How to Make a Monster (1958), directed by Herbert L. Strock. This film is something of a sequel to I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and like the latter it has one reel in colour. The colour reel is the final reel and here the action takes place inside the make-up artist Pete Dumond’s ((Robert H. Harris) gallery of horrors. The plot has American International Studios changing management, and the new people cut the monster films because the bigwigs think such films are no longer popular. The studio’s make-up artist, Dumond, does not take kindly to receiving a pink slip, and so he sets out to exact revenge upon those who would decry his artistry and deprive him of a paycheck. He concocts a make-up base that allows him to control two young actors who are playing the Frankenstein monster and a werewolf in the studio’s final monster flick. He has them carry out a couple of murders. Then he makes himself up and commits another murder. Later he murders his assistant, the whining Rivero (Paul Brinegar), and threatens to murder the two young actors. Meanwhile the police investigate the murders. All’s well that ends well. The self-referential stuff in the film has its interest.

 February - 1950s low budget sci fi/horror

Unknown Island (1948), directed by Jack Bernhard. Shot in Cinecolour, this film is reminiscent of The Lost World (1925). The story has inspired many films, including King Kong. Willis O’Brien’s special effects for The Lost World are memorable, much more so than the ones created for Unknown Island. The various prehistoric creatures in Unknown Island are clumsy, ponderous, wobbly, rubbery, and unconvincing, some of the worst creatures I have seen. They are so bad that they are a hoot. The hairy red beast that does the most damage is clearly an actor in an ape suit with extra-long teeth. The plot has familiar trappings, including a love triangle that plays out predictably. Barton MacClane as Captain Tarnowsky enjoys overplaying the blustery villain. The film has little to recommend it, unless you happen to be a completest in the rubber-suit-monster films. 

 

Rocketship X-M (1950), directed by Kurt Neumann. This early space-exploration movie is nicely naïve. A mission to the moon, the first using a human crew, goes awry, and the five scientists and technicians on board find themselves in a trip to Mars. On the way, they eat sandwiches, reminisce, dodge meteorites, and even philosophize. The land on Mars where everything has a reddish glow. The also find remnants of an ancient Martian civilization. They correctly surmise that this civilization has destroyed itself by using atomic bombs, and they find the few remaining humans have regressed to the state of primitive rock tossing beings who appear to fear the newcomers and resort to violence. The film sports a cast of familiar actors: Noah Berry, Jr., Hugh O’Brien, Lloyd Bridges, and John Emery. The one woman on board is Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen). The four men treat Dr. Van Horn with predictable condescension, even Col. Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges) who can’t keep himself from hitting on Dr. Van Horn. The film’s budget was most likely not large, but the designers have made the best of things, and the film manages to look sleek. That the travellers to the stars can stand while their rocket takes off or makes 90 degree turns or avoids meteorites has its charm. Finally, what to say? The film is earnest in its warning about nuclear disaster.

 

Project Moonbase (1953), directed by Richard Talmadge. This is a Cold War film suitable for 1953 and the anti-Communist goings-on in America. The United States has a Space Station and plans to send a mission around the moon in preparation for setting up a Moon Base in order to keep America safe. Accordingly, a rocket goes from earth to the Space Station, and our principals board another rocket and take off for a trip around the moon to reconnoitre. But the bad guys have replaced one of the scientist passengers with an imposter whose mission is to blow up the Space Station. He plans to take over the rocket ship and crash it into the Space Station. Things go awry and the ship lands on moon. After a bit of adventure, the pilot (a woman) and co-pilot (a man) simply remain on the moon as the first people on Moon Base #1. Of course, to make things all right they have a marriage ceremony. Then, via video, they are complimented by the President of the United States, who happens to be a woman. You can see how forward thinking this film is. What happens is supposed to take place in 1970 or thereabouts. The designs of the space station, the rockets, and interiors are not bad, although having hammocks for the members of the space crew as they rocket away from earth is a bit unlikely.

