This year, our tag asks bloggers to share a western that you think matches a specific vibe or aesthetic. It's kind of a fun challenge, and I had a great time figuring these out!
Yes, Shane is a movie about a gunfighter (Alan Ladd) who ends up in an iconic showdown with a creepy villain (Jack Palance). But it's also about a lonely man being basically adopted by a farming family (Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, Brandon De Wilde). It has some of the coziest scenes of any western, with family meals, community dances, and more.
This is not your usual Classic Hollywood portrayal of Wyatt Earp as a larger-than-life hero who never makes mistakes or does anything questionable. James Garner turns in a rattlesnake-like performance as Earp, all deadly venom and menace. His Wyatt Earp makes Doc Holliday (Jason Robards) look cuddly by comparison.
Nobody in 3:10 to Yuma (1957) is having a good day. Rancher Dan Evans (Van Heflin) needs money to buy water rights to keep his cattle alive. Outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) has just been captured and is on his way to the state prison in Yuma, AZ. Everyone else in the film is locked in a life-or-death struggle trying to either get him on that train to Yuma, or keep him off it. It's a tense, taut, delicious battle-of-the-wills wrapped in beautiful cinematography, with mesmerizing performances from its stars at the center of everything.
A drifter (James Garner) passes through a gold-mining boomtown on his way to Australia and winds up becoming the new sheriff, with a town drunk for a deputy (Jack Elam), and the mayor's daughter (Joan Hackett) for a love interest. It's a loving spoof of westerns, made by people who wrote, directed, and acted in many of them.
Wounded wanted man Quirt Evans (John Wayne) is taken in by a Quaker family and nursed back to health. Their daughter Penelope (Gail Russell) falls for Quirt, and the question becomes whether he can change his ways to be worthy of her, or whether she's going to get her heart broken.
Lively:The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)
A card sharp (Bill Bixby) tries to care for three orphans who inherited a gold mine and keep them out of trouble. A stagecoach driver (Susan Clark), two inept outlaws (Don Knotts and Tim Conway), and the sheriff (Henry "Harry" Morgan) take turns helping or hindering him, as the case may be.
A man on the run (Clint Walker) tries to take a ranch wife (Virginia Mayo) and her son (Richard Eyer) to safety at Fort Dobbs, through land filled with angry Comanche war parties. It's a tense, twisting narrative with a lot of unexpected zigs and zags to the story.
By the end of the movie, you get the sense that Civil War Veteran Cal Wayne (Bobby Darin) and his sweetheart Amy (Emily Banks) have a real chance of living happily ever after now that they've put the past (and some enemies) to rest.
This story about Calamity Jane (Doris Day) and Wild Bill Hickok (Howard Keel) has zero historical accuracy, but that doesn't matter at all because it's such a high-energy bundle of fun! Jane makes friends, loses friends, makes enemies, defeats enemies, falls into and out of and into love, and sings a whole barrel of jolly songs along the way.
Adventurous:Across the Great Divide (1976)
Two orphans (Heather Rattray and Mark Edward Hall) insist on crossing the Rocky Mountains to reach the land they're to inherit in Oregon. They have a series of exciting adventures and escapes along the way, and are alternately helped and hindered by a drifting gambler (Robert Logan).
There we have it! Another LOWCW tag in the bag. Spot any favorites here? Find any new titles you'd like to watch sometime?
Don't forget to enter my western movie giveaway before the end of the week! If you want to do this tag yourself, you can find a clean copy of the prompts in my kick-off post.
That's the whole theme of Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter One (2024). No matter what happens, no matter how good or bad or horrifying or wonderful life gets, you just have to keep going. You might die anyway, but those who stand still, or sit and wait, will die soonest (and probably worst). You've just got to keep going.
I've seen this movie twice now, and I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know if it's still going to be showing this coming weekend, but if it is, I just might go see it a third time yet. It's one of those wonderfully layered movies where you understand things on a deeper level with every viewing.
I'm really glad that DKoren went to see it first, because she warned me that the movie was going to start out with some short, disconnected vignettes, and to just go along for the ride because it would all start to make sense eventually. And that is exactly how my first viewing was. The film starts right in the middle of a situation, then flips to different characters in the middle of a different situation, then flips to yet more people, and just keeps doing that for the first half hour or so, until it gradually gives you longer and longer sections. And it keeps cycling around between three major storylines.
