Plunderers Of Painted Flats was released in January 1959 (the poster calls it “a Republic presentation”). It starred Corinne Calvet, John Carroll, Skip Homeier and Joe Besser — and was in black and white ‘Scope (Naturama). Its director, Albert C. Gannaway, did a short series of these threadbare widescreen Westerns for Republic. At least one of them, Man Or Gun (1958), is pretty good.
That July, Republic was no more. There was no way the Western could be the same after that.
Director Joe Kane, from Kings Of The Bs: “Yates had trouble with the Actors Guild. He refused to pay residuals for pictures that were going on television. So they shut him down. The Actors Guild just closed the place and put him out of business… I went over to television. There was nothing else I could do. Republic was completely out of business. There was nothing left of it.”
Yes, Republic made a major contribution to the world of low budget westerns. By all accounts, Yates was man who it would be hard to feel sorry for though. It’s kind of ironic that his penny-pinching scuppered him in the end.
Being hellbent on making a star out of your Czech ice skater girlfriend — who can’t act and barely speaks English — didn’t hurt.
I’m with you. As much as I hate how the Republic story ends, it seems fitting for Yates. Think of all the old pros it put out of work.
I blame it all on Skip Homeier.
Don’t blame Skip, he livened up every film he was in !
I ilke Republic, from the Roy and Gene films to their late 50s titles. But who owns the Republic library now? There are so many of the films that never made it officially to video tape and even less to DVD, except for the John Wayne titles.
The bulk of the Republic library lies with Paramount in the US, but they have lisenced almost all of them to Lions Gate. They briefly had the library back about four years ago and promptly passed it back to Lions Gate. This isn’t really beneficial from the consumer’s point of view – The Quiet Man, for example looks horrible on DVD since Paramount own the elements but Lions Gate have the video rights and it’s in nobody’s interest financially to get a decent version out.
In the UK the Republic titles are mainly the property of Universal.
I watched a bit of The Quiet Man on TCM last week and it looked awful. Then again, I watched the Blu-ray of The Adventures Of Robin Hood, with a friend, last night, and it knocked my socks off all over again. That, and WB’s Blu-ray of The Searchers are examples of how The Quiet Man ought to look.