MACKENNA’S GOLD. Columbia Pictures, 1969. Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif, Telly Savalas, Julie Newmar, Camilla Sparv, Keenan Wynn, Ted Cassidy, Eduardo Ciannelli, Lee J. Cobb, Raymond Massey, Burgess Meredith, Anthony Quayle, Edward G. Robinson, Eli Wallach.
   Narrated by Victor Jory. Based on the novel by Will Henry. Director: J. Lee Thompson.

   Now this is what you can call an epic!

   Over two hours of gold fever: outlaws teamed up with honest townspeople, evading the cavalry, being chased by Indians, crossing rapid rivers, through treacherous mountains, across deserts, into secret valleys seen by only one white man before, and his eyes were taken from him before he could return to tell the tale.

   There is only one honest man in this picture, and that is the sheriff (Gregory Peck) who mistakenly kills the Indian chieftain who has the map, and he’s in constant trouble from that time on.

   Peck is also the only leading player in this picture who does not seem seriously miscast for his or her part. I mean, come on, Telly Savalas as a cavalry officer? Julie Newmar as the most statuesque Indian this continent has ever seen? Camilla Sparv as the kidnapped blonde and blue-eyed daughter of a murdered judge?   (*)

   Other critical sources appear to be united in saying that this movie is overblown, over-produced, and not very good, either. It’s still a highly entertaining film, in spite of what they say.

   It’s tough to keep a good western story down, and if you don’t like the story, you can always watch the scenery. It’s terrific.

____

  (*) Looking through the credits again, I’m willing to reconsider that statement, just a little. Keenan Wynn is perfect as the drunken lout of a sidekick for the notorious Mexican bandit, Colorado. (Played by Omar Sharif, of course.)

[UPDATE] 01-12-09.   I found a few other scenes taken from the movie that I could have added to show you, but the review was too short to accommodate them all. (Sorry.) The only other comment I could add is that my younger self has convinced me, if nobody else, that this is a film that’s a Must See Again.

DAWN ON THE GREAT DIVIDE. Monogram, 1942. Buck Jones, Mona Barrie, Raymond Hatton, Rex Bell, Tristram Coffin, Lee Shumway, Roy Barcroft, Harry Woods. Screenwriter: Adele Buffington; based on the story “Wheels of Fire,” by James Oliver Curwood. Director: Howard Bretherton.

   The movie’s only 63 minutes long, about the same as every other B-western made in the 1940s, but the budget for Dawn on the Great Divide has to have been higher than most of them. The full cast, if not in the thousands, runs to nearly 40 in all, and the re-creation of a wagon train heading west, headed by Buck Roberts (Buck Jones), is nicely done in authentic-looking detail.

   In some ways, this might even be considered a forerunner of the TV series called Wagon Train that came along much later. Each group of travelers has their own story, and not all of them turn out to be happy ones.

   Unfortunately there’s not time enough to tell all of them, but Buck certainly has his hands full as he does his best to deal with them. The greatest obstacle in their path, however, is the gang of crooks waiting for them at Beaver Lake, if they can only get there.

   Some sources say that this movie was meant to be part of Monogram’s “Rough Riders” series (Buck Jones, Raymond Hatton & Rex Bell), and so it says on the DVD case, but there’s no indication of it anywhere in the on-screen credits.

   Sad to say, this was Buck Jones’ last movie. It ends with him heading out with the wagons, but saying to Sadie Rand (Mona Barrie) that maybe he ought to settle down, and aw shucks, ma’am, maybe she wouldn’t mind waiting for him until he heads back that way again.

   But before the movie was even released, Buck Jones was one of the hundreds who perished in a notorious fire at the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston late in November 1942 while he was on a publicity tour for Monogram Pictures.

   He was 50 years old when he died, and as I watched the movie, I saw some resemblances between him and Randolph Scott as he appeared in his later westerns: a bit haggard, but rugged and solid, and very much a man of the west. I’m also glad that I didn’t realize that this was his last movie as I was watching. It’s a fine tribute to his memory, but there are times like this that you prefer not knowing.

YOUNG BUFFALO BILL. Republic, 1940. Roy Rogers, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, Pauline Moore, Hugh Sothern, Trevor Bardette, Steve Pendleton, Wade Boteler. Director: Joseph Kane.

THE KID RIDES AGAIN. PRC, 1943. Buster Crabbe, Al “Fuzzy” St. John, Iris Meredith, I. Stanford Jolley, Glenn Strange, Charles King.

