#Arthur hunnicutt

[movieassholes]

Well, perhaps the law doesn't quite see it my way. Since when did hired guns get choosy?

Bart Jason - El Dorado (1966)

[dweemeister]

El Dorado (1966)

Pulp science fiction writer Leigh Brackett was an anomaly in the genre. Not only was she a woman, but she also crossed over into Hollywood sporadically. Alongside her novellas and serialized stories, her film credits are enviable: The Big Sleep (1946; okay, this film’s story never made sense, but its romantic dialogue is legendary), Rio Bravo (1959), and, posthumously, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). To Brackett, she deemed her script to 1966’s El Dorado, a loose adaptation of Harry Brown’s novel The Stars in Their Courses, as “the best script [she] had done in [her] life.” High praise for oneself, especially as one could easily interpret El Dorado as a lighter, slightly more comic version of Rio Bravo. El Dorado was Brackett’s fourth of five collaborations with director Howard Hawks (1938’s Bringing Up Baby; the four other Brackett-Hawks collaborations include The Big Sleep, 1948’s Red River, Rio Bravo, and 1970’s Rio Lobo). Brackett’s inventiveness and spiky dialogue makes even the more clichéd elements of the story more entertaining than they should be. Other than Hawks and the ensemble cast, it is Brackett who is most responsible for the film’s success.

Somewhere in the American West, cowboy Cole Thornton (John Wayne) rides into the town of El Dorado for a job offer from local landowner Bart Jason (Ed Asner). His longtime friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) meets with him, quickly deduces the reason for Cole’s presence in town, and effortlessly persuades his friend to turn down the job (the mutual respect for each other – between the characters and between Mitchum and Wayne – is apparent from the moment they meet). Jason’s job for to Thornton included coercing, gently or otherwise, the MacDonald family to abandon their land and water rights. The MacDonalds are an honest family, Harrah says, and they have been the target of regular harassment from Bart Jason and his men. Over the rest of the film, Harrah, Thornton, elderly deputy Bull Harris (Arthur Hunnicutt), a youthful gunslinger named Mississippi (James Caan), and Dr. Miller (Paul Fix) find themselves further embroiled in Jason’s repeated attempts to violently force the MacDonalds out.

El Dorado’s large supporting cast also includes saloon owner Maudie (Charlene Holt, whose character has a hankering for Thornton); R.G. Armstrong, Christopher George, Johnny Crawford, and Adam Roarke as the MacDonald boys; and Michele Carey as the hot-tempered Josephine “Joey” MacDonald (Carey and Holt play two of the final examples of the “Hawksian woman”).

Comparisons to Rio Bravo are all but inevitable to cinephiles and fans of American Westerns. Where Rio Bravo is more of a movie where friends revel in each other’s’ vibes, El Dorado is squarely a story of aging cowboys whose foibles – Harrah’s alcoholism to drown his self-pity, Thornton’s first act spinal injury and free-roaming ways – may spell the difference between local tragedy and justice. Despite what she might say, Brackett’s script to Rio Bravo (co-written by Jules Furthman) is far tighter than El Dorado’s, which employs a momentum-killing six-month time skip just as its dramatic interest begins to pique (editor John Woodcock does not provide any assistance here). It takes just a tad too much time for El Dorado, which uses the time skip to introduce Mississippi and sideline Harrah due to his heavy drinking, to regain the dramatic interest it established in the opening third of the movie.

Both casts of Rio Bravo and El Dorado have advantages over the other. Rio Bravo boasts Walter Brennan and Ward Bond in supporting roles (yet I’ve never been too fond of Dean Martin’s performance). El Dorado has Mitchum (whose dynamic with Wayne is fantastic), Caan (miles better than a Ricky Nelson sticking out like a rock 'n' roll kid from the 1950s), and not enough Asner. The two films, to me, are similar in quality, and I vacillate between which is “better” (but, on a rewatch, I think I might prefer El Dorado)*.

