Tag Archives: Western

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

WILL PENNY (1968)

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From 1956 on, actor  kept an actor’s journal, which he published in two volumes, in 1976 and 1996. These are some of the most fascinating and valuable behind-the-scene writings published on the subject of studio filmmaking. In addition to these writings, Heston was also an exceptional and underrated visual artist. Often, when actors turn to painting, the result is less than memorable, and can even be downright painful. One thinks of Henry Fonda’s vapid watercolors or the recent, execrable “world leader” portraits by George Bush as painful examples. Heston’s visual art was an extension of his journals. His pen and ink drawings of makeup artists, stuntmen, cameramen, and technicians celebrated the unsung blue-collar workers. I was fortunate enough to attend a small showing of Heston’s extensive work and it remains of the most compellingly unique exhibits I have attended to date.

The story of the making of Will Penny (1968) is a standout entry in Heston’s “The Actor’s Life: Journals.” Heston was handed an incomplete script. Under normal conditions, the actor would have refused to read an unfinished screenplay, but Heston was so taken with the fragment that he immediately expressed interest in taking on the role of the aging, illiterate cowboy Will Penny. Heston was then informed that the writer, Tom Gries, was insistent on directing. When Heston inquired on Gries’ directing experience, he found it consisted of “a couple of television programs.” Heston put up a mild protest, but quickly changed his mind upon learning that Gries’ demand was unconditional. While it is fortunate that Heston compromised in what turned out to be one of his best and most underrated roles, his skepticism about Gries’ lack of experience had some validity.

The central performances and an intelligent, sensitive script are the strengths of Will Penny; however, Gries’ television-like visual direction and an embarrassingly melodramatic performance from  are noticeable flaws. As excellent as Heston’s work is here, Joan Hackett is even better. She imbues her part with an unglamorous freshness (Heston amusingly related that several actresses turned down the role upon reading the description of Catherine as plain). Heston later counted Hackett as the best of his leading ladies, and for good reason.

Will Penny is not a Wyatt Earp type. He does not bravely face down the enemy to clean up a corrupt town. Rather, he is a fifty-year-old cowhand who works with cattle. It’s all he knows. He doesn’t even know how to write his name. When he gets into a fight with a younger co-worker, Penny uses a frying pan “because I use my hands to work.” When a trail job ends, Penny finds himself traveling with a young Lee Majors and Anthony Zerbe in hopes of finding work. Majors is a bit of a nonentity here, but Zerbe gives a very good performance as a recently transplanted, thickly accented European immigrant who awkwardly shoots himself and then milks every ounce of sympathy he can.

Still from Will Penny (1968)Zerbe and Majors try to steal an elk from demented preacher Quint (Pleasance) and his sons (one of who is played by  in one of his worst and most cartoonish performances). Penny is inadvertently drawn into the conflict, which will have eventual and horrific consequences.The three men temporarily part company when Penny lands a seasonal job as a line rider. Penny finds his shack occupied by squatters in the person of Catherine (Hackett) and her young son (Jon Francis).

The romance between Penny and Catherine is authentic. They do not wind up in each others’ arms within thirty seconds. It is the building of the relationship between the two that gives Will Penny its substance. Even the inevitable conflict between Penny and Quint is in service of the understated chemistry between Heston and Hackett.

While Gries’ does not have the cinematic visual flair of the best directors, his strength lies in characterization and elegant writing. This was Gries’ first feature film. His subsequent films were mere assignments, lacking the personal vision of Will Penny.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

ROCKY MOUNTAIN (1950)

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Neither director William Keighley nor actor  are remembered as heavy-hitters in the Western genre, but the two collaborated for a low budget, remarkably grim effort in 1950’s Rocky Mountain. Flynn is, of course, remembered for being the king of the sound swashbucklers, even though he did a total of seven westerns. Flynn justifiably felt he was ill-suited to them, and with commendable self-depreciation he referred to himself as “the rich man’s Roy Rogers.” In his earlier westerns, Flynn’s disdain shows in his performances. However, it is in two later films, when the actor was well into personal and professional decline, that he briefly became an interesting, weathered star in the genre.

