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.
Posted in Chuck Connors, Howard Hawks, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum on April 30, 2021| 36 Comments »
John Ernest Crawford
(March 26, 1946 – April 29, 2021)
Johnny Crawford, the child actor who was absolutely wonderful as Mark McCain (son of Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain) in The Rifleman, has passed away at 75.
Crawford not only co-starred in one of the best Western series ever, he recorded a single or two with the great Bobby Fuller, one of my all-time favorites, and appeared in Howard Hawks’ El Dorado (1967). And there were tons of TV appearances over the years, including being an original Mouseketeer.
In the 90s, he assembled a big band, the Johnny Crawford Orchestra. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years ago. Ask anyone who ever met him, and he was a super-nice guy.
A episode of The Rifleman is airing on MeTV as I type this.
Posted in 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, Anthony Mann, Arthur Kennedy, Audie Murphy, Chuck Connors, Jane Russell, Jimmy Stewart, John Agar, Julie Adams, Roger Corman, Universal (International) on September 1, 2020| 17 Comments »
Lori Nelson
(August 15, 1933 – August 23, 2020)
Lori Nelson, has passed away at 87. She was born Dixie Kay Nelson. Her family moved to Hollywood when she was four. Soon after, she was crowned Little Miss America.
In 1950, Ms. Nelson signed a seven-year contract with Universal-International. Her first film was Bend Of The River, followed by Ma And Pa Kettle At The Fair and Francis Goes To West Point (all 1952). In 1953, U-I put her in Douglas Sirk’s All I Desire. She appeared in two Audie Murphy pictures, Tumbleweed (1953) and Destry (1954).
In 1955, she did Ma And Pa Kettle At Waikiki, Revenge of the Creature, Roger Corman’s Day The World Ended and I Died A Thousand Times, a remake of High Sierra (1941) — which has already been remake as Colorado Territory (1949). Underwater! was released in 1955, though it’d been shot some time earlier. She was loaned to Howard Hughes and RKO for that one. She’s also in Pardners (1956), one of the last Martin and Lewis pictures, Hot Rod Girl (1956) co-starring Chuck Connors and Howard W. Koch’s Untamed Youth (1957) with Mamie Van Doren. What a great batch of 1950s cinema.
Posted in Chuck Connors, Television on June 17, 2018| 12 Comments »
It took me about two seconds to settle on who to feature for Father’s Day. So, here’s Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford — as Lucas McCain and his son Mark — in The Rifleman.
Posted in Chuck Connors on April 10, 2018| 19 Comments »
Chuck Connors
April 10, 1921 – November 10, 1992
Today, let’s remember the great Chuck Connors on his birthday.
He was a Dodger. He was The Rifleman. He was really good in The Big Country (1958). And that’s just getting started.
Posted in 1957, Character actors, Chuck Connors, Lesley Selander on September 15, 2017| 20 Comments »
Harry Dean Stanton
(July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017)
I’ve been dreading this day. The great character actor Harry Dean Stanton has passed away at 91.
He brought something to every movie he appeared in, and if you gave him enough screen time, he made the movie better. He’s second from the left in the photo above from Lesley Selander’s Tomahawk Trail (1957), one of his first films. He’s in so much good stuff: Pork Chop Hill (1959), Ride In The Whirlwind (1966), In The Heat Of The Night (1967), Kelly’s Heroes (1970), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973), Dillinger (1973), The Missouri Breaks (1976), Alien (1979), Escape From New York (1981), Repo Man (1984, below), Paris, Texas (1984), The Straight Story (1999) and so many more. There’s plenty of great TV stuff, too.
Stanton could sing, play harmonica, play guitar, write and talk all night when Marlon Brando would call. He served in the Navy in World War II.
Posted in 1958, Charlton Heston, Chuck Connors, DVD/Blu-Ray News, Gregory Peck, Kino Lorber, United Artists, William Wyler on May 4, 2017| 24 Comments »
Directed by William Wyler
Starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford, Chuck Connors
The Big Country (1958) is coming to Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber with a slew of extras — commentary, documentary, interviews, etc.
The cast is a great one. Burl Ives won an Oscar for his incredible, and incredibly mean, performance. But, to me, Chuck Connors steals the picture — he’s absolutely perfect in a complex, tragic role.
