Paul Colt's Blog, page 12

Hawmps

Yes, the United States Cavalry had a camel corps briefly in the mid nineteenth century. The brainchild of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, the camel corps experiment was conducted partially under the command of Robert E. Lee, then commanding officer of the Department of Texas. Camels as pack animals were tried experimentally in dry arid tracts of the southwest. While camel performance was superior to horses and mules under difficult conditions where food and water were scarce, the experiment never achieved full deployment before the civil war ‘reorganized’ the camel’s chief proponents. Which brings us to Hawmps.

What better premise could Hollywood have for a comedic western than camels in the cavalry? The 1976 film cast some forty strong – those I recognize – Denver Pyle, Slim Pickens, and did they ever make a western without Jack Elam? The film begins with Howard Clemmons (none of the above) telling his grandchildren the story of his camel corps command.

The star-crossed lieutenant arrives at Fort Valverde post in Texas where he is greeted by a unit anxiously awaiting arrival of Arabian horses. Clemmons doesn’t have the heart to tell his me the horses are camels right off. He reports to Colonel Seymour Hawkins (Pyle) who could care less about camels when he has a cannon he can play with. He does have a daughter Jennifer who takes an interest camels, or rather the camel driver. Camels arrive along with Arab trainer Hi Jolly (none of the above).

Rivalry breaks out between horse soldiers and camel jockeys along with a chaotic premise for ships of the desert landing in horse country. The camel’s arrival in town stampedes horses, terrifies woman, dogs, and children, overturning a freight wagon of molasses drenching the colonel’s daughter by way of introduction. One comedic sketch follows another from teaching troopers to ride to conning a rival horse soldier sergeant (Pickens) into roping a camel – beast bolts, dragging the sergeant away. With Colonel Hawkins threatening to end the foul smelling experiment and Jennifer giving Clemmons all the encouragement she can to keep him around.

Clemmons challenges the horse soldiers to a three hundred mile race across the desert. In a Hidalgo-esque competition horses, camels, and troops become entangled in pursuit of Bad Jack Cutter (Elam) and his gang of desperados. Camels best the horse soldiers. Clemmons wins Jennifer, before the camel corps is dissolved.

Next Week: The Sacketts
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Paul

Hannie Caulder

Hannie Caulder broke new ground in western film, though not exactly to critical acclaim. The film is said to have paved the way for the likes of Sharon Stone’s role in The Quick and the Dead. Something to be said for that, no matter the rest of the critics.

Hannie Caulder (Raquel Welch) is a frontier wife working a frontier waystation for fresh horses. The Clemens gang, brothers Frank (Jack Elam), Emmett (Earnest Borgnine), and Rufus (Strother Martin) take over the station following a botched bank robbery. The brothers take out their frustrations, killing Hannie’s husband, raping her, and leaving her for dead in the burning Caulder house.

Hannie survives the fire and persuades bounty hunter Luther Price (Robert Culp) to develop her gunfighting skills to avenge her losses on the Clemens brothers. Price takes her to Mexico and a gunsmith who builds her a custom rig. When bandits attack the gunsmith’s home, Hannie confronts the fact she is not a coldblooded killer. Price, who by now has feelings for her, pleads with her to give up her fool’s errand. She refuses and sends Luther packing.

Leaving town, Luther encounters the Clemens gang. He attempts to gun down Frank for the price on his head, only to be killed by knife throwing Emmett. With her appetite for revenge renewed Hannie goes after the brothers. She catches Frank in bed with a whore and kills him. Frank’s brothers vow vengeance on Hannie. Rufus confronts her in a store where she bests him. Then there was one.

She sets up a showdown with Emmett in an abandoned prison, narrowly escaping Price’s knife fate when a passing gunman known as Preacher shoots the knife out of Emmett’s hand. No really. Right out of his hand. Hannie faces down Emmett and kills him, only to realize revenge is a cold dish.

Critics panned the film, though more recently it has been deemed groundbreaking when viewed in contemporary terms. Some call it a bridge or a hybrid with cliché elements (the knife shot?), classic John Ford golden age, and edgy offerings by the likes of Sam Peckinpah or Sergio Leone. Quentin Tarantino claimed inspiration. We’ll forgive Raquel for Tarantio.

