Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Phantom Ranger (1938, directed by Sam Newfield)

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Treasury agent Pat Doyle (John St. Polis) is sent to investigate a counterfeiting ring in Wyoming but ends up getting kidnapped by gang leader Sharpe (Karl Hackett) instead.  With Doyle’s daughter, Joan (Suzanne Kaaren), demanding that the government rescue her father and generating all sorts of bad publicity for the Secret Service, the decision is made to send in Tim Hayes (Tim McCoy).  Hayes, who will be working undercover, is selected because he’s not a “city boy.”  He’s a cowboy, through and through.  If you want to tame the west, you have to send a cowboy.

Phantom Ranger is a low-budget, 56-minute western from Monogram Pictures.  The plot is nothing special but the film itself still interesting because it’s a western that takes place in the 1930s.  Tim Hayes may ride a horse and wear a cowboy hat but he also works in a Washington D.C. office building and he interacts with a woman dressed like a flapper.  In this movie, the frontier has not caught up with the modern world but the modern world has also forgotten what life is like away from civilization.

The movie has the usual collection of B-western stalwarts.  Karl Hackett, John Merton, Charles King, Frank Ellis, Herman Hack, and Horace B. Carpenter are all present and accounted for.  Tim McCoy, a former rodeo performer and army officer, plays the hero and brings a lot of natural authority to the role.  McCoy was not only one of the first western heroes but he was also one of the best.

There’s no phantoms to be found in Phantom Ranger.  It’s still a good western.

The Nevada Buckaroo (1931, directed by John P. McCarthy)

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When the population of a small frontier town all sign a petition asking that the governor name their town the new county seat, the petition is stolen by outlaw Cherokee (George “Gabby” Hayes).  Cherokee substitutes a different petition requesting a pardon for a member of his gang, The Nevada Kid (Bob Steele).

The Nevada Kid gets his pardon, is released from prison, and returns to the town.  No one is happy to see him, even though he says that he has changed his ways.  Even if the pardon was gotten through illicit means (which the Nevada Kid himself knew nothing about), the Kid still says that he’s going to take advantage of his second chance.  When Chereokee and the gang start to demand that the Nevada Kid once again work with them, Nevada gets his chance to show whether or not he’s really left being an outlaw behind.

I never expect much from these Poverty Row westerns but The Nevada Buckaroo, despite having not a great title, is actually pretty good.  A very young-looking Bob Steele gives a good performance as the Nevada Kid and George Hayes show that, before he became everyone’s favorite sidekick, he was capable of being a very intimidating actor.  The movie actually has something to say about trust, community, and second chances.

I don’t know much about director John P. McCarthy and I think this is the first of his films that I’ve seen.  He and cinematographer Faxon M. Dean put together a film that looks infinitely better than the average B-western.  That was obvious with even the grainy print that I watched.  The final shot, of the Nevada Kid riding into the sunset, is a perfect western image.

Gun Packer (1938, directed by Wallace Fox)

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Someone is holding up stages and making off with a fortune of gold bullion.  The government decides to send in a gun packer.  Jack Denton (Jack Randall), the son of a legendary lawman, is sent to investigate, along with his sidekick Pinkie (Ray Turner) and Rusty the Wonder Horse.  Jack goes undercover, telling an elderly ex-con (Barlowe Borland) that he’s a former partner of his, which leads Jack to the leader of the robbers, Chance Moore (Charles King).

There are a lot of familiar faces in this western.  Not only does Charles King play yet another villain but Glenn Strange shows up in his customary role as the town sheriff.  Lloyd Ingraham, Forrest Taylor, Victor Adamson, George Hazel, Dave O’Brien, and Tex Palmer all have roles.  It’s interesting that the same actors showed up in these movies and almost always seemed to be playing the same roles.  The only thing that changed was the hero.  In this case, it’s Jack Randall, who may not have been a great actor but who was a believable western hero.  His sidekick here is Ray Turner, a black actor who began his career during the silent era and who had a long career in the westerns.  While Turner plays a subordinate character, the role still avoids a lot (though not all) of the demeaning racial stereotypes that were very common in most films from the 1930s.  Jack treats Pinky with respect and they’re clearly friends outside of work.  That may not sound like a lot but it was a big deal for a 1938 Poverty Row western.

