movie have become part of our everyday language (or at least my everyday language)? How many times have you asked someone "what in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin' on here"? Or how many times, when asked a question (any question) have you answered "got something to do with where choo-choo go."? We've all made the observation "Mongo only pawn in game of life", or suggested the need for "a shitload of dimes." Those a just a few quotations, and I'll bet there are at least one hundred if not more, because the entire film is one big joke, one after another. There's never been a movie like it, and of course it could never get made today because we live in PC, humorless times. So it was refreshing to see the theater showing it, without disclaimers or anything cut out. To me, "Blazing Saddles" is by far the funniest movie ever made. No need to review it because you've no doubt seen it a dozen or more times yourself, but there you have it : "Send wire, main office, tell them I said ow".
The other bonus movie is "Romeo & Juliet"(1968) which I picked up on a whim from the Libe. It made a big splash when it was released, because of the young stars, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, and because the director Franco Zeffirelli was hot at the time. Also, there was brief nudity (chaste by today's standards), but all of these factors got the movie a ton of press, and it was nominated for several Academy Awards. It also spawned a hit single, "A Time For Us", which was played on AM radio in 1968, and the theme music became iconic of the late '60s as the decades passed. This was my first time seeing it, and in a word (since this is a long blog) my review is "TRA-MeNN-Duss!", which must be said in the voice of Big Dorky Dan from College Records while pounding a fist on the table. It's one of the best Shakespeare adaptations I've ever seen, the photography is outstanding, and the two young leads are incredible, especially Olivia Hussey, whose career should've taken off after this film but for some reason did not. She did become a scream queen in horror flicks, but she deserved a lot better. Anyway, "Romeo and Juliet" gets our highest rating, Two Gigantic Thumbs Up, it's without a doubt one of the greatest films ever made. See it! ////
That's all for tonight. I'm listening to "Friends" by The Beach Boys, and I send you Tons of Love as always! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
(don't forget to send wire, main office......)
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