Rebel WITH a Cause

 

 

It came as a great surprise to me, upon browsing the archives of movies I have covered in the last 10 years since the start of this blog,  that I had only delved into Clint Eastwood's output once.  (Only once?) And to boot, it was City Heat. Not that I don't like City Heat, but I list Eastwood as my second favorite western actor, behind John Wayne. That's almost sacrilege that I never covered even one of his westerns. 

I recently acquired a 10 Film Western Collection, and only one of those movies on that set has even made it to the screen of The Midnite Drive-In. (That movie, by the way, is Rio Bravo. Not one of my favorites of John Wayne's output, but it also brings up another neglected film in my output of reviews, The Searchers. Gotta remedy that soon, too.)

 

 

Anyway, I missed out on The Outlaw Josey Wales when it hit the theater, since I was still in my childhood days, and not allowed to go see PG or R rated movies. But I did see Pale Rider in the theater. It's been quite a few years since I watched it, but I remember enjoying it quite immensely.  I saw The Outlaw Josey Wales on TV prior to that, and was ready for another western from Eastwood by that time.

The Outlaw Josey Wales is my second favorite western of all time, close behind El Dorado and just slightly in front of Silverado. This entry will correct the faux pas that I have not reviewed this movie before.  And in the next few weeks I'll get another correction by getting up a review of Pale Rider.

Eastwood, of course, got his start in the western genre. Not right away, of course. His first appearance was in the sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon, titled Revenge of the Creature, and among those early roles he was cast in such features as Francis in the Navy and Tarantula!, almost all of them as uncredited bit parts, but he started moving into the western genre fairly early. He got a big role as the third credited  star in a 1958 film Ambush at Cimarron Pass, behind the star, Scott Brady. And, that role, probably more than anything, led to his defining early role as Rowdy Yates in the TV series Rawhide in 1959.

Of course any Eastwood aficionado will know that that Rawhide role was what led to one of Eastwood's more iconic roles, that of the "Man with No Name", the center of Sergio Leone's trilogy of "spaghetti westerns"; A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Unlike my other actor/western hero, John Wayne, however, Eastwood did not make the western his go-to genre. Most people would probably think of the Dirty Harry series of films first when Eastwood's name is mentioned. More modern viewers might be more apt to think of his recent successes as a director rather than an actor.

The Outlaw Josey Wales started out as a novel by "Forrest Carter". There is some background to the author, which I will only briefly write about, but the gist of the story is that the character of "Forrest Carter" was a fiction. He wasn't who he really claimed to be, but was instead a former Ku Klux Klan member and speechwriter for George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor.  (Just to point it out, not to discredit him...)

The first printing of the novel, which eventually was published under the title Gone to Texas, only had 75 copies made, one of which eventually ended up in Eastwood's hands. He liked the novel and acquired it for production. 

Initially he had hired on Philip Kaufman only to help out on the screenplay, but eventually asked him to direct. However, differences between the two, both in how the movie was being directed and (it is rumored) their attraction to co-star Sandra Locke, caused Eastwood to engineer having Kaufman dismissed as director and taking the reins himself.

There are many standout performances of note in the film. In particular, several of the actors playing Native Americans in the film were actually of Native American descent, making it a rarity in those days, as well as portraying the Native American in a sympathetic light. Chief Dan George, Will Sampson and Geraldine Keams were all of Native American descent. 

Other roles that stand out are: Bill McKinney as Captain Terrill, John Vernon as Fletcher and one of my favorite characters, Paula Trueman as Granny. Sam Bottoms altogether too brief role as Jamie is also good.

 

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976):

Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) is just a farmer trying to get his field plowed in preparation for the planting, with his son, Little Josey (played by Eastwood's real son, Kyle). The action doesn't take long to get underway, as a band of marauders led by Captain "Redlegs" Terrill (Bill McKinney) raids his farm, burns his house to the ground and kills his wife and son. When a contingent of Confederate soldiers ride up to the destroyed farm, Wales joins up to take the battle to his tormentors.

 

After the Civil War is over, apparently there were stragglers (renegades) who refused to give up the fight, and Wales' group was one. This makes some sense of what happens afterwards, because otherwise the actions of the Union soldiers against the surrendering Confederates would seem a bit over the top. Instead of just a normal peaceful surrender the Confederate renegades are slaughtered by the Union troops. The background premise, although not overtly stated, is that the Confederate group were considered outlaws, not legitimate soldiers, and therefore not deserving of any treatment usually given to surrendering "soldiers".

