Roy Rogers in TruColor and Uncut (2 Viewers)

[ponset]

 

[Bob Gu]

So, I watched those Sterling Hayden westerns shown on GRIT.

When GRIT ran "Kansas Pacific"-1953, some years back, they ran it in widescreen, which I think is incorrect for 1953. The print they used was very bright and clean looking, but the color was kind of dull and yellowish.

The print GRIT ran recently was pillar-boxed and similar in color. But it was a more beat up print with tears and floaters and clipped dialog missing some words. An older print. I am going on about this because I think it's odd and interesting that GRIT's film package shows different prints of the same movie in different conditions.

The old Alpha "Kansas Pacific" was a little dark but was sharp with richer brighter color. I think most of the YouTubes are sourced from this one.

"Terror In a Texas Town"-1958 is one I've never seen all the way through before. The music is very strident. But maybe that's the point. The movie is famous for the harpoon showdown. I was not familiar with the female lead, Carol Kelly. Turns out she's the sister of Jack and Nancy Kelly.

"Terror in a Texas Town" was released on Blu-Ray and DVD by MGM-MOD.


Having seen the two later versions of "Top Gun"-1955, it was fun to see the Sterling Hayden version. John Dehner was the outlaw chief this time. On DVD from MGM-MOD.

I have this theory that old fiction magazine writers have files of stories that they shopped to movies and TV. They would change the stories around to fit different genres.

I enjoyed "Flaming Feather"-1952 very much. Nice color interesting historic locations and a fast-moving story, with large scale action. There's a masked mystery villain. I wonder who it could be?

"Flaming Feather" cast. Barbara Rush, Sterling Hayden, Richard Arlen, Arlene Whelan, and Victor Jory.

THE LAST COMMAND-1955 is the only Republic Trucolor in this group. Out on Blu-Ray only from Kino.

Sterling Hayden made three other movies for Republic. Two more three color Trucolors and one in B&W.

JOHNNY GUITAR-1954. On Blu-Ray and DVD from Olive.

TIMBERJACK-1955 with Vera Ralston. Up at YouTube with Turkish audio and English subtitles.

THE ETERNAL SEA-1955. On DVD and Blu-Ray from Olive. Based on the true story of Admiral John M. Hoskins.

DC Comics was inspired by Hoskins' story combined with the popularity of JFK and P.T. Boats, including "McHale's Navy" and came up with the war comic character "Captain Storm". The original run lasted 18 issues, 1964-67, with art by Irv Novick. Novick was very prolific at DC at this time and into the 1970s. Novick was the artist on "Johnny Cloud-The Navajo Ace" and was also assigned to Batman and Flash. Novick's art was also, allegedly, ripped off by a famous 'Pop Artist'.

 

[ponset]

Annie Oakley songs from Golden Records.

 

[SuperClark]

Full color comic book.1 of the most wanted classic tv series missing on dvd.

Colt 45 Comic # 0924 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The TV Western reigned supreme in the Fifties and Sixties. There were about 120 of them depending on what you consider a Western. This Comic Book (in .cbr or...

archive.org

Colt .45-Comic Book Cowboys, by Boyd Magers

 

[Bob Gu]

Gail Davis with Roy Rogers in THE FAR FRONTIER-1947.

Research tells me that the early Dell Annie Oakley comics didn't follow the look of the Gail Davis "Annie Oakley" TV series.

Did Gene Autry Flying 'A' Productions just take over an existing Dell Annie Oakley comic to tie in with the TV show or did Dell comics prepare those early issues before the TV show started filming?

The Gail Davis Annie did not follow the real Annie Oakley's story.

There were other Annie Oakley comics that did seem to follow her actual history but still mixed with tall tales of her Buffalo Bill days.

Atlas/Marvel had a cheesecake/good girl-art version of Annie that lasted four issues in 1948-49. Click to enlarge images. Art by Chris Rule.

Probably because of the still popular "Annie Oakley" TV series Atlas brought back Annie Oakley picking up the previous numbering system with issue #5. This reincarnation lasted seven issues in 1957-58 and had interior art by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito.

Annie was still glamorous on the covers.

Cover art: #5 Joe Maneely, #6 Andru and Esposito.

In the new Atlas Annie and the Charlton Annie, she was still a capable cowgirl/sharpshooter. But she was portrayed as being ignored by the menfolk for romance.

Cover art: #7 Joe Maneely, #8 Syd Shores.

Cover art: #9 Carl Burgos, #10 Sol Brodsky & Vince Colletta.

Cover art: John Severin.

Annie Oakley, by Dick Giordano, had a long run in Charlton's Six-Gun Heroes.

