JOHNNY RENO. Lyles/Paramount, 1966) with Dana Andrews, Jane Russell, Lon Chaney Jr., John Agar, Lyle Bettger, Tom Drake, Richard Arlen, Robert Lowery, and Dale Van Sickel. Produced by A.C. Lyles. Screenplay by Steve Fisher. Directed by R.G. Springsteen.

   In the mid-1960s the Western was on its way out. Oh, there were still a number of them churned out each year, many with big budgets and impressive casts, and the cycle of “Spaghetti Westerns” had just cantered into view, giving the genre a final fillip of stylish excitement, but the genre was basically a dying candle at that point, albeit one that still flickers brightly on occasion. And it didn’t help any that a producer named A. C. Lyles was killing it with kindness.

   From 1962 to ’68, Lyles produced more than a dozen Westerns — unmistakably “B” Westerns — for Paramount, filled to overflowing and beyond with faces familiar from decades past: John Agar, Lon Chaney Jr. William Bendix, Rory Calhoun, Richard Arlen, Joan Caulfield, and the like. Here the leads are played by Dana Andrews and Jane Russell and….

   And I pause here to reflect on what a super-colossal movie this would have been, had it been made twenty years earlier. Certainly in 1946, any movie featuring the star of Laura and “The girl all America has been waiting to see!” would have been launched with splash and prestige. Even in the mid-50s, the star power of two such leads would have sufficed to lift any film firmly into the first-run houses.

   But this, alas, was the mid-60s, and the antique charm of the 1940s was banished to the Late-Late Show by a culture charging toward Youth and Relevance. And besides, Johnny Reno isn’t very good.

   A damn shame, but there you are. Lyles’ string of geriatric productions didn’t keep the B-Western alive; they buried it in mediocrity, with worn-out story lines, weak scripts and weary stuntmen. Action is sparse in these things, and the dialogue provided by Steve Fisher is a long way from his classic I Wake Up Screaming. R.G. Springsteen’s direction may be as quietly efficient as his work at Republic, but without the resources of Republic, it’s noticeably more quiet than effective. And I’d be remiss not to mention that the extras made up to look like native Americans are remarkably unconvincing.

   Yet here they are, Jane Russell and Dana Andrews, trudging bravely through the insignificance of it all, trooping like true troupers. They don’t make Johnny Reno worth watching, but they never quit trying.

THE SPIKES GANG. United Artists, 1974. Lee Marvin (Harry Spikes), Gary Grimes, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, Arthur Hunnicutt, Noah Beery Jr. Loosely based on the novel The Bank Robber, by Giles Tippette. (See comment #1.) Director: Richard Fleischer.

   The Spikes Gang begins with what can only be described as unrealistic, perhaps a little too innocent, dialogue. A wounded bank robber by the name of Harry Spikes (Lee Marvin) is saved by three teenage boys: Wil (Gary Grimes), Tod (Charles Martin Smith), and Les (Ron Howard). Recovering in Wil’s family’s barn, he develops a budding friendship with them.

   Problem is: Spikes doesn’t talk, nor act, like a bank robber or a killer. He’s too genial and the boys, in a state of semi-awe, also sound too saccharine in their dialogue. Only in the second half of the film does one realize that this was all put on screen for a purpose. As it turns out, The Spikes Gang is as much a tragic coming of age story as it is a western.

   After a recuperated Spikes leaves on Wil’s horse, Wil  decides to leave his family’s homestead and seek new adventures elsewhere. His friends Tod and Les come along for the ride, both literal and proverbial. What begins as a grand adventure, however, quickly turns sour. The boys realize they have no money, no food, and no source of steady employment.

   So what do they do? You guessed it. They rob a bank. In the process, Tod kills a state senator. The boys are now outlaws. And where do Texas outlaws go? Mexico, of course. That’s where they reunite with Harry Spikes and form the eponymous Spikes Gang.

