Hey GremlinZilla if you like Spaghetti Westerns and haven't already seen it, check out "My Name is Nobody" written and produced by Leone and starring Terence Hill and Henri Fonda, it's great. (I think it's on Netflix but I'm not sure.)
Hey GremlinZilla if you like Spaghetti Westerns and haven't already seen it, check out "My Name is Nobody" written and produced by Leone and starring Terence Hill and Henri Fonda, it's great. (I think it's on Netflix but I'm not sure.)
YUMA (1971) starring Clint Walker, Barry Sullivan, Kathryn Hays, Edgar Buchanan, and Morgan Woodward.
This was a made for TV movie that most likely was a pilot that didn't sale. If it had been made 10 to 15 years earlier, it would have been a "B" theatrical release. I
Just as new town Marshal Dave Harmon (Walker) arrives in town, two drunken cowboy brothers, Sam and Rol King (Bruce Glover and Bing Russell), come tearing in on the stagecoach they stole, turn it over in the middle of main street, and head for the saloon as they shoot their guns repeatedly into the air. Harmon loads a double barreled shotgun and heads over. He tells them to drop their guns and come with him. One brother (Russell) says ok, but the other one refuses, and then shoots several times at Harmon, who has no recourse but to shoot him off the bar he's standing on with the shotgun....needless to say, he dies. The townsfolk, led by Nels Decker (Barry Sullivan) are not pleased with this...because they know that the brothers are the younger brother of rich cattleman Arch king (Morgan Woodward) who's just a day or two from town bringing in a herd of cattle, and that he will not be happy.
Harman takes Rol to jail. He gets a room at the local hotel owned and run by the beautiful and single Julie Williams (Hayes), catches teenage orphan Andres (Miguel Alejandro) trying to steal from his luggage (and promptly gives his a job cleaning the Marshal's office and tells him to go sleep over there), and meets the only friendly guy in town, old coot Mules McNeil (Edgar Buchanan). That night a cowboy (Robert Phillips) and a U.S. cavalry Captain (John Kerr) sneak into the jail, tell Rol that they don't like how he was treated by the new Marshal, so they break him out....only to shoot him in the back as he leaves the jailhouse with the same shotgun Harmon used on his brother. Andres, who was sleeping in there, saw the feet of the killers but not their faces...so the only clue he can give Harmon is that one of them wore cavalry boots.
Harmon heads out to the local fort, checks the signout book to find that only one cavalryman has left the fort that evening, Captain White, who we the audience know is definately the killer. He also wakes up and annoys the fort's commandant Major Lucas (Peter Mark Richman), who when told that Harmon suspects Major White with the crime, the Major recounts Harmon's past history - of having his wife raped and murdered after the war between the states, accusing cavalrymen of doing it, and causing trouble all across the west with cavalrymen as he hunts for her killers (I told you they were setting up a series...they had enough backstory on things to last several seasons). Harmon wants to know where Captain white is and is told he is probably doing his duty...which is getting beef to the local reservation of Apaches...so he is either at the Apaches or gone to check on the incoming herd of cattle they are buying off of Arch King. Harmon decides on the lesser of two evils so goes to talk to the Apaches. When he talks to them...he finds out that they are about to jump the rez because they have not been getting the beef they were promised. Harmon promises to help them.
From here on, we have Harmon, through more investigating than shooting (although there is still a minor shootout or two), solving the big conspiracy of stealing from the Apaches and people getting kickbacks on government contracts. A surprise twist to the mastermind behind it all was not seen coming by me.
All in all, not great but a fun little watch. It's always nice to see Clint Walker in a western (he was born for the genre) and to see some of the old character actors in the background.
Some trivia -
Bruce Glover (DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, WALKING TALL TRILOGY, CHINATOWN) is the father of creepy actor Crispen Glover.
Bing Russell (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, BONANZA, THE BIG VALLEY) is the father of Kurt Russell.
Rudy Diaz who plays the leader of the Apaches, had a 25 year acting career mostly playing Native Americans in movies and Tv shows...after....he had retired from the Los Angeles police department.
THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER (1965) starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Michael Anderson Jr., Earl Holliman, Martha Hyer, Jeremy Slate, James Gregory, Dennis Hopper, and George Kennedy.
