Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

The Apache Kid’s Escape (1930, directed by Robert J. Horner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In the old west, the Apache Kid (Jack Perrin) has decided to go straight because his own mother refuses to accept the stolen money that he sends home.  Unfortunately, other outlaws, like Buck Harris (Bud Osborne), continue to break the law while wearing the Apache Kid’s trademark checkered scarf so the Apache Kid still has a posse after him.

Using the alias Jim, the Kid gets a job working at a local ranch.  Ranch hand Ted Conway (Fred Church) is looking forward to marrying Jane Wilson (Josephine Hill), the daughter of the ranch’s owner.  Ted’s father, Frank (Henry Roquemore), wants Jane for himself so he reveals that Ted is actually adopted and no one knows who his real parents are.  Jane’s father (Horace B. Carpenter) announces that the wedding is canceled.  So, Ted decides to take on the identity of the Apache Kid and rob a stagecoach.  After Ted is arrested, Jim has to return to his old ways to help Ted get out of jail.

The Apache Kid’s Escape is a 47-minute poverty row western that is remembered for being one of the first westerns to feature recorded sound.  Unfortunately, the movie sounds terrible, with a steady hum in the background and all of the actors speaking slowly, loudly, and very precisely while awkwardly trying not to look straight at the camera.  Everyone noticeably hesitates before speaking, as if waiting for the director to give them the signal to go.  With all of the humans struggling to speak, the film’s best performance comes from Starlight the Horse, who is a natural star.  Jack Perrin went on to have an active career in B-westerns so maybe he learned how to handle acting with sound.

This was the only film to feature Perrin as the Apache Kid and it’s easy to see why.  The plot doesn’t even try to make sense.  If Jim wants to escape being the Apache Kid, he should be happy that so many other people are willing to take over the role for him.  Perrin is also stuck wearing a really big hat, which makes him look more like a Blazing Saddles extra than a cowboy star.

There were a lot of bad westerns made during the early days of the sound era.  The Apache Kid’s Escape might be the worst.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Leon Isaac Kennedy Edition

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.

With today’s edition of 4 Shots From 4 Films, we wish a very happy birthday to the one and only Leon Isaac Kennedy!  Born in 1949, Leon Isaac Kennedy was working as a successful disc jockey by the time he turned 17.  (He was known as Leon the Lover.)  Kennedy went on to achieve cult fame by starring as prison boxer Too Sweet in the Penitentiary films, along with appearing opposite Muhammad Ali in Body and Soul and Chuck Norris in Lone Wolf McQuade.  Kennedy, who turns 77 today, has retired from acting and became an evangelist in the 90s.

4 Shots From 4 Leon Isaac Kennedy Films:

Death Force (1978, directed by Cirio H. Santiago)

Body and Soul (1981, directed by George Bowers)

Lone Wolf McQuade (1983, directed by Steve Carver)

Penitentary III (1987, directed by Jamaa Fanaka)

Music Video of the Day: The Heart of Rock & Roll by Huey Lewis and the News (1983, directed by Edd Griles)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Huey Lewis and the News don’t get the respect they deserve and no, that Patrick Bateman monologue doesn’t count.

The Heart of Rock & Roll was inspired by a gig that the band played in Cleveland.  Before the performance, Lewis felt that the band’s hometown of San Francisco had the world’s best rock music fans but, after being greeted by an enthusiastic crowd in Cleveland, he realized that there were true rock and roll fans all over America.  “The heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland,” Huey said but when it came time to write the song, it was decided that “still beating” sounded better.

(The band actually directed several regional versions of the song.  If you heard the song on the radio in Maryland, Huey included a shout-out to Baltimore.  If you were in Texas, he would mention Dallas and Houston.  In Canada, he gave credit to Toronto.)

The music video was directed by Edd Griles.  Shooting occurred in several different locations while the band was touring.  The New York shoot was the most difficult as it lasted for 13 hours and in freezing weather.  Amongst the rock and roll greats included in the video: Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Roy Orbison, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Any Way You Want It by Journey (1980, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

To me, there is no better way to close out the year than with this classic song from Journey!  Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve!

Ever since I first saw Caddyshack (not to mention the episode of The Simpsons were Rodney Dangerfield played Mr. Burns’ son), Any Way You Want It has always been my favorite Journey song.  The video is also Journey at its best, simple, without pretension, and rocking!

Music Video Of The Day: Ball of Confusion, covered by Love and Rockets (1985, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Made up of 3 former members of Bauhaus and named after the comic book series by the Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets had their first minor hit with this cover of Motown’s Ball of Confusion.

Ball of Confusion was one of the many songs that Norman Whitefield and Barrett Strong wrote for The Temptations during their “psychedelic soul” period of the late 60s and the early 70s.  (Another one was War, which became a much bigger hit when it was covered by Edwin Starr.)  When Ball of Confusion was first released, the lyrics dealt directly with the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration, and drug abuse, making it one of Motown’s more directly political songs.  However, the song’s power and message has remained timeless and it was subsequently covered by everyone from Tina Turner to Anthrax to, of course, Love and Rockets.  The Love and Rockets cover was released shortly before their first album, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven.  Despite being the band’s first hit, the song was not included on the album until it was eventually reissued in 2000.

