Sun 6 Jan 2019
A Western Book! Movie!! Review by Dan Stumpf: LEE LEIGHTON Law Man / STAR IN THE DUST (1956).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction , Western movies[10] Comments
LEE LEIGHTON (WAYNE D. OVERHOLSER) – Law Man. Ballentine, hardcover (H51) & paperback (#51), 1953. Ballantine U1040, paperback 1964. Axe, paperback, 1977. Ace/Charter, paperback, 1985. Jove, paperback, 1988. Winner of the first Western Writer’s Assocation Spur Award for Best Novel.
STAR IN THE DUST. Universal, 1956. John Agar, Mamie Van Doren, Richard Boone, Colleen Gray, Leif Erickson, Randy Stuart, Paul Fix, Harry Morgan, Kermit Maynard and Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Oscar Brodney, from the novel by Lee Leighton. Produced by the redoubtable Albert Zugsmith. Directed by Charles Haas.
A taut film from a slack novel.
Leighton/Overholser’s book deals with twenty-four hours in the life of middle-aged Marshal Bill Worden: the last day in the life of convicted killer Ed Lake, scheduled to hang next morning. It also deals with a wide cast of characters, including:
Worden’s daughter Ellen, who is engaged to marry
George Ballard, who owns the biggest ranch in the valley and the local bank — and is therefore ipso facto a bad guy.
Nan Hogan, Ballard’s ex-mistress, now married to
Lew Hogan, a stubborn rancher who feels duty-bound to keep Lake from hanging
Rigdon, a fire-and-brimstone preacher who feels duty-bound to hang Lake himself
Mike MacNamara, Worden’s Deputy
Orval Jones, janitor and would-be deputy
Jeannie Mason, a fallen woman because of Ed Lake
plus assorted farmers, ranchers, cowhands, townsfolk and attendants to the court.
Leighton does a skillful job of setting all these folks at odds with each other: the ranchers out to save Lake, Ballard anxious to see that Lake doesn’t incriminate him, farmers egged on to lynching by Rigdon, Lake with his own plans for the future – and thankfully Leighton takes care to remind the reader who everyone is from time to time. He also works things to a convincing resolution, one that seems to grow from the characters themselves.
The problem is that Leighton tends to tell us how they feel—repeatedly and at length — when he should just show us — and when things should be getting tense, they just get wordy. Worthy concept, weak execution.
Oscar Brodney’s script for Star in the Dust tightens things up considerably. For one thing, it starts at dawn on the day Lake (here named “Sam Hallâ€) is scheduled to die at sunset. And since this is a film, the internal monologues of the book get replaced by a few lines of dialogue.
That’s not all that gets replaced. Preacher Rigdon of the book is here a power-mad schoolteacher (I think I had him for English 101 in College) and middle-aged Marshal Bill Worden is now youngish Bill Jordan (John Agar) engaged to marry Ballard’s sister (Mamie Van Doren.)
Best of all, nasty Ed Lake in the book is now Sam Hall, played with savage sensitivity by Richard Boone, a year before Have Gun, Will Travel and in those days a character actor to be reckoned with. I suspect Brodney knew he was writing for Boone, and wrote the part to fit him. His Sam Hall is educated, self-aware, and dangerous to know, a character at once sympathetic and frightening.
With Boone as the lynch pin, Star in the Dust could have stopped right there, but producer Albert Zugsmith fills the movie with fine actors in choice parts. Leif Erickson radiates bluff duplicity as the scheming bad guy, slimy Robert Osterloh projects petty tyranny as the schoolmaster, while Paul Fix and James Gleason do a fine double-act as Agar’s deputy and the wanna-be janitor.
Star in the DustEven better, Colleen Gray and Randy Stuart play off each other perfectly as the women who loved well but unwisely. Stuart in particular carries a moving rueful aspect as Erickson’s cast-off mistress, now married to Henry Morgan, as the loyal-but-not-bright Lew Hogan (Years later, Stuart also played Morgan’s wife in the 1960s Dragnet teleseries.)