Flynn’s plasticity as an actor mars many of the films from his first decade, even including his certifiable masterpieces such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Modern audiences understandably have a difficult time with Flynn’s phallic brandishing and thrusting of his chest while he eeks out lines like, “come on men, let’s win one for Her Majesty, the Queen!” One can easily understand Bogart’s dismissal of the young Flynn’s acting as “phony.” Later, in his last three years, Flynn was a too-far-gone, cirrhosis-ravaged caricature in films like The Sun Also Rises (1957) and Too Much, Too Soon (where he played his idol, John Barrymore). Critics of the time praised Flynn’s performances in these films as authentic, but today they register as a final, pathetic stab by an actor who realized that his hedonism had defeated his potential as an artist. In between these two extreme phases, Flynn gave a number of interesting, world-weary performances in mostly mediocre films.

Starting in the late forties, the plasticity in Flynn’s acting diminished in favor of a more subtle realism. He is much more interesting and mature as an actor in The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) than he is in his swashbucklers of the thirties, even if the film, as a whole, is not as good. Critics rightly praised his earthy acting abilities in the war melodrama Objective Burma (1945), but that film offended the British by omitting their contributions to the war effort, and it was yanked off screens after a short run. Likewise, Flynn is far better in the underrated Raoul Walsh directed Silver River (1948) than he is in any of his earlier Westerns, including the lavishly budgeted and decorated Dodge City (1939), in which Flynn’s superficiality is woefully apparent.

Poster from Rocky Mountain (1950)As good as Flynn is in the still frustratingly unavailable Silver River, he is equally effective in Keighley’s Rocky Mountain. Keighley is mostly known for being fired as director of the aforementioned Robin Hood. Apart from that, he competently directed a number of routine efforts, but never really showed a vision for any of his projects. Perhaps re-teaming with Flynn for Rocky Mountain was an inspiring chance to make amends for Robin Hood, since this is a cut above Keighley’s normal standard, even though his lack of an imaginative directorial touch is still apparent.

A poor choice was made in the film’s narration, and it is a serious flaw, even if there is a bit of unintentional irony in the movie being narrated by a character who dies. However, the producers made a good choice to omit the usual comic relief found in most of Flynn’s movies. Thankfully, the hammy antics of an Alan Hale are nowhere in sight to disrupt the decidedly downbeat milieu.

Flynn is the grizzled Lafe Barstow, captain of a ragtag Confederate army detachment, sent by his superiors to California to raise a guerrilla force. The New Mexico desert landscape is bleak, barren and strikingly expressionist, echoing the fate in store for Barstow and his unsavory team. Rocky Mountain prefigures the stark, flawed protagonists and character-driven, fatalistic plots that populated the Western genre in its 1950’s jubilee.

Barstow and his men sidetrack their mission to come to the rescue of a stagecoach being attacked by Shoshone warriors. Joanna Carter (Patrice Wymore, who became the third and last Mrs. Flynn shortly after filming) is the lone survivor of the stagecoach. She is also the fiancée of a Union officer who will soon appear to further disrupt plans. One expects a romance to follow between Barstow and Carter but, thankfully, that never materializes. Instead, Carter is taken hostage by the empathetic Barstow.

Wymore is effective in her equally empathetic performance, as is Slim Pickens and Flynn regular Guinn “Big Boy” Williams. Keighley admirably keeps the extroverted antics of those two character actors in check, eliciting surprisingly low-key performances. Keighley may not have been the most assured director in Hollywood, but he was an actor’s director who gave his star and cast well-rounded roles, making one wish Flynn had been able to work with this director more often. Flynn rises to the occasion, proving he could be a hell of an actor when given the opportunity by a director who wanted a bit more than the typical role of merely being “Errol Flynn.”