 

Wales enters the camp and wreaks havoc on the Union soldiers, and eventually escapes with fellow Confederate, Jamie (Sam Bottoms). Captain Terrill is given a commission to hunt down Wales, along with Wales' former commanding officer, Fletcher (John Vernon). 

 

 

Senator Lane: "Fletcher, there is an old saying; To the victor belong the spoils"

Fletcher: "There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining..." 

Wales and Jamie set out for the Indian Nation, en route to Texas. Wales, who has no desire to have another family, seems destined to garner one despite his reluctance. First he has the younger, hanger-on, and almost surrogate son of Jamie. Jamie was injured during the battle and, reluctant though he is, Wales has to be the father figure and nurse to help Jamie survive. Jamie does his part to help out, but eventually succumbs to his wounds.

 

Now, Wales finally alone, continues on his trek. But this "lone wolf" role is continually disrupted. In the Indian Nation Wales meets Lone Watie (Chief Dan George), a hold out who has determined to not go with the rest of his tribe to the reservation that the government has determined to send him.  

 

Oh, well, Wales gets a companion his trek. In addition, at a trading post, he rescues a young Navajo girl, Moonlight (Geradine Keams), who views herself as being indebted to Wales and joins the band.

 

Wales constantly finds himself in situations where he has to prove that he is not about to go gentle into that good night. As Lone Watie observes when Wales says "When I get around to liking someone, they ain't around for very long", Watie says "I notice when you get around to DISliking someone, they ain't around for very long either."

The film has some very memorable scenes with some of the best lines coming whenever Wales has to have a showdown with people who are determined to take Wales out of the picture. In one town he is outed as Wales and faces of a quartet of Union soldiers.

 

"You gonna draw those pistols, or whistle Dixie?"

In another scene, a bounty hunter faces off Wales. 

 

Bounty Hunter: "A man's gotta do something to make a living."

Wales: "Dying ain't much of a living, boy."

 

The best part of the movie comes in the second half of the film. Wales rescues a bunch of Kansas people who are on their way to make a new life for themselves. They had been assaulted by a bunch of Comancheros who are determined to make a profit by selling off their booty and captives to the leader of the local Comanche tribe, led by Ten Bears (Will Sampson). Among this ragtag group of settlers is the opinionated and not afraid to express it Granny (Paula Trueman) and her granddaughter, Laura Lee (Sondra Locke). 

 

 

When Ten Bears and his tribe threaten the safety of the settlers Wales makes a pact with him and declares that they can both live in peace.

 

Wales: "I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another."   

Ten Bears: "It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see and so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death. It shall be life."

 

So the settlers are safe, but Wales is not quite safe yet. He still has to deal with those pesky pursuers led by Terrill. The final battle involves Wales and his new family facing off against the horde of Union soldiers, which has grown from the 5 men that the Senator sent him off with to about a dozen or more...  

 

The Outlaw Josey Wales was  a pretty good success at the box office, this despite the fact that many people at the beginning of the production tried to dissuade Eastwood from taking on the project because westerns had become pretty much passe.  It cleaned up with about a $30 million profit. 

The summer of 1976 was not filled with a bunch of big competitors, however. The big draws for that year, Rocky, King Kong and A Star is Born all came out at the end of the year, and the other big movie, All the President's Men had been released in April. The only movie that was around to really give the film a run for it's money was The Omen.

Rotten Tomatoes has the film rated at 91% Fresh. It got a lot of acclaim by the reviewers of the time. Roger Ebert gave the movie 3 stars. Many praised the cinematography, and the musical score went toe to toe with Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Omen (the eventual winner), as well as Bernard Hermann who was nominated for both Obsession and Taxi Driver. 

I watch this film at least once every few years, just to remind myself that the 70's version of Eastwood is probably his best version. From 1970 to 1979 we got some really good Eastwood films, beginning with Kelly's Heroes, and going through the decade we also got Dirty Harry (and two other Harry Callahan films), High Plains Drifter, and, of course, Play Misty for Me.

Well, folks, that wraps up this feature. Drive safely.

Quiggy

 

Riding Into Destiny

 

Fellow blogger Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy came up with this idea of siblings in film.  My first thought was "Hey! I have a sister. That's a sibling! What about doing one of her favorite films?".  But she pointed out that the theme of the event is actually "siblings in film". OK. So fortunately my sister's favorite film is Shane which features a pair of brothers, so I still get to fulfill my goal while staying true to the theme.