The interplay between John Wayne and Robert Mitchum lies at the heart of El Dorado. In 2024, it remains fashionable to lambaste Wayne for not being able to act and “playing himself” – an accusation that has been around for decades. With more lightly comedic material than usual (I would not consider El Dorado a comedy, but there are good-hearted ribbings and wry situational observances that prevent this from being a pure dramatic Western), Wayne revives some of the comic timing from The Quiet Man (1952) to decent effect here, especially around Mitchum and Caan. But most compellingly, Howard Hawks directs Wayne in a way that acknowledges and plays against his on-screen persona as the accomplished Western hero. Thornton’s spinal injury in the film’s opening act sees him reckon with his mortality – in jest and in seriousness. Wayne’s delivery and his physical acting is striking to longtime viewers such as yours truly, as it is one of the first films in which Wayne must come to terms with aging and his growing fallibility, as well as his reputation for outgunning and outthinking his opponents. The seeds of what would be Wayne’s late career signature performances in The Cowboys (1972) and The Shootist (1976) begin to show themselves here.

Mitchum, perpetually sleepy-eyed and always my first choice to play a slovenly protagonist good with a revolver, is wonderful here as a sheriff with the romantic maturity of a teenager who unaccustomed to rejection. The duality of Mitchum’s Sheriff Harrah here – the fastest gun for miles around determined to uphold the law and the inebriated slob who retains a sense of humor that makes self-pitying and self-deprecation indistinguishable – is difficult to pull off, but Mitchum does exactly that. Mitchum and Wayne’s historical on-screen personas are not polar opposites, but there is nevertheless little overlap between the two aside for their marksmanship. In their only screen appearance together (the two both co-starred on 1962’s The Longest Day, but their scenes were filmed separately), it seems the two have known each other for ages. The subtle glances, the knowing facial expressions, and gentlemanly warmth in conversation bely the fact that this is their first film together. But for El Dorado, their rapport benefits the film magnificently.

Like his good friend Ernest Hemingway, Howard Hawks admired masculine competence, professionalism, and self-reliance. El Dorado rambles a little bit about duty, honor, and loyalty, but all of this surrounds the central tenants of male friendship found here and in Rio Bravo. It is the development of that friendship and simultaneous professional excellence, rather than any plot details, that concerns Hawks – and this is the frame through which he wants viewers to see this film. By his own self admission, Hawks stated that he was, “much more interested in the story of a friendship between two men” than anything else in El Dorado (including fidelity to the original novel). The range war between Jason and the MacDonald family lacks as much exposition as some might expect. Hawks and Brackett refuse to fully explain how the dispute started, as well as what the conflict has wrought during the film’s time skip.

Those who are not as competent or professional – in this film’s case, James Caan’s character of Mississippi – are simply comic relief until they can prove otherwise. For those aware of Hawks’ aversion to Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) – in which Gary Cooper’s Sheriff Will Kane spends almost ninety minutes going around town asking for help when he learns a few recently-released convicts are coming to murder him (Hawks, to my consternation, considered this cowardly and a disgrace to the Western genre) – El Dorado is yet another reaction against it.

Unlike Hemingway, Hawks (who was by no means a feminist) rejects Hemingway’s reductionist portrayals of women as “Dark” (submissive lovers) or “Light” (castrating man-killers). The female protagonists in Hawks’ films, too, demonstrate tremendous ability. The saloon keeper, Maudie, is perhaps the most keenly observant individual in the entire picture, and can pick out the psychology of a person whether she has known them for ages (such as our leads) or if they have just stumbled in for a drink. She may be the smartest person in town. Her fellow Hawksian Woman is the wild-haired Joey MacDonald (her hair feels at times like an anachronism airlifted from the 1960s, rather than a likelihood of the Old West), quick on a gun and with a quicker temper. There is not nearly enough attention on either character as previous Hawksian Women (nevertheless, we need to recall what Hawks wanted to concentrate on most here, and that’s male friendship), but what there is still improves El Dorado’s watchability aside from our two leads.

