DVD Review: Texas City (1952).

Directed by Lewis D. Collins
Produced by Vincent M. Fennelly
Written by Joseph F. Poland
Director Of Photography: Ernest Miller
Film Editor: Sam Fields
Music by Raoul Kraushaar

Cast: Johnny Mack Brown (Marshal Johnny Mack Brown), James Ellison (Jim Kirby), Lois Hall (Lois Upton), Terry Frost (Trag), Lane Bradford (Hank), Lyle Talbot (Captain Hamilton), Marshall Reed (Yarnell), Pierce Lyden (Marshal George Markham), Lorna Thayer (Aunt Harriet), Bud Osborne, Bill Coontz, John Hart

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Seemed like a Lyle Talbot kind of day, so I pulled out Monogram’s Texas City (1952) starring Johnny Mack Brown — a solid little Western produced toward the end of Brown’s run at Monogram.

After a series of Army gold shipments are held up, Marshall Johnny Mack Brown is brought in to investigate. He suspects that the crooks are using the ghost town of Dawson City as their base. There he meets Lois Upton (Lois Hall), a young lady who’s just come West after inheriting the town’s dilapidated hotel and Jim Kirby (James Ellison), a young man who arouses Johnny Mack’s suspicions. 

This one’s got everything: gold shipment robberies, a ghost town, a cave hideout (with a secret entrance behind a grandfather clock), a pretty girl from back East, Bud Osbourne driving the stage and, of course, Lyle Talbot as a crooked cavalry officer.

One of my favorite things about the Johnny Mack Brown Monograms is his hat. (Never underestimate the power of a good hat in a Western.) Conversely, Lyle Talbot’s hat is just terrible. He must’ve made somebody mad in the Monogram wardrobe department.

Lois Hall was in three Johnny Mack pictures, a couple Whip Wilson things, two Durango Kids, some Sam Katzman serials at Columbia and Republic’s Daughter Of The Jungle (1949). She’s usually terrific, but she doesn’t have a lot to do in this one. James Ellison had been in the early Hopalong Cassidy pictures, I Walked With A Zombie (1941) and a series of Lippert Westerns co-starring Russell Hayden. Not long after Texas City, Ellison would leave the picture business for real estate.

John Hart appears as a cavalryman in the opening shootout — about a year before he (temporarily) replaced Clayton Moore on The Lone Ranger. Lorna Thayer, who plays Lois Hall’s aunt, later played the waitress who winds up on Jack Nicholson’s bad side in Five Easy Pieces (1970).

Texas City is one of nine Monogram Westerns included in Volume 4 of Warner Archive’s Monogram Cowboy Collection. It has all three pictures Lois Hall did with Johnny Mack Brown.

Texas City was beautifully shot by Ernest Miller, making good use of locations we’ve all seen a hundred times. So it’s nice to see Miller’s work well-presented here. Though it obviously wasn’t given what we’d call a full restoration today, the transfer is excellent. These Monogram Western sets are wonderful, one of my favorite things Warner Archive has done. If you don’t have ’em, you’re really missing out. Highly, highly recommended.

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Happy Birthday, Beverly Garland.

Beverly Lucy Garland
(October 17, 1926 – December 5, 2008)

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One of my favorite actresses was born 97 years ago today. Whether it was a B Western or a cheap monster movie, Beverly Garland always gave it 147%, making a lot of movies better than they deserved to be!

Here she is with William Elliott in Bitter Creek (1954), one of those terrific Westerns Elliott made in the early 50s. Beverly was also in Sudden Danger (1955), one of those cool detective pictures Elliott did for Allied Artists around the same time.

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DVD Review: Colorado Ambush (1951).

