Black Hills (1947, directed by Ray Taylor)

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Times are hard and rancher John Hadley (Steve Clark) is running the risk of losing his ranch. When Hadley finds gold on his property, he think that all of his problems have been solved. He makes the mistake of revealing the existence of the gold to his friend, Terry Frost (Dan Kirby). Terry’s not much of a friend because he shoots and kills Hadley and then, working with a corrupt county clerk (William Fawcett), he tries to steal Hadley’s property away from the rancher’s children and rightful heirs.

Luckily, singing cowboy Eddie Dean (played by real-life singing cowboy Eddie Dean) rides up and, with the help of his comic relief sidekick (Roscoe Ates), helps to get things sorted out. Even with Terry trying to frame Eddie for a murder he didn’t commit, Eddie still finds time to sing a few songs.

This was Eddie Dean’s final feature film before he moved into television. Black Hills is better than Romance of the West, the Eddie Dean movie that I reviewed yesterday. The plot actually has a few interesting twists and, though it doesn’t appear that he was ever much of an actor, Eddie Dean appears to be more comfortable with his role here than he was in Romance of the West. Black Hills emphasizes that Eddie could throw a punch just as well as he could sing and veteran western actor Dan Kirby is a credible villain. It makes Black Hills into an entertaining if not exactly memorable western diversion.

One final note about Black Hills: Eddie’s horse, White Cloud, gets second billing in the credits.

Romance of the West (1946, directed by Robert Emmett Tansey)

Posted on January 19, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

In California’s Antelope Valley, the local Indian tribe lives peacefully alongside the recently arrived white settlers. However, some of the settlers want to end that peace and deliberately try to provoke the Indians into raiding a nearby town. When the Indian village is attacked and a young boy is turned into an orphan, the tribe prepares or war. It falls on the new Indian agent, a singing cowboy named Eddie Dean (played by real-life singing cowboy Eddie Dean) to capture the real culprits and maintain peace in Antelope Valley.

Romance of the West was the first of many films that Eddie Dean made in which he played a character named Eddie Dean. Dean had a good singing voice and an amiable screen presence but he was also a pretty stiff actor. That’s particularly obvious in Romance of the West, where he breaks out into a huge grin whenever he has to deliver any of his dialogue. Even when he talks about something as serious as finding a home for an orphan, he still smiles like someone who has found a month’s worth of moonshine. With the exception of Forest Tucker (who plays a sympathetic priest), the rest of the cast isn’t much better. Eddie looks convincing in a gunfight and on a horse but whenever he has to speak or show emotion, the action comes to a halt.

Compared to other westerns of the period, Romance of the West is sympathetic to the Indians, with Dean speaking up for them every chance he gets and telling one bad guy that the Indians are more American than he’ll ever be. But the movie also features a lot of scenes of the Indians speaking in exaggerated broken English. After an Indian child is orphaned, Eddie refuses the chief’s offer to raise the child, saying that it would be better that the child go to the church orphanage so he “can be raised right.” The film should be commended for rejecting the “savage” stereotype but then it goes too far in other direction, portraying the Natives as being almost child-like and without any agency of their own. Always, it falls on Eddie Dean to explain things to everyone and hold together the fragile peace.

Seen today, the most interesting thing about Romance of the West is that it was shot in color, at a time when that was a rare occurrence. Unfortunately, Eddie Dean was just as boring in color as he was in black-and-white.

On a final note, the singing cowboy genre has always been a strange one to me. Did no one in the old west find it strange that men were riding through the wilderness and singing songs of love to their horses? For some reason, singing cowboys were always appointed to positions of importance, like town marshal or Indian agent. Were people that impressed by a banjo?

The Bravos (1972, directed by Ted Post)

Posted on January 18, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Major John David Harkness (George Peppard) is the commander of Fort Bravo, a small and ill-equipped frontier fort. Despite having only 77 soldiers and not many supplies, Harkness has managed to keep an uneasy peace between the local Indian tribes and the settlers who move through the area. The peace, however, is disturbed when an arrogant wagon master (Pernell Roberts) kills the son of the tribal chief.

