'I'm a peaceable man'

Super Saturday.

Fantastic football. Better baseball. Scrumptious homemade spaghetti. My wife's is wonderful.

Well, as usual, I couldn't sleep last night. So, I flipped on the TV and dialed the DVR to an old favorite, "Riders of the Silver Screen."

Sure enough, Marshal Andy Smalls and Deadwood Don Calhoun didn't disappoint.

Yesterday's show (and next week's!) celebrates Wild Bill Elliott, whose birth date is Wednesday. The first installment was dedicated to the Wild Bill Hickok portion of Elliott's career and even included an appearance by Bill Elliott biographer John W. Leonard. Have you read his book?


Duke Wayne is my favorite rider of the silver screen. Roy Rogers is my sentimental choice for No. 1 B-movie cowboy.

But Bill Elliott is my favorite so-called "B." He's cool, he wears his guns backwards (neat reason why), and he was the best Red Ryder by far.

If you like this sort of thing and live in East Tennessee, don't miss "Riders of the Silver Screen" at 10:30 a.m. (EDT) Saturday, Oct. 19, on East Tennessee PBS (Channels 2 or 15 locally) for part two of the Bill Elliott birthday bash.

And don't forget: "I'm a peaceable man."

'A perfect picture'

At the dinner legendary director John Ford held as he wrapped production on his classic film "The Quiet Man," he reportedly said that this movie would be his epitaph.

And, in a strange way, Ford was correct.

I know what you're thinking. Yes, Ford made movies for another 12 years. Yes, two of them ("The Searchers" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance") are considered classics.

But, "The Quiet Man" was Ford's dream, and as film historian Don Calhoun pointed out in our recent interview, Pappy was never quite the same after his dream made it to the big screen.

Ford bought the rights to the Maurice Walsh short story in "The Saturday Evening Post" for $10 in 1933. He tried for years to get a studio to back the film adaptation, but nobody would touch it, figuring a quaint Irish tale wouldn't make money at the box office.

Finally, he struck a deal with Republic Pictures chief Herbert J. Yates. Republic would finance "The Quiet Man" if Ford would agree to film a western starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara (the leads in "The Quiet Man") for Republic. That movie became "Rio Grande."

Much of "The Quiet Man" was filmed in Ford's native Ireland. It centers around the love affair between Sean Thornton (Wayne) and Mary Kate Danaher (O'Hara). It is an idealized portrayal of Ireland, but was shot in brilliant Technicolor (a victory for Ford over the studio, which wanted to use its awful TruColor process), so it captures that country's trademark green countryside in all its glory.

The film's most famous scene is the long, climactic fight between Thornton and Mary Kate's brother Will, played to the hilt by Victor McLaglen. It, and any scene featuring Ward Bond as the town priest, are the best parts of the movie.

"The Quiet Man" was a huge hit at the box office and a personal and professional triumph for John Ford. He won an Academy Award as Best Director for this film.

As Calhoun noted in our interview, Ford never really recovered, though. He made a series of stinkers ("Donovan's Reef" represents the nadir in his long association with John Wayne) and his final film, "Cheyenne Autumn," is meandering and unwatchable.

But, he brought his dream to the screen, and it remains a testament to the best of his moviemaking. As Calhoun put it, "This is a perfect picture. It isn't my favorite, but it's a perfect picture."

Read the print interview with Don Calhoun this week at www.ShopperNewsNow.com. Tomorrow, I'll wrap up this week-long look at westerns by naming my favorite B-Western stars.

Film noir, in the narrow margin...

Folks might get the idea that Don Calhoun only loves cowboy pictures. Not so.

During our recent interview (read the printed edition at www.ShopperNewsNow.com this week), the B-Western historian also mentioned that he loves film noir.

Talk about some great flicks.

In its classic sense, film noir refers to pictures released from the early 1940s through the late 1950s, mostly crime dramas, that were quite stylistic and often dealt with sex and moral ambiguity. They were always filmed in an understated black-and-white, which added to the film's overall mood.

When asked for examples, Don named one of my favorites, "The Narrow Margin," which I reviewed on this blog in the April 14, 2008, entry. Other titles from the classic period Don named as favorites include "Detour," "Murder, My Sweet," "The Hitchhiker" and "Out of the Past."

"A lot of these were basically B films," Don says. "But they work with a limited amount of money and get good people and do what they can with them."

Don says that RKO Studios produced the best film noir pictures as a whole.

These days, the definition of "film noir" has expanded to include several Humphrey Bogart films (most notably "The Maltese Falcon") and stretches forward as late as 1970.

But, the best by far are the classics from the '40s and 50s. For the record, my favorite is "Laura," a film I consider to be one of the best movies period.