In this TV Guide article from the Oct. 22, 1960 issue, Gail Davis mentions that, originally, Autry's Annie was supposed to be a teenage girl. Maybe that's why the early Dell Annie Oakley comics didn't look like the TV show.

Also, the article says Gail just filmed a guest spot on a "77 Sunset Strip" episode that was supposed to air Dec. 23, 1960. I don't think that ever happened. Funny a specific airdate is mentioned. She's not in the episode that aired on that date, and it's not listed on her IMDB credits.

 

[Bert Greene]

The iconic nature of Gail Davis' "Annie Oakley" role tends to overshadow her fine work as b-western leading lady. She was in something like 20 or so b-westerns, and not just in Gene Autry films, but some for Charles Starrett, Allan 'Rocky' Lane, and Johnny Mack Brown. I think she was even in a Tim Holt western. She was always a particularly likeable and spiffy heroine. I only encountered her once, at a collectors' show in Dallas, but I found her very charming.

In sifting through some of the more obscure and forgotten of b-western cowboys, I'm always taken back to the late silent-era. I've been particularly curious about the films of cowboy star Don Coleman. He starred in a quartet of westerns:

1. THE BOSS OF RUSTLER'S ROOST (1928) w. Eugenia Gilbert
2. THE BRONC STOMPER (1928) w. Eugenia Gilbert
3. THE BLACK ACE (1928) w. Jeanette Loff
4. .45 CALIBRE WAR (1929) w. Jeanette Loff

Don Coleman seemed to be a protege of popular western star Leo Maloney. Maloney had him in two of his later westerns in supporting roles, and then he both produced and directed those four Coleman features (all distributed by Pathe), with his regular writer, Ford Beebe, also in tow. With this background, the films sound fairly promising, and not bottom-of-the-barrel junk, as is often found around this time. Two of the films apparently survive. "Black Ace" at MoMA, and "Boss" in a foreign archive. The leading lady in the first two, Eugenia Gilbert, was in a number of westerns, as well as comedy shorts. I became familiar with her via the dvd release of the Weiss Bros. serial "The Mysterious Airman" (1928), which Kit Parker's 'Sprocket Vault' label released a few years back.

Another very obscure cowboy star, whom I've only known thanks to an old, ragged arcade-card I have, is Jack Padjan. He only starred in two westerns, "Land of the Lawless" (1927) and "Crashing Through" (1928), the latter serving up future fan-dancer Sally Rand as leading lady. They were made by an outfit called Liberty Pictures, and also distributed via Pathe.

A third late-silent era cowboy is a much bigger name for his long career as a stuntman and stunt-coordinator, with a career lasting all the way into the early-1970s: Cliff Lyons. He seemed to have starred in a number of super-cheapo westerns, including some from producer Morris Schlank around 1928. The films all appear to be lost, and the info is so sparse on them that there's no documentation on storylines or even the casts. Lyons would still do stunts and appear in bit-parts in other films while these came out, and I don't think there was much of a publicity push for them. Real fly-by-night productions of the lowest order. Not that I wouldn't mind seeing some. Lyons was married to familiar and pleasant b-western heroine of the mid-1930s Beth Marion, who appeared in the films of Ken Maynard, Tom Tyler, Johnny Mack Brown and such. Marion did appear at a few film festivals later in life, like Marion Shilling, Lois January, and the like.

 

[ponset]

 

[Bob Gu]

Ray Milland produced, directed, and starred in, two 3-color Republic Trucolors, A MAN ALONE and LISBON.

Both were released on Blu-Ray by Kino. Not sure if there was a DVD too, for both or either. They seem to be out of print. Available on foreign DVD and Blu-ray and YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and other streamers, sometimes.

Grit-TV will be showing A MAN ALONE on Sunday, 1:30AM to 4:00AM, November 12, 2023.

A MAN ALONE-1955. Western.

Co-starring a blonde Mary Murphy.

Mary Murphy is usually a brunette.

LISBON-1956. International intrigue.

Co-starring Maureen O'Hara,

with Yvonne Furneaux.

Some of the LISBON ads promoted Republic's widescreen process, Naturama.

Interesting above ad does not mention Trucolor or Naturama.

Tried to find a picture of Ray Milland with Roy Rogers but the best I could come up with was Ray and Ginger.

 

[Robin9]

Ray Milland produced, directed, and starred in, two 3-color Republic Trucolors, A MAN ALONE and LISBON.

Both were released on Blu-Ray by Kino. Not sure if there was a DVD too, for both or either. They seem to be out of print. Available on foreign DVD and Blu-ray and YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and other streamers, sometimes.

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Grit-TV will be showing A MAN ALONE on Sunday, 1:30AM to 4:00AM, November 12, 2023.