By the end of this first chapter, you can see how some of these groups could be colliding in the next chapter, which was supposed to open in August, but now has been pushed back to late fall. No fair! I am on absolute tenterhooks to see what happens next! The second time I watched it, the whole film was so satisfying right from the get-go because I knew who the characters all were, and I could see how all the threads were starting to get woven together right away.
Because this film is so sprawling and grand, and because it cycles around and around through the characters and their storylines, I am mostly just going to talk about my favorite characters and some details and aspects I really liked. I will try not to spoil things more than you could figure out from seeing the trailer.
I absolutely love the historicity of this film. So many things that western movies (and books) have gotten wrong so often are done right here! The settlers build a dance hall that is literally a big space to have a fun dance in, not a euphemism for a whorehouse. Being shot by one bullet or one arrow does not mean you are dead. In fact, some characters take multiple bullets or arrows and keep fighting. Others do drop and die after one -- it all depends on where you shoot a person. (I'm not saying I don't love old Classic Hollywood westerns where one shot = one kill is the norm, because I obviously do, but this is much more realistic.)
Not every character is white -- you've got Black and White and Chinese and Hispanic and American Indian characters all living and working side-by-side. There's some racial friction, but most people are just trying to stay alive and help each other regardless of race or background. Not every Apache is a murderous killer. Not every white man hates minorities. Not every child is a fool.
And Costner has a John Ford-like way of making the beautiful scenery of the American West convey emotion. Sweeping vistas, breathtakingly beautiful trees and mountains, vast plains -- whether the countryside is lush or stark, it evokes a response in the viewer, and sometimes in the characters too.
The movie revolves around the frontier town Horizon. A man back East prints up thousands and thousands of handbills advertising land ready for settling around a Utah town called Horizon. The town is still just a flat, empty space when the first settlers arrive in the early 1860s, but that doesn't deter them. It's situated beside a river right where local Apache tribes like to ford; naturally, the Apache don't take kindly to this intrusion. Well, some of them don't. Some of the Apache are convinced they can live in peace side-by-side with the settlers.
My favorite character connected with the town of Horizon (and probably favorite overall, really) is Elizabeth Kittredge (Georgia MacPhail), a girl who's maybe thirteen, who survives an Apache raid on the town along with her mother Frances (Sienna Miller) and ends up living at the Cavalry fort while she and her mother try to figure out what to do next with their lives. Elizabeth starts out playful and cute, but she proves to have a backbone made of steel when she has to face up to some huge losses and harsh truths about how much and how quickly life can change. But she retains a sweet kindness and innocence despite the ordeals she's endured.
I completely and unreservedly love Sergeant Major Riordan (Michael Rooker), who is pictured above as well. He is a wonderful and lovely and adorable gent, and so I suppose he's probably doomed to die in an upcoming installment to this saga because that's what always happens when I love secondary characters. His wife (Elizabeth Dennehy) is basically Aging Feistily goals, and I want them to adopt me.
I also really like Lieutenant Gephart (Sam Worthington), a brave, resourceful, clear-eyed Cavalry officer who consistently behaves like a gentleman. I would say I love him, except I kind of am confused by a bit of dialog toward the end of the film that makes it sound like maybe he's already married, but now he's interested in a woman at the fort... the whole conversation has me scratching my head, like maybe he's actually saying he is NOT married, but the reason he hasn't asked to court her is because she's a widow who only lost her husband a little while ago, so he thinks he shouldn't? It's an odd conversation, and I discussed it with DKoren after my second viewing because I STILL hadn't figured it out, and she agreed that it confused her too. So it's not just me. He does NOT seem like the kind of guy who would have a wife back East and then dally with another woman, and the woman he's interested in at the fort does NOT seem like the kind of woman who would seek the affections of a married man. So I think I'm just misunderstanding that whole conversation... but I'm not sure. So I'm merely liking Gephart until I figure out what actually is going on with his romantic entanglements.
