Directed by Walter Hill
Starring David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, James Keach, Stacy Keach, Dennis Quaid, Randy Quaid, Christopher Guest, Nicholas Guest, Pamela Reid, Harry Carey Jr., Fran Ryan
Imprint has announced Directed By Walter Hill, a Blu-Ray set of six films directed by Walter Hill: Hard Times (1975), The Driver (1978), The Long Riders (1980), Extreme Prejudice (1987), Johnny Handsome (1989) and Broken Trail (2006).
This is good news, first, because I absolutely love The Driver and The Long Riders—and because among the many extras to be including in this thing, I get to do a commentary for The Long Riders—one of the best of the many Jesse James movies. It’s almost certainly the most accurate.
The folks at Imprint do extraordinary work, always, and I’m overjoyed to be a tiny part of this one. Highly recommended.
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
THE LONG RIDERS is indeed a great Jesse James/Younger Movie and
I’m so glad that you will be involved with the commentary.
I like the way Imprint balance “cult” movies with more obscure vintage titles:
FIVE,OUTRAGE,FACE BEHIND THE MASK,I AM THE LAW,THE SCARLET
HOUR.
For anyone interested Imprint will announce their September releases
tomorrow….July 1st.
I’m always eager to see what they’ve got in the works!
So far, The Long Riders is a blast to work on. A very interesting production history — James Keach started it out as a play, then a MUSICAL, then a mini-series and finally a feature. There was also talk of a prequel or sequel.
Toby, congratulations on doing a commentary for THE LONG RIDERS(filmed 1979, released 1980). There is a lot of neat information out there on this most accurate film depiction of the James/Younger gang. I think it’s the yardstick against which every James/Younger movie made since 1980, must measure up to.
I recall first viewing THE LONG RIDERS at the UA Cinema I & 2 in the Faulkner Plaza in Conway, Arkansas in 1980. The theater was packed, with no empty seats. While Stacy Keach was filming the CBS-TV mini-series THE BLUE AND THE GRAY(filmed 1981, premiered in 1982) in northwest Arkansas, people would come up to him and want to talk about THE LONG RIDERS and they would invariably ask if there would be a sequel, or prequel. Keach said that they had a script for a sequel. Also, David Carradine had said that a prequel was in development. The prequel could be set during the War of the Rebellion and its aftermath. Keach also thought that northwest Arkansas would be a really good location to make the movie.
Marilyn Beck of MARILYN BECK’S HOLLYWOOD(May, 1980) column asked Stacy Keach about how a follow-up yarn would be told. Keach explains, “In the new script, we show Jesse recovering from his wounds, and living on to form a Wild West show in which he does an act called ‘Crime Does Not Pay.’ THE LONG RIDERS is based on history. The sequel will be a combination of history and hypotheses and will open in 1910 with Jesse, down and out, appearing in a St. Louis theater, with only four or five people in the house. No one cares about him anymore.” According to writer Marilyn Beck, David, Keith, and Robert Carradine had already agreed to reprise their roles as the Younger brothers in RIDERS II, which the Keach brothers hoped to get underway the next year.
This is just conjecture on my part, but the HEAVEN’S GATE(filmed 1979-80, released 1980, recut version 1981) debacle, which bankrupted United Artists, the studio that had also released THE LONG RIDERS, probably sealed the fate of any prequel or sequel to THE LONG RIDERS. Well, for whatever reasons, no prequel or sequel was ever made, which is a shame.
I think that THE LONG RIDERS is an artful and realistic Western, which looks and feels real. Ry Cooder’s music composed and adapted from traditional melodies, is some of the best and authentic Southern Country Folk music ever recorded for a movie. Talk about toe-tapping music. The wonderful square dance sequence, which includes real folk foot clogging done to breakdowns that my Ozark forebears would feel right at home with.
Ric Waite’s photography, Peter R. Romero’s art direction, Richard C. Goddard’s set decoration, and Bobbie Mannix’s costuming are all first rate. The weapons used are a varied display of 1860’s and 1870’s pistols and rifles.
I’ll end with some personal family lore passed down too me by my Grand Uncle Homer Canard. His father, my Great Grandfather William “Bill” Canard, told him about the time that the James/Younger gang stayed over at their home in Dugan, Stone County, Arkansas. Bill Canard was about nine-years-old at the time.
Isn’t it odd that with The Long Riders going out of its way to be authentic, the sequel would dispense with history altogether?
