The geography of the Western
On location From the earliest times landscape has been a key element of the Western movie. There are successful, even great ‘town Westerns’, yes, tense claustrophobic works like High Noon or The Gunfighter whose action takes place indoors or in town and are shot accordingly on a studio sound stage, almost like a filmed theater play, and […]
Joseph Kane
Joe Kane . . Next in our occasional series of Western movie directors is Republic’s Joe Kane. Jasper Joseph Inman Kane (1894 to 1975) was a veritable veteran of the genre. He started as a bit-part actor in a silent Western in 1926 (as “cowhand – uncredited” but […]
Powderkeg by Leo V Gordon & Richard Vetterli
A good read Leo Gordon, that classic heavy in Western movies also wrote screenplays and novels. Under the name Leo V Gordon (which was how he started his acting career) and in collaboration with Richard Vetterli, a political scientist, he produced in 1991 what is, really, a classic historical novel, set during the […]
Two great figures of the Old West
I thought you might like to see this picture of Jeff with his old sidekick Matt Dillon in Monument Valley. I unearthed it while tidying my study and it brought back happy memories. (My traveling companion bought the cardboard cut-out and she lugged it round half the United States in the back of […]
Adventures of Red Ryder (Republic, 1940)
. The thrill of the weekly serial It is difficult for us now to comprehend the sheer excitement that the weekly movie serial or chapter play evoked in its (largely juvenile) audiences. Even oldies of my generation (born 1948) came just too late to relish that format. We were early fans of the TV […]
Shalako (CRC, 1968)
. 007 and BB home on the range . People have not been kind to Shalako. It got pretty bad reviews at the time and has been denigrated since. Your own Jeff, however, is not one of the detractors. Or at least not much. I’m not saying it’s a great Western, far from it. […]
Gun Trouble Valley (TV pilot, 1956)
. Red Ryder on the small screen? Red Ryder, who had started as a comic book hero and been though radio, serial and feature film incarnations, never made it to TV. It’s curious, really, because his progenitor, Stephen Slesinger, was pretty well a commercial genius, a pioneer of merchandising, marketing and licensing. Red’s rival, […]
The Pathfinder (Columbia, 1952)
George dons the coonskin cap . As we are on a bit of a George Montgomery jag at the moment I thought I’d continue with one of his three oaters from 1952, The Pathfinder. George wears the coonskin cap Well, I say oater. It’s not really. They hardly have any […]
Gun Duel in Durango (UA, 1957)
Great title No great epic maybe but still a whole heap of fun is a late-50s George Montgomery outing, one of five movies he made in ’57, four of which were Westerns, Gun Duel in Durango. We Westernistas like a George oater every now and then. No one would pretend they are […]
The Avenging Angel (TNT, 1995)
Mormon history 1990s style In a comment on a post the other day about a movie starring Tom Berenger, reader Barry Lane took issue with a critic (not me) who spoke rather slightingly of Mr Berenger as an actor. I didn’t know much about this thesp so I decided to watch another Western […]