Franz F. Planer’s Technicolor and Technirama cinematography is beautiful, offering up stunning vistas that live up to the film’s title. The opening credits were created by Saul Bass, and the score by Jerome Moross is one of the best to ever grace a Western.
The old Blu-Ray was a huge improvement over the DVD, but it had some distortion problems. Let’s hope those are sorted out for this new one. And I hear the stereo tracks still haven’t turned up.
Posted in 1957, Anne Francis, Chuck Connors, David Lang, MGM, Ray Nazarro, Rory Calhoun, Warner Archive on May 10, 2015| 48 Comments »
Directed by Ray Nazarro
Produced by Rory Calhoun and Victor M. Orsatti
Screen Play by David Lang and Buckley Angell
Based on a story by Buckley Angell
Director Of Photography: Harold J. Marzorati, ASC
Film Editor: Frank Santillo
Music by Albert Glasser
Cast: Rory Calhoun (Gil McCord), Anne Francis (Ellen Beldon), Vince Edwards (Kell Beldon), John Litel (Mace Beldon), Bill Williams, Chuck Connors (Judd Farrow), Robert Burton (Nathan Conroy), Salvadore Baques (Domingo Ortega), Guinn “Big Boy” Williams (Elby Kirby), Regis Parton (Cliff Beldon), Buelah Archuletta
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Around the time I decided to write a book on 50s Westerns, and long before I’d thought about a blog to go with it, The Hired Gun (1957) was a movie sitting near the top of my Want List. Rory Calhoun. Anne Francis. Vince Edwards. Guinn “Big Boy” Williams. Black and white CinemaScope (an aesthetic I adore). Directed by Ray Nazarro at Lone Pine. How could this thing not be terrific? But what were my chances of ever seeing it widescreen as intended?
Dissolve to: six years later. An anamorphic widescreen DVD of The Hired Gun was released by Warner Archive a couple weeks ago. And now that I’ve had a chance to see it in all its monochromatic 2.35:1 glory, what’s the verdict?
To be honest, The Hired Gun seems like pretty standard stuff. Plot-wise, it’s nothing that couldn’t be covered in an hour-long TV show. But like so many of the lower-budgeted Westerns of the 50s, the people involved, and what they bring to these minor films, make all the difference.
The Hired Gun was produced by Rory Calhoun and his agent, Victor Orsatti. Their Rorvic Productions made a handful of films in the late 50s, along with Calhoun’s TV series The Texan; the three Westerns were directed by Ray Nazarro (his other two Rorvic pictures were The Domino Kid and Apache Territory).
With The Hired Gun set for MGM release, Anne Francis, who’d just appeared in MGM’s Forbidden Planet (1956) and was a rising star at the studio, was signed as Calhoun’s co-star.
Francis is Ellen Beldon, who’s to be hung for the murder of her husband. She’s sprung from jail by Chuck Connors, who works on her uncle’s ranch. Very quickly, Mace Beldon (John Litel), the dead man’s father, hires gunslinger Gil McCord (Calhoun) to track her down. The jailbreak, and the chase that follows it, are really well staged — Ray Nazarro was so good with action. Here, he uses an under-cranked camera to boost the urgency and pacing. The rest of the picture, taken up by Calhoun capturing Francis and their journey together, covers more familiar territory. But it covers that territory well, thanks to the professionalism and craft of those who made it.
Calhoun is cool as a cucumber as the gunman, whether he’s posing as a ranch hand, beating the crap outta Chuck Connors or talking tough to Anne Francis. Since the film’s so short, just 64 minutes, there’s not a lot of time for real character development. We assume all along that he’ll change his mind about his prisoner before it’s all over with.
From Forbidden Planet to Honey West, I’ve always liked Anne Francis — and she’s quite good here. She was one of the only members of the cast and crew who hadn’t experienced the rigors of shooting a Western on location. Jock Mahoney, who worked with director Ray Nazarro on a lot of pictures, once said, “Ray didn’t particularly like women in the cast and he’d make them his whipping boy.”
So, everyone on the picture was fully expecting to see the young actress suffer while in Lone Pine. She was determined to deny them that satisfaction.