Best of all, Star in the Dust moves in a way the novel never did, filling eighty minutes with action under the fast-paced direction of Charles Haas.
And by the way, in his one scene, a skinny young contract player named Clint Eastwood is what is usually and charitably termed adequate.
January 6th, 2019 at 8:18 pm
I’ve not read the book, but they made a crackling good movie of it. Here’s my review of it. (Forgive the formatting. This was posted early on in the life of this blog, and I was still learning my way around.)
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=133
January 6th, 2019 at 8:53 pm
Overholzer is generally reliable, but seems to have over-reached here, though the SPUR for the novel suggests we may all be in the minority about the novel. It’s clear he was attempting something more along novel lines than pulp and seems to have garnered at least the critical attention he must have hoped for.
I agree the film is better, just about the turning point in Agar’s career though, he went down fast after this, almost completely washed up four years later.
Boone is what makes or breaks this. Everyone else is good, but his charisma is the real key. This must have been fairly shortly before Universal let Eastwood go, an act that saved his career ironically.
January 6th, 2019 at 9:45 pm
Generalizations are generally always flawed, but generally speaking, if I see a book has won a Spur award, it’s usually a book that (as you suggest) tries too hard, at least in terms of what I’m looking for — as a reader, not a critic. By this I do NOT mean to denigrate the quality of the books below, most of which I have not read.
1953 – Novel: “Lawman” by Wayne D. Overholser using the pseudonym Lee Leighton
1954 – Novel: “The Violent Land” by Wayne D. Overholser (2)
1955 – Novel: “Somewhere They Die” by L.P. Holmes
1956 – Novel: “High Gun” by Leslie Ernenwein
1957 – Novel: “Buffalo Wagons” by Elmer Kelton
1958 – Novel: “Short Cut to Red River” by Noel Loomis
1959 – Novel: “Long Run” by Nelson C. Nye
1960 – Novel: “The Nameless Breed by Will C. Brown
1961 – Novel: “The Honyocker by Giles A. Lutz
1962 – Novel: “Commanche Captives” by Fred Grove
1963 – Novel: “Follow the Free Wind” by Leigh Brackett
1964 – Novel: “The Trail to Ogallala by Benjamin Capps
1965 – Novel: “Sam Chance” by Benjamin Capps (2)
1966 – Novel: “My Brother John” by Herbert R. Purdum
1967 – Novel: “The Valdez Horses” by Lee Hoffman
1968 – Novel: “Down the Long Hills” by Louis L’Amour
1969 – Novel: “Tragg’s Choice” by Clifton Adams
1970 – Novel: “The Last Days of Wolf Garnett” by Clifton Adams (2)
1971 – Novel: “The Day the Cowboys Quit” by Elmer Kelton (2)
1972 – Novel: “A Killing in Kiowa” by Lewis B. Patten
1973 – Novel: “The Time It Never Rained” by Elmer Kelton (3)
1974 – Novel: “A Hanging in Sweetwater” by Stephen Overholser (son of Wayne D. Overholser)
1975 – Novel: “The Shootist” by Glendon Swarthout
1976 – Novel (tie): “The Spirit Horses” by Lou Cameron and “The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer” by Douglas C. Jones
1977 – Novel: “The Great Horse Race” by Fred Grove (2)
1978 – Novel: “Riders To Cibola” by Norman Zollinger
1979 – Novel: “The Holdouts” by William Decker
1980 – Novel: “The Valiant Women” by Jeanne Williams
1981 – Novel (tie): “Eye of The Hawk” by Elmer Kelton (4) and “Horizon” by Lee Head
1982 – Novel: “Match Race” by Fred Grove (3)
1983 – Novel: “Leaving Kansas” by Frank Roderus
1984 – Novel: no award
1985 – Western Novel: “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry
1986 – Western Novel: “The Blind Corral” by Ralph Robert Beer
1987 – Western Novel: “Skinwalkers” by Tony Hillerman
1988 – Western Novel: “Mattie” by Judy Alter
1989 – Western Novel: “Fool’s Coach” by Richard S. Wheeler
1990 – Western Novel: “Sanctuary” by Gary Svee