   The theme of the movie is the loss of innocence. The boys who stood in awe in front of Harry Spikes at the beginning of the movie soon realize that he’s no angel and no role model. He is a self-centered egotist who only looks after himself, even if it means selling the boys down the river for a pardon from the governor.

   Overall, I rather enjoyed this one. It’s somewhat unconventional, to be sure. It reminded me in some ways of Will Penny (1968) which I reviewed here years ago. That’s high praise.

THE CARABOO TRAIL. 20th Century Fox, 1950. Randolph Scott. George ‘Gabby’ Haye, Bill Williams, Karin Booth. Victor Jory. Douglas Kennedy, Jim Davis, Dale Robertson. Screenplay: Frank Gruber. Director: Edwin L. Marin.

   A relatively mediocre oater, The Cariboo Trail is a “northwestern” that is nominally about the founding and settling of British Columbia. Directed by Edwin L. Marin, the movie stars Randolph Scott as Jim Redfern, a Montana rancher who decides to relocate north in order to find a better place for raising cattle. Joining him in this bold endeavor are Mike Evans (Bill Williams), who is far more interested in prospecting for gold than in cattle, and Ling (Lee Tung Foo), a Chinese-American from San Francisco.

   Among the challenges Redfern  faces are hostile Indians and the machinations of Frank Walsh (Victor Jory) and his men, local ruffians hell bent on running the area purely for their own benefit. When Redfern’s former patner Mike  decides to switch sides and work for Walsh, things get even more heated.

   After watching The Cariboo Trail, I realized that I kind of enjoyed it. But while I was watching, I found Frank Gruber’s script somewhat dry and without a core. The last fifteen minutes or so, however, make up for some of the movie’s weaknesses. Altogether, not one of Scott’s best films – not by a long shot. But decent enough for a casual watch. Just don’t expect too much. This is not a Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott collaboration by any means. Final note: this was apparently Gabby Hayes’s last movie.

MAN FROM GOD’S COUNTRY. Allied Artists, 1958. George Montgomery, Randy Stuart, Gregg Barton, Kim Charney, Susan Cummings, James Griffith, House Peters Jr., Frank Wilcox. Director: Paul Landres.

   George Montgomery takes the helm in Man From God’s Country, a 1950s western that doesn’t break any new ground, but is enjoyable enough for a casual watch. Montgomery portrays lawman-turned-cowboy Dan Beattie who, after being exonerated for a crime he didn’t commit, heads out for the town of Sundown. There, he hopes to have his own spread with former Civil War buddy Curt Warren (House Peters Jr.)

   Alas, things don’t turn out exactly as he had planned. Turns out his buddy Curt is knee deep into a criminal enterprise run by local boss Beau Santee (Frank Wilcox) and his henchman, Mark Faber (veteran character actor James Griffith).

   More than anything else, Santee wants to make sure that the railroad doesn’t come to Sundown, lest it destroy his own business interests. When a rumor spreads that Beattie (Montgomery) is a railroad agent, Santee shows he is more than willing to kill to stop the railroad industry’s plans for the west. Rounding out the cast is Randy Stewart who portrays a showgirl caught between Santee’s affections and power and Beattie’s rugged nobility.

   Filmed in Cinemascope with a script by The Wolf Man (1941) director, george waGGNER (that’s how he spelled it folks!), Man From God’s Country has all the elements needed to make a solid western. Gunfights, fistfights, cattle drives, and a morality play. What stood out to me the most, though, was the color design and the lighting scheme. Seems like a lot of effort was made into making the interiors in this B-western look exceptional.

   Overall assessment, thoroughly enjoyable with a solid coterie of actors including the aforementioned James Griffith who you probably have seen many times before, but nothing you absolutely must rush to see. Final note: for a movie nominally about railroads, there were no trains. Now that was disappointing.
   

WYOMING OUTLAW. Republic Pictures, 1939. John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, Raymond Hatton, Donald Barry, Pamela Blake. Directed by George Sherman.