I mentioned that there are three main storylines here. One revolves around the town of Horizon, the Cavalry fort nearby, and the Apache village not far away. Some of the survivors of the raid on Horizon decide to strike back by killing the warriors that attacked them, and they end up getting involved with some very nasty scalp-hunters. One of the scalp-hunters is played by Jeff Fahey, whom I was excited to see just because he was in Silverado(1985) with Kevin Costner, where they played rivals. I'm kind of hoping their characters cross paths in the next movie just because it would be so fun.
Speaking of Kevin Costner, who co-wrote, directed, and co-produced the film as well as starring in it, it's super interesting that his character, Hayes Ellison, doesn't show up until a whole hour into the film. He's part of another main storyline, which revolves around the evil Sykes clan and their attempts to avenge their father's shooting and the theft of his illegitimate son. In one of the opening vignettes of the film, a woman (Jena Malone) shoots James Sykes (Charles Halford) so she and her baby boy can get away from him. Sykes doesn't die, and his sons Junior (Jon Beavers) and Caleb (Jamie Campbell Bower) set out after her, bent on punishing the woman and taking her son.
Hayes Ellison gets tangled up in this whole affair a couple of years later. The baby is now a toddler boy named Sam (Cleo and Nyla Eringer-Parkerkast), and his mom now goes by Ellen and has hooked up with a fairly nice guy. They're living in a mining camp, and they think they're about to sell some land to some wealthy speculators, so they leave Sam with a flighty prostitute named Marigold (Abbey Lee) for the afternoon so they can seal this land deal. One thing leads to another, involving several killings, and Hayes ends up fleeing with Marigold and little Sam so the Sykes clan can't get them too.
I would like Hayes a lot more if I knew what he's actually doing in that mining town, but he's pretty mysterious and very quiet-spoken, so all we really know about him is what we see him do. What does he do? Kills a killer very openly and patiently, then does everything in his power to protect and defend a woman he met a couple hours earlier and a child he is not kin to. He's a hero, but a hero with shadows, and I think he's going to be really interesting in the next one, once we get to know him better.
Oddly enough (and particularly oddly if you know me), one of the characters I find the most interesting is Junior Sykes. He is absolutely a villain in this (and I almost never like villains), but he absolutely fascinates me. He's got this wretched father out there making babies with random young women, he's got a dreadful mother that goes around punching her sons and spewing vitriol, and his younger brother Caleb is scum of the earth. But Junior has a wife who appears to like him and not fear him, and he's not afraid to own up to mistakes. He's got facets, folks. If I was writing this saga, he would have a redemption arc coming and I would love him for it. I'm not, so he probably doesn't, but the potential is there.
Okay, that's storyline two. The third storyline is about a wagon train heading west, led by Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson). There's considerable friction amongst the members of that train, much of it involving clueless, hapless Eastern couple Juliette (Ella Hunt) and Hugh (Tom Payne). They do stupid things like bathe in the drinking water, loll around in bed until all hours of the morning, and sit around drawing pictures instead of helping fix broken wagons for others. Juliette is a particularly grating moron who luxuriates in bathing out in the open behind their wagon and then gets freaked out because men spy on her. The men are awful dudes, but what the blankety-blank was she thinking? I don't believe she was thinking at all. I've got very little time for her. But Hugh has promise. He could turn into a good sort, if he gets a chance.
We don't know for sure where those wagon train folks are going, but I'm guessing they're heading for Horizon because some of the settlers are a man named Owen Kittredge (Will Patton) with three capable daughters, and I'm betting they are related to my favorite character, Elizabeth Kittredge. We shall see!
The film ends with this maddening montage where all the characters have exciting things happen, but we only see little snippets of them. No lie, I went to see this a second time mainly so I could figure out some of what happens in that montage. I'm really hoping that it's a foretaste of things to come, and we're not going to get to the theater in November and find it was all stuff that happened between the first and second chapters. Because there are some fights and showdowns in that montage I want to see and enjoy!
The soundtrack for Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One is by John Debney, and I have been listening to it a lot. You can hear it on YouTube -- my favorite cue is from that maddening ending montage, and it is so awesome you should listen to it too:
Is this movie family friendly? Uh, no, it's rated R. I look forward to watching it at home, where I can fast-forward through two specific parts (that bathing scene with stupid Juliette, plus one where Marigold has her way with a man). There is some blood-spattery violence, and the scalping parts are gruesome, though a surprising amount of the gore happens just off-screen and is only implied. There's some bad language throughout, though not extremely much -- quite a bit of it is taking the Lord's name in vain, but there are some other cuss words too. There are scenes with dead bodies, several scantily-clad women, and some very intense scenes of children in peril.