1991 – Western Novel: “Journal of the Gun Years” by Richard Matheson
1992 – Western Novel: “Nickajack” by Robert J. Conley
1993 – Western Novel: “Friends” by Charles Hackenberry
1994 – Western Novel: “St. Agnes’ Stand” by Tom Eidson
1995 – Western Novel: “The Dark Island” by Robert J. Conley (2)
1996 – Western Novel: “Blood of Texas” by Preston Lewis (writing as Will Camp)
1997: W.W.A. changed the time-frame from ‘year published’ to ‘year award presented’
1998 – Western Novel: “The Kiowa Verdict” by Cynthia Haseloff
1999 – Western Novel: “Journey of the Dead” by Loren D. Estleman
2000 – Western Novel: “Masterson” by Richard S. Wheeler (2)
2000 – Western Novel: “Summer of Pearls” by Mike Blakely
2001 – Western Novel: “The Gates of the Alamo” by Stephen Harrigan
2002 – Western Novel: “The Way of The Coyote” by Elmer Kelton (5)
2003 – Western Novel: “The Chili Queen” by Sandra Dallas
2004 – Western Novel: “I Should Be Extremely Happy In Your Company” By Brian Hall
2005 – Western Novel: “Buy The Chief A Cadillac” by Rick Steber
2006 – Western Novel (tie): “Camp Ford: A Western Story” by Johnny D. Boggs and “The Undertaker’s Wife” by Loren D. Estleman (2)
2007 – Best Western Short Novel: “The Shape Shifter” by Tony Hillerman (2)
2008 – Best Western Short Novel: “Tallgrass” By Sandra Dallas (2)
2009 – Best Western Short Novel: “Another Man’s Moccasins by Craig Johnson
2010 – Best Western Short Novel: “Far Bright Star” by Robert Olmstead
2011 – Best Western Short Novel: “Snowbound” by Richard S. Wheeler (3)
2012 – Best Western Short Novel: “Legacy of a Lawman” by Johnny D. Boggs
2013 – Best Western Short Novel: “Tucker’s Reckoning” by Matthew Mayo
January 6th, 2019 at 10:00 pm
I copied the list above from Wikipedia. I do not know why it stops with the 2013 award. Perhaps the WWA changed their rules around so as to eliminate the category.
January 7th, 2019 at 2:57 pm
Pretty impressive list of winners, that seem to deserve the awards. Also interesting that Elmer Kelton won it the most times, as he was probably the best or one of the best “western” writers in the last 50 years.
If you ever get a chance to read St Agnes’Stand by Thomas Eidson, loved the book (short novel, quick read) and one of the few books I have reread in the last 30 years.
January 7th, 2019 at 5:25 pm
Elmer Kelton is a western writer I’d read with or without his getting Spur awards, but five wins! That’s impressive.
The Eidson book is new to me. I depend on recommendations from people like you, David, to tell me about books I’d never know about otherwise. Thanks! I’ll check into it.
January 7th, 2019 at 5:36 pm
Would be interested if you do read and like it. If the book is 150 pages I would be surprised, but packs a lot of story into those pages.
Another multiple winner that is excellent is Richard Wheeler, who is still writing. I have probably read 20 of his books and never a bad one to be found.
January 7th, 2019 at 7:42 pm
Wheeler is another good one. He’s in his 80s and is still writing, a fact I didn’t realize since his book never show up in the local Barnes and Noble’s tiny western section.
Sources say he has been awarded six Spurs. It looks like those were four for best novel, one for best mass market western, and an Owen Wister Award.
I haven’t read anything by him in a long time. It’s time once again that I did. Good
January 8th, 2019 at 3:33 pm
Seems to me I might have caught this sometime in the distant past. Can’t be sure. Sounds like the movie improved on the book. Boone is always interesting to watch and it sounds like this role fits him.
January 8th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
Interesting that Hillerman’s SKINWALKERS won a SPUR in the Western field. Great book, and of course Southwestern setting, but interesting choice for the SPUR.