A MAN ALONE-1955. Western.
View attachment 203083

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Co-starring a blonde Mary Murphy.
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Mary Murphy is usually a brunette.
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LISBON-1956. International intrigue.
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Co-starring Maureen O'Hara,
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with Yvonne Furneaux.
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Some of the LISBON ads promoted Republic's widescreen process, Naturama.
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Interesting above ad does not mention Trucolor or Naturama.

Tried to find a picture of Ray Milland with Roy Rogers but the best I could come up with was Ray and Ginger.
View attachment 203104

I'm very pleased I have both those Kino discs in my collection.

 

[ponset]

 

[Bob Gu]

'Black Jack' was originally owned by Wild Bill Elliott and called 'Thunder', in Republic's "Red Ryder" feature series.

When Allan Lane took over as "Red Ryder" he bought 'Thunder' from Wild Bill, including the diamond designed tack.

All the Republic "Red Ryder" features were released on DVD by VCI in 12 volumes. One volume had two of the non-Republic Jim Bannon Cinecolor "Red Ryder" features. VCI later released all four Jim Bannon Cinecolor "Red Ryders" in a separate edition.

Cowboy stars liked to own their movie horses. Made it easier to get an extra paycheck for their horse and to cut the studios out for public appearance fees.

There's a story that Republic threatened to take Trigger away from Roy during some conflict they were having. But, at that point, Roy already owned Trigger. The big boss, Mr. Yates, didn't know that.

Allan Lane became 'Rocky Lane' for his 38 feature Republic series. 'Thunder' was renamed 'Black Jack'.

Rocky's comic sidekick was Eddy Waller.

Eddy Waller played a character called 'Nugget Clark'. In an odd trope of the series, 'Nugget' never knew Rocky Lane by sight in any of the films. "Hey stranger what's your handle?".

'Nugget' was catnip for the women. With Minerva Urecal.

In his sixties, he was still going strong as a semi-regular on "Laramie".

Alan Lane guested with Roy and Dale, in THE BELLS OF ROSARITA, along with Sunset Carson, Robert Livingston, and Don 'Red' Barry. 'Black Jack' was still 'Thunder' and ridden by Wild Bill Elliott in BELLS.

And in TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD, here with Monte Hale and Roy. 'Thunder' was with Rocky as 'Black Jack'.

Pre-Rocky, pre-Thunder/Black Jack. Allan Lane with Dale, Roy, and Betty Hutton.

 

[Bert Greene]

You know, it wasn't just Trigger and Champion, as "Black Jack" had his own comic book too, from Charlton, running rather late in the game, from around 1957-59, concurrent with Charlton's own "Rocky Lane" comic. Always surprised Charlton initiated it, as they already had a 'horse' title with "Black Fury," which had a long run, lasting well into the mid-1960s. I used to think Charlton started the latter series to glom onto to popularity of the "Fury" tv-series with a similarly-titled comic. And, I'm sure it undoubtedly helped them with sales. Lots of young kids probably got snookered, thinking they were purchasing a comic connected to the "Fury" they knew on television (and Dell did publish the 'official' comic). But I noted that their "Black Fury" comic debuted in early 1955, before the "Fury" tv-series started airing in the fall of that year.

Eddy Waller was a great sidekick. One of the very best. It would be nice if we could see also him in the "Steve Donovan" tv-western series, where he performed the same duties. But it seems like only a few episodes of the series circulate. I was surprised about a year ago, watching the Kino Classics blu-ray of "The Great Gabbo" (1929), and seeing a much younger Eddy Waller in a small, uncredited part as a vaudeville character. I'd seen the film many years back, but didn't recognize him until this more recent viewing, the print being so nice and sharp.

 

[Beckford]

I believe in that photo of Eddy Waller from "Sundown in Santa Fe" the lady fixing his tie with a predatory gleam in her eye is not Marjorie Main but the marvelous Minerva Urecal. Along with Ms Urecals's countless movie appearances, I recall watching her as a child headlining her own TV series "The Adventures of Tugboat Annie". That's a seemingly tailor-made role in which MGM somehow never got around to casting Marjorie Main.

 

[Bob Gu]

Thanks, for the correction, Ken. I'll edit my caption.

There are a bunch of these at comicbookplus.com.

 

[ponset]

 

[Bert Greene]

In the department of overlooked Republic obscurities, I recently viewed the rather minor "Rose of the Yukon" (1949-Rep), starring Steve Brodie and Myrna Dell. It was a contemporary-set tale of Military Intelligence agent Brodie seeking out a WW2 deserter and potential murderer up in an Alaskan village, the latter having a secret uranium mine where he's selling to the Ruskies. The film is a rather slapdash little cheapie, although the cast was quite agreeble, including small bits for a lot of familiar faces like Jonathan Hale, Emory Parnell, Dick Elliott, and Francis McDonald. You get the expected stuff like a very Republic-style saloon brawl, some snowy stock-footage, and (for the kids) a couple of bear cubs frolicking around. The real weakness was the uneven integration of some action scenes obviously culled from an earlier production. Like a big roundup involving reindeer and some attacking wild dogs, and the sled chase finale. Too patchworky. Not sure what previous Republic feature this all came from. I didn't see these sequences in the 53-minute cut-down of "The Girl From Alaska" (1943). Maybe "Girl From God's Country" (1940)? I really don't know.