Beloved, proud, and stubborn Katie Elder has died, and her four sons are coming home to bury her. Three are at the train station, the rakish gambler Tom (Martin), the serious no nonsense Matt (Holliman), and the young impetuous Bud (Anderson), waiting for the fourth....the infamous gunman John Elder (Wayne). Also waiting for him at the station is the aged but sensible town sheriff Billy Wilson (Paul Fix) and his young quick to anger deputy Ben Latta (Jeremy Slate). John does not get off of the train when it arrives...but a shady looking cowboy (George Kennedy) does. They go to the funeral (where many townspeople tell of how much they loved Katie) and no one notices John up on a hillside between rock formations watching the proceedings. After everyone leaves the ceremony....John comes down to visit the grave, and sheriff Billy Wilson is there to meet him. He tells John that he isn't wanted for anything in this part of the territory, so he won't arrest him, but he doesn't want any trouble and he should move along. John says he doesn't want any trouble, just wants to settle his folks estate...and Billy tells him there is no estate. It comes as a surprise to him that his father had been murdered six months earlier...right after losing his ranch in a card game and that his mother had been living in an old shack provided by the banker because he felt sorry for the beloved old lady.
John goes to where Katie had been staying and meets up with his brothers. He hasn't seen any of them in 10 or more years and quickly go from slapping each other on the back to arguing over petty issues pretty quickly. Young and pretty townswoman Mary Gordon (Hyer) shows up with a basketful of food for them. When John thanks her for it, she replies "Don't thank me. I didn't do this for you....I did it for Kate, because she would have wanted me to. I don't care a thing for you four." She then asks where her four big wonderful sons were when she was having to scrounge for a living. Tells how she wouldn't take any charity from anyone because she had her four sons providing for her (which obviously they weren't). They then go into town to settle up her bills. They here more stories about her making dresses and giving guitar lessons to live on. The banker tells how their father had lost the ranch in a card game to a new guy in town, Morgan Hastings (James Gregory) who is trying to buy up everything and how he had gave her the shack to live in to have a roof over her head. While this is going on, Hastings and his hired men are watching them and go in behind them and ask the people what they were asking about. When the undertaker (John Doucette ) says it's none of their business...they press hard, which leads to one of those iconic moments form the movie when John comes back and ends the conflict with an axe handle to the face.
John and his brothers ride out to their old ranch now taken over by Hastings...he's still in town, but they are met at the door by his wussy son Dave (Dennis Hopper) who is jumpy jittery and afraid of his shadow. He won't talk to them about anything and screams for them to leave the ranch. Just then, "looking for trouble" deputy Ben Latta arrives and asks what the problem is...and Dave promptly says that he asked them to leave and that they not only refused but threatened him (which they didn't)...so Ben promptly arrests them. At which time brother Tom (Martin) promptly knocks him off his horse and takes his gun away from him. They then lead the deputy back to town and talk to Sheriff Billy about what happened...and he promptly lets them go. They go back to the shack, and a rancher from 50 or so miles away meets them, and tells them of the letter their mother had sent him about wanting the rancher to give her a bunch of horses on consignment, and she would repay him after she had sold them. He says he wanted to meet the woman who had balls enough to suggest it. They ask if he will consider doing it with them now that Katie is dead, and he says why not. So they ride off to get the horses. Later that night, deputy Latta and Hastings come into the sheriff's office and shoe Billy a wanted poster for Matt they had found. Latta wants to go and arrest the lot of them, but Billy says he will ride out and talk to them because Latta is too hot headed. As Billy rides up to their shack (that they are not at, because rode off to another county to get the horse) he is shot by Hastings and left to die.
When Billy's horse returns without him, deputy Latta rides out to the shack and finds him...and of course immediately believes the "Elder Gang" did it. He gathers a posse and goes looking for them. The posse catches up with them with the horses...and arrest them for the murder of Billy and for stealing a herd of horses. Angry deputy Latta will not listen or check into their alibi and the entire town, encouraged by Hastings and his men, believe they are guilty and want to lynch them. Finally listening to some good advice, Latta decides to move them to another county before the locals kill them...too bad he doesn't know all the volunteers to ride with him are on Hastings' payroll and plan to ambush them down by the river. They shackle the brothers together in twos, put them in a wagon and head out. At the river as the ambush starts, John disarms the driver and all the brothers jump into the water and hide under the bridge. A big shootout ensues, one brother is killed, another wounded, and they manage to escape back to town and hold up in the livery stable. The fear of John's shooting keeps the town at bay, and that night, Matt sneaks out and grabs Hastings' son to try and get info on what the hell is going on. The Marshal that came to check on things hears the truth from Dave Hastings. This leads to a final showdown between John and Hastings that ends in a bang....a big bang. The Elder's are exonerated....but one is dead and now two are seriously wounded.....the end.
Not as many shootouts as you would expect from a Wayne western, but the ones that happen are grand. There's a great Elmer Bernstein score. A couple of standout stunts that keeps you talking about them. A fair amount of humor to offset the seriousness. Definately a must see for Wayne and western fans.
ONE FOOT IN HELL (1960) starring Alan Ladd, Don Murray, Dan O'Herlihy, Dolores Michaels, and Barry Coe.
