Rod Cameron
(December 7, 1910 – December 21, 1983)
Rod Cameron never made a Western that could truly be called a classic. But he made some really solid ones, such as Ride The Man Down (1952) — a Republic picture costarring Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton, Chill Wills, J. Carrol Naish, Jim Davis and Paul Fix. It was directed, with the usual breakneck pace, by Joe Kane. Good stuff.
No posts for Rod,to me thats very sad.
Not much of Rod on DVD either some some of his best stuff remains
largely unseen.
PANHANDLE on VCIs excellent Darn Good Westerns Vol 1 is a good
place to start,typical of the excellent series of films he made with
Lesley Selander.
There is all that big budget Republic stuff on the missing list too;
and as Toby states RIDE THE MAN DOWN is right at the top of the
heap. There are other good films too like SAN ANTONE and
HELLS OUTPOST and things I would really love to see like
OH SUSANNAH.As I have said many times before I REALLY wish
Warner Archive could get their hands on the Republic library.
Cameron stayed with Republic until the bitter end and did all sorts
of things later in his career.He even took over the Old Shatterhand-
Old Surehand-Old Firehand role in the popular Winnetou German
Westerns when Lex Barker and Stewart Granger had had enough.
He even did a couple of Brit B features (PASSPORT TO TREASON
THE MAGNETIC MONSTER) and much later appeared in Hoppers
THE LAST MOVIE. An interesting later feature was THE BOUNTY
KILLER one of those affectionate Alex Gordon productions loaded
with veteran actors.This one,which as I remember; being pretty good
(though very cheap) re-teamed him with the great Dan Dureya
with whom he appeared in the excellent RIVER LADY many years
before.
THE BOUNTY KILLER was directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
and I see that according to imdb that is the name of the Don Johnson
character in Tarintinos forthcoming DJANGO UNCHAINED.
I was also amused to see that Amber Tamblyns character is called
“Daughter of a son of a gunfighter”,a nice reference to Paul
Landres Euro Western.
As I am on a real Selander kick at the moment I was delighted to
see that Warner Archive have sneaked in BATTLE ZONE one of
those rarely seen Allied Artists-Mirisch productions.
War films are not really my thing but I will go for this one purely
because its a Selander flick. I do hope the Archive dig up more rare
gems from the Allied Artists portfolio;theres some great Noir stuff in
there too!
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It’s a shame the Cameron stuff is so hard to find. If the films were around, I’m sure he’d be better appreciated. Those Republics would be a great place to start. Olive Films, are you reading this?
I always love seeing Selander get a little attention. It’s so easy to say he was a good action director and move on, but there’s so much there if you do a little digging.
He was interviewed in an old McFarland book called Close Up: The Contract Director, a book I highly recommend since it also includes William Witney, Yakima Canutt, Howard Hawks and Joe Kane. Thank God someone had the foresight to speak to those guys before they were gone.
I’ve always wanted to see those Allied Artists war films like Battle Zone. They were made right after the Tim Holt series wound down. Of course, to me, Holt-Selander is one of the greatest collaborations in Westerns. What a wonderful series of films.
I wrote about Rod in a recent thread, I’ll repeat some of it later, but wanted also to talk about some of Rod’s many movies that ARE available to the average Joe who does a bit of a search. First, the easiest, in the 2 recent volumes (1 & 2) of Warner Archive Collection’s Monogram Cowboy Collection there are some goodies: in Vol 1 you’ll find the COLOR version of “Cavalry Scout” (directed by Selander for a certain Selander fanatic) and in Vol. 2 there’s “Fort Osage” another Selander directed one and also “Wagons West”. Also easily found on Amazon is a neat foreign made western with this great title, “Bullets Don’t Argue” put out by sinistercinema.com, this is one of Rod’s later made films from the ’60′s. Also easily found on Amazon is “Beyond The Pecos” Also some to be found with a bit more searching are “Hell’s Outpost”, Boss Of Boomtown”, “Old Texas Trail”, “Riders of The Santa Fe”. Even “Bounty Killer” was recently this year shown on Antenna TV, I watched it too, good latter day Rod, as he plays a bad guy veteran who teaches Greenhorn Dan Duryea some of the ropes and ultimately pays the cost for his good deed at the hands of the changed for the worse Dan Duryea. And it’s in color too. I really liked this film.
If you keep your eyes out for him he can indeed be found. And after you’ll feel like you found a buried treasure, my feeling when I came accross the color “Dakota Lil” I’ve become a big fan of Rod Cameron in just the past 2 years. I had heard of him before, but was not familiar with his work. I started watching “Coronado 9″ and I instantly became a fan of his style and his built in earnestness. He’s really good as a good guy, I don’t like to see him playing bad guys. I’m currently watching on a weekly basis his “State Trooper” series, not as good as Coronado, but still really great ’50′s TV filled with great ’50′s actors. Since then I’ve branched out into his westerns and action movies and was surprised that he was once a bit of a Roy Rogers type cowboy, making hour long westerns during the same time period. He was good in these too. A lady I have traded with told me her mother was a big fan of Rod’s and knew him in his latter days when he lived in North (or was it South,don’t remember) Carolina, she said he had snow white hair at this time and was always the gentle gentleman. Rod is tops in my book.