A worthy score from composer Nelson Riddle (1960’s Ocean’s 11, 1962’s Lolita) dials back the main theme more than one might expect from a midcentury Western, but it is still effective music for this film. Riddle is best known as an arranger and orchestrator for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Linda Ronstadt, not a composer. Nevertheless, arrangers and orchestrators can learn composition through osmosis if they have not already been trained in music composition. Riddle’s liberal use of harmonica perfectly captures the setting, although his use of electric guitar/bass and discernible lack of harmonic identity (especially in the strings) feels too much like television scoring from this era – Riddle was the principal composer for the 1960s Batman television series starring Adam West. Instead, the score highlights revolve around uses of the main title song and its variations.

And what about that title song? Sung by George Alexander and the Mellomen, with lyrics by John Gabriel (Dr. Seneca Beaulac on ABC’s soap opera Ryan’s Hope), “El Dorado” fits the film perfectly, and Alexander’s rich baritone musically exemplifies the masculine themes of El Dorado. Strings double underneath the vocals, with the occasional woodwind and brass section and peaking out from the melodic doubling (again, one wishes for more harmonic interest here aside from doubling the melody). A snippet of the song’s lyrics reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Eldorado”; the poem itself is recited by Mississippi. “El Dorado” is nothing but an earworm, and I just wish it (and its variations) made more appearances in the film itself.

Though Rio Bravo had elements of a changing of the guard, El Dorado cannot help but feel, by its conclusion, as a generational marker, a near-last hurrah – intentionally or otherwise. This is not, like The Wild Bunch (1969) or Unforgiven (1992), a eulogy of the Old American West. In 1966, El Dorado came at a time when the great figures of Old Hollywood and the height of the American Western’s popularity (Wayne and Mitchum) were no longer the dominant forces in American cinema. The film’s title song even opens with oil paintings from Western artist Olaf Weighorst, of evocatively overcast vistas of the West, as if in reflection.

El Dorado would be Leigh Brackett and Howard Hawks’ penultimate collaboration and penultimate Western, with Rio Lobo a few years away. Their professional partnership, so unlikely given Hawks’ status in Hollywood and Brackett’s supposedly disreputable day job as a pulp science fiction writer, is maybe one of the most underrated and undermentioned in Old Hollywood history – one that spanned the height of Golden Age Hollywood to its final years. For El Dorado, Brackett, despite a few structural missteps, once again shows her gifts for dialogue and a keen understanding of Hawks’ directorial intentions. Hawks arguably improves upon his depiction of male camaraderie from Rio Bravo, allowing our protagonists to intuit their aging (some might say obsolescence). This is a sterling Western, if slightly out of time.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

* As of this write-up’s publication, I have not seen Rio Lobo (1970), which forms an unofficial trilogy of Westerns with Rio Bravo and El Dorado.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[gatutor]

Arthur Hunnicutt-Elizabeth Threatt-Kirk Douglas "Río de sangre" (The big sky) 1952, de Howard Hawks.

[byneddiedingo]

James Caan, Robert Mitchum, Arthur Hunnicutt, and John Wayne in El Dorado (Howard Hawks, 1967) Cast: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Arthur Hunnicutt, Charlene Holt, Paul Fix, Michele Carey, Edward Asner, Christopher George, R.G. Armstrong, Johnny Crawford. Screenplay: Leigh Brackett, based on a novel by Harry Brown. Cinematography: Harold Rosson. Art direction: Carl Anderson, Hal Pereira. Film editing: John Woodcock. Music: Nelson Riddle. Like his later Rio Lobo (1970), Howard Hawks's El Dorado isn't so much a remake of his Rio Bravo (1959) as a movie built on its template: Gunfighter John Wayne teams up with a drunken sheriff, a greenhorn, and an old coot to stand off an assault by the bad guys, who greatly outnumber them. Wayne retains his earlier role in El Dorado, but here the drunken sheriff is Robert Mitchum, the greenhorn is James Caan, and the old coot is Arthur Hunnicutt, replacing Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, and Walter Brennan, respectively, in the earlier film. Unfortunately, Hawks was unable to find a suitable replacement for Angie Dickinson's Feathers, the "Hawksian woman" in Rio Bravo, and tried without much success to sub in two C-list actresses, Charlene Holt as Maudie, the woman with a past that involves both Wayne and Mitchum, and Michele Carey as the hoydenish Joey. Neither makes the impression that Dickinson made. Leigh Brackett was disappointed to find that Hawks had turned her screenplay into a reworking of Rio Bravo, but she was used to his freewheeling ways by then, having worked for him on The Big Sleep (1946) and Hatari! (1962). There are diminishing returns to any kind of remake, and by the time Hawks made Rio Lobo, the template had worn thin, but El Dorado is solid enough entertainment, especially when Wayne and Mitchum are on screen together, playing off of each other gleefully. Except for the rather hackneyed "El Dorado" theme song over the opening credits, with its by-the-numbers lyrics by John Gabriel, Nelson Riddle's score is a pleasant surprise in its avoidance of Western movie clichés -- no cowboy songs or "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie." The one sour note in the movie comes when Caan puts on a racial-caricature "Chinaman" act to get the jump on a lurking gunman.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Split Second

