As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1999’s Final Voyage!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Final Voyage on YouTube, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
“I thank God for all the freedom we have in this country, I cherish them and treasure them – even the right to burn the flag. We also got the right to bear arms and if you burn my flag – I’ll shoot you. But I’ll shoot you with a lot of love, like a good American.”
— Johnny Cash
I walked through a county courthouse square On a park bench an old man was sitting there I said, your old courthouse is kinda run down He said, naw, it’ll do for our little town I said, your old flagpole has leaned a little bit And that’s a ragged old flag you got hanging on it
He said, have a seat, and I sat down Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town? I said, I think it is He said, I don’t like to brag But we’re kinda proud of that ragged old flag
You see, we got a little hole in that flag there when Washington took it across the Delaware And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key Sat watching it writing say can you see And it got a bad rip in New Orleans With Packingham and Jackson tuggin’ at its seams
And it almost fell at the Alamo Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on though She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and Bragg And the south wind blew hard on that ragged old flag
On Flanders field in World War one She got a big hole from a Bertha gun She turned blood red in World War Two She hung limp and low a time or two She was in Korea and Vietnam She went where she was sent by Uncle Sam
She waved from our ships upon the Briny foam And now they’ve about quit waving her back here at home In her own good land here she’s been abused She’s been burned, dishonored, denied, and refused
And the government for which she stands Is scandalized throughout the land And she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin But she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in ‘Cause she’s been through the fire before And I believe she can take a whole lot more
So we raise her up every morning We take her down every night We don’t let her touch the ground and we fold her up right On second thought, I do like to brag ‘Cause I’m mighty proud of that ragged old flag
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!
It’s John Wayne’s birthday! Here’s 4 shots from the Duke’s unforgettable career.
4 Shots From 4 Films
Stagecoach (1939, directed by John Ford)
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949, directed by Allan Dwan)
The Searchers (1956, directed by John Ford)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, directed by John Ford)
“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”
— St. Ambrose
It can be difficult to know how to observe Memorial Day, especially in these times when people are so divided and there are so many voice out there saying that there are no more heroes. For me, though, these two vintage images sum up what Memorial Day is about. It’s not day for celebrating war. It’s a day for honoring those who lost their lives fighting for this country and it’s a day to hope for peace. It’s a day to give thanks and to pledge that their sacrifice will not have been in vain.
This is a very powerful music video. I don’t have much to say about it other than that. It’s not a political song or as political music video. Instead, it’s a tribute and an appreciation of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and the loved ones who were left behind.
Mike Kovac (Charles Bronson) is taking pictures at a tenement fire in New York City. After getting his pictures of the fire, he gets a few shots of some of the people hanging around, including Norma Delgado (Angie Dickinson). A group of young men see him taking the pictures, so they take the camera away from him. It seems Norma is the daughter of Marty Delgado (Robert Armstrong), a mobster who’s just finished off a six year stretch in prison. Prior to going to prison, Marty stashed a lot of cash away and the boys are planning on taking it away from him. They’re afraid if anyone knows his daughter is around, they’ll be on their way to take the money for themselves. When the boys show back up at Kovac’s house, take his pictures and smash him on the head, he’s determined to figure out what the hell is going on. The first step is finding Norma. Once he finds her, everything else should become clear.
Aside from Charles Bronson as Mike Kovac, the most interesting thing about this episode is the presence of the lovely Angie Dickinson. At this point in her career she was mostly guesting on TV shows or doing smaller parts in movies. She’s so beautiful, but she really doesn’t have a lot to do here. The next year she would play John Wayne’s love interest in RIO BRAVO (1959) and she’d be on her way to stardom. It’s a treat seeing her and Bronson on screen together.
Bronson does have one decent tough guy exchange with the young thugs:
Kovac – “…a real tough bunch. You’re tough like a coat of cheap paint. First stretch of bad weather comes along and it peels right off!”
Thug – “Maybe you’re the paint remover?!”
Kovac – “You don’t get that boy out the darkroom, we’ll soon find out!”
As soon as Kovac says this he gets knocked out cold, so Bronson’s not always as tough as he seems at this point in his career.
One other thing, I am finding that I like the episodes where Kovac’s “Pop” Anton (Ludwig Stossel) shows up. Pop is also a photographer, and he’s so proud of his son and the way his pictures are always in magazines and in the papers. During the middle part of this episode he just has one slight criticism of his son’s work, “you need more lighting.” When Kovac gets the money shot at the end and Pop sees it in a magazine, he’s so proud… he just thinks there needed to be more lighting! It’s a lighthearted and fun way for the episode to end.
