Dick Foran & Lon Chaney Jr in “The Mummy’s Tomb”
June 14, 2013
The first twelve minutes of the one-hour running time of “The Mummy’s Tomb”, Stephen Banning (our friend Dick) sits in a comfortable chair and tells us the whole story of “The Mummy’s Hand.”
But once and future cowboy star, Lon Chaney, Jr., is the star of this film. When they meet, it’s like De Niro and Pacino in “Heat” –Dick and Lon together at last!
The victor.
The end.
Lon Chaney Jr in “Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans”
June 12, 2013
This is Lon Chaney Jr on TV in 1967.
Forrest Tucker in “Night Gallery”
June 6, 2013
So the great Rod Serling agrees with me. The creator of two of the classiest science fiction/fantasy/horror TV shows of all time cast Forrest Tucker in a “Night Gallery” episode playing a Western role!
Suck it, Scy-Fi nerds! Forrest belongs to us Western nerds!
Case closed.
Forrest Tucker in “The Ghost Busters”
June 3, 2013
Welcome to another chapter of “Sure, Forrest Tucker Was In Some Science Fiction Films But I Still Consider Him To Be Primarily A Western Star.”
I assume the creators of this show built it around the kid-friendly comic reputation of Tucker and co-star Larry Storch from “F Troop,” not Tucker’s appearances in “The Crawling Eye,” “The Cosmic Monsters“, “The Abominable Snowman“, or a spooky episode of “Night Gallery.“
I don’t want to shit on anyone’s childhood memories just to satisfy my Completist BS, but even by the standards of 80′s children’s TV shows…
Look, I really don’t want to be a jerk so I am going to stop now.
P.S. Westerns win! Again!
Dick Foran in “The Fearmakers”
June 2, 2013
Dick Foran as a DICK?!
A haughty, evil commie dick?
This guy?!
YEP! (Stills from “The Fearmakers”, 1958.) (Final still from “Black Legion”, 1937).
Ken Maynard in “Phantom Thunderbolt”
May 28, 2013
Readers of this site are well aware that I am down with any Western featuring the word “Phantom” in its title. And I loves me some Ken Maynard, so this is a double hit.
Ken plays “The Thunderbolt Kid” in a film made in 1933 and set in an indeterminate time period (no cars, plenty of telephones, the railroad is coming). The film starts with his side-kick riding into town before him and, never explained, telling everyone that he’s a bad guy so that when Ken shows up, everyone is scared of him. Hilarity ensues. Not really, but some fighting and falling in love and Ken is asked by the town elders to clean up the town.
This is essentially a comic farce which is neither my favorite form of Western or Ken Maynard’s forte.
He’s fine in this but I prefer my Maynard with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I think it suits him best.
There’s no real in-film reason for Maynard’s character to be called “Phantom Thunderbolt” or “Mr. Phantom Thunderbolt” as a bad guy mockingly calls him. There is no phantom-like behavior here as is in evidence in his “Phantom Rancher.”
It’s sort of like Rex Allen and his “Arizona Cowboy” moniker. These poverty row studios seem so mad to have a series or a trademark character that they stuck names on cowboy stars like tin badges out of a cereal box. No disrespect for the hard-working and creative souls who made these entertaining films out of nothing. It’s just hard to unravel looking back from a distance of 80 years.
The Three Mesquiteers in “Prairie Pioneers”
May 26, 2013
You can’t tell here but in these intro cards each of these guys smile then *wink*!
The 3 return. Always a different line up with these guys. Glad to see our friend Bob Steele in the crew this time.
Wanna take a guess where they shot it?
And Bob Steele!
This feels like the Bob Steele from “With Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo.” That was 1926. This is 1941.
I know that “The Three Mesquiteers” series (like many b-western series of the time, including that of the Durango Kid) exists in radically different time-periods, film to film. ”Prairie Pioneers” exists in the Golden State during the transition from the Ranchos to the new settlers. I have a good amount of respect for the specificity of the mythic California that these characters inhabit. I’ll be revisiting this series soon, with whatever threesome is on the screen, in hopes of finding more set at this time. But I sure hope Bob Steele is one of the 3.
Love that dude!
Dick Foran in “The Mummy’s Hand”
May 25, 2013
Dick Foran, man of all genres.
Lots of cowboy stars straddled the three worlds of non-pornographic B = Westerns, Science Fiction and Horror. Buster Crabbe, Clu Gulager, Forrest Tucker, Gene Autry, Lash LaRue, and Tim Holt are a few I can name. Oh, and Lon Chaney Jr.
Add Dick Foran to the list.
Dick Foran in “Winners Of The West”
May 16, 2013
– 1940 . The people at Matinee Classics have a nice overview of Dick Foran’s career. For a more in-depth study, there’s always our good friends at The Old Corral.
Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan in “Land of Hunted Men”
May 10, 2013
Monogram made 20 Range Buster films between 1940 and 1943. They featured a rotating cast of 3 ‘Busters’ which always included comic relief Max Therhune (and Elmer, his puppet) and often Ray Corrigan. Denny Moore here is a replacement for the other almost-regular, John ‘Dusty’ King.
“Land of Hunted Men” is one of the last of this series. It’s main value, at least to me, is as a great overview of the dramatic and emblematic locations at Ray Corrigan’s studio in Simi Valley, Corriganville. Unfortunately, this print doesn’t do them justice, and any lousy screengrabs I could throw up would only be worse.
So. Here’s a site has some great stuff on Corriganville.
Or you can visit it, like Briar and I did in 2008. (And you can visit Elmer at The Autry.)
See ya ’round!