Check back tomorrow for a review of the film Don Calhoun says nearly drove director John Ford nuts...

Wild Bill, 'Red Ryder' and the best of the Bs

During our recent interview (read it this week at www.ShopperNewsNow.com), B-western film historian Don Calhoun said that his favorite B-western cowboy is Wild Bill Elliott.

"I just like Bill Elliott," Calhoun says. "To me, he had it all -- the films had (plenty of) action, he was a good rider, had the voice, had the look."

Born Gordon A. Nance in Missouri, Elliott made his first western, "The Arizona Wildcat," in 1927. His big break came when Columbia tapped him to play the lead in "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" in 1938. (Columbia president Harry Cohn was the one who renamed him Bill Elliott, by the way.)

Elliott's popularity was such that he was one of the Motion Picture Herald's Top 10 Western Stars for the next 15 years. Beginning in 1943, he made a popular series of eight films as "Wild" Bill Elliott at Republic, co-starring George "Gabby" Hayes.

But his best known work came in the 16 movies he made as "Red Ryder," the popular comic strip cowboy. His trademark was two six-shooters worn butts-forward. His popularity hit such a peak with "Red Ryder" that Elliott continued making "B" westerns through the 1950s.

Tomorrow we'll look at Don Calhoun's thoughts on his other favorite genre, film noir. And don't forget that Marshal Andy Smalls is hosting a special live taping of "Riders of the Silver Screen" at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, at the ETP-TV, 1611 E. Magnolia Ave. in Knoxville. The public is welcome.

'Ride the High Country'

My father says there's only right and wrong -- good and evil. Nothing in between. It isn't that simple, is it?

No, it isn't. It should be, but it isn't.

When I interviewed "Deadwood" Don Calhoun for an article that appears in today's (Monday, Sept. 14) Shopper-News, (read it at www.ShopperNewsNow.com) he reminded me of a classic western, Randolph Scott's last film, "Ride the High Country," from 1962. Rented it from Netflix and watched it again over the weekend.

Put simply: what a beautiful flick.

The film is an elegy in many ways to the end of an era, a tip of the cap to the Golden Age of American westerns. But, it is also a commentary on how a man faces mortality, how a gunfighter meets his fate. It is an unsentimental western released in a time dominated by unambiguous corn.

Scott plays Gil Westrum, partner to ex-law officer Steve Judd (Joel McCrea), who is hired to transport gold from a tough mining community through a rough patch of wild country. Westrum has become a barker in a wild west show and is glad for the work. Judd is getting old but wants to prove he's still got it.

So they join up with youngster Heck Longtree (Ron Starr) to ride the range one last time. Along the way, though, they run into Elsa (Meriette Hartley) and her fundamentalist father Joshua (R.G. Armstrong). Elsa is set to marry a man in the mining camp, played by James Drury, who brings with him an outlaw gang of a family.

Without giving away too much, the gist of this film is that Judd has no idea that Westrum, his former partner, and the youngster Longtree, are planning to double-cross him and steal the gold. He faces all this in addition to the problems that arise in the mining camp.

I won't spoil the ending other than to tell you that director Sam Peckinpah delivers an honest motion picture that doesn't shy away from the sad fact that the world isn't black-and-white, that both good and bad lie within all of us, and that human beings, even those who are basically decent, are also fairly complicated.

Scott finished a brilliant career with this film. He spent several years making average westerns, then jumped to a series of classics directed by Budd Boetticher. (The best one is "Seven Men From Now," which I will review in a day or so.) Peckinpah went on to direct several fine films, including "Straw Dogs" and "The Wild Bunch." McCrea made a few more films, but more or less said good-bye to a good career in this underrated classic. Hartley said she never topped this role, which was her first.

I guess my favorite part is the climax, in which Westrum and Judd decide to go out with guns blazing, heads held high. As Judd says, "All I want is to enter my house justified."

This is a fine western, indeed a fine film of any genre, one you have to see if you pretend to know anything about American cinema. It speaks to our fears about mortality, our thoughts about character, our motivations as the multi-faceted human beings we really are.

Peckinpah directs a western that deals with all of this and gives Randolph Scott a fitting epitaph. See this film, if you haven't. Oh, it's good. Mighty good.

Check back for more this week on Don Calhoun, A- and B-Westerns, TV cowboy favorites and other info on classic oaters. Don't forget that Marshal Andy Smalls will host a special live taping of "Riders of the Silver Screen" at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, at the Knoxville PBS station on E. Magnolia Ave. Show up, have breakfast and enjoy the show. It will air on Channels 2 and 15 at the same time.