Bad, Bad, Bad... but funny

[mnhorse]

All the bad old days of movies westerns! Does anyone remember JESSE JAMES VS DRACULA???? Honest, it was out there in theaters,it has never shown up on TV. But then again I haven't found it necessary to watch TV all night to stay awake lately.

DANCES WITH WOLVES gets worse every time I see it. The premise is so unlikley that it makes the story unbelievable. Think about it; a 19th Century "Officer & Gentleman" going native. Duty, Flag & Honor would not have allowed it. What do you think?
Richard

[Pat Holscher]

I'm wanting that beer but won't cheat to get it. I agree in both particulars about Little Big Man and still enjoy it. Among others Chief Dan George put a human face on the American Indian, not for the first time by any means, but most memorably.

Sandy

I've sometimes wondered if the author of the novel Little Big Man (which is better than the movie) hadn't based more than a little of it on the life of George Bent, and his autobiography. Bent was half Cheyenne, and lived with the Cheyenne from his teenage years on. He had an extremely adventuresome life, and crossed over (like his siblings) to and from the European American world fairly seamlessly. His life reads a lot like Little Big Man.

I mention that as the Little Big Man character lives with the Cheyennes. I also mention that as Bent, whose life story was dictated, I believe, to an European American ethnologist, "wrote" in a certain style, and with a certain world outlook, that is very much expressed in Little Big Man, novel and movie. That world outlook is absent in Dances With Wolves. While Little Big Man is very political in its own right, it's protagonist are very Indian and very human. In Dances With Wolves we're sort of presented with an Americanized Mort d'Arthur, with the Sioux standing in for Knights of the Round Table. It isn't fair to the Sioux, amongst other things.

In both films the Pawnees are really bad guys. I don't know what it is, but the Pawnees always get a really negative portrayal in film.

[Pat Holscher]

I'm wanting that beer but won't cheat to get it. I agree in both particulars about Little Big Man and still enjoy it. Among others Chief Dan George put a human face on the American Indian, not for the first time by any means, but most memorably.

Sandy

I've sometimes wondered if the author of the novel Little Big Man (which is better than the movie) hadn't based more than a little of it on the life of George Bent, and his autobiography. Bent was half Cheyenne, and lived with the Cheyenne from his teenage years on. He had an extremely adventuresome life, and crossed over (like his siblings) to and from the European American world fairly seamlessly. His life reads a lot like Little Big Man.

I mention that as the Little Big Man character lives with the Cheyennes. I also mention that as Bent, whose life story was dictated, I believe, to an European American ethnologist, "wrote" in a certain style, and with a certain world outlook, that is very much expressed in Little Big Man, novel and movie. That world outlook is absent in Dances With Wolves. While Little Big Man is very political in its own right, it's protagonist are very Indian and very human. In Dances With Wolves we're sort of presented with an Americanized Mort d'Arthur, with the Sioux standing in for Knights of the Round Table. It isn't fair to the Sioux, amongst other things.

In both films the Pawnees are really bad guys. I don't know what it is, but the Pawnees always get a really negative portrayal in film.

Also, to follow up on an odd point, in Dances With Wolves Kevin Costner won't keep his darned hat on. I guess he felt that he looked too pretty to keep it on.

A real 19th Century character would keep his hat on. Having a sunburn on the prairie is unpleasant.

In contrast, in Little Big Man the Little Big Man character gives a hat to his Cheyenne Grandfather, who immediately asks if it is his old hat, grown fatter. He puts it on. Much more realistic.

[selewis]

I think you are probably right, Richard. I haven't seen it but the one time, when it was in theaters, but so many things assaulted my movie going pleasure that I forget them all. That may have been one of them though. I will definitely be looking for the Dracula flick, if I didn't know you to be a man of integrity I would suspect deceit for the sake of a good laugh. I'm having one.
Sandy

[Pat Holscher]

DANCES WITH WOLVES gets worse every time I see it. The premise is so unlikley that it makes the story unbelievable. Think about it; a 19th Century "Officer & Gentleman" going native. Duty, Flag & Honor would not have allowed it. What do you think?
Richard

There are a lot of plot vehicles along a similar lines that could have been used, and would have been more realistic. The Little Big Man plot, for example, is much closer to what could (and with George Bent more or less did) occur. Or you could have the story of Metis who interacted with Plains Tribes, or of Army officers who were genuinely sympathetic with Plains Indians, of which there are plenty of examples. But I can not think of any examples of US Army soldiers (who were not numerous), joining up, so to speak, with Native Americans.

