You already know Lonesome Dove is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Even though Dead Man’s Walk didn’t awe me in the same way, I haven’t been as excited about a mini-series or a movie release in a long time as I am about the upcoming Comanche Moon.  Val Kilmer, Steve Zahn, Rachel Griffiths, Karl Urban, Linda Cardellini, and Wes Studi star in this new six-hour mini-series based on the book by Larry McMurtry.  It’s the final chapter in the “Lonesome Dove” saga to be made into a movie, and will be broadcast Sunday, Jan. 13, Tuesday, Jan. 15 and Wednesday, Jan. 16 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT, each night) on the CBS Television Network.  To help you get the time line straight in your head: Chronologically, this story takes place after Dead Man’s Walk, and before Lonesome Dove, and is of course taken from the book by Larry McMurtry.

Steve Zahn realized he had some big shoes to fill when he was cast as Gus McCrae, who was previously played by Robert Duvall. “Duvall played this incredible character; it was almost as if you were playing Teddy Roosevelt,” Zahn says.

ER fans will recognize Clara, as Linda Cardellini, better known to us as “Sam” on the hospital set.  Talk about some big shoes to fill! Angelica Houston played Gus’s love in Lonesome Dove and a very young Jennifer Garner was cast in Dead Man’s Walk.

Comanche Moon follows Texas Rangers Augustus “Gus” McCrae (Zahn) and Woodrow F. Call (Urban), now in their middle years, as they continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life: Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe (Cardellini), and Call with Maggie Tilton (Banks), the young prostitute who loves him and bears him his son, Newt (Joseph Castanon). Val Kilmer plays Captain Inish Scull, a Yankee aristocrat and hero of the recently concluded Mexican War. Rachel Griffiths plays Inez Scull, the Captain’s sexy wife who doesn’t hesitate to fill her time with other men when he’s away from home. Wes Studi plays Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump.

Two proud but very different men, McCrae and Call enlist with a Ranger troop in pursuit of three outlaws: Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf (Jonathon Joss), the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and Ahumado (Sal Lopez), a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture. Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the renowned Kickapoo tracker Famous Shoes (David Midthunder). They are joined by their comrades-in-arms, Deets (Keith Robinson), Jake Spoon (Ryan Merriman) and Pea Eye Parker (Troy Baker), in the bitter struggle to protect an advancing western frontier against the defiant Comanches who are determined to defend their territory and their way of life. The Rangers also encounter Buffalo Hump’s violent outcast son, Blue Duck (Adam Beach).  

I read the blog of a hairstylist who worked on the set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conditions were tough, with wind storms every afternoon and altitude issues. The team had to turn young rodeo riders with crew cuts into 1880s Native Americans.  They did so with wigs, glue, tape and pins.  Black hairspray was needed to cover the highlights of the women. The stylists learned to make scalp locks - braids that hang from the crown of a man’s head. Ten hair stylists and ten to fifteen make up artists worked on hundreds of cast extras in a tent on the side of a mountain. Make up and hairspray billowed out the sides of the tent.  Wish I could see something like that one of these days.  Behind the scenes are my favorite parts of DVDs. 

An article by Wolf Schneider in Cowboys and Indians Magazine says: “By all accounts, the most dramatic sequence in the six-hour miniseries Comanche Moon is going to occur at the end of Night One as more than a hundred Comanche Indians thunder down the plains toward Austin on horseback, hell-bent on revenge. The scene will continue on Night Two with the warriors raiding the Texas town. In real life, many of the Indian riders took buses down from Montana to New Mexico to gallop into the battle bareback with mere rope bridles.”

“It was beautiful and terrifying,” says executive producer and co-screenwriter Diana Ossana. “It’s going to be very powerful—coming over the ridge and into town. And then there’s this great sequence where they’re riding out of town after they’ve captured all the horses. It’s really like nothing you’ve ever seen. The men painted themselves and their horses, and it was part of their getting into the moment and feeling their power.”

With scenes like that, Val Kilmer couldn’t resist signing on. He hadn’t done network television before, although he has appeared on HBO’s Entourage and a Gore Vidal-scripted Western for Turner.  One draw of this particular prequel may have been the fact that it was filmed so close to Kilmer’s property in Pecos, New Mexico, that he could arrange for some of the scenes to be shot on his ranch.

Director Simon Wincer and producer Dyson Lovell, who directed and produced Lonesome Dove respectively, served in those roles on Comanche Moon.

