Click images for desktop size: "Betty Page" by Olivia Until Sergio Leone unraveled the western with his "Dollars" movies there were three kings of the genre. John "He made westerns" Ford, Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher (pronounced bet-ek-er).
John Ford remains something of an icon, nearly a legend. Anthony Mann found the westerns too small! He moved into epics like "El Cid" and Spartacus (the movie that launched Stanley Kubrick who took over when Mann died during production).
While Mann is appreciated he doesn't have the fame and accolades he deserves. Boetticher has been mainly ignored. A few guys, like me and a couple of other western aficionados have been playing him up forever, in just the same way I played up Preston Sturges, as a man who was an entertainer first and through his entertainment managed to produce first quality art. (Art, there's an ugly off putting
Click images for desktop size: "Solitary Hunter" by Unknown word for most. It makes it sound like the opposite of fun, like something you can't just enjoy but a thing that has to be approached with awe and a tinge of fear. Bad art (Cecile B DeMille, I think, wants that aura. Sturges and Mann and Ford wanted you to have a rollicking good time first.)
But all in all Boetticher has been ignored. People still catch some of his movies on TV and marvel but it's usually too late in the movie for them to remember the credits.
As DVD sellers are desperate for product suddenly guys like Boetticher are getting some notice. It started when they finally discovered the Batjac library. Batjac was John Wayne's short lived production company. It was designed to make money but Wayne didn't have much of a head for
Click images for desktop size: "Boat Girl" by Scott Jackson business.
I like the idea of great films being made while guys sit on the beach sharing a bottle, the deals finalized with a handshake and maybe, somewhere down the line we draw up a contract to appease those union guys. That's filmmaking I can appreciate.
When John Wayne died no one had any idea where the films even were! They found the Batjac library about 2005, stashed in one of the old Hollywood film vaults. There wasn't much of interest there but there was the Randolph Scott. Lee Marvin western "7 Men From Now." It was the first release from Batjac and got an excellent release, capitalizing on the fact that this film was never on TV and unseen since 1956. Tied into the John Wayne legend it did okay.
"7 Men From Now" was also the first collaboration between, Scott, Harry Joe Brown, Burt Kennedy and Budd Boetticher.
It wasn't readily apparent but this was a stew that would grow into a gorgeous monster.
The disc didn't set any records but it made enough to justify gathering up the other RANOWN films (RAN-dolph Scott and Harry Joe Br-OWN=RANOWN) and making an interesting box set. Even though none of these films run over 72 minutes they're all on separate discs. The only extra of note is an okay talking head documentary about Boetticher.
The disks are all wide screen and done well enough. Since my memories of all these films are from TV the bright color and widescreen is a heady enhancement.
For Burt Kennedy "7 Men From Now" was his first produced screenplay. He learned a lot from it. He avoided the mistakes it made for the rest of his career. Kennedy eventually moved into directing, working in TV until he got a shot with "Return of the Seven" a sequel of sorts to "The Magnificent 7". The he exploded with the chilling western,
Click images for desktop size: "Cherry Red with Butterfly" by Anonymous "Welcome to Hard Times" and the "Support Your Local Sheriff" and "Support Your Local Gunfighter". He even did an adaptation of Jim Thompson's brilliant pulp novel, "The Killer Inside Me."
Kennedy was in his mid 30's when he churned out "7 Men From Now". It was a learning experience. He used it to learn so he could now write some awesome things.
Boetticher was a hanger on fringe director. His last job before directing was as a Matador down in Mexico! Somehow he used this to get into Hollywood show biz.
He did maybe a dozen B type adventure films. Nothing truly astonishing from any I've seen. Then he had a small hit with his autobiographical movie, "The Bullfighter and the Lady." The movie didn't impress me, more because of my distaste for bullfighting then anything else. But the guy had learned how to tell a story.
He started to make westerns. His first was the Audie Murphy movie, "The Cimarron Kid". It was alright. It stepped him up to better budgets and better actors, like Glenn Ford in "The Man From the Alamo".
But it wasn't until "The Tall T" that he really exploded.