It's rather eerie watching Dick Powell’s first film as a director, SPLIT SECOND (1953, TCM), considering his next film, THE CONQUEROR (1956), would put him in the same situation off-screen as the characters in his first. Escaped convict Stephen McNally takes a bunch of people hostage in a deserted Nevada town slated for destruction by a nuclear test. If flighty soon-to-be divorcee Alexis Smith’s doctor husband (Richard Egan) can get there in time to save McNally’s friend (Paul Kelly) from a bullet wound, they might make it out in time to outrun the blast. Powell doesn’t generate a lot of tension until the end. The nuclear test isn’t enough of a presence; you’re never really aware of time running out for most of the picture. And some of his early compositions are flat and undramatic. Irving Wallace’s script displays more than a little ignorance about the long-term effects of nuclear fallout and features a laughable finale complete with a mine ex machina. He doesn’t have much understanding of human psychology either as the characters often make choices more to motivate violent action than out of any discernible need. There are some decent actors on hand — McNally, Kelly, Egan, Keith Andes and Arthur Hunnicutt, who brings some much-needed energy as a prospector who stumbles into the hostage situation. The real standout is Jan Sterling, who hitches a ride with Andes’ reporter only for the two of them to get carjacked. Her tough girl from Pittsburgh has a Judy Holiday-light feel to her, and when she tells Andes about her past, you can believe she grew up with an alcoholic father and man-hungry mother. By contrast, Smith can’t seem to get a handle on her character. It’s all bits, with nothing to tie together the shocked society woman and the danger junkie who’s turned on by McNally. She has one honest moment. McNally asks her, “You ever been locked up?” When she responds, “Not the way you mean,” she seems to know what she’s talking about (for once). Nine years at Warner Bros. can do that to you.

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[randomrichards]

THE TALL T:

Rancher and heiress

Held hostage young gunmen

Led by charming thief

[raynbowclown]

A Feud Is a Feud

A Feud Is a Feud

A Feud Is a Feud – The Andy Griffith Show season 1, Originally aired December 5, 1960 A Feud Is a Feud – Andy tries to stop a long-time feud between two mountain families so their children can get married. (more…)

[sarnie-for-varney]

OKAY!?! GAY?!?! 🤨💅🏻

[clemsfilmdiary]

Target (1985, Arthur Penn)

6/27/23

[we-are-all-of-legend-now]

I Don't Want To Be Friends

Summary: All of your heart your mind and your body/If I don't have everything I want nothing/Cause I won't watch you with/Somebody else

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Friendship

Characters/Pairings: Brad/Rose; Jake/Danika; Jake/Rose (endgame)

Read Now

[corporal-p-newkirk]

Ten characters from Ten different shows that my family says I'm like + A few words of their description of the character

If this proves anything it proves that I'm crazy

10. Arthur Dietrich - Barney Miller - My Mother + Smart and calm

You know, my mom says I spout off information like him

9. Danny Williams - Hawaii Five 0 - My father - Brave and a stand up guy

For some reason my father feels this one is too obvious for him to explain.

8. Jack Moffitt and Sam Troy - The Rat Patrol - Friend 1 - Leads, gay, good bois

Yes they broke my rules but they feel like they can't have one without the other, because they both lead the team.