To even set that plot, the film has to have the main character travel out to an Army outpost that was so remote that it was not in contact with a major post, which in and of itself is highly unrealistic. The idea of a remote, besieged, post is appealing, but it doesn't match the way things really were. Small posts did indeed, exists, but they were in some sort of regular contact with other post. About the only instance of a truly remote post I can think of would be that of Ft. Phil Kearney, which wasn't that remote. If the command had disappeared, the Army would have noticed relatively rapidly.

[selewis]

While Little Big Man is very political in its own right, it's protagonist are very Indian and very human. .

On this topic, the cliche is that Hollywood always portrayed the Indian in an unfavorable even sub human light. I have not found that to be the case in general, especially in the better movies, though there are plenty that do so. But those same movies generally have cardboard white men too. If anything I would say that Hollywood did much to destroy the view of the Indian as a savage, and generally showed him as an unfortunate victim of manifest destiny.

Sandy

[Pat Holscher]

In terms of stinkers, but straying away slightly from the theme of Westerns, I have to mention Legends Of The Fall. It stinks.

It starts off, as those unfortunate enough to have seen it will know, with a US Army officer resigning after a Plains campaign, in disgust, and then going on to start a ranch in Montana. For some reason, the typical movie view of a ranch in Montana features a house that's colossal, where people live surrounded by ornate furnishings. This contrast remarkably with the way things were in the same period, in which the typical ranch house was likely a one room building, in which an entire family lived. Today we'd call that a "shack".

Anyhow, the sons of this fellow go off to join the Canadian Army at the onset of WWI, as officers. Some Americans did join the Canadian Army in World War One, but a more likely and realistic response of an American ranch would have been, and was; "whoopee!. . .now the British will be buying lots of horses. ..".

No matter. They go off to fight the Germans, with no good explanation why this family in a remote rural area would have borne a grudge at that point in time against the Germans, which most people did not truly develop until the Germany navy kept sinking shipping with submarines.

No matter. For some reason, the Brad Pitt character, in his role as a Canadian cavalryman, grows long hair, doesn't shave, and doesn't wash.

Most Canadian officers of WWI vintage seem fairly clean cut. You could not have stayed truly clean in the trenches, but they didn't look like raodies for The Grateful Dead either.

Bad film.

[selewis]

In terms of stinkers, but straying away slightly from the theme of Westerns, I have to mention Legends Of The Fall. It stinks.

It starts off, as those unfortunate enough to have seen it will know, with a US Army officer resigning after a Plains campaign, in disgust, and then going on to start a ranch in Montana. For some reason, the typical movie view of a ranch in Montana features a house that's colossal, where people live surrounded by ornate furnishings. This contrast remarkably with the way things were in the same period, in which the typical ranch house was likely a one room building, in which an entire family lived. Today we'd call that a "shack".

Anyhow, the sons of this fellow go off to join the Canadian Army at the onset of WWI, as officers. Some Americans did join the Canadian Army in World War One, but a more likely and realistic response of an American ranch would have been, and was; "whoopee!. . .now the British will be buying lots of horses. ..".

No matter. They go off to fight the Germans, with no good explanation why this family in a remote rural area would have borne a grudge at that point in time against the Germans, which most people did not truly develop until the Germany navy kept sinking shipping with submarines.

No matter. For some reason, the Brad Pitt character, in his role as a Canadian cavalryman, grows long hair, doesn't shave, and doesn't wash.

Most Canadian officers of WWI vintage seem fairly clean cut. You could not have stayed truly clean in the trenches, but they didn't look like raodies for The Grateful Dead either.

Bad film.

Thanks for the warning. I read the book and was drawn in by the good writing but it's been a while and I can't recall how or if it differed from your description.

[Pat Holscher]

While Little Big Man is very political in its own right, it's protagonist are very Indian and very human. .

On this topic, the cliche is that Hollywood always portrayed the Indian in an unfavorable even sub human light. I have not found that to be the case in general, especially in the better movies, though there are plenty that do so. But those same movies generally have cardboard white men too. If anything I would say that Hollywood did much to destroy the view of the Indian as a savage, and generally showed him as an unfortunate victim of manifest destiny.

Sandy

I think the movies did generally portray the Indians as pretty bad in the first few decades of movie making, if we include silent movies. Indeed, an odd example was on the other day, in the form of some silent movie on TNT, which had a really bad Indian character (and some really bad cowboy characters also).

