Happy Birthday, Glenn Ford.

Glenn Ford
(May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006)

Glenn Ford (Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford) would be 97 today. Here’s a frame from the Criterion Blu-ray of 3:10 To Yuma (1957) to mark the occasion.

Much like Jimmy Stewart, Randolph Scott or John Wayne, Ford made Westerns throughout his career, but the ones from the 50s — such as The Fastest Gun Alive (1956), Jubal (1956) and of course 3:10 To Yuma — were really something special. There was something about him that really fit the darker themes of the decade’s Westerns.

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Screening: The Searchers (1956) At The Newport Beach Film Festival.

Sorry for the short notice, but the Newport Beach Film Festival is screening The Searchers (1956) tomorrow at noon at the Island Cinema. The event is sponsored by the John Wayne Cancer Foundation.

Ethan Wayne and Glenn Frankel, author of The Searchers: The Making Of An American Legend, will appear before the film.

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Filming The Lone Ranger Movie (1956).

Bob Madison (who moseys through this blog quite a bit) and I were emailing back and forth yesterday about Clayton Moore and The Lone Ranger. I remembered this page (inside back cover) from the 1956 Dell Giant comic The Lone Ranger Movie Story and thought it was worth sharing.

The article is called “Filming The Lone Ranger Movie.” Click and it gets large enough that even I can read it.

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Calling All Cowgirls!

My daughter caught Beverly Garland in Gunslinger (1956, above) yesterday (on broadcast TV!) and loved it. She thought Beverly was about the coolest thing ever — which, of course, she is. She also thought her horse was pretty.

Blake Lucas suggested Johnny Guitar (1954) as a followup, and I thought of Hellfire (1949, below).

By then, this was looking like something we could all have fun with. So, while I have the opportunity to turn my little girl into a (cap) pistol-packing 50s Western fan, let’s program a 12-year-old girl’s 50s Western Film Festival. Put your picks in a comment.

You know, maybe it’s time 50 Westerns From The 50s had a guest blogger.

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Screening: The Searchers (1956).

Here’s Ward Bond, John Wayne and Dorothy Jordan in the greatest single scene to be found in an American film. In less than a minute, it says more than most movies say in two hours. Without a word being said, and completely without pretense.

Of course, it’s from John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), a film this blog has pretty much stayed away from. It’s been written about so much, and I’d rather help lead people to more obscure pictures like Quantez (1957). And truth be told, I don’t think I’m up to it. It scares me.

So I’ll just say the greatest (Western) film ever made will be at the Aero Theatre on the 11th. It’d make a great way to pay tribute to Harry Carey, Jr.

The Searchers (1956) 
Monday, March 11, 7:30 PM

The Aero Theatre
1328 Montana Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Glenn Frankel will sign copies of his book The Searchers: The Making Of An American Legend in the lobby at 6:30 PM. Monday’s my daughter’s birthday, and if the Aero wasn’t a couple thousand miles away…

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Dale Robertson, 1923 – 2013.

Heard last night that Dale Robertson has passed away. He had a very likable screen presence and by all accounts was a really nice man.

Despite making some excellent 50s Westerns, such as The Gambler From Natchez (1954) and A Day Of Fury (1956), it was on TV that he really made his mark — as Jim Hardie in Tales Of Wells Fargo. As a kid, he really impressed me in the TV movie Melvin Purvis G-Man (1974) — a role Ben Johnson played in John Milius’ Dillinger the year before.

The photo above is from The Silver Whip (1952). It is a crying shame that A Day Of Fury isn’t on DVD.

Thanks to Stephen Bowie for relaying the news.

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Gallery: Making Westerns In The 50s.

Rex Allen and Roy Rogers, somewhere on the Republic lot.

Mara Corday studies the Raw Edge (1956) screenplay.

Donna Reed and Richard Widmark at work on Backlash (1956). That’s John Sturges obscured in the ball cap.

Howard Hawks shows Kirk Douglas how to do a fight scene for The Big Sky (1952).

Ronald Reagan and Barbara Stanwyck discuss the arms situation on the set of Cattle Queen Of Montana (1954).

Satchel Paige and Robert Mitchum shoot the breeze between takes on The Wonderful Country (1959).

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Happy Birthday Lee Marvin.

Lee Marvin
(February 19, 1924 – August 29, 1987)

Finally seeing Budd Boetticher’s Seven Men From Now (1956) set me off down the trail that would lead to this blog and its book-in-progress namesake. It’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, Western or otherwise.

A huge part of the film’s success is our birthday boy, Lee Marvin. With scenes like the one above, there was no way he was going to remain a character actor. And as we all know, and as films like The Professionals (1966) and Point Blank (1967) prove, he wouldn’t stay one for long.

This’d be a good day (especially since it’s raining here in Raleigh) to curl up on the sofa with that new Marvin biography.

 

 

 

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Book: The Searchers: The Making Of An American Legend.

Here’s a book I’m looking forward to, The Searchers: Making Of An American Legend by Glenn Frankel. It covers the connection between an actual abduction case (Cynthia Ann Parker was taken by the Comanches when she was nine), Alan LeMay’s novel and, of course, what it often held up as the greatest Western ever made, John Ford’s The Searchers (1956).

Glenn Frankel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and his former employer, The Washington Post, likes his book. Their review is here. An earlier piece on The Searchers can be found on his website.

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50s Westerns Blu-ray News #115: 3:10 To Yuma (1957) and Jubal (1956).

Delmer Daves’ great 3:10 To Yuma (1957) arrives on Blu-ray from Criterion on May 14. A key 50s Western, one of Glenn Ford’s greatest performances (though some don’t like him being a bad guy), yet another masterful turn from Van Heflin, one of the best-looking black and white movies ever (thanks to Charles Lawton Jr.) and just an all-around swell thing.

Ford and Daves had already worked together on Jubal in 1956, which added Technicolor, CinemaScope and Ernest Borgnine to the mix. Criterion’s serving that one up, too.

Thanks to Mr. Richard Vincent for making my day with this news.

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