Immediately following the Civil War, a group of U.S. soldiers and a group of former Confederates have to work together to survive an Apache ambush. The leader of the soldiers is Sgt. Matt Blake (Scott Brady) and he’s escorting a gunrunner (Baynes Barron) to a nearby fort. Leading the former Confederates is Sam Prescott (Frank Gerstle). The two groups are, at first, suspicious of each other. Confederate Judge Stanfield (Irving Bacon) thinks that Blake should just give the gunrunner and his guns to the Apaches, since that’s what they want. When Blake disagrees, Prescott tries to encourage a young and angry former Confederate named Keith (Clint Eastwood) to challenge Blake’s command. In the end, the former enemies have to learn how to set aside their differences to survive and to make it to the fort.
This was one of Eastwood’s earliest performances and only the fourth time that his name actually appeared in the opening credits. (Eastwood had appeared, uncredited, in several films before this one.) Eastwood later called Ambush at Cimarron Pass “the lousiest western ever made” and claimed that he hated the film so much that he almost gave up on acting after seeing it. I think he’s being too hard on the movie. It’s a low-budget B-movie that pretty much takes place in one location and it has an tending that feels tacked-on but, when it concentrates on the action and the hostility between the two groups, it’s not that bad. It feels more like an episode of Death Valley Days than an actual movie but Scott Brady is a convincing hero and his brawl with Eastwood is one of the movie’s highlights. As for Eastwood’s performance, he’s stiff but convincing when he’s angry. It’s obvious that, in 1958, Clint Eastwood still had a long way to go an actor but his physical presence makes him stand out whenever he’s in a scene. Ambush at Cimarron Pass is nothing special but it’s good enough to work for fans of the genre who might be looking for a brief diversion that features a handful of familiar faces.
After appearing in this film, Eastwood would land the role of Rowdy Yates on Rawhide and spend the next six years on television. His next film would be A Fistful of Dollars, a western that made a much deeper impression on audiences than Ambush At Cimarron Pass.
Here at The Shattered Lens, we’re celebrating Clint Eastwood’s birthday on May 31st. I decided to revisit his 1999 film, TRUE CRIME.
Clint Eastwood directs and stars as ace journalist, Steve Everett, who also happens to be a bad friend, a terrible dad, and an even worse husband. Literally the only thing that he’s got going for him is his “nose,” his ability to sniff out a story where no one else can. Even that has begun to fail him, mostly due to his recents bouts with alcoholism, which he seems to somewhat have a handle on at the time of this story. When a young, beautiful colleague tragically passes away in an auto accident, Steve is given her previous assignment to cover the execution of convicted murderer Frank Beechum (Isaiah Washington). Not the kind to write a human interest “puff piece” like the Oakland Tribune is wanting, Everett begins digging into the past and pretty soon that nose of his starts telling him that Beechum is a victim of circumstantial evidence. Despite his editor Bob Findley’s (Denis Leary) objections, he’s able to convince his newspaper boss Alan Mann (James Woods) to let him dig deeper into the story. As he tries to juggle his myriad personal problems with his growing belief in Beechum’s innocence, Everett is also facing a clock that is ticking down to the midnight execution. Will he be able to find the crucial piece of evidence that will set Beechum free?
TRUE CRIME appears to be somewhat of a forgotten Clint Eastwood film. I saw it at the theater when it came out in 1999, but it was not financially successful, only bringing in $16 Million at the box office. Regardless of that, I still love the film. It’s certainly not perfect. It’s probably too long, Beechum is probably too angelic after being “born again,” and the resolution may be a little unrealistic, but I still enjoyed every second of it. One of the coolest things about Clint Eastwood is his willingness to play such flawed men on screen, yet we still love him. He’s great in this film! Anyone who’s read much of my work knows that my love of actor James Woods goes back to being in junior high and renting his movies BEST SELLER and COP. It’s such a treat seeing the legendary pair on screen together even if Woods’ role is sort of a glorified cameo. Woods is hilarious in his limited screen time. My last shout out is to Isaiah Washington as the innocent man who’s about to be put to death. After all these years and appeals, he’s accepted his fate, but the scene where he tells Everett his story and Everett tells him that he believes he’s innocent is so powerful. Add to that Washington’s scenes with his wife and daughter, and I was very much emotionally invested in this film. Washington’s performance was key to the film working, and he’s great!
Overall, TRUE CRIME is a film that takes its sweet time, but it ultimately tells a tense, engrossing story that ratchets up the tension to 10 prior to its last second resolution. I consider it very underrated and highly recommend it. I’ve included the trailer below:
Through the Shattered Lens 