Of course, everything in silent movies was, as a rule, over done in order to get the point across. You can't exactly have My Dinner with Andre in a silent film, so all early films are sort of cartoonish, even the really good ones (and there are some really good ones). Sergei Eisenstein, for example, didn't have the Imperial Russian naval officers launch off on a lengthy defense of Czarist privilege before the sailors rise up. Instead, he had them feeding the sailors rotten meat. Probably not too realistic. Early talking movies sort of picked that up and were cartoonish, even the really good ones, in their own right.

It seems to me that portrayals of Indians began to change in the 50s. They were still usually somebody to be fought against, but they were not portrayed, normally, as unremittant bad actors. There's some exceptions to that, but it began to get more balanced, even if it didn't present their story through their eyes, and the portrayals were no doubt irritating to actual Indians.

In the 70s Hollywood went very much the other way, and tried to even out the score in its view. Little Big Man was probably a good early effort, but some other efforts go the other way, and show, in an equally unrealistic light, all the European Americans as bad, and all the Indian characters as noble. Ironically, most of these films do not portray Indians as Indians either, but rather reflect, once again, what other peoples view of what Indians were supposed to be.

There's probably darned few movies that actually portray an Indian view. Little Big Man may come as close as any. Jeremiah Johnson, which isn't a film about Indians, approaches a realistic look in a narrow sense, in that Johnson gets in a protracted personal war with the Crow, but the Crow aren't really portrayed as being wrong in their view. Geronimo; An American Legend, which was on tonight, isn't too bad, and gives a good portrayal of some actual (if fictionalized) characters on both sides of the Apache wars.

[Pat Holscher]

In terms of stinkers, but straying away slightly from the theme of Westerns, I have to mention Legends Of The Fall. It stinks.

It starts off, as those unfortunate enough to have seen it will know, with a US Army officer resigning after a Plains campaign, in disgust, and then going on to start a ranch in Montana. For some reason, the typical movie view of a ranch in Montana features a house that's colossal, where people live surrounded by ornate furnishings. This contrast remarkably with the way things were in the same period, in which the typical ranch house was likely a one room building, in which an entire family lived. Today we'd call that a "shack".

Anyhow, the sons of this fellow go off to join the Canadian Army at the onset of WWI, as officers. Some Americans did join the Canadian Army in World War One, but a more likely and realistic response of an American ranch would have been, and was; "whoopee!. . .now the British will be buying lots of horses. ..".

No matter. They go off to fight the Germans, with no good explanation why this family in a remote rural area would have borne a grudge at that point in time against the Germans, which most people did not truly develop until the Germany navy kept sinking shipping with submarines.

No matter. For some reason, the Brad Pitt character, in his role as a Canadian cavalryman, grows long hair, doesn't shave, and doesn't wash.

Most Canadian officers of WWI vintage seem fairly clean cut. You could not have stayed truly clean in the trenches, but they didn't look like raodies for The Grateful Dead either.

Bad film.

Thanks for the warning. I read the book and was drawn in by the good writing but it's been a while and I can't recall how or if it differed from your description.

I didn't even know there was a book.

I'd bet, however, that nowhere in the book is the Pitt character described as being the filthiest and most unkempt soldier in a Commonwealth Army since King Harold Godwinson was defeated at Hastings.

[selewis]

I think Willa Cather gives a good picture of life on the settled frontier in that era. 'One of Our Own' takes place during WWI and 'My Antonia' comes to mind as well. These aren't Montana or the west of the movies but probably have more in common with those times, places and attitudes than than most of the modern works that set out to portray them in a new light.

Sandy

[selewis]

I didn't even know there was a book.

Jim Harrison

[wkambic]

I've seen "Once Upon A Time In America." It also should carry an "industrial strength weirdness" warning label.

IIRC Claudia was the "kidnapped" wife in "The Professionals." While not specifically a "Western" it's rates a GFF.

[Pat Holscher]

I've seen "Once Upon A Time In America." It also should carry an "industrial strength weirdness" warning label.

It at least deseves a "eh?, what was that about?".

According to some, it suffers from having been excessively edited. Perhaps, but it was likely excessively edited as the editor was trying to put a movie together.

It isn't as bad as Once Upon A Time In the West. That isn't saying its good either.

IIRC Claudia was the "kidnapped" wife in "The Professionals." While not specifically a "Western" it's rates a GFF.

Yes! A hoist of the cyber beer to you!

