COWBOYS & ALIENS - 120 Days and counting

by Bennett Owen

Photo courtesy of CowboysandAliensMovie.com

Following hot on the heels of True Grit comes a summer blockbuster with all the trappings of a classic western, and just may rescue Harrison Ford’s career. This movie will get plenty of my money based on the title alone.  The Super Bowl spot was magnificent:

And again, the full-length trailer. This won’t be the last time you see it posted here:

As this is posted I must wait only another 120 days to see it on a giant silver screen. Am I premature in my enthusiasm? I think not!  Here’s the synopsis, lifted directly from Cowboysandaliensmovie.com:

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don't welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde. It's a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he has been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella, he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents - townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors - all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

Photo courtesy of CowboysandAliensMovie.com

Marauders from the sky. Ya gotta love it. Now Park City has its Sundance Film Festival but Austin, Texas is gaining fame for the BNAT…the Butt-numb-a-thon, brainchild of Ain’t it Cool News creator, and Head Geek, Harry Knowles.

 It’s a 24-hour film marathon held at the Alamo Draft House. 

Here’s what one lucky attendee had to say about Cowboys & Aliens:

“Jon Favreau, Roberto Orci, and Ron Howard brought {the first 40 minutes of C&A} to BNAT and without going into spoilers I'll simply say that this movie is going to #$%& ROCK. Favreau has done something that can simply not be repaid - he brought Harrison Ford back. And not just stuck him into the film, either. He's #$^% BACK. He gives a rich, layered, complex performance and commands attention as soon as he takes the screen.”

Photo courtesy of CowboysandAliensMovie.com

Oh right. And it stars James Bond, which means my sister will be sitting right next to me on opening night!

Photo courtesy of CowboysandAliensMovie.com

Like so many other recent blockbusters, Cowboys and Aliens first saw life as a hugely popular graphic novel. Director John Favreau knows his audience and caters to it big time. He’s a regular at Comic-Con where the incomparable ‘Weirdo Super Fan’ Matt Zaller caught up with him and co-star Sam Rockwell:

COMIC-CON - Matt Zaller at the Cowboys & Aliens Red-Carpet. Watch more top selected videos about: Sam Rockwell, Cowboys & Aliens (film)

OK, time for some fact checking and soul searching. True Grit has grossed $250 million dollars worldwide on a production budget of just $38 million.  Rango is also well over the $200 million mark. Cowboys & Aliens this summer and the Lone Ranger is going into production, not to mention a revival of the genre on TV. The western is well and truly back in the saddle.

Obscure Westerns #3 Young Maverick – Call the Spinoff Doctor!

by Bennett Owen

Photo courtesy of PeterBrown.tv

Of all the Western TV shows, perhaps none has created more ill fated, forgettable spinoffs and re-makes than the purely awesome Maverick. Producers tried to capitalize on that loveable con man, Bret Maverick. But alas, there was only one James Garner…a man and a character that made women swoon; men chuckle and applaud in equal measure; and in its heyday, regularly outperformed the legendary Ed Sullivan and Steve Allen shows.

Photo courtesy of TriviaTribute.com

With kind of drawing power, it’s no surprise that the spinoffs came fast and furious. Here’s a sampling:

• Bret Maverick TV movie
• Bret Maverick TV series
• The New Maverick TV movie
• Maverick, the 1994 feature film

Courtesy of Movieposter.com

Well OK, Mel Gibson came close and James Garner did have a cameo.

But the most obscure of them all, and deservedly so, was a little-watched 1979 stinker called Young Maverick, starring Charles Frank as Bret’s younger cousin, Ben.

Where do they dredge this stuff up?  Garner (on hiatus from the Rockford Files) reprised his role for a few minutes in the opening episode. And when Bret and Ben part at a crossroads, one critic noted that, „audiences couldn’t help but think the camera was following the wrong Maverick.“

The series was gone in less than two months.

And in case anyone needs reminding, this is what made the original so endearing:

LONE STAR

By Bennett Owen

1955 “Giant” set. Image © Sid Avery, courtesy of The Selvedge Yard

She cast a GIANT shadow…

1955 “Giant.” Image © Sunset Boulevard/Corbis, courtesy of The Selvedge Yard

Elizabeth Taylor was 23-years old and already a Hollywood Legend when she made Giant in 1955, a blockbuster that cemented her metamorphosis from child and teen actress to bona fide Diva.  Stunning, strong-willed and yet somehow so vulnerable…

Image courtesy of TheWeddingTiara.com

Giant was nicknamed the Texas Gone with the Wind, a sprawling three-and-one-half hour cinematic showcase. Taylor was featured in almost every second of it alongside the likes of Rock Hudson, James Dean and Dennis Hopper…a cast of superstars and yet such was her screen presence that she sucked the oxygen out of every single scene.