Mitch Garrett (Ladd) and his wife Ellie (Rachel Stephens) are traveling in a covered wagon, she is pregnant and the baby is ready to come. They hurry to a nearby town. He takes her to the hotel, where the proprietor demands money up front (even though he is carrying his pregnant moaning wife) and refuses to go for the doctor down the street saying he can't leave the hotel. Mitch carries his wife upstairs, and then runs to get the doctor. He brings the doc back, and he starts checking her out, then sends Mitch down to the store to have the owner make up some medicine he needs. He runs and gets the store owner out of bed to do it, he grumbles about it, and mixes the medicine up, then demands the $1.82 for it before he will hand it over. Mitch has no money left (the movie takes place right after the civil war, his farm was burned out and stolen by carpetbaggers, so he and his wife had headed out west with next to nothing to start a new life) and offers his horse and wagon to him for payment. He refuses, so Mitch pulls a gun and takes it from him...as he runs for the hotel, the store owner creates a ruckus and the town sheriff (Karl Swenson) stops him. Mitch repeatedly tells them that his wife is sick at the hotel and that their doc had sent him for the needed medicine. The sheriff finally decides to take him to the hotel to check his story...to find that she has died. The doctor feels so bad about all this, he convinces the town council to give him a job as the sheriff's deputy to show that they are sorry. He becomes the deputy and works hard and everyone in town bend over backward to be nice to him. Little do they know....this is a man that holds a grudge.
A wandering drunkard ex reb, Dan Keats (Don Murray) comes into town, and Mitch helps him out...and then recruits him into his plan. Once a year a big herd of cattle is brought in, the town bank then has around one hundred thousand dollars on hand for the purchase of the cattle...and Mitch plans on robbing it. Then one day when a rancher reports a couple of stolen horses, Mitch and the sheriff ride out to look for the thief....but Mitch shoots the sheriff and brings him back into town and says the horse thief did it....Mitch is now made sheriff. Over time we see him recruit con man and killer Sir Harry Ivers (Dan O'Herlihy), prostitute Julie Reynolds (Dolores Michaels), and cold blooded gunfighter Stu Christian (Barry Coe). Dan continues to have trouble with his drinking, but starts falling for Julie who thinks no good man would want an ex hooker, Sir Harry minds his own business waiting for the job to be done and Stu continuously eggs Dan about his drinking, getting no where with Julie, and being on the losing side of the civil war (in other words, the only thing he does better than shooting people is being a dick to those down on their luck). Dan was recruited because he was an artist....he makes detailed sketches of the town, the bank, the people of the town to help with the planning. Julie is to act like Mitch's new mail order bride to help with his later alibi of being a great member of the community. As the time of the robbery nears, Mitch now tells Sir Harry and Stu about the second part of the plan he hasn't told Dan and Julie...he assigns them the store owner and hotel owner to kill.
When the cattle are being herded through town, the plan commences...Sir Harry goes to the store, kills the owner and sets the place on fire....Stu does the same at the hotel....and they meet at the bank where they take the money and kill the banker and the cattleman. Then Mitch has Stu shoot him in the arm so that it looks like he fought with them, and they hide the money at Mitch's house (no one will look there) and scatter off separately. Mitch leads the posse looking for them...and at first they find nothing, then Mitch shows up where Stu is hiding and tells him the plan has changed, he needs to move to another hideout...as Stu leaves the cabin, Mitch fires a shot, and the posse which had surrounded the place cut him down. By the time they get to the cabin, he has made it look like there had been a fight in there, and they suspect nothing. Dan has totally fallen for Julie at this point, and she is now falling for him...so Dan rides back to town to tell Mitch they are going to run off without their share, he gets to town and hears how Mitch had found and killed Stu. Knowing their lives are in danger, he rides back to warn Julie, but Mitch is already there....they get into a fight and Dan manages to kill Mitch. He and Julie take the money back to town and throw themselves on the mercy of the judge, saying they had no knowledge of the killings and burnings that Mitch did. The judge says he believes them and says he will do everything in his ability to have things go light on them.
One of the last films made by Ladd, he would die 4 years after this from a combination of too much alcohol and sleeping pills. At the time he had a big drinking problem, and it was taking it's effects on his looks. It's interesting knowing of his drinking problem, and how many times in this movie he gives Dan hell for being a drunkard.
COST OF DYING (1968) starring John Ireland, Andrea Giordana, Raymond Pellegrin, Bruno Corazzari.