This is already streaming on some services, and I've pre-ordered my DVD copy today! At least I'll have that to tide me over until Chapter Two arrives in November.
This review is one of my contributions for Legends of Western Cinema Week this year. Check out my kick-off post for links to everyone's posts, giveaways, and games!
Today's game is a simple one. I've got twelve pairs of western movies here. Your job? Tell me what actor or actress appears in both movies for each pair. For instance, if I said The Searchers (1956) and True Grit (1969), you would answer 'John Wayne.' Make sense?
I have tried to make this easier by only using well-known actors. You won't find character actors or bit players here.
1.
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Cowboy (1958)
2.
Far and Away (1992)
Australia (2008)
3.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Tom Horn (1980)
4.
The Rare Breed (1966)
Big Jake (1971)
5.
Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)
One Little Indian (1973)
6.
Branded (1950)
Shane (1953)
7.
Silverado (1985)
Open Range (2003)
8.
Calamity Jane (1953)
The Ballad of Josie (1967)
9.
Wyatt Earp (1994)
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
10.
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
The Proud Rebel (1958)
11.
Quigley Down Under (1990)
Crossfire Trail (2001)
12.
Tombstone (1993)
The Missing (2003)
I'm putting comments on moderation so your answers will stay secret. I'll post the answers and scores on Saturday!
Yessirree! It's Legends of Western Cinema Week again, friends! Heidi (of Along the Brandywine) and Olivia (of Meanwhile, in Rivendell...) and I are proud to present our annual celebration of the Wild On-Screen West!
Whenever you post a contribution to this year's hootenanny, be sure to add a link to this widget, on any of the three hosting blogs. Links shared to it will show up on all three blogs, making it easy for you to see what new things people have shared and read their posts!
Posts with your tag answers should go there, as well as anything else you share for this event. And remember, all your posts for this party should be:
about westerns,
appreciative and not derogatory, and
new posts (not just linking to old ones)
Speaking of the tag, here it is!
The LOWCW Tag 2024
Share a western movie/show that you think is:
1. Cozy
2. Gritty
3. Serious
4. Comedic
5. Romantic
6. Lively
7. Unpredictable
8. Hopeful
9. Joyful
10. Adventurous
All you have to do is copy the prompts, paste them into a post for your own site, answer them, and be sure to add one of this year's buttons (find them all here). Then come back here and add the link to your post to that list widget above!
Time to see what kinds of prizes I have gathered up for you this year, eh? Here they are:
Details on all the prizes:
1. A used DVD copy of High Noon (1952) -- A new bride (Grace Kelly) pleads with her husband, the town marshal (Gary Cooper), to flee town before a deadly killer (Ian MacDonald) returns to town seeking vengeance. Directed by Fred Zinnemann.
2. A used DVD copy of Shane (1953) -- A wandering gunfighter (Alan Ladd) teams up with a stubborn rancher (Van Heflin) to defend homesteaders from a greedy cattleman who wants to take their land. Directed by George Stevens.
3. A used DVD copy of Gunfight at the O. K. Corral (1957) -- Lawman Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) teams up with his brothers and his friend, gambler Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas), to take down Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger) and his rotten followers in this highly fictionalized and very fun version of the famous Tombstone gunfight. Directed by John Sturges.
4. A Western Screen Legends coloring book -- I got myself one of these and liked it so much, I got another to share with one of you!
5. A set of cowboy-themed stickers -- because they're cute.
All three of the DVDs play in my DVD player, but I can't guarantee they will work for you, of course. I decided that my movie prizes this year would all be 1950s westerns featuring famous showdowns. Kind of fun to have a sort of theme going for the prizes, I thought.
Please comment on THIS post and tell me what your top picks for a prize would be! I can't guarantee that winners will get one of their top choices, but I do try to match winners and prizes. If you already own one of the prizes and don't want a second copy, please comment with that info too!