Anne Francis: “Rory and I were in the saddle from morning until night. I suspect he was tired, I know I was. But I wouldn’t have admitted it for all the gold in Fort Knox.”**
Oh, and if you look quick, you’ll see Buelah Archuletta, who played “Look” in The Searchers (1956).
Director of photography Harold J. Marzorati captures Lone Pine, with snow-covered mountaintops in the distance, in stunning black and white CinemaScope. Lone Pine always looks terrific in black and white — check out a Tim Holt picture or two for further proof — and the wide frame makes it all the more dramatic.
Marzorati’s gorgeous work was done a real service by the folks at Warner Archive. His ‘Scope compositions are perfectly presented and the contrast levels are just right. When was the last time someone saw this movie looking like this? There’s a “textless” trailer to round out the package.
Someone recently commented here that “we’re living in a Golden Age for classic movie lovers.” And when an anamorphic widescreen DVD of a cheap little Western like The Hired Gun can be yours for a little e-commerce, I have to agree.
Laura posted a review of The Hired Gun over at her place today, too.
*From The Adventures Of The Durango Kid, Starring Charles Starrett by Bob Carman and Dan Scapperotti; ** Newspaper article, 1957
Posted in 1953, 20th Century-Fox, Chuck Connors, Dale Robertson, DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews, John Doucette, Kathleen Crowley, Robert Wagner, Rory Calhoun on August 28, 2013| 16 Comments »
Directed by Harmon Jones
Screen Play by Jesse L. Lasky, Jr.
From a novel by Jack Schaeffer
Director of Photography: Lloyd Ahern
Musical Director: Lionel Newman
CAST: Dale Robertson (Race Crim), Rory Calhoun (Tom Davisson), Robert Wagner (Jess Harker), Kathleen Crowley (Kathy Riley), James Millican (Luke Bowen), Lola Albright (Waco), J.M. Kerrigan (Riley), John Kellogg (Slater), Ian MacDonald (Hank), Burt Mustin (Uncle Ben), John Ducette, Chuck Connors.
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It had been ages since I’d seen The Silver Whip (1953), and I remembered very little about it. Revisiting it thanks to the Fox Cinema Archives DVD-R, I didn’t expect much more than an interesting pairing of Dale Robertson and Rory Calhoun.
Turns out, I really underestimated this film. There’s a lot more going on here than just pairing a couple cowboy stars. It’s a strong story built around a few key action scenes, given plenty of punch by editor-turned-director Harmon Jones.
Race Crim (Robertson) is a stagecoach guard who recommends young driver Jess Harker (Robert Wagner) for his first major run. It goes horribly wrong when Slater (John Kellogg) and his gang shoot up the stage. Sheriff Tom Davisson (Calhoun) and Harker go after the gang, trying to get to them before Race, who’s out for revenge, does. This creates an interesting three-way conflict with both justice (Calhoun and Wagner) and vengeance (Robertson) going after Slater. I won’t go any further than that — this is a cool movie and I don’t want to spoil it.
Of course, Robertson and Calhoun are terrific. A lot of us have been enjoying Calhoun pictures lately, and this has become one of my favorites. But the film belongs to Dale Robertson, whose change from Calhoun’s best friend and Wagner’s mentor to a bitter, obsessed rival gives The Silver Whip a lot of its strength in the last few reels. Robert Wagner (seen in a color still below) seems so young — he was still three years away from The True Story Of Jesse James (1956).
Harmon Jones never seemed to make much of an impression as a director, or at least nothing to match his clout as an editor (Yellow Sky, Panic In The Streets), and he spent the bulk of his career directing TV (Rawhide, Perry Mason). But the final chase here, expertly staged along a tall ridge, shows he had the chops. (I’m fond of his 1956 Universal Western, A Day Of Fury, again starring Dale Robertson.)
We’ve all been hard on the 20th Century-Fox Cinema Archives DVD-R program for problems with aspect ratio, etc. I’m happy to report that this one looks great. It’s 1.37, as it should be, with a black and white transfer that shows off Lloyd Ahern’s crisp cinematography. Unlike some of you, perhaps, I like a little dirt and dust in these things. Growing up watching 16mm prints of films like this, a speck here and there is part of the experience.
It’s so easy to recommend The Silver Whip, along with its appearance on DVD (available from major online retailers).
50 Westerns From The 50s. 