THE FAR COUNTRY (1954) – James Stewart and Walter Brennan head North to make their fortune!

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Bradley Crain

James Stewart is one of the great movie stars of all-time. His work with Frank Capra (MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE) and Alfred Hitchcock (REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO) is legendary. In my household, Stewart’s work with director Anthony Mann is celebrated just as much as those other classics. Mann and Stewart made five classic westerns, beginning with WINCHESTER ‘73 in 1950 and ending in 1955 with THE MAN FROM LARAMIE. I own them all on DVD and watch them quite often. It’s very cold in Arkansas today, so I decided to write about the Yukon-set THE FAR COUNTRY, from 1954.

Jeff Webster (James Stewart) and his crusty ol’ coot of a partner Ben Tatem (Walter Brennan) head North towards Dawson City, in the Yukon Territory, with a herd of cattle. The two men encounter a variety of problems along the way, with the biggest being the corrupt Judge Gannon (John McIntire) of Skagway, Alaska. When Jeff finds himself in front of the judge for killing two cowhands who tried to steal his herd, Gannon acquits him on the charges but decides to keep his herd as payment for the court fees. With their cattle taken away from them, Jeff and Ben sign up to help business lady Ronda Castle (Ruth Roman) take supplies to Dawson City, where she plans to set up shop. After their first day on the trip, Jeff and Ben double back to Skagway and re-take their herd and take off towards Dawson as fast as they can go, with Gannon and his men in hot pursuit. They’re able to make it into Canada, so Gannon and his goons turn back, determined to hang the men if they ever come back through Skagway.

So Jeff and Ben make it to Dawson City with their cattle where they sell them off for $2 per pound to Ronda. Suddenly flush with cash, the two partners buy a gold claim and proceed to find some nice golden nuggets! When they head back into town, they find that Judge Gannon has now come to Dawson City and is in partnership with Ronda. Of course, that bastard immediately starts cheating the miners out of their claims, this time with gunman Madden (Robert J. Wilke) by his side, enforcing his corrupt actions with lead. Jeff and Ben decide they’re going to sneak out of town with their loot, but Gannon finds out about it and sends his men to stop them. Ben is killed in the process and Jeff is seriously injured. Jeff has tried his best up to this point to not get involved with the mess in Dawson City, but with his best friend now dead, he decides it’s time for Judge Gannon and his thugs to be stopped.

James Stewart is just so good as Jeff Webster. The best thing about his work with Mann is how each of the movies would give him a meaty role that capitalized on his basic decency, while simultaneously making him a more complex, layered man, miles away from the likes of Mr. Smith or George Bailey. In THE FAR COUNTRY, he’s as tough as nails, but he really doesn’t want to get involved with the people around him. It takes the death of his best friend for him to finally commit to helping them stand up against the bad guys. Stewart’s work here, and in the other Mann westerns, ranks with his very best.

The remainder of the cast is uniformly excellent. Three time Oscar winner Walter Brennan is always a welcome presence in a movie I’m watching. While he’d pretty much settled into the “old coot” role that would come to personify the later part of his career, his character is a valuable conscience for Stewart a couple of times in the story. I thought that John McIntire and Ruth Roman really stood out in their respective roles as the corrupt Judge Gannon and the stubbornly, independent businesswoman Ronda Castle. Both give excellent performances. The cast is rounded out with a who’s who of character actors like Jay C. Flippen, Harry Morgan, Robert J. Wilke, Royal Dano, and Jack Elam. It’s always nice seeing these familiar faces pop up in these old westerns.

I love it when movies are filmed on location in beautiful places. THE FAR COUNTRY was filmed at the Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, which added another interesting element to the film. The final thing I want to say about the film is that the screenplay for THE FAR COUNTRY was written by Borden Chase, who had penned RED RIVER a few years earlier. Not only would Chase write this movie, he would also write the screenplays for WINCHESTER ‘73 and BEND OF THE RIVER, both westerns that paired Anthony Mann and Jimmy Stewart. Chase was an excellent writer of western material, and his strong work in this group of films is crucial to their enduring success.