Cattle rustlers in Colorado are having trouble getting their herd through the heavy snow, so they stop at a remote town and take it over. The leader Scaife (Bruno Corazzari) is a cold blooded killer, his second in command Dan (John Ireland) is not only a better tempered guy, but has ties to the town. The retired sheriff Bill Ransom (Raymond Pellegrin) is the only man in town to stand up to them, and he is killed. Then the leader Scaife has the gang put the townsmen to work as slave labor making a big corral for the herd, and they move in on the women. When one man, Tony (Andrea Giordana), knifes one of the gang and runs into the woods....the leader has three townsmen shot. So Tony sneaks back and kills four of the gang with his knife. Scaife realizes he has to hunt him down and kill him because the other way didn't work. Dan goes out and finds him, but instead of killing him, he trains him to use guns....because unknown to Tony, Dan is his father (I told you he had ties to the town). They then go in and kill all the gang and free the town.
A spaghetti western with a bit of a difference...the general story line has been used in the past, but this is one of the few (the only that comes to mind at this writing) spaghetti western that takes place in the snowy mountain forests instead of the dusty desert southwest. Worth taking a look at for that fact alone...nothing else special.
TAKE A HARD RIDE (1975) starring Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Jim Kelly, Lee Van Cleef, Catherine Spaak, Barry Sullivan, Dana Andrews, Harry Carey Jr., and Robert Donner.
We start off with hard case bounty hunter Kiefer (Van Cleef) goading a man (stuntman Hal Needham) into a gunfight and killing him. We then meet trail boss Pike (Brown) who works for Mr. Morgan (Andrews)....they have just sold a herd of cattle and are about to head back to their ranch in Sanora Mexico. Morgan has a heart attack, and before he dies, he gets Pike to swear he will get the money back to his wife and the other guys at the ranch. When Pike leaves for Mexico...he has half the men in that part of the country looking for him and the money. Next we meet gambler Tyree (Williamson) who uses a rattlesnake as a distraction to exchange his cards for a winning hand. When he hears about Pike he goes after him too. He runs into Pike as he is fighting off several would be robbers and helps him...then suggests they split the money. Pike will have nothing to do with it because he gave his word to Morgan...Tyree says it doesn't count because it was a "whiteman". Next we see man and a woman (Catherine Spaak) being attacked by a group of badguys. Out of nowhere....moccasin footed, no shirted, but cool vest, and "Billy Jack" hat wearing Kashtok (Jim Kelly) appears and starts martial arting their butts (Kelly is best known as Williams from ENTER THE DRAGON) before he is knocked out. As the bad guys start to rape the woman, Pike and Tyree show up and kill the rest of them. Kashtok, who was raised by Indians and had his tongue cut out was travelling with the couple, the woman still wants to go to a town by the Mexican border, So Pike says she can ride with them that far. Kashtok runs along in front because he don't need no damn horse.
We now have Kiefer (Van Cleef) and a couple of lowlifes (Harry Carey Jr and Robert Donner) travelling together after them....a religious southerner (Ronald Howard with a gatlin gun....another pair of black men on their trail, a crooked sheriff from back at the original town (Barry Sullivan) and various other groups all out gunning for them. Multiple gunfights,wild stunts, and Kelly Kung Fuing people's heads ensue. During one big gun battle you think the woman has stolen the money when she runs off with the saddle bags and leads the bad guys away...but after she is killed by the gatlin gun we find that she had hid the money back by Pike and was trying to save them. Pike keeps heading south, and shootouts and fights continue. There's a giant final shootout when everyone comes together at the same place at the same time (those that have survived all the other fights that is) that is topped off with dynamite in a mine.
Fun little action movie, good stunts and some interesting martial arts business.
Filmed in the volcanic Canary Islands, so an interesting look to the landscape.
According to IMDB, even though Hal Needham is in the movie and credited as Stunt Coordinator...he was fired after he proposed a stunt for Brown and Williamson that they though was too dangerous.
Dana Andrews role was a small one, but his name lent prestige to the production because he had starred in such movies as LAURA, A WALK IN THE SUN, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, and THE OX-BOW INCIDENT.
BLINDMAN (1971) starring Tony Anthony, Ringo Starr, Lloyd Battista, Magda Konopka, Raf Baldassarre, and Agneta Eckemyr.
One thing you can say about spaghetti westerns....they could be weird.
This is the simple story of a blind cowboy....who with his partners made a deal to deliver 50 mail order brides to a bunch of miners....and then he was double crossed by his partners when they sell them to a Mexican bandit gang (one of whom is RINGO STARR...yes, Ringo "I am the drummer for the BEATLES" Starr) who are going to force them into prostitution....but first they act like they are going to use them to pay off a Mexican general and his troops so they will leave them alone....only to kill all but the general with a Gatling gun and hold the general for ransom....but blindman, who uses a rifle with a bayonet as a cane and has a horse that does more tricks than Roy Roger's Trigger, doggedly keeps showing up saying "I want my 50 women." (that line is used about four times).....which leads to shootouts (for a blindman he kills a bunch with his rifle) and fights (which he usually loses, until in one fight a friend blinds his opponent with a cigar to the eyes to make things even) and chases (the best being 50 semi clad barefoot women running over sand dunes being chased by Mexican bandits on horseback) and his knocking over and breaking every damn thing within reach of his hands or bayonetedrifle/cane as he looks for things.