7. Inspector Japp - Poirot - My sister - Annoying but means well

I was told this is once again obvious to everyone.

6. BJ Hunnicutt - M*A*S*H - My therapy group - Dad™

Well they do all call me dad....

5. Murdoch - The A Team - The Lead Barista - Wild card

....You know she ain't wrong...

4. Dr. Jack Morrison - St Elsewhere - Friend 2 - Caring and Kind

She said it was a toss up between Samuels and Morrison and I feel those two are on very different sides of the spectrum.

3. Bones - Star trek TOS - My brother - realistic and sarcastic

My brother would like to inform you that I do say I'm a doctor not a ____ alot.

2. Patch - Days of our life - Friend 3 - Goofy and Sweet

I love my friend but I get more compared to John.....

1. Louis Lebeau - Hogan's heroes - My Boyfriend - Short™

He looked me in my stupid fucking face said “HAHA, YOUR BOTH SHORT„

[kwebtv]

Burke’s Law -  List of Guest Stars

The Special Guest Stars of “Burke’s Law” read like a Who’s Who list of Hollywood of the era.  Many of the appearances, however, were no more than one scene cameos.  This is as complete a list ever compiled of all those who even made the briefest of appearances on the series.  

Beverly Adams, Nick Adams, Stanley Adams, Eddie Albert, Mabel Albertson, Lola Albright, Elizabeth Allen, June Allyson, Don Ameche, Michael Ansara, Army Archerd, Phil Arnold, Mary Astor, Frankie Avalon, Hy Averback, Jim Backus, Betty Barry, Susan Bay, Ed Begley, William Bendix, Joan Bennett, Edgar Bergen, Shelley Berman, Herschel Bernardi, Ken Berry, Lyle Bettger, Robert Bice, Theodore Bikel, Janet Blair, Madge Blake, Joan Blondell, Ann Blyth, Carl Boehm, Peter Bourne, Rosemarie Bowe, Eddie Bracken, Steve Brodie, Jan Brooks, Dorian Brown, Bobby Buntrock, Edd Byrnes, Corinne Calvet, Rory Calhoun, Pepe Callahan, Rod Cameron, Macdonald Carey, Hoagy Carmichael, Richard Carlson, Jack Carter, Steve Carruthers, Marianna Case, Seymour Cassel, John Cassavetes, Tom Cassidy, Joan Caulfield, Barrie Chase, Eduardo Ciannelli, Dane Clark, Dick Clark, Steve Cochran, Hans Conried, Jackie Coogan, Gladys Cooper, Henry Corden, Wendell Corey, Hazel Court, Wally Cox, Jeanne Crain, Susanne Cramer, Les Crane, Broderick Crawford, Suzanne Cupito, Arlene Dahl, Vic Dana, Jane Darwell, Sammy Davis Jr., Linda Darnell, Dennis Day, Laraine Day, Yvonne DeCarlo, Gloria De Haven, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Richard Devon, Billy De Wolfe, Don Diamond, Diana Dors, Joanne Dru, Paul Dubov, Howard Duff, Dan Duryea, Robert Easton, Barbara Eden, John Ericson, Leif Erickson, Tom Ewell, Nanette Fabray, Felicia Farr, Sharon Farrell, Herbie Faye, Fritz Feld, Susan Flannery, James Flavin, Rhonda Fleming, Nina Foch, Steve Forrest, Linda Foster, Byron Foulger, Eddie Foy Jr., Anne Francis, David Fresco, Annette Funicello, Eva Gabor, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Reginald Gardiner, Nancy Gates, Lisa Gaye, Sandra Giles, Mark Goddard, Thomas Gomez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, Sandra Gould, Wilton Graff, Gloria Grahame, Shelby Grant, Jane Greer, Virginia Grey, Tammy Grimes, Richard Hale, Jack Haley, George Hamilton, Ann Harding, Joy Harmon, Phil Harris, Stacy Harris, Dee Hartford, June Havoc, Jill Haworth, Richard Haydn, Louis Hayward, Hugh