Overall, I confidently recommend THE FAR COUNTRY to any person who enjoys westerns or Jimmy Stewart. I might rank THE NAKED SPUR and THE MAN FROM LARAMIE slightly above this one in the Mann / Stewart westerns, but the truth is that you can’t go wrong with any of them.

I’m sharing the trailer for THE FAR COUNTRY below:

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 3.22 “My Fair Pharaoh/The Power”

Posted on November 7, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. Almost the entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube!

This week, Fantasy Island goes to ancient Egypt!

Episode 3.22 “My Fair Pharaoh/The Power”

(Dir by George McCowan, originally aired on May 10th, 1980)

This week, Mr. Roarke welcomes two people with two very different fantasies. Neither one of their fantasies really make much sense but you know Mr. Roarke. He’s going to give the people what they want, unless he takes some sort of personal dislike to them. Then, they’re totally going to get screwed.

Lucy Atwell (Joan Collins), for instance, has always fantasized about going back to ancient Egypt and living the life of Cleopatra. Now, you may wonder why that is, seeing as how Cleopatra lost every man that she ever loved and was eventually killed by an asp. But no matter! Mr. Roarke sends Lucy into the past and Lucy quickly discovers that …. wait a minute! She’s not Cleopatra! Instead, she’s a part of the harem of Ptolemy (Michael Ansara)! What the Hell, Mr. Roarke!? What part of “I want to be Queen of Egypt” sounds like “I want to be a part of some old guy’s harem?”

However, Lucy does look exactly like the real Cleopatra and that might be useful, seeing as how the real Cleopatra is currently being held prisoner. After a proper amount of royal training, Lucy fills in for Cleopatra and gets to meet and fall in love with Marc Anthony (Ron Ely). When the real Cleopatra is killed by an asp, the fake Cleopatra gets to rule Egypt and it all works out nicely until …. the fantasy ends.

Oh well, it was a nice weekend. Time for Lucy to go home except …. who is that waiting for the airplane? Why, it’s Marc Anthony! Except his real name is Eric Williams and apparently, he was just a guy living out a fantasy of his own. He always wanted to know what it would be like to be Marc Anthony because who hasn’t fantasized about briefly ruling Rome and then being exiled and hounded to death by the forces of Augustus? Anyway, Lucy finds her love and Joan Collins finally gets to play Cleopatra, the role that she was nearly awarded in 1960 before Elizabeth Taylor was selected instead.

Meanwhile, in the episode’s comedic fantasy, dorky Fred Webster (Larry Linville) wants to impress his girlfriend, Laura (Julie Sommars) by being telekinetic. What? Seriously, that’s how he wants to impress her? I mean, it’s Fantasy Island! Ask for a better job or a nicer car or something. Anyway, Fred gets his power of telekinesis and uses it to cheat at gambling. This brings him to the attention of Stephanie (Carol Lynley) and her goons. When Fred realizes that Stephanie is evil, Stephanie has Laura kidnapped but she’s forgotten that Fred has telekinesis and can just mentally cause a fishing net to wrap up her and her men. This was an extremely silly fantasy. In fact, it was too silly for its own good, right down to the scenes where Fred’s eyes take on a green glow while he uses his powers.

This was a pretty forgettable episode but at least there were some nice costumes in the Egyptian fantasy. Next week, season 3 comes to an end.

The Yin & Yang of Alfred Hitchcock’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Warner Brothers 1951)

Posted on September 27, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Alfred Hitchcock , like many great artists before and since, was in a bit of a career slump. The Master of Suspense’s previous four films (THE PARADINE CASE, ROPE, UNDER CAPRICORN, STAGE FRIGHT) were not hits with either critics or audiences, and did poorly at the box office. Then came 1951’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and Hitch was back on top with this devilish mélange of murder, suspense, romance, and humor, featuring a stunning star turn by Robert Walker, cast against type as a charming sociopath.