I like Rod Cameron too, and have seen some of the Republics–for those films, Joe Kane especially was a fine director and always makes you want to see more of his movies. Rod was good in some Universals too, especially what was his last there, RIVER LADY, directed by George Sherman, which John has already mentioned, while earlier FRONTIER GAL (Charles Lamont), also with Yvonne De Carlo, is an entertaining movie I saw earlier this past year.
Better than THE BOUNTY KILLER (truthfully, I still need to see this in color and it was interesting to me when I watched in black and white) is what is at least one of the sleeper Westerns of the mid-60s, THE GUN HAWK (1963; directed by Edward Ludwig who people here might know from his unexpected and stunningly great WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (1948), not a Western but a South Seas Romantic Melodrama with John Wayne and Gail Russell and one of the definitive works of what I’ll call Republic poetry.
THE GUN HAWK starred Rory Calhoun with Rod Cameron as a second male lead (a sheriff, so a good guy while Calhoun is the tragic gunfighter hero) and they’re both good, along with Ruta Lee as the heroine and Rod Lauren as the younger guy who gets involved with Calhoun. Also Morgan Woodward has a strong early film role and Robert J. Wilke, no less, is also in it. There’s something very interesting and individual about this movie, which I won’t spoil–it could be found gloomy for this aspect but the unheralded Western in a year in which precious few were released actually found a place on the ten best list (for 1965 in France) of no less than Jean-Luc Godard. This very badly needs a DVD release. Is this Allied Artists? Or some no name company? Sorry that I didn’t look it up before writing this.
Just checked and Allied Artists is correct for THE GUN HAWK release. Since many AA movies have been surfacing, I’m sure there’s hope.
Johnny G;”a certain Selander fanatic” I resemble that remark!
There is no way the Warner Archive Monogram Rod releases would have
escaped my radar. Hopefully The Archive will treat us to the excellent
SHORT GRASS one day.
Thanks for bringing some of those obscure Cameron titles to our attention.
I would love to see THE BOUNTY KILLER again;I wonder who holds the
rights to it?
One Rod Cameron Western I am hoping Sony will release is STAGE TO
TUCSON a class A Harry Joe Brown production. (did Harry Joe ever
produce a bad Western?)
I have never been able to locate a decent “off air” copy of this film;someone gave me an alternate copy recently but its worse than the one I already had.
Funnily enough the recent DVD of THE PHANTOM STAGECOACH is
loaded with stock footage from STAGE TO TUCSON. A solid Western
with lots of lovely Lone Pine action.
Blake; it would have to be you to name-drop Edward Ludwig.
Lou Lumenick of the New York Post recently called him “underrated”
THE GUN HAWK showed up on UK TV recently and I had not seen it
since the Sixties.Its very offbeat mostly studio bound with little location
work.A widescreen treatment from The Archive would be most welcome.
Ludwig worked a lot with John Payne and directed many episodes of his
excellent RESTLESS GUN TV series.
Another “missing” Republic title is Ludwigs FLAME OF THE ISLANDS with
Yvonne De Carlo,Zachary Scott,Howard Duff and James Arness.
Ludwig is one of those directors (like John H Auer) I would like to know
more about;i.e. through DVD releases.
To return to Mr Selander;as I mentioned before I am really happy to
see Warner Archive release one of his Allied Artists pictures (BATTLE
ZONE) Hopefully others will follow like FIGHTER ATTACK and ARROW
IN THE DUST (Both with Sterling Hayden) and DRAGONFLY SQUADRON
plus of course THE HIGHWAYMAN.
Watched FORT YUMA again recently and it may rate as my favorite
Selander Bel-Air Western. I suppose Bel Air and Selander thought with
the films fairly “Liberal Message” they might get a lot more violence past the
censor (they were very wrong)
Despite of all the cuts its an interesting and rather complex film.
Peter Graves is the Indian hating Cavalry officer who carries on a
“behind closed doors” relationship with Apache Woman Joan Taylor.
His fairly liberal commanding general (Addison Richards) is disgusted
that Graves is the only one of his officers to never have taken a prisoner
alive.Native American scout John Hudson initially resists the advances;of
missionary Joan Vohs;he later succumbs to her charms.
At the films tense climax Vohs is finally forced to kill;and Graves has to
re-think his previous attitudes. There is a most touching father/son type
relationship between veteran trooper Bill Phillips and young rookie
James O Hara (brother of Maureen)
There is a religious sub-text too especially with the un-educated Phillips
efforts to try to learn to read The Bible.
Blake; in particular I hope you get to catch up with this one someday
I may be wrong (I often am) but I think you will really enjoy this film.
One things for sure after the censor hacked to bits YELLOW TOMAHAWK
and FORT YUMA Bel-Air and Selander certainly toned down the rest of
the Westerns they made together.Anyone seen REVOLT AT FORT
LARAMIE;its the only one I am missing on my Selander/Bel-Air checklist.
I have just looked at one of my previous posts an there is a glaring bit
of mis-information.