   Here are a couple of B-westerns that play fast and loose with history, and if you can’t trust B-westerns, who can you trust? In the first of these two films, Roy Rogers plays Buffalo Bill Cody as a young scout who comes to the aid of an aged Spanish don with a ranch outside of Sante Fe. A crooked surveyor is trying to cheat him out of his land.

   In the second, Buster Crabbe adds another entry to a long list of movies in which he played Billy the Kid. In this particular alternative universe, Billy is a misunderstood gunfighter who’s really good if people would only leave him alone. This time around he helps a bank owner withstand a run on his bank after thieves have robbed it.

   In both cases there are young girls involved who catch both heroes’ eyes. Pauline Moore plays the Don Regas’s granddaughter to whom Roy is immediately attracted; and Iris Meredith is Joan Ainsley, the daughter of the banker in The Kid Rides Again.

   Another point of similarity between the two movies is that both Bill Cody and William Bonney have goofy sidekicks. Roy has Gabby Hayes, who resents (often) being called an old goat and is called Gabby for good reason; and Buster Crabbe has Fuzzy St. John, the skinny old galoot prone to scratching his addled head and sidesplitting pratfalls. (Well, I thought they were funny.)

   Neither plot line needs an in-depth analysis. The production values in Roy�s movie are the greater ones, but if you’re not a fan of singing cowboys, you already know to avoid his films. Roy’s probably also a better actor (earnest and young) than Buster Crabbe, but the Billy the Kid movie has something that Bill Cody doesn’t, and that’s Iris Meredith.

   What a beautiful woman! I’m comparatively new to the world of the serials of the 1930s and 40s, so I’ve not seen her in her most famous roles, those being The Spider’s Web (1938), Overland with Kit Carson (1939) and The Green Archer (1940), not to mention dozens of westerns like this one, which as it turns out, was also her last.

   Looking down the list of movies she was in (on IMDB), she deserved better roles than she ever received. If she had a major part in an “A” film, I don’t see it.

   I’ve found two photos to show you, but neither one comes from The Kid Rides Again. The first one (above) shows how she looked as Nita Van Sloan in the pulp hero serial, The Spider’s Web. In the second one (seen to the right), she’s standing between Charles Starrett and Bob Nolan in Spoilers of the Range, Columbia, 1939.

ACES AND EIGHTS. Puritan Pictures, 1936. *Tim McCoy, Luana Walters, *Rex Lease, *Wheeler Oakman, *Frank Glendon, Earl Hodgins, *Jimmy Aubrey, *Joseph Girard. Director: Sam Newfield.

   “Aces and eights” refers to the poker hand (two pair) that Wild Bill Hickok is supposed to have been holding when he was shot and killed at a card game. It doesn’t have much to do with the actual story that’s told in this movie, but in all honesty, it does come up a couple of times.

   Tim McCoy is a rather unusual hero in this film. Whether it was a role he was used to, I’m not able to tell you, but he’s a gambler, not really a bad guy, of course, but he’s capable of bringing a fifth ace into a card game when it suits his purposes.

    The other trait that “Gentleman Tim Madigan” is known for is not carrying a gun, but the strength in his hands, which he relies on instead, is great enough to tear a deck of cards in half once and in half again.

   From IMDB, I see that Tim McCoy played a lot of gents named Tim in the movies, but this is the only time he was Gentleman Tim Madigan. He was 45 years old and rode a little stiffly in the saddle when he made this movie, produced by a bottom of the barrel production company.

   I may be wrong, but 45 was older than most B-western heroes were, at least in the 1930s. McCoy started in the film business in 1925, in the sound era, which is relevant, and I’ll get back to that in a minute.

   Before that, though, take another look at the cast above. I’ve put an asterisk (*) before the names of all the players who began their careers in non-talking cinema, and Luana Walters began hers in 1930. The reason that this is relevant is that both they and the director, who began his career in 1926, often seemed to think this is a silent film. I’ll lay the greater responsibility on the director.

   But it’s the exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, along with the long pauses waiting for reactions to come, that kept reminding me of an era that should have been laid to rest long before this movie came along. Also – and this was extremely annoying – whenever a group of players are in a bar or saloon, in a loop of constant background noise and conversation you can hear the same bartender’s voice asking “Another one?” every five seconds.

   The story is a complicated one, especially for a 62 minute playing time, but I’ll boil it down to the following pair of intertwined threads:   (1) Madigan is deemed responsible for the shooting death of a card shark caught cheating, but on the scene were two other men, one the wayward son of (2) a Spanish land grant holder, who is being cheated out of his land by a fellow who’s printed up some phony documents.

   I started out intending to make this review short. It’s already longer than the movie, so I think it’s time to stop talking, right here and right now.