Rocky Mountain ends on a true blue note, but not before Barstow engages in a last act of heroic gallantry. However, this time Flynn’s on-screen heroism springs not from chest-beating, flashing teeth, or a Captain Blood-styled patriotic call to arms. Instead, his chivalry is a shrug, a final gasp, fully accepting the consequences for choosing a human life over the good of the cause. Barstow’s choices even impress Carter’s sourpuss of a fiancée. Of course, there is nothing more gallant than placing the individual over the movement. It’s downright Biblical.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

FLAMING STAR (1960)

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Hollywood’s model of taking pop music phenomenons and placing them in film productions began with Bing Crosby and accelerated with Frank Sinatra. Unfortunately, producers were usually clueless as to how to tap the stars’ prodigious talents. The model petered out in Madonna’s whisper of a film career. In between Madonna and Bing came the biggest and perhaps most disappointing of them all: . Tinseltown did attempt to tailor its vehicles to Presley, which may have been one of its big missteps. Most critics and audiences concede that Presley’s early films were the best, though many might argue that is not saying much. Presley debuted in the Civil War era Western Love Me Tender (1956) with a supporting role, while Loving You (1957), Jailhouse Rock (1957) and King Creole (1958) all had thinly disguised biographical elements. Yet, none of these films fully captured the unbridled energy and vitality seen in just a few moments of Presley’s documentary footage of the period. G.I. Blues (1960) began a deadly slide, placing the star in dumbed-down, misogynistic family fare. Blues reached its nadir with the king of rock and roll singing to a puppet.

Presley followed G.I. Blues with Flaming Star (1960), a progressive western, directed by that taut craftsman, . Presley desperately wanted a film career and envisioned one modeled after his film idol, Marlon Brando. Ironically, Siegel and the producers originally wanted Brando for Presley’s role of Pacer Burton. With Presley finally getting his chance at a Brandoesque role, he comes closest to the celluloid Elvis that he himself envisioned. Unfortunately, it was not what the American public wanted, and the result was a box office bomb, despite good critical reception. The public wanted Presley singing, not acting, and he only gets one song here (along with the title track). Despite the public indifference, Presley made another stab at dramatic acting in the Clifford Odets-penned Wild In The Country (1961). Miscasting aside, Presley, who was too seasoned to play a juvenile delinquent, gave a relatively good performance in a mediocre soaper. Again, the public did not respond, which signaled the star’s management team to take the reigns with Blue Hawaii (1961). This was Hollywood’s saccharine death kiss. A best-forgotten string of execrable movies followed, and it wasn’t until Presley left Hollywood that he became (briefly) vital again. With the “’68 Comeback Special” and several documentaries, Presley finally became an imposing film presence, simply by being the leading man in his own unique life. Of course, Vegas seduced the King, just as Hollywood did, but his second fall from grace was at least a more original and fascinating American parody.

Although Flaming Star is imperfect, it gets one aesthetic component of the Presley paradox: Siegel shrewdly pinpoints the desperation and conflict inherent within an ambitious artist seeking to overcome his white trash origins. Here, he transplants them to Elvis as a half-breed. There has long been an identification amongst some whites with the archaic image of Native American as savage. Rather than tailoring a vehicle to Presley’s public persona, Siegel gives the actor an identification point within an already framed narrative. Stepping into Brando territory, Presley gives a thoroughly convincing and enthusiastic performance, possibly his only one as a professional actor.

Presley and Siegel smartly and predominantly ignored the pop star’s fan base by tapping the star’s edginess and making him actually play a character in an ensemble. In the promo trailers, studio execs interpreted that “edge” as a shirtless Presley fighting a savage. The scene it’s culled from is actually brief, and renders the trailer grossly misleading. Rather, the real “edge” is Pacer nervously conversing through a door slat with unwelcome visitors, followed by his beating the hell out of two racists when they insult his mother Neddy (Delores del Rio). Siegel draws on Presley’s latent maternal fixation for the scene. (Interestingly, one of Presley’s most effective songs, amidst one too many Neil Diamond covers during his final John-Wayne-in-a-Shazam-cape phase was an intimate, maternal version of the rosary. Catering to the imagined mindset of the King’s alleged WASP fan base, Presley’s distributors usually omit it from the plethora of posthumously-released gospel compilations).