This giveaway is open WORLDWIDE. Void where prohibited. Winner must be 18 years of age or older, or have parent/guardian permission to share their mailing address. Not affiliated with Blogger, Google, the USPS, Hollywood, or the adult coloring book mafia.
This giveaway ends at 11:59pm on Friday, July 26. I will have the widget choose five winners on Saturday, July 27, and share those winners here as well as email the winners to alert them. PLEASE use an email address you REGULARLY check to enter this giveaway! If you don't respond to my email about your prize by Saturday, August 3, you will be disqualified and I will choose a different winner for it. You've been warned.
Get ready to save the world! Or, to blog about people who are trying to save the world, anyway. You know, the folks who pick up a sword or a spear or a bow and plant their sandals or boots firmly on the ground, ready to stop whatever evil magical foe is threatening to take over or destroy or transform the world.
In other words, my friend Jim (aka Quiggy) over at The Midnite Drive-In and I are hosting a sword-and-sorcery blogathon this fall! We call it the Barbarians at the Gates Blogathon, and you are hereby invited to join the fun!
In case you're not familiar with the term "sword-and-sorcery," here's how pulp fiction author Lin Carter explained it:
"We call a story sword and sorcery when it is an action tale derived from the traditions of the pulp magazine adventure story, set in the land, age, or world of the author's invention -- a milieu in which magic actually works and the gods are real -- a story, moreover, which pits a stalwart warrior in direct conflict with the forces of supernatural evil."
If you want a longer explanation of the genre and its nuances, you can check out this Wikipedia article.
The sword-and-sorcery movie genre has direct roots in the pulp magazine stories of the 1930s-1950s, and we have decided that this event should celebrate both film and print! That means you are not limited to reviewing a movie, but can absolutely review a book or story in the genre as well.
Here are the blogathon rules:
1. Anything that fits the idea of "sword-and-sorcery" will be allowed. Basically, it needs to involve swords and sorcery/magic. Pretty simple. Want to write about Imaro by Charles Saunders? Do it. Want to review any of the plethora of films or shows in the genre, whether they had a big-screen or small-screen release? Go for it. You can ask Jim or myself if a specific book or movie fits the parameters.
2. Only one person/post per film or idea (but you can get around that a little bit). For example, one person could review the book The Princess Bride by William Goldman, and another person could review the 1987 film, while yet another person could do a general overview of the great sword-and-sorcery films of the 1980s and include The Princess Bride on their list.
3. We would like to limit the entries per person to 3 (if you are that ambitious).
If you're not sure what kinds of movies are considered part of the genre, this list on Wikipedia is a great place to get started! If you have a movie (or book) in mind, but aren't sure whether it really qualifies, again, just ask me or Jim, and we can discuss it.
Please use one of these blogathon buttons on your own blog to help others know about the event! We'd also like it if you used one in whatever post you contribute to the event.
Leave a comment on this post or on The Midnite Drive-In and let us know what you want to contribute, and we'll add you to the official roster! Please note that this summer is extremely busy for me, so it may take me a day or two to get you added. I'll be as timely as possible.
The Roster
+ The Midnite Drive-In -- Conan the Barbarian (1982) + Conan the Destroyer (1984), and a giveaway
+ Hamlette's Soliloquy -- Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) and a giveaway
George Duning's brooding score perfectly suits the original 3:10 to Yuma (1957). It's dark, intense, and full of emotions, just like the film, which tells the story of a desperate rancher (Dan Evers) who agrees to help take a dangerous outlaw (Glenn Ford) to the train to Yuma State Prison in exchange for enough money to save his drought-stricken cattle.
If you had a western movie or TV show theme song you needed sung back in the 1950s, Frankie Laine was a the guy you wanted singing it. His husky, lonesome voice so perfectly evokes the sorts of strong, yet weary men that filled those stories.
"Lovely Emily" reuses the melody from the "Main Title," but turns it into a tender love song, simple and haunting.
"One More Shot" might be my favorite cue of all. It combines both danger and peace, starting out with a shiver of violence, then pulling in a wistful melody that was used in earlier scenes at Dan Evers' quiet ranch. This track feels very yearning and anxious to me. And there's a menacing little duet between piano and guitar that reminds us there's a lot to be done before this can be resolved. Parts of the theme song come into play too, never letting us forget about that train.
