Four Guns To The Border (1954) is an excellent 50s Western from Universal-International. It’s a hard one to track down, unfortunately.
The picture gave actor Richard Carlson one of his few directing credits. He does a tremendous job; wish he’d done more. Here, he’s working with Rory Calhoun and Colleen Miller.
Here’s Colleen Miller on a Western street. Iverson, maybe?
Rory Calhoun takes a phone and cigarette break.
Here’s Miller again, this time with George Nader. The terrific cast includes John McIntire, Walter Brennan, Nina Foch, Jay Silverheels and Nestor Paiva.
Will get around to a real post on it soon. Why isn’t this thing on DVD?
As you know, it’s a personal favorite of mine and one of the five I chose for my Underrated Westerns selection. I also wrote on it in my WESTERN READER piece “Saloon Girls and Rachers’ Daughters: The Woman in the Western” where I named Colleen Miller’s Lolly one of my ten best Western heroines. Richard Carlson’s direction is brilliant–the six minute Calhoun/Miller love scene has to be seen to be believed, and when I met Miller a few years back (and yes, I still felt a little like a lovesick teenager meeting her), she told me this was all Carlson’s doing, as realized something he created on the set. The movie is full of imaginative things he did and I wish he’d directed more.
Thanks for these great pictures from the set, Toby. Most enjoyable for me.
I love photos of these films being made, and I knew you’d like to see these.
This is a perfect example of the riches that lay waiting for us — a really cool, very imaginative picture.
One that unfortunately, you couldn’t pay the average person to watch!
It was released in France by Sidonis Calysta in January and is available from Amazon.fr. However, it’s region 2 and will require an all region player.
Wow, how cute is Colleen Miller? Lover her smile. I’ve never seen this movie, but I will definitely watch it this weekend. One of the best things that happens here is when the westerns experts get together and talk about their favorite westerns which I use as a guide to what to watch next. Thanks Toby and all for a great and informative site full of great movie watching ideas.
Universal, as we know, really knew how to put together a great little western throughout the 50s and with Rory Calhoun starring and the kind of terrific cast featured here, this film is a personal favourite of mine too.
Richard Carlson did a very creditable jog of directing and I can’t really see why he did not get the chance to do many more.
You say you plan a longer review some time, Toby – I’ll certainly look forward to that. Great snapshots, in the meantime.
You have to hand it to the French,they love these great Fifties Universal
Westerns. The Sidonis DVD is a great transfer BTW.
In an ideal world Universal USA would have given us Rory Calhoun and
Jock Mahoney sets by now. Thank God for the French and Germans I
say.
Interestingly,Sidonis have another great title in the works.
CATTLE ANNIE AND LITTLE BRITCHES (1979) is a wonderful film
that as Maltin says was “thrown away” by it’s distributor (Universal) in
1981. This underrated Western about the Doolin/Dalton gang has standout
(latter day) work from Burt Lancaster and Rod Steiger.
It was due for a UK release several years ago but pulled at the eleventh
hour. Hats off to Sidonis for untangling the “rights” issues and putting
this little gem of a movie “out there”
I have totally given up on Universal USA who think that we need a Blu-Ray
of KING KONG ESCAPES rather than all the great unreleased Westerns
in their vaults.
Thanks Blake,for sharing your memories of Coleen Miller with us and
to Toby for those lovely behind the scenes photos.
From an unpublished interview I did a couple of years ago with producer-director Rupert Hitzig, which I will someday put online. He produced Cattle Annie and Little Britches. By the way, somewhere in my files is that New Yorker article about his ride across the US at age 14.
“In 1979 I wanted to do westerns, because when I was 14 I rode across the United States on a horse with my sister, who was 16. A hundred and nine days in the saddle. They wrote about it in the New Yorker, ‘Talk of the Town,’ and the front page of The Journal American, the front page of — AP, it was on the Today Show, we were mini-celebrities for 15 minutes. And I’ve always wanted to do a western. So in 1978 I wanted to do a western. What could I do? I had some power then, I was getting films made. And I said, ‘Geez, I wonder what women were doing in the 19th century in the old west?’ And I went down to Barnes and Noble and bought a book called Women of the West. Took it up to my office and flipped through the pages, and there were two young girls, Cattle Annie and Little Britches. And I said, ‘Holy Mackerel.’ And there underneath, it said, ‘Cattle Annie and Little Britches, 15 and 16, rode with the Doolin-Dalton gang. Big Bill Tilghman, in a mano a mano chased down Bill Doolin, caught the girls, and sent them to a reformatory in Framingham, Massachusetts to get the ‘smell of the West’ out of their clothes. Jenny died at 17 of leukemia in New York working as a domestic and Annie lived a full life as a madame in a saloon in Kansas City. And I said, ‘That’s my movie!’ And that was Burt Lancaster, Rod Steiger, Amanda Plummer, Diane Lane, Billy Russ, Scott Glenn — amazing cast — John Savage. And we went to Mexico and made that for 10 weeks or 12 weeks. It’s a beautiful film. It got screwed up in the distribution again. That’s a wonderful film.”
Note to self: get this movie….