   The Three Mesquiteers ride again in George Sherman’s Wyoming Outlaw, a surprisingly effective entry in the Republic Pictures series about the three Old West adventurers. John Wayne, just on the cusp of stardom, portrays Stony Brook, the titular leader of the outfit. Ray Corrigan reprises the role of Tucson Smith, while Raymond Hatton plays the third Mesquiteer, Rusty Joslin.

   When the three adventure heroes drive their cattle through dustbowl country, they stumble upon a small town where Joe Balsinger (LeRoy Mason), the local corrupt government boss, is doling out jobs for campaign contributions. Worse still, he’s extremely vindictive and has driven the Parker family into poverty.

   This explains why tempestuous, politically radical Will Parker (Don Barry) has been illegally poaching animals on government land and even went so far as to steal one of the Mesquiteers’s cattle! Circumstances get even rougher and Parker   eventually goes on the lam, hiding out from the sheriff and the Cavalry alike. He becomes the titular Wyoming outlaw with a rifle and a willingness to kill.

   Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. An comparatively early John Wayne movie from Republic? Must be clunky and dated. Let me assure you: it isn’t. Although the story is simple, it’s delivered in a sophisticated manner that isn’t dumbed down for mass consumption or a young audience. There are no silly songs or goofy humor here. With fistfights aplenty and Wayne’s rugged charm, this somewhat downbeat programmer is hard not to like.

SIX BLACK HORSES. Universal, 1962. Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Joan O’Brien, George Wallace, Roy Barcroft, and Bob Steele. Produced by Gordon Kay. Written by Burt Kennedy, Directed by Harry Keller.

   Sometime in the late 1950s, a producer at Universal figured out how to make a good Audie Murphy Western: Hire a capable character actor to steal the show.

   This resulted in some enjoyable outings, as Audie tangled with Walter Matthau, Barry Sullivan, Stephen McNally, and here Dan Duryea, as a somewhat weathered rogue who saves him from being wrongly hanged, then partners with him escorting an enigmatic woman on a journey across Indian Country (popular terrain in this genre) to join her husband.

   Director Harry Keller was trained up in his craft at Republic, the cradle of the B Western. So was producer Kay for that matter, so the locations are scenic, the action fast, and Duryea’s character is a bit more complex than usual—he sees this job as a welcome respite from his usual vocation as a killer-for-hire, and maybe even a path to redemption—until his past comes crashing down around his ears.

   With so much fine work from producer, director and stars, it’s just a shame that writer Burt Kennedy let us down. Kennedy was doing some promising work about that time, with scripts for Seven Men from Now and Ride Lonesome to his credit, but in this case he simply loots and pillages his best stuff, “borrowing” big chunks of dialogue, characters from his own work, and even a bit of Borden Chase’s script from Bend of the River.

   The result is not so stale as it is unsettling. They say those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, but we remember films like The Tall T and Gun the Man Down with genuine affection for their depth of feeling and taut drama. To see their best parts here sliced-and-diced for a quick buck, somehow cheapens our regard for them.

DENVER & RIO GRANDE. Paramount Pictures, 1952. Edmond O’Brien, Sterling Hayden, Dean Jagger, Kasey Rogers (as Laura Elliott), Lyle Bettger, J. Carrol Naish, Zasu Pitts. Screenwriter: Frank Gruber. Director: Byron Haskin.

   Although admittedly a minor film within the grand scheme of things, Denver & Rio Grande nevertheless punches well above its weight and remains a solidly entertaining thrill ride. Filmed on location in Colorado with some spectacular natural scenery, the movie stars prolific actor Edmond O’Brien as Jim Vesser, a construction foreman on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad.

   Vesser is tasked not only with building a brand new railroad in the wilderness, but also with protecting the enterprise from its primary rival, Cañon City & San Juan Railroad. Leading that unscrupulous outfit is the criminally-inclined McCabe (Sterling Hayden) and his henchman Johnny Buff (a wide grinning Lyle Bettger). Complicating matters is a love-hate relationship that O’Brien develops with his railroad’s secretary, Linda Prescott (Laura Elliott).