Our story opens with two pairs of shoes (one two-toned, one staid brown loafers) emerging from two separate cabs, walking separately to catch a train and their date with destiny, as we cut to two separate train tracks merging together. Hitchcock’s playing with one of his classic themes: “the double”, or more importantly, duality. Even Dimitri Tiomkin’s score highlights the differences, as a jaunty…

View original post 815 more words

Cold in Them Thar Hills: THE FAR COUNTRY (Universal-International 1955)

Posted on January 20, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

James Stewart and Anthony Mann’s fourth Western together, 1955’s THE FAR COUNTRY, takes them due North to the Klondike during the Gold Rush of 1896. It’s a bit more formulaic than other Stewart/Mann collaborations, but a strong cast and some gorgeous Technicolor photography by William H. Daniels more than make up for it. The film is definitely worth watching for Western fans, but I’d rank it lowest on the Stewart/Mann totem pole.

Jimmy is Jeff Webster, a headstrong cattleman who drives his herd from Wyoming to Seattle to ship up north to the beef-starved gold miners for a huge profit. Webster killed two men along the way who tried to desert the drive, and barely escapes Seattle before arriving in Skagway, Alaska. There, he unintentionally interrupts a hanging being conducted by crooked town boss ‘Judge’ Gannon, who confiscates Webster’s herd as a fine for spoiling his fun. Webster and his two…

View original post 473 more words

A Horror Insomnia File #29: Day of the Animals (dir by William Girdler)

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you were having trouble sleeping around 2:30 in the morning, you could have turned on your television, changed the station to Movies TV, and watched the 1977 nature-goes-crazy horror film, Day of the Animals!

Now, I should admit that I was not suffering from insomnia last night. Jeff and I are currently up at beautiful Lake Texoma and we just happened to be up late last night and flipping through the stations. I should also admit that, unlike most of the other movies reviewed for this feature, Day of the Animals was not one of “those insomnia-inspired discoveries.”

No, we had both seen Day of the Animals before. The thing with Day of the Animals is that it’s one of those films that, if you see that it’s on TV, you simply have to stop what you’re doing and watch it. Considering that the man had a long career in the movies and I haven’t seen every film that he made, I could be wrong on this but I am fairly certain that Day of the Animals is your only opportunity to see Leslie Nielsen wrestle a grizzly bear.

Leslie Nielsen plays Paul, a businessman who is part of a group of hikers. Shortly before he wrestles with the bear, Paul stands, bare-chested, in the middle of a rainstorm and attempts to taunt God. “Melville’s God, that’s the God I believe in!” Paul shouts, “You want something!? YOU TAKE IT!” Then he turns to one of the hikers and says, “I know what I want and I’m taking it! I killed a man for you!”

Now, at this point, I should probably make it clear that Day of the Animals is not a comedy, though it’s always inspired a lot of laughter whenever I’ve watched it. Day of the Animals attempts to be a very serious horror movie. It even has an environmental message. Because of the hole in the ozone layer, solar radiation is driving all of the mountain animals crazy. Mountain lions attack campers. A grizzly bear wrestles Leslie Nielsen. A group of rats attempt to kill a policeman. German shepherds tear a man apart. And it’s not just the wild animals that are being affected. Leslie Nielsen goes crazy too.

Of course, Leslie Nielsen isn’t the only hiker. Genre vet Christopher George plays the leader of the tour and Lynda Day George is along for the ride as well. If you’ve seen the movie Pieces, you’ll remember Christopher George as the tough cop and Lynda Day George as the tennis pro who, at one point, dramatically screams “BASTARD!” into the wind. Susan Backlinie, who was the first victim in Jaws, also has a role in this film and that seems appropriate. Director William Girdler found quite a bit of success in ripping off Jaws. Before Day of the Animals, he directed Grizzly.

But good ole Leslie Nielsen is pretty much the entire show here. He tries really, really hard to give an intense and frightening performance. In fact, he tries so hard that you almost feel guilty for laughing at times. But then you see that head of perfect silver hair and you hear that deadpan voice saying, “Come here, you little punk!” and you just can’t help yourself.

Anyway, Day of the Animals may be bad but I defy anyone not to watch it.

Previous Insomnia Files:

The Main Event: Kirk Douglas in CHAMPION (United Artists 1949)

Posted on September 27, 2017 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Kirk Douglas slugged his way to superstardom in director Mark Robson’s CHAMPION, one of two boxing noirs made in 1949. The other was THE SET-UP , helmed by Robson’s former RKO/Val Lewton stablemate Robert Wise. While that film told of an aging boxer (Robert Ryan) on the way down, CHAMPION is the story of a hungry young fighter who lets nothing stand in his way to the top of the food chain. The movie not only put Douglas on the map, it was a breakthrough for its young independent producer Stanley Kramer .