RIDE LONESOME. Columbia Pictures, 1959. Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, James Best, Lee Van Cleef, James Coburn. Screenwriter: Burt Kennedy; director: Budd Boetticher.

   When I was but a lad, Randolph Scott’s westerns were among my favorites, but I always wondered why he always played somebody different every time one of his movies came to town.

   Roy was always Roy, Gene was always Gene, and Durango was always Durango (but his alter ego Steve always seemed to have a different last name, a sneaky fact I never realized until IMDB came along).

   Having a cowboy star named Steve was all I needed, nothing more.

   I never saw Randolph Scott’s later westerns, though. By the time the late 50s came along, I was interested in other things, and it’s only recently that I’ve discovered that the later ones are considered to be among his best.

   I suspect that many of you are way ahead of me on this.

   In Ride Lonesome, for example, he plays a lean and somewhat mean bounty hunter named Ben Brigade. His prisoner is a young outlaw (and killer) named Billy John, played to callow perfection by James Best. Also on Billy John’s trail, but arriving too late are a couple of other outlaws (Pernell Roberts, in his pre-Bonanza days, and James Coburn, whose film debut this movie was).

   The reward money is not what motivates these last two. It’s the amnesty that the governor of the state has promised to anyone who brings Billy John in. Reluctantly they team up with Brigade, though, to make a stand against of a marauding band of Indians who have already killed Carrie Lane’s husband, manager of a stage stop in almost the middle of nowhere.

   That makes five of them who, once the Indian threat has passed, must also reckon with the fact that Billy John’s brother (Lee Van Cleef) is not going to take lightly the prospect of his hanging. As Ben Brigade, Scott is laconic to the point of barely moving his lips, his aging features chiseled as if out of well-weathered stone.

   A couple of segments of dialogue will illustrate, courtesy of IMDB to get them correct, but they’re the same ones that caught my ear as I was watching:

Mrs. Carrie Lane: You don’t seem like the kind that would hunt a man for money.
Ben Brigade: I am.

   I see that I have not yet mentioned Karen Steele, the young and impossibly blonde actress who plays Mrs. Lane, and she of the statuesque figure with measurements that even Barbie could envy. (Most of Karen Steele’s career seems to have been on television; this is one of only a very few movies she made. I truly regret not having a color closeup photo to show you.)

   Not surprisingly, Brigade’s temporary allies eye her with lust in their eyes as well as their heart, and even Brigade himself seems to be susceptible to her charms, once or twice. But Billy John is not Brigade’s only mission, and as the title suggests, it’s a lonesome one.

   In the list of my all time favorite western movies, I’m thinking it over, but I’m not yet sure that this one’s on it, or that it should be. Other reviewers have praised it highly, but at just over 70 minutes long, the story’s not quite deep enough for me to be convinced. But what it is is extremely good. The color photography is terrific, and all of the actors involved do top notch jobs.

   I don’t know why I’m resisting. But as I was watching, the story didn’t quite feel real enough, a little stagey perhaps, or maybe a little too pat for its own good. But as I’m writing this, I’ll tell you what. The movie’s calling me to watch it again, and there’s no way I won’t.

   Not only that, but I have a feeling that when I do, it’s going to move up a few notches in my own but totally objective personal ranking.

RIVER OF NO RETURN. 20th Century Fox. Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Rory Calhoun, Tommy Rettig. Director: Otto Preminger.

   I’ve listed only four cast members, but the opening scenes take place at a tent city swarming with prospectors, would-be prospectors, and those who prey on them, not to mention dance-hall girls and other members of the fairer sex, some innocent, others not so, and for almost all of time, their parts are so small I didn’t bother listing their names. (You can find them at IMDB if you’re so interested.)

   All we really see for the longest part of three-fourths of the film are (in remarkably the same proportion) only three of the four above.

   There are some Indians, though, and they’re howling down the trail of Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum), who’s trying to make a life for himself as a farmer; his nine-year-old son Mark (Tommy Rettig of Lassie fame); and Kay Weston (Marilyn Monroe), one of those previously mentioned dance-hall girls, complete with sequins, black net stockings, and a guitar.

   Forced onto a raft to make their escape, the trip downriver is hard and torturous. They’re without a horse or a rifle, both stolen by Kay’s no-good husband Harry, one of those previous mentioned gamblers. (This is where the perfectly cast Rory Calhoun comes in.) As a parenthetical remark, I believe that Kay says toward the end of the movie that they aren’t married yet, but once Harry files his claim on a gold mine he won in a poker game, they intend to.