   Written by pulp writer Frank Gruber and directed by Byron Haskin, Denver & Rio Grande carefully balances grit with some romance and (in my estimation, unnecessary) light comedy. At its core, it’s a fast-paced action movie set against a perilous part of the American landscape. While one might not necessarily think of O’Brien as a leading man for westerns, he in fact did appear in numerous movies in that genre. That includes Warpath (1951) and Silver City (1951), both also directed by Haskin. I haven’t seen either of those two, but would be curious to see if they exist on physical media.

   Rounding out the cast are two supporting actors I always appreciate: Dean Jagger, who portrays the bearded railroad boss and J. Carrol Naish, who portrays the project’s seemingly ethnic lead engineer. Overall, a decidedly fun, if occasionally uneven, movie that doesn’t require too much mental effort.

   Final note: there’s a breathtaking train crash toward the end of the movie that you won’t want to miss! Good stuff.

RAWHIDE. Fox, 1951. Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Dean Jagger, Edgar Buchanan, Jack Elam, and George Tobias. Written by Dudley Nichols. Directed by Henry Hathaway.

   Not to be confused with the Television series, though I suspect there will be plenty of comments about it anyway, and if anyone here feels compelled to talk about Clint Eastwood rather than Henry Hathaway, all I can say is, “Go ahead, spoil my day!”

   Westerns aren’t generally popular with women, but Kay watches them with me, and the other day we had a nice talk about “Town Westerns” and “Range Westerns.”

   In Town Westerns the action is generally confined to a modestly-built community, and may be more concerned with social interactions than physical conflict. The best-known Town Western is High Noon; more noteworthy examples include Fury at Showdown, Rio Bravo, Fury at Gunsight Pass, Star in the Dust and Day of Fury. —  does this suggest a certain pent-up hostility?

   Anyway, “Range (I use the term loosely, to include any wide-open space or spaces) Westerns” take place largely outdoors (Ride Lonesome has no interiors at all.) and though passions may be deep, and resolutions complex, they are generally expressed by physical action. Think Winchester 73, The Big Trail, Wagonmaster, The Naked Spur …

   There are hybrids, variations and freaks of cinema, of course: Day of the Outlaw starts as a Town Western and turns into a Range Western. The town of Terror in a Texas Town   barely exists; cattle drives and Conestoga caravans cross the studio sets of Showdown   and The Prairie …

   … which brings me to the “Room Western” and — at last! —  Rawhide.

   There are plenty of exteriors in Rawhide, evoking the endless wastes and the fragile isolation of a stagecoach swing-station, but all the important action takes place in two rooms of a single building: the main room/dining hall where the bad guys quarrel, plot mayhem, and gull the unwary; and a single bedroom where Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward quarrel, plot escape, and try to turn the tables on their captors.

   This is a film of masterful tension, ably framed by Dudley Nichols’ teetering screenplay and Henry Hathaway’s firm direction. I should also mention Milton Krasner’s stunning deep-focus photography, capably limning a distant horizon without missing a single snaggled tooth of Jack Elam’s maniacal grin in the foreground.

   Jack Elam is even more villainous than usual here, but he’s only part of a very effectively used cast. Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward convey fear, frustration and convincing strength quite well, and Dean Jagger is engagingly funny as an outlaw who’s only crooked because he’s not smart enough to go straight.

   But pride of place goes to a surprisingly intense Hugh Marlowe, best remembered for dull parts in exciting films like The Day The Earth Stood Still and Night and the City.  But here, as the head of a makeshift gang of inept and unreliable outlaws, coping with unwilling hostages, desperately trying to hold his plan of robbery and murder together, he’s… well you just can’t take your eyes off him, he has that kind of Screen Presence.

   I’ll end by saying this is sometimes considered an unofficial remake of a 1930s gangster movie, Let ’Em Have It. Well maybe, but the finished product resembles it no more than Stagecoach looks like Maupassant’s “Boule de Suif.”
 