Still from Flaming Star (1960)Presley’s acting in Flaming Star is simple and not bogged down with the type of dialogue he would have been ill-suited for. While Brando would have given an excellent performance, Presley delivers a commendably natural one. As a half breed, he has divided loyalties in this tale about racism. Thankfully, Siegel and scriptwriter Nunnally Johnson do not lose focus. For the first and only time, Presley has no love interest. Here the trailers, again, were misleading, making it look as if a King was romantically entangled with a genie. Actually, Roslyn (Barbara Eden) is the “britches wearin'” girlfriend of brother Clint (Steve Forrest).

The entire Burton family is caught up in divided loyalties, and racism is seen from all sides. Neddy is shunned by her Kiowa tribe for having married the white man, Sam (John McIntire). Smartly, the film opens, like John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), with an intimate look at the family, but it’s also a reason to show off Elvis singing. This is almost essential before the bleakness sets in.

An Indian massacre follows, which will eventually take victims beyond that single incident. Although the Burtons do not excuse the brutality of the Kiowas, they also refuse to be willing victims of community resentment and demonization. Hostilities quickly make their way to Neddy, even from friends and extended family, such as Roslyn. When the town doctor refers to an injured Neddy as “that woman” Presley responds: “That woman? Don’t she got a name, like white people?” Poignantly delivered, it’s one of his best acting moments, .

Flaming Star was shot on a modest budget, which is occasionally obvious (as in the day for night scenes). Siegel, as usual, is in his element with outdoor settings, regardless of funding constraints. Comparisons to The Searchers are inevitable, but while that film was grandiose (perhaps too much so), Flaming Star tells its smartly paced story in a far briefer running time, leaving no room for unnecessary distractions.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

HIGH NOON (1952)

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Olive Film’s 60th anniversary Blu-ray edition of High Noon (1952) presents this critically lauded, still controversial western masterpiece in a Hi-Def transfer that renders all other home video versions obsolete.

The Stanley Kramer production, tightly directed by Fred Zinnemann and written by the blacklisted Carl Foreman, earned the hatred of 1950s McCarthyists, including  and Howard Hawks, who were so outraged they made Rio Bravo (1959) as a right-wing response. Wayne went further than that, teaming up with Hollywood Gossip mogul Hedda Hopper and the House Un-American Activities Committee to run Foreman out of the country. Foreman moved to England and never returned. Wayne forever boasted of forcing the writer into exile. Kramer, responding to accusations that High Noon was anti-American, tried to get Foreman’s name taken off the credits. Gary Cooper intervened on Foreman’s behalf, making Kramer’s effort unsuccessful, but Kramer had better luck forcing Foreman to sell his part of their company. So much for loyalty under pressure: ironic, given the film’s theme of civic morality.

The biggest offense of the film, for Wayne and his fellow extremist kooks, was the final shot of Will Kane supposedly dropping his marshal’s badge in the dust and stomping on it. Wayne saw symbolism aplenty, but his faulty vision was filtered through a lens of Cold War paranoia and exaggeration. ((Due to John Wayne’s interpretation of this scene, he and fellow right wing extremist Ward Bond bullied Gary Cooper into backing out of a planned independent production company with Forman and producer Robert Lippert.)) Will Kane merely dropped the badge. He never stepped on it. The other offense was the portrayal of the townspeople as a greedy, self-cannibalizing lot, a hypocritical church community who argue their way out of communal (and personal) loyalty. Wayne and Hawks’ Rio Bravo depicted, in sharp contrast, a town full of old-fashioned buddy-buddy camaraderie. If Wayne and Hawks were alive today they might have rethought their depiction, because High Noon could served as an apt snapshot of contemporary division. It’s a good thing that actor/director team didn’t live to see the 21st century, though, because despite the intent behind Rio Bravo, and despite its occasional tendency towards sentimental phoniness, it remains, along with High Noon, one of the standout westerns in the genre’s greatest decade. ((The American Film Institute lists High Noon second in its list of top ten westerns. First is John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) with Wayne. Two other films starring Wayne made the list: Red River at number five and Ford’s Stagecoach (1939) at number nine.))