You have to look this one up and see it.....just for the damn weirdness of it. Lots of people shot and beat up, quick flashes of 50 nekkid womens folk having buckets of water thrown on them, great antics by the horse all cowboys wished they had.....and Ringo Starr playing a Mexican rapist bandit......
ABILENE TOWN (1946) starring Randolph Scott, Ann Dvorak, Edgar Buchanan, Rhonda Fleming, and Lloyd Bridges.
Standard oater, not as serious and gritty as Scott's later pics.
It's cattlemen VS ranchers. Abilene is divided down the middle of main st. Saloons and bawdy houses on one side, the respectable merchants on the others. The cattlemen are rude crude and brash and think they own the town...the ranchers are moving in and putting up fences on the range land. Scott is the honest respectable town Marshal, Buchanan the lazy county Sheriff. Things are getting testy between the two groups until one cattleman starts shooting up ranches and burning them. Scott eventually shoots the leader of the cattlemen and settles things down....and walks off with the saloon gal on his arm.
THE CURSE OF DEMON MOUNTAIN (1977) starring Joe Don Baker, Sondra Locke, Ted Neeley, Joy N. Houck Jr., and Slim Pickens.
This was from one of those multiple box set DVDs you get for $5 - $10. On the box it was listed as THE SHADOW OF CHIKARA....on the DVD it was WISHBONE CUTTER....when the movie started it was THE CURSE OF DEMON MOUNTAIN...according to IMDB, there are even more titles out there.
This is a low budget horror western. It starts out during a battle at the close of the civil war (at this point, I can't prove it, but I swear most of the battle scenes were shots from a different angle from the John Wayne film THE UNDEFEATED...so far research hasn't found any other mention of this) where we are introduced to Major Wishbone Cutter (Baker), his best friend Half Moon (Houck) and shortly to Virgil Cane (Slim Pickens in a cameo). If the character name Virgil Cane sounds familiar....it's because it's the name of the character being sung about in the song THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OL' DIXIE DOWN sung by THE BAND...and the song is used in the movie.
As Virgil is dying, he tells Cutter and Half Moon about a treasure of "purty rocks" he hid in a cave on a certain mountain. They figure they have nothing better to do, so they recruit Amos "Teach" Richmond (Ted Neely....Jesus in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR) a mineralogist to join them, and they head out west. Getting close to the mountain, they find some settlers massacred by Indians using black arrows, and are shot at by them too (Teach gets an arrow to the arm). A little further down the road they find a shell shocked Drusilla Wilcox (Locke) and carry her along with them. Half Moon (who is a half breed - see what they did there) goes to track the Indians that attacked them...but can find absolutely nothing. He says they are like ghosts...and starts getting spooked. Later they run into several inbred morons who tell them about the spooky area they are going to, where men go and don't return, where the Indians stay away from, and people say it is guarded by ghosts. Our guys still go looking for the cave on the top of spooky mountain.
As they head up, they keep feeling like something is watching and following them, but Half Moon can't ever find anything. When they get to the base of the mountain....Half Moon all of a sudden recognizes the place even though he's never been there...it is "known" by all Indians as an evil place that is protected by a giant eagle spirit. They go up it. They find a cave. They look for "purty rocks". It isn't until now that the word diamonds is used. Half Moon and Drusilla take the horses to get water.....unfortuantly they take the shortcut off the side of the mountain. {a couple of the reviews on IMDB say it looks like they threw real horses off of the side of the mountain. My copy of the movie was so bad during this scene I couldn't tell if they were real or not} Half Moon and the horses die...Drusilla manages to hang on to the side of the cliff, Cutter and Teach manage to rescue her. They go back to looking for the diamonds, and find them. They plan to leave on foot in the morning, as Teach is standing watch,[BLACKOUT] Drusilla gets frisky and leads him outside where Cutter won't hear them. Teach gets a black arrow to the throat. Cutter drags the screaming Drusilla back into the cave to protect her...and she knifes him, then throws the diamonds away. She then runs outside, pulls a big bow from under leaves, raises it high in the air and a big eagle swoops down to get it. She then hears a noise and we see two riders on a far hill heading her way because they heard the noise. She lays down and positions herself just like she looked when our guys found her....the end.[/BLACKOUT]
I'm looking for a damn fine Western to watch. I like one's with a bit more teeth, like Spaghetti Westerns and so forth. I've seen most of the "must watch" films, so something a little less traveled would be right up my alley.