That last video is part of a 15-minute suite of music from the film on YouTube, if you want to hear more of this score!
(This review originally appeared here at J and J Productions on January 14, 2016.)
Another cover reveal? Yup. This time, it's for the sixth book in my Once Upon a Western series! Prairie Tales: Volume One is a collection of ten short stories that are all related to the first five books in the series, whether as sequels or prequels to those books.
Here's the official synopsis:
Discover ten re-imaginings of fairy tales, folk tales, and even a Mother Goose rhyme in this heartwarming collection. Journey across the plains of Nebraska and Kansas and explore the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado with characters from the "Once Upon a Western" series—or meet them for the first time! Encounter a mattress filled with apples, a runaway basket of gingerbread, a house that looks like a shoe, a disappointing Christmas tree, and a Halloween prank gone wrong. Each short story brings a classic tale to life, offering fresh adventures and cozy charm in the Old West.
The ten short stories included are:
"None Too Particular" (The Princess and the Pea)
"Let Down Your Hair" (Rapunzel)
"I'll Do It Myself" (The Little Red Hen)
"No Match for a Good Story" (Scheherazade)
"Run, Run" (The Gingerbread Man)
"Who Lived in a Shoe" (There Was an Old Woman)
"The Ugly Evergreen" (The Ugly Duckling)
"The Wind Makes a Poor Husband" (The Mouse's Marriage)
"The Blizzard at Three Bears Lake" (Goldilocks and the Three Bears)
"Gruff" (Three Billy Goats Gruff)
And now, it's time to show you the whole cover!
I think this just might be the prettiest cover in the series yet! And look how wonderfully it meshes with all the others:
If some of those short stories sound familiar to you, it's because five of them have been previously available on their own as free e-books, and two of them have been free Christmas gifts to people who subscribe to my author newsletter. If you're keeping up with my math here, that means that three of these short stories are totally new and have never been available before! And none of them have been available in print before this.
Prairie Tales: Volume One will release on August 6, 2024, which is in less than a month! But if you don't want to wait that long to read it, you can apply for an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) by filling out this form. I will give out a limited number of ARCs, and they will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, so if you want one, you'd better sign up soon!
I'll be offering some book launch goodies, and taking this book on a virtual book tour during its launch week, so keep an eye out for news about those!
Oh, and yes... the title includes the words "volume one." I fully expect to keep writing books and short stories in this series, which means there will be another volume of Once Upon a Western short stories one day! I currently have plans for the next three books, and ideas for a couple more short stories.
Anyone who has seen the ‘60s spy show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the 2015 film version will tell you that, although the film is faithful to the show, there’s one major difference between the two.
They both take place in the ‘60s during the Cold War. They both involve a Soviet spy named Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum in the original; Armie Hammer in the film) teaming up with an American spy named Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn first; Henry Cavill now). Both involve wild and somewhat madcap adventures, pretty girls, handsome men, shiny cars, spy gadgets, and a middle-aged British gent named Mr. Waverly (then Leo G. Carroll; now Hugh Grant) who runs the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.
There are some smaller differences, such as the fact that Solo and Kuryakin are pretty good at spying in the film, but mysteriously inept on the show. Also, they are always working together on the show, but don’t team up until midway through the film, making it a prequel more than a reboot. But while both versions of Napoleon Solo are handsome and charming serial womanizers, the two Illya Kuryakins could not be more different, at least on the surface.
The original Illya was short, slight, quiet, cool, and enigmatic, with a backstory never divulged beyond his Russian ancestry. It was that mysteriousness, combined with actor McCallum’s boyish cuteness, that gave rise to what’s often termed “Illya mania.” Young teen girls in the mid-1960s idolized Illya Kuryakin the way a more recent crop of girls swooned over One Direction. The writers divulged nothing about Illya’s past beyond a few tantalizing hints, so viewers never learned how he became a calm, mild-mannered spy who killed without flinching and avoided romantic entanglements as avidly as Napoleon Solo sought them.
