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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DVD/Blu-Ray News #343: Taggart (1964).

Directed by R. G. Springsteen
Starring Tony Young, Dan Duryea, Dick Foran, Elsa Cárdenas, Jean Hale, Emile Meyer, David Carradine, Ray Teal, Harry Carey, Jr.

Gordon Kay produced the last batch of Audie Murphy Westerns at Universal International, along with a few other pictures like Taggart (1964). It’s got a great cast, with Dick Foran, Ray Teal and Harry Carey, Jr. supporting Tony Young and the great Dan Duryea. This was David Carradine’s first film. It was based on a Louis L’Amour novel. R. G. Springsteen directed, and he would direct a number of the A.C. Lyles Westerns over at Paramount. These films carried the 50s Western torch into the 60s.

Explosive Media is bringing Taggart to DVD and Blu-Ray in August, part of a summer full of terrific Universal International Westerns. They’ll be Region Free, folks, so order away!

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Talking One-Eyed Jacks On The “Robert Bellissimo At The Movies” Podcast.

Just finished this up. What a blast. Click on the image to check it out.

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DVD News #308: Forth Worth (1951)

Directed by Edwin L. Marin
Starring Randolph Scott, David Brian, Phyllis Thaxter, Helena Carter, Dickie Jones, Ray Teal, Michael Tolan, Paul Picerni, Emerson Treacy, Bob Steele, Walter Sande, Chubby Johnson

Warner Archive has been righting a few wrongs lately, bringing some pictures back to DVD that’ve been missing for a while. One of the latest to be announced is Edwin Marin’s Fort Worth (1951). (Click the lobby card for the Warner Archive link.)

It’s a pretty good one, with a great cast and gorgeous Technicolor photography from Sid Hickox. It was the seventh Western Scott and Marin did together. It was also the last, with the director passing away a couple months before it opened. (Wish a Blu-Ray was also on the way.)

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Montana Belle (1952).

Directed by Allan Dawn
Produced by Howard Welsch
Screen Play by Horace McCoy & Norman S. Hall
Story by M. Coates Webster & Howard Welsch
Director Of Photography: Jack Marta
Film Editor: Arthur Roberts
Special Effects: Howard & Theodore Lydecker
Music by Nathan Scott

Cast: Jane Russell (Belle Starr), George Brent (Tom Bradfield), Scott Brady (Bob Dalton), Forrest Tucker (Mac), Andy Devine (Pete Bivins), Jack Lambert (Ringo), John Litel (Matt Towner), Ray Teal (Emmett Dalton), Rory Mallinson (Grat Dalton), Mike Ragan (Ben Dalton), Roy Barcroft (Jim Clark), Glenn Strange, George Chesebro, Iron Eyes Cody

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That photo of Jane Russell’s gorgeous Mercedes prompted me to revisit Allan Dwan’s Montana Belle (1952), which I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while.

I really like Jane Russell. She made some really cool movies, including Son Of Paleface (1952), one of my all-time favorites. She didn’t take herself too seriously, didn’t take any crap from Howard Hughes (or anybody else, it seems) and wasn’t afraid to be who she was. Plus, she drove that car!

In late October and November, 1948 — the same year she appeared in The Paleface, Russell made Montana Belle. It was produced by Howard Welsch for his Fidelity Pictures. Welsch had an arrangement with Republic to use their facilities, standard crew (such as DP Jack Marta) and Trucolor. Allan Dwan, who was directed pictures for Republic at the time, signed on. Republic would handle distribution.

Detail from a Serbin Golfer ad, promoting Montana Belle as a Republic picture.

In April of ’49, Welsch sold the completed Montana Belle to RKO for $875,000 — he and Republic split about $225,000 in profits. Then, the picture fell victim to the typical RKO/Howard Hughes weirdness. It was released by RKO in November of 1952, a full four years after Dwan shot it.

The story has Belle Starr (Russell) involved with the Dalton gang, then forming her own outlaw band, and finally giving it all up for the love of a saloon owner (George Brent). Along the way, Jane impersonates a fella and dons a blonde wig to pass as a saloon singer and gambler.

Montana Belle is at its best when all the riding, robbing and shooting’s going on — well directed by Dwan and captured in Trucolor by Jack Marta (would love to see this get the restoration other Trucolor pictures have received lately).

Jane Russell isn’t as comfortable in front of the camera as she’d later become, with pictures like Macao and Son Of Paleface (both 1952), but she handles herself pretty well here. George Brent has an interesting part, or maybe he makes the part interesting. And the rest of the cast is made up of real veterans at this kind of stuff: Scott Brady, Forrest Tucker, Andy Devine, Jack Lambert, Ray Teal, Roy Barcroft and Iron Eyes Cody. Dwan and Brady would later do another overlooked little 50s Western, The Restless Breed (1957).

Montana Belle is available overseas in a PAL DVD that I’ll bet looks pretty crummy. Since it’s officially an RKO picture, it’s not part of the Republic stash over at Paramount. With Allan Dwan getting a much-deserved mini-reappraisal in recent years, it’d sure be great to see this one get a decent DVD, or better yet Blu-Ray, release. It’s no classic, but it’s easy to recommend it anyway.

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