The British B thriller mentioned should have
been THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER (a.k.a. ESCAPEMENT) not
THE MAGNETIC MONSTER .
Apart from Rod the film also stars Mary Murphy.One imagines Murphy
caught a severe cold while filming in England because she is mostly
draped in a fur coat throughout the film even in the interior scenes.
There are many versions of this little epic floating around but someone
found me a copy of the uncut version.
Its a strange little thriller with some decidedly “kinky” dream sequences
(for the time of course).
.
.
One of the best Films Rod made was “BRIMSTONE” (1949) with Walter Brennan, Forrest Tucker, Jim Davies, and Jack Lambert. a “B” Movie plot but a terrific cast, lots of action and some hilarious dialogue from Brennan and Lambert
I’ve marked this page as a “favorite” with all the excellent viewing recommendations. I’ll be spending next year watching the ones I haven’t seen already. This is the greatest place to get viewing ideas, esp. here with viewing ideas for Rod. Thank you to all. Some of these I have seen, but others I have yet to watch. Can’t wait for 2013 & new Rod movie watching!
Its a shame that all these great Republic titles are in the hands of Olive
Films.If we are very lucky they might finally release Rod A Pictures like
RIDE THE MAN DOWN or SANTA FE PASSAGE but I am NOT holding
my breath. If Warner Archive had the Republic library not only would we
get the A films but also those later Republic Rod B pictures like SPOILERS
OF THE FOREST and YAQUI DRUMS.We would also get Rod B thrillers/
Noirs like THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE and THE CROOKED RING.
There is a host of non-Rod Republic stuff too;I want to see STRANGER
AT MY DOOR real bad.
Give me Olive over the WArchives any day. While they can’t flood out a wack of films in a rush, I prefer their care and quality to the DVD-r bum rush treatment that many of the WA suffer from… My collector friends, like me, love seeing old films released and have a ‘wish list’, but also have a backload of new discs sitting unopened and in the queue. So beyond our own personal dance with a Mayan calendar issue, haste isn’t an issue. But to each their own…
I cannot fault Warner Archive;not only do we get big budget Warner and
MGM titles but also loads of obscure gems from the likes of RKO
Monogram/Allied Artists.
I do not have an issue with Olive Films in terms of quality;its just that I
am very impatient especially when it comes to the Republic catalog.
They are just releasing stuff (i.e. THE TRAP) that they have had the
rights to for over two years. They also have withdrawn good films that
they previously were going to release. (WARPATH;THE SAVAGE)
There is all that Pine-Thomas Paramount stuff that should be out there
(EAGLE & THE HAWK,CROSSWINDS,HELLS ISLAND and so on)
what have these guys got against John Payne!
I am kind of convinced that the Paramount/Republic library will end up
with the Archive eventually and Olive can go back to doing what they do
best;Art-House and Cult titles.
Having said that its nice to see RAMROD at the top of Classicflix rental
chart which hopefully will encourage Olive to release SOUTH OF ST
LOUIS.
The MOD thing means that many obscure/minor films will now see the
light of day especially from Warners and Sony.
Many people think the future choice will either be MOD or Blu-Ray
but really who can forsee the future in this fast changing world.
Whoever thought a few years back that titles like THE BLOB would
be released on Blu-Ray.
Someone sent me an “off air” copy of a later Rod Cameron Republic
non-Western THE FIGHTING CHANCE a horse racing drama.
I have always wanted to see some of those later thrillers/Noirs Cameron
made for Republic in its last days. Others I would like to see are
DOUBLE JEOPARDY,HEADLINE HUNTERS, and THE MAN WHO DIED
TWICE.
The fact that THE FIGHTING CHANCE stars Cameron and Julie London
and is directed by William Witney more than makes it a “must see” for
a B movie fanatic like myself.
The film is really good and the love triangle between the smart woman/
younger guy/older guy is handled in a more adult way than BLACK HORSE
CANYON which has a similar theme.
In BLACK HORSE CANYON Marie Blanchard is a hard working ranch gal.
In THE FIGHTING CHANCE Julie London is a Femme Fatale.
These sort of minor films are what MOD was created for;I would gladly
play $20 for an MOD upgrade especially if it was in widescreen.
Its a real shame that Paramount;the only major without an MOD imprint
has control of the Republic library.
Watching great Republic films turn up on tacky European P.D. imprints
is rather like the early days of CD when the rights were blurred and the
Everly Brothers classic Cadence recordings were turning up on cheap
labels with terrible sound and graphics.
These early Everly Brothers recordings are to me at least; the equal of
Hank Williams great MGM recordings they influenced everyone from
The Beatles,Simon & Garfunkel,The Byrds,Burritos, Eagles and
beyond.
To me Republic Pictures are a great American brand like Sun Records
for instance.Am I (a Limey to boot) the only person who cares about
all this.
Fighting Chance is a movie I recently got about 4 months ago, but I haven’t watched it yet. I know it isn’t a western and is a “modern” day story about horse racing. This is another “must watch one of these days” movie for me.
Sooner rather than later I hope Johnny!
It was fun to see Bob Steele ideally cast as a jockey.