On the set of “Giant.”  Image by © Sunset Boulevard/Corbis, courtesy of The Selvedge Yard

James Dean was already a matinee idol in his own right and yet he was initially terrified by Taylor’s overwhelming aura.  Remember the classic scene where he invites ‘Leslie’ to tea in his ramshackle cabin?  As filming was underway, Dean suddenly ran off set towards a large crowd of spectators and well…took a leak in front of them all. Dennis Hopper tells the rest of the story:

1955 “Giant.” Image © Sunset Boulevard/Corbis, courtesy of The Selvedge Yard

“I said, ‘Jimmy, I’ve seen you do a lot of strange things, man, but you really did it today. What was that all about?’ He said, ‘It was Elizabeth Taylor. I can’t get over my farm-boy upbringing. I was so nervous that I couldn’t speak. I had to pee, and I was trying to use that, but it wasn’t working. So I thought that if I could go pee in front of all those people, I would be able to work with her.”

Here's the tea scene between Dean and Taylor (it starts around 7:20 in this clip):

Yes, her weaknesses, her foibles, her human failings are well documented. And yet Elizabeth Taylor’s striking and sensual femininity was so intoxicating, so debilitating, that a tormented Richard Burton could not purge her memory:  “Elizabeth looks at you with those eyes and your blood churns,” he lamented. And that is how she will be remembered. Elizabeth Taylor – Immortal at 79.

Photo courtesy of MovieStarStyle.com

THE FIVE MOST OBSCURE TV WESTERNS – # 4 - Dirty Sally

By Bennett Owen

Frankly I was about half scared what would pop up as I typed ‘Dirty Sally’ into the old search engine.

Dirty Sally has the distinction of being the only Gunsmoke spin-off, but it also had a (mercifully) short run of just 15 episodes.  Perhaps somebody tried to destroy the evidence because I couldn’t find a single video fragment from the series.  It features a junk-collecting female hermit with a mule named ‘Worthless’ who (Sally, not the mule) nurses back to life a young outlaw (Pike) with a heart of gold.  As the unlikely trio sets out for California, the adventures begin in earnest, including:

• Sally helps out a pig farmer
• Sally gets kicked out of a men-only Saloon
• Sally turns a boisterous farm girl into a demure princess
• Pike decides to become an actor (good luck with that!)
• Sally poses as Billy the Kid’s mother

What do you think, was I making the last one up or not?

The Dirty Sally character appeared in several episodes of Gunsmoke and here’s the segment that eventually sparked the spin-off (sorry, we can't embed this video).

And though we didn’t find any clips of the series, you CAN download the Dirty Sally theme song for your cell phone. Here it is, if you just want to listen:

Dirty Sally Theme Song by My-West.com

Dirty Sally was played by the late Jeanette Nolan, a Shakespearean actress who enjoyed a multitude of supporting roles in film and TV and over the course of her career garnered four Emmy nominations. 

Her last role was as Robert Redford’s mother, Ellen Booker, in The Horse Whisperer:

Photo courtesy of Aveleyman.com

15 episodes. Now that’s pretty obscure. Where do we go from here, you ask? Well, join us next week and find out.

The Five Most Obscure TV Westerns - The Good “Yuma” Man

by Bennett Owen

Nick Adams starring as Johnny Yuma

“He got fightin’ mad, this rebel lad, he packed his star as he wandered far, where the only law was a hook and a draw, the rebel…”

- The Ballad of Johnny Yuma        

I came up with the idea for obscure westerns while doing research on a completely unrelated topic – funny how the term “redhead” plays a prominent role in most of my Internet searches - and amazingly, I stumbled across a western TV show that I hadn’t thought of in years. It will be number one on this list…leave your guesses in the comments section below…anyone who gets it right receives a bag of Arbuckle Coffee beans, courtesy My-West. 

In the meantime, here’s Obscure Western #5  -

The Rebel

Nick Adams starring as Johnny Yuma

ABC aired it from 1959 – 1961 and it was filmed in Malibu Canyon. Nick Adams starred as a would-be writer, turned Confederate Army hero, turned postwar drifter, traveling from town to town, helping those in need.  59 episodes made it a respectable run…helped out perhaps by “The Man in Black” singing the theme song…

Johnny also copped a cameo in this episode…we’re lucky he stuck to singing…

Nick Adams was a workaholic who rose quickly in Hollywood, making his mark on both sides of the camera. He was a good friend of Dennis Hopper, Robert Conrad, Elvis Presley and James Dean. He even overdubbed Dean’s voice in parts of ‘Giant’ after the actor’s untimely death.  Adams was also a tireless self-promoter…the last three minutes of this clip reveal Chutzpah on a massive scale.

Nick’s career floundered in the mid-sixties and he died of a prescription drug overdose in 1968.

Now here’s a disclaimer. I’m not a big TV watcher.  I turned off my set after Green Bay brought the trophy back to Titletown and my only reason for having a flat screen is to view a fairly massive library of western movies, all of which I know by heart.  So for all I know, ‘The Rebel’ might be in high rotation on the “Obscure Western Channel”.  Hey…I might be on to something…