Next Week: Hawmps
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Paul

Support Your Local Gunfighter

When humor and Hollywood collide western style, you need a willing suspension of disbelief, double butter on that popcorn, oh and a mule load of dynamite might help too. Dynamite you say? Hold that thought and imagine being shaken by periodic explosions while reading this post. While you’re at it ignore any suspicious similarities to A Fistful of Dollars. They are coincidental and Clint wouldn’t approve.

Latigo Smith (James Garner), a gambler and con man (sound familiar?) escapes a train in the small mining town of Purgatory Colorado. Actually, escaping the train was about escaping the clutches of a scheming woman with marrying designs. Purgatory sits atop a mother lode of gold no one has found yet, though not for lack of trying. Cue a dynamite blast or two. Two powerful mining companies are bent and determined to unearth the hidden riches under the command of mortal rivals Taylor Barton (Harry Morgan) and Colonel Ames (John Dehner).

Latigo has never seen a roulette wheel he can resist let alone one shaken by explosive force. As is his serial misfortune, miss roulette cleans him out. Broke, he turns to his back-up charm, romance, only to attract the attention of Taylor Barton’s firebrand daughter Patience (Suzanne Pleshette). Now we’re talkin’! Patience sees Latigo as a ticket east to finishing school and a New York style life of refinement.

When Latigo is mistaken for notorious gunfighter “Swifty” Morgan, he talks town no account Jug May (Jack Elam) into impersonating “Swifty”. Both sign on to the Barton side of the mining feud. Now if Jug was known to the town, how did he transform himself into a pseudo-‘Swifty’? See what I mean about disbelief. Not content to take this development lying down, Ames wires the real Swifty who comes to town spoiling for a fight. Cue another warm-up dynamite blast.

Swifty challenges Jug to a showdown, but Latigo shows up riding a mule packing cases of dynamite. Swifty goes for his gun as the next blast goes off – now wait for it – causing him to accidently shoot himself. The blast spooks the mule who bolts into the Barton’s saloon, where its own load explodes, destroying the saloon while finding – you guessed it – the mother lode. Latigo survives the blast that successfully removes an unwanted tattoo. No word on the fate of the mule. Latigo wins big at roulette while sweeping Patience off her . . . finishing school.

Next Week: Hannie Caulder
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Paul 

Rio Conchos

Hollywood regularly gets it wrong in ways you’d never get away with in a book. Quite often it’s the guns. I’m not even talking about Quentin Tarantino getting nine shots out of a six shot ball and cap revolver. No this is more nuanced than that.

Rio Conchos is based on the novel Guns of Rio Conchos by Clair Huffaker. The film resembles themes in films starring John Wayne including The Comancheros and The Searchers, likely owing to Huffaker’s work on the screen play for Comancheros. Indian depredation resonates with The Searchers, while gun running smacks of Comancheros. So how did Hollywood get it wrong with the guns this time?

Ex-confederate officer Major Jim Lassiter (Richard Boone) tracks Apache’s who massacred his family. Following a skirmish, he recovers a repeating rifle in possession of an Apache he killed. The rifle raises alarm at the prospect of formidable Apache warriors fighting with single shot weapons possibly being armed with U.S. Army repeating rifles. Hold that thought, we continue.

Lassiter is arrested by the U.S. Army and is offered a deal. Freedom in exchange for leading a clandestine unit into Mexico to get to the bottom of the source of the rifles. Lassiter accepts. The unit includes Captain Haven (Stuart Whitman), Buffalo Soldier Sergeant Franklyn (Jim Brown’s debut film performance), knife fighter Juan Luis (Tony Franciosa). They are joined by Apache woman warrior Sally (Wende Wagner). The Lassiter party discovers a confederate headquarters established in Mexico by rebel Colonel Theron Pardee (Edmund O’Brien) who supplies rifles to the Apache to continue fighting the civil war. Got all that?

The rifles are a problem. While it is true early models of the Winchester repeating rifle date to 1866, they were not U.S. Army post war issue. The army did not believe the Winchester chambered a round powerful enough for military use. U.S. Army rifles and carbines were single shot weapons up to, including, and after the battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.

