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. Put the coffee on, it’s gonna be a long day!
4:40 AM Face Of A Fugitive (1959, 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.
6:05 AM Relentless (1948) George Sherman directs Robert Young, Marguerite Chapman, Willard Parker, Akim Tamiroff, Barton MacLane and Mike Mazurki. Shot around Tucson (and the Corrigan Ranch) in Technicolor. I may be in the minority, but I like Robert Young in Westerns.
7:40 AM A Lawless Street (1955) Joseph H. Lewis knocks another one out of the park, directing Randolph Scott and Angela Lansbury. This film doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
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 the Back In The Saddle sweepstakes, a chance to win a three-day dude ranch getaway. Check SonyMovieChannel.com to find out more.
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
I never heard of Sony Movie Channel until now. Is this readily available? How does one find it? Any other studio channels we might not know about (I only know Fox–which, as we all agree, could do better than they do)?
Just an oversight I know, Toby, but you mentioned all the directors except for Face of a Fugitive. It was Paul Wendkos. A very gifted guy, I believe. This was in the first few years of his career when he made a number of strong films beginning with The Burglar and including Tarawa Beachhead and The Case Against Brooklyn, and–you can believe this or not–Gidget.
But Face of a Fugitive, the one Western he did then, is for me the best of all of these. It’s beautifully done, strong story with the redemption theme, which is present in so many of the best Westerns of this period and is key to how great Westerns had become by 1959. Fred MacMurray is magnificent in the lead. Even if he’s said not to have loved his late 50s cycle of Westerns himself, you’d never know it because he was ideal for them and always convincing–rugged, mature, able to project inner conflict movingly.
I had the privilege of meeting and talking to Paul Wendkos once and am glad to say he was pleased with my high opinion of Face of a Fugitive and glad to talk about it. He had seen it seriously, acknowledged being engaged with existential ideas, and was glad this came over for some of us as it did. Needless to say (at least I hope so), none of that thinking makes the movie in the least pretentious. That’s the magic of the genre.
Sony Movie Channel reached out to me, and I was more than happy to promote anything that involved Face Of A Fugitive and Gunman’s Walk! I’m very excited that the blog is being seen as a way to let us know what’s going on. That was a goal when I first kicked this thing off.
That’s terrific that you spoke to Wendkos. Where are tape recorders when these things happen? I’m a big fan of his Legend Of Lizzie Borden, which knocked me out when I was a kid. And, of course, the pilot for Hawaii Five-O.
I have to give my wife credit for Face Of A Fugitive — she came across it on TV one day and was really impressed with it. I hadn’t seen it, and was shocked to find a late-50s MacMurray that even came close to Quantez (1957), a film I’ve been ramming down your throats for a couple years now.
I think it’s pretty close between FACE OF A FUGITIVE and QUANTEZ among those MacMurrays (not to say I don’t like the others he did then too, but these are the best)–glad to say that while I’m slow to get things in my collection, I did buy QUANTEZ and have it here and looking forward to getting back to it. I still remember your piece on this here as one of those I most enjoyed.
Though I didn’t mention it, it’s true Wendkos eventually gave himself to TV and did a lot there so wound up with relatively few theatrical movies. When I see one of his TV movies or episodes I always feel he was still giving a lot. I think he became convinced he could do work that was artistically satisfying to him when he made a TV movie THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL with Glenn Ford (this was around the time I met him) that he was rightfully proud of–it’s a tense and haunting work. Anyone else here seen this? I wish it would surface somewhere again.
Still like to hear more about Sony Movie Channel. Is this new? It’s great that they knew enough to come to you.
In the hands of someone like Wendkos, a TV movie was never slumming.
I’ve never seen The Brotherhood Of The Bell, but I’ve heard raves about it from many, many people.
Glad you got the Quantez DVD. If I won the lottery, I’d hand them out like Santa tossing candy to ends in the Christmas parade!
The Sony Movie Channel is about 2 /12 years old and is in HD only. It is available from Directv, Dish, and Uverse (in their HD premium tier which also includes MGMHD and HDNet Movies).
On my cable system there is a “Sony Movie Channel On Demand” service, where you can pick a movie that they offer and play it, but I don’t have Sony Movie Channel itself, either. Funny, FIOS offers Sony Movie On Demand but not the channel. I know I’ve seen some classic westerns on the On Demand Sony, 3:10 To Yuma, comes immediately to mind as one offer to click, also (non-western) In A Lonely Place (one of my favorite Bogie movies).
I recorded Brotherhood of The Bell on VHS about 15 years or so ago, have not transferred it to DVD yet. I would love to get an excellent widescreen version of “Face of A Fugitve”.
All these films are great choices for Sony to play, I hope they put them onto their On Demand site for us to choose.
Fred Macmurray was equally good in both Face of a Fugitive and Quantez. The only thing that stuck me while watching these, the outdoor location from Quantez was more eye catching.
Correction the 2nd sentence the correct word should be struck not stuck. My apologies.
“Face of a Fugitive” is an excellent example or the very good Westerns that Fred MacMurray did in the 1950’s, it was based on a superb tight little short story by Peter Dawson called “Long Gone”. Dawson was the brother of Western writer Luke Short who of course had several of his books transferred to the screen.
I must be one of a minority quite fond of GUN FOR A COWARD.
I tend to focus on the two that really knocked me out, Quantez and Face Of A Fugitive, but all the MacMurray Westerns from this period are excellent: Day Of The Badman (1958), Good Day For A Hanging (1959), Gun For A Coward (1957, which you mentioned) and on and on.
The Oregon Trail (1959) suffers from its inadequate budget, but anything that tosses John Carradine, Henry Hull and John Dierkes in the mix has plenty to recommend it.
I haven’t seen The Oregon Trail yet but I do like all five of the MacMurrays that Toby mentions, so that definitely includes Gun For a Coward. And one other, At Gunpoint (1955), should be included in this excellent group too. As good as they are, the lesser four of these have MacMurray as a more or less straightforward good guy, while his characters in Face of a Fugitive and Quantez are complex, darker figures who are sympathetic enough to get our deep emotional investment in their redemptive spiritual journeys.
I have DIrect TV so I get the Sony Movie Channel. It’s a great channel — the movies in HD, the correct aspect ratio, etc. I just wish all this stuff would come out on Blu-ray too!
I’ve seen Oregon Trail, it was the least entertaining of the MacMurray westerns. It was more like an adventure type movie rather than a western.
The Moonlighter was another goodie from Fred, it should have been filmed in color though, it would have made it perfect. I wish also they’d come out with the 3D version of this movie.