I wasn't a fan of the genre when I was a kid and had seen films like Young Guns and The Quick and the Dead but wasn't really all that affected. Then a few years ago a friend of mine gave me the Deadwood Season 1 DVD and I was really impressed. So since then I've watched films like The White Buffalo with Charles Bronson & Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad of Cable Hogue; both of which I recommend. And of course the Sergio Leone trilogy with Clint Eastwood, to me this maybe the 2nd greatest trilogy of all time (2nd only to The Godfather trilogy).
Some of my other favorites include the TV series Have Gun Will Travel, John Ford's Stagecoach, The Missouri Breaks starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven, both versions of True Grit, the Clint Eastwood films The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven and Hang 'Em High. I also dig the Weird West sub genre with stuff like Dead Birds, The Burrowers and Cowboys & Aliens.
Watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the first time earlier this year and for the most part enjoyed it. Paul Newman and Robert Redford have great chemistry together. The only thing that took me out of the movie was the bicycle riding montage which was absolutely ridiculous. The constant use of musical montages gets a bit tedious. Other than that it's a solid popcorn movie and a classic Western.
Also watched El Dorado (1966) for the first time a few months ago and enjoyed it. John Wayne had some great lines in this movie. He also had excellent on screen chemistry with Robert Mitchum and James Caan. I don't think I've ever seen James Caan so young. Michele Carey looked incredible as Joey. Nice to see Ed Asner show up as Bart Jason. A classic Western with tons of exciting action and some genuinely funny bits.
Today in honor of it being Elvis Presley's birthday, I watched -
FLAMING STAR (1960) Directed by Don Siegel - starring Elvis Presley, Barbara Eden, Steve Forrest, Dolores del Rio, John McIntire, Rodolfo Acosta, and Richard Jaeckel.
A grittier movie than most people expect because of the Elvis connection, this is a story or prejudice and racial problems in the old west. In mid to late 1800's Texas, White rancher Sam Burton (John McIntire from WAGON TRAIN and THE VIRGINIAN) is married to Neddy (Dolores del Rio, 3 time winner of the ARIEL{the Mexican Academy Award}), a native American woman from the Kiowa tribe. John has a son Clint (Steve Forrest from S.W.A.T. and THE BARON) from a previous marriage and a half breed son Pacer (Elvis). When new war chief of the local Kiowa tribe Buffalo Horn (Rodolfo Acosta from THE HIGH CHAPARRAL, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, RETURN OF THE SEVEN) starts rampaging through the countryside, the local whites turn against Pacer and his family. The family and their ranch are harassed and attacked by the local whites (for harboring Indians) while Buffalo Horn and his warriors want Pacer to join them. The Kiowa hate the whites, the whites hate the Kiowa.....the Burton family is torn apart and many people all around are killed. The movie does not have the standard happy or optimistic ending. Definately worth watching.
I'm looking for a damn fine Western to watch. I like one's with a bit more teeth, like Spaghetti Westerns and so forth. I've seen most of the "must watch" films, so something a little less traveled would be right up my alley.
Been a long time since I saw it, can't remember much, will have to look for it....but any movie with Klaus Kinski in it is worth a look.
Today I watched -
TEN WANTED MEN (1955) starring Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Jocelyn Brando, Skip Homeier, Leo Gordon, Dennis Weaver, Lee Van Cleef, and Donna Martell.
Rancher John Stewart (Scott) brings his brother the lawyer and his son out west just in time to step into the middle of a war between him and local bar owner/rancher/bad guy Wick Campbell (Boone). There is animosity between the two to begin with, but when young Maria Segura (Martell) not only refuses the advances of Wick, but runs to John for help....he really flips his lid. He hires a bunch of gunmen to come in and take over the town. He kills people right and left while looking for the hiding Maria...and soon the gunmen figure it's better to take over the town without him and go on a real rampage. Eventually John and young sheriff Clyde Gibbons (Weaver) gather a few men to take them on. many are killed on both sides, with the final gunfight being instead a dynamite against gunmen fight and then a hand to hand battle to the finish between Randolph Scott and Leo Gordon.
It's just an average movie. It's nice to see a bunch of old western character actors running around, but too many of them are given stupid things to do.
A side note...about 10 years ago I met Donna Martell at a convention, She was a sweet old lady who spoke highly of how nice Scott was on the set.
Directed by Burt Kennedy
Starring: Bekim Fehmiu, Richard Crenna, Chuck Connors, Ricardo Montalban, Ian Bannen, Brandon De Wilde, Slim Pickens, Woody Strode, Albert Salmi, Patrick Wayne, and John Huston.
As far as I can tell, this isn't on DVD. The copy I watched was an old VHS tape of poor picture and sound quality with obvious cuts in it.