Hefner, Anne Helm, Percy Helton, Irene Hervey, Joe Higgins, Marianna Hill, Bern Hoffman, Jonathan Hole, Celeste Holm, Charlene Holt, Oscar Homolka, Barbara Horne, Edward Everett Horton, Breena Howard, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr., Arthur Hunnicutt, Tab Hunter, Joan Huntington, Josephine Hutchinson, Betty Hutton, Gunilla Hutton, Martha Hyer, Diana Hyland, Marty Ingels, John Ireland, Mako Iwamatsu, Joyce Jameson, Glynis Johns, I. Stanford Jolley, Carolyn Jones, Dean Jones, Spike Jones, Victor Jory, Jackie Joseph, Stubby Kaye, Monica Keating, Buster Keaton, Cecil Kellaway, Claire Kelly, Patsy Kelly, Kathy Kersh, Eartha Kitt, Nancy Kovack, Fred Krone, Lou Krugman, Frankie Laine, Fernando Lamas, Dorothy Lamour, Elsa Lanchester, Abbe Lane, Charles Lane, Lauren Lane, Harry Lauter, Norman Leavitt, Gypsy Rose Lee, Ruta Lee, Teri Lee, Peter Leeds, Margaret Leighton, Sheldon Leonard, Art Lewis, Buddy Lewis, Dave Loring, Joanne Ludden,  Ida Lupino, Tina Louise, Paul Lynde, Diana Lynn, James MacArthur, Gisele MacKenzie, Diane McBain, Kevin McCarthy, Bill McClean, Stephen McNally, Elizabeth MacRae, Jayne Mansfield, Hal March, Shary Marshall, Dewey Martin, Marlyn Mason, Hedley Mattingly, Marilyn Maxwell, Virginia Mayo, Patricia Medina, Troy Melton, Burgess Meredith, Una Merkel, Dina Merrill, Torben Meyer, Barbara Michaels, Robert Middleton, Vera Miles, Sal Mineo, Mary Ann Mobley, Alan Mowbray, Ricardo Montalbán, Elizabeth Montgomery, Ralph Moody, Alvy Moore, Terry Moore, Agnes Moorehead, Anne Morell, Rita Moreno, Byron Morrow, Jan Murray, Ken Murray, George Nader, J. Carrol Naish, Bek Nelson, Gene Nelson, David Niven, Chris Noel, Kathleen Nolan, Sheree North, Louis Nye, Arthur O'Connell, Quinn O'Hara, Susan Oliver, Debra Paget, Janis Paige, Nestor Paiva, Luciana Paluzzi, Julie Parrish, Fess Parker, Suzy Parker, Bert Parks, Harvey Parry, Hank Patterson, Joan Patrick, Nehemiah Persoff, Walter Pidgeon, Zasu Pitts, Edward Platt, Juliet Prowse, Eddie Quillan, Louis Quinn, Basil Rathbone, Aldo Ray, Martha Raye, Gene Raymond, Peggy Rea, Philip Reed, Carl Reiner, Stafford Repp, Paul Rhone, Paul Richards, Don Rickles, Will Rogers Jr., Ruth Roman, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Gena Rowlands, Charlie Ruggles, Janice Rule, Soupy Sales, Hugh Sanders, Tura Satana, Telly Savalas, John Saxon, Lizabeth Scott, Lisa Seagram, Pilar Seurat, William Shatner, Karen Sharpe, James Shigeta, Nina Shipman, Susan Silo, Johnny Silver, Nancy Sinatra, The Smothers Brothers, Joanie Sommers, Joan Staley, Jan Sterling, Elaine Stewart, Jill St. John, Dean Stockwell, Gale Storm, Susan Strasberg, Inger Stratton, Amzie Strickland, Gil Stuart, Grady Sutton, Kay Sutton, Gloria Swanson, Russ Tamblyn. Don Taylor, Dub Taylor, Vaughn Taylor, Irene Tedrow, Terry-Thomas, Ginny Tiu, Dan Tobin, Forrest Tucker, Tom Tully, Jim Turley, Lurene Tuttle, Ann Tyrrell, Miyoshi Umeki, Mamie van Doren, Deborah Walley, Sandra Warner, David Wayne, Ray Weaver, Lennie Weinrib, Dawn Wells, Delores Wells, Rebecca Welles, Jack Weston, David White, James Whitmore, Michael Wilding, Annazette Williams, Dave Willock, Chill Wills, Marie Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Sandra Wirth, Ed Wynn, Keenan Wynn, Dana Wynter, Celeste Yarnall, Francine York.

