Few movies cover the honor and traditions of our military as well as John Ford’s She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949). So it makes a fitting image for Memorial Day.
“Lest we forget.”
Archive for May, 2021
Memorial Day.
Posted in Ben Johnson, John Ford, John Wayne on May 31, 2021| 6 Comments »
Blu-Ray News #326: There Was A Crooked Man… (1970).
Posted in Alan Hale, DVD/Blu-Ray News, Henry Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Warner Archive, Warner Bros., Warren Oates on May 20, 2021| 17 Comments »
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates, Burgess Meredith, John Randolph, Lee Grant, Arthur O’Connell, Barbara Rhoades, Alan Hale, Jr., Gene Evans
After their screenplay for Bonnie And Clyde (1967), David Newman and Robert Benton cooked up this comic, oddball Western, There Was A Crooked Man… (1970). Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was more at home with heavy dramas, but he gives this one his all.
It’s getting a welcome Blu-Ray release from Warner Archive in June.
Kirk Douglas is his usual swaggering self, and Henry Fonda is the new warden at an Arizona prison, hoping to reform Douglas and the other assorted crooks. This came at a time when Fonda was playing around with his Western persona, appearing in pictures like Burt Kennedy’s Welcome To Hard Times (1967), Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West (1968), Firecreek (1968) and The Cheyenne Social Club (1970). So while this one might not be a total success, it’s certainly interesting — and that cast is terrific, a great gathering of 50s and 60s character actors. Recommended.
RIP, Chuck Hicks.
Posted in 1952, 1954, Budd Boetticher, Clint Walker, Robert Mitchum on May 19, 2021| 2 Comments »
Charles “Chuck” Hicks
(December 26, 1927 – May 4, 2021)
Veteran stuntman and charactor actor Chuck Hicks has passed away at 93.
He was in the 50s Westerns Horizons West (1952) and River Of No Return (1954) and TV’s Cheyenne, but he did some pretty memorable, even iconic, stuff in the 60s and beyond. He was the robot boxer in the great 1963 episode of The Twilight Zone, “Steel” (above). He was Chief in Cool Hand Luke (1967) and The Brow in Dick Tracy (1990).
He worked with Clint Eastwood a number of times, running from Rawhide to Dirty Harry (1971) to Bronco Billy (1980).
“Two Ounces Of Tin.”
Posted in Chuck Connors, Television on May 14, 2021| 9 Comments »
“Two Ounces Of Tin, a 1962 episode of The Rifleman was on today. It’s The one where Sammy Davis, Jr. is the gunslinger who’d been in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He’s in another one, too.
This gives Davis a chance to show off his gun-handling skills, which are really something to see. It also lets him show off his acting chops, and they’re something else, too. It’s one of my all-time favorite episodes of Western TV. Good stuff.
On a real Rifleman kick these days.
50 Westerns From The 50s. 