Somewhere in Southwest United States close to the Mexican border, late 1800's....Captain Victor Kaleb (Bekim Fehmiu) is bringing a patrol of cavalry soldiers back from a 2 week tour when he comes upon a burned out church mission. Searching it they find everyone but one person dead and mutilated. The lone survivor is his wife. She is strung up and has been left to die from being skinned alive. Kaleb cuts her down, gives her one last hug, and puts her out of her pain. Hearing more gunshots from outside, he runs out to see his men firing at some Apaches (one of whom is wearing his wife's dress)....he orders his men back to the fort and rides off alone after the Apaches. Some time later (after his group have returned to the fort) he rides in with the dead body of the Apache he chased. Fort commander, Major Wade Brown (Richard Crenna), being a bit of a dick, reprimands him for running off on his own. Kaleb, very visible upset, screams "Do you know what they did to my wife?" Major Brown (still being a dick) says "And who put a bullet in her head?" Kaleb responds by shooting the Major in the leg and shoulder. He then shouts that his wife's death is Brown's fault because he didn't adequetley protect the mission. With that he climbs onto his horse and rides out of the fort.
Two years later, General Miles (John Huston), the new military commander of the area arrives at the fort. He is totally ticked about how badly Major Brown (who now walks with a limp) has been handling the Apache trouble in the area. Kaleb has been roaming the surrounding desert alone killing more Apaches than the cavalry, and General Miles wants to bring him back in, give him amnesty, and have him train a group of soldiers as an old west Seal Team to hunt down the main group of Apaches and kill them. Major Brown of course hates the idea, but he is over ruled. Kaleb is talked into it, and he picks a group and takes them out into the desert and trains them. When he thinks they are ready, they return to the fort to prepare for the raid into Mexico. That's when they learn that Major Brown went over the General's head, and informed superiors what he is up to (thinking this will stop everything)...but the General just orders Brown to now accompany the strike force. They gear up and head out.
Crossing desert and mountains, they eventually find the Apaches...who have divided up into two camps a few miles apart. They decide to attack the smaller closer camp first, but want to do it silently with no guns so as not to warn the other camp. After a vicious hand to hand fight, all but one Apache is dead...a 8 or 9 year old boy. The men ask what should be done with him, Kaleb says kill him like all Apache's deserve. The men refuse to kill a kid, so Kaleb grabs his knife and advances on him. They grab Kaleb and stop him...and in the confusion the kid grabs a knife, stabs one of the guys in the guts and runs off to tell the others that the soldiers are here. Knowing the larger group is now headed their way, they set up their defenses here...and pretty good defenses they are....two Gatling guns and lots and lots of dynamite. The Apaches arrive, giant fight ensues.....several of our heroes die and all but one of the Apaches are killed....the same kid survives. The men that are left again ask what to do with him...and this time Kaleb says to let him go. They return to the fort, where Kaleb is told by General Miles that the War Department turned down his request for reinstatement and amnesty for major Kaleb. He says he's sorry, but he has to place him under arrest. At that point Major Brown looks at Kaleb and says "I'm sad to report that Captain Kaleb was killed during the raid." Several others agree that happened...and Kaleb rides off into the sunset.
As I mentioned earlier, this was a bad VHS tape (purchased, not made by me) that looked like it was copied from an old TV airing. All cursing was silenced out, there were the old wavy lines that was evidence the tape had been stopped and started (like cutting out of commercials)...so I am not sure how much violence or blood was removed. The title on the box (and the one on IMDB is THE DESERTER...but the title on the movie itself was RIDE TO GLORY.
Bekim Fehmiu was an established Yugoslavian star who made a couple of attempts to break into American movies (BLACK SUNDAY, THE ADVENTURERS) but didn't succeed here. They even explain his accent in this movie by saying he is a Serbian immigrant.
The movie is full of western character actors (all of them listed at the top) but they aren't really given a whole lot to do and a couple are killed off in stupid ways that detract from the movies enjoyability. Until I can see if this has been cut badly, I'll just give it an average rating.
Love those "crepuscular" kind of Westerns too. Here are a few others off the top of my head. Hopefully C. Lee can answer you too, he is a Western Expert.
- Sam Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country."
- "Monte Walsh." (The one with Lee Marvin and Jack Palance.)
- "Lonely Are the Brave."
- Don Siegel's "The Shootist."
Yeah, I love the stuff that goes down in that saloon/****e house toward the end of the movie, during the storm. The coffin, the warning, the torches came together for a really fantastic sense of atmosphere.
Today in honor of it being Elvis Presley's birthday, I watched -
FLAMING STAR (1960) Directed by Don Siegel - starring Elvis Presley, Barbara Eden, Steve Forrest, Dolores del Rio, John McIntire, Rodolfo Acosta, and Richard Jaeckel.