 

This Island Earth (1955), directed by Joseph Newman and Jack Arnold (uncredited). January was western month; February is science fiction/horror from the 1950s. Too many films, too little time. Anyway, This Island Earth is a winner. Shot in colour, this film has just about everything: scenes on earth in the laboratory of Dr. Cal Meachum (Rex Reason) and then in the strange Georgian quarters of the mysterious Exeter (Jeff Morrow), then scenes in space as the aliens take their flying saucer, with Meachum and Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) on board, to the planet Metaluna, and then scenes on this planet that is in a war with the Zarghons, and finally a return to earth. The designs are sleek and impressive in a 1950s sort of way. The special effects for the time are top rate. Even the alien monster on Metaluna, although risible, is impressive. The plot has the aliens from Metaluna seeking earth’s uranium, and failing that, they wish to relocate to earth because their planet appears on the verge of losing the war with their enemy, the Zarghons. The Zarghons, by the way, have space ships that guide asteroids equipped with dire explosives onto the surface of Metaluna blowing everything up and creating a nuclear disaster. This film looks great. Perhaps not quite as good as Forbidden Planet (1956), yet it is up there with the best of the 50s science fiction films. We will see the tall craniums of the Metalunans again in Star Trek episodes ten years later. And before signing off, I should mention Orangey the Cat who plays Neutron in the film (uncredited).

 

Riders to the Stars (1954), directed by Richard Carlson. This is one of the many ventures into space taken by films of the 1950s, and it makes clear that America was involved in a space race, fearing that if they did not get to space before other countries (unnamed here) they could be seriously unprepared for the next war. The film uses stock footage, and has much technical dialogue to explain just how space exploration works. The special effects are rudimentary, but they get the job done in a very 1950s sort of way. The film looks good in its use of colour. The cast is impressive, headed by Herbert Marshall, Martha Hyer, William Lundigan, and Richard Carlson. The final fifteen or twenty minutes have their shock value, but on the whole this is a very talky film that holds few surprises. The screenplay is by Curt Siodmak, someone you will know from gems such as I Walked with a Zombie, Son of Dracula, and House of Frankenstein. This is not his finest work, although it is stalwart enough.

 

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), directed by Jack Arnold. During the wave of 3D films Hollywood turned out in the mid 1950s to lure viewers away from their televisions, we have this creature feature by Jack Arnold. I saw this film in 3D way back in the 1950s at the local Soper Theatre, and the experience has never left. Along with The House of Wax and Hondo, The Creature from the Black Lagoon stays with me as my exposure to 3D. All are worth seeing, but this one (Black Lagoon) is special. I doubt I could have realized just how charged and witty Arnold’s imagery is when I saw this as a boy. This film is Freudian to a degree, filled with phallic images and their counterparts: the sharp-nosed boat entering the lush lagoon, the spear guns, the scuba tanks, the masts, the underwater foliage, and most definitely the creature himself. At the centre of things is a weird love triangle, three male creatures vying for the fetching Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams). The three males are the financier/scientist Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), the good scientist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson), and of course the “gill-man” who glides through the water efficiently and pines for Ms Lawrence. The sexual dynamic makes for an intense experience. Also of note is the underwater photography that takes up much of the film’s footage. With this film, Universal studios graduated from its familiar cast of creatures – Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man – and gave the 1950s something new, something that would spawn a host of grisly creatures the in years to come. I have great fondness for this film; so too did Ingmar Bergman who watched it on his birthday every year. One more thing, Millicent Patrick designed the creature and she received no screen credit for this. 

 

Revenge of the Creature (1955), directed by Jack Arnold. A year after he fell for Julie Adams in Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Gill-Man is back, this time falling for ichthyology student Lori Adams. The results are the same, only this time the creature is taken from his Amazonian home to a Sea World in Florida. Here he finds himself chained in a large fish tank for scientists to poke him with a long electric prod while trying to teach him to respond to the word “Stop,” and for the general public to gawk at him. This is rather distressing. As you expect, the Gill-Man escapes, sending crowds of people racing for cover, tossing a car, and generally making life miserable for those who live nearby the large aquarium. All this creature wants is a little affection, and he hopes to receive it from Helen Dobson (Lori Adams). Professor Clete Ferguson (John Agar) has other ideas. This is a Jack Arnold film and so everything plays out impressively. It is just all so predictable, a replay of the first film (the Black Lagoon one). This one does boast a couple of firsts: 1) this is the first time we have a 3D film that is a sequel to another 3D film, and 2) Clint Eastwood appears here for the first time. As sequels go, this one is okay.

 

The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), directed by John Sherwood. Mostly a second unit director, Sherwood here gets to oversee the production, and he delivers the final installment of the Black Lagoon series. This one ramps up the creature-between-two-worlds theme by having the group of scientists locate the creature in the Florida Everglades, inadvertently set him on fire, discover that he has lungs and can breathe out of water, and that underneath is scales he has human-like skin. So they place him in a cage where he can see the ocean and the bathing beauty, Marcia Barton (Leigh Snowden). Marcia is the wife of Dr. William Barton, a scientist who just might be of the mad variety. Marcia is unhappy in her marriage, but she is not much interested in a relationship with the Creature who fancies her, although she does have eyes for another, less mad, scientist, Dr. Thomas Morgan (Rex Reason). We have the, by now, familiar beauty and beast story with an emphasis on human desire. This is a short film, but the creature manages to move from the Everglades to Sausalito, California. It is eventful enough, if predictable, and it is easy to see why this is the last of the Creature films. The creature is very much a figure of the 1950s, troubled, frustrated, seeking stability and a home, delinquent, at odds with others, lonely, misunderstood, and sympathetic.

 

Monster on the Campus (1958), directed by Jack Arnold. I like the title of this film and I like the work of Jack Arnold. This is not, however, his finest effort. Monster on the Campus is a mix-up of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the Wolfman, with perhaps a smidge of The Beauty and the Beast thrown in for good measure. The plot has Dr. Donald Blake (Arthur Franz) of Dunfield University receive a pre-historic fish from Madagascar. Unbeknownst to Dr. Blake, the fish has been exposed to gamma rays prior to leaving Madagascar. Then the good doctor cuts his hand on the teeth of the fish, called a “coelacanth.” He also fails to notice the blood of a giant dragonfly dripping into his pipe; put that in your pipe and smoke it, Dr. Blake! Anyway, such goings-on result in Dr. Blake reverting to a primitive state and causing the death of a couple of people, including one female student. You can probably figure out the rest yourself. The film does have its wit: the pipe I mentioned, and a door people keep using despite the words “Use Other Door” displayed prominently on it. Trust Arnold to make something out of such tired material. And before I forget, I ought to give a nod to Troy Donahue who plays Jimmy Flanders, a student with a dog. This dog laps up some water that has dripped from the ancient fish, and then grows amazingly long fangs.

 

Man Without a Body (1957), directed by Charles Saunders and W. Lee Wilder. Any film that sets out to give us Nostradamus’s head brought back to life in the 20^th century certainly requires two directors. With a plot device like this, what could go wrong? This film is a combination horror, science fiction, and noir thriller. It boasts a bullying tycoon with a brain tumor, his lovely foreign young woman companion, a doctor who keeps animal heads alive, his pretty but neglected female assistant, and the head of Nostradamus that just near the end finds itself attached to a young doctor’s body and stalking the streets and schools of London at night. The plot turns on the tycoon’s desire to keep himself alive by having the brain of Nostradamus implanted in his head. Nostradamus has the reputation of being the smartest man ever, but when the tycoon asks the revived head for advice with his oil stocks, the advice he receives leaves him penniless. We have a mixing of Frankenstein motifs with cinema noir. Nifty. I think the final 5 to 10 minutes are worth waiting for.

 

The Black Scorpion (1957), directed by Edward Ludwig. The special effects in this one are courtesy of Willis O’Brien and Pete Peterson, and so you can expect pretty good creatures. And your expectations will be, for the most part, met. The scorpions (yes, there is a horde of them) are ugly suckers that drool and sting and pinch and generally behave badly. Especially impressive are the train crash, and the giant scorpion vs giant worm battle deep in the bowels of a volcano. Don’t ask! Some of this is pretty silly, and the story needs an injection of energy and imagination, but the special effects keep getting better as the film progresses. The action begins in the Mexican countryside where a volcano has ravaged the landscape and allowed giant scorpions to escape from deep beneath the earth, but by the end only one giant scorpion is left standing, the Black one, and this creature has travelled to wreak havoc on Mexico City. This beast is dispatched in a manner similar to other beasts in the 1950s. I think, for example, of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). Notable are the sounds emitted by the array of creatures that parade through this film. I had not known that scorpions, worms, and ants made harsh and sometimes piercing sounds. If my memory serves me, I think Ray Harryhausen created some giant scorpions in the 1960s that resemble the creatures here.

 

The Monster that Challenged the World (1957), directed by Arnold Laven. This is the one about the giant mollusks that grow into immense caterpillars that can live in the sea or on land. These giant caterpillars with their deadly pincers and bulging eyes enjoy sucking the insides out of any human they can find. They manage to find several in the course of this film.Trying to find and destroy these creatures is Lt. Cmd. Twillinger (Tim Holt). Tim Holt here trades his cowboy hat for navy cap. He also sidles up to a young widow, Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton) and her young daughter, Sandy (Mimi Gibson). Near the end of the film, young Sandy unwisely turns up the thermostat in the room where one of these mollusks is being kept in a state of inanimation. The rise in temperature allows the creature to grow into one of these large caterpillars, and it threatens both Sandy and her mother until the intrepid Cmd. Twillinger arrives with a fire extinguisher to save the day. All of this has a certain camp flavour today. The cast, including Hans Conried as a scientist hot on the trail of these monsters, approach their task soberly. The script has a few howlers. The special effects are, perhaps, a cut above what Roger Corman delivers, but only just. In other words, have fun with this one.

 

Machete (1958), directed by Kurt Neumann. I was not going to review this film because it is so weak, but what the heck. This is a potboiler set in Aguirre, Puerto Rico. Scenes documenting the cutting, gathering, and processing of sugar cane hold some interest. The melodramatic story, on the other hand, has little to keep the viewer engaged. The villain is Miguel (Lee Van Cleef), cousin of Don Luis Montoya (Albert Dekker)  who own a large plantation and who has just returned from a business trip to New York with a new bride, Jean (Mari Blanchard). Jean is, I guess, a femme fatale who sets her sights on Carlos (Carlos Rivas), long time protégé of Luis. Carlos has an intended in Rita (Ruth Cains). Passion flares and everything leads to the burning of the cane fields, as we expect. The title of the film suggests something more dramatic than we have, although there are a couple of scenes that involve a machete or two. The ending sets out to be a spectacle and ends wanly. Lee Van Cleef’s Miguel, for some unknown reason, has a limp. Perhaps this simply identifies him as a chthonic figure. Who knows? In this same year, Neumann made his best film, The Fly. As for Machete, ho hum.

 My Little Chickadee (1940), directed by Edward F. Cline. What a “euphonious appellation,” my what “symmetrical digits,” “Is this a game of chance?” “Not the way I play it. No.” This film has its moments, but fewer of them than it might have once had. Both Mae West and W. C. Fields are amusing actors, and they play off each other well here, but it is difficult to watch and hear racist goings on that we have in this picture. It would be okay if the action just kept with the western spoof stuff without us having to watch Fields interact with Milton (George Moran), the Native person played by a white person and caricatured unpleasantly. Fields also has a couple of one-liners that opt for the racial slur. What just might save the picture is Mae West’s character, Flower Belle, who controls the situation admirably, although it may be difficult to see her as the siren she is supposed to be. She has three men on the string, one a hapless buffoon, another a thief/saloon owner/murderer, and the third a newspaper editor. Her interest in the saloon owner who moonlights as a masked robber gives us a moral conundrum perhaps better not contemplated. West’s ability at innuendo is nowhere more evident than in the film’s final shot when the words The End appear on the screen. As for Field’s Cuthbert J. Twillie he does his thing, even bedding down with a goat at one point. “Beelzebub! I’ve been hoodwinked.” All in all, this is a film for the archives.

 

Western Union (1941), directed by Fritz Lang. This is the second of Lang’s three westerns, and perhaps the weakest of the three. It does have splendid locations shots, but at times it seems to want to be a comedy and at other times a tragedy and then a Civil War drama and then again a historical epic depicting the building of the telegraph from Omaha to Salt Lake City. It also offers an unfortunate depiction of Native Americans. There are, however, Langian elements here. We have Lang’s interest in communications (the telegraph) and in the capital necessary for the building of an infrastructure. We have a company of men working together to build a nation. We also have Lang’s tormented hero, on the run, but fated to run right smack into that from which he is running. The relationship between Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) and Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger) has an intensity we often see between men in Lang’s films. The doomed relationship between Shaw and Sue Creighton (Virginia Gilmore) is also Langian. All in all, this is a mixed pleasure.

Home in Oklahoma (1946), directed by William Witney. B western starring Roy Rogers, Trigger, Dale Evans, and ‘Gabby’ Hayes. Roy and Dale are rival newspaper reporters, he from the country and she from the city, out to solve the murder of Sam Talbot, a wealthy rancher. Talbot leaves his ranch not to his only surviving relative, niece Jan Holloway (Carol Hughes), but to the 12-year-old boy, Duke Lowery (Lanny Rees). Being passed over for the young boy does not sit well with Ms Holloway. We have much riding about, quite a bit of singing, some detective work, some humour from Gabby, a vicious fist fight, a few flying bullets, and the discovery that Jan and her partner/friend Steve McClory (George Meeker) are the villains and murderers. There is nothing out of the ordinary here for a Roy Rogers film and B western, but the performances are sprightly and Witney’s direction is crisp. Roy and Dale as newspaper people give us something akin, albeit without the sophistication, to Tracy and Hepburn as lawyers in Adam’s Rib.

 

Canyon Passage (1946), directed by Jacques Tourneur. Tourneur is a director I admire for his lush colour films and his moody black and white films. His films ooze atmosphere. Canyon Passage, Tourneur’s first colour film and his first western, delivers much atmosphere, much colour, and much more. The much more includes a cast of characters who prove to be deftly human. As one reviewer noted, there are no white hats/black hats here. With the exception of Ward Bond’s villain, Honey Bragg, these people are a mixture of good and bad. This is nowhere more evident than in the friendship between Logan (Dana Andrews) and George (Brian Donlevy). The location shooting in Oregon is masterful and the on-location sets for the various places are meticulous. One of these places, Jacksonville, looks as if it was hewed out of the wilderness without much planning. Interiors and exteriors are impressive. The film examines the frontier in 1856 and the tensions it raises between communal activity and individual aspirations. Along for the ride is Hi Linnet (Hoagy Carmichael) who strums a mandolin and sings a few songs, including “Ole Buttermilk Sky.” This is a western with a fairly familiar plot, but with depth. Did I say fairly familiar plot? Well, the plot is not straight forward; it has threads that have to do with survival in the wilderness, conflict with native peoples, human failings, frontier justice, the love of nature, relationships between men and women. Several women appear in important roles; the two most prominent are Lucy (Susan Hayward) and Caroline (Patricia Roc). All in all, this is a special western.

Go West (1940), directed by Edward Buzzell. The Marx brother (3 of them) go west in this spoof of westerns. A late entry into the brothers’ filmography, Go West is better than I remember it from a long ago viewing. We first see the brothers out west in a scene with Monument Valley as a backdrop, and then we see them inside a stagecoach in a scene that reminds me of both Ford’s famous film and the stateroom scene from Night at the Opera. The final chase scene with horse and buggy racing a locomotive might remind us of Keaton’s The General. Scenes in the saloon might remind us of Destry Rides Again. You get the idea, this is a film that plays loosely with western tropes. The obligatory scenes of Chico at the piano and Harpo at the – well harp, are as good, if not better, than similar scenes in the earlier films. Both are clever and inventive. Groucho manages some acerbic one-liners, and Harpo does his business with scissors and honker and facial expressions. Even the scenes in the Indian village are less offensive than they might have been. The brothers’ films for MGM are generally dismissed as inferior than the ones they made with Paramount, but Go West has its moments and manages to be fun.

Duel in the Sun (1946), directed by King Vidor (with uncredited help from some six others, including Joseph von Sternberg!). This is David O. Selznik’s infamous production of a film that was derided in the press as “Lust in the Dust.” Selznik wanted to replicate his success with Gone with the Wind, and also to make Jennifer Jones a star. The result is this over-heated western that has few typically “western” moments but much obsession. Right from the get-go, with the prologue that has Herbert Marshall shoot his Native American wife for her infidelity and say goodbye to his biracial daughter, Pearl (Jones), we have characters who obsess over one thing and another, mostly sex. This is a film with high ambition, even beginning with a nine-minute Prelude, followed by a three-minute Overture, before the credits role. The cast is a who’s who of heavyweights: Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore, Charles Bickford, Walter Houston, Harry Carey, Joseph Cotton, Otto Kruger, Butterfly McQueen, and Gregory Peck. Peck has the role of Lewt (I kept hearing ‘Lewd’) McCanles, the amoral son of the patriarch, Senator Jackson McCanles (Barrymore). If you have seen the film, imagine John Wayne in the role of this dissolute son who leers and sneers and generally behaves in a disgusting manner; Wayne was the first actor signed to play Lewt, but Selznik thought he did not have enough sex appeal. Anyway, we have a sprawling western that tries to deliver spectacle and deep emotion. It tries too hard and gives us unpleasant characters and an unsavoury presentation of racial stereotyping. Oh, the film does have some striking cinematography courtesy of Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan, and Hal Rosson. The confrontation between the McCanles ranch hands and the railroad-building crew is as spectacular as it gets in westerns, with hundreds of horses and men riding and riding across the wind-swept landscape. Then we have the ending, an ending that must be one of the most, if not the most, risible in cinema history. I confess I am a sucker for this ending.

 Billy the Kid (1930), directed by King Vidor. This is King Vidor’s first western, and it has the look of silent westerns even including intertitles. The costumes, the sets, the landscapes, the camera placings, and the acting are all reminiscent of the silent period in film. Of course, the film does have sound; it is 1930. The story begins with a written statement from the Governor of New Mexico informing us that Billy the Kid was an honourable man, out for justice. In other words, we see at the outset that this story sets out to reinvent history, to present a fiction, and to participate in the American tendency to make heroes out of villains. The role of Billy goes to a young John (later Johnny) Mack Brown, and I suspect the makers of this film thought this gig would make a star out of him. Well, things worked out for Johnny about the same way they worked out for John Wayne and The Big Trail in the same year. Both Mack Brown and Wayne ended up on Poverty Row. Anyhow, the story is familiar. We have the Lincoln County war, the hatred of Bob Ballinger (Warner Richmond) for Billy, the siege at the McSween ranch, and the uneasy friendship between Billy and Pat Garrett (Wallace Berry). Mack Brown has a certain boyish charm, and Wallace Berry is his bluff broad self. Along for comic relief is Roscoe Ates as Old Stuff. The action has a brutality that may surprise some viewers. The film has its moments, but it cannot compare to Vidor’s later westerns, especially Duel in the Sun (1946, affectionately known as “Lust in the Dust”), and Man Without a Star (1956).

Overland Stage Raiders (1938), directed by George Sherman. This one is about the Three Mesquiteers (Stony Brook, Tuscon Smith, and Lullaby Joslin accompanied by Elmer) forming an airplane company to fly gold and passengers from one place to another. Their flying business threatens to ruin the business of the local bus company thereby setting up a situation in which the bus company bad guys try to ruin the flying business. John Wayne plays Stony Brook just a year before he will vault to stardom in Stagecoach. He seems mildly interested in playing Stony. He also seems mildly interested in the film’s female lead, Beth Hoyt, played by Louise Brooks in her final film role. She too seems only mildly interested in playing Beth Hoyt, and she is without the famous hair that she popularized in her late silent films. The plot and action are fairly absurd, but this is not unusual for this kind of film. As a western, it boasts not only horses, but trains, busses, and airplanes. Wayne makes his entrance by jumping from an airplane. Lullaby’s dummy friend, Elmer, makes only a small appearance, but this appearance is as absurdly concocted as much of the other goings-on in the film. The characters treat Elmer as if he was human, and he, in return, appears to relish his humanity. As an entry in Republic’s Three Mesquiteers series, it holds its own, and it does have Louse Brooks.

Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford. Famously, Orson Welles claimed to have watched Stagecoach 40 times in preparation for filming Citizen Kane. Also, when asked what directors he liked, Welles replied that he like the old masters, John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford. And so we have Stagecoach, a film that sings a song of camera, as a review at the time noted. This film saves its action for the last third of its running time, the first two thirds being more concerned with character and context. The context here has to do with bankers (one character notes that the country would do well to have a businessman as president!), belles, and brigands. Society, encapsulated in the small community inside and on the stagecoach, is replete with prejudice, misunderstanding, honour, honour misplaced, innocence and experience. As Welles says, the film offers a course in film making in its camera placements, cinematography, choreography, lighting, deep focus, and so on. As many have noted, Ford breaks the 180 degree rule, but he does so to great effect. He also gives us, for the first time, the backdrop of Monument Valley, a location that becomes a metonymy for all that the west represents. That final third of the film has a couple of stunning stunts carried out by the incomparable Yakima Canutt. Of course, the film also has its failings. Here, from Wikipedia, is a review of its failings.

"Along with certain other classic films of its period (e.g., Gone With the Wind [20]; [21]), Stagecoach has been criticized for its depiction of historical settings and events, as well as for racist depictions of Native Americans generally and of Apaches in particular. Stagecoach is set at a time of escalating white settler encroachment upon, and forcible seizure of, Native American lands in the American Southwest, a process that eventually forced Native Americans onto reservations. Although its main characters are all settlers of one kind or another, the film presents Apache violence against settlers wholly absent from this historical context. Writing in 2011, Roger Ebert noted: "The film's attitudes toward Native Americans are unenlightened. The Apaches are seen simply as murderous savages; there is no suggestion the white men have invaded their land. Ford shared that simple view with countless other makers of Westerns, and if it was crude in 1939 it was even more so as late as 'The Searchers' (1956), the greatest Ford/Wayne collaboration". Moreover, Stagecoach's iconic stagecoach chase scene has been criticized for its use of what is by now a long-clichéd plot device in Western films: that of inexperienced and vastly outgunned white settlers soundly defeating seasoned Native American warriors despite impossible odds; viewed in this light, the stagecoach chase scene appears both absurd and racially questionable."

The last remark about the small band defeating a much larger group of attackers is somewhat misleading. The end here has the familiar cliché that has the cavalry arriving in the nick of time to avoid a certain disaster. 

Despite its failings, Stagecoach marks an important moment in the development of film and this film's specific genre.

 The Unknown Ranger (1920), directed by Harris Gordon. What amazes me about this early silent western is the extended chase across precipitous cliffs late in the film. The camera here and throughout the film does not move, and yet we have the impression of furious action and cliff hanger (literally) action. The film also boasts two flashbacks, one a fabrication by the villain and the other a truthful account by the hero, Buck Manning (Rex Ray). The plot has to do with a villain who disguises himself as a writer come west to research local colour. In reality, he is a nefarious opium smuggler. He is aided by two Mexican men and a part Native American woman. Of course, there is a young maiden involved, Jo Blair (Marie Newall). Not the most ground-breaking western ever, but an enjoyable example of just how clever movies could be way back before the technology we now take for granted.

 

Wolf Lowry (1917), Directed by William S. Hart. One of Hart’s early features, Wolf Lowry once again gives us the good bad man, or in this case a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The eponymous hero is something of a roustabout who enjoys pretending to hang his Chinese cook! This unfortunate scene occurs early in the film. He also dislikes nesters, until a pretty young woman, Mary Davis (Margery Wilson) comes to nest on Wolf’s property. Wolf is smitten. The print I saw on YouTube is excellent; I especially like the night scenes cast in blue. In terms of story, the film does not offer a great deal. After leaving his fiancée’s true love for the wolves, the Hart character (Wolf Lowry) has a change of heart and rides back to rescue the young man and bring him to marry the girl. The film does not have a lot of action, but it does have fisticuffs between Wolf and the villain of the piece, Buck Fanning (Aaron Edwards).

 The Big Trail (1930), directed by Raoul Walsh. This is the film that was supposed to make John Wayne a star. It did not! The film flopped despite its wide screen grandeur and exorbitant production costs. And Wayne spent the next nine years working in Poverty Row features. Looking back on the film, I am surprised the film flopped. I think of it as the last of the early cinema's three epics dealing with Manifest Destiny, the myth of the opening of America's west. The other two films are James Cruz's The Covered Wagon (1923) and John Ford's The Iron Horse (1924). These are large scale productions that celebrate the American spirit. The Big Trail is impressive with its huge prairie schooners drawn by oxen through mud and snow and desert. The realism of the trek is quite astonishing, especially, but not only, in the famous scene in which the people, the wagons, the animals are lowered down a steep cliff on ropes. The story is just something to keep the journey going. Most important are the shots of working pioneers, men and women trudging their way west and hacking down trees and forging ahead into a new world. As for a young John Wayne in his first starring role, he is innocently appealing as he deals with the Bluto-voiced Red Flack (Tyrone Power, Sr.) and his sidekicks.

from Wikipedia:
"For the film, Walsh had employed 93 actors and used as many as 725 natives from five different Indian tribes. He also obtained 185 wagons, 1,800 cows, 1,400 horses, 500 buffalos and 700 chickens, pigs and dogs for the production of the film.

Walsh offered the lead to actor Gary Cooper, who couldn't accept it. According to John Ford's later account, Walsh supposedly then asked Ford for casting suggestions, whereupon Ford recommended a then-unknown named John Wayne because he "liked the looks of this new kid with a funny walk, like he owned the world". When Wayne professed inexperience, Walsh told him to just "sit good on a horse and point". Walsh said that he initially saw Wayne, then a prop man, moving heavy furniture as though it were light as a feather, then decided to test him for the part.... Filming on The Big Trail began on-location just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico in April 1930, which was unheard of at the time and quickly became very costly to the studio.

The shoot lasted from April 20 to August 20, 1930 and was filmed in seven states. The film was shot in an early widescreen process called 70 mm Grandeur film, which was first used in the film Fox Movietone Follies of 1929. Grandeur was used by the Fox Film Corporation for a handful of films released in 1929 and 1930, of which The Big Trail was the last. Grandeur proved financially unviable..."

 The Covered Wagon (1923), directed by James Cruze. One of the most influential westerns, The Covered Wagon is impressive in scope and the grandeur of the plains. The sheer number of Conestoga wagons, horses, cattle, bulls, people that fill the screen is spectacular. The story has two wagon trains converging at Westport Landing (Kansas City) in May 1848 and embarking on a journey to Oregon, a journey that finds hardship and conflict along the way. Near the end, the wagons meet a man who announces that gold has been found in “Californy” and this announcement complicates things further. If all this – the river crossing, the attack by Natives, the evening music and dance, the snowfall, the drinking bout and play on William Tell – were not enough, we have the love triangle: Sam Woodhull (Alan Hale), Will Banion (J Warren Kerrigan), and Molly Wingate (Lois Wilson). The Native people do not, as you would expect from a film of this time, have much to do beyond gesture excitedly and serve to register the dangers of the wilderness, but it is noteworthy that Native people appear to be playing the roles, for the most part, of Native people. The film does have one insistent symbol, not a gun nor a knife nor a rope, but a plough. The plough represents order and, dare I say, civilization. The weapons of conflict will be, must be, fashioned into ploughshares. As I say above, this is an influential western with impressive camera work and grand vistas. It opened the way for John Ford’s The Iron Horse that appeared the following year. Finally, I give a nod to the tobacco-chewing kid with the banjo; he plays a more important role in the action than you might, at first, think he will.