Wildfire: The Story of a Horse (Screen Guild, 1945)
Bob Steele stars in Lippert’s debut as producer . On one level just another 40s low-budget one-hour Bob Steele Western, with unremarkable production values, Wildfire is nevertheless quite interesting ‘historically’: it was the first film of Screen Guild Productions. . . Gorgeous color – it says . Robert L Lippert (1909 to 1976) […]
One Man’s Hero (Orion, 1999)
The San Patricios Rather intrigued by the part that the St Patrick’s Battalion and its leader John Riley played in James Carlos Blake’s novel In the Rogue Blood, and by Richard’s comment on it, I decided to dig a bit deeper. You, dear e-readers, might find it interesting to know a little more. […]
In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake
Black and bleak In the Rogue Blood is a novel of the 1840s West. The story is of two brothers, John and Edward Little, who grow up in Florida with “a whore mother and a homicidal father”, and it climaxes during General Winfield Scott’s 1847 campaign against the Mexicans, and in particular his […]
Comes a Horseman (UA, 1978)
Too long and dreary . . Continuing with our season of iffy 70s Westerns, this one, with a faux-poetic title, was certainly one of the weaker attempts. It was directed by Alan J Pakula, a popular and successful filmmaker of the time who directed, produced and/or wrote a series of hit movies such as […]
Leo Gordon
The arch-heavy We all love the Western heavy. If you were casting a movie in the 1950s and wanted a smarmy town boss you’d probably go for Lyle Bettger, or perhaps from a slightly earlier period Victor Jory; if a rascally judge, Edgar Buchanan was your man; crooked sheriff, Ray Teal, probably; ruthless rancher, […]
From Noon Till Three (UA, 1976)
Bronson does comedy Continuing our theme of not-very-good (or sometimes downright bad) 1970s Westerns, let’s look at From Noon Till Three, a Charles Bronson/Jill Ireland comedy. It’s currently showing on Amazon Prime. . . The basic premise is quite cute because it plays with the idea of legend and reality – particularly […]
Robbers’ Roost (UA, 1955)
Good bad guys . . Since we’re on a bit of a George Montgomery kick at the moment, here’s another one. It was quite a ‘big’ picture, shot in Color DeLuxe down in Mexico and with Sidney Salkow at the helm. It was in fact a remake of a 1932 talkie starring George O’Brien, […]
The Lone Gun (UA, 1954)
Reasons to be cheerful If you like a George Montgomery Western now and then (and, dear Westernista, which of us does not?) then you won’t do much better than one of the three of his that were released in 1954, The Lone Gun. . . Classic stuff Why? 1. George […]
Bad Company (Paramount, 1972)
“I’d like to get my hands around the throat of the son of a bitch that told me to go west.” . . I was discoursing the other day (I kinda do discoursing) on the abysmal quality of early-1970s Westerns and indeed many of those movies were shockingly bad. But they weren’t all terrible. […]
Posse (Gramercy Pictures, 1993)
1990s blaxploitation . . I went to see this Posse (no relation to the Kirk Douglas one; there’s no copyright on titles) when it came out. I was living in Italy at the time. New Western releases were quite a rarity then, and the title sounded encouraging. Plus, the movie’s promo material talked of […]