Today would have been Eddie Van Halen’s 71st birthday.
Jamie’s Cryin’ first appeared on Van Halen’s debut album and it was the third released single to come from that album. Though it didn’t chart, it was a favorite of both Eddie Van Halen’s and David Lee Roth’s, with Eddie later saying that Jamie’s Cryin’ should have been Van Halen’s single.
Enjoy!
I wanted to share the video for Y&T’s Mean Streak but the person who uploaded the video to YouTube also disabled playback. Why would anyone do that? The video wasn’t age-restricted or anything like that.
Instead, here’s the video for another Y&T song, Lipstick and Leather. This video’s director, Michael Miner, also directed the video for Mean Streak. In fact, he did more than a few Y&T videos, along with doing videos for Alcatrazz and Marianne Mabile. Miner also co-wrote the script that would eventually become Robocop.
Y&T stands for Yesterday and Today. Lars Ulrich has said that seeing an L&T show inspired him to become a musician.
Enjoy!
Today would have been the 77th birthday of the great John Belushi.
I was planning on watching and reviewing The Blues Brothers today but that was before the winter storm hit. Instead, here’s Belushi on Saturday Night Live in 1976, talking about the weather. John was 25 here and it’s hard to believe that, in just 6 years, he would be gone.
Ranger Bill Williams (Bill Cody) is working undercover. First, he meets up with and goes to prison with rustler Dragon Morris (Ben Corbett). After Bill finds out that Dragon’s boss is Chuck Adams (George Chesebro), Bill gets out of prison, tracks down Chuck, and then has a fake posse pursue him in order to prove his bona fides as an outlaw. Chuck invites Bill to be a member of his gang. However, Dragon has figured out that Bill’s a lawman and, when he escapes from prison, he tries blow Bill’s cover.
I know I make a lot of excuses for Poverty Row westerns. I can’t do it with this one. The Border Menace is really bad. Produced by Aywon Film, one of the least success of the Poverty Row studios, nothing about The Border Menace works, not even the stock footage of the posse. This is one slow movie, even with barely enough plot to fill out its 50-minute run time. The acting is bad all around, except for veteran western baddie George Cheseboro and Bill Cody, who at least is likable as the hero. Bill has a comedic sidekick but it’s not Fuzzy St. John or Gabby Hayes. Instead, it’s Jimmy Aubrey as Polecat Pete. Polecat Pete yells and sings. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted for the comic relief to get caught in that crossfire before.
Bill Cody starred in a handful of B-westerns in the 30s. He was a former stuntman and looked convincing on a horse. He really wasn’t a bad actor but the main reason he found success was because he shared his name with “Wild Bill” Cody. The two Codys were not related.
Dan Stanton (Edmund Cobb) and Condon (Tom Quinn) are planning to run a bunch of ranchers off their land by cutting off their water supply. Once the ranchers leave, Stanton and Condon will be able to sell their land to the railroads. After the bad guys murder a rancher named Jennings (George Morell), the rancher’s daughter (Lynne Carver) sends a message to U.S. Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie (Johnny Mack Brown) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton). Old friends of the murdered rancher, Sandy and Nevada come to town to rally the ranchers against Stanton and his men and to free up the water that’s been dammed up.
This was a pretty standard Johnny Mack Brown western. Johnny Mack Brown and Raymond Hatton always made for a good team but the story here is pretty predictable. After you watch enough B-westerns, you start to wonder if there were any made that weren’t about outlaws trying to run ranchers off their land. It’s interesting that these movies almost always center, in some way, around the coming of the railroad. The railroad is opening up the frontier and bringing America together but it also brings out the worst in the local miscreants.
As with a lot of B-westerns, the main pleasure comes from spotting the familiar faces in the cast. Charles King and Herman Hack play bad guys. Tex Driscoll plays a rancher. Horace B. Carpenter has a small role. These movies were made and remade with the same cast so often that that watching them feels like watching a repertory company trying out their greatest hits.
Singing Ranger Eddie Dean (played by the same-named Eddie Dean) and his sidekick, Soapy Jones (Roscoe Ates), are sent to track down the Tioga Kid, an outlaw who happens to look just like Eddie. Soapy suggests that The Tioga Kid could be a long lost twin brother. Eddie isn’t sure because his parents were killed in an Indian ambush when he was just a baby. This seemed to be the backstory for many of Poverty Row’s favorite western heroes.
Dean plays both Eddie and the Tioga Kid. You can tell them apart because the Tioga Kid doesn’t sing and always dresses in black while Eddie dresses in white and won’t stop singing. Twin rivals were another big thing when it came to B-westerns. Thanks to then revolutionary split-screen technology, matinee audiences could enjoy the sight of their favorite heroes shooting at themselves. Eddie Dean was usually cast as a mild-mannered hero so he really seems to enjoy the chance to be bad as the Tioga Kid.
The Tioga Kid is a film that will be appreciated by those who are already fans of B-westerns. The Tioga Kid was made late in the B-western cycle and there are a lot signs that it was made in a hurry. There’s a scene involving a stunt man where he’s not even wearing the same shirt as the person he’s standing in for. Matinee audiences probably didn’t mind. They were too busy watching Eddie Dean shoot at himself and cheering him on during the movie’s big fist fight scene. Eddie Dean may not have been a great actor but he could throw a punch with the best of them.
Newly hired ranch foreman Jack Loomis (Jack Perrin) comes to the aid of two Indians who were nearly swindled out of their land during a card game. The Indians inform Jack that his new boss, George Tully (Al Bridge), is actually a crook and the ranch is just a front for his criminal activities. When Jack says he doesn’t want to be a part of Tully’s schemes, Tully and his men frame Jack for a robbery.