Walter, I love hearing about when/where/how people saw movies. I saw this this one with in high school with my good friend Chris Nicholas (hey, Chris!) in Bucks County, PA, not far from where James Keach launched the whole thing with his stage play at The Bucks County Playhouse.
Ry Cooder’s score is terrific, as is just about everything. Cooder lets you draw a direct line from this film to Captain Beefheart, of all things!
I’ve been researching the guns used, and they are authentic (or modified to resemble the right stuff). About every Western ever made relied on those same old Colts! That reminds me: as a kid, I was fascinated by the Henry rifle Randolph Scott carried in Hangman’s Knot — no forearm piece, the brass receiver.
You’re right, Walter, whatever chance the sequel had of being made went up in smoke with the Heaven’s Gate mess.
Toby, I think Stacy Keach’s remarks concerning the hypotheses in the sequel was somewhat odd and I really don’t think that would have played at that time, which was in May, 1980. Too me, that reads like something Quentin Tarantino would have come up with, later on. A year later, in May, 1981 David Carradine told Charles Champlin of the LOS ANGELES TIMES that a prequel set during the Civil War was in development. I think that would have been more plausible. Stacy Keach told the LOS ANGELES TIMES in February, 1982 that a script was being written and that it would be a theatrical feature or a tv miniseries. It looks like too me, that the HEAVEN’S GATE mess ruined everything.
Regardless of the HEAVEN’S GATE debacle, I think THE LONG RIDERS kept the American Western Movie alive and kicking. Contrary to what some so-called critics said at the time, with their agendas against Westerns, the movie made money at the box office. It was number one the week it was released. The movie was ideal for the cable-tv explosion of the 1980’s. It played on HBO in 1981 and had its network tv premiere on the CBS WEDNESDAY NIGHT MOVIE in 1982, Onward to home video by way of vhs, laserdisc, dvd, and Blu-ray. A lot of people saw this movie and are still viewing it today.
Yes, I like hearing about when/where/how people first saw movies. I think the first viewing is a special time. I saw THE LONG RIDERS with my wife. I think it is neat that you first saw the movie in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
There is a lot of interesting material out there on THE LONG RIDERS and I look forward to your commentary.
Watching a film 63 times to pull a commentary together will either make you sick of it, or convince you that it’s really good. This one is certainly the latter!
I think a prequel would’ve worked a lot better than a “speculative” sequel.
And I’m really intrigued by what the miniseries might’ve been like. One thing I’ve noticed as I get started on the commentary stuff is that a lot of the scenes that advance the story are just a minute or two long — the Pinkertons go to Jesse’s mom’s house, they visit Ed Miler in jail, etc. Those could’ve been longer and there could’ve been some set-up with the war and its aftermath — things that just get a mention in the film. It might’ve been richer, but it probably wouldn’t have been as sparse and exciting. And would Walter Hill have been involved if it was for TV?
There have only been a handful of Westerns since the 80s that I could stand, much less actually like. This is near the top of my list. When my major complaint is that I wish it was longer, that’s a good sign.
Toby, I agree. Also, I think I read somewhere that United Artists cut 20 minutes from the movie. Where are those 20 minutes? In the MGM/UA vault? James and Stacy Keach’s attic?
Also, I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall the day of filming the knife fight between Cole Younger(David Carradine) and Sam Starr(James Remar) with Belle Shirley Starr(Pamela Reed) taking it all in. Writer/producer/director Sam Fuller was a visitor on the set that day. 21 years earlier, Fuller had filmed I SHOT JESSE JAMES(filmed 1948, released 1949.
Toby, I recall viewing this interview of Stacy Keach by Leta Powell Drake of KOLN/KGIN Channels 10/11 Lincoln, Nebraska about a year ago. The interview took place in March, 1982. They talk about the CBS Miniseries THE BLUE AND THE GRAY and THE LONG RIDERS. I think it is rather entertaining and Leta interviewed Stacy four times from 1982-86. In the 1984 interview Stacy was still in hopes of making prequel/sequel. Here is the 1982 interview for those who are interested.
I fully agree, Toby and Walter, that “THE LONG RIDERS” was a terrific western and one of a very small handful to appear after the 1970s.
Jerry, true, there wasn’t that many really good Western Movies made after 1976, but there were a few, besides THE LONG RIDERS. The time period that we are discussing, which is the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, saw a good oater in the Canadian made THE GREY FOX(filmed 1980, released 1982) with Richard Farnsworth portraying Bill “The Gentleman Bandit” Miner. I really like this movie about Bill Miner, the first outlaw to rob a train in Canada in 1904. I think Farnsworth was born to play Bill Miner and he is perfect for the role. Frank Tidy’s photography of British Columbia is beautiful and the traditional Irish music by The Chieftains is a delight, especially accompanying Farnsworth’s gleeful horse ride.
