Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

The Lone Hand Texan (1947, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Oil’s been discovered on the Texas frontier and Sam Jason (Fred Sears) has got the rights to several wells.  Someone in town keeps sabotaging his operations and blowing up his oil wells.  Sam sends a telegram to his old friend, Steve Driscoll (Charles Starrett).  Steve shows up in town to help Sam set up his business.  Meanwhile, Steve’s alter ego, the masked Durango Kid, works to discover who has been targeting Sam.

This is actually more of a Smiley Burnette movie than a Durango Kid film.  As always, Smiley is the Kid’s sidekick in the movie.  Smiley owns a general store and he’s the towns postmaster.  Everywhere Smiley goes, he is followed by two musicians, Mustard and Gravy.  Smiley sings even more songs than usual in this movie and he even has a brief romance with the local widow (Mary Newton), who unfortunately is also behind the efforts to drive Sam out of business.  Smiley may be the sidekick but he gets more screentime than the Durango Kid in The Lone Hand Texan and he does a mighty fine job with it.

One of the curious things about The Lone Hand Texan is that one of the bad guys also decides to wear a mask and claim to be The Durango Kid.  I wish the movie has done more with that because I have never really understood why Steve feels like he has to pretend to be Durango in the first place.  It’s not as if it’s difficult to recognize Steve, even when he’s wearing a mask.  I have never understood why no one in his movies ever notices that you never see Steve and the Durango Kid in the same place at the same time.  Even Lois Lane should have been able to figure out Durango’s secret identity.

The Lone Hand Texas is a standard Durango Kid outing, albeit not as dependent on stock footage as some of Durango’s other films.  Smiley gets to do more than usual, which is the only thing that really sets it apart.  As with most of the Durango Kid films, it will be best appreciated by those who are already fans.

Music Video of the Day: Stranger In A Strange Land by Iron Maiden (1986, directed by Julian Caidan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

You can count me amongst those who used to assume that this song was one of the many heavy metal songs to be inspired by a classic work of science fiction.  After all, the song shares its title with Robert A. Heinlein’s classic novel.

However, the song has nothing to do with Heinlein’s novel.  Instead, it is about an Arctic explorer who falls into the ice and whose frozen body is found 100 years later.  It was inspired by a conversation that Adrian Smith had with an actual explorer who once discovered a body preserved in the Arctic ice.

Julian Caidan also directed the video for Robert Palmer’s Early In The Morning.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Conquer or Die by Megadeth (2016, directed by Blair Underwood)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video is just Megadeth doing what Megadeth does best.

The Blair Underwood who directed this video is the same Blair Underwood who co-starred in L.A. Law and several subsequent films.  They seem like an unlikely combination, as Underwood was outspoken in his support of President Obama while Dave Mustaine was definitely not.  However, this is actually just one of several videos that Underwood did with Megadeth.  Music brings us all together.

Enjoy!

Cyclone Fury (1951, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Brock Masters (Mark Roberts) has been awarded a contract to supply the army with horses.  Corrupt businessman Grat Hanlon (Clayton Moore) wants that contract for himself so he sends his henchmen to kill Brock.  Because Brock has no known relatives, Grat believes that both the horses and the contract will soon be his.

However, Brock does have an heir!  He adopted an Indian child named Johnny (Louis Lettieri).  Johnny inherits the contract and both the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnett are going to make sure that Johnny is able to deliver the horses.  Smiley is also going to find some time to sing some songs that have even less to do with the story than usual.

Cyclone Fury was one of the later entries in the Durango Kid series.  By the time it was made, Colombia was no longer willing to spend much money on the series so that majority of the film’s action scenes are lifted from other Durango Kid movies.  If you’ve never seen another Durango Kid movie, the action scenes are exciting and feature some impressive stunts.  If you have seen another Durango Kid movie, this one is going to seem really familiar.

For western fans, the main appeal here will be seeing Clayton Moore playing a bad guy.  Moore had already played The Lone Ranger when he appeared in this movie.  At the time Cyclone Fury was made, Moore had been unceremoniously fired from his most famous role and The Lone Ranger was being played by John Hart.  Hart would only last a season and Moore would subsequently be invited back to play the role that defined his career.  As for Cyclone Fury, Moore is convincing as Grat, though the character himself is just a typical Durango Kid bad guy.  The Durango Kid was always going up against seemingly respectable businessmen who were actually outlaws.

One final note: Moore’s Lone Ranger co-star, Jay Silverheels, appears in this film but only in archival footage from an early adventure of The Durango Kid.

Music Video of the Day: Wild Child by W.A.S.P. (1985, directed by Rick Friedberg)

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In this video for Wild Child, Blackie Lawless follows one woman through the desert, just for her to always disappear when he gets too close.  Maybe she knows that W.A.S.P. and Blackie Lawless were among the top targets of Tipper Gore’s anti-rock campaign in the 80s.  Supposedly, at the heyday of Gore’s crusade, venues that booked W.A.S.P. would get bomb threats while the members of the band were themselves receiving death threats.  Someone even tried to shoot Blackie Lawless.