I haven't seen Shane in probably about 50 years. My vague recollection is watching it with family during a Thanksgiving holiday on TV.  I haven't seen it since then. But my memories of it are fairly accurate (for the most part anyway).  

To be honest, I thought Jack Palance (who was credited as "Walter Jack Palance") had more of a presence in the film than he actually does.  As the gunfighter hired by the bad guys to come to town to help out in the goal of driving off the homesteaders, Palance doesn't actually appear in the movie until almost an hour into the film.  And his screen time only amounts to about 20 or so minutes in the film, so maybe I should go back and re-watch some of the other movies I only vaguely remember from my childhood.

As far as the casting is concerned: Did you know that Alan Ladd was not the first choice to play the title role?  The first choice was going to be Montgomery Clift, but he proved to be unavailable.  And Jack Schaefer, the author of the original source novel is on record as saying that he didn't like Ladd in the role, calling him a "runt".  Schaefer has said he envisioned someone more like George Raft.  As portrayed on the screen by Ladd, I could see Clift in the role, but I think he would have been an entirely different character as portrayed by Raft. Perhaps he is more in keeping with the vision Schaefer had in the novel.

As far as Van Heflin in the father role, William Holden was one of the first hopes to play Joe Starrett, but like Clift, he was unavailable so Heflin got the role.  Jean Arthur rounded out the primary cast.  It was her final role on the big screen as she retired from film afterwards, although she came back for a couple of TV roles years later.

Some interesting tidbits: One, Ladd did not like guns, and was not very proficient with them.  According to what I read it took over 100 takes to get the scene right when Shane shoes little Joey how to use a gun.  Maybe it should have been the other way around... It is also evident supposedly of his deficiency when he has the gun battle at the end of the film.  Not that I noticed, but apparently he shot quite a bit off the mark when gunning down the bad guys then. Also, Palance had to be filmed several times to get a decent take when he was either mounting, dismounting or riding a horse because he and horses were not on good terms with each other. 

The story of Shane is pretty much a trope these days.  The lone gunman who rides in to town trying to escape a past and falls in with a beleaguered group in their battle against a superior force.  Not only is it a trope in the western genre, it can be seen in various other genres.  Of course, it's most prevalent in the western genre.  Pale Rider comes to mind. For that matter, several of Clint Eastwood's westerns fit the bill.  But also could be added Yojimbo, the Akira Kurosawa tribute to the trope featuring samurais instead of western cowboys.

Shane was well received when it came out.  Witness the numerous Academy Award nominations it got; Best Picture, Best Director (George Stevens), Best Supporting Actor (both Jack Palance and Brandon DeWilde), and Best Screenplay, all of which it lost to various people involved in a competing film, From Here to Eternity. The only one it won was for Best cinematography: Color, which it fortunately did not have to compete with From Here to Eternity, since that one was filmed in black and white (which by the way it won for that category.)

Shane is one of the films on  American Film Institute's best westerns list, only beat out by The Searchers and High Noon in that category. It is also in the top 50 of an overall list of all films.

Shane (1953):

OK, so the sibling aspect of this movie doesn't really become evident until later in the movie. Heads up.

Young Joey Starrett (Brandon deWilde) is out stalking a deer on his family farm. He is still too young, by his father's own words, to have ammunition, so he is only pretending to hunt the deer.  While out there he observes a lone rider coming in to the farm.

The lone rider (a typical western trope) turns out to be a man who calls himself Shane (Alan Ladd), (and another typical western trope, he is only known by one name, so "Shane" could conceivably be his first name, but he is frequently addresses as Mr. Shane).

Shane is only stopping off to ask permission to ride through the Starrett farm, but Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) is pressured by his wife, Marian (Jean Arthur) that the polite thing to do would be to ask the man to stay for dinner, since it's almost supper time.

After dinner, Shane is invited to spend the night.  In the morning, feeling like he must help to pay for the two meals, he starts attacking a tree stump that Starrett had been working on when he rode in.  Together they manage to make short work of it. (And why it only took a short while when Starrett had said he's been at it off and on ever since he moved on the homestead, I can't say.  Maybe it was almost done by that time already... Only one of a couple of plot details I took issue with in an otherwise great movie.)

Although it never really comes out in the movie it turns out that Shane has had a rather jaded past,  Apparently he was a gunslinger in his former life.  It's not clear whether he is on the run from his own past or if there may be some past trying to follow him. (Maybe it is more clear in the original source novel.  I never read it.)