That’s not all that Harkness has to worry about. A German outlaw (Bo Svenson) is hiding out at the camp. His head scout (L.Q. Jones) suspects that something is forcing the local tribes out of the area. Two settlers from Missouri (played by Barry Brown and Belinda Montgomery) are at the fort and trying to decide whether they should continue westward or return to Missouri. Finally, Harkness’s 12 year-old son, Peter (Vincent Van Patten), has been expelled from his New England boarding school and is being sent to Fort Bravo to live with his father. When Major Harkness refuses to turn the wagon master over to the Indians, they kidnap his son instead.

The Bravos was made for television and originally aired on ABC in 1972. It was apparently meant to serve as the pilot for a television series, one that would have followed the daily adventures of the Major, his son, and all of the men at Fort Bravo (who were played by television mainstays like Dana Elcar, Randolph Mantooth, and George Murdock.) For all intents and purposes, Pernell Roberts, Bo Svenson, Belinda Montgomery, and Barry Brown are all “special guest stars” and are meant to serve as examples of the type of television-friendly actors who would visit Fort Bravo on a weekly basis. That the pilot didn’t lead to a series isn’t surprising. TV westerns may have dominated the ratings in the 50s and the 60s but they quickly went out of fashion in the 70s as networks realized that they could make more money selling ad space for Norman Lear sitcoms and cop shows. In the 70s, the people that advertisers were wanting to reach were watching Archie Bunker and Starsky and Hutch, not George Peppard.

Because of its TV origins, The Bravos is a fairly bland western. It would be a few years before George Peppard would reinvent himself as a grizzled character actor and he’s sincere but fairly dull here. Pernell Roberts is more effective as the headstrong wagon master and perhaps The Bravos would have worked better if Roberts and Peppard had switched roles. In the end, the main reason to see the film is for the chance to see L.Q. Jones play a heroic role for once. A member of Sam Peckinpah’s stock company, Jones brings some authentic grit to his role as the fort’s only scout. Jones played a lot of villains but I always preferred him as one of the good guys.

The Bravos ends with a few major subplots unresolved. Maybe they would have been resolved during the show’s first season but it was not to be.

Desolation Canyon (2006, directed by David Cass)

Posted on January 17, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

After robbing a bank in a small western town, an outlaw stops by the home of his estranged wife and takes his own son hostage. The town’s aging sheriff (Patrick Duffy) teams with the boy’s grandfather (Stacy Keach) to take the outlaw down and save the child’s life. Accompanying them is the bank president, Edwin Bornstein (David Rees Snell). Edwin may be a city boy who talks about how much he’s always wanted to say “I reckon,” but it turns out that there’s more to him than meets the eye. He’s also good with a gun.

I probably should have given up on Desolation Canyon as soon as I saw that it was a “Hallmark Presents” film but I like westerns and Stacy Keach has always done well whenever he’s been cast as a gunslinger so I decided to give it a try. Starting with a bank robbery and endings with a duel, Desolation Canyon is about as old-fashioned as an old-fashioned western can be. Because it was made by Hallmark, there’s nothing dangerous or edgy about the film. A few people do get shot but there’s no blood. The shoot outs in Red Dead Redemption are more violent and suspenseful than anything to be found in this film. (Of course, that’s because most of the shootouts in Red Dead Redemption occur because the play pushed the wrong button while trying to greet someone. I still feel bad for accidentally shooting the kindly old homesteader who just wanted someone to help him collect some flowers for his wife.) This is the type of western that you can safely watch with your grandparents, since that’s who the film was made for. That’s not bad because grandparents need movies to but if you’re looking for a complex or an unpredictable western in the style of a Larry McMurtry novel or a later Eastwood film, I reckon this ain’t it.

Giving some credit where credit is due, Stacy Keach, David Rees Snell, and even Patrick Duffy are credible in their roles. Stacy Keach is especially convincing a former gunfighter who can still outdraw anyone. Stacy Keach is 81 years old and still working. Someone needs to write a great Stacy Keach role and they need to do it now.

Great Moments In Television History #12: NBC Airs The First Football Game

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Today, everyone takes at least three things for granted: television, football, and football on television.

However, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time when television was a novelty and the idea of watching a game on television while it was being played was nearly unheard of. The first televised football game didn’t involve any of the teams in what would eventually become the NFL. Instead, it was a college game between Fordham and Waynesburg. It was played on September 30th, 1939.

The game was aired on NBC, as part of an experiment to see whether or not a game could actually be carried live over the air. The game was called by Bill Stern, a radio announcer who was famous for embellishing the action on the field while he was calling it. Unfortunately, since no footage of the game appears to still exist, no one knows if he attempted to embellish the action that was being televised.

