Screenings: Republic At The Museum Of Modern Art.

Martin Scorsese has curated a retrospective of Republic movies, for February and August at the Museum Of Modern Art, from the restored material at Paramount.

There’s some great stuff in February’s lineup, including Trigger, Jr. (1950), Stranger At My Door (1956) and one of my all-time favorite films, Hellfire (1949). Three of my favorite directors are represented: William Witney, George Sherman and Allan Dwan.

Working with the fine folks at Kino Lorber on commentaries for some of their Republic releases, the quality of the material coming out of Paramount is incredible. (I’m in the middle of Singing Guns right now.) So glad to see these films are being treated with the respect they deserve.

Thanks to Laura for the news!

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DVD Review: Streets Of Ghost Town (1950).

Directed by Ray Nazarro
Written by Barry Shipman
Cinematography: Fayte Browne

Cast: Charles Starrett (Steve Woods/The Durango Kid), Smiley Burnette (Himself), Mary Ellen Kay (Doris Donner), George Chesebro (Bill Donner), Frank Fenton (Bart Selby)

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Mill Creek has done us a big favor by scooping up 10 of the 60-plus Durango Kid movies and putting them in one extremely budget-friendly two-disc set, The Durango Kid Collection. One of the 10 is Ray Nazarro’s Streets Of Ghost Town (1950).

In this outing, Steve and Smiley help ​the ​sheriff of Dusty Creek ​(Stanley Andrews) look for a fortune in stolen money supposedly hidden in a​n old​ ghost town — boarded up, littered wth tumbleweeds and creeking and moaning just enough to keep Smiley scared. A good chunk of the picture uses flashbacks to fill us in on how the treasure was stolen by Bart Selby (Frank Fenton, wearing a hat that seems too small for his head) and his gang, then ​taken by ​the double-crossing Bill Donner (George Chesebro). Back in the “present,” Selby and his gaggle of crooks are looking for the loot, and it’s believed Bill Donner is dead. Then Donner’s niece (Mary Ellen Kay) and nephew turn up to complicate matters.

This is no Riders Of The Whistling Skull (1937), but it handles its mystery elements pretty well. The Devil’s Cave, where the money’s hidden, is pretty cool, especially when Donner locks a couple of his cohorts in there with the treasure to die a slow death. And Smiley working a Ouija board is a pretty odd sight. The cinematography by Fayte Browne looks terrific, with lots of deep shadows to crank up the spookiness.

Ray Nazarro directed over half the Durango Kids (he did half of this set), and he keeps Streets Of Ghost Town running like a well-oiled machine. Charles Starrett is as likable as always and looks cool, and Smiley Burnette is, well, Smiley Burnette, which certainly works for me. George Chesebro is wonderful as the crazed, double-crossing crook.

What bothers me about The Durango Kid pictures is the Kid himself — he often seems nailed to the action like an obligation. But he sure looks terrific tearing through the ghost town on Raider.

The same Durango Kid titles that make up have been available from Columbia on DVD in the past, sometimes at up to 20 bucks a piece. So the economics if this set are pretty solid — and it’ll sure save you some shelf space. You can count on Columbia for terrific transfers of these older titles, and these don’t disappoint. (I love the fact that there’s some dust and dirt to remind us what film used to look like.) Recommended.

So with 10 of the series pulled together for this nifty set, when can we count on volumes two through seven?

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50s Westerns DVD/Blu-Ray News #256: Singing Guns (1950).

Directed by R. G. Springsteen
Starring Vaughn Monroe, Ella Raines, Walter Brennan, Ward Bond, Jeff Corey, Barry Kelley

Kino Lorber is working on a DVD and Blu-Ray release for Singing Guns (1950), the first of two Westerns singer Vaughn Monroe made for Republic. The picture was slightly modified mid-stream to incorporate the song “Mule Train,” which became a massive hit for a slew of singers. It’s a pretty solid Republic Western — with great parts for Walter Brennan and Ward Bond.