As the film unfolds the Apache woman Sally saves Lassiter’s life leading him to give up his quest for vengeance. A Searcher’s ending. Pardee and his men are thwarted while Lassiter and Franklyn save Sally and Captain Haven. There must be a Comanchero ending in there somewhere.

Next Week: Support Your Local Gunfighter
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Paul

Rio Lobo

Rio Lobo tries a third time charm run of the Rio Bravo El Dorado plot with a sheriff defending his office. Despite a civil war secret union payroll heist added to the prevailing plot, the charm runs out before the film ends. Confederate troops led by Captain Pierre Cordoba (Jorge Rivero) and Sergeant Tuscarora Phillips (Chris Mitchum, yes Robert’s son) steal a union payroll under circumstances strongly suggesting Union traitors assisted. They are pursued by Union Colonel Cord McNally (John Wayne). Fast forward – McNally is captured by Cordoba. He leads the rebels into a Union trap where they are captured. Though Cordoba and Phillips refuse to identify the traitors, the three men become friends. The familiar plot kicks in after the war.

Cordoba tells his friend, Blackthorn Texas Sheriff Pat Cronin he needs to talk to McNally. McNally gets to Blackthorn about the time the lovely Shasta Delaney (Jennifer O’Neil) arrives to report the murder of her employer at the hands of Rio Lobo Sheriff Blue Tom Hendrick’s deputy. Hendricks is terrorizing Rio Lobo for a man named Ketcham who is swindling Rio Lobo ranchers, including Tuscarora’s father out of their land. A Hendrick’s posse led by a man named Whitey Carter arrives to arrest Delaney. A gunfight ensues. Delaney kills Carter while McNally, Cronin, and Cordoba run off the posse. Cordoba tells McNally Carter is one of the traitors.

McNally heads for Rio Lobo with Cordoba and Delaney for a reunion with Tuscarora. Maria, Tuscarora’s girl, hides them out from Hendricks. McNally, Cordoba, and Phillips confront Ketchum at his ranch. McNally learns Hendricks is really former Union Seargeant Major Ike Gorman, the second traitor. He forces Gorman to sign ranch deeds back to their rightful owners. With Gorman prisoner, McNally sends Cordoba for the cavalry before returning to town.

In town they find Maria and her friend Amelita beaten by Hendricks with Amelita disfigured with a knife. She vows vengeance. Needing a jail for Gorman, McNally and Tuscarora take over Hendricks lockup to await the cavalry, only to find out Hendricks captured Cordoba. A prisoner exchange is proposed - imagine that. During the exchange Cordoba escapes, Hendricks guns down Gorman in time for Amelita to kill Blue Tom.

Shot in Mexico and Old Tucson, critics panned the film, Hawks last. See what we mean about charm. It lost $4 million on a $6 million budget. Contemporary critics are a bit less critical.

Next Week: Rio Conchos
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Paul 

Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks make this list because of his western films, though his versatile talents and no nonsense style lent themselves to comedy, drama, sci-fi, and film noir. Born in Goshen Indiana to a wealthy industrialist family, his film career spans more than fifty years, producing, writing, and directing more than forty films. Critically Hawks’ films dared venture afield from more than a few Hollywood norms and conventions of the time. He became known for strong ‘Hawksian’ female characters in contrast to prevailing Hollywood stereotypes.

Hawks’ western list is notable if not overlong. He is best known for his trio Rio Bravo, El Dorado, and Rio Lobo, all starring John Wayne. All three films were written, to one degree or another, by Leigh Brackett, which likely accounts for the thematic consistency in all three scripts. All three stories involve small towns – Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo. All three have character parallels beyond John Wayne’s inevitable John Wayne. All three involve lawmen defending their offices against violent criminals leading to tense stand offs, waiting for relief to arrive for the climax.

Rio Bravo, Hawks’ first in the trio is considered the best. Start there with the characters. Wayne’s lead is paired with sidekicks. The young gun in Bravo, Colorado Ryan (Rickey Nelson), in Dorado, Mississippi (James Caan), and in Lobo, Tuscarora (Chis Mitchum – Robert’s son, Hawks had to fight to cast over studio objection). Romantic leads have saloon characters Feather (Angie Dickenson) in Bravo and Maudie (Charlene Holt) in Dorado. Bravo give us ex-lawman and drunk, Dude (Dean Martin – drunk?). Dorado drunk is Sheriff Harrah (Robert Mitchum – Chris’s father).