   Of course close propinquity makes all the difference in the world, although the road to romance is never easy, and so it is here. In a pique of anger, Kay blurts out Matt’s secret, which causes a rift between him and his son, which makes a group of not very happy camping buddies for a while.

   A scene in which Matt cannot resist temptation and tries to kiss Kay, who is not particularly receptive at the time, comes surprisingly close to a rape scene, one that must have barely gotten by the censors.

   That Matt tosses Kay over his shoulder at the end seems to be an all-but-foregone conclusion throughout the movie, but if it were filmed today, I don’t think that scene would be included – unless for a comic effect that would otherwise not be called for.

   As for the two stars, Marilyn I don’t believe was ever lovelier, and nothing I could say could be more direct or emphatic than that. She may even have done her own singing in this movie, but I am kind of doubtful about the guitar playing.

   Robert Mitchum plays himself and second fiddle very nicely, in a role of a new father (to a son he’s only learning to know) in which he’s almost perfect, but not quite.

   As to the future to this new family (hopefully not giving too much away), some viewers may wonder how easily Kay may adjust to her new life. I suppose answering this question might have paved the way for another movie, a sequel, but on the other hand, why spoil the ending of this one?

PostScript.   I understand that the making of this movie was not easy, to say the least. Preferring to concentrate on the end results, I didn’t go into any of that in my comments above. I thought I should add this short paragraph here at the end, though, just so that you’d know I wasn’t totally unaware of the real world.

[UPDATE] 12-22-08.  There’s one thing I forgot to mention. The movie was filmed in CinemaScope or the equivalent, but the Cinemax channel that I taped it from definitely did not show a wide-screen version. Every so often, and too often as far as I was concerned, all we see of two people talking to each other in the same shot are their noses — and a wide expanse of countryside in between, or a close-up shot of a piano player busily working away behind them.

   I’ve just ordered what ought to be a much improved version on DVD from Amazon. Countrysides are nice, and the piano player is really quite terrific, but I’d really prefer to see the primary actors.

GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL. Paramount, 1957. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland, Lyle Bettger, Frank Faylen, Earl Holliman. Vocals: Frankie Laine. Screenwriter: Leon Uris; director: John Sturges.

   As a technicolor movie running just over two hours in length, this was a true western epic at the time it was released, and if it isn’t considered one now, it isn’t the fault of either of the two leading stars.

   Burt Lancaster plays Wyatt Earp, straight and narrow to the core, and Kirk Douglas is in fine boisterous mettle as Doc Holliday, dying of TB and therefore unafraid of any man with a gun, and (as they say) untameable by any woman (Jo Van Fleet, as the much-abused Kate Fisher). And here lies an early cinematic revelation, perhaps, that a western hero’s deeds need not always be heroic.

   But the events of the O. K. Corral are what everyone who watches this movie is going to be waiting for. Don’t expect either historical accuracy or intelligence on part of the Clantons and their gang, including Johnny Ringo (the always menacing John Ireland). Along the way we get a bit of romance between Wyatt and a gambler lady named Laura Denbow (the beautiful redheaded Rhonda Fleming) but I noticed no particular sparks flying.

   No sir or ma’am, Kirk Douglas is the star of this show, tagging along as he does with Wyatt as the latter takes his lawmaking abilities from town to town, and a rough craggy friendship, even respect, gradually develops. And that’s the story as far as I was concerned. Friendships, even craggy ones, are never to be shunned. (Getting up from a sick bed to face the Clantons with me, as does Doc, that’s a bonus I wouldn’t ask of anyone.)

UNKNOWN VALLEY. Columbia, 1933; Lambert Hillyer, direction and screenplay; Charles “Buck” Jones, Cecilia Parker, Wade Boteler, Frank McGlynn, Ward Bond, Arthur Wanzer, Alf James, Brett Black, Frank Ellis, Gaylord Pendleton and “Silver.” Shown at Cinecon 41, September 2005.

   An unusual western. Buck, in search of his missing father, after crossing a desert to a range of mountains where his father appears to have been heading, stumbles on a community of religious extremists.

   Buck discovers that their leaders, Ward Bond and Wade Boteler, have been mining for gold with the help of Buck’s missing father, now their prisoner, and plan to escape shortly with their loot.

   The religious sect is not really identified, but they are (with the exception of their treacherous leaders) peaceful folk, who want only to maintain their way of life without interference from outsiders.

   Buck was my favorite cowboy hero when I was a kid, and I think I had good taste. An intelligent film that has enough thrills and suspense to keep an audience enthralled.

GOLD OF THE SEVEN SAINTS. Warner Brothers, 1961. Clint Walker, Roger Moore, Letícia Román, Robert Middleton, Chill Wills, Gene Evans. Based on the novel Desert Guns by Steve Frazee; co-screenwriter: Leigh Brackett. Director: Gordon Douglas.