All in all, NBC spent $100,000 to show the game. What was the size of the audience for the very first televised football game? It was speculated that 500 to 1.000 people watched the game on television! In 1939, with television still a luxury for most people, that was enough to convince NBC that sports and television could go together. 82 years later, it appears that NBC was right.

Incidentally, Fordham beat Waynesburg, 34-7.

Previous Great Moments In Television History:

Great Moments In Comic Book History #16: Alex Ross Captures Galactus In All His Glory

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Galactus has always been one of my favorite Marvel characters and it’s a shame that his only film appearance was botched in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Now that the Fantastic Four are once again free to be a part of the MCU, my sincere hope is that we’ll get a worthy Galactus film. If Marvel Studios could bring Thanos to life, why not the Planet-Eater?

Below is Galactus (and the Silver Surfer) as imagined by Alex Ross. All four of these images are from Marvels #3 (March 1994) and they really capture Galactus in all of his glory.

Hopefully, the next time Galactus appeared in a film, he’ll be as impressive as he was here.

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Space Rage (1985, directed by Conrad E. Palmisano)

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Space Rage is a mix of science fiction and the old west.

In what the movie insists is the far future, a sadistic and notorious criminal named Grange (Michael Pare) is a captured after robbing the Bank of the Moon. As his punishment, he’s sent to a prison planet called Botany Bay. Despite the name, the entire prison is a desert. (Maybe they named it after the doomed colony from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.) The prison is run by Gov. Tovah (William Windom), who uses the prisoners as slave labor in his mines. Grange doesn’t want to work as a miner so he plots his escape. There’s only one shuttle that goes from Botany Bay to Earth and Grange plans to be in control of it.

Two men are determined to stop Grange and his partners from escaping the planet. Walker (John Laughlin) is a young bounty hunter who is haunted by he death of his wife. The Colonel (Richard Farnsworth) is a former policeman who is haunted by nightmares of his time on Earth. Working together, the inexperienced Walker and the crusty, old Colonel try to thwart Grange’s plans. Grange has an itchy trigger finger and is willing to kill anyone to get what he wants. Grange may be quick on the draw but the Colonel might be even quicker.

Space Rage starts out as a western before becoming a prison film before then concluding as a Mad Max rip-off, with everyone chasing each other through the desert in intergalactic dune buggies. The movie is only 75 minutes long but due to a repetitive soundtrack and some less than inspired dialogue, it often feels longer. The Botany Bay is too obviously Southern California to be an effective setting and neither Michael Pare nor John Laughlin seem to be invested in their roles. Not surprisingly, the film’s greatest strength is Richard Farnsworth, playing another no-nonsense veteran tough guy and doing what a man has to do to keep Earth safe. His presence alone does not make Space Rage worth watching but it definitely helps. It’s a good thing he was out there looking out for us.

Game Review: Second Wind (2021, Matthew Warner)

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Society has collapsed. Biological warfare has changed the majority of humans into werewolves. Those who have not been infected live in locked-down shelters. You live in Shelter 5, with your second wife Lorraine. You used to live in Shelter 4 with your first wife, Wendy. Wendy kicked you out after she found out that you were cheating on her with Lorraine. Things have been tense ever since.

Now, Lorraine’s pregnant. The midwife has told you that the delivery is not going as planned. A C-section has to be performed to save the lives of both Lorraine and the baby. (With humanity nearly wiped out, the survival of your baby could give hope to those few who remain.) You have to get a doctor but that means making you way across the desert wasteland and the ruined city to Shelter 4. Not only do you have to save the life of your second wife but you’re going to have to convince your first wife to help you do it. You only have a few hours to make it and all of the shelter’s hoverbikers are damaged beyond use. Best of luck!

Second Wind is an interactive fiction game for adults. The stakes are real. The puzzles require thought. Your mistakes have consequences. Puzzles are usually my great downfall when it comes interactive fiction. Timed challenges are my second greatest downfall. As you can probably guess, I had to play Second Wind a few times before I got anything close to a good ending and, even then, it was only as good as any ending can be when the world’s gone to Hell in a bucket without anyone even enjoying the ride. But the challenge made the eventual success even more rewarding. When playing a game like Second Wind, the best advice would be to remember that using google is not the same as cheating and that Occam’s Razor is your friend. It also helps to take notes because a lot of the game’s puzzles depend on remembering numbers and then inputting them into the keypads necessary to enter the shelters.