The problem Starrett and his fellow homesteaders have is with a local cattle baron, Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) and his brother Morgan (John Dierkes).  (And there are the siblings..)  As another typical trope, the greedy Ryker brothers want all the land in the area, not just a portion of it.  And they have been waging a guerilla war of sorts with Starrett and the homesteaders.

Shane stays on as a ranch hand to help out Starrett.  But there may be some ulterior motive,  Perhaps Shane is doing it to make amends for his own jaded past.  He definitely is not averse to helping fight the battle of the two factions, for the side of good (or at least what we are prone to be led to believe is the side of good.)

The battle between the two gets more and more hostile, and, yes, the bad guys do tend to stretch a point in the lawless frontier to force the homesteaders to give u and move on.  But Starrett does his best to convince his neighbors that they have the right, and even the obligation to stay.

Eventually, since Shane seems to be someone with whom the Rykers might have a problem, they hire their own tough guy, Jack Wilson (Jack Palance).  And it's not even remotely concealed from either the audience or the homesteaders themselves what his background is.  He is a notorious gunslinger and even Shane recognizes his name, if not his face,

One of the homesteaders, "Stonewall" Torrey (so called because he is a Confederate veteran of the Civil War) is gunned down in the street (Elisha Cook, Jr, played him. He will be familiar a face even if you don't know his name.  He had prominent roles in dozens of films in his life.  Just click on that link and see how many of them YOU'VE seen...).

Things get even more hairy over the course of the film. Some of the Rykers' cohorts burn down one of the homesteader's farms and many of them are just about to give up.  In fact, if it weren't for the adamant Starrett trying to keep them from conceding the battle most of them would have left by now.  But Starrett is apparently a good talker.

The final confrontation comes when the Ryker brothers, knowing that the glue that's holding them together is Starrett, creates a ruse that will get Starrett into town where he will be ambushed.  And Shane tries to stop him, saying he can't win.  But it takes Shane knocking out Starrett and riding into town in his stead to keep Marian from becoming a widow and little Joey from losing a father.

Joey sees what Shane does to his father and tells Shane he hates him, but has a change of heart and follows him to town.  Of course, you know how it's all going to end, don't you?  If you don't, what have you been doing all your life while NOT watching movies? Or being indoctrinated with classic film culture?

I'll give you a hint:

"Shane! Shane! Come back!"

(The quote made the list of American Film Institute's 100 Years 100 Movie Quotes, so even if you've never even seen one frame of the film, it's highly likely you've heard the quote.)

The film has a bit of history behind it, if you are interested.  The battles being fought between the homesteaders and the cattle ranchers is based on the real events behind the Johnson County War fought in the early 1890's in Wyoming.  Among other films that dealt with this topic was Heaven's Gate (which has it's own reputation in Hollywood).  And if you like the theme (although it covers a different kind of conflict) you ought to check out Pale Rider, one of my favorite Clint Eastwood films. (And I'm surprised that up to now that hasn't been featured on The Midnite Drive-In... maybe soon.)

Well, folks time to saddle up and ride on.  And to that little boy in the back part of the lot yelling "Quiggy! Quiggy!  Come back!"  I'll be back... (Oh wait, that's a different movie altogether...

Quiggy

When the West was REALLY Wild

 

 This is my entry in the Legends of Western Cinema Blogathon hosted by Hamlette's Soliloquy.

 

 

In the history of movies and dynamite film stars, few have really ever achieved a status where you could say "The new (Star actor name here) film" and reasonably expect a draw without any more information than that. You could probably put John Wayne on that list. Arnold (of course). Probably a few others, but those are two that come to mind.

In 1999, Will Smith was maybe not quite there, but he was definitely edging into that territory.  A remake of a classic TV western (which originally had a white actor, Robert Conrad, in the Jim West role)?  Hey, why not cast Will Smith in it (even if he wasn't white)?  He'll be a big draw.

After all, hadn't Smith been the THE in two previous summer blockbusters, Independence Day and Men in Black? (BTW, just as a side note, in case you are one of the six or eight people in the world who didn't know: Will Smith turned down The Matrix and did this one instead. Can you see Smith as Neo?)

So how did this movie manage to basically bomb so badly, especially when it's competition at the box office included. at the time, The General's Daughter, one of John Travolta's worst movies (my opinion), Big Daddy (not Adam Sandler's best either) and Summer of Sam ( a movie about the David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) murders in NYC (go figure)?