Directed by Lewis Collins
Produced by Vincent M. Fennelly
Screenplay by Myron Healey
Director Of Photography: Gilbert Warrenton
Film Editor: Fred Maguire
Music by Edward J. Kay

Cast: Johnny Mack Brown (Johnny Mack Brown), Myron Healey (Chet Murdock), Lois Hall (Janet Williams), Tommy Farrell (Terry Williams), Christine McIntyre (Mae Star), Lee Roberts (Gus), Marshall Bradford (Ben Williams), Lyle Talbot (Sheriff Ed Lowery)

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Lois Hall came up recently when Imprint Films announced their upcoming Blu-Ray set Tales Of Adventure, Collection Two — which has her starring in Republic’s Daughter Of The Jungle (1949). And since I’ve been meaning to revisit the Warner Archive Monogram Cowboy Collection sets, why not take a look at one of Miss Hall’s Johnny Mack Brown pictures? Conveniently, all three are on Volume 4 of that terrific series.

In Colorado Ambush (1951), somebody’s picking off Wells Fargo riders to get ahold of the payroll. It looks like an inside job, and Johnny Mack Brown is sent to investigate. He soon meets the Williams family — father Marshall Bradford, daughter Lois Hall and son Tommy Farrell — who care for Wells Fargo’s horses and are in charge of transporting the payroll. Only they know when a rider is carrying the money.

Turns out Farrell’s in cahoots with the ruthless Myron Healey and Christine McIntyre to ambush the riders toting the dough. And when Brown and sheriff Lyle Talbot start to sort out the scheme and things go south for the crooks, the bullets fly and the bodies start piling up. There’s not a lot of the cast left breathing at the end of the picture’s 51 minutes.

Monogram’s B Westerns of the late 40s and early 50s were obviously done on the skinny, both time-wise and financially. But there’s usually plenty of shootin’ and ridin’, some great character actors — and of course terrific leads like Wild Bill Elliott and Johnny Mack Brown. What’s more, they tend to be more adult than what you expect from pictures like this. And in the case of the Johnny Mack Brown films, there’s the added benefit of the wonderful hats he wears.

In an interview with Boyd Magers, Lois Hall said of Johnny Mack Brown: “I feel the same thing everybody else says about him…a true gentleman. And a little distant. He wasn’t one to sit around the set. He went back to his dressing room between things. But a very pleasant person.” Brown was evidently as likable on the set as he is on the screen. 

Myron Healey is not only the villain in Colorado Ambush, he was also the screenwriter. His script is pretty clever — how the bad guys know when the riders are carrying the cash is rather ingenious. Healey scripted another Johnny Mack picture, Texas Lawmen (1951).

Lyle Talbot plays the sheriff, an old friend of Brown’s. This was about a year after Talbot appeared as Lex Luther in the serial Atom Man Vs. Superman (1950). It’s always a treat when Talbot shows up in something, and since he made a point of never turning down work, he turns up quite a bit.

Lewis Collins directed dozens of Westerns like this, including some of the William Elliott and Whip Wilson Monograms (oh, and 1950’s Hot Rod) that were being done around the same time Colorado Ambush was released. Collins died of a heart attack in 1956. He’s a bit like Lesley Selander — you can count on him to make a decent, fast-moving Western under about any circumstances.

As I mentioned earlier, Colorado Ambush is included in Volume 4 of Warner Archive’s Monogram Cowboy Collection, a nine-picture set that also includes some Jimmy Wakely films. It gives you all three Brown Westerns co-starring Lois Hall, the other two being Blazing Bullets (1951) and Texas City (1952). The films look great — even though they don’t get an actual restoration, the transfers are very nicely done. Personally, I kinda like some dust or scratches here and there, and there are a few incidents of each in Colorado Ambush. The sound’s excellent. I wish Warner Archive had kept digging around in the Monogram vaults. The stuff they put out are some of the real joys of my collection. 

Colorado Ambush, this set, the Monogram Cowboy Collection and anything else Warner Archive gave us from Monogram is highly recommended. You’re not gonna come across a masterpiece, but you’re certainly gonna be entertained.

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Blu-Ray News #362: Wichita (1955).

Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Starring Joel McCrea, Vera Miles, Lloyd Bridges, Wallace Ford, Edgar Buchanan, Peter Graves, Jack Elam

Jacques Tourneur’s Wichita (1955) was an early DVD title from Warner Archive and we were all excited to see it turn up. Now it’s coming to Blu-Ray in August — and I’m probably more excited this time around, given what we’ve seen CinemaScope and Technicolor look like in high definition these days. Wichita is getting a 4K scan of the original camera negative.

But no matter how you’re looking at it, Wichita is terrific. Tourneur was one of Joel McCrea’s preferred directors and they always seemed to strike gold when they worked together. This one, with McCrea as Wyatt Earp cleaning up Wichita, Kansas, is one of their best.

Riding along with Wichita are two Tex Avery cartoons, Deputy Droopy and The First Bad Man (both 1955). The whole thing comes highly, highly recommended.

Thanks to Paula for the tip!

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A Little Over 60 Years Ago.

Came upon this the other day and thought it was worth sharing.

The Morningside Theatre in New York City has quite a lineup on Saturday, April 16, 1959. First, there was Tim Holt in The Monster That Challenged The World (1957), then Audie Murphy in Jack Arnold’s No Name On The Bullet (1959) and finally Running Target from 1956, starring Doris Dowling, Arthur Franz and Myron Healey. Tossed into the mix were a few cartoons and Marshall Reed in a chapter of the Columbia serial Riding With Buffalo Bill (1954), produced by Sam Katzman.

Of course, the stuff coming up after it — William Castle’s The Tingler (1959), The Warrior And The Slave Girl (1958) and Whip Wilson, Fuzzy Knight and Phyllis Coates in Monogram’s Canyon Riders (1951) — sounds pretty good, too.

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Pre-50s Westerns DVD News #290: Monogram Cowboy Collection #10: Johnny Mack Brown.

Warner Archive has announced the 10th and final volume in their Monogram Cowboy Collection series.

It features nine Johnny Mack Brown pictures from 1946-49 —
The Haunted Mine (1946)
Valley Of Fear (1947)
Crossed Trails (1947)
Triggerman (1947)
Back Trail (1947)
Gunning For Justice (1948)
Range Justice (1948)
Trail Ends (1949)
Western Renegades (1949)

While I sure hate to see this terrific series reach the end of the trail, Warner Archive promises more: “Fear not – further oaters are on deck in more modestly sized editions!”

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Wild Bill Wednesday #14: Waco (1952).

Directed by Lewis D. Collins
Produced by Vincent M. Fennelly
Written by Daniel B. Ullman
Director Of Photography: Ernest Miller
Music by Raoul Kraushaar
Film Editor: Sam Fields

Cast: Wild Bill Elliott (Matt Boone), I. Stanford Jolley (Curly Ivers), Pamela Blake (Kathy Clark), Paul Fierro (Lou Garcia), Rand Brooks (Al), Richard Avonde (Pedro), Pierce Lyden (Farley), Lane Bradford (Wallace), Terry Frost (Will Richards), Stanley Price (Sheriff), Stanley Andrews (Judge), Michael Whalen (Barnes), Ray Bennett (Bull Clark), House Peters Jr. (Doctor)

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Seems like it’s time for a Wild Bill Wednesday. So let’s go to Waco (1952).

A little backstory. William Elliott and Republic Pictures parted ways in 1950. It wasn’t long before Elliott started making low-budget Westerns at Monogram. By the time the series was over, Monogram had become Allied Artists, 1.85 had become the standard aspect ratio for American cinema, and the B Western was dead. These 11 pictures — Waco was the second — made sure the B Western went out on a high note.

Matt Boone (Elliott) leaves Waco, Texas in a hurry after killing the crooked gambler Bull Clark (Ray Bennett) in self defense — he knows he won’t get a fair trial. Boone falls in with a gang of outlaws and is shot and captured when a bank job in Pecos goes wrong. Two of Waco’s prominent citizens bring Elliott back to Waco. They believe in his innocence (they saw Clark draw first) and need him to clean up their town. He’s elected sheriff. Only trouble is, his old gang (led by I. Stanford Jolley) and the gambler’s daughter (Pamela Blake) aren’t too keen on the idea.