The real hero here is Rusty the Wonder Horse.  Rusty’s best scene?  Jack, needing to climb a mountain, calls for Rusty to drop his lariat.  Jack grabs the rope and Rusty pulls him up.  Rusty truly earns the right to be called a wonder horse.

Music Video of the Day: Touch of Grey by Grateful Dead (1987, directed by Gary Gutierrez)

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Rest in Peace to Bob Weir.  A founding member of the Grateful Dead, Weir passed away yesterday at the age of 78.

Today’s music video of the day was also the Grateful Dead’s first.  Touch of Grey introduced the Dead to the MTV generation and caused a notable rise in the band’s popularity.  The shots of the audience were taken from a Dead show in Monterey, California.  The scenes with marionettes were filmed at Laguna Seca Raceway.  Director Gary Gutierrez was a longtime associate of the band who had previously created the animation sequences for The Grateful Dead Movie.

Enjoy!

Man’s Country (1938, directed by Robert F. Hill)

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When his innocent son, Ted (David Sharpe), is accused of committing a murder, Lex Crane (Walter Long) turns him over to Texas Ranger Jack Haile (Jack Randall) because he knows that Jack will make sure that Ted gets a fair trial.  Lex says that he and his men are accused of every crime that happens in the area, even though they’re always innocent.  Jack understand and respects Lex as a man and a father.  But when someone shoots and kills Ted, Lex and his men set out for revenge.  The twist?  Lex has a twin brother named Buck (also played by Walter Long) and the two brothers hate each other.

Most poverty row westerns blend into each other but Man’s Country stands out as an intelligent and well-acted western.  Even though the twin twist is undoubtedly an overdone one, Man’s Country does a good job with it and Walter Long gives such a good performance that both Lex and Buck emerge as individual, identifiable characters.  Jack Randall may not have been the greatest of the old western actors but he’s believable as the tough but fair Texas Ranger.  There’s enough western action for fans of the genre but, for once, the plot is interesting enough that it might hold the attention of other watchers as well.

Of course, this is a Poverty Row western so Charles King does appear as one of the bad guys.  He gets into a fist fight, like he almost always did.  I wonder how many onscreen punches Charles King actually threw over the course of his career in the westerns.  It had to have been a lot.

Music Video of the Day: One More Time by Rod Stewart (2021, directed by ????)

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Today is Rod Stewart’s 81st  birthday and today’s music video of the day is One More Time, taken from his 32nd studio album, The Tears of Hercules.  Appearing with Stewart in this video are his actual backup singers, Amanda Miller, Holly Brewer, and Becca Kotte.

Rod Stewart holds the record for being the artist featured most frequently during MTV’s first day of broadcast.  On August 1st, 1981, MTV featured eleven of his videos.

Enjoy!

Boss Cowboy (1934, directed by Victor Adamson)

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Boss Cowboy takes place in the 30s but it’s very much a western.  One car shows up and telephone poles dot the countryside but almost everyone in the movie rides a horse.  The Nolans and the Rosses are two ranching families.  Both families are losing cattle.  Nolan foreman Dick Taylor (Buddy Roosevelt) suspects that the culprit is the Ross foreman, Jack Kearns (George Cheseboro) and he’s right.  Kearns is ripping off both families.  Complicating Taylor’s effort to stop Kearns are his romantic feelings towards Mary Ross (Frances Morris), who is visiting from “back east.”  Sally Nolan (Fay McKenzie) is also visiting and running joke is her handing off her small dog to a ranch hand named Slim (Alan Holbrook).

No apparent relation to either Teddy or FDR, Buddy Roosevelt was a respected stunt man who tried his hand at starring in a few westerns,  Unfortunately, Buddy Roosevelt wasn’t much of an actor, which is painfully apparent while watching him in Boss Cowboy.  He’s fine when he’s riding a horse and pulling a gun but when he has to speak, it’s difficult to watch.  As bad as Buddy Roosevelt’s acting was, he was not the worst actor in Boss Cowboy.  That honor was split between Frances Morris and Fay McKenzie.  Boss Cowboy is pretty dull.  Every scene drags and there are plenty of awkward silences while the cast tries to remember their lines.

Though he wasn’t much of an actor, Buddy Roosevelt remained in a demand as a stunt man throughout the 40s.  In the 50s and 60s, he was kept busy playing townsmen in shows like The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.  In 1962, he made his final film appearance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.  He then retired to Colorado, where he did at age of 75 in 1973.  In all, his Hollywood career spanned 46 years, from 1916 to 1962.