CLICK ON THUMBNAIL PHOTOS TO SEE FULL SIZE 

SET YOUR TiVo!  CBS January 13 - 15 - 16

Remember Gunsmoke?  The intro music with Matt Dillon on his galloping horse?  Miss Kitty and Doc and Chester and Festus and all the fine folks in Dodge?

Unless you’re a lot younger than I am, chances are this show was part of your life.  Not only was Gunsmoke (1955-1975) TV’s longest running Western, it was also television’s longest running prime-time series with continuing characters. In total, 233 half-hour episodes and 400 hour episodes were filmed.

Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, between 1872, when the Santa Fe Railroad reached town, and 1885, when local farmers forced the end of the Texas cattle drives along the Western Trail. Dodge City, known as the “Queen of the Cow Towns,” the “Wicked Little City,” the “Gomorrah of the Plains,” had a reputation as a hostile, lawless town where the “fastest gun” ruled. As the opening of the show proclaimed: “Around Dodge City and in the territory on west, there’s just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers and that’s with a U.S. Marshal and the smell of gunsmoke.”

The fictional marshall, Matt Dillon, was modeled after the real lawmen who “tamed” (or at least kept a lid on) Dodge City: US Deputy Marshall Wyatt Earp (1848-1929), Sheriff Bat Masterson (1856-1921), Sheriff Bill Tilghman (1854-1924), and Sheriff Charlie Bassett.Gunsmoke began on radio in 1952 with William Conrad reading the part of Matt Dillon (I actually remember this great radio version).  The series was so successful that it was adapted for TV in 1955.  Conrad, who had a fine radio voice, was a portly man who didn’t fit the visual image of Matt Dillon, so another actor had to be found.  There is some dispute as to whether John Wayne was offered the role of Marshal Dillon, but he is certainly the one who recommended the quiet, six-foot-seven James Arness, brother of Peter Graves.  Arness proved to be the perfect choice.  Wow, what a man!

Other actors rounded out the cast.  Remember them? 
Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake) ran the Longbranch Saloon where Sam (Glenn Strange) was the bartender; Chester Goode (Dennis Weaver) and Festus Hagen (Ken Curtis) were the deputies. Does anybody remember who played Doc?

The romance between Matt and Miss Kitty was clearly evident, but they didn’t so much as hold hands (hey, this was the Fifties).  And the likely goings on upstairs in the Longbranch weren’t even mentioned.   All in all, Gunsmoke was a sanitized version of what the real West must have been like.  But who’s complaining?  It was so much fun.  And so romantic.

Do you have a favorite Gunsmoke episode?  What was your favorite TV Western series?  I’d love to hear.

Thanks to all who came by today and blogged about ideas and brownies.  Here’s a gift for you: His HOTness Tim Daly in The Outsider.

Smooches!

That’s good news for all of us who love westerns.  I’ve seen 3:10 to Yuma and loved it, despite it’s rather cringe-in-your-seat violence.  I will admit to never having seen the original in its entirety, but I really thought the acting in this remake was superb. Then again, maybe it was my hunger for a good western on the big screen that swayed my judgement a little.  Who could argue with the acting talents of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale?  

The newest movie to hit the big screen this week is The Assassination of Jesse James by the  Coward Robert Ford.  Jesse James by far, led a very tumultuous, intriguing life.  He lived from 1847 until 1882 and was the most famous member of James-Younger gang.  The desperado was most famous for his train robberies and 15 murders.

Some Jesse James facts: 

His father, Robert James was a Baptist minister and a farmer from Kentucky. He helped found the William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. He died in California prospecting for gold when Jesse was three years old.

Jesse James was shot by Union militia when he attempted an attack on them one month after the war’s end. Badly injured, Jesse was nursed back to health by his first cousin, Zerelda, “Zee” Mimms and they began a long courtship that ultimately led to marriage. 

Jesse didn’t become famous until he shot a cashier in 1869, when he and his brother Frank, robbed a bank in Gallatin, Missouri.  The murder was an act of revenge, mistakenly believing the cashier was Samuel Cox, a militia man who’d killed  “Bloody Bill Anderson” during the civil war.  The James’ brothers escape from that robbery and murder marked them as notorious outlaws. 

The James brothers, along with Cole Younger and his brothers, Bob and Jim, Clell Miller and others in the gang, continued a string of robberies from Iowa to Texas and from Kansas to West Virginia. They hammed it up in front of large crowds as they robbed banks and stagecoaches but they rarely robbed the bystanders. The gang turned to robbing trains in 1873 and only twice did Jesse rob passengers. His antics heralded Jesse James as a Robin Hood bandit.