The problems that stemmed from the movie production were numerous.  One of the main issues seems to be that it deviated too far from it's original inspiration, that too much of the comedy portion was contrived and that the racist aspect of it was too much. (Despite the fact that the main character played by Smith delivered many of the "racist" jokes himself).

The connections to the original TV series are tenuous, at best. Firstly, the villain of the movie, Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) is the victim of a tragic event in the Civil War that ended up with half his body amputated. The original inspiration was Dr. Miguelito Loveless (Michael Dunn) was a dwarf.  The joke is lost if you haven't seen the original series, not to mention maybe just a little offensive if you are sensitive to it.

Outside of that, the only real connection to the series is that the main characters were actually named James West and Artemus Gordon (Robert Conrad and Ross Martin in the TV show, respectively, and Will Smith and Kevin Kline in the film).

That, in itself is probably much of what made Wild Wild West get such negative reception. Plus the fact that most of the people intended to be attracted to the movie (kids and young adults who liked Will Smith) were not even born yet when the TV show was broadcast or in syndication.  Basing a movie on a TV show would usually require that the fan base of the original be the primary goal of attraction.(For myself, I was too young to remember if I had even seen an episode in its first run.  I would have only been 8 years old in it's final season.  But I did remember seeing a few episodes in reruns in the early 70's).

In spite of all the negative reviews, I am totally on the side of those that enjoyed the movie.  No surprise there.  I loved Blazing Saddles, too, even though that one has fallen into a black hole of movies considered "offensive".   

As far as westerns go, this movie has the basic tropes found in westerns, including the good guys vs, the bad guys, with, naturally, the good guys coming out on top.  And don't forget the necessary bar fights (which are not necessarily strictly a western trope, but many westerns usually had at least one bar fight...). The addition of the steampunk aspects of the movie put this movie on a teeter totter, because, after all, there were no steam operated giant spiders in the Old West, among other things, but the western aspect is one that comes through even with those weird additions.

 One more final note before the review.  Like his predecessors in the persons of Max Von Sydow (Flash Gordon) and Raul Julia (Street Fighter), Kenneth Branagh spurned the typical fare for an Oscar nominee/winner by taking on the role of the villain in popcorn movie.  And also like Sydow and Julia, he seems to be having the time of his life playing it over the top.

Wild Wild West (1999):

We start off with a guy running through the woods giving a vocal plot drop so we know exactly what to expect.  Wearing a metal collar and being chased by a flying buzz saw, the guy say says (to no one else but himself, thus noted as being a "plot drop"):

"He's a mad man! Must warn the president!  Giant spider!"

 But the flying buzz saw prevents him from accomplishing that. He loses his head over it all.

Now, (after the credits) we get to meet the first of our two stars, Jim West (Will Smith), an agent for the U.S. Army,  hiding out in a water tower with a saloon girl (who thinks she is the reason he is there, but he has a different reason). 

 

 

 West is actually there to witness and stop a delivery of weapons by ex-Confederate soldiers under the command of General "Bloodbath" McGrath (Ted Levine).

 

 

 

Meanwhile in a nearby town, Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline), a U.S. Marshal, is spying on McGrath while undercover (as a saloon girl, go figure. And you have to see his costume...)  While West tries to stop the delivery, Gordon is trying to seduce McGrath so he can get him alone and find out about the delivery of those same weapons.

 

 

 

The two end up competing against each other and develop an intense dislike of each other.  

 

 

Unfortunately for them, President Ulysses S. Grant (also played by Kline) puts them together as a team to get to the bottom of the issue.  They end up finding out that the mastermind behind the entire affair is Dr. Arliss Loveless , a man thought to be dead, but in actuality still alive (or at least half of him.)

 

 

 

The rest of the film is a give and go as West and Gordon try to corner Loveless and have one setback after another (including being captured by Loveless and being rigged up with the same device that killed the guy in the opening scene).

 

 

 

Eventually they discover Loveless' evil plan.  He has built a giant mechanical spider and also the first known tank, intending to force Grant to cede the United States to him, which he plans to divide up between England, Spain and Mexico. And himself, of course... he's mad, but he's not crazy.

So in the final scenes, we get our hero West battling a few of Loveless' henchmen who have been outfitted with helpful accoutrements.  One is a guy whose hands conceal foot long knives. (bringing up one of my favorite throw away lines when West defeats him with the line "No more Mr. Knife Guy!")