INTRO. Jon and I went to see this as the first film of a Randolph Scott double feature last night. It was showing at the New Beverly Theater in Hollywood, the one owned by Quentin Tarantino. While tempting we didn’t stay for the second feature, but I think a large number of the audience did. The theater wasn’t jam-packed, but as a rough estimate, it was filled to sixty percent capacity, maybe more.

   It was good to see the film on the big screen in an actual theater, with an audience that came to see the movie, not to have a party. It also made me wonder if anyone involved in making the film back in 1957 had any idea that here and now, some 65 years later, the movie would still be around to keep fans watching an enjoying.

   The review below was first posted on this blog on 19 January 2015.

THE TALL T. Columbia Pictures, 1957. Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O’Sullivan, Arthur Hunnicutt, Skip Homeier, Henry Silva, John Hubbard, Robert Burton. Screenplay by Burt Kennedy, based on the story “The Captives,” by Elmore Leonard, published in Argosy, February 1955. Director: Budd Boetticher.

   To start off with, let me tell you that this is one of my favorite Western films of all time. I won’t tell you that it’s number one, because I’ll be honest with you as well as myself and say that it isn’t, but it’s in the top five.

   In part it’s the actors. Randolph Scott isn’t a lawman doing his job with professional dignity and humor, a common role he had in westerns. In The Tall T he’s a struggling former cowhand, no more than that, but he was good at his job. But now he’s living alone and struggling to make a go of his own small ranch, as honest with himself and others as the day is long.

   Richard Boone is the villain of the piece, who along with a pair of low-life outlaws he rides with (Skip Homeier and Henry Silva) holds up a stage only to find that it’s not the regularly scheduled one, but one chartered by the man who married the plain-looking daughter of the richest man in the territory, a rabbit of a man who gives up his wife as part of a ransom scheme to save his own hide. Scott, who just happens to be on the stagecoach, is caught up in the plan and as chance would have it, is made a captive too.

   As their captors, Richard Boone and his two cohorts are as murderous and vicious as they come. For some reason, though, Boone lets the yahoos he associates with do all the shooting, and as he confesses to Scott over an open fire, he has a wish to have a piece of land himself. Only Richard Boone could have played the part. A killer who aches with the need for someone intelligent to talk to.

   I don’t know how they managed to make Maureen O’Sullivan so plain looking, but she is, and at length she admits that she her knows exactly why her new husband married her. But it’s Randolph Scott who makes the movie work. Rugged, steely-eyed and quiet-talking, but with little ambition more than to make a living on his own, he’s also more than OK with a gun, a fact that in the end turns out to be rather important.

   Other than the actors, though, it is the storytelling, the combination of script and directing, that simply shines. The budget probably wasn’t all that large, but the story simply flows, with no wasted moments, every scene essential to the story. This is a movie that’s down to earth and real, and made by professionals on both sides of the camera.

   As for Elmore Leonard’s story, the one the movie is based on, you don’t have to read more than two or three pages before you know where the timing and the pacing of the movie came from.

   Most of the movie is taken straight from the story, at most only a long novelette, with only a couple of substantial changes. The campfire scene between Scott and Boone referred to above was added, and the way Scott and the woman defeat their captors was re-orchestrated, both changes for the better.

   Everyone agrees that Elmore Leonard’s crime fiction was always the best around, but to my mind, his western fiction, which came along earlier, is even better. That includes “The Captives,” beyond a doubt, and the movie is even better yet. To my mind, near perfect.

THE GUNFIGHTER. 19SO. Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Karl Malden, Skip Homeier, Richard Jaeckel. Director: Henry King. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below).

   Jaeckel’s part is small but a key one. He’s a young squirt who taunts the famous Jimmy Ringo into a gunfight. When the boy gets killed, it’s obviously self-defense, but the kid has three brothers who won’t believe it. Ringo’s past just won’t let him be.

   A classic, if you ask me. The plot’s an old one, but here it’s done well. The town where Ringo tries to find his former wife looks real, and feels real. Peck has a mustache in this movie, and it gives him a different look, weather-beaten, and weary. Just right.