(Ironically, Blackie Lawless was raised in the church and is reportedly even more of a Christian than Tipper Gore was at the time she was accusing W.A.S.P. of corrupting America’s youth.)

This video was directed by Rick Friedberg, who went from working with W.A.S.P. to working with Leslie Nielsen on several projects.

Enjoy!

3 Desperate Men (1951, directed by Sam Newfield)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Tom and Fred Denton (Preston Foster and Jim Davis) are two frontier lawmen who are frustrated with their jobs.  They are both owed backpay.  When they shoot an outlaw, they are expected to pay the $80 burial fee.  Neither Tom nor Fred feels that they are appreciated by banks and the railroads that expect them to risk their lives on a daily basis.

When Tom and Fred are informed that their younger brother, Matt (Kim Spalding), has been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang in another town, they ride off to save him.

Even though Tom and Fred can both provide an alibi for Matt and it is obvious that Matt has been framed by a corrupt railroad agent, the town is still determined to hang him.  Tom and Fred manage to rescue him from the gallows but, in the process, a deputy is killed.  Now wanted by the authorities, the Denton brothers are forced to team up with the same outlaws that they used to hunt.  Soon, the Dentons are robbing banks and trains and their old friend, Pete Coleman (Monte Blue), has been ordered to captured them, dead or alive.

One of the many low budget westerns to be produced by the Lippert Company, Three Desperate Men is a cut above the usual B-western.  None of the Dentons want to be outlaws but they are forced into it by circumstances out of their control.  The real villains of the film are the bankers and the railroad tycoons who hoard the land and the money and who try to cheat men like Tom and Fred out of their rightfully earned wages.  The Denton brothers ultimately decide that their number one loyalty is to each other and that leads to the movie’s fatalistic conclusion, which is surprisingly violent for a 1951 western.  Preston Foster, Jim Davis, and Monte Blue head a cast that is full of tough and authentic western veterans and the action scenes are imaginatively staged by director Sam Newfield.  Three Desperate Men is a B-western that can be enjoyed even by those who don’t like westerns.

Music Video of the Day: Hot and Bothered by Cinderella (1992, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Oh look, it’s another Nigel Dick-directed hair metal video.

And it’s another Cinderella video featuring the band doing their version of rocking while being watched by a bunch of hot woman who were probably hoping Bon Jovi would show up instead.

But wait?  Who’s that?  It’s Wayne and Garth!

This song appeared on the Wayne’s World soundtrack and the video was shot to promote the film.  Dana Carvey and Mike Myers show up as the duo who, at the time, were America’s favorite cable access hosts.  Wayne and Garth were Cinderella fans?  Guys, even Beavis and Butthead knew better than that!

Enjoy!

Law of the Canyon (1947, directed by Ray Nazarro)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When a gang of outlaws starts hijacking freight wagons and then ransoming them back to their owners, government agent Steve Langtry (Charles Starrett) is sent to investigate.  He both goes undercover as an inexperienced traveler and as the masked Durango Kid.  As always, he is accompanied by Smiley Burnette.  In this installment, Smiley tries to invent a machine that can find silver and he also sings a few songs.  His backing band, The Lone Star Cowboys, follow him everywhere that he goes but they don’t actually get involved in the action.

This is another Durango Kid movie, with all of the usual horse chases and shootouts.  The same action montage that started Phantom Valley also starts this movie.  As always, Charles Starrett is convincing when riding a horse or shooting a gun.

What sets this Durango Kid movie apart from the others is the main villain.  Dr. Middleton (played by a regular member of the Durango Kid stock company, Fred F. Sears) appears to be a kindly man who serves as a middleman between the citizens and the outlaws.  Actually, he is working with the outlaws and receives a commission of every ransom that he negotiates.  The reason he can get away with it is because he’s drugged the Sheriff (George Cheseboro)!  He attempts to drug Durango too but luckily, Smiley drinks the water instead.

While it won’t convert anyone who isn’t already a fan of the genre or the character, this is another entertaining outing for the Durango Kid.

Music Video of the Day: Serenity in Murder by Slayer (1994, directed by Jon Reiss)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

 

Serenity in Murder was the first single released off of Slayer’s 6th studio album, Diving Intervention.  Tom Araya said that the songs on the album were largely inspired by what he was watching on television at the time.  Both the song and the video for Serenity in Murder appear to have been inspired by the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer.

Director Jon Reiss also did videos for Nine Inch Nails, Type O Negative, Danzig, and Diamanda Girls.

Remember when everyone’s parents were scared to death of finding cassettes from bands like Slayer and Anthrax in their child’s music collection?  

Enjoy!