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Billie Joe Armstrong, Michael Bay, The Beatles’s 1967 single “Penny Lane,” Jim Brown, Narciso Casanovas, Arcangelo Corelli, musician Andrew Crowley, Buddy DeFranco, Vicente Fernández, Fred Frith, Rowdy Gaines, Taylor Hawkins, Hal Holbrook, Paris Hilton, Arthur Hunnicutt, Michael Jordan, José José,Isaac Kappy, Alicia Key’s 2004 single “If I Ain’t Got You,” Larry the Cable Guy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mickey McGill (The Dells), Loreena McKennitt, Lola Montez, Chanté Moore, Huey P. Newton, Jerry O’Connell, Banjo Paterson, Lou Diamond Phillips, Puccini’s 1904 opera MADAME BUTTERFLY, Denise Richards, Rene Russo, Ed Sheeran, Sivakarthikeyan, The Temptations 1969 CLOUD NINE album, Buck Trent, Margaret Truman, Henri Vieuxtemps, and the consummate vocalist and songwriter Gene Pitney. He brought depth to simple pop songs, crafting choice cuts for Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Bobby Vee, and (famously) “He’s a Rebel” for The Crystals. I compare Gene to Bryan Ferry as both have a powerful and unique vocal technique that seizes ownership of any song or style. I also compare Gene to Harry Nilsson because they were branded as songwriters but had hit records from songs they didn’t write. Gene’s popular arc in the USA ran from 1961-68, but he continued to draw international audiences, particularly for his Italian language records (I’m a big fan of “Lei Mei Espatta”). His career intersected with Marc Almond, Burt Bacharach, George Jones, The Rolling Stones, Phil Spector, and other notables, and he kept touring literally till the day he died in 2006. 

Please enjoy my cover of Gene’s “Every Breath I Take” (written by Goffin/King). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PZcTHaYjfA Another GP “deep cut” I recommend is “Somewhere in the Country,” a densely orchestrated goth-folk-pop track akin to early Bee Gees. Meanwhile, HB to GP—thank you for your amazing music!

#genepitney #bryanferry #thecrystals #marcalmond #ricknelson #royorbison #rebel #harrynilsson #burtbacharach #georgejones #rollingstones #philspector #bobbyvee #goffinking #johnnyjblair

[byneddiedingo]

Kirk Douglas and Dewey Martin in The Big Sky (Howard Hawks, 1952) Cast: Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt, Arthur Hunnicutt, Buddy Baer, Steven Geray, Henri Letondal, Hank Worden. Jim Davis. Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, Ray Buffum, DeVallon Scott, based on a novel by A.B. Guthrie Jr. Cinematography: Russell Harlan. Art direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Perry Ferguson. Film editing: Christian Nyby. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin. The Big Sky is a good Henry Hathaway or Budd Boetticher movie, except that it was made by Howard Hawks, from whom we have come to expect more. Hawks had just passed through one of the peak periods of his long career, with the sterling achievement of To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), and Red River (1948), and he was to return to form in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Rio Bravo (1959). But The Big Sky looks like a routine Western adventure in that company, even though it has some old Hawksian hands on board in screenwriter Dudley Nichols, cinematographer Russell Harlan, and composer Dimitri Tiomkin. It has the director's characteristic touches in places: overlapping dialogue and the usual male-bonding moments. Some of the latter, especially between Kirk Douglas's Jim Deakins and Dewey Martin's Boone Caudill, verge on the homoerotic, since Boone is given to wearing tight leather pants and both go around with their shirts flared open, making one scene look like it's taking place in a West Hollywood bar and not a St. Louis saloon. The absence of the usual "Hawksian woman," able to return wisecrack for wisecrack, is particularly noticeable. The only woman in the large cast is Elizabeth Threatt, playing an Indian woman named Teal Eye, who doesn't speak English. This was the only film appearance for Threatt, a model Hawks had spotted in a photograph. Her chief function in the film is to provide sexual tension among the members of a crew of fur traders making their way up the Missouri River and to spark a bit of rivalry between Jim and Boone. Teal Eye has been brought along on the expedition by Zeb Calloway (Arthur Hunnicutt) to act as a go-between with the Blackfoot tribe, to which she belongs. Also along for the journey is a somewhat addled Blackfoot known as Poordevil, played by Hank Worden, a regular member of John Ford's stock company who sometimes moonlighted for Hawks. The journey is interrupted by Indian attacks, river rapids, and the threats from a rival trading company, in scenes that are staged and shot well but never provide more than the routine excitement of the genre. Hunnicutt and Harlan received Oscar nominations for their work.