Claudia Cardinale is indeed the window dressing,. . .er, female lead in The Professionals. It's sort of a Western, of the 20th Century "Raid Into Mexico/Shoot 'em up" variety. I like it, particularly liking Lee Marvin's portrayal as a disenchanted former American officer turned soldier of fortune. The reason Cardinale was chosen for the role are obvious, and in the 1960s "we have no need for realistic regional casting" tradition which also lead to Austrian Senta Berger being cast in Major Dundee, but any viewer used to more modern films would have to note that, as good as the film is, that she can't ride worth a darn, and that her Spanish accent, filtered through her actual Italian accent, is bizarre. That probably didn't bother the movie's viewers.

[selewis]

On old Westerns serials, since since getting XM Radio I've been catching some episodes of "Gunsmoke".

I don't care much for the television version of Gunsmoke, but the radio one is really good. Marshall Dillon is pretty edgy in the radio version, not exactly the same character portrayed in the tv variant.

In high school a friend of mine observed that the Gunsmoke series had been on television longer than that era in Dodge's history actually lasted, about ten years at the time, and it went on for quite a few years after that. I've always thought it would be interesting to have a series that progressed through time year by year. Of course not many last long enough to do that to any appreciable extent but Gunsmoke or Bonanza could have.

Sandy
Growing up the show never caught my interest, but I've seen it in reruns lately and am rather taken with Milburn Stone's portrayal of Doc Adams.I find that there is a lot of depth to it.

[mnhorse]

The Gunsmoke radio version was my favorite program on radio. It was a bit different than the TV show in many ways. However, many of the radio scripts were later used on the original 1/2 hour TV show.
On radio:
Matt Dillion portrayed by Willian Conrad. He went on to a long career in TV & movies. I always found the physical differences between him (short & stout) and James Arness interesting.

Chester Proudfoot (notice the diffrent last name) was played by Parley Baer. His later career included a few movies.

Doc Adams played by Howard McNear, (later the barber on the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) As I remember the radio & TV portrayal were much alike.

Miss Kitty was played by Georgia Ellis, her later career didn't include much acting.

The early 1/2 hours TV scripts were better than the psycho-dramas or lame comedy of some of the later one hour shows.

But, the intro to the TV show always got me. Matt came troting that big buckskin up the street and old buck was winging out with both forefeet. What a gait!
Richard

[selewis]

Doc Adams played by Howard McNear, (later the barber on the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) As I remember the radio & TV portrayal were much alike.

Wow, versatile actor

[browerpatch]

I've always enjoyed Milburn Stone's portrayal of Doc in Gunsmoke. I seem to recall that he was made an honorary member of the American Medical Association for it. I also enjoy Ken Curtis as Festus.

By coincidence, a friend recently loaned me Little Big Man. I enjoyed seeing it again after at least 30 years.

I couldn't sit through Legends of the Fall, and Dances with Wolves was pretty bad too.

[Pat Holscher]

In high school a friend of mine observed that the Gunsmoke series had been on television longer than that era in Dodge's history actually lasted, about ten years at the time, and it went on for quite a few years after that.

That's an oddly time warping feature of a lot of television series. MASH, for example, went on much longer than the actual Korean war by a huge margin, without even beginning to consider that the average soldier in the Korean War rotated out of the country in a less than 1.5 year period.

[Pat Holscher]

The Gunsmoke radio version was my favorite program on radio. It was a bit different than the TV show in many ways. However, many of the radio scripts were later used on the original 1/2 hour TV show.
On radio:
Matt Dillion portrayed by Willian Conrad. He went on to a long career in TV & movies. I always found the physical differences between him (short & stout) and James Arness interesting.

Chester Proudfoot (notice the diffrent last name) was played by Parley Baer. His later career included a few movies.

Doc Adams played by Howard McNear, (later the barber on the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) As I remember the radio & TV portrayal were much alike.

Miss Kitty was played by Georgia Ellis, her later career didn't include much acting.

The early 1/2 hours TV scripts were better than the psycho-dramas or lame comedy of some of the later one hour shows.

But, the intro to the TV show always got me. Matt came troting that big buckskin up the street and old buck was winging out with both forefeet. What a gait!
Richard

The radio version of Matt Dillon was a lot edgier than the tv version. Conrad's Dillon seems to have been pretty ready to shoot people, and it's even suggested in one episode that he had a vaguely criminal past.

A edgier content seems to have been a feature of radio shows, to my surprise, even in an era when television was squeaky clean (as opposed to the vile sewer it presently is). It's surprising when you first hear it. Radio dramas were full of killings and bad actors, and the detectives were pretty dicey. Apparently the thought was that if you had to imagine it in your minds eye, it wasn't as corruptive as it was if you simply saw it on tv, where they filled in all the blanks for you.

And, on that, they were probably right.