 

Knight of the Plains (1938, directed by Sam Newfield)

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Clem Peterson (Richard Cramer) has a plot to force all of the ranchers in the valley to give up their land.  He gives a phony land claim to Carson (John Merton), who presents himself as being a Mexican nobleman.  In a situation like this, you need a singing cowboy and luckily, there’s one nearby.  Fred (Fred Scott) and Fuzzy (Al St. John) get involved after their cattle are stolen by Clem and his men.  Fred not only fights to save the ranchers but he also sings a song or two.

Singing cowboy films are always strange.  Cowboys who ride horses and pull guns and get into fistfights should not also be tenors.  Fred Scott looks convincing on a horse and he has one heck of a fistfight towards the end of the movie but he’ll also start singing at the drop of a hat and it just doesn’t feel right.  John Wayne did a few singing cowboy films early in his career and he could usually pull it off.  Fred Scott wasn’t much of an actor and had a forgettable screen presence.  He had a good voice, though.

This film was produced by Stan Laurel, of Laurel and Hardy fame.  Always read those credits.  You never know who you might find.

Camouflage (2000, directed by James Keach)

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It’s strange to hear Leslie Nielsen drop an F bomb.

That was my main though I watched Camouflage.  Leslie Nielsen plays a hard-boiled private detective named Jack Potter who reluctantly takes on an apprentice named Matty McKenzie (Lochlyn Munro).  Mostly to get Matty, a failed stage actor, out of his hair, Jack sends him to handle a minor case in the small town of Beaver Ridge.  The minor case becomes a major case when it becomes clear that a murder is being planned.

Camouflage starts out like a typical Leslie Nielsen mockbuster, with Nielsen providing a ridiculous, Frank Drebin-style narration.  But the film itself develops into a dark comedy where Matty finds himself in a small town where everyone’s got secret.  Nielsen gives an almost-serious performance as Potter, playing him as a cynic with a tragic backstory and little patience for his protegee.  There’s a tonal imbalance between the moments of broad comedy and the more serious moments and the film doesn’t work as a result but it is interesting to see a post-Airplane! Leslie Nielsen playing things relatively straight.

One interesting thing about Camouflage is that it was written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson but, in the final cut, the screenplay is credited to Reginald Perry.  (The small town setting is one that Thornton used frequently in his scripts and it’s easy to imagine him playing the role of Jack Potter in alternate version of this film.)  Camouflage reportedly sat on the shelf for quite a while before it was finally given a release and Nielsen’s narration often feels like it was something that was added in post-production to try to both bring the disjointed film together and to draw in the Naked Gun fans.  I have a feeling the story behind this film is probably more interesting than the film itself.

North of the Border (1946, directed by B. Reeves Eason)

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Rancher Bob “Utah” Neyes (Russell Hayden) heads into Canada to meet up with his business partner.  Unfortunately, his partner has been murdered by outlaw Nails Nelson (Douglas Fowley).  Mountie Jack Craig (Lyle Talbot) almost arrests Utah for the crime but he becomes convinced that Utah is innocent and Nails is guilty.  Along with fur trader Ivy Jenkins (I. Stanford Jolley), Craig and Utah try to break up Nails’s fur-smuggling operation.

While I was watching it, I thought this movie seemed even more familiar than the usual Poverty Row western.  I realized that’s because I had actually seen Russell Hayden and most of the rest of the cast in another movie that had a similar plot, right down taking place on the other side of the border.  That other movie was called ‘Neath Canadian Skies.  Both it and North of the Border are among the four Canadian western films that Robert Lippert produced in 1946, all of which starred Russell Hayden and were directed by B. Reeves Easton.  Supposedly, it took 20 days to shoot all of them.

As for North of the Border, it’s only 42 minutes long and none of those minutes are wasted.  There’s all of the usual horse chases and gunfights that fans want from these films.  For me, the most interesting thing about the film was getting to see Lyle Talbot play something other than a boring authority figure.  Also, this film features Inez Cooper, a pretty redhead who had a short career but whose beauty and personality as well-remembered by fans of Poverty Row westerns.  She plays the love interest in this one and there’s no doubt that most men would give up living in Utah for her.