50s Westerns DVD News #147: Gene Autry Collection 5.

These sets from Timeless Media Group are getting around to the films Autry made in the 50s. I know Gene was also on TV at this time, and these probably weren’t getting as much attention as they had, but I’ve always liked them. (I don’t give Autry enough time on this blog. Sorry, Gene.)

This fifth volume, which is available now, includes:
Loaded Pistols (1949)
Gene Autry And The Mounties (1951)
Night Stage To Galveston (1952)
Goldtown Ghost Riders (1953)

These have looked great so far and have boasted some cool extras. Will have a review of this one soon.

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Rupert Pupkin Lets Me Speak At Rupert Pupkin Speaks.

Brian over at Rupert Pupkin Speaks has been running an ongoing series of posts on underrated Westerns, getting lists from all sorts of folks. I was honored to be among those he asked to play along. Be sure to scroll around and see the other lists. Some great stuff. I was really glad to see Joe Dante suggest No Name On The Bullet (1959). He mentioned it in an interview years ago, and it helped start my drive to see as many of these things as I could.

Naturally, I stuck with the 50s and recommended films we’ve gone over here time and time again. Click on De Niro and off you go.

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50s Westerns DVD News #146: The Hawk Of Wild River (1952).

Columbia has come through with another Durango Kid picture, The Hawk Of Wild River (1952). It’s one of the later entries in the series, but it’s got a lot going for it: Charles Starrett and Smiley Burnette, of course, along with Clayton Moore and Jock Mahoney and direction from Fred F. Sears.

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Tim Holt Tuesday #7/50s Westerns DVD News #145: Tim Holt Western Classics Volume 4.

This is a big, big deal. Warner Archive has come through with the fourth volume in their Tim Holt series, giving us the beginning, and end, of Holt’s time at RKO. It’s a three-disc, nine-movie set that includes Wagon Train (1940, which got the series off to a terrific start), The Fargo Kid (1940), Cyclone On Horseback (1941), Riding The Wind (1942), Land Of The Open Range (1942), Thundering Hoofs (1942), Overland Telegraph (1951) and Trail Guide (1952). 

Overland Telegraph (seen in the Mexican lobby card above) is a particularly good one, giving Holt and Richard Martin a top director, Lesley Selander, and really good cast to work with: Gail Davis, Hugh Beaumont (as the bad guy!), Mari Blanchard, George Nader and Robert J. Wilke.

The set is available now. Thanks to everyone at Warner Archive for their dedication to getting these wonderful little films out there.

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50s Westerns DVD News # 144: The White Squaw (1956).

Another low-budget Columbia 50s Western is always a welcome thing. The fact that The White Squaw (1956) was directed by Ray Nazarro (and that I’ve never seen it) makes this really good news. It stars David Brian, who you might remember from Dawn At Socorro (1954), and May Wynn, who was also in The Violent Men (1955).

It’s a Columbia Classics release — and it’s available now. (Thanks for the tip, Paula!)

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Grim Hanging Tree Dominant Feature Of Reprisal Set.

From the pressbook for Reprisal! (1956) —

The tree in the film created quite a problem for director George Sherman, both as to finding it and transporting it to the picture’s location site, some 30 miles south of Tucson, Arizona… Sherman and producer Lewis Rachmil first thought they’d have to have such a tree fabricated in order to get what they needed. But one day, while searching for location sites in southern Arizona, they found their tree, on the outskirts of Tubac, the oldest white settlement in Arizona.

An old cottonwood, the tree stood about 30 feet high, with twisted, gnarled limbs and completely leafless. Rachmil and Sherman immediately contacted the owner of the land… and made a deal with him to cut down and remove it to the site they’d chosen for the film backgrounds.

Getting the dead cottonwood to the location site became something of a major problem; a 30-foot tree, complete with limbs and huge trunk, is quite a lot of wood to move en masse. The studio hired a huge flat trailer truck, hoisted the tree aboard by crane and then transported it 40 miles over the highway to a dirt road the company had built to the shooting site… The tree had to be moved at dawn, when there was little traffic.

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Randolph Scott In Lean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960).

Here’s a frame from Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), a real landmark in French cinema’s New Wave. That’s about the last thing this blog is about, so let’s focus on the marquee, as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg stroll past a theater running Budd Boetticher’s Westbound (1959) — and go inside to avoid the police.

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The Goldstein Brothers And The Gambler From Natchez (1954).

This is producer Leonard Goldstein. At Universal-International he produced the Ma And Pa Kettle and Francis The Talking Mule films, along with Westerns like Cave Of Outlaws (1951) and The Duel At Silver Creek (1952).

Moving to 20th Century-Fox, he formed Panoramic Productions to produce non-anamorphic films in the midst of Fox’s CinemaScope push. The Gambler From Natchez (1954) was one of those. When that contract was up, Goldstein started a production company with his twin brother Robert, but passed away in July, 1954 at just 51. Robert soldiered on without his brother and went on to make a few excellent low-budget Westerns.

Have a copy of the Fox Cinema Archives DVD of The Gambler From Natchez to give away. So it seems like a good time to have a contest. Look at the two-part question below. Be the first to email the correct answer(s) to fiftieswesterns@gmail [dot] com, and the DVD’s yours. Good luck.

Of the Westerns Robert Goldstein produced, one starred Joel McCrea. What was the film and what color process was used for it?

UPDATE: Lee was the first to come through with the right answers — Stranger On Horseback (1955) and Ansco Color. (It was Leonard that produced Saddle Tramp in Technicolor.) Thanks to everyone who sent in a response.

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