What a great little western, I just saw it tonight. It only runs about 82.5 minutes. One of my all time favorites, Walter Brennan’s in it, in this one he has his teeth (I like him better with his teeth in). He didn’t really “Grandpa” it up in this one, I missed that. He was a pretty underplayed and straight character, not like the over the top character we see in Rio Bravo or Real McCoys.
By the way, the top picture of Rory leaning against the fence with lovely Colleen, in it he has a cigarette in his mouth, in the movie scene though he wasn’t smoking, he had just been thru a western draw situation. (I won’t give away the details.) Except to say Jay Silverheels is in it playing a Mexican character, not an Indian. That’s a first, and he even uses a Spanish accent! I’m so used to seeing him each week as Tonto it was a little off-putting at first. I watch Rory in “The Texan” on Fridays and there Rory’s a good guy, here he’s a bitter and angry do-badder. But he has his reasons as you’ll see in the movie. I like him better in the good guy role, but here he’s half good half bad.
As for Richard Carlson’s direction, my favorite scene was right at the beginning, he shows 2 guys robbing a safe behind a bar by blowing it open. He shows this whole scene by use of the mirror hanging above the bar, from the mirror we watch all the action. Very Orson Wellesian, if you ask me. The “love scene” reminded me of a wrangler taming a horse, wild at first but then extra good. She sure knows how to use a pitch fork. Yipe.
No doubt, Colleen has some of the most sexy scenes you’ll ever see in a movie, from lying on her back in the desert (and she’s no little girl either) to a wearing a shirt wet from a canteen to same shirt torn in all the right places. Tough to keep your mind on a bank robbery with a gal like that around. Was Jane Russell ever sexier in “The Outlaw”? It’s a tough call.
Thanks for the recommendation, a fun western with everything you’d like to see, Indian shootouts, bank robberies, townspeople running around scared, riding thru town slowly while townsfolk peer out windows, a house burning from warring Indians, a all out brawl (which reminded me a lot of the “Quiet Man” classic brawl, even the background music was similar) and a clash between good and evil ending in a possible draw with the sheriff.
Good movie worth the watch.
Love the movie and love this post and comments. It needs to come out on DVD!!!!!!!!!!!
Have been a Richard Carlson fan for years, dating back to childhood viewings of Capra’s HEMO THE MAGNIFICENT on rainy days in elementary school…my admiration grew exponentially seeing what he did as a director on this film.
Best wishes,
Luara
I remember those educational films with bald but cherry Dr. Frank Baxter, it was a treat in school watching a film in class, esp. to me a color film. I became a Richard Carlson fan from his many monster movie appearances. Have like monster movies since I was a kid too.
Time sure flies by, pretty young Colleen is now a grand 80 years old! Woah, where die the years go?
Ooops, typo alert: Supposed to be “did” not “die” and make that “liked” instead of “like”. Either we have to have a way of going back and correcting ourselves or I have got to proofread before I hit “Post”.
Interestingly, in addition to starring in “Hemo The Magnificent” Richard Carlson went on to star in the next Capra educational Frank Baxter film “Unchained Goddess”, but in that one he also directed it.
While we are talking Universal Westerns I thought that I would give my
impression of the new Koch release of THE YELLOW MOUNTAIN which
has just made it’s Worldwide DVD debut in Germany.
The film is presented as 4×3 but on the Koch website it is listed as
1.85 widescreen. The good news is that the p.q. is superior to the
screencaps on the Koch website.
The rule with Koch these days regarding Universal Westerns seems to be
if the source material is pristine then they are released as Blu-Rays,if
not they appear as DVDs.
THE YELLOW MOUNTAIN is a pretty decent transfer,I think but not
up to Koch’s best standard.I for one am glad to see this offbeat and
entertaining Universal Western finally make it to DVD
I think that i have been down this road before but if one looks at things
Globally,there are very few Universal fifties Westerns that have not made
it to DVD.
There are three Joel McCrea titles on the missing list:
SADDLE TRAMP
THE LONE HAND
BLACK HORSE CANYON
(the latter title in widescreen would be great!)
RAILS INTO LARAMIE
(again when this one surfaces I hope it will be the widescreen version)
Two much wanted films with “Western Elements” still missing
BRONCO BUSTER (Boetticher)
SLIM CARTER The only title from Jock Mahoney’s Universal Westerns
not released so far. (The rest are available in Spain or France.
Two early Sixties very interesting titles from director R.G.Springsteen
SHOWDOWN The only Audie Murphy Universal Western made in
black and white,and the only Murphy on the missing list.
I hope this one appears as its a real good one.
HE RIDES TALL Offbeat,stark and very adult themed Western,an
unheralded little gem awaiting re-discovery
Finally there are three Universal CinemaScope Westerns that have
only surfaced as 4×3 pan & scan versions in France/Spain
SAGA OF HEMP BROWN
DAY OF THE BAD MAN
WILD AND THE INNOCENT
I am not saying this list is inclusive perhaps other folk have other
missing titles. I live in hope that Koch can come to the rescue with
some (or better still all!) of the above sooner rather than later.