Come On, Rangers! (Republic, 1938)
Not quite so light-hearted The third Western that Republic had Roy Rogers star in, after Under Western Stars and Billy the Kid Returns, was, despite the rather cheery title, slightly less light-hearted than the preceding two. . . Hi yo, Trigger! (It’s a publicity still; he doesn’t do this in the movie) . . OK, yes, […]
Under Western Stars (Republic, 1938)
Roy’s first big break Leonard Franklin Slye (1911 to 1998), much better known to us all as Roy Rogers, though a denizen of Cincinnati, Ohio, came to be known to millions as the archetypal Hollywood Westerner, the “King of the Cowboys”. His radio and TV shows and his feature films made him one […]
Company of Heroes by Harry Carey, Jr.
. . Dobe tells his story Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company, published by Scarecrow Press in 1994 and now also available on Kindle, gives an account by Harry Carey Jr (1921 to 2012) of the pictures he made with the renowned director John Ford. It […]
In Old Mexico (Paramount, 1938)
Hoppy goes South of the border You can’t go wrong with a Hopalong Cassidy Western every now and then. William Boyd had started them in 1935. He was offered the part of Red Connors in Harry Sherman’s production of Hop-a-Long Cassidy that year, released by Paramount, but asked for the title role […]
The Shepherd of the Hills (Paramount, 1941)
An overwrought tear-jerker This another of those movies that is only arguably a Western. Perhaps it’s more a drama with many elements of folksy Americana. Though my TV guide billed it as a Western, IMDb classifies it as “Adventure, Drama, Romance”. Myself, I come down on the Western side of the argument. Brian […]
The Lawbringers by Brian Garfield
Single-minded lawman pursues charismatic outlaw I have been an admirer of the work of the late Brian Garfield (1939 to 2018), pictured left, for a long time. In particular, his fine book Western Films: A Complete Guide (Da Capo Press, New York, 1982) has been a vade mecum ever since it came out […]
Drums in the Deep South (RKO, 1951)
No drums in the not very deep South . . Rather like A Thunder of Drums or War Drums, there are remarkably few drums in this one. In fact there are none, but who’s counting? It was one of those mid-budget RKO pictures, more of a war film, really, rather than a proper Western, and it […]
Augustine Chacon, Burt Mossman and Burt Alvord in fact and fiction
Outlaws and lawmen in the last days of the Old West Augustine Chacon In the final days of the ‘Wild West’, in turn-of-the-century Arizona, Augustine Chacon was one of the last charismatic outlaws. As with all proper Western bad guys, he had a ‘Robin Hood’ reputation (like most of them, quite undeserved), […]
The Texan (CBS TV, 1958 – 60)
Rory is Bill Longley (only not) As the feature-film Western declined in the late 1950s and the popularity of TV shows grew, many Western stars migrated from the big to the small screen. In the 1958 – 59 season George Montgomery did Cimarron City. Joel McCrea starred with his son Jody in Wichita […]
Singing Guns (Republic, 1950)
Singin’ showdown . . Vaughn Monroe, you probably know, was a trumpeter and vocalist who made his way up through the big bands, eventually in 1940 leading his own and becoming very popular, having over 70 chart hits, notably Let It Snow! He sold 5 million records for RCA in 1944. His band was […]