The 4k material from Paramount for this picture is incredible — easily as good as Kino Lorber’s release of Sunset In The West (1950). Not sure what the release date is — I’m working on a commentary for it now.

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Happy Thanksgiving.

Here are, left to right, Foy Willing, Roy Rogers, Penny Edwards and Gordon Jones getting ready for some turkey in William Witney’s Trail Of Robin Hood (1950). I know it’s a Christmas movie, but I went for the turkey thing.

Anyway, here’s wishing you all a safe, happy, food-filled Thanksgiving. And I hope you can get away from the parades, dog shows, football, traffic and sales long enough to watch something like, say, Waco (1952) with Bill Elliott, one I’ve been meaning to revisit.

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50s Westerns DVD News #249: The Durango Kid Collection.

Mill Creek has announced a 10-movie set of Durango Kid movies. Some, if not all, of these have been available before, but who cares?

Charles Starrett starred in The Durango Kid, in 1940. Columbia didn’t get around to The Return Of The Durango Kid till 1945. Making up for lost time, Columbia cranked out 62 more Durango Kid pictures before shutting down the series in 1952 — at which point Starrett retired from movies.

The Fighting Frontiersman (1946)
Directed by Derwin Abrahams
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Helen Mowery

Blazing Across The Pecos (1948)
Directed by Ray Nazarro
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Charles Wilson

Laramie (1949)
Directed by Ray Nazarro
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Fred F. Sears

Trail Of The Rustlers (1950)
Directed by Ray Nazarro
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Gail Davis, Tommy Ivo

Streets Of Ghost Town (1950)
Directed by Ray Nazarro
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Mary Ellen Kay, George Chesebro

Lightning Guns (1950)
Directed by Ray Nazarro
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Gloria Henry, Jock Mahoney

Snake River Desperadoes (1951)
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Don Reynolds, Tommy Ivo

Bonanza Town (1951)
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Fred F. Sears, Myron Healey, Robert J. Wilke

The Hawk Of Wild River (1952)
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Jock Mahoney, Clayton Moore

The Kid From Broken Gun (1952)
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Starring Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Jock Mahoney
Charles Starrett’s final appearance as The Durango Kid. Actually, his last movie, period.

This is a great collection at an incredible price, just $14.98. Remember, Sony’s Columbia Classics Collection, or whatever it’s called, was pricing these things at $20 apiece! Highly recommended.

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Happy Birthday, Maureen O’Hara

Maureen O’Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons)
(August 17, 1920 – October 24, 2015)

The great Maureen O’Hara was born 97 years ago today.

Here she is with John Wayne in John Ford’s Rio Grande (1950). They made it largely to get the chance to make The Quiet Man (1952), but they knocked out a masterpiece anyway. It doesn’t get near the recognition it deserves.

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RIP, Skip Homeier.

George Vincent “Skip” Homeier
(October 5, 1930 – June 25, 2017)

Skip Homeier, who passed away on June 25th, is one of those actors who made every picture he was in better — no matter how good, or bad, it would’ve been without him. And from The Gunfighter (1950, above) and The Tall T (1957, below) to Cry Vengeance (1954) and The Ghost In Mr. Chicken (1966), he’s in a whole bunch of my favorite movies.

You’ll find him in about every genre there is, but the vast majority of his feature work was in Westerns — and his list of cowboy credits is remarkable. In The Gunfighter, he pretty much invented the punk-kid-looking-to-make-a-name-for-himself character as we know it — everybody who came after him seemed to be doing a Skip Homeier impersonation. William Witney’s Stranger At My Door (1956) also stands out. As a kid, I knew him as “the guy who gets his face blown off in The Tall T.”

His TV work was more varied, and he was always good — The Rifleman, Death Valley Days, Climax!, The Addams Family and many, many more. But like so many actors that appeared on Star Trek, that’s what most people know him for these days (he’s in two).

In the old days, it was often the character actors who made movies truly special (particularly Westerns). Skip Homeier was one of the absolute best.

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