Sony Movie Channel is focusing on Westerns next month, with a terrific all-day marathon scheduled for Sunday, July 28 that should keep readers of this blog firmly planted on their sofas — or scrambling to make room on their DVRs.

The directors represented here — Boetticher, Sherman, Daves, Karlson, Castle, Witney — make up a virtual Who’s Who of 50s Westerns directors. The times listed are Eastern.

4:40 AM Face Of A Fugitive (1958, above) One of those really cool, tough Westerns Fred MacMurray made in the late 50s. James Coburn has an early role, and Jerry Goldsmith contributed one of his first scores. It’s not out on DVD in the States, and the Spanish one doesn’t look so hot, so don’t miss it here. Put the coffee on, it’s gonna be a long day!

6:05 AM Relentless (1948) George Sherman directs Robert Young and Marguerite Chapman.

7:40 AM A Lawless Street (1955) Joseph H. Lewis knocks another one out of the park, directing Randolph Scott and Angela Lansbury.

9:05 AM Decision At Sundown (1957) Part of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott’s Ranown cycle, this one tends to divide fans. I think it’s terrific. It’s certainly more downbeat than the others (Burt Kennedy didn’t write it), with Scott’s character almost deranged vs. the usual obsessed.

10:25 AM The Pathfinder (1952) Sidney Salkow directs George Montgomery in a low-budget adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper, produced by Sam Katzman. Helena Carter and Jay Silverheels round out the cast.

11:45 AM Battle Of Rogue River (1954) William Castle directs George Montgomery (seen above with Martha Hyer) the same year they did Masterson Of Kansas. I’m a real sucker for Castle’s Westerns, so it’s hard to be objective here.

1:05 PM Gunman’s Walk (1958) Phil Karlson’s masterpiece? A great film, with a typically incredible performance from Van Heflin, that really needs to be rediscovered. Not available on DVD in the U.S. Don’t miss it.

2:45 PM They Came To Cordura (1959) Robert Rossen directs a terrific cast — Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Van Heflin, Tab Hunter and Dick York. Set in 1916 Mexico, it has a look somewhat similar to The Wild Bunch (1969). Looks good in CinemaScope.

4:55 PM Jubal (1956, above) Delmer Daves puts Othello on horseback. Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, Valerie French, Charles Bronson, Jack Elam, Felicia Farr, Harry Carey, Jr. and John Dierkes make up the great cast. Charles Lawton, Jr. shot it in Technicolor and CinemaScope.

6:40 PM Arizona Raiders (1965) Wiliam Witney directs Audie Murphy in a picture that plays like a cross between a 50s Western and a spaghetti one. Murphy got better as he went along, and his performance here is quite good.

8:20 PM 40 Guns To Apache Pass (1966) Witney and Murphy again. This time around, Murphy is after a missing shipment of guns.

If all that’s not enough, there’s a chance to win a three-day dude ranch getaway. Check SonyMovieChannel.com to find out more.

To mark the occasion, here’s George Montgomery and son at Melody Ranch while shooting Black Patch (1957).

Director Allan Dwan’s career was as old as the Movies themselves, and many of the early technical developments were his doing. Going into the mid-50s, he was still making innovative, unique, personal films — usually for smaller studios that would leave him alone and let him do what he did best.

I went Wig City over Allan Dwan’s films of 50s, thanks to DVDs of his work from VCI, and that helped spawn this blog. So I was really stoked to hear about The Museum of Modern Art’s Dwan series — which will include several of those Westerns.

From the MoMA web site: The Museum of Modern Art presented a major retrospective of Dwan’s films in 1971, with Dwan in attendance, and while another exhibition was certainly due after 42 years, this series was prompted by the publication of Frederic Lombardi’s definitive study of Dwan’s work, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the of the Hollywood Studios (McFarland, 2013).

If you can make it to any of these, by all means do so. The Westerns are:

June 14-15, 18
Frontier Marshal (1939)
With Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly, Cesar Romero, John Carradine, Ward Bond.
This was once almost impossible to see (the bootleg tape I had of it was impossible to see). Another take on the O.K. Corral story. I prefer Randolph Scott with more age on him, but this is a really cool film.

June 24-25
Woman They Almost Lynched (1953)
With Audrey Totter, Joan Leslie, John Lund, Brian Donlevy, Ben Cooper.
Dwan made a string of films for Republic that are worth seeking out (Olive Films, you reading this?), with Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949) being the best known. Dwan approaches this as a spoof — evidently, he didn’t see any other way — and the results are terrific.

