Allan “Rocky” Lane
(September 22, 1909 – October 27, 1973)
El Paso Stampede (1953) was Allan “Rocky” Lane’s last series Western for Republic. It was directed by Harry Keller, whose work on Quantez (1957) I’ve been praising the last few days. Lane’s costar is Phyllis Coates, who’d recently done the first season of The Adventures Of Superman.
Of course, Lane’s career was for from over. He had a handful of pictures yet to make, including The Saga of Hemp Brown (1958) with Beverly Garland, Rory Calhoun, Russell Johnson, Yvette Vickers and John Larch (what a cast). And then there’s being the voice of Mister Ed.
By the way, El Paso Stampede is available from VCI Entertainment.
Forget all that. He’s the guy who got clubbed with a frozen leg of lamb by Barbara Bel Geddes.
That’s right!
I wish Universal would put out The Saga of Hemp Brown, directed by Richard Carlson, who had earlier directed the remarkable Four Guns to the Border, with that remarkable six minute love scene in the rain between Rory Calhoun and Colleen Miller–no more than indicated in the script and essentially all Carlson’s creation according to Miller herself. Hemp Brown also has a touch of eroticism in the Yvette Vickers sequence and more when Beverly Garland comes in. And John Larch is once again an excellent villain. I wish Carlson had directed more movies.
Of course, I wish even more for a Four Guns to the Border release (though has played the Western channel this year). But Hemp Brown needs it for the letterboxing.
I believe it’s producer Gordon Kay who is responsible for these late Allan Lane appearances (can’t say the other titles off the top of my head–at least one stars Audie Murphy).
Not wanting it to nag at me, I went to IMDb (and for some reason Buscombe’s
The Encyclopedia of the Western lists The Saga of Hemp Brown as his last film though it isn’t, and uncharacteristically misses his TV work).
He did appear in Gordon Kay productions at Universal-International, the Audie Murphy cycle beginning in 1960 that effectively ended this level of B-to-programmer (and they are generally very fine) Western for the studio (though there are a few other non-Murphy Westerns too); 1966 was the end of it. By then MCA had taken over and they were back to simply “Universal.” Lest we forget, Kay produced often with Keller directing, including Quantez; the two made some fine non-Westerns in the 50s along with the Westerns.
Lane is in both Hell Bent for Leather (1960; George Sherman and typically well-directed) and the surprising, memorable Posse from Hell (1961, directed by Herbert Coleman, who was Alfred Hitchcock’s associate producer in this phase of AH’s career). Lane is further down the cast list each time–it’s been too long since I’ve seen either film to remember him (do remember him in Hemp Brown) but he’s there.
During this period, he is also in a number of TV westerns, but as I read the filmography, the actual end of his career is as the voice of Mister Ed. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but as I read it, Lane is the Mister Ed voice.
A strange coda for a cowboy star.
Yes, Lane is indeed Mister Ed.
Gunpoint (the last Kay produced Murphy) is 1965–sorry…
I think that was a bad source–appears 1966 for Gunpoint is right after all. (This is the last one I promise).
Allan Lane isn’t in that one, but Morgan Woodward is–he plays the leader of the outlaws; this is an actor that could have had a great career in Westerns if he had been around in the 50s; his face and looks are perfect for villains. And I might mention that the bigger role of the more equivocal villain in Gunpoint is played by the always good Warren Stevens.
Morgan Woodward must have made up for missing the ’50’s bonanza of movie Westerns by appearing in a boatload of Gunsmoke episodes and various other TV westerns of the ’60’s.
Barbara Bel Geddes’ thumping Allan Lane with that leg of lamb was, from what I have heard and read, something most people who worked with “Rocky” wished they could have done in real life.
Apparently, many of his peers did not enjoy his company. Linda Stirling told me during a chat that she certainly never did.
And Alan Young, always the nice man, played politician when I asked him about Lane and the MR. ED voice gig. Young said that he showed up on set a few times but sat in the background alone (of course, his dubbing the horse’s voice came in post-production).
It was a steady paycheck for him, but Lane was not proud that an actor of “his magnitude” had to stoop to speaking for an equine.