I’ve not seen THE GREY FOX, Walter. Your description gives a most tantalising taster. I guess, in a way, it was the film Farnsworth waited all his career for.
I now know what Coronavirus feels like! My wife and I caught it while we were away on vacation. Feels like a bad cold really; felt really quite rough for the first 2 days after testing positive but it’s Day 4 for me now and feeling more normal. My wife tested negative this morning.
Stay safe, all friends out there – I’m not recommending this thing!!
So glad y’all are coming along! It’s making its way through some of our friends around here at the moment, too.
If any of y’all out there get it, please keep moving around as much as you can. A good friend of ours, a very healthy, active guy, got sick and just laid around. It got it his lungs and he ended up in the hospital on a respirator. Next thing you knew, he’d passed away.
Testing.
Jerry, I hope your wife and you recover from this Coronavirus and I do hope there are no lasting side effects. This is so distressing, but this plague is among us and we will have to deal with it.
THE GREY FOX is well worth viewing. Richard Farnsworth said that, “I guess you might say that THE GREY FOX is kind of a Cinderella story of me. When I was a kid, I read in the Western magazines about a skinny old guy with a moustache who came out of San Quentin after thirty years for stage robbing and tried his hand at train robbing. Forty-two years later, I end up playing him in a movie. I guess I grew into him.”
Farnsworth richly deserved every award and nomination that he received for his performance in this gem of a movie.
Another Western movie filmed in the early 1980’s that I think is well worth viewing is BARBAROSA(filmed 1980, released 1982) with Willie Nelson, Gary Busey, Gilbert Roland, and Isela Vega. This is a good one and is presented by Lord Lew Grade, written by William D. Wittliff, directed and photographed by Australians Fred Schepisi and Ian Baker. Baker’s photography is breath-taking of the rugged Big Bend country of West Texas. The scenery is really something to see. This movie is really authentic and was made by people who knew, hands down, what they were doing. I don’t want to give away too much, but the story is about legendary Spanish, German, and American blood feuds taking place on the Texas/Mexico borderland. It’s a great story about flesh and blood people. The movie is serious, magical, with wild humor and very entertaining. Writer William Wittliff, who grew up on a ranch in Texas, weaves a wonderful ballad. Wittliff is best known for adapting Larry McMurtry’s LONESOME DOVE(filmed 1988, premiered 1989) for the screen.
Universal Pictures, which was the distributor of BARBAROSA, didn’t know what to do with it after the HEAVEN’S GATE debacle. It was released to some theaters in the South and West, but quickly pulled. In 1983 it was licensed to pay tv and local stations. I first viewed it on WPTY Channel 24 an independent Memphis, Tennessee tv station in 1986 and was blown away. I think it is well worth viewing.
I hope this gets through, I’m having trouble sending.
Many thanks for your concern and good wishes, Walter.
“BARBAROSSA” is another I’ve not seen. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it now though, you can be sure. I know and am in awe of your knowledge of the kind of U.S. history that is not generally so well-known.
Just seen Imprint’s September releases-nothing for me there all 80’s and
90’s stuff.
As far as collecting Blu Ray’s goes my interest wanes after say 1982
apart from oddball titles like the superb CATTLE ANNIE & LITTLE BRITCHES
and of course Clint.
I’ve still got a few 80’s titles on my “most wanted in high def” like TOM HORN.
my Eastwood collection is pretty selective but I still yearn for WHITE HUNTER
BLACK HEART in high def in fact that masterpiece deserves the Criterion
treatment-with stacks of extras..
The backstory to the film is also interesting-the deal cut between Eastwood
and Ray Stark;which also involved BIRD sadly both films bombed at the box
office. Stanley Rubin is noted as producer which goes right back to their
Universal days in the 50’s.
WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART is NOT a film about John Houston,more about
a “Houston Like” character (John Wilson) based on Peter Viertel’s book
while working with Houston on THE AFRICAN QUEEN.
Houston reputedly enjoyed Viertel’s book.
As one reviewer noted only Eastwood could make a picture about the
mystique of big game hunting in which not one animal is shot!
Eastwood’s film also has an interesting take on British Colonial racism
and Anti Semitism -from Houston’s point of view of course.
So nothing for me from Imprint in September but I could do with a break
considering the small fortune I’m going to spend with them in August.
Jerry…Sorry to hear about Imelda and yourself getting “The Dreaded Lurgie”
I wish you both a fast recovery.