Critically Rio Bravo found its way to preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry. Musically Bravo gave us memorable vocal performances by Martin and Nelson. Writer Brackett claimed El Dorado was the best screen play she ever wrote. Curious since it is essentially the same story as Rio Bravo. By the time Rio Lobo rolls around, a traitorous civil war payroll heist prolog is added to the storyline to give it a bit more originality. Hawk’s other notable western, Red River also stars John Wayne in a film some saw as an adaptation inspired by Moby Dick. We covered that film in our Classic Western Film series back in the day.

Next Week: Rio Lobo
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Paul 

The Directors

This Not-so-Classic western film series goes on and on. It’s time for a break, lest your intrepid author turn full-time film critic. Along the way in the series, I hit on the idea of a post series focused on western directors. When the film Rio Lobo showed up on the list this week under direction of Howard Hawks, I decided to take an occasional break from the film list to look at a few iconic western film directors.

The list of notable directors I’ve compiled includes familiar names like Hawks, John Ford, and Henry Hathaway. A few maybe less familiar names like John Sturgis, John Huston, and Budd Boetticher, but by the time we connect them to the filmographies they gave us to enjoy, we’re likely to see them all among the best of the best.

One of the curiosities we shall see jump out of the list is – John Wayne. It begs a chicken-or-egg question: Did Wayne make iconic western directors; or did western directors make Wayne an icon? I doubt we’ll answer the question, though mulling it might be fun as we wander these dusty corners of western film archives.

Once I started down the research leg of this series, it quickly became apparent there is a lot to unpack with these great directors. It may take more than one post to do some of them justice. So, while I’m researching and writing Not --so – Classic western films, we’ll slip in a director here and there when one of those little projects turns up a result.

Since Rio Lobo tripped the fancy for this little side tour, let’s start with Howard Hawks.

Next Week: Howard Hawks
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Paul

Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County

If you are going to do a western comedy, the first thing you need is a comedic cast. If the film is The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County, you get a bonanza. Dan ‘Hoss Cartright’ Blocker is in the lead role that would be his last. With this bonanza you also get Jim Backus, Mickey Rooney, Wally Cox, and Stubby Kaye . . . in bit parts.

Lovable Calico Blacksmith Charley Bicker (Blocker) courts a mail-order bride. He secretly buys a wedding ring and sends her his savings for a ticket to Calico. Charley’s secret isn’t safe with the town shopkeeper who blabs it all over town. When Charley goes to the depot to meet his bride, the whole town is there when she’s not on the train.

Humiliated, Charley resolves to leave Calico, creating panic over the need for a blacksmith. Freight line owner, Mr. Bester’s (Wally Cox) business depends on wagon repairs. The townspeople concoct a story having the would-be bride getting off at the wrong station and soon to be arriving by stage. The only woman available to play the bride part long enough to refuse Charley’s proposal is saloon girl Sadie (Nanette Fabray), cast in the move to pique my interest in the film. She agrees to go along with the charade to gain a measure of respect from the ladies of Calico. Sadie’s sometimes swain, Roger doesn’t agree.

Sadie finds Charley sweet and kind for the way he treats her. He shows her the house he’s preparing for them to live in. With Charley tugging at Sadie’s heartstrings, she confesses she can’t marry him. Meanwhile Roger decides to put an end to the romance. Visually impaired bounty hunter – somebody actually made that up – Kittrick (Jack Elam) hits town looking for outlaw Panama Jack. The sheriff mocks up a wanted poster with Roger’s likeness identified as Panama Jack. Townsfolk take to calling Roger ‘Jack’ and Kittrick runs him out of town in a hail of bullets.

Despondent Charley hands over the keys to the house to Mr. Bester’s wife, who tells him how much Sadie cares for him. Charley goes to the saloon, refusing to take no for an answer. Charley and Sadie wed. Awe . . .