Douglas is all muscle and sinew as middleweight Midge Kelly, and a thoroughly rotten heel. He’s a magnetic character, a classic narcissist with sociopathic tendencies drawing the people around him into his web with his charm. Midge has no empathy for others, not even his loyal, game-legged brother Connie (Arthur Kennedy in a solid performance), after…

View original post 479 more words

Cleaning Out The DVR Yet Again #38: The Baby (dir by Ted Post)

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa recently discovered that she only has about 8 hours of space left on her DVR! It turns out that she’s been recording movies from July and she just hasn’t gotten around to watching and reviewing them yet. So, once again, Lisa is cleaning out her DVR! She is going to try to watch and review 52 movies by the end of Thursday, December 8th! Will she make it? Keep checking the site to find out!)

On October 30th, I recorded The Baby off of TCM.

First released back in 1973, The Baby is a seriously strange little movie. It’s about a 21 year-old man named Baby (played by David Manzy). Why is he called Baby? Because he lives in a crib. And he wears a diaper that occasionally needs changing. And he sounds exactly like a baby. (Whenever he opens his mouth, the sound of an actual baby is dubbed in.) When he’s alone with his babysitter, he eagerly sucks on her breast, half-nursing and half-perving.

Baby is the only son of Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman, giving a chillingly evil performance). Mrs. Wadsworth was abandoned by her husband shortly after Baby was born and the film implies that she’s taken a lot of her hatred towards her ex out on her son. Despite not liking her son, Mrs. Wadsworth is determined to hold onto him. She gets a weekly welfare check from the state. The money is supposed to be used to take care of Baby but Mrs. Wadsworth uses it to take care of herself and her two daughters.

Who are her daughters? Alba Wadsworth (Suzanne Zenor) is an implied nymphomaniac who has a way with a cattle prod. Germaine Wadsworth (Marianna Hill) is an actress and model who, it’s suggested, has incestuous designs on her brother.

That’s right — they’re a messed up family! However, they do throw great parties, the type that are full of all the typical characters who you would expect to appear in a low-budget film from 1973. Hippies, hipsters, aspiring disco dancers, they all show up. Michael Pataki shows up as well! You my not know the name but if you’re a fan of 70s exploitation films like me, you’ll immediately recognize Michael Pataki.

In order to continue receiving money from the government, the Wadsworths have to impress their case worker. They’ve moved through several social workers and, for the most part, they’ve survived by being so strange that no one wants to spend too much time dealing with them. However, their case has just been assigned to Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) and she actually takes an interest in Baby and his life with the Wasdworths.

Ann says that she thinks Baby could benefit from going to a special school. The Wadsworths suggest that she mind her own business. Ann, however, has no intention of doing that. Ann refuses the give up on giving Baby a chance at a better life.

Sounds heart-warming, right?

Well, no.

At first, Ann seems like just another concerned do-gooder. But, at the film progresses, we start to suspect that Ann might have some secrets of her own. We’re told that she lost her husband in a car accident but the details are left intentionally vague. What we do know is that Ann lives in a huge house with her mother-in-law (Beatrice Manley Blau) and we find ourselves wondering why, if her husband is gone, are the two of them still living together.

We also fin ourselves wondering: Does Ann have Baby’s best interests in mind? For that matter, does anyone?

Being a 70s movie, it all ends with a violent home invasion that’s followed by a surprise twist. The twist caught me totally off-guard and forced me to reconsider everything that I had previously seen. It was shocking, it was borderline offensive, it was just a little bit ludicrous, and it was rather brilliant in its odd way.

The same can be said for The Baby as a whole. This is one weird movie and you’ll never see another like it. For that reason alone, The Baby is worth seeing at least once.