And the band played on.

Music Video of the Day: Always On My Mind, performed by Pet Shop Boys (1988, directed by Jack Bond)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1987, ITV commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley by airing Love Me Tender, a special that featured popular British acts covering songs that were originally made famous by Elvis.  Pet Shop Boys’s synth-pop version of Always on My Mind proved to be the unexpected hit of the program and the band released the song as a single.  It went on to become the UK’s Christmas number one single for the year.

It was also featured in It Couldn’t Happen Here, a surreal film that starred Pet Shop Boys and which was directed by documentarian Jack Bond, who had started his career with a ground-breaking film about Salvador Dali and who later became famous for his work with The South Bank Show.  The subsequent music video was lifted from the film.  In the movie and the video, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant are driving a taxi cab.  They stop to pick up a passenger, an older man played by Joss Ackland.  (In the movie, there’s an earlier scene in which Lowe and Tennant hear a news report about an escaped killed who matches their new passenger’s description.)  While their passenger rambles on, Lowe and Tennant turn on the radio and listen to the song, which leads to several other clips from the film.  And while the critics may not have cared much for It Couldn’t Happen Here, the band’s version of Always On My Mind remains a popular classic.

Enjoy!

Music Video of The Day: Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey (1981, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Don’t Stop Believin’ is now probably destined to be forever associated with The Sopranos but the song itself had established itself as a classic long before it was used in the finale of HBO’s famous show about the New Jersey mafia.

In fact, the song means so much to Journey’s Steve Perry that he was hesitant to give HBO permission to use the song until it was explained to him exactly how the song was going to be used and he was assured that it wouldn’t be played over any type of violence.  Other than the members of the cast and the production crew, Steve Perry was one of the few people to know, in advance, how The Sopranos was going to end.

While Perry has said that the majority of the lyrics were inspired by his own early struggles to find success in the music industry, keyboardist Jonathan Cain says that the name was inspired by something that his father told him when Cain was thinking about leaving Hollywood and returning to Chicago.  Cain’s father told him, ‘No, son. Stay the course. We have a vision. It’s gonna happen. Don’t stop believin’.”

As for the video, it was filmed in Houston and features Journey performing the song as a part of their Escape tour.  With the exception of the infamous video for Separate Ways, Journey was known for keeping things simple and straight-forward when it came to their music videos.  This one is no exception.

Music Video Of The Day: Christmas At Ground Zero by Weird Al Yankovic (1986, directed by Weird Al Yankovic)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“The sad part is, I can’t really play the song live anymore because too many people misunderstand the connotations of Ground Zero. It’s not a reference to 9/11, obviously. It was written in 1986 when ‘ground zero’ just meant the epicenter of a nuclear attack.”

— Weird Al Yankovic

Try to force Weird Al to do a Christmas album and this is what you’re going to get.

In 1986, Weird Al’s record label insisted that he record something for the holiday season.  In response, Yankovic came up with Christmas At Ground Zero, a Phil Spector-style production about Christmas in the aftermath of a nuclear attack.  It wasn’t really what the record company had expected and, at first, they refused to release it.  Yankovic responded by creating his own music video for the song.  This video was not only his first stab at directing but it also proved to be popular enough to convince the record company to change their position on the song.

Though the majority of this video is made up of stock footage, the live action scenes of Weird Al and the carolers performing surrounded by rubble were filmed in The Bronx.  No nuclear explosions were needed to get the bombed-out feel.  Instead, they just filmed in New York in the 80s.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Music Video Of The Day: Christmas in Hollis by Run-DMC (1987, directed by Michael Holman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Christmas in Hollis is one of the most famous Christmas rap songs, though it nearly didn’t happen.  When Bill Adler first approached Run-DMC and asked them to contribute to the holiday compilation album, A Very Special Christmas, the band turned him down.  It wasn’t until Adler suggested the title Christmas in Hollis that the band changed their mind.

All of the proceeds of A Very Special Christmas went to support the Special Olympics.  (Other contributors included Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Eurythmics, U2, and Pertenders.)  Christmas In Hollis was the only original composition to appear on the album and it has gone on to become a holiday mainstay.

Hollis, of course, refers to the neighborhood of Hollis, Queens, where the members of Run-DMC grew up.

This video was named the “Best Video of 1987” by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas Eve!

Holiday Scenes That I Love: Festivus Dinner From Seinfeld (NBC, 1997)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Again, Happy Festivus!

This scene is from The Strike episode of Seinfeld.  Believe it or not, it is based on a true story.  Scriptwriter Dan O’Keefe, who wrote this episode, grew up celebrating Festivus, a holiday that was created by his father.  In the real Festivus, the aluminum pole was replaced by a clock that O’Keefe’s father would put in a bag and nail to a wall.  To quote O’Keefe:

“The real symbol of the holiday was a clock that my dad put in a bag and nailed to the wall every year…I don’t know why, I don’t know what it means, he would never tell me. He would always say, ‘That’s not for you to know.'”

Enjoy!