Movie Illya is tall, athletic, loud, angry, and emotionally disturbed. He’s given to “episodes” of rage-fueled outbursts. Not long into the film, we learn his whole back story: father fallen out of favor with Soviet officials and sent to the Gulag, mother with a reputation for being “easy,” and Illya distancing himself from both parents by becoming the KGB’s youngest agent ever and rising in the ranks to become their best. Over the course of the film, he gradually falls clumsily in love.
Movie Illya is lonely; TV Illya would rather be alone. Movie Illya falls in love easily; TV Illya has no time or need for love. Movie Illya is relentless and obsessive; TV Illya is bored by just about everything. Movie Illya can’t dance and doesn’t care for American music; TV Illya is a jazz aficionado.
The filmmakers changed Illya so deliberately, while keeping Solo so much the same, that I’m convinced they had a specific reason for doing so. I suspect it’s because quiet-and-enigmatic is no longer a fresh and intriguing type of character. When the show aired in the 1960s, Illya was very different from the typical heroes of the time who tended to be tall, dark, handsome, and brash—think of Sean Connery’s James Bond, of John Wayne and Gregory Peck and Henry Fonda. Those were heroes, big and manly and in control. TV Illya was their opposite, which made him new and interesting.
But, what about now? James Bond today is lonely, quiet, tortured. So is Jason Bourne. From Harry Potter to Edward Cullen to Peeta Mellark, pop culture is glutted with heroes who are shy, slight, and quiet. TV Illya would fit right in, instead of standing out.
I think the filmmakers wanted Illya Kuryakin to still have an aura of “otherness.” So they made him outwardly the opposite of TV Illya because he would be outwardly the opposite of the plethora of teen heartthrob heroes we have today. They made him emotionally disturbed instead of remote because audiences today would find him more interesting that way. They gave him a sad back story to help us sympathize with him, but cast an actor whose physical height alone would assure viewers he’s more than capable of fending for himself. And by making him obviously a novice when it comes to love and romance, they enhanced his “otherness” for an audience who assumes that everyone has had multiple romances and sexual encounters by their mid-twenties.
Many TV series fans were put off by changes made to Illya Kuryakin for the movie. I myself find Movie Illya far more alluring than TV Illya because he needs other people while TV Illya doesn’t interest me much because I have no sense of who he is inside. Is this partly because I’m not a teenager? Is it because I saw the movie before I saw the show? Is it because I was already a fan of Armie Hammer before the movie was released? Those things probably play into it. I hope anyone who objected to this film “because Illya is just so different” will take the time to ponder why he’s different, and come to realize that, if the filmmakers didn’t change the other characters, they must have had a good reason for changing him.
(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on September 21, 2016.)
You may have noticed that I am now a member of the CMBA, aka the Classic Movie Blog Association. I had wanted to join for years, but thought that, because I post about a lot of things besides classic movies (such as modern movies, writing, crafting, gardening, life in general...), I wasn't eligible. But after encouragement from a CMBA member, I went ahead and applied for membership, and they accepted me a couple months ago! I'm so chuffed, because so many wonderful movie blogs I love to read are members of it too.
The CMBA has an official blog of its own, and they spotlight an association member every month. This month, they are spotlighting ME! So if you want to read my rambly answers to their questions about movies and blogging, plus a random fact about me (that relates to classic movies) that I haven't really shared often (at least, not for a long, long time), you can read that profile right here.
Want to read an interview where I talk about how my books are getting audiobook versions? Author Donna Jo Stone and I had a nice chat about them recently, and you can read that right here on her blog.
As a matter of fact, the audiobook edition of Dancing and Doughnuts is finished!!! You can currently get it from One Audiobooks and from Audiobooks.com, and it will be available from Amazon Audible and elsewhere soon.
Guys and Dolls (1955) is my favorite movie musical. I love so much about it -- the songs, the cast, the costumes, the scenery, and the storyline! But above all, I love the dialog. This musical is based on the short stories of Damon Runyon, particularly his 1933 story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown." Runyon wrote a distinctive style of dialog that became known as "Runyonese" that is filled with slang, humorously uses long and flowery words at random, and diligently avoids contractions. The dialog for the film embraces Runyonese, with spectacularly funny results.