Cleaning Out the DVR Pt 9: Film Noir Festival Redux

Posted on August 16, 2016 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Welcome back to the decadently dark world of film noir, where crime, corruption, lust, and murder await. Let’s step out of the light and deep into the shadows with these five fateful tales:

PITFALL (United Artists 1948, D: Andre DeToth) Dick Powell is an insurance man who feels he’s stuck in a rut, living in safe suburbia with his wife and kid (Jane Wyatt, Jimmy Hunt). Then he meets hot model Lizabeth Scott on a case and falls into a web of lies, deceit, and ultimately murder. Raymond Burr costars as a creepy PI who has designs on Scott himself. A good cast in a good (not great) drama with a disappointing ending. Fun Fact: The part of Scott’s embezzler boyfriend is played by one Byron Barr, who is not the Byron Barr that later changed his name to Gig Young.

THE BRIBE (MGM 1949, D:Robert Z. Leonard) Despite an…

View original post 759 more words

Embracing the Melodrama #27: Go Ask Alice (dir by John Korty)

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier today, I took a look at The People Next Door, a film about a family torn apart by the discovery that their teenage daughter is taking drugs. For all of that film’s melodrama and over-the-top moments, it still worked. It may have felt like it was taking place on a plane of heightened reality but it still felt real nonetheless. Among the many films in the drugs-in-the-suburbs genre, that general feeling of reality made The People Next Door unique. Far more typical of the genre is the 1973 made-for-TV movie, Go Ask Alice.

Go Ask Alice is based on a YA book that’s been in print for 43 years now. (I can still remember spending an afternoon reading it in a Barnes and Noble when I was 14 years old.) The book claims to be the diary of a teenage girl who ended up getting addicted to drugs and sex. She runs away from home for a bit and, even when she does manage to stop using drugs, her friends still insist on secretly slipping her acid. She goes crazy and ends up spending some time in a mental asylum. Eventually, she’s released and moves to a new town with her family. She ends the diary saying that she’s looking forward to the future and then, in the afterward, we’re told that she died three weeks later of an overdose and this diary has been published so that we can all learn from her story.

Now, oddly enough, when Go Ask Alice was originally published, it was apparently sold as being an authentic diary of an anonymous teenage girl who had been a patient of the book’s “editor”, Dr. Beatrice Sparks. However, if you actually read the book, it’s pretty obvious that, while Dr. Sparks may have indeed used some of her patients’ real-life experiences, Go Ask Alice is in no way authentic. Instead, it’s a classic example of the type of cautionary tale in which a character makes one mistake (in this case, the girl drinks a soda that’s been spiked with LSD) and, immediately afterwards, everything bad thing that possibly could happen does happen. The purpose of the book is to shock and titillate, to make us wonder how this girl can go from being the sweet optimist who bought a diary because she feels that she finally has something to say to being so jaded that she casually says stuff like, “Another day, another blowjob.” And, of course, the answer is that she didn’t because the whole thing is totally made up.

But that still didn’t stop anyone from making a movie out of the book and informing us, at the start of the movie, that the story we are about to watch is true and only the names and certain details have been changed to protect everyone’s privacy. Our diarist (who is now definitely named Alice) is played by a young actress named Jamie Smith-Jackson, who is sympathetic and pretty. Alice’s mother (Ruth Roman) is too repressed and uptight to provide any guidance to her rapidly maturing daughter. Meanwhile, Alice’s father is played by William Shatner, so we know he’s not going to be able to do any good either.

Much as in the original book, Alice goes to one party, drinks on LSD-spiked soda, and her life is never the same. Soon, she’s spending all of her time doing drugs and, as she informs us, having a “monthly pregnancy scare.” She’s no longer hanging out with her smart, nerdy friends. Instead, she spends all of her time with a bunch of petty criminals who recruit Alice to help deliver drugs to the students at the junior high. (“I push at the elementary school!” one junior high kid snarls). Eventually, Alice runs away from home and lives on the streets. Fortunately, she runs into a liberal Catholic priest (played by Andy Griffith and yes, you read that right) and starts trying to get her life straight…

Go Ask Alice is no The People Next Door but it’s no Reefer Madness either. What it gets wrong about teenage drug use, it gets right about just how confusing and alienating it can be to be 15 years old. At the same time, I’d be lying if I said that this film did not have some camp appeal. How can it not when it features not only Andy Griffith talking tough but also William Shatner with a bushy mustache?

And guess what?

You can watch it below!