Last night's movie was "Big Calibre"(1935), starring Bob Steele. We like Bob, and though he doesn't have much of an image compared to our other favorite cowboys (i.e. he's not a gunslinger or a commanding presence), he does have sincerity and good manners. He's what you might call the Nice Boy of 60 minute Westerns, and on the traditional side, he doesn't back down from bad guys. In this film, he's returning from town with 60,000 gees in his saddlebag, from cashing in the gold ore at his Dad's Triple N Ranch. Dad is overjoyed about the money, because now they'll be able to pay off the ranch and get "Mr. Bentley" (Forrest Taylor) off their backs, the local banker who is threatening to foreclose on their mortgage. Bob is concerned, though, because he thought he heard horse hoofs behind him on the ride back. Did a robber follow him home? Dad tells him not to worry, but when Bob goes to sleep, a bandit climbs through the windum, steals the money, and before he leaves, he throws a smokebomb containing poisonous chemicals. Dad dies, and when the Sheriff investigates the next day, he suggests to Bob that they go to town to talk to the assayer, "Otto Zenz" (William Quinn). "He's also a chemist", says the Sheriff, "maybe he can analyse the grenade that killed your Dad."
They pay Zenz a visit, and when Bob gets a look at his footprints (for some reason, the floor of his office is soft dirt), he recognises the shoeprints as the same ones of Dad's killer. "It's him"! Bob exclaims. "He's the guy who killed my Dad!" The Sheriff orders Zanz to put his hands up, but he high tails it, runs out of his office and escapes. We aren't so dumb, however, not to recognize him when he turns up in the next town, in disguise with bad false teeth, and with the new name of Gadski, but with the same occupation as the town's assayer/chemist.
It turns out that he and Bentley the banker are running scheme to obtain ownership of the Triple N, as well as another ranch belonging to "Jim Bowers" (Frank Ball). They've discovered that the Bowers Ranch has a vein of "hard rock", as Bob calls it, running beneath the property. What he means is marble, and as he explains to Jim's sweet daughter "June" (Peggy Campbell), this is what Bentley does; he loans money to ranchers with valuable deposits beneath their properties that they aren't aware of (gold, marble), and charges exorbitant interest rates so the ranchers won't be able to repay. Then he forecloses and cleans up on the deposits. But Bob Steele and his Dad found out about the gold beneath the Triple N, which screwed Bentley up when they cashed in their 60 grand worth of ore. Now that Bob has told June Bowers about the marble under her ranch, she's out to to do the same, to mine it and raise the money to pay off Bentley. But then he has her Dad shot as a warning to her. Her Dad dies, or so it seems, but she doesn't give up. Instead of mining the marble, she robs the stage (a motorcar in this movie) to raise her mortgage money. Bob finds Dad Bowers' bones in the desert, but they turn out to be the leg bones of a cow. Bentley tries to frame Bob for the murders of his own father and Dad Bowers, and the creepy chemist - looking like a reject from a b-horror movie with his protruding false teeth - goes along for the ride, because Bentley needs him. He's got a lot more of those deadly smokebombs that would come in handy in an episode of Batman.
There's a great, extended barn dance scene, in which a lot of Western comedians get to do their things. The scene goes on for 10 minutes (one sixth of the film), and it gives the movie an oddball quality. Bob uses the barn dance, which is also a masquerade ball, to trap the evil chemist. Then June Bowers gets the good news that her Dad isn't dead after all. An Indian found him when he was wounded, and nursed him back to health. Zanz the chemist is chased down by Bob, in a terrific car vs. horse chase across the dry lake bed section of the Alabama Hills. "Big Calibre" gets Two Big Thumbs Up not only for it's layered script and overall Bob Steele-ness, but also for the weird sidebar of the barn dance and the creepy chemist character. The picture is razor sharp, so don't miss it! ////
The previous night, we watched "Marked for Murder"(1945) starring Tex Ritter, and in fact this is the first time we've seen him as the star of a Western and not a sidekick to Johnny Mack Brown. He's paired with Dave O'Brien, who plays Texas Ranger "Dave Wyatt", and you get Charles King in a hillbilly role! Oh man, you're gonna love it; not many know that King began as a comedian in Silent films. His comedy chops are outstanding, and we wish he would have done more of these roles. At any rate, the plot: there's trouble in Corriganville. A range war between the ranchers and the sheepmen is brewing, and after Tex finishes singing the opening song ("Long Time Gone"), he is visited in his law office by two Rangers, the aforementioned Wyatt and his partner "Panhandle" (Guy Wilkerson), who inform him of the feud. Tex says "I'm a lawyer, whataya want from me?" They want him to become a Ranger, cause there isn't one in the region and they need cache with the townsfolk, so he agrees to sign up and they give him a badge. Then, with Tex in the lead, the trio go out to the sheepmen's farm, which is headed by the tough "Ruth Lane" (Marilyn McConnell). She tells the Rangers to go jump in the lake. "We haven't rustled anyone's cattle," she declares, denying the accusations of the ranchers.
Tex and Ranger Wyatt believe her, and send Panhandle out to spy on "Pete Magoo" (Charles King), a hillbilly who lives on the outskirts of town. They suspect he may know something about the rustling, because he was in the saloon when a showdown occurred between the sheepmen and the cattle ranchers. Magoo is a no-account goofball, and it's a treat to see Charles King in comic mode. In one hilarious scene, Panhandle - posing as a handyman - solders King's gun shut, so it can't fire. He gets to do pratfalls and double-takes, and he talks with a hillbilly accent. But of course, he's also a bad guy, and is working for a mastermind named "Dick Vernon" (Ed Cassidy), who wants both of the feuding factions out of the way so that he can acquire all the land in the Valley. To that end, Vernon convinces the Rangers to jail all the cattlemen, while he and Pete Magoo try to run the sheepmen off their land by framing Ruth Lane's henchmen for a murder.
In addition to the action and hijinx, there's a lot of great music, including two songs by Tex Ritter, and an especially good number by The Milo Twins, whose songs can be heard on Youtube (check out "Downtown Boogie"). Two Big Thumbs Up for "Marked for Murder". It's highly recommended and the picture is very good. ////
That's all for this evening. I hope you are having a nice weekend. Last night, in addition to the movie, I also went to Los Encinos Park in Encino to watch a performance of "Romeo and Juliet" by my favorite Shakespeareans, Shakespeare by the Sea. I may have mentioned them in years past, I'm not sure, but I've been attending their shows since 2014 (at Los Encinos and formerly at Warner Park also), and this was the first time they've been on tour since 2019, because of covid. So, it was awesome to see them again. Once you go to an SBTS show, you become hooked. I was, and I've seen ten of Shakespeare's plays by the troupe, whose casts vary from year to year but have several regular performers. They hit a Dave Kingman-sized home run with Romeo and Juliet and I can't wait to see them again next year. Tonight, my music is "Spooky Two" by Spooky Tooth (and after I just got done saying I don't like blues, go figure) and also "Siegfried" by Wagner. I'm reading the Elvis book ("thankyouveramuchladiesangennamun") and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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