Happy Birthday, Adele Mara.

Adele Mara (Adelaida Delgado)
(April 28, 1923 – May 7, 2010)

Adele Mara was born 100 years ago today.

She was under contract at Republic Pictures from the mid-40s through 1951. She was in pictures with John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, William Elliott, you name it. Prior to Republic, she’d been at Columbia, where she was put in everything from Three Stooges shorts to Crime Doctor and Blondie movies. All sorts of cool stuff.

She was married to writer/director/producer Roy Huggins (Hangman’s Knot, Maverick, The Rockford Files) for over 50 years.

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What Does The Perfect Day Look Like?

For three nights in June of 1956, Elvis Presley (with Scotty and Bill) performed at Atlanta’s Paramount Theater, between showings of Fury At Gunsight Pass (1956).

Fury At Gunsight Pass is a terrific low-budget Western from Fred F. Sears — and Elvis is, well, Elvis.

It’s coming across stuff like this that makes book research so much fun.

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Blu-Ray #358: Revolt At Fort Laramie (1957).

Directed by Lesley Selander
Starring John Dehner, Gregg Palmer, Frances Helm, Don Gordon, Harry Dean Stanton

Revolt At Fort Laramie (1957) is a pretty good color Lesley Selander picture. It’s always great to see a Bel-Air movie make it to Blu-Ray.

But what’s interesting is that the Blu-Ray that’s on the way from MGM looks like part of an MOD program. Could that be cranking up again? If so, how’s about Rebel In Town (1956)?

Thanks to Paula for the tip.

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Dialogue Of The Day: Hell Bent For Leather (1960).

Audie Murphy’s last seven films for Universal International, all produced by Gordon Kay, don’t get a lot of love. Not sure why. At their best, they’re tight little Westerns in the Ranown mold. At their worst, they’ve got Audie Murphy in them, which is good enough for me!

George Sherman’s Hell Bent For Leather (1960), the first of the seven, is excellent — and may be my favorite Murphy movie. It’s certainly worth another look if you haven’t seen it in a while. 

Janet (Felicia Farr): I used to love this country. Now it seems so ugly.

Clay Santell (Audie Murphy): It’s not the country. It’s some of the people who live in it.

Hard it believe that was written 60-something years ago. Sounds like today to me.

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4K News #357: The Ranown Cycle In 4K (1957-1960).

The Criterion Collection has announced an upcoming 4K set of Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher’s Ranown Cycle: The Tall T (1957), Decision At Sundown (1957), Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), Ride Lonesome (1959) and Comanche Station (1960).

It’s coming in July, so get to shopping for 4K players and TVs!

Wish someone would convince the John Wayne estate to pave the way to get Seven Men From Now (1956), the film that launched the Scott-Boetticher collaboration, out on Blu-Ray.

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Let’s Go Dodgers!

The Dodgers’ home opener at Dodger Stadium is today, so as is customary around here, let’s take a look at John Ford in his Dodgers cap.

I’m really stoked about baseball season this year.

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Blu-Ray News #356: Audie Murphy Collection III (1960 – 1963).

This third volume in Kino Lorber’s Audie Murphy series gives us three of the seven pictures he did with producer Gordon Kay for Universal International — each shot in less than three weeks for about half a million bucks. They’ve been given a bad rap over the years. Some of them are really good. And they always have a great cast.

Hell Bent For Leather (1960)
Directed by George Sherman
Starring Audie Murphy, Felicia Farr, Stephen McNally, Robert Middleton, Jan Merlin, John Qualen, Bob Steele, Allan Lane

Audie’s mistaken for a murderer. A marshal (Stephen McNally) knows Audie’s innocent, but wants the reward and the glory.

Shot in Lone Pine in CinemaScope. Directed by George Sherman. A cast that includes John Qualen and Bob Steele — what’s not to like? I’m really excited to be doing a commentary for this one.

Posse From Hell (1961)
Directed by Herbert Coleman
Starring Audie Murphy, John Saxon, Zohra Lampert, Vic Morrow, Robert Keith, Rodolfo Acosta, Royal Dano

Audie rides into town right after four escaped convicts have shot the marshal and taken a woman hostage. He assembles a rather worthless posse and goes after them. Herbert Coleman was an assistant director for Hitchcock and others. Here he makes his debut in the top slot.

Showdown (1963)
Directed by R. G. Springsteen
Starring Audie Murphy, Kathleen Crowley, Charles Drake, Harold J. Stone, Skip Homeier, L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin, Dabbs Greer

Audie is shackled to killer Harold J. Stone (around the neck!) when they make their escape. Stir in some bonds and Kathleen Crowley and things get pretty tense. Directed by the great R.G. Springsteen and shot in black and white by Ellis W. Carter. By the way, Murphy was furious when he learned this would be shot in B&W, but it works well.

The chance to see these pictures again, certain to look terrific, is a real treat. Highly, highly recommended!

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Happy Birthday, Margia Dean!

Marguerite Louise Skliris-Alvarez (Margia Dean)
April 7, 1922

Here’s wishing Margia Dean a happy 101st birthday!

The former Miss San Francisco and Miss California got her movie career going with 1944’s Casanova In Burlesque. The bulk of her pictures were done for Robert L. Lippert, quite a few of them Westerns — Sam Fuller’s I Shot Jesse James (1949), Stagecoach To Fury (1956), Badlands Of Montana (1957) and Ambush At Cimarron Pass (1958), to name a few. 

She also has an uncredited part in Superman And The Mole Men (1951), appears in a few episodes of Dick Tracy, and stars in what is considered the first Hammer horror movie, 1955’s The Quatermass Xperiment (known as The Creeping Unknown in the States). Tired of being confined to B pictures, she retired in 1960.

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