June 29-30
The Restless Breed (1957)
With Scott Brady, Anne Bancroft, Jim Davis, Scott Marlowe, Evelyn Rudie.
Dwan’s last Western. A revenge tale gets a light comic touch.

July 3,5
Tennessee’s Partner (1955)
With John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Ronald Reagan, Coleen Gray.
John Alton’s Superscope cinematography almost steals the show, making the Iverson Ranch look like the most beautiful place on earth.

July 3, 6
Silver Lode (1954)
With John Payne, Dan Duryea, Lizabeth Scott, Harry Carey, Jr.
A key 5os Western, and the damnedest McCarthy comment you’ve ever seen. Again, Alton and his cameras roam the ranches of Hollywood to amazing results.

Be sure to look at the complete listing. I highly recommend Slightly Scarlet (1956), an incredible Technicolor, Superscope film noir shot by John Alton.

Thanks to Stephen Bowie.

Character Actor Of The Day is something I’ve been meaning to kick off for a while, and when discussion of the great Frank Ferguson (1899-1978) cropped up the other day, I knew I’d waited too long.

As a kid, I came to know Ferguson as Mr. McDougal, owner of the house of horrors in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). Once he was on my radar, it became obvious he’s in just about everything (as a gauge, the IMDB gives him 600 credits). He’s seen here with Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar (1954), one of the many 50s Westerns that benefitted from his (often-uncredited) presence.

The other day, Blake Lucas called Ferguson “essential,” and that’s the perfect word for him. Boy, I would’ve loved to interview him.

The first drive-in theater, a 400-car outfit in Camden, New Jersey, opened 80 years ago today.

In the 50s, Westerns and monster movies ruled the drive-in. I’ve never seen a 50s Western at the drive-in, and I’m awed by the very thought of something like Pillars Of The Sky (1956) taking up my entire windshield. (I did take in a twin-bill of the two Terence Hill Trinity flicks at Raleigh’s Forest Drive-In, just a few weeks after moving here in 1974.)

Which 50s Westerns did you see under the stars?

I get to publicize a lot of great screenings on this blog, and I’m happy to be able to actually attend one for once.

This Friday at the Carolina Theater in Durham, NC, they’ll run Delmer Daves’ 3:10 To Yuma (1957). It stars Glenn Ford, Van Heflin and Felicia Farr. It’s based on a story by Elmore Leonard. And it’s surely one of the best Westerns of the 50s. (Clint Eastwood’s 1973 High Plains Drifter screens at 7; Yuma follows it.)

Jim Carl at the Carolina does a great job of throwing great old movies on the big screen — on film if possible. This is a bit of an experiment with a Western. Let’s hope there’s a big turnout. If anyone’s planning on attending, let me know — and let’s say hello.

Depending on your outlook, this latest set from Sony and Turner Classics might be seen as a prayer answered. The Randolph Scott Westerns Collection gathers up four really good ones for a September release:

Coroner Creek (1948) This tough Cinecolor picture from Ray Enright, based on a Luke Short novel, is one of Scott’s best pre-Boetticher Westerns. His character here is practically a prototype for the burned-out, obsessed guy we know from the Ranowns.

The Walking Hills (1949) is John Sturges’ first Western. Scott is joined by Ella Raines, Edgar Buchanan, Arthur Kennedy and folk singer Josh White. The crisp black and white location work in Death Valley is really something to see.

The Doolins Of Oklahoma (1949, above) comes from Gordon Douglas. George Macready, Louise Allbritton, John Ireland and Noah Beery Jr. are on hand. Douglas has Yakima Canutt on his second unit, and as you’d expect, the action scenes are excellent.

7th Cavalry (1956) comes up on this blog quite often, as we’ve warned each other about some lousy DVDs. It’s a Joseph H. Lewis cavalry picture in Technicolor and widescreen (1.85), with Barbara Hale, Jay C. Flippen, Frank Faylen, Leo Gordon, Denver Pyle, Harry Carey Jr. and Michael Pate. It’s not as strong as A Lawless Street (1955), Scott and Lewis’ previous collaboration, but the cast and director alone make it worthwhile. Cross your fingers that it’s presented 16×9.