The film looks like a bit of a step down for Steve Brodie, who'd had some choice material over at RKO, like the popular noir "Desperate" (1947), or even as the 'bad' brother to Tim Holt in the latter's "Brothers of the Saddle" (1949). Brodie always struck me as one of those guys like Harry Lauter and William Phipps, who initially come across as affable ex-servicemen in college on the GI Bill who'd invite you over for a backyard barbecue... but a few years later, in the 1950s, you'd run across them and they've all developed an evil smirk and are working as strongarm men for shady nightclub owners. But then again, Myrna Dell also always seemed like 'trouble' incarnate, seen in films for years always sitting alone at the bar at one of those aforementioned nightclubs, ready to ruin some poor sap's life. I remember Myrna Dell used to have some column in that 'Hollywood: Then and Now' magazine, which I used to see all the time in shopping-mall bookstores in the 1980s. I picked up a few issues every now and then, but the mag didn't quite seem to cater to my vintage-film tastes. Whatever the case, both Brodie and Dell were fine as our hero and heroine of "Rose of the Yukon," even if the film is somewhat shabby.

The director of "Rose" was George Blair, who helmed a lot of the lower-case Republic productions. Just after this he had a similar 'patchwork' effort with "Daughter of the Jungle" (1949-Rep), which culled a lot of material from the Nyoka serial. And this is (amazingly) due out on blu-ray in Via Vision's "Tales of Adventure" volume-2 set, in just a few weeks. Even more startling is the info that this copy is advertised as coming from a 'previously unreleased 80-minute cut.' I'd only known the film to run 69-minutes, like the old 'unofficial' copy I've had for years. Programmers like this don't usually benefit from longer runtimes as a rule, but if we're getting more footage of pretty Lois Hall running around in the jungle, I surely won't complain.

 

[RBailey]

I believe the reindeer roundup and other scenes came from Republic's 1938 "Call of the Yukon" with Richard Arlen, Beverly Roberts, Lyle Talbot and Mala. Scenes from this film were also used in Republic's 1953 serial "Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders".

 

[Bob Gu]

I took a look at what is on YouTube for CALL OF THE YUKON. It's a good illustration of the odd editing that happened to these Republics for TV syndication.

None of the three uploads of CALL OF THE YUKON had any Republic logos fore or aft.

Here's a TV release title card, showing the TV distributor.

The above upload had this THE END superimposed over Lyle Talbot and his dog.

On another upload, the THE END appeared after the Lyle Talbot and dog scene.

Those first two examples were 66-minute-long versions of the movie.

This one is 69-minutes long. There's another minute or so after the Lyle Talbot and his dog scene. It's a domestic scene and a clinch between Beverly Roberts and Richard Arlen, followed by this THE END.

The lettering of the three THE ENDs are not exactly the same.

The longer version upload also seems to have the theatrical title card with the 'Republic' Presents masked out. The title lettering is different compared to the TV release title card.

Here's the 69-minute version.



I didn't like the way CALL OF THE YUKON ended. But, on second thought, Lyle Talbot and his dog actually had a narrow escape.

 

[ponset]

 

[Bob Gu]

GritTV will be showing TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD four times in December, probably with 90-minute time slots:
Friday December 1, 11PM.
Sunday December 17, 6 AM.
Saturday December 23, 2:30AM. (Check this, might really be early Sunday, Dec 24.)
Monday December 25, 6:30AM.

Roy's co-star in TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD, Penny Edwards, had a Dixie Cup promotion, too.

Back.

After sending in the movie star Dixie cup lids they would send you these picture cards back. I guess they could be saved in those old loose-leaf snap books or kept together with two long clasp paper clips with the round heads and long folding clasps.

Here's another Rocky Lane with the back.

Roy Rogers.

The back of Roy's card shows his last group of Trucolor movies released in 1950. But the last title listed, SONG OF THE BANDIT, does not exist at all. It might be a cancelled project or an alternate title for NORTH OF THE GREAT DIVIDE-1950?? BELLS OF CORONADO was also released early in 1950 and may be part of the previous Rogers 'season'.

Found a Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers song on YouTube with the title "Song of the Bandit". The Pioneers were long gone from Roy's movies by 1950.