"The Tall T" is a movie that moves you in many different ways, few of which you could readily anticipate. Part of this is due to some astonishing acting. Part of it is due to Randolph Scott acknowledging the limits of his abilities and his willingness to see himself as the centerpiece of a project and not just a movie star.
"The Tall T" starts off with Scott pretty much playing the hapless buffoon. His buffoonery is amplified over and over. The only typical "manly" attribute he's given is honor.
Instead of going for a drink he goes to by the candy he promised a young boy he'd pick up. When he makes a bet with his old boss (his horse against a prize brahma "seed" bull) to ride the bull Scott looses and then dives into a water trough to avoid getting trampled. He rises from the trough looking like a rodeo clown.
Next we see Scott walking the 20 miles back home. His friend, Ringtoon, picks him up over the complaints of his chartered passengers. They pull into Scott's destination. The stage line office where Scott plans to borrow a horse and deliver his candy to the 9 year old boy.
Suddenly the movie transforms. It becomes galvanic with the appearance of Richard Boone, as gang leader Frank, and Henry Silva as Chink. The names are important. They are as much adjectives as they are nouns.

Click images for desktop size: "Program" by Maxfield Parrish Boone is magnificent, quietly deadly, thin and easily quick, totally self aware and, by implication, totally self obsessed, and most of all charismatic. Silva, who became famous for playing noir-ish type deranged gangsters brings the edge of urban psychosis juvenile delinquency to the wild mountain scenery.
When the stage coach pulls into the station they are robbed by Frank, Chink and Billy Jack. Scott stands by helpless and ineffectual while Chink kills his friend Ringtoon.
They've already killed the station master and the 9 year old boy. Billy Jack takes the candy Scott bought for the kid and happily eats it. They dumped the bodies down the well, polluting the only water for miles. They refuse Scott the right to give his friend a "proper burial". Scott is forced to dump his friend into the well.
Its clear that Frank plans to kill Scott and the two passengers; the newlywed Mims. Mrs Mims is an heiress. Her father owns the richest copper mine in the territory. Her husband bargains with the robbers by telling them this, even outlying a plan where the robbers can collect a huge ransom for the woman. In effect he's selling his wife, trying to barter her for his own life. She remains unaware of this.
Boone decides to follow through with this plan, asking for 50,000 in ransom. Mims' is relieved to be out of immediate danger and proud of himself for concocting such a masterful scheme to extort money from his father-in-law.
Mrs Mims is played by the lovely Maureen O'Sullivan, best known for playing the primally sexy Jane in the Weismuller Tarzan flics. Here she startlingly transforms herself into a dowdy, mousey subservient sub-human thing. She reacts, clearly, not with her heart but with what her mind tells her that her heart should feel. Its a wonderful performance.
To Chink's disappointment Frank doesn't allow him to kill Scott and put him in the well. At first that seems to be a mere plot contrivance. You can't kill the hero, sort of thing. It might have been that but it is used effectively to show what the film is really about, the revelation of character. The make up of humanity and the masks we use in order to live each day in a savage barren world. With that intent Boetticher steps very close to genius just for making the attempt.
The film plays out. The scheme plays out. It never cheats. It never loses its tension. What the story does to is astonish and surprise.

Click images for desktop size: "Disruption" by Krabban The thrills start with Boone explaining to Scott that he kept Scott alive because he liked him. Scott works hard to contain his disgust at being "liked" by this criminal.
Boone doesn't notice. He tells Scott of the hours of tedium riding with young guns like Chink and Billy Jack. How they never have dreams beyond a bottle and a woman. And Boone is weary of that sort of conversation. He forces Scott to talk about his ranch.
True to the sociopath Boone turns Scott's wistful memories of his "place" to reflect on his own need to belong somewhere to have a part of the world where he belongs, that is absolutely his.
This small exchange makes us start to like Boone. It sets us up for the next scene.
Mims returns with Billy Jack. Their errand was successful. His father-in-law will raise the 50,000 and ransom his daughter. The three outlaws are joyous at the impending wealth. In a burst of generosity Boone tells Mims they don't need him anymore. He's free to go.
Mims is stunned, but he can't stop talking. He tries to make Boone see what a brilliant idea this is. How much he will be able to speed up the money collection. He can even lead the father-in-law back to the money drop off.