I dug Second Wind. It’s better-written than most and the descriptions are so vivid that you’ll feel like you’re in that apocalyptic desert, trying to make your way back home. And if you really do get lost, there is a walk-through that explains the puzzles without leaving you feeling too ashamed for not being able to figure them out for yourself.

Play Second Wind.

Ring of Terror (1961, directed by Clark L. Paylow)

Posted on January 15, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Whilst stumbling around his office in a drunken daze, graveyard keeper R.J. Dobson (Joseph Conway) accidentally steps on his cat’s tail. The cat runs out of the office. Dobson stumbles after it. Dobson eventually finds the cat sitting by a grave in the cemetery. Dobson picks the cat up and starts to tell it (or maybe the people watching at home), the story behind the tombstone.

Lewis B. Moffit (George E. Mather) was a med student who had a reputation for not being scared of anything. He killed a rattlesnake without a second’s hesitation. He didn’t flinch while watching an autopsy. For some reason, this upsets his frat brothers so they decide to pull a prank on him to see how brave he really is. As a part of his initiation, Lewis has to break into the mortuary and retrieve a gold ring off of a corpse’s finger. Of course, the prank goes wrong and there are serious consequences to Lewis’s sanity.

Ring of Terror is based on the old urban legend in which a promising but tightly wound college student is either killed or driven mad by a thoughtless fraternity prank. Ring of Terror doesn’t really add anything to the basic story. The only thing that distinguishes it is that all of the college students are played by middle-aged actors so they all seem as if they should have graduated from college and outgrown the frat life a long time ago. George E. Mather was in his 40s when he starred in this film so even if the prank hadn’t broken his mind and he had graduated from medical school, he wouldn’t have had a very long practice.

The story would feel slight for even a 30-minute episode of The Twilight Zone so the director tries to pad out Ring of Terror with a visit to a “swinging” jazz club (and I use the term swinging loosely because there ain’t swinging about that joint), an autopsy, and, of course, those scenes in the cemetery with RJ and his cat. The padding doesn’t help make the story any more intersting but the autopsy scene is at least amusing. Because all of the college students are played by middle-aged actors and are wearing suits, the scene really does look as if a group of wall street brokers decided to spend their lunch hour in the hospital basement. It’s like the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and Kramer observe an operation and accidentally drop a junior mint in the patient’s chest cavity.

Today, Ring of Terror is best known for being featured on an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. (It was actually such a short movie that it had to be paired up with the third chapter of The Phantom Creeps serial.) I’ve seen both the original version and the version with Joel and the Bots and the MST 3K way is the best way to watch this movie. Without Joel and the Bots, it’s so slow and poorly acted that it is nearly unwatchable. With Joel and the Bots, there’s at least a few laughs to be found.

The Doolins of Oklahoma (1949, directed by Gordon Douglas)

Posted on January 14, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

Randolph Scott stars in The Doolins of Oklahoma, a fictionalized account of the career of the real-life western outlaw, Bill Doolin.

Doolin (played, naturally, by Randolph Scott) may have once rode with the fearsome Dalton Brothers but, according to this film, he was actually just an ordinary, salt of the Earth type who wanted to settle down with the right woman and lead a normal life. It looks like he might get that opportunity after the Daltons are killed and Doolin tires of leading his own gang of outlaws. Doolin settles in a Oklahoma town, takes a new name, and falls in love with Elaine (Virginia Hutton). But when both the members of his old gang and a veteran lawman (George Macready) show up in town, Doolin learns that the past cannot be escaped.

The plot of The Doolins of Oklahoma is nothing special, though it’s portrayal of the outlaws being more honorable than law enforcement may have been surprising in 1949. The main thing that distinguishes The Doolins of Oklahoma is the cast, which is full of western veterans like John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr., Charles Kemper, Frank Fenton, and Jock Mahoney. Not surprisingly Randolph Scott is ideally cast as a weary cowboy who just wants to settle down and live the rest of his life in peace. Scott is well-matched by MacReady, as the marshal who will not let anything stand in the way doing his duty as a member of law enforcement. Gordon Douglas directs crisply and energetically and every member of the main cast gets at least one big moment in which to distinguish themselves. The Doolins of Oklahoma may not be a groundbreaking film but it will be enjoyed by fans of the western genre.