These Monogram and Allied Artists pictures are a bit darker, more “adult,” than your typical B Western. The budget limitations are certainly obvious, but William Elliott’s as reliable as ever — and in this one, he gets to play the “good badman” type of role he liked so much, patterned after William S. Hart.

I’m a peaceable man and I’m not lookin’ for trouble. I’m not runnin’ from it neither.”

Waco comes from a pretty tight script by Dan Ullman. Ullman wrote plenty of 50s Westerns, from programmers like Kansas Pacific (1953) with Sterling Hayden to the excellent Face Of A Fugitive (1959), starring Fred MacMurray. It was directed by Lewis D. Collins, who started with silent shorts, made a boatload of pictures and passed away a few years after this one.

Pamela Blake’s part here doesn’t give her a whole lot to do. She stayed plenty busy — everything from This Gun For Hire (1942) to the serial Ghost Of Zorro (1949) at Republic to Live Wires (1946), the first Bowery Boys movie, to The Sea Hound (1947), a Sam Katzman serial at Columbia. Waco was her last feature — she worked on TV for a while, then retired to raise a family. I. Stanford Jolley, who’s got a great part here as a not-as-bad-as-you-thought outlaw, appeared in hundreds of Westerns, including a number of these Elliott pictures. It’s always a plus when he turns up in the credits (or in the back of a crowd working without credit).

Waco is part of Warner Archive’s terrific The Wild Bill Elliott Western Collection. Shot at Corriganville and the Iverson Ranch by ace cinematographer Ernest Miller, it looks terrific on DVD. Monogram struck prints of these pictures in “glorious sepia tone,” and while I’m a stickler for preserving the original presentation, I’m glad Warner Archive stuck with black and white. Sepia doesn’t always come off well on TV. The set treats these cheap little movies with the kind of respect they (and William Elliott himself) certainly deserve. It’s great to see them looking so clean and sharp. Highly recommended.

Dan Ullman would write, produce and direct a remake of Waco — the Regalscope picture Badlands Of Montana (1957) starring Rex Reason and Beverly Garland.

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DVD Review: Gold Fever (1952).

Directed by Leslie Goodwins
Screenplay by Edgar B. Anderson Jr. & Cliff Lancaster
From a story by John Calvert
Music by Johnny Richards
Directors Of Photography: Glen Gano & Clark Ramsey
Film Editor: John F. Link

John Calvert (John Bonar), Ralph Morgan (Nugget Jack), Ann Cornell (Rusty), Gene Roth (Bill Johnson), Tom Kennedy (Big Tom), Judd Holdren (Jud Jerson), Danny Rense (Ward Henry), Robert Graham (Cougar), George Morrell (Recorder Of Claims)

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Gold Fever is a really cheap, pretty obscure Monogram Western from 1952 with incredible poster art (above). That was about all I knew about it, until our friends at Warner Archive cleaned it up and stuck it on a DVD.

John Calvert is better known as a magician — he was still at it when he died at 102 — than as a movie star. But he had a pretty impressive list of credits, stuff like Bombardier (1943), Mark Of The Whistler (1944), The Return Of The Durango Kid (1945) and a few Poverty Row Falcon pictures.

Gold Fever was written by, produced by, and starring Calvert. The female lead, Ann Cornell, was his wife. Director Leslie Goodwins did tons of TV after years doing shorts and stuff like Mexican Spitfire (1940) and The Mummy’s Curse (1944).

Calvert plays John Bonar, who teams up with Nugget Jack (Ralph Morgan) to help set up his mining claim. That turns out to be more trouble than anybody bargained for, since Bill Johnson (Gene Roth) is out to snag Nugget Jack’s mine. Added to the mix is a pretty, pistol-packing gal named Rusty (Ann Cornell).