Next Week: Rio Lobo
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Paul

Support Your Local Sheriff

Boomtown Calendar Colorado sprouts out of a freshly dug grave gold discovery. Not-so-graceful, strong willed Prudy Perkins’s (Joan Hackett) discovery propels her fumbling farmer father Olly (Harry Morgan) into the town’s first office of mayor. Every gold rush boom town needs a villainous family (Danby) to terrorize it, forcing miners to submit to a toll on the only road out of town. The town has no sheriff and no one to oppose illicit toll road extortion and related depredations.

Enter gunfighter Jason McCullough (James Garner) enroute to Australia and in need of cash to get there. He observes Joe Danby kill a man over a card game. Mayor Perkins offers McCullough the sheriff’s job to take on the Danby’s. McCullough can use the money and besides, fetching young Prudy catches his eye.

McCullough arrests Joe and confines him to Calendar’s unfinished jail, unfinished by absence of bars for jail doors and windows. Confined becomes a state of confusion – did I mention Support Your Local Sheriff is a comedy? In a move designed to get followers of these posts excited, McCullough deputizes (Jack Elam) town clown and stable hand Jake to assist him.

Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) – now we’re getting comedic, is upset by Joe’s arrest. He takes on McCullough and is embarrassed. He next sends hired guns after McCullough. McCullough defeats the gunnies one by one, using his prowess to turn young Purdy’s reluctant head.

Frustrated, the Danby’s attempt to break Joe out of jail. By now the jail has bars the Danby’s plan to rip out by roping them to their saddles. In a script that failed to borrow this jail break from who knows how many western film jail breaks, the bars hold. The saddles do not. Jake mops up the mess with a shotgun.

Pa’s had enough. He puts out a call for help to the whole Danby clan. With a small army descending on Calendar, no one in town will support the local sheriff. Imagine that in a western. Well, I never. In the climactic showdown, McCullough bluffs the Danby’s into submission with the town’s antique memorial cannon. With matters in hand on the march to jail, the cannon accidently fires, destroying a brothel, scattering the soiled doves and the city fathers gathered there. As the smoke clears, Purdy accepts McCullough’s proposal. The End.

Next Week: The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County
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Paul

Warlock

Warlock comes at you with a strong cast, familiar plot, and heavy interpersonal relationship sub-plots. The cast and the sub-plots make the film based on a novel by the same title. Warlock is a small town in Utah terrorized by lawless cowboys working for powerful rancher Abe McQuown. Desperate to stop a reign of terror the sheriff is unable to stop the town council hires gunfighter Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fonda) as town marshal. Blaisedell comes to town with clubfooted sidekick Tom Morgan (Anthony Quinn). Morgan is a gun hand, gambler, and drunk devoted to Blaisedell who treats him like a whole man.

Blaisedell and Morgan stand down their first encounter with McQuown’s men who are intimidated by Blaisedell’s reputation. One of them, Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark) has had enough of his outlaw ways, eventually becoming resident deputy sheriff in Warlock.

Blaisedell and Morgan’s past catches up with them when Lilly Dollar (Dorothy Malone), a woman from Morgan’s past comes to town with the brother of a man Blaisedell killed at Morgan’s urging, out of spite for Lilly having left him for the dead brother. Follow that? McQown’s men hold up the stage Lilly and the brother are traveling on. The hold up gang is led by Gannon’s younger brother, Billy who Blaisedell and a posse apprehend. At trial, jurors are intimidated by McQuown’s men, and the robbers are acquitted.

The robbers want revenge on Blaisedell. Blaisedell kills Billy and a couple of others for good measure, making him a marked man. The cowboys declare themselves ‘Regulators’ quasi lawmen who head for Warlock and a show down. Gannon faces them alone when Morgan keeps Blaisedell out of the fight at gunpoint. Gannon kills McQuown, stopping the cowboy threat. Morgan can’t stand being shown up by Gannon along with Lilly’s attraction to the young deputy. Blaisedell learns the truth about the brother he killed, turning aside from his friendship for Morgan. Mogan calls him out. Blaisedell kills him and gives up his guns before riding away.

The film enjoyed critical acclaim for direction, screenplay, and cast performances. The screen play comes with the familiar western themes of a terrorized town and a gunman walking away from his past. The Morgan Blaisedell and Gannon brothers conflicts give depth to the story.

Next Week: Support Your Local Sheriff
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Ride easy,
Paul