After you watch enough of these Poverty Row westerns, you start to get the feeling that anyone in the 30s could walk into a studio and star in a B-western. Jack Perrin was a World War I veteran who had the right look to be the star of several silent films but once the sound era came along, his deficiencies as an actor became very apparent. He could ride a horse and throw a punch without looking too foolish but his flat line delivery made him one of the least interesting of the B-western stars. That’s the case here, where Perrin is a boring hero and the entire plot hinges on the villain making one really big and really stupid mistake. John Wayne could have pulled this movie off but Jack Perrin was lost.
Jack Perrin’s career as a star ended just a few years after this film but not because he was a bad actor. Instead, Perrin filed a lawsuit after a studio failed to pay him for starring in one of their films. From 1937 until he retirement in 1960, Perrin was reduced to playing minor roles for which he often went uncredited. Hollywood could handle a bad actor but not an actor who expected to be paid for his work.
Ted “Jet” Morgan (Bob Steele) returns home from World War I. When he gets off the train in his small, western town, he’s met by Si “Old Timer” Haller (George “Gabby” Hayes). Si explains that Ted’s aunt is dead and his uncle was run out of town for being a drunk. Alice, “the girl next door” who Ted hoped to marry, married someone else. Si invites Ted to stay with him. Ted agrees and things start to look up when he meets Si’s niece, June (Nancy Drexel).
Meanwhile, a gang of outlaws led by Ken Kincade (Harry Semel) hijack a mail plane and steal the payroll that it was carrying. Ted is not nicknamed Jet for nothing. He not only know how to ride a horse but he’s good with planes too. With the help of Si and the local sheriff (William Dyer), he aims to stop those turn of the century skyjackers before they can force another unexpected landing.
Though the film takes place after World War I and features Bob Steele flying a plane and Gabby Hayes driving the same car he drove in Rainbow Valley, this is definitely a western. Before he proves himself as a pilot, Ted has to prove himself as a horseman and the movie ends with a traditional western gunfight. The postwar setting does still bring some unexpected elements to the story. Ted’s lonely arrival in his hometown reflects what it was like for many veterans returning home from Europe. At first, Ted doesn’t feel like he has a place in his old town but he soon gets a chance to prove to both himself and the townspeople that he belongs.
Bob Steele and Gabby Hayes are good heroes. Robert N. Bradbury, who was also Steele’s father, was one of the best of the B-western directors. For fans of the genre, this film is a definite treat.
Cliff Spab (Stehpen Dorff), his friend Joe Dice (Jack Noseworthy), and teenager Wendy Pfister (Reese Witherspoon) are in the wrong convenience store at the wrong time and end up being taken hostage by a group of masked terrorists who have guns and video cameras. For 36 days straight, their ordeal is broadcast live on television. They become the number one show in the country and Cliff’s nihilistic attitude makes him a star. When the terrorists threaten to kill him, he spits back, “So fucking what!?” Alienated young people take up S.F.W. as a personal chant and credo. When Joe finally fights back, both he and the terrorists are killed in the shoot-out. Wendy and Cliff are now celebrities, even though they don’t want to be. Released into the real world, Cliff has to deal with everyone wanting to make money off of him. His alienation has been turned into a product. He just wants to be reunited with Wendy but his fans want him to tell them how to live their lives. Fandom turns out be a fickle beast.
Earlier this morning, I came across a news item that Jefery Levy, the director of S.F.W., had died at the age of 67. S.F.W. used to show up frequently on cable in the 90s but I hadn’t thought about it in years. When I first saw S.F.W., I didn’t care much for it. Cliff came across as being a poseur and Stephen Dorff came across like he was way too impressed with himself. With John Roarke playing everyone from Phil Donahue to Sam Donaldson and Gary Coleman appearing as himself, the movie seemed like it was trying too hard to be outrageous. Looking back on it now, though, I realize S.F.W. may not have been a good movie but it was still a very prophetic movie. What seemed implausible in the 90s — like the 36-day live stream from inside the convenience store hostage situation and Cliff Spab’s fans switching their allegiance to a self-righteous virgin who yells that everything matters while trying to assassinate him — feels far too plausible today.
In 1994, S.F.W. and Jefery Levy predicted the 2020s. The only thing it got wrong was having Cliff Spab not wanting to be a famous. Today, Cliff Spab would probably be presenting the Best Podcast award at the Golden Globes.
Three Texas Rangers — Tex Wyatt (Dave O’Brien), Jim Steele (James Newill), and Panhandle Perkins (Guy Wilkerson) — ride into a small town. They each arrive separately and they all sing while sitting on their horses. They’re in town to help out Jed Wilkins, who was Panhandle’s superior officer during the Civil War. Jed is having a nervous breakdown because a crooked surveyor (Jack Ingram) and shifty lawyer (Charles King) are trying to cheat him out of his land. Jed thinks that he’s serving in the war again so Panhandle has to wear his old Confederate uniform to keep Jed from losing it any further.
The Texas Rangers starred in a series of B-westerns. This one is mostly amiable, though I think modern viewers will probably have a more difficult time with the Confederate uniform than viewers did in 1944. Having watched enough of these movies, I’ve lost track of the number of crooked lawyers that Charles King played over the years. He was one of the great B-movie villains, that’s for sure.
I don’t really know what to make of the singing cowboy genre. Why are they singing while riding through the wilderness and trying not to get shot? Do all of the Texas Rangers sing or is it just these three? This movie raises so many questions. What’s odd is that the songs in this movie are actually really catchy. I can still remember the tunes, if not all of the lyrics. Don’t break the law, the Rangers sang as they rode out of town at the end of the movie. Don’t break the law.
Through the Shattered Lens 