The dialogue is stilted, the acting is pretty terrible across the board, and even at 62 minutes, it drags a bit in the middle. But there’s something about this one that really grabbed me. It was Ralph Morgan. He’s a real hoot as Nugget Jack, in what turned out to be his last movie. He overplays it, but it somehow works. And given the rest of the performances, he’s a source of energy the picture really needs. Morgan did a ton of pictures like the serial Dick Tracy Vs. Crime Inc. (1941), Hitler’s Madman (1943), The Monster Maker (1944) and Song Of The Thin Man (1947).

Gold Fever boasts not one, but two, cinematographers, Glen Gano and Clark Ramsey. Gano shot The Return Of The Durango Kid (1945), a few Three Stooges shorts, Untamed Women (1952) and The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971). Clark Ramsey was DP on I Killed Geronimo (1950), Superman And The Mole Men (1951), Hidden Guns (1956) and The Parson And The Outlaw (1957). I was surprised to see that Ramsey was from Palo Pinto County in central Texas (the tiny town of Brad, with just a couple dozen people). My grandparents lived in nearby (and quite tiny) Strawn. I love that area.

The editor, John F. Link, cut everything from Bowery Champs (1944) to Anthony Mann’s The Great Flamarion (1945) to the Regalscope Western Escape From Red Rock (1957). He was nominated for an Oscar for For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943), and his last film was Russ Meyer’s The Immortal Mr. Teas (1959). That’s quite a variety.

Gold Fever is not the kind of movie you’re gonna put on to show off your new UHD TV, but that doesn’t keep Warner Archive from giving it a little TLC. It looks as good as you’d expect it to look, actually a little better.

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50s Westerns DVD News #268: Gold Fever (1952).

Directed by Leslie Goodwins
Starring John Calvert, Ralph Morgan, Ann Cornell

John Calvert is better known as a magician, still at it when he died at 102, than as a movie star. But anybody with Mark Of The Whistler (1944) in their list of credits is OK by me.

Gold Fever (1952) is a cheap little Monogram Western — which for many of us, is all the recommendation we need. It was written by, produced by, and starring Calvert. The female lead, Ann Cornell, was his wife. Ralph Morgan is, well, Ralph Morgan — a character actor who did a ton of pictures like Hitler’s Madman (1943) and The Monster Maker (1944). Director Leslie Goodwins did tons of TV after years doing shorts and stuff like The Mummy Curse (1944). And it’s coming soon from Warner Archive.

And dig that poster art!

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The Persuader (1957).

Directed by Dick Ross
Screenplay by Curtis Kenyon

Cast: William Talman (Matt/Mark Bonham), James Craig (Brick Justin), Kristine Miller (Kathryn Bonham), Darryl Hickman (Toby Bonham), Georgia Lee (Cora Nicklin), Alvy Moore (Willy Williams), Gregory Walcott (Jim Cleary), John Milford (Clint)

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With the passing of Reverend Billy Graham this week, I was reminded of The Persuader (1957), a Western from World Wide Pictures, part of Billy Graham’s ministry. It’s a picture I heard about very early in my plummet into the bottomless pit of 50s Westerns, and it wasn’t easy (or cheap) to track down an old VHS copy.

What turned up in my mailbox was an interesting, low-budget picture (distributed by Allied Artists) with a good cast. William Talman plays twin brothers, one a homesteader, the other a minister. When the farmer Talman’s gunned down by the usual evil cattle baron’s gang, the preacher Talman is left to make things right.

From the opening: “Into this violent land came one Mathew Bonham, a fighting preacher man. He walked tall with a bible in one hand, and the Law in the other. He was quick on the draw with the Good Book. And his word had more power than a Colt 45!”

It’s an earnest movie, and Talman’s really good in it. (Remember him in Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker?) And while it’s certainly a religious movie, The Persuader works as a Western, too. It’s no Hellfire (1949), of course, but what is?

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