   Desert Guns was a paperback original (Dell First Edition A135, 1957) which I own and which I really ought to read. For now, this movie that’s based upon it will have to do. Any resemblance between film and book, however, may be (as usual) coincidental.

   But however strong their relationship is in the book, Clint Walker and Roger Moore certainly make a good pair of friends in the movie, a small western epic of an adventure filmed (unfortunately) in black-and-white. Walker plays Jim Rainbolt, the senior of the two fur-trapping partners, while Moore is Shaun Garrett, his protege, so to speak, a young Irish cowboy who’s a bit wet behind the ears, and has a propensity to neither stop talking or (believe it or not) singing throughout the film.

   One reviewer on IMDB claims their relationship borders on the homoerotic, but I don’t know. I guess you have to be looking for subtexts such as this, but if you’re interested in following him up on his claim, you can go read his long post for yourself.

   Which not to say that you cannot find one or the other bare-chested in this film, and at least one of the photos that I’ve found to show you will back me up on this. The two of them make a good team, Clint Walker doing the TV show Cheyenne (1955-1962) at the same time as this movie, and Roger Moore just finishing a run as Beauregarde Maverick on that other Warner Brothers TV western series, but not yet known as The Saint.

   What gets them into trouble in Gold of the Seven Saints is not their fur-trapping activities, but the 250 pounds of gold they’ve come across while doing so. This is a lot of weight to carry around, of course, and while trying to steal a horse while passing by a small town on their way to Seven Saints (the town where they’re headed), Shaun is cornered and buys his way out of trouble (and gains the horse) with a small nugget he’s carrying with him to clinch the deal.

   Which is not a good idea. Almost immediately the two of them are on the run with a gang of thieves on their trail. Gene Evans is McCracken, the villainous leader of the bunch, and hardly anybody played a meaner, tougher western villain than Gene Evans. Chill Wills plays a doctor with an equally villainous thirst for whiskey, and Robert Middleton is a perhaps overly friendly Mexican bandit named Gondora. Both come to the two men’s rescue, or so they say.

   There is only one female role of any consequence in this movie, and that’s Tita (Letícia Román), apparently Gondora’s “ward.” (I did not catch the full details, but Gondora is willing to sell her to the one of the pair who makes the higher offer.)

   Once again it is a pity that a wide screen movie filmed with such spectacular scenery in the background was not done in color. The plot itself is fairly straight-forward. You’ll watch this for the players, all of whom seem to be having a good time.

   As a quick PostScript, I’m probably not the only one who has wondered why Clint Walker did not have a more successful movie career than he did. Perhaps it was just a matter of being typecast as a Western player, and unlike Clint Eastwood, say, he never quite found the role that shifted gears for him.

PRAIRIE LAW. RKO Radio Pictures, 1940. George O’Brien, Virginia Vale, Slim Whitaker, Paul Everton, Cy Kendall. Directed by David Howard.

   Generally speaking, I didn’t intend to include reviews of B-western movies here on the M*F blog, but since there’s more than the usual amount of criminous activities going on in this film’s 60 minutes, I decided to break my own rule, and who better?

   A crooked land promoter, Judge Ben Curry (Paul Everton), is taking money from farmers hand over fist, without telling them two things: One, that the former ghost town of Olympia City, where his headquarters are, has no water, and two, that the land he is selling them belongs to cattleman Brill Austin (George O’Brien).

   Yes, in this movie it is the cattlemen who are the good guys and not the usual other way around. Among the settlers is the daughter of one of the farmers, Priscilla Brambull (Virginia Vale) – and no, I didn’t think of that until right now, and no, it’s not that kind of movie. Among other legal misbehavior committed by Judge Curry is his blatant attempt to call for an election without proper notice, stuffing the ballot box, and declaring Olympia City the county seat so that the killer of the sheriff, Brill Austin’s Uncle Jim, can be set free.

   Later on in the movie while a valid trial is being held in Prairie Rose, the jury does double duty: while deliberating on the verdict, they’re also dodging bullets by the judge’s henchmen. All this in sixty minutes, I remind you, which also includes a song sung by the uncredited Ray Whitley and his band.

   There’s nothing here to be taken too seriously, as the players certainly don’t, but other than that, it’s a rather pleasurable experience. As for George O’Brien, a former silent film star who went into non-series westerns like this one when talkies came in, this was close to the end of his steady movie career.

    [Truth in advertising: The photo of O’Brien comes from another film of the same vintage and not this one — but it could have been.]