With his gang depleted by arrests and deaths Jesse thought he had only two men left whom he could trust: brothers Bob and Charley Ford, but he didn’t know that Bob Ford had been conducting secret negotiations with the Missouri governor to bring him in.  By now, the railroads and express corporations offered a $10,000 reward for Jesse James.  In April 1882, as James prepared for another robbery, he climbed a chair to dust a picture and was shot in the back of the head by Bob Ford. 

It Is Rumored:

That Ford didn’t really kill Jesse James. It was someone else in that house living with his wife, in an elaborate plot to allow him to escape from justice.

That a man named J. Frank Dalton claimed to be the real Jesse James. He died in Granbury, Texas at the age of 103 in 1951.

The body of Jesse James was exhumed in 1995 and tests done had proven that they’d gotten the right man.

Brad Pitt as Jesse?

Brad fits the profile of a good-looking blonde Jesse around the same age.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a fan of Brad’s ever since Legends of the Fall, but I worry that the movie might make Jesse out to be a hero, instead of the heartless killer that he was.  Even back then, the dime novels and news accountings for the South, immortalized him in a positive light. When doing research about the movie I learned that originally it was to be a character study of Jesse James, but then the directors decided to make it more an action picture. They claim it’s dark and I hope that’s the case.  Jesse James was not just a bandit, but a heartless killer and hardly the “Robin Hood” they depicted him to be - he never gave back to the poor. I know I’ll be in line to see the movie coming out this week with hopes that they portray him accurately.

TOP 20 ALL TIME WESTERN MOVIES: 

1. High Noon - (1952) (Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges)
  2.The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - (1948) (Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston)
  3. Shane- (1953) (Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin)
  4. The Magnificent Seven - (1960) (Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson)
  5. Virginia City - (1940) (Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Miriam Hopkins)
  6.Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - (1969) (Paul Newman, Robert Redford)
  7. The Wild Bunch- (1969) (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine)
  8. Stagecoach- (1939) (John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine)
  9.The Shootist - (1976) (John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, James Stewart)
10. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly- (1966) (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach)
11. The Searchers - (1956) (John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter)
12.Rio Grande- (1950) (John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara)
13. A Man Called Horse - (1970 (Richard Harris, Judith Anderson)
14. The Outlaw Josey Wales - (1976) (Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke)
15. Little Big Man- (1970) (Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George)
16. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - (1962) (John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles)
17. Unforgiven- (1992) (Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman)
18. Once Upon a Time in the West - (1969 (Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson)
19. Dances with Wolves - (1990) (Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene)
20. High Plains Drifter - (1973) (Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom)

How many of these are on your all time favorite list?  Does the star make the western or does the western make the star?  And do you think these two new movies will compare to the classics?

Of all times to run a slew of westerns the first week of the new season for many shows. Good grief! My recorder is going to be smoking. Here’s a list of what I found on the Hallmark channel, AMC, and TCM.

Wyatt Earp - the 1994 version  with Kevin Costner (Monday on AMC)

Return to Snowy River - Frontiersman returns for his girl - Hallmark

Rose Hill- this is a good one about four orphan boys find an abandoned baby girl and take her to raise in the West. Jennifer Garner (Mrs. Ben Affleck) plays the girl when she’s grown. It’s on Hallmark on Tuesday and Saturday.

The Unforgiven - Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn (1960) - A Texas woman and eldest son fight Kiowas over an adopted daughter. Hallmark on Friday.

Red Headed Stranger - Willie Nelson plays a traveling preacher. Morgan Fairchild and Katharine Ross also star. Hallmark on Saturday.

The Outsider- A favorite of mine that I’ve raved about!! - Stars Tim Daly (who is in the new series starting this week, Private Practice) and Naomi Watts. Tim Daly plays a gunslinger who gets shot and wanders up to the home of a recently widowed Amish woman and her son. At the risk of being shunned by her people, she gets him well. He protects her from a big landowner who wants her land. And that’s all I’m telling. An excellent western in my opinion. The Hallmark Channel on Saturday.

Comes a Horseman - Hallmark on Saturday - Jane Fonda and James Caan - this is a western set after WWII. But Jane is fighting landgrabbing barons.

Rio Lobo  - 1970 western about a former soldier who seeks Union betrayers - TCM Saturday

Glory - Don’t know if this story about the Civil War is classified as a western or not. It comes on AMC on Monday.

I was severely disappointed when The Assassination of Jesse James came out Friday and it wasn’t in our theaters. I checked online and the movie is showing only in select towns. Dadgum it!! 

Thanks to all who blogged with me about spaghetti westerns today!  It was fun.  Here’s some cowboy eye candy in appreciation.