A grittier movie than most people expect because of the Elvis connection, this is a story or prejudice and racial problems in the old west. In mid to late 1800's Texas, White rancher Sam Burton (John McIntire from WAGON TRAIN and THE VIRGINIAN) is married to Neddy (Dolores del Rio, 3 time winner of the ARIEL{the Mexican Academy Award}), a native American woman from the Kiowa tribe. John has a son Clint (Steve Forrest from S.W.A.T. and THE BARON) from a previous marriage and a half breed son Pacer (Elvis). When new war chief of the local Kiowa tribe Buffalo Horn (Rodolfo Acosta from THE HIGH CHAPARRAL, THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, RETURN OF THE SEVEN) starts rampaging through the countryside, the local whites turn against Pacer and his family. The family and their ranch are harassed and attacked by the local whites (for harboring Indians) while Buffalo Horn and his warriors want Pacer to join them. The Kiowa hate the whites, the whites hate the Kiowa.....the Burton family is torn apart and many people all around are killed. The movie does not have the standard happy or optimistic ending. Definately worth watching.
True story... My mother was watching FLAMING STAR on TV when her water broke and she was taken to the hospital where I was born. So in other words, Elvis got me into this world. t:
I had to buy the dvd. It was actually pretty damn expensive, but it includes a different ending option. This was Tarantino's main influence for Django, it also has the bleakest-darkest ending of any western.
Starring; James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget, Basil Ruysdael, Will Geer, Arthur Hunnicutt, and Jay Silverheels.
The Apache wars have been going on for 10 years, ex Army scout and now prospector Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) is tired of all the killing. One day he sees an Apache teen wounded in the desert and decides to help him. Over a few days he starts to get a new appreciation of the Apache people...by actually seeing that they are people not just savage redskins. A group of Apaches come upon them, and after the kid explains that Tom had saved his life, they decide to let him go away peacefully....but a group of white men suddenly come riding along, and the Apaches kill and torture them in front of Tom. He decides he needs to do something to try and stop all the killing, so he gets a "good" Apache to teach him their language and customs....and then rides out to find Cochise (Jeff Chandler) to offer a plan of peace. Because Tom sends smoke signal messages of peace and rides into their territory bravely...they let him through without incident. He meets with Cochise and talks him into letting mail riders go through his territory without attacking them. While at the camp he meets and starts to fall in love with the Apache maid Sonseeahray (Debra Paget). Tom tells people about his deal with Cochise, but most are real skeptical about it. Especially local rancher Ben Slade (Will Geer) whose wife and son were killed in an Apache raid. As time passes, and mail riders pass back and forth unhurt, Gen. Oliver Howard (Basil Ruysdael) asks Tom to take him to meet Cochise for he has plans for a bigger peace treaty. They meet, and agree to a 3 month test of the treaty...but several lesser warchiefs let by Geronimo (Jay Silverheels) don't agree with it, and leave with their braves to Mexico. Meanwhile Tom and Sonseeahray marry.
I'll put the ending in spoiler tags -
Both Geronimo and Ben Slade pull raids to stop the peace. In one of Ben's attacks, Sonseeahray is killed and Tom is wounded. As Tom holds her in his arms, Cochise and his men bring one of the surviving attackers to him, Tom demands they give him a knife so that he can cut his heart out....but Cochise refuses, saying the terms of the peace treaty are for any whites that are captured are to be turned over to the Army. Tom agrees...and rides off leaving the territory behind him forever.
This is technically Stewart's return to the western. It had been 11 years since his last one, Destry Rides Again....he filmed this before Winchester '73, but it was released after it. He would make many westerns after this.
This movie deserves praise for it's depiction of the Apaches. Up to this point almost (if not all) movies simply portrayed them as evil savages or drunken buffoons. This portrays them as human beings...some good, some bad, worrying and caring for the same things as anyone else. But it loses points for using white people in makeup to play the principle Apaches. We do get Jay Silverheels (best known for 217 episodes and 2 feature films as TONTO in the LONE RANGER) in a featured role though.
Jeff Chandler was nominated for the OSCAR for supporting actor in this role. He would play Cochise again in 2 more movies - The Battle at Apache Pass and Taza, Son of Cochise.
The love story part of the plot is OK, but a little creepy when you find out that Stewart was 40 something and Paget was 15 at the time.
It's nice to see old western character actors in the background, like Will Geer (Jeremiah Johnson, Bandolero!, Winchester '73), John Doucette (Big Jake, True Grit, The Sons of Katie Elder) and Arthur Hunnicutt (El Dorado, Cat Ballou, Apache Uprising).
Overall, a good movie. Fans of the western and Stewart should see it.
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