John K, we’ve talked about the superb CATTLE ANNIE AND LITTLE BRITCHES(filmed 1979, released 1980) before and I think it is a dandy Western Movie and that isn’t just because the real Bill Doolin, portrayed by Burt Lancaster, is a distant relative of mine by way of the marriage of my Grand Aunt Eula Patterson to Hiram Doolin in 1923. A Raymond Doolin was an Oklahoma bank robber in the 1920’s as a member of the Kimes-Terrill gang, but he wound up in prison, which ended his bank robbing days
I’m happy to see someone else voice praises upon Clint Eastwood’s WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART(filmed 1989, released 1990) his, I think, unfairly ignored gem of a movie. Yes, it is a thinly fictionalized version of the experiences of legendary movie director John Huston during the pre-production of THE AFRICAN QUEEN(1951), which in the movie and the novel it is based is titled THE AFRICAN TRADER. I haven’t read Peter Viertel’s novel of the same name, but I have always meant to.
I think WHITE HUNTER DARK HEART is a skillful examination of the inability of John Wilson(Clint Eastwood), with a larger than life reputation, to differentiate between reality and his exuberant legend. Not only does Clint give us his expertly efficient direction, but I think he gives us his most daring and original performance of his career. Also, how did you like Clint’s rousing boat ride in the rapids?
For those who are interested here is Clint Eastwood the laid-back workaholic himself talking about the movie.
Thankee kindly, John. Things improving quite fast now.
OPEN RANGE 2003 is one of the better latter westerns .My only complaint about THE LONG RIDERS is that they wore the same grey dust coats.There is a good interview on U Tube called A conversation with Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jnr.It goes for about 1 hour and is very good.
Graham, I like OPEN RANGE(filmed 2002, released 2003 also, By the time it was filmed the long dark shadow of the HEAVEN’S GATE debacle couldn’t be blamed for not making Western Movies.
Kevin Costner will be setting in the director’s chair once again starting August 29, 2022 on location in Utah. Costner is also co-writer/producer and star of this ambitious Western Movie saga titled HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA. He has been trying to get this project off the ground since he finished OPEN RANGE. It is a four movie project, with each movie to be released every three months by Warner Bros. Pictures. This movie series chronicles a multi-faceted, fifteen-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West. I hope these movies are successful and I think the time is right for them, because of today’s streaming of movies and tv’s limited series.
I think the A CONVERSATION WITH BEN JOHNSON AND HARRY CAREY, JR. is outstanding. It was filmed in Abilene, Texas on April 22, 1995 one year before Ben Johnson passed away. For those interested here it is.
That could be a great undertaking if it gets off the ground, Walter!
Costner has always been a good friend to the western.
Jerry, I agree that is quite an undertaking on Costner’s part. Also, I think he is a better director than an actor and I think he is okay as an actor. Costner is a good friend to the Western, hands down.
I don’t think the Western will ever die. The so-called critics and so-called powers that be have been telling us that since 1913, then along came William S. Hart in 1914.
I certainly appreciate Costner’s efforts to keep the Western going, but I find him a much better director than an actor.
I also agree the Western will never die. But I seriously doubt we’ll ever see the floodgates open like they did in the 50s, with dozens and dozens of ’em coming out every year.
Toby, yes, the floodgate openings of Western Movie releases will never be again, which is a shame.
If for no other reason than there just aren’t the wranglers, stuntmen, character actors whose whole career was in westerns. All these people knew what they were doing and loved it.
But who ever could have known back in the 1930s or 40s when they made a film and didn’t expect it would get a repeat that 70 or 80 years later there would be folk like us regularly watching those films still and remembering Tom London, Ray Teal or Gregg Barton?!
Great point, Jerry. These films were seen as temporary back then, long gone and forgotten after a year or two.
According to Imprint,the Walter Hill Collection will be released in September.I asked for more classics and expressed my disappointment at their releases and they said they will pass on my comments.Walter,I just love listening to Ben Johnson’s accent .He seemed like a real down to earth person.
Graham, keep on doing what you are doing. If enough voices out there would make their concerns known, which is to put more tried and true Classics on Blu-ray, hopefully some rebel executive might take a chance.
I’m a long time Ben Johnson fan, as well as Harry Carey, Jr. I miss them, but we have their work in movies and tv to view and appreciate. One of my favorite movies is the WAGON MASTER(filmed 1949, released 1950), which stars these two very fine actors and personalities.
I could listen to that great drawl of Ben Johnson’s all day long!