Leslie Townes “Bob” Hope
(May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003)

He’s not a cowboy star. But his Son Of Paleface (1952) — directed by Frank Tashlin and co-starring Jane Russell and Roy Rogers (and Trigger, seen here) — is not only one of the best Western spoofs, but I’d hold it up as a strong contender for Funniest Movie Ever Made.

Bob Hope would be 110 today. And while most of those TV specials are wretched, his movies of the 40s and 50s are terrific and ripe for re-evaluation. OK, now I gotta watch Son Of Paleface.

Okay, so it’s a contemporary bullfighting picture. But for fans of 50s Westerns, it couldn’t be more significant. Bullfighter And The Lady (1951) is where director Budd Boetticher really came into his own.

Produced by John Wayne and released by Republic, it was hacked from 124 to 87 minutes — and later restored to Budd’s cut. It’s a terrific film, and its release on DVD and Blu-ray, from Olive Films in July, is a very big deal.

Of course, Wayne and Boetticher’s next picture together was Seven Men From Now (1956).

Directed by Thomas Carr
Produced by Walter M. Mirisch
Screenplay by Martin M. Goldsmith and John McGreevey
Screen story by Martin M. Goldsmith
Based on the novel by Wayne D. Overholser
Director of Photography: Wilfrid M. Cline
Music by Gerard Fried

CAST: Audie Murphy (Matt Brown), Terry Moore (Janet Calvert), John Dehner (Chip Donahue), James Best (Sam Mullen), Rita Lynn (Hortensia), Denver Pyle (Preacher Harrison), Ann Doran (Charlotte ‘Ma’ Calvert).

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For Memorial Day, it made sense to focus on Audie Murphy. So it seemed like a good time to take a look at the DVD of Cast A Long Shadow (1959).

Producer Walter Mirisch: “Audie Murphy had made a long series of successful Western pictures for Universal-International, and Cast A Long Shadow was made to fit into the mold of those films. It was intended to be a program picture, not terribly expensive, and was shot in black-in-white.”

In an arrangement similar to the deal Mirisch made with Joel McCrea, Audie was given a percentage. Murphy was not happy when he found out the picture wasn’t to be in color. (By the way, this film was sandwiched between two of Murphy’s best: No Name On The Bullet (1959) and The Unforgiven (1960).

Murphy is Matt Brown, a bitter young man who inherits a sprawling ranch from the man he believes is his father. His windfall comes with a challenge — in order to clear up some old debt, he has to get his herd to market in just a few days. Naturally, there are some guys who want to prevent Murphy from getting his cattle in on time.

Joining Audie Murphy are Terry Moore as the sweethheart he left behind, John Dehner as one of the few people on Murphy’s side and Denver Pyle as a preacher. James Best is one of Murphy’s rivals, scheming to get Murphy’s ranch.

Mirisch: “It was directed by Tom Carr, who had worked with me at Allied Artists and had directed The Tall Stranger (1957) with Joel McCrea. The screenplay was by Martin Goldsmith, who had written Fort Massacre (1958), and John McGreevey did a rewrite on Goldsmith’s script… Richard Heermance edited Cast A Long Shadow, as he had Man Of The West (1958).”

Cast A Long Shadow was shot by Wilfrid M. Cline, who’d just finished one of my favorite films, William Castle’s The Tingler (1959). And it was scored by Gerard Fried, whose credits include Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956).

With so many pros working on it, it’s a shame Cast A Long Shadow isn’t better than it is. Sometimes, a cast and crew can rise above a meager budget through ingenuity and determination. Other times, they can’t. This is one of the latter times. You’re constantly reminded that this is a low-budget movie. Stock footage abounds in the cattle drive scenes, with long shots of thousands of head of cattle cut in with tighter shots of Murphy, Dehner and a couple cows. What’s more, Fried’s score is simply over the top — way too dramatic for this modest film. And Murphy’s character is hard to pull for.

But for those of us with a soft spot for these things, these criticisms are not meant to prevent you from adding this one to your collection. Not at all. A Murphy picture is always worth the time, and the DVD from Timeless Media Group is lovely — and you can find it for as little as $5. The 1.85 aspect ratio is correct, the sound has plenty of punch, the picture on the whole is sharp and clear, and the contrast ranges from perfect in one scene, and too dark and a bit flat in the next. I have a feeling that comes from the original elements — that’s what happens when you make a movie on the quick and the cheap.