This movie is "bad" on many levels, but the movie as a whole is pretty entertaining if you can get past a few obstacles.  For one, and I agree with a lot of the podcasters I listened to about it over the past week, the hero, Jim West, is entirely unlikable.  He's a jerk to just about everybody, including any potential romantic encounters. Another is the whole racist dialogue which was done thousands of times better in Blazing Saddles. 

But as I stated above, Kenneth Branagh's scenes are very enjoyable, and those steampunk aspects are also pretty cool. If I were to give an award to the movie it would be giving Branagh a Best Supporting Actor award (not an Oscar, just a Quiggy...) and another for Special Effects.

Well, folks time to saddle up and ride off into the sunset.  (yes, I installed a saddle into the driver's seat of the Plymouth just for this episode...)  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

Aliens in the Old West

This is my entry in the Harrison Ford Blogathon hosted by Sat in Your Lap

Two of my favorite types of movies are westerns and sci-fi.  The two subjects are pretty disparate. Although, truth be told, a lot of sci-fi movies are just westerns set in an alien world.  (Star Wars, for instance could be a western if you substitute horses for the spaceships and a wooden fortress for the Death Star, in my opinion...)

But pitting aliens against a background of the old west is something that is pretty rare.  Howard Waldrop, a sci-fi author, once wrote a parody of War of the Worlds as experienced in an old west setting, but it usually is not something that would mesh.

Cowboys and Aliens started out life, as you would expect, as a comic book.  The graphic novel, created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, made its way into the comic book stores in 2006.  But its genesis began 10 years earlier when Rosenberg pitched the idea to Universal Pictures.   They bought the rights to the idea, but it bounced around for years.  By 2004, Columbia Pictures had acquired the rights but it was still going nowhere.

So Rosenber published the idea as a graphic novel.  That apparently was the needed factor.  Now, with a concept that was visually on paper, Universal once again acquired the rights and it was put into the process of bringing it to the big screen.  It took another 5 years to get it done, but we finally got a concept that was unique to Hollywood.

Cowboys and Aliens is actually two movies welded into one.  You could take out the aliens and still have a pretty decent western.  And you could transfer the western setting to a modern setting and have a damn good alien invasion film.  But together, the concept makes for a pretty entertaining mash-up of the two genres.

Cowboys and Aliens (2011):

A cowboy (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the desert.  He has no idea of where he is, how he got there, or what this peculiar bracelet is that is attached to his arm.  He also has an odd wound on his stomach.  He stumbles into the town of Absolution where the local preacher, Meacham (Clancy Brown) performs some rudimentary work on his wound.

Meanwhile, Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), the malcontent son of a local cattle baron, Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), roughs up the town and shoots one of the deputies.

Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) arrests him and prepares to ship him off to the county seat for trial.  In the process he recognizes the stranger as Jake Lonergan, a wanted man, who has also coincidentally robbed Col. Dolarhyde of some gold.

But before the stage can take off, aliens invade the town and take some of its citizens hostage.  The true nature of the bracelet that Jake has on his arm comes to the fore as he uses it to take out one of the alien ships.

But Jake still has no idea how he got the bracelet or what its nature is.  With some misgivings at being roped into a posse to chase down the aliens he joins forces with Dolarhyde and Taggart.  Dolarhyde's main focus is to rescue his son who was one of the captives, but the rest of the posse has a goal to save members of the town, some of whom where related to the posse members.  (One of them is the wife of the town's saloon operator/doctor).

In the process, more of Jake's background is revealed.  It seems he ditched the rest of his gang and took off with all the gold from a robbery.  But when he and his wife were in their cabin, the aliens came by.  They are not just interested in captives, they are also trying to harvest the Earth's gold (for which purpose is never really fully explained).  Jake's wife was killed during an experiment on the alien ship, but Jake managed to escape, with the strange bracelet attached to his arm.

Much of the story comes to the fore when Ella (Olivia Wilde), a woman with a strange past reveals she knows quite a bit more about the aliens than any Earthling should know.  Of course, the reason she turns out to know all of this is because she herself is not really an Earthling, but an alien from another world that our enemy aliens ravaged.

That's enough to get you involved in the story.  Its a typical shoot-em-up western, but the added twist of aliens makes it pretty intriguing.

Time to fire up the engines on this Plymouth. Drive home safely folks.

Quiggy

Witty Outlaws

This is my entry in the William Goldman Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room

I have stated before that I am a director groupie.  My favorite directors include John Carpenter, Marin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick, Ron Howard and Rob Reiner.  But directors would just be nobodies without a good script to with which to work.  I admit I never paid much attention to the scriptwriter's credit in movies however, until I saw The Princess Bride.