Affably Boone agrees with him, nearly compliments him. Mims looks at the shack that imprisons his wife and says, "I should say goodbye. No, it's best I get going right away and get this done." He can barely conceal his glee as he mounts up and rides away.
Boone's performance is unsettling. He seems genuine and sincere but underneath the tone is the unhinged cruelty of a man who has had a lifetime of living with his mental disease and no longer recognizes it as a disease but merely a part of his life and personality.
Everybody but Scott, who is disgusted, is ecstatic. O'Sullivan comes out of the shack at the sound of all the laughter. When her husband reaches the top of the hill he turns and waves.
Now the first time I saw this scene my stomach dropped, like when you're playing Mario Brothers and you send the little guy jumping across a chasm and he misses and he plummets to his electronic death.
Boone stops smiling and says, "Bust him, Chink." Instantly Chink stops laughing and fires his rifle kitting Mims. Before he can finish falling Chink draws his six gun and shoots him twice more.
O'Sullivan shrieks in terror. Boone is stunned.
"What's wrong with her?" he says nonplussed. He speaks to her like he was talking to a slow child. "Lady, you should be thanking me for this. That man sold you. Do you hear me, lady? He sold you!" Then, rather annoyed, "She should be thanking me for ridding her of a thing like that husband of
Click images for desktop size: "Ali Landry" hers."
"He was her husband," is Scott's laconic reply.
"That don't mean never mind," Boone grumbles, "it don't mean he's a man."
O'Sullivan gets her scene too, where she seems to spark inside her dowdy face and confess she's not crying for her dead husband but for herself. Now she thinks she is doomed to be forever alone. Good stuff. Touching and not jarring the mood.
Scott continues as a low menemic hero up through the end. His dispatching of the two youngsters is violent. More so that only because the deaths of Mims and Ringtoon were shown before. This is the 50's so the gore is only implied but the implication is horrendous enough.
When the two young guns are dispensed with and Boone is miles away O'Sullivan wants to run away, escape. Its a sensible plan. Scott rebuffs her with the line, "There are some things a man just can't ride around." And he plans to murder Boone.
Boone trumps him. He returns to the hideout, money bags stuffed with cash. He discovers his henchmen savagely murdered and then falls into Scott's trap. Instead of desperately fighting back he complies with Scott's demands to drop the money and his gun but he keeps his back to Scott and walks to his horse. "You won't shoot me in the back. Your not that kind of man."
And he rides off.
In some ways I would have preferred that would have been the ending. Boone stirred up so many ambivalent feelings that having him simply ride off would have been totally satisfying. But this was the 50's of Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon. Bad guys couldn't ever just get away with it.
Boone rides out of sight and pulls his rifle from its scabbard and gallops back into camp where Scott blasts him out of the saddle. Scott and O'Sullivan walk to their horses gradually growing closer together.
For a B feature, "The Tall T" was a success. A lot of people going to see it instead of the A feature it
Click images for desktop size: "Blueprint" by Louie Mantia was played with.
After directing a couple of episodes of "The Count of Monte Cristo" TV show. (!) RANOWN wanted another movie. They rushed out "Decision at Sundown".
After the high achievements of "The Tall T" this was a let down. Burt Kennedy didn't do the script. This movie was pretty formulaic. Stranger rides into town makes complacent town people reassess their life etc. The interesting parts are plentiful. Scott was called on to play a psycho reminiscent of Howie Kemp, Jimmy Stewart's character in the great "Naked Spur". Its too nuanced a character for Scott to altogether pull off.
The movies not a waste and is enjoyable; but that's all.
For the next one they bought Kennedy in to punch up an interesting but formulaic script' "Buchanan Rides Alone".
More of that next time and then the rest of the box set.

My back is about 95%. It usually is. No pain if I don't move to fast and I no longer have to crawl up my own body to stand up. Except I have a cold. I'm fighting it pretty well.
Tomorrow we pick up my friends new car. Getting stoked.
Beau coup walking today WITHOUT A DOG! Getting license plates, checks, the usual drill. You have to work for everything even the things you've earned.