If you haven’t already entered the BIG FALL BONANZA drawing, get yerself right over to the news office and register!  You might be the one who wins all the fabu prizes!

The western movie genre is filled with mystique and legend. These movies tell and re-tell stories and myths of how early America began. Heroes and villains, searing landscapes, galloping horses and quick draws are just a few of the familiar sights and sounds that make up the western, and definitely among the things that draw us as western fans.

Spaghetti western is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced by Italian studios. Originally they had in common the Italian language, low budgets, and a recognizable highly fluid, violent, and minimalist cinematography that eschewed (some said “demythologized”) many of the conventions of earlier Westerns — partly intentionally, partly as a result of the work being done in a different cultural background and with limited funds.   

The term was originally used disparagingly, but by the 1980s many of these films came to be held in high regard, particularly because it was hard to ignore the influence they had in redefining the entire idea of a western up to that point.  Because of the desert setting, and the readily available southern Spanish extras, a usual theme in Spaghetti Westerns is the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits and the border zone between Mexico and the US. Many of the films were shot in the Spanish Tabernas Desert of Almería, which greatly resembles the landscape of the American Southwest  

A bit of trivia: Spaghetti westerns are also known as “macaroni westerns” in Japan.   

The best-known and perhaps archetypical spaghetti westerns were the so-called Man With No Name trilogy (or Dollars Trilogy) directed by Sergio Leone.  Up until then we’d been mesmerized by Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates on Rawhide, and now here he was in living color and panorama on the big screen.  These movies replayed at the drive-in through the seventies, where my husband and I watched them with our kids sleeping in the back of the station wagon.  The musical scores composed by Ennio Morricone became synonymous with the genre and still ring in our heads. 

The man with no name rode into cinematic history in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The latter had a shocking high budget for that time and this genre — in excess of one million dollars!   

Leone’s follow-up film after the trilogy was Once Upon A Time In The West, which is often called one of the greatest films in cinema history.  It’s a classic good verses evil tale about railroads, land grabs, and the entrepreneurial spirit.  As the train moves west, the country is changed, paralleling the dwindling presence of the western movie with the forward expansion of Eastern civilization.  The story’s theme is the changing times.  Casting blue-eyed Hollywood good guy Henry Fonda as one of the nastiest curs in the West was pure genius, while Charles Bronson became an unlikely leading man.   

AMC shows this movie frequently, about once a month. Usually they show a pan and scan version in the daytime, but the late night showing will be in letterbox format. Watch the letterbox format or you will miss the beautiful panoramic scope.  (I found it scheduled on TCM on Sat, Sep 22, 2:15 PM.  The original is three hours long, so watch listings for the full version.)

Can you recall the first time you saw Clint Eastwood?  Has anyone NOT seen The Good the Bad and the Ugly?  Do you have a favorite spaghetti western I didn’t mention?  Could you pass the parmesan–er popcorn, please?

I put all the names of those who commented today in my fishbowl (Goldie was not happy, I tell you) and drew a name for an autographed book.

 I drew Karen H in NC!  Congrats, Karen.  Please send your address to me at SaintJohn@aol.com, and I’ll be sending you a copy of A Western Winter Wonderland signed by both Pam Crooks and myself.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by today and those who joined the conversation about one of my favorite western movies!

Lonesome Dove, written by Larry McMurtry, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning western novel and the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series. Can you imagine the daunting task that native Texan and screenwriter Bill Wit  tliff took on when he adapted Larry McMurtry’s novel to film? First, he needed to rein in the sprawling 843 page story while still retaining its majestic essence. Wittliff’s work was also made more difficult because, in the novel, McMurtry uses the narrator’s voice to reveal information about characters and to describe events. To provide the same information in the film, Wittliff needed to create dialogue and provide visual cues that did not exist in the novel.

A Southwestern Writers Collection is housed at Texas State and many of the original documents he used while creating this western classic can be viewed online at:

http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/ld/ldexhibit.html

The web exhibit features storyboards, costumes, including Gus’s boots, and even Gus’s dead wrapped body.

The epic four-part six-hour mini-series focuses on the relationship of retired Texas Rangers and their adventures driving a cattle herd from Texas to Montana.   McMurtry originally developed the tale in 1972 for a feature film entitled The Streets of Laredo (a title later used for the sequel), which was to have starred John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart.  That didn’t happen, but thank goodness, McMurtry later resurrected the screenplay as a full-length novel.  It deservingly became a bestseller and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The mini-series won six Emmy Awards and was nominated for 13 others. 

Casting for this epic was pure genius.  Who better to portray these multi-faceted aging Texas Rangers who to this day represent the epitome of courage, loyalty and everything we think of when we think “American West?”

Robert Duvall is Captain Augustus McCrae, co-owner of the Hat Creek Cattle Company, and considers himself the brains of the outfit. Generous, humorous, and lazy to the point of eccentricity, he serves as a foil to the more serious, practical Call. When not working, which he does as little as possible, Gus pursues his three chief interests in life: women, alcohol and cards. He is well known in the territory for his loud voice, superior eyesight and accuracy with a revolver.

Tommy Lee Jones is Captain Woodrow F. Call, Gus’s partner in the company. Less verbose and chatty than McCrae, Call works long and hard and sees no reason why others should not do the same. A former Texas Ranger, he served with Gus when both were young men. Though Call has utter disdain for lazy men who drink, gamble and whore their lives away, he has his own secret shame, which he hides carefully from his comrade. Call’s ability to manage unmanageable horses is also well known.

Danny Glover plays a magnificent role as Joshua Deets, an ex-slave and former Ranger.  When the story starts he’s a ranch hand at the company. On the drive, he serves as scout. A remarkable tracker and morally upright man, he is one of the few men whom Call respects and trusts.

Before he hit the NY streets as a cop, Rick Shroder played Newt Dobbs, young orphan raised by Gus and Call. His mother was a prostitute named Maggie Tilton, who died when he was a child. He knows his mother was a prostitute, and has no idea who his father might be. Most other observers, notably Gus and Clara Allen, are quite certain that Call is his father. Call eventually comes to this realization privately, but is never able to admit it explicitly.

Anjelica Houston is Clara Allen, a former love of Gus’s  She declined his marriage proposals years ago, and now lives in Nebraska, married to a horse trader who is comatose, having been kicked in the head by a horse. They have two girls, though she is afflicted deeply by the death of her sons. Though separated from Gus by many miles and years, she still holds him fondly in her heart. In contrast, she has utter contempt for Call.

Diane Lane is the lovely young Lorena Wood, a kind-hearted young woman who was forced into prostitution by her lover, then abandoned in Lonesome Dove. Lorena is silent, strong willed, and intimidating, refusing to submit meekly to her various admirers. Discontent with her line of work, “Lorie” hopes to leave the dead town and find her way to San Francisco.  Gus is her champion, and who could ask for a better one?

Secondary threads with characters of July and Almira Johnson and Blue Duck are intricately woven into the plot and throughout the journey of the cattle drive.  You can’t help but be enamored by the characters and caught up in their adventures.  Watching the story unfold brings laughter and tears every time.  The music that accompanies the panoramic scenes does a beautiful job of enhancing the grandeur of the vast landscape and feel of the untamed west.  I often listen to the original soundtrack, composed and conducted by Basil Poledouris. Lonesome Dove spawned the follow-up miniseries, Return to Lonesome Dove.

Trivia facts about Lonesome Dove:

* Robert Duvall, who has appeared in over 80 movies, told CBS that Augustus McCrae, the character he played in Lonesome Dove, was his all time favorite role.  We can see why.

* The characters of July Johnson and Roscoe bear the same names as the sheriff and his sidekick who track James Stewart and Dean Martin in the movie Bandolero! (1968). Also, the sequence where Stewart and Martin discuss Montana resembles a similar scene in Lonesome Dove.

* The book, and the character Gus, is mentioned in country singer George Strait’s song “That’s My Kind Of Woman.”

So, fess up.  How many times have you watched Lonesome Dove?  Did you think return to Lonesome Dove lived up to the first?  Have you watched Streets of Laredo or Deadman’s Walk which precede the story?

If you’re a western lover and you’ve never seen this movie, well, I’m just sad for you.  But your situation is subject to change.  Head for Blockbuster!

Getting the clothes right in a book is as important as in a movie and writers and costume designers go to a lot of work to make sure they have it right.

Costume designer Van Broughton Ramsey won an Emmy Award for his work on Lonesome Dove. Ramsey did extensive research into the clothing of the period, and he made sure that the characters’ wardrobe matched their occupations and social standing. Ramsey collected cloth swatches and photocopies of period photos from books and articles. He even commissioned specially silkscreened bandanas for Gus and Call. Ramsey also compiled a notebook containing the shooting schedule, filming locations, and sizes of the principal cast members and extras. By using this information in conjunction with his research, Ramsey created these initial drawings which were used to produce the actual costumes.

Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about Lonesome Dove, the epic mini-series loved by western fans everywhere.  Don’t miss it!