I loved the movie, and the dialogue just zinged.  So I began to check out past credits for the screenwriter, William Goldman.  I found out that he was a two-time Oscar winner, for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men, both of which I had seen, but well before I recognized that scripts made a movie better.

Goldman started out as a novelist and migrated to Hollywood as some novelists do to be a fixture on the movie set.  While not all of the movies he wrote the screenplay play for were fantastic (Memoirs of an Invisible Man, anyone?), it wasn't entirely the fault of Goldman.  (Even Invisible Man has some good dialogue).

Goldman's best work was when he was adapting his own novels.  Magic, Heat, and the aforementioned The Princess Bride among them.  The Princess Bride novel reads kind of like a movie adaptation until you realize he wrote the novel some 15 years earlier.

I like All the President's Men, even though he didn't really have much to work with as far as dialogue went.  But Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has about as much quotable dialogue as the Princess Bride.  And you'll be remembering it long after you have finished watching the movie.

And it could've been pulled off with any number of leads, but the movie scored big time when it landed Paul Newman and Robert Redford for the leads.  Along with guest appearances by great character actors, the highlight of which is Strother Martin, the movie made a big splash.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969):

In the late 1890's Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) is scoping out a bank for potential robbery.  Meanwhile The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) is playing blackjack in a saloon (and if you have quick eyes or good ears you will notice one of the players is Sam Elliott in possibly his first big screen role).  After a brief tense confrontation with one of the players accusing Sundance of cheating, the two take off for their hideout.

Back at the hideout there is a confrontation in store.  Butch is ostensibly the leader of the gang, but Harvey Logan (Ted "Lurch" Cassidy) has eyes on taking over.  He challenges Butch to a fight.

It turns out that Harvey had an idea to rob the Flyer, a train both on the going and coming routes, which Butch thinks is a pretty good idea.  They rob the train on the going with an exchange with a young dedicated guardsman named Woodcock (George Furth).  They hideout in a nearby town where an industrious sheriff tries to marshal a posse to go after them, unaware that the culprits are in the building above him.

While Butch fools around with the whores in the whorehouse Sundance goes off looking for a woman of his own.  He finds her, but as it turns out Etta Place (Katherine Ross) is already involved with the two.

Later, the gang pulls it's second attempt on the Flyer.  Finding an extremely difficult safe, Butch calls for more dynamite to blow it.  He ends up blowing the entire railroad car to smithereens, scattering the money everywhere.

The fly in the ointment, however, is the arrival of a second train which has what is called a "Super Posse".  As Butch an Sundance and the remaining gang take it on the lam, they split up, with Butch and Sundance going one direction and the rest going another.

Butch: "How many of them are following us?"
Sundance: "All of them."
Butch "ALL of them?" (turning and pointing to the rest of the gang) " What's the matter with those guys?"

The pair determine that the "Super Posse" consists of several well known lawmen.  They run but are ended up cornered on a mountain overlooking a river.  Their only options are to fight it out or surrender.  Until Butch comes up with a better idea...

After their narrow escape, the pair head to New York with Etta, and eventually to Bolivia.  Where they revert to their old ways of robbing banks.  With some rather inept first attempts since neither of them speak Spanish.  They have to be taught rudimentary Spanish by Etta.

Well, eventually the law in Bolivia is on the trail of the pair, known as "Los Bandidos Yanquis", so they come to the conclusion that they need to go straight and get legitimate jobs.  They take on jobs as guards for Percy Garris (Strother Martin), a mine owner who is consistently getting robbed of his payroll.

But on the trip Percy is killed and the bandits corner Butch and Sundance.  They give up the payroll, but later get the drop on the bandits and take the money back.  Deciding that the legal life is not much fun, they decide to go back to robbing.  But Etta has had enough and leaves them.  A final scene occurs as, after they have robbed another bank they are cornered in an abandoned building.

The great thing about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is that the script makes it all worthwhile (not to mention two actors who could pull off the repartee with such panache).  Goldman has such an ear for dialogue the movie is a treat to listen to, even if you aren't actually watching it.

Well folks, time to saddle up and head home.  Drive safely.

Quiggy

Old West Meets the Monsters

This is my entry in the Costume Drama Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini



If Abbott and Costello can be said to have been responsible for ringing the death knell on the Universal monsters (with their comic turns in such movies as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), then William Beaudine can be said to have dug up the bodies and poked them with a big stick.