When I saw this movie for the first time, I was fifteen and had no idea what it was about, what Runyonese was like, nothing. My friend Jesse and I had spent the afternoon painting faces at a Halloween festival, and we stopped to rent a movie on the way back to my place. We both loved old classic movies, and we thought the colorful VHS cover at the video store looked really fun, so we rented it on a complete whim.
We spent the next two and a half hours laughing and laughing and laughing. We both fell in love with all the songs and the crazy dialog and the costumes -- in fact, I watched the movie all over again the next day with my mom and brother before returning it to the video store. And Jesse and I would fangirl over it with great glee for months afterward, whenever we happened to get together.
A few years later, I found a collection of Damon Runyon's stories and read them, and was endlessly delighted to discover that Runyonese is just as funny when you read it as when you hear it.
Guys and Dolls revolves around two romantic pairings: Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) and Miss Adelaide (Vivian Blaine), and Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) and Sergeant Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons). Nathan and Adelaide have been engaged for fourteen years, but Sky and Sarah have only just met.
Nathan Detroit needs a thousand dollars to rent a place to hold his famous floating crap game, and he bets Sky Masterson a thousand dollars that Sky cannot take any random woman on a date. Sky takes the bet, Nathan names Sister Sarah as the woman he should take out, and the bulk of the film is about Sky's attempts to convince Sarah he is a repentant sinner who wants her street mission to save his soul, when really he just wants her to fly to Havana with him so he can win the bet. Except that, he starts to fall in love with her for real, which complicates everything.
Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons were not trained singers, but they recorded their own songs for this film anyway. Brando later said that they cobbled his songs together from the multitude of takes they recorded, but Simmons sang well enough she did not need such extreme editing. Neither of them hold a candle to Sinatra, but they do not need to! The unpolished, more realistic sound of their songs adds to their charm. Not only are neither Sky nor Sarah great at singing, neither one has ever been great at this whole falling-in-love thing. But they do so anyway. It totally works.
I have read that Sinatra very much wanted to play Sky Masterson and was so angry that the studio cast Marlon Brando instead, who was not really a singer or a dancer (but WAS hot box office right then), that he refused to speak to Brando most of the time. They spent the bulk of the filming communicating through others. Their characters definitely come across as rivals who like to one-up each other, so the off-screen antagonism does not hurt the film.
One of my favorite parts of the whole movie is the crap game staged as a ballet set in the sewers. Which is not a sentence you will run into very often, am I right? But it works gorgeously, and it involves my favorite song from the film ("Luck be a Lady"). I would link to clips of it here, but it is kind of the climax for the plot, and I do not want to ruin it for anyone here who has decided they want to see the movie for the first time.
I have heard a lot of people saying that Marlon Brando is miscast in this film, and I think that is hogwash. His Sky Masterson is unfairly attractive, all elegant masculinity and effortless cool. There is no reason to wonder why Sarah Brown is drawn to him despite her best intentions not to be. I have always been upset that Brando has never played any other character quite as wonderful, though, admittedly, I have only seen ten of his other films, so perhaps I will stumble on one sometime that I also love him in -- his turn as Mark Antony in the 1953 Julius Caesar is the closest I have found so far.
Random historical tidbit: when Damon Runyon was an up-and-coming New York City reporter, he was mentored by famed western lawman-and-gambler-turned-sportswriter Bat Masterson. It is widely acknowledged that Runyon named his coolest character, a gambler from the west called Sky Masterson, after his mentor.
Is this movie family friendly? Basically, yes. Miss Adelaide is a singer and dancer at a nightclub, and her songs are a little risque both in the lyrics and her costumes (see above). Not racy enough to stop me from watching this movie recently with my kids, who are currently 12, 14, and 16, but some families may find they wish to fast-forward or skip those scenes (you can skip them without missing any part of the plot). There are some kisses and some very mild innuendos in the dialog elsewhere. By today's standards, it is super tame, but for the '50s it was probably almost a little edgy.
You can watch this movie on DVD and Blu-Ray, or stream it on Amazon Prime, YouTube, FreeVee, Tubi, the Roku Channel, and probably other places too -- it is not hard to find.
This has been my contribution to the Seventh Broadway Bound Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room this weekend! Guys and Dolls was originally a Broadway musical -- according to Wikipedia, it opened on Broadway in 1950, ran for 1200 performances, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year!
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