[project1939]

100+ Films of 1952

Film number 127: The Big Sky 

Release date: August 6th, 1952 

Studio: RKO 

Genre: western 

Director: Howard Hawks 

Producer: Howard Hawks 

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Dewey Martin, Elizabeth Threatt, Arthur Hunnicutt 

Plot Summary: In 1843, friends Jim and Boone join a group of trappers and become the first white men to travel 2,000 miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis to Montana. They bring a Blackfoot woman along, hoping to trade with her people once they arrive in Montana. A rival fur company is determined to keep the Blackfoot trade for themselves, however. 

My Rating (out of five stars): ***¼  

This was a fairly enjoyable western journey film made interesting by the excellent acting, beautiful location footage, colorful characters, and a somewhat humanizing and progressive view of Native Americans. (Spoilers!) 

The Good: 

Arthur Hunnicutt as Uncle Zeb. I loved him as a yarn-spinning bronco rider in The Lusty Men, and he is just as good here. He’s skilled at playing kooky characters in a somewhat understated manner for the time.  

Kirk Douglas as Jim. It’s hard to find a bad performance by Douglas, and he was excellent here as a salty-tonged backwoods trapper. It was interesting to see the differences between this Jim and another Jim he played in a western in 1952. In The Big Trees, his character was a city schmoozer anti-hero, and he played both roles equally well. The two characters could have been enemies in a different film! 

This was an enjoyable journey/travelling story. It was easy and fun to follow their adventures on the Missouri River. 

Dimitri Tiomkin’s score was gorgeous. 

There was a liberal amount of location shooting in this, and seeing the Missouri river against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains was stunning. 

By the early 1950s some westerns were trying to present Native Americans in a more nuanced way, and this was one of them. Boone hated “Indians,” but he was clearly showed to be wrong. The wisest characters saw Native Americans as decent people with a rich and interesting culture of their own. Characters like Zeb even understood how unfairly they were being treated by white men.  

The Blackfoot characters spoke in their own language rather than the cringey way too many Indians in old films did- like “Me no shoot. We be friends now.” 

This quote: Zeb says the only thing Native Americans really fear is a white man’s sickness. “The Grabs. White men don't see nothing pretty unless they want to grab it. The more they grab, the more they want to grab. It's like a fever and they can't get cured. The only thing for them to do is to keep on grabbin' until everything belongs to white men and then start grabbin' from each other. I reckon injuns got no reason to love nothing white.” 

The Bad:  

As much as the portrayal of Native Americans could be positive... one character was a horrifying stereotype. Poordevil was a Blackfoot Indian with an IQ of about 60 who drank too much whiskey and giggled over everything. At least Teal Eyes called him a disgrace to his people, but it was still awful even if it was called out. It was made even worse by the fact that he was played by a white man in brown makeup. 

Brownface. Poordevil and some other Indian characters were obviously played by white men. Even Teal Eyes, whose actress was part Cherokee in real life, looked like she had to wear some darkening makeup. 

The “romance” between Teal Eyes and Boone. They couldn’t say a single word to each other, and I didn’t buy it for a second! 

I never fully warmed to the character of Boone. 

The pace was too lazy sometimes, and the film could have benefitted from a shorter running time. 

The narration by Zeb was often overly folksy and obvious for me. I didn’t hate it, but I sometimes wished it was toned down a little.