William Beaudine was a prolific director, although most of you may have never heard of him before.  He directed a number of the Bowery Boys films, a slew of low-budget westerns and even Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (famous for having been sued by Jerry Lewis for its characters who were deemed a knockoff of the Martin and Lewis pairings).

Beaudine's last two films featured Old West settings with characters in a battle of wits with the classic monsters of Frankenstein and Dracula.  Both films were released in 1966 as a double bill and toured the drive-in circuit.  Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula may not be the top shelf fare that the originals were.  For one thing, Beaudine was not nicknamed "One Shot" for nothing.  (He apparently went to the can with the first shot no matter what happened during the shoot).

But Beaudine is not always as bad as say, Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler.  Some of his output is pretty good.  Not Academy Award material, to be sure, but easily worth the investment of the hour and a half or so to check them out.  Neither of these is super great, and most of the acting is sub-par.  I'd save them for an afternoon when the lawn needs mowed but you just aren't ambitious enough to do it.  (You may decide mowing the lawn is not so bad an idea, afterwards, but be that as it may.)

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966):

The first in our double feature is a mash-up of horror and western.  In some border town there is a mysterious new neighbor, Maria von Frankenstein (Nardia Onyx), the granddaughter of the famous doctor  Frankenstein .  (so why is the title "Daughter" and not "Granddaughter"?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I lean towards budget concerns. It would have cost more money to add those 5 extra letters...)

Maria and her brother Rudolph (Steven Geray) have moved into a mansion on the hill near the town.  (and when you see the mansion from a distance you may be excused if you think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail... "It's only a model".  Actually I think its just a matte painting.)  Rudolph is Maria's brother, but looks like he might be her father.  (The actors were 27 years apart in terms of age).

The two are conducting evil experiments in which Maria is kidnapping local immigrants and replacing their brains with artificial ones in an effort to create slaves.  Which causes the immigrants to become a bit distressed.  Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez) and her parents decide to leave town.

Meanwhile the notorious outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) and his henchman Hank (Cal Bolder) run into a bit of trouble in town.  They hook up with the remainder of the Curry gang, which includes Butch (Roger Creed) and Lonny (Rayford Barnes).  Jealous of Jesse's intervention in the gang, Lonny arranges with the sheriff (Jim Davis, yes the same actor who played Jock Ewing on "Dallas") to capture and kill Jesse for the reward on his head.

Injured, but not dead, Hank and Jesse end up meeting up with Juanita and her family.  Juanita takes Jesse and Hank to the doctor, although Juanita does have some reservations since she does not entirely trust Maria.

Which is a good thing, since Maria makes plans to use the injured Hank as her next experiment, and arranges to get Jesse out of the way by having him inadvertently turn himself in to the authorities.

You can't keep a good man down, and apparently you can't keep a bad man down either.  Jesse does his best to save the day and his friend and deal with the evil doctors, but he may not be entirely successful.

The second feature of our double feature involves another outlaw trying to hide from the authorities. In this case William "Billy the Kid" Bonney (Chuck Courtney) has gone straight and is trying to live a normal life as a ranch hand.  (Apparently no one knows William Bonney was really "Billy the Kid" as that is the name he uses.)

The only one who is aware of Billy's true identity is his fiancee' Betty (Melinda Plowman).  Betty is the daughter of the ranch owner.  Betty's uncle is on his way to take over the ranch until Betty becomes of age, but the stagecoach is attacked by Indians before it ever arrives.

As to why the stagecoach is attacked?  A vampire (he is never actually identified as "Dracula" within the movie)  killed one of the Indian maidens and they exact revenge on the riders of the stagecoach.  But the vampire was not among those killed.  Posing as Betty's uncle, the vampire becomes Mr. Underhill (John Carradine). 

Underhill has ulterior motives.  He doesn't really want the ranch.  What he wants is to ultimately make Betty his undead bride.

He is hampered in this endeavor by a pair of German immigrants Eva and Franz Oster (Virginia Christie, Walter Janovitz), both of which are suspicious of Underhill and quite sure he is a vampire.  Eva tries several times to expose him, as well as provide Betty with the accoutrements for warding off vampires (wolf's bane, crucifixes, mirrors) .

But she runs into a block by the fact that Betty doesn't believe in the foreign superstition.  And Billy is also skeptical.  Will they realize their error before it's too late?

With the monsters safely returned to heir graves (until next time) it's time to head home.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy