Writers Had a Way with Westerns ...

 

Panning for Frontier Gold: Gun Fury, 3:10 to Yuma, The Deadline, and The Lonely Man

Often (always?) matters less who directed a western that who wrote it. That applied even to what Ford, Hawks, most famed and associated with the genre, did. I see particular names in credits and know there will be much ahead to like. All movies compel for good story and dialogue, westerns the more so. Or maybe I like them enough to sift continually for sleepers. For sure there are diamonds amidst much that is ruffage.

Depth That Didn’t Need 3D --- Gun Fury (1953) was a writer’s western laden with a short-lived gimmick not really needed. It was based on a novel by a woman named Kathleen Granger, who because she was a woman and felt aced out of western literature, created a triple credit for her novel, Ten Against Caesar, two men (her creation) whose names would grease acceptance for her work. Caesar was bought by Columbia and they put Irving Wallace and Roy Huggins on the job of adapting it. Wallace was prolific and got more so later in the fifties and into the sixties when he wrote bestsellers The Chapman Report and The Prize, both manna for movies. Huggins would dream up sure-fire concepts for television like other people tied shoes, creative brilliance for him strictly routine (credits: 77 Sunset Strip, Cheyenne, Maverick, The Fugitive, The Rockford Files, more … much more). Where names like these dressed credits, there was no doubt the western would go off worn paths and tender something fresh if not unique. Gun Fury and similars would not reinvent wheels or attempt same. They took tropes and tweaked them to effect they’d seem like reinvention. First step was often heavies with texture, as here Philip Carey as a self-described “unreconstructed” Southerner after the Civil War. All any director needed was words and situations to service settings and background, or as here overlay of 3D where well enough applied, details well attended by Raoul Walsh, who upon reading the Wallace-Huggins script had to know he’d finish in the money, this director recognizing distinction when he saw it. Good enough writing almost can’t be botched. Twilight Time released a very nice 3D Blu-Ray, out of print and expensive now.

Solid Opportunity to Root for the "Bad Guy" Here

Two Against the Clock --- High Noon had been an influence, sometimes to good effect, more often lazily applied. As for 3:10 to Yuma (1957) it was a benefit, in ways perhaps improving on the model. Desperate for cash Van Heflin takes the job of putting stage robber Glenn Ford aboard the train for Yuma prison. Complications with Ford’s gang ensues. That’s pretty much all, but critics and a thinking public saw more and called 3:10 something special among westerns offered in its year. Delmer Daves directed and more importantly salved the script. Less maybe of that was needed for story having origin with Elmore Leonard, who always brought fresh meat to western cookouts. Credited scribe also was Halsted Welles who wrote TV scripts by seeming thousands from fifties onward. Director Daves was assurance always of good output, especially westerns, his direction sure enough, but it was story and dialogue skills applied to each project that dug crucial inroads. Heflin and Ford do two-man verbal and sometimes physical combat throughout 3:10 to Yuma. Neither part goes cliched route, that to be expected given credits here, shadings to character plus great actors a guarantor to fine finished product. I like heavies with charm which Ford exerts throughout. You’d almost think he was a good guy getting a bad rap but for fact he shoots two men in cold blood during the opener strongbox steal. Ford had his choice of which part and this time he chose the bad man, a wise pick. Heflin has wife trouble that is neatly understated. How is it westerns benefit so splendidly from fine and subtle writing? At least they do for me. 3:10 to Yuma is on a Criterion Blu-Ray where words and image sound and look fine.

Nobody Wants Buck for Having Been a Convict. Who Says "B" Westerns Were Simple-Minded?

Buck Obliged to Pull in His Horns --- They’re letting Buck Jones out of prison on strict parole in The Deadline, modern dress letting us know this is here-and-now (1931) rather than wilder west days. That means Buck must behave or he’ll land right back, says warden John Elliot, who’s not kidding and Buck knows it. Thing is Buck is innocent of manslaughter he served for and suspects certain party who framed him, but what can he do? Local folk shun Buck for being an ex-con and he has to back down to bullies who know one wrong move will return him to the pen. Heartland America was still raw enough in 1931 for us to believe gunplay and fights in the street could and did happen. Look at bank robbers on the loose back then, and it seemed none got caught. Buck rides about like it’s 1879 and we believe him. Lambert Hillyer wrote and directed The Deadline. Fans who know westerns certainly know Hillyer. He began with Bill Hart and pegged the word prolific. Hillyer did over a hundred westerns and wrote the bulk of them in addition to directing. He slept outdoor yarning and made everything he did look and sound authentic. Hillyer, like Lesley Selander, William Witney, brotherhood of western specialists, all assuring fast and convincing action. Add Hillyer to Buck Jones and you got a good hour for sure. Old age didn’t slow him, as he finished up writing Highway Patrol episodes. Fun fact: Lambert also directed Dracula’s Daughter and The Invisible Ray, both excellent horrors. Mill Creek has The Deadline in a nine-feature Buck box.

Of Course I'm Crying ... We're Doing a Psychological Western Here.

Frontier Family Troubles --- 50’s westerns had to be “adult.” Don’t know who set that rule or when, but it was concrete by the time High Noon and Shane rode in to reconquer the frontier. About a same time saw series “oaters” ushered out, not gently but by toe of showworld boots, so-called “B” cowboys consigned to TV or oblivion. That’s thumbnail explain of what happened with westerns but detail of truths is more complicated, to which explaining I’d suggest Brian Garfield, Jon Tuska, Packy Smith among august panel of experts I always defer to (all past, and sadly, passed). Rest of us are like dilettante art observers who at least know what we like. To be an adult western meant you’d pour more drama and characterization. The Lonely Man trades on 50’s trend, the sullen, hateful boy who won’t forgive Dad for long ago leaving Mom. James Dean contaminated a lot of young players, including Anthony Perkins. I kept wanting Jack Palance to tan his hide for insolence, especially since Palance is set up from start as a big-time robber that deals harsh with weaklings. Does parental guilt run so deep as apparently it did in those days? Writer Harry Essex came from newspapers and short stories. I guess all the best talent began this way, certainly back then they did. Essex wrote good science-fiction in the fifties and even better film noir before that. He and writing partner Robert Smith give The Lonely Man what texture it has and no one was going to misread this as for-kids cowboys. There’s dragging through parts of 88 minutes till a showdown finish wraps conflict neatly. Such well-staged massacre helps up-to-then medicine go down.

ASTERIX: Turns out Greenbriar did Gun Fury back in 2018 at some length. Some overlap, but not too much. Comes under heading I suppose of, Good Pictures Are Forever New. Call this then, another Black Camel moment.

The Art of Selling Movies #6

 

First Ever Opportunity to Read One of J.J. Hunsecker's Columns ... Only at Greenbriar!

Art of ... Sweet Smell of Success, Monsieur Verdoux, Judy Garland Revisit, and Cass Timberlane

FORGIVE AND FORGET? --- Ads called Sweet Smell of Success “The Motion Picture That Will Never Be Forgiven or Forgotten.” By who exactly … Walter Winchell, readers of New York tabloids, night club operators? Trouble among many for Sweet Smell of Success was a mass public seeing nothing not to forget, let alone forgive. Much ado about who cares was this, Gotham elite account of things that mattered to no one else. Even tougher now to interest anyone in Sweet Smell of Success, for who recalls ink-wet daily papers tossed in heaps to eager readership, printed news extinct or headed there, and what columnist, assuming there are still columnists, have anything like reach of a J.J. Hunsecker? Fans must face it … Sweet Smell of Success is rarefied and removed from daily experience. If there is a modern Hunsecker, he/she might be influencing at some corner of You Tube or Tik Tok. Sweet Smell was snakebit from a start. Sophisticates stayed home. A mainstream and certainly showmen preferred Lancaster and Tony Curtis on Trapeze highwires. Lancaster produced Sweet Smell, small comfort to him years later when fans seeing the film for free on television called it ambrosia. Rule One among those who spent to make a movie: If it failed to sell, it don’t matter how good it was. A dud is a dud where too few pay. The “Cool” Loew’s State ad is busy, if talkative. Was cool their conception of the movie, or did it refer to air-conditioning? (this was June 27, 1957). There was an added Disney short called The Wetback Hound which I’d enjoy them trying to reissue today. Has it surfaced anywhere? The Loew’s front had towering Burt poised to slap Tony. Most of slaps in Sweet Smell of Success, however, were verbal. Such a shame when something so fine fails. Loew’s State had been home to lushest of Metro output. Now they were cut loose from Lion moorings, each booking a gamble all its own.

CHAPLIN CHANGES --- CAN YOU? --- This was query UA put to patronage in 1947 when poor prospect Monsieur Verdoux sallied forth to empty cinemas and disappointed remains of Charlie Chaplin viewership. He hadn’t worked since The Great Dictator, which was a hit, but dated now and surely to goodness CC wouldn’t try being the Little Tramp again. He did not, but exhibitors hoped he might, at least instead of “The Modern Bluebeard.” Was putting the Tramp in an upper left corner teasing us to possibility? Loew’s advertising seems almost reluctant to spell out premise of Charlie as a serial killer of women, him the offscreen conqueror of oft-underaged fair sex, and to scandalous outcome. In fact, his last press in profusion circled round drain that was le affaire Joan Barry, who with compliant jurors and judges took Chaplin to edge of ruin and lightened his purse toward support of offspring demonstrably not his. So here comes Monsieur Verdoux to be schizo sold as “strange, haunting romance, shocking drama,” with “surprising laughter.” Yes, they’d be surprised in view of rotten press Chaplin had been getting, his recent meet with reporters, intended to boost Verdoux, being instead a turkey shoot with Charlie the gobbler. Didn’t help when he opened the conference by saying, “You may proceed with the butchery,” actually one of my favorite lines Charlie ever uttered. He could have won the Irish sweepstakes and still been in a hole. CC accused United Artists of dumping Monsieur Verdoux. Maybe they did, but it would have taken a marketing genius with a forklift to peddle these goods. At least Loew’s put best feet forward with a crowded Vaude bill to support their star. I’m thinking Charlie would been better re-staging his old Karno Night in the Show. At least this would have made for merrier matinees. Disaster that Verdoux was, Chaplin would not give up on it. A 1964 revival booking in New York saw his broken toy redeemed and folks lining up for weeks to see it. Raves ensued. We like Verdoux now for lots that Chaplin dared. Criterion has a Blu-Ray flush with extras.

JOYOUS JUDY NOW … AND THEN --- Imagine romance of wintertime trek to Loew’s State, its glittery marquee beckoning from a block away,  evocative capture here to suggest what magical occasion this would be. Digging reveals this still was shot between November 11 and 17, 1966. I had assumed it was a 1952 booking to tie in with Judy live at the Palace, and who knows, that could be the case. What year does that green taxi look to be? Either way I’d go for MGM (past) glory of two surefires, Meet Me in St. Louis with Babes in Arms. We know Judy still performed as of 1966, had dates around town and was seen frequent, so revivals seemed a safe bet. Who knows, she might have stopped into Loew’s to relive memories. Both features had played television for some time before ’66, but some yet preferred seeing them on screens as intended. Prints would be fresh off “Perpetual Product Plan” as launched in 1962. Got a feeling Babes in Arms was still shorn of the Mickey-as-Roosevelt number that came out after the President’s death and stayed gone till Warners put it back in a video release. Note fifty cent admission. Loew’s probably bought both shows at flat rate. That was the customary arrangement with oldies during the sixties. You couldn’t make much profit running vaulties on percentage. What a lovely place pre-hellscape Broadway could be. Photos like this --- marquees like Loew’s --- all beyond modern reach. I’ll guess this is indeed 1966 because it is a fact they ran the combo that year, and because in 1952, Loew’s was still very much a first-run palace and would have been hard put to book past attractions without specific cause. This reminds me of another Gotham house using Desperate Journey with Edge of Darkness in 1957. Product shortage keenly enough felt obliged theatres to fill time with proven hits of yore. Look to local listings and you’ll see theatres doing a same now. Our Liberty had the old Polar Express for Christmas season 2025. I bet more came to see it than anything that was new.

EARNING YOUR SEAT --- Would you walk through a chest-high snowdrift to see Cass Timberlane with Blondie’s Holiday? I used Cass as sample of a once-thought-important Metro special later reduced to ninety-minute TV spotting by Charlotte’s Channel 9, just another of their “Pre-48 Greats” leased from MGM and fed into broadcast chipper. Put yourself in the photographer’s position. He or she had enough sense to capture the image, hail a cab, head either home or to a bar. Me on the other hand would have braved elements to get under that marquee, admire displays to shiver point, then pay ways in to inspect the lobby plus concessions. No matter how high boots were, I’d still be soaked to my shirt, or hopefully overcoat. Imagine sitting hours in such circumstance. Would there be a Tom and Jerry or Tex Avery in support of the feature? I figure shorts would have been less because Cass had company in Blondie, which frankly I would not have stayed for, having avoided Blondie for all of life so far. Channel 7 in Spartanburg ran them, me for switching whenever one surfaced. Metro especially felt the postwar pinch but try to make them stop spending as though it were blooming and booming early forties. 1946 was a record year, late 1947 and into 1948 to slip noticeably, result hard lesson learned by all the majors. Cass Timberlane as I recall was an OK picture, well enough made to engage. They need not all be great to impress. Trouble for thousand or more seat showcases was less people inclined to come downtown for movies. What with war ended and families expanding, they had more vital things to do. Farther-sighted Hollywood observers predicted several years prior that this would happen, and now it did.

UPDATE (9/14/2026) 2:18 pm: Griff supplies a World Premiere Gotham ad for Monsieur Verdoux.

UPDATE --- 9/20/2026, 4:37 AM: Lou Lumenick, past master of New York theatre ads who can find rarities in any Gotham haystack, supplies the Loew's State display for St. Louis and Babes in Arms, plus he confirms that it was indeed February 15, 1952. Also see Lou's comment just added to that section, and be sure to follow his ongoing movie and TV archeological digs at X, where every day brings a showmanship surprise.

A Long, Hot Misfits Summer

More Stars Soon in Heaven ---Part Two

Problem with event movies was unwashed public needing to agree that they were indeed events. Subject matter still had to matter, doubts frankly as to whether The Misfits would. Robert Mitchum was wanted initially for lead man. Memos I read suggest they wanted him badly. Did Mitchum see this as too much reprise of his previous The Lusty Men for RKO? Was writer Arthur Miller too lofty a prospect? Maybe Monroe as screen mate distanced him. By 1960, would her people have insisted on top billing for MM? There was no argument she’d cede placement to Gable, age before beauty perhaps, or one legend checkmating another. But Monroe was still a working actress at heart, not yet legendary as early and mysterious death would confer. Respective pay level told truth as to that … Gable got $750K, her fee $300K same as director John Huston. Both were in for percentages. I understand Monroe’s estate still gets checks from The Misfits and Some Like It Hot. Gable under such physical stress, and working in Nevada’s beastly heat, made his hardest-earned money, comfort for the widow and unborn son in the end, but what a premature one. Not even sixty … and twenty years too old to play this roistering and hard-luck guy. Wish Mitchum had done The Misfits. But as I’ve said before of other icons who went early, would we wish the sixties upon any of them? Seeing Gable "really act" was maybe a lure, as it evidently was for him going in, though I suspect he’d have done a Pepe cameo if they had given him $750K for it (wouldn’t we all?). As for Gable acting, there is more and I think better of that in both Teacher’s Pet and But Not For Me.

Montgomery Clift was aboard as third of major name trio, billed as such and character support for settled leads that were Gable and Monroe. Clift plays his broken rodeo rider with authority, saddling up against sense or reason for a player seen as delicate since a road accident changed forever a public perception of him. I found myself wishing this time that Clift could somehow have gotten more chance at vigorous work, for sure he was willing to go whatever dangerous distance to make screen action credible. Might someone have mentioned him to John Wayne or Wallis as potential son of Katie Elder? I like Dean Martin, but Monty would have been electric as Tom Elder, even in diminished capacity … or am I just a fan wanting to rewrite history sixty years too late? Eli Wallach has a not very likeable part, and we can admire his not playing in opposition to it. Wallach was gifted at being a rat, or “hypocrite” as his “Guido” character is referred to, the actor for me more accessible where comic emphasis is applied to scurvy sorts, like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, or The Magnificent Seven. Wallach would become spokesman for The Misfits cast by dent of all others gone before historical inquiry began, which must have been an uneasy sensation for him. The Misfits bore pressure from the start as an expected masterpiece, everyone just sure it would be the screen’s supreme drama, a natural consequence of genius present in all aspects. Were they as sure, however, of commercial acceptance?

Marilyn Monroe predicted that if The Misfits achieved greatness, it would come in retrospect, history awarding laurels, not first-run critics and audiences. This woman had smarts, pretending sometimes not to where it served her purpose. She for instance liked John Huston because he had been kind to her during The Asphalt Jungle, but Huston was here under a same pressure to mine gold from Arthur Miller’s concept. Maybe this caused Huston to look for escapes from over-heated toil that was The Misfits. “John Huston was constantly flouting his macho director image. He was always off to ride in local parades or attend parties,” said Ralph Roberts. There was also raw edge to the director where realism was sought, him by cast/crew agreement going too far to get effects he wanted. “A lot of the action scenes in the desert with the horses were actually shot indoors at Paramount after we’d left the Nevada location. That’s when I saw Gable take a lot of physical punishment. He was doing the close shots with a prop man holding the fake horse legs. He would thrust them at Gable who was lying on the floor trying to dodge the hoofs. John Huston felt that all this fell short of the realism he wanted to achieve and personally took charge of the prop master’s duties. Well, Gable really scrambled now because Huston was coming after him with everything he had. Huston poked and jabbed with those hoofs but Gable took it without complaining It must have been pretty painful though.” Marilyn Monroe caught blame in part for Gable’s post-Misfits heart attack and death, daily waits for her obliging him to sit idle in roasting heat. But did Huston experience guilt for how he drove the star who had after all barely got insurers’ go-ahead to appear in The Misfits?

Marilyn Monroe was married to Arthur Miller, this a reason for his writing The Misfits. For her part, there was Miller’s looking like Lincoln, and she had a thing for men who looked like Lincoln. Has this been analyzed since? Surely one or more head doctors who grazed on MM explored it. I get the impression that most any guy with an Abe-face could have Marilyn on a plate. How far back did this quirk go with her? Another of Great Emancipators in her life was Yves Montand, who emancipated MM from Miller bed during Let’s Make Love, a last before The Misfits and done for Fox under George Cukor direction. Monroe knew the picture wasn’t much, but seemed intent on transitioning to Montand, this much to Miller’s humiliation and planned get-even to follow. Best way accomplishing this was to write revenge upon The Misfits, a to start love letter he’d rewrite with a now poison pen. Ralph Roberts witnessed the explosion to follow: “ I was standing outside Mr. Gable’s trailer one afternoon talking to his makeup man. The Misfits was nearing the end of production. Suddenly we heard Gable let out a roar to someone over the phone. He was talking to his agent and was obviously very upset and angry. Gable told his agent that he wanted to see “everything we have on The Misfits” the next morning. It turned out that Arthur Miller at this late date had decided to rewrite the screenplay. By now, Marilyn was completely estranged from him and he seemed to be taking it out on the characters in The Misfits. Gable was now an unsympathetic bum, Marilyn nothing more than a whore, and Eli Wallach suddenly emerged as the hero!”

“Monty Clift was eliminated altogether from the new script. You can imagine how Gable felt about these changes. The next day, he screened the footage they had shot and realized that there was enough to release the picture --- so he went to Frank Taylor (the producer) and John Huston and told them he was going home, that he’d done his last day’s work on The Misfits. Since Gable had script approval in his contract, he didn’t have to speak a word of dialogue unless it suited him. Marilyn was very grateful for the action he took since her contract would have required her to go ahead and complete the film under any circumstances.” Thus spake ego and love now thwarted, Miller more sanguine on the matter when interviewed for The Misfits documentary years later. Ralph Roberts was in a unique position for seeing the whole thing and living to tell it. Deep in Marilyn’s confidence, he was able to get her reaction and fear that a cast-off husband might ruin all of work she and others had done up to crisis point. The confrontation apparently did not get press at the time, curtain of silence lowered over all of professionals attached to The Misfits. It would have done none of them good to have this laundry aired. Work wrapped and The Misfits was released, some months after Clark Gable died. There was avalanche of publicity, but the movie was perceived a downer, partly for loss of Gable, plus Monroe’s personal circumstance being so unsettled, The Misfits sort of “meta” but not to anyone's benefit for being so. There was $3.904 million in domestic rentals and two million foreign, not enough to break even. The Misfits had 14,404 bookings, fair enough till you realize other UA product got many more, Follow That Dream for instance with 23,475, or Alias Jesse James which had 24,926.

The Misfits would for many become a movie inhabited by ghosts. An interesting incident saw Gable having supper alone in the hotel dining room, the casino within view and Huston doing nightly drop of thousands. “Look at him,” CG said to management, “No sleep, full day’s work ahead of him … Huston won’t live long like this.” Irony would write its own coda, however, Gable gone within a month, Huston thriving on till 1987. Apropos to gamble setting, one never knew how chips would fall. For Marilyn Monroe, there would come one more feature partially made. Roberts again: “Marilyn had agreed to do Something’s Got to Give in order to work off a contractual commitment to Fox, though she had no respect for the material. She wanted to get it out of the way and move on to something more interesting. She’d always liked Betty Comden and Adolph Green and wanted to do What a Way to Go with them. Anita Loos had written a sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes wherein Marilyn would play an older Lorelei Lee.” Monroe always sought to improve, and to be in better pictures. Added Ralph Roberts: “She was a big Garbo fan. She used to go to the Museum of Modern Art whenever they had a Garbo film.” There was every intent to finish the Fox job, said Ralph: “Marilyn wanted to finish Something’s Got to Give only a few days before her death. She had met with Fox, and they agreed to reactivate production on the film. At one point they had announced that Lee Remick would take over Marilyn’s role. She was very concerned about this and called Dean Martin to tell him she’d be back to finish it up. She wanted Dean to intercede with Fox. I remember her telling him on the phone, Don’t use Lee Remick.” The Misfits is on Blu-Ray and streams most places in High-Def.

Drama Darker Than Imagined in 1960

 

The Misfits a Last or Near Last for Many --- Part One

There’s a story persistent about the night Montgomery Clift died. His assistant rapped upon a closed bedroom door to ask Monty if he’d like to watch The Misfits on television. Account goes that Clift replied, “Absolutely no!” these his last words. I took the tale for truth until just now when I checked dates and found that Clift died on July 23, 1966. The Misfits at that time had only played network dates, 1-3-65 and 5-23-65, as of 7-23-66. These were ABC broadcasts, per their ongoing deal with United Artists for theatrical features to be shown in primetime. There was one more run, 3-22-69, before The Misfits went into UA’s “Showcase 6” syndicated package in 12-70. So how much does this matter, if at all? Enough anecdotes get shine rubbed off by niggling detail to make me feel most should be let alone. Monty-balk at The Misfits for his exit line seems good as any, but if his man mentioned a movie for Clift perhaps to watch, it was probably something more along lines of From Here to Eternity, by 1966 playing heavy on local TV. Deeper research could discover which of his appeared on NY tubes as of 7-23-66, so who volunteers? I think The Misfits fits barbed account simply because this was a misfit movie, one that few looked back on with affection. Certainly not viewers and hardly by cast, most of whom died within shockingly short time either before or not too long after The Misfits was released. Only Eli Wallach of leads stayed to blow out birthday candles, him staying a spectacular ninety-eight years (d. 2014). Suppose Eli ever lay awake and wondered “Why me?, or more to point, “Why not me?” It’s like being sole survivor on some ship that went down.

There is much mournful about The Misfits, a sort of cursed endeavor. We have also The Conqueror of similar stripe, shot in Utah and ongoing necrology from there. There was sadness not just in making The Misfits, but in how the film would play. Heavy as sandbags as written by Arthur Miller, there was no ounce of fun to be had here, and receipts expected to be big would not end so. How many mimicked Monty where invited to re-watch The Misfits, as in “Absolutely no!”? That I suspect is why The Misfits became object of the false memory. Few fall more squarely into category called “Maybe this time I’ll like it,” but how many pull trigger of taking the task? Reason for revisit to The Misfits is conversation I had with Ralph Roberts on August 13, 1988, just him, me, and Mike Cline in a small conference room, reason for access Ralph’s NC family connection. Ralph was an actor who doubled as masseur for known names including Marilyn Monroe, with whom he became a close chum. Many say he was the last person who spoke with her the night she died (should we say the last friendly person?). Ralph Roberts had Gotham insider status like few else. I’ve seen him on TV and movies that aren’t credited at his page on IMDB. We talked a long while but only about The Misfits, for which I kick myself regular. One topic he hesitated to address was circumstance of Marilyn Monroe’s death. That water ran truly deep, as you could tell by Ralph’s dark expression where her fate came up.

Little went on during The Misfits to escape Ralph Roberts’ scrutiny. Insurers were shy to clear the male lead for service.  “Clark Gable wanted very much to do The Misfits, but he was unable to pass the physical which was required by the insurance carrier. Being so anxious to get the part, Gable stayed in bed for four days in the hopes he’d be ready for his fourth physical exam (he’d failed the first three). He went straight from his bed to the doctor’s office and this time they passed him.” We could wonder if Gable’s doctor warned him about over-stressing on The Misfits, which advise if given went studiously ignored. Had he done another comedy shot on sound stages, I dare say the King might have lived to work into at least part of the sixties (but who would sentence him deeper to that benighted decade?). Word is Gable liked notion of The Misfits for opportunity to “really act,” plus the money was more, at least on a surface, than he had been offered before, him thinking in terms of ultimate percentage payoff, though recent ones proved more profitable than The Misfits would be. Here’s the thing though: Gable was usually in for gross participation after leaving MGM, which meant his came off the top, sometimes at cost to distributors (Fox lost money on The Tall Men … Gable did not). A big enough star, working independent in the fifties, saw reward contract talent of earlier time but dreamed of. Gable found out post-Metro what it was like to be truly enriched by the movie game, at risk sometimes to his health, as here where he crash-dieted after It Started in Naples to rid himself of pasta weight and get in shape for The Misfits.

Gable had been told what a pill Marilyn Monroe could be on working sets, and so came prepared to be patient. Ralph Roberts said he became her champion, the most indulgent of everyone working on The Misfits, she being of that generation having idolized “Clark Gable.” Old timers had to bear transition of co-workers into fans, many distracted by awe they felt just being in the presence of what was less a working colleague than revered idol they simply could not believe was now their co-star. Everyone it seemed wanted to talk over Gable’s greatness with this by all accounts modest man, and that could get awkward for him. Roberts: “Gable always drove himself to the Misfits location and didn’t mingle a lot with the rest of the company. He did though become closer to Marylyn over a period of time and ended up being her strongest supporter.” The much-repeated remark he made to a press rep, to effect that past stars were expected to show up on time “or they’d be fired,” is thought by some to have been critical of Monroe, but overall context suggests it was more a humorous aside on Gable’s part. It’s true the old studios would not tolerate misbehavior on the part of players, a refuse pile filled by those who thought they could get away with bratty conduct. It needed an extraordinary gift to be indulged past strict policy of punching clocks and being ready to perform. Was Judy Garland an only major name to be so “understood” as she was, MGM knowing this was the one and massive talent that could never be replaced? Surely Gable observed this close and marveled at indulgence extended to her, at least till curtain fell in 1950 (her firing from Metro). Gable's true feelings about Marilyn Monroe were revealed to columnist Joe Hyams, him trusted by Gable: "How do you like working with Marilyn?" Gable asked "on or off the record?" Hyams replied "off," to which Gable said, "She's the rudest, most impossible actress I've ever worked with." Hardly the impression Ralph Roberts had of course, but then Gable had known Joe Hyams a long time so was able to be more forthcoming with him. To note is fact Joe Hyams did not spill these beans until 2001 when he penned a look-back on his long association with Gable.

Monroe by many hind sights was cause of The Misfits going up and up in terms of time and costs. Ralph Roberts felt she got a bum rap, though he was clearly an acolyte for being on her personal payroll. Said he on Monroe as scapegoat: “It reached a point where Marylyn was blamed for everything that went wrong. One day the company drove 75 miles or so into the desert for some outdoor shooting, and then discovered that Marylyn’s wig had been left behind We didn’t have a phone of course, so work was held up while someone drove back for the wig. Marilyn was blamed for the oversight, but of course it wasn’t her fault at all. If something went wrong though, everyone just tended to pack it off on Marilyn.” Monroe had gathered many a “handler’ by the time of The Misfits, she by now a production firm in herself, with lots grazing upon her and each jockeying for closeness to the star. Monroe paid Paula Strasberg (above) $3,000 per week to coach her acting, the last thing such instinctive ability needed. One could wonder how much more effective MM might have been had she been spared Strasberg ministrations, but Paula served greater functions than mere actor instruct. Like Ralph Roberts, she'd act also as guard against intruders, defend against those who’d defame MM, Paula like Ralph a majordomo and life raft for the troubled star. I’d say both earned keep, Roberts recalling Marilyn as a most generous employer. This actress, if by now institution, was toting up quite an overhead.

There is a Making of The Misfits book, also an hour-long DVD on the subject. Reading/watching is not unlike exploring the Galveston Flood or what happened at Balaclava Heights. Such waste, such self-destruct among talent on march to respective ends. Why should any black-and-white feature other than a grandest spectacle cost four million to make? The Misfits as on-and-on project was grand for tourism. Folks flocked to Reno hoping to interact with stars, and many did. Heat choked to over one hundred degrees on better days. Reno encouraged bad habit John Huston had of gambling beyond reason, $50,000 he left on green felt tables, this an unhealthy one-sixth of the $300K Huston received for directing The Misfits. Never mind smoke/drink as worst scourges of old Hollywood, for I believe betting had those beat, certainly among many who felt too lucky, or underserving, of money fairly thrown at them for engaging what seemed to some a frivolous enterprise. John Huston was not regarded as an artist in a same sense as writer Arthur Miller, pecking order among creatives a steeper stairstep in 1960 when movies were still something best took with popcorn and Raisinets. Will films get respect now that we are largely consuming them alone? Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe, but by Misfit time, they were misfitted as a couple. Was having her for a wife enough to overcome any man’s better judgment? I read how Monaco fixers, intent on finding a Hollywood name for Rainier’s princess, briefly considered Monroe until wiser heads warned that no, she was too unstable. Let’s choose regal if placid Grace Kelly instead.

Watch List for 8/24/2026

 

Watched: Swingers from the Sixties, Over There (The Knack), Over Here (Elvis)

THE KNACK … and HOW TO GET IT (1965) --- This is what director Richard Lester was up to between A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, him on to things mod, hip, gear, whatever else made up Brit slang of the time. We’d learn the language just for seeing enough off the Isles, fully a third of what the Liberty showed me during the mid-sixties British boom. Did however skip The Knack as I would Having a Wild Weekend and Ferry Cross the Mersey, latter even though I’d bought a ticket for the Saturday co-feature which was Tomb of Ligeia, also UK-shot (a story told here). Lester had unique style seen initially on over-there television where the Beatles tabbed him for loopy humor that would liven their first and second features. The director did much with jumpy edits, funny reactions from staid elders watching kids loose on streets and living it up. You’d think there never was a war and years of austerity that followed, this still evident for beat-down spots where virtually all of The Knack was shot, houses distressed rather than mere sets to look that way. Why fake what was all too real in daily life? Postwar locations in London as well as Berlin had to sidestep bombing damage still not repaired unless they wanted to focus on such, which mid-60’s celebrations of youth did not. The Knack was based on a play which was popular despite what its stage director called a collapsing third act. You get that from the movie in spite of Lester to partial rescue with energy he seemed never to run out of. Such talent belonged to times where it burned brightest. When that time passed, Lester and others as dynamic would face workaday where found and projects not necessarily aimed at strengths. The Knack is delightful when it delights, a movie perhaps best watched as “Best Of” highlights, glimpses of what had made the sixties so trippy. Interview extras on the Region Two Blu-Ray see each of participants, Richard Lester, Rita Tushingham among others, asked “what it was like” to live amidst a swinging London scene during such souped-up epoch, them saying they best understood it from hindsight, that while it was happening, there was more a blur from swirling past so fast. Couldn’t all of us say that about all our young years?

TRIPLE ELVIS --- I have twice this week seen Elvis drive irresponsibly on public roads, offenses occurring in Live a Little, Love a Little, and Spinout. He raced too in Speedway but principally at the Charlotte Motor Speedway where seeming all races took place that year (1968). Speedway also references wild animals escaped from Charlotte’s zoo, but to my memory there was not and still isn’t a zoo in Charlotte. Nearest such attraction is Asheboro or Columbia, SC, latter which we visited twenty years ago and learned how fast gorillas can run. In fact, they don’t run, but lope at least twenty feet per exert, which made me realize there is no escaping a gorilla once he/she decides to eat you. Speedway was the first Elvis I ever walked out on. Same annum saw also The Green Slime abandoned. Last week was occasion to see if I’m more tolerant with age. Got through Speedway and did not altogether dislike it. Studio interiors sub for outdoors (a trailer park), sets are plywood, “money” shots take place at a disco where Elvis and co-star Nancy Sinatra sing. She has but one solo (did Colonel Parker draw lines to prevent another Ann-Margret steal?). Elvis socks a hole in a door that looks like cardboard any of us could penetrate with a fingertip. Speedway doesn’t suggest $2.8 million spent, but that's how it was. Elvis raked-off at least a million, plus Nancy took more than average Presley girls. Loss to Metro was $450K. They took a hit also with Stay Away, Joe, suggesting a public now allergic to Elvis movies. Speedway if anything confirmed this. Live a Little, Love a Little was thus necessary reboot. “Watch Elvis click with all these chicks,” said posters, but in fact he clicks with but one, and how, because here for a first time, Elvis spends an unwed night with a “chick,” Michele Carey lately of El Dorado. All this and no clergy present.

Here was nuclear blast to the Elvis universe, though I’m not sure how many by then noticed or cared. He “swings” to extent of occasional profanities, “What the hell…,” a few damns. He’s stalked by Michele’s manic-pixie-dream girl, that sort explained to me at time of Greenbriar’s My Man Godfrey post. Live a Little, Love a Little is 60s closest to screwball spirit. There’s even Rudy Vallee a Preston Sturges hark-back. Other aspects depart Presley formula. There’s a good song about a little less conversation and a lot more lovin,’ something to that effect. It plays today more than most tunes from Elvis movies. I like how he worked often with veterans. In addition to Vallee, there was Sterling Holloway, Don Porter, Joan Shawlee. Whose idea? I’ll propose Norman Taurog’s. He directed all three of what I watched and just show me who could have done them better. Word is, Elvis liked Norman a lot. A dad figure? He could use upgrade on poor Vernon shambling around Graceland. Handlers had to try things different for Live a Little, Love a Little, as Elvis so far constituted didn’t sell anymore. How many soundtrack albums were his films moving? --- because so far as the Colonel was concerned, platters were a best if not only good reason to keep making features.

Third and last selection was Spinout. This one I saw and liked at the Liberty in 1966. In fact, it may have been the last Elvis that seemed at least OK to me. Joe Pasternak produced as he had the majestic Girl Happy from a year before. Pasternak spent more than Sam Katzman did on cheaters Kissin’ Cousins and Harum Scarum, the latter losing money despite a low budget of $1.9 million and imagine how cheap it looked for Elvis collecting more than half that. Kissin’ Cousins was a hit which I bet got that way just for playing the Liberty to jammed seating with lines up the block for Sunday open. Hold my beer, Ben-Hur. Spinout being Pasternak cost $2.6 million but frankly has not the polish of Girl Happy, let alone Viva Las Vegas. Elvis is flanked by Shelly Faberes, Deborah Walley, Diane McBain, each familiar to such setting, plus Cecil Kellaway and Una Merkel to represent industry past. I recalled Kellaway from doomed descent to find the beast from 20,000 fathoms, and that if nothing else resonated. Elvis always had comic sidekicks, two in Spinout (three if you count Deborah Walley), each less annoying than Bill Bixby in Speedway conning Elvis out of race winnings and losing it all on horses. Such aspect of Elvis formula bothered me then and still does. Do Presley lead ladies continue to be tagged by fans wanting to hear again what they recalled of the King from sixty years ago? Celebs tend to be more forthcoming when you pipe the unexpected, like with Shirley Eaton at a western show in Winston-Salem (imagine Shirley Eaton in Winston-Salem for any reason). So did I speak of Goldfinger? No --- Eight on the Lam --- and she was plenty animated about that.

Best Liberty Show a Quarter Bought in 1966

 

You Don't Need the Title to Signify What This Art Represents, Which is Why I Don't Include It.

Among the One Hundred: The Professionals

Where it comes to first capturing favorites, timing is all. I came to The Professionals, rather it came to me, at age twelve on verge of thirteen. Story, setting, stars, never better aligned. I’d not hope to be James Bond, but could right circumstance of adulthood see me as variant at least on Lee Marvin? He as role model grew far back as M-Squad watched since five and kindergarten. Marvin toplines these professionals more than Burt Lancaster despite latter’s top billing, Lee’s “Henry Rico Fardan” most experienced and intellectually equipped to the mission, this confirmed by “J.W. Grant” (Ralph Bellamy) who cites Fardan completion at VMI and service to follow at San Juan Hill. If ever a man was “tempered like steel” in 1966-67, it was Lee Marvin. He’d do three in succession to dazzle boys of tender age, The Professionals, The Dirty Dozen, then Point Blank. Fact these would be ideal, if final ideal platforms for Marvin, went unrealized at the time … who knew bitter tea to brew by Sergeant Ryker, Hell in the Pacific (looked promising, so why would the Liberty not play it?), final insult of Paint Your Wagon, affront to all so far invested in Marvin and co-star Clint Eastwood. Pity passing of days when others chose for leading men, at least had a voice in selections, an advantage gone with Classic Era wind. As much applied re Lancaster, my first growth of beard likelier to arrive before he’d worthily follow-up The Professionals (1968’s The Scalphunters promising on posters, then as now a letdown). Lancaster’s 60’s output in retrospect seems a willful withhold of satisfaction that could have gone hand-in-hand with The Professionals, this to show how hard it would have been for anything to meet, let alone surpass, standard set here. What better for young or older men to aspire to than Burt Lancaster at age fifty-two scaling up a sheer rock wall on a rope, doubtless in sweltering heat? I don't know a male not profoundly impressed for having seen that.

Whatever to Do With Weaponry, Henry Rico Fardan Knows It, So Of Course We Wanted to Be Him 

Much about their mission seems fishy (retrieving a kidnap), but these are not men to care. There are four (Marvin, Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode) dispatched by one (Bellamy, millionaire husband of abducted wife). Bellamy will pay each $10K for her return, entrusting the foursome with one hundred thousand in gold for ransom. Lancaster being all about money and getting what of it he can makes us wonder in hindsight why the ransom itself wasn’t in play, at least by him. The Professionals refreshes for its simplicity, a surprise by the cynical sixties. The Code was being ushered out with nudity and salty language on the increase, The Professionals teasing with both. Politics peep in though gringos here sell their guns rather than imperialist notions. Robert Mitchum in 1956’s Bandido similarly focused on main prize that was cash for arms he’d supply. Lee Marvin’s Fardan begins The Professionals as weapons dealer for faceless munitions manufacturing, but nothing is made of this past point of him so employed and how much it pays ($35 per week). We will learn later that Fardan lived previously in Mexico, took a wife there, and worked with/for identified-as-abductor Jesus Raza (Jack Palance). Lancaster as “Bill Dalworth” observes part way into the mission that revolutions resolve to “the good guys against the bad guys” and wonders who in the long run are the good guys, a line that made me go whoops at first seeing The Professionals and wondering if we were headed for a preachment. Would the quartet we recognize as men of individual action for profit take sides like Gary Cooper ultimately did in Vera Cruz (1954)? That was always a temptation where oppression and revolt issues were aired, result too often fun let out of tires once heroes got impulse to be too heroic.

I Knew Marvin Better Than Lancaster in 1966, So Naturally Chose Him to Identify With.

We see automobiles put to practical use in The Professionals and several years later The Wild Bunch. They were in fuller abundance for Bandido which filmed near 100% on Mexican locations. Time set for all these was 1916-17, midst of civil war in the country that lasted more/less, on-off for ten years (1910-1920). This being complicated meant movies dealt most with specific aspects or personalities involved (Villa, Madero, Zapata) or used the background for novel spin upon westerns, autos plus other modernities to link them closer with life we knew. Why do men answer a dangerous calling if not for selfish gain? Fact they’ve done so previous, if often, assures they will be seasoned, wised up enough to stay clear of causes. None of our four appear to have criminal histories. If they’ve been militarily trained, it is not emphasized, though we assume from Fardan’s background and mode of dress that he’s spent considerable time in uniform. To strike across the desert for a stolen wife seems beneath such a crew. We sense there is plenty they are unaware of. Such a team seems better suited to a Kwai or Navarone sort of operation, but this was the mid-sixties, where to fulfill a patriotic obligation seems naïve for men wised-up as these. Soon enough to movies would come doubt as to value of even World War Two engagements. Convicted murderers work wiles upon worse butchers that are the German command in The Dirty Dozen, Lee Marvin appropriately leading them. All are in it for amnesty, provided they survive. Kelly’s “heroes” sneak across enemy lines to steal Nazi gold, personal goals a priority over Allied need. The concept off-put me enough to skip the movie when it was released in 1970.

MAD Magazine Often Flattered It's Readership With "Smartie-Pants" Verbiage Like Above

The Professionals refreshes for its humor, a “twist” end I still don’t fully get, and pleasing fact all four of principals get to live, in fact no one of the cast dies save faceless fall downs among banditry and bystanders innocent or not. To unsettle is Raza executing one after another of surrendered Federales, shock imagery checkmated by The Wild Bunch three years later. MAD magazine took a cleaver to The Professionals, page samples to show mixed results pretty much as I remember from the time. Do people much go back and read old MAD’s? I liked it in a sort-of way, though choice of where to dispose of thirty-five cents saw Castle of Frankenstein the winner rather than MAD. The Professionals would be overshadowed by the Sergio Leone westerns out of Italy and yes, The Wild Bunch. Others of US origin, save True Grit and Butch Cassidy, took back seats and stayed in them, Grit and Butch to better please a mainstream by not rocking genre boats though seeming to with off-casting (John Wayne) and/or all-in-fun revisionism (raindrops and bicycles). The Liberty tickled me pink for bringing The Professionals back one 1970 Saturday, 1975 sojourn to USC brightened when a 35mm print of The Professionals along with The Happy Ending (Richard Brooks salute) played to hard back cinema student seating. Whatever got it done. Imagine watching two such disparate features back-to-back that the same guy directed. Very scope The Professionals played CBS February 1973 primetime and died there (no letterbox). Eventually got a 16mm scope/IB Tech from a collector so dedicated to The Professionals that he blew up frames from every single shot to 8X10. Hundreds of stills fuzzy as the narrow-gauge image itself. And here I was figuring to be deep in the life. A nice Blu-Ray is out there, 4K too if you’re prepared to give Netflix $27 per month for privilege to watch. An out-of-print CD of the Maurice Jarre score goes for plenty more than when first issued in 1992. How many like me could whistle every theme without missing a note, and often do?