Still from High Noon (1952)One cannot approach High Noon without addressing its political themes, both within the film’s text and those raised in its aftermath. Along with writer Formean, co-star Lloyd Bridges and cinematographer Floyd Crosby were also awarded with temporary blacklists until the FBI cleared them of Communist affiliations. The fifty-one year old Gary Cooper was engaged in an affair with his twenty-three year old co-star Grace Kelly (putting an end to Coop’s affair with Patricia Neal.) Kelly’s fling with the long established Republican protected her from McCarthyism’s scrutiny. Cooper was friendly with the HUAC, and testified before them (without ever naming names), but he only did what was expected of him, then returned to his top priority of resuming his romance with a future princess.

Cooper was in Europe by the time the Academy Awards Ceremony rolled around and asked Wayne to accept the award of Best Actor on his behalf, should he happen to win. Of course, he did, and the Duke did a prompt, public about-face in his acceptance speech: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m glad to see they’re giving this to a man who is not only most deserving, but has conducted himself throughout the years in our business in a manner that we can all be proud of. Coop and I have been friends hunting and fishing for more years than I like to remember. He’s one of the nicest fellows I know. And our kinship goes further than that friendship because we both fell off horses in pictures together. Now that I’m through being such a good sport about all this sportsmanship, I’m going back and find my business manager, agent, producer, and three-name writers and find out Continue reading HIGH NOON (1952) →

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

ANTHONY MANN’S MAN OF THE WEST (1958)

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When the subject of Anthony Mann’s contribution to the western genre is explored, it is his cycle with James Stewart that is inevitably brought up. Indeed, the Stewart collaboration Naked Spur (1953) remains Mann’s highest praised achievement in the great American genre. However, it is his nearly forgotten, last true western, Man of the West (1958), starring , that is his most strikingly modern achievement. A telling sign of this film’s greatness lies in the fact that its status is still debated decades later.

Mann’s casting of Cooper is nothing less than inspired, although it probably cost the film box office revenue. Mann and Stewart had fallen out during the making of the previous year’s Night Passage, but by then audiences had come to accept Mann’s reinvention of Stewart’s on-screen persona. Starting in 1950, under Mann’s direction, Stewart had been portrayed as violent, selfish, cynical and remarkably complex.

In 1958, Gary Cooper was nearing the end of his career, and no director had manipulated Cooper’s screen personality in the way Mann had done with Stewart. , a competent journeyman director who, nevertheless, lacked a real consistent vision, had come closest in Springfield Rifle (1952), where he portrayed Cooper’s character as an accused coward in the first half of the film. That turned out to be an undercover ploy to smoke out the real traitors, however, so Cooper retained his pure-as-the-driven-snow nobility after all. Still, even then, neither audiences nor critics bought it. Laconic simplicity and nobility were Cooper’s well-established trademarks. Mann took advantage of what was already established, and manipulated it with a darkly hued underbelly. Under Mann’s direction, the “yup” mannerisms of Cooper’s Link Jones convey evasiveness in an attempt to hide a less than noble past.

Title from Man of the West (1955)Link Jones is about to catch a train headed for Texas. He is on a mission to find a school teacher for his small town’s new school, and is carrying the funds to pay for her. A Marshall at the local train station thinks he recognizes Link, asks Link his name, inquires into Link’s past, and asks him if he knows the fugitive Doc Tobin (Lee J. Cobb). Link cautiously shakes his head, lies, squints, and evades the Marshall’s penetrating looks. Mann’s expert manipulation of Cooper’s personality traits is so subtle as to be believable and, thus, unnerving. It was unsettling enough for 1958 audiences to reject it, and even contemporary critics have often lamented the casting of Cooper, as opposed to Stewart, in this film. Stewart would not have worked nearly as well, simply because his casting would have been acceptable, even expected.

Cooper’s Link Jones consistently plays dumb throughout the film, first to evade discovery, then out of sheer necessity, for survival. We believe that he hides a sordid past. Link’s trip is cut short when bandits rob the train. Link, saloon singer Billie (Julie London) and con man Sam (Arthur O’ Connell) are left stranded. Link recognizes the nearby area as his one-time home. Knowing the nearest town is 100 miles away, Link leads his fellow Continue reading ANTHONY MANN’S MAN OF THE WEST (1958) →