El Dorado

FAVORITE WESTERN MOVIES–PART 1 by Cheryl Pierson

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I know we have a lot of western movie lovers here—heck, we love just about ALL THINGS western, don’t we? Today, I thought I’d talk a little bit about some western movies that are wonderful (for all kinds of different reasons) and one that, though it was highly acclaimed, is not among my favorites. (Please, hold the rotten tomatoes, and be kind!)

No one is ever going to agree with everyone about what makes a movie “great” or more meaningful, because viewers look for different concepts when they sit down and watch a movie. Some values, and “points to ponder”, are more meaningful to some than to others. There is no right or wrong here, just a fun discussion, so y’all chime in and don’t be shy!

I really don’t have a particular order for these except my favorite, and I’ll start with that one. I would definitely have to say my favorite is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Woody Strode (as Pompey) and Lee Marvin—who was absolutely perfect for the Liberty Valance character.

I realize that not everyone has seen all these movies, so will try not to give any spoilers. It’s very rare that I enjoy a movie more than the book it was taken from, but The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of those for me. It was taken from a short story by Dorothy M. Johnson. Although the actors who were slotted in the key roles were much more “mature” than they were in Johnson’s story, I can’t help but think of those portrayals as more realistic—probably because John Wayne’s Tom Doniphon and James Stewart’s Ransom Stoddard were embedded in my mind long before I ever read the short story.

An idealistic lawyer, Ranse Stoddard (Stewart) comes west to bring some law to a place that has none. Tom Doniphon (Wayne) generally pokes fun at him and the naïve way he handles himself. Stoddard changes Doniphon’s opinion as he shows the courage and backbone he’s brought with him to accompany his law books.

Gene Pitney sings The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance–one of my all-time favorite songs! 

 

At first, Doniphon faces down the ruthless Liberty Valance (Marvin) to protect Stoddard, but Stoddard learns how to use a gun and in the end, goes out on the street to face Liberty Valance in a fight he’s sure to lose. As the Gene Pitney song goes: “When the final showdown came at last/A law book was no good.” But…who really shot Liberty Valance? This is a movie you will not want to miss.

Another favorite is Purgatory—the story of outlaws who have died going to a place where they must be good for the length of their “sentence” if they ever hope to make it to heaven. So…what happens when some ruthless outlaws who are NOT dead find the town of Purgatory? Is there any way the inhabitants can defend themselves without voiding the time they’ve spent there trying to do good?

The final showdown between both groups will have you on the edge of your seat. Now, bear with me. This sounds hokey, in a way, but it’s really a very interesting movie with a premise that I would not have thought of in a million years. Stars include Sam Shepard, Eric Roberts, Randy Quaid, Donnie Wahlberg as Billy the Kid (a few years before Blue Bloods) and musician/songwriter J.D. Souther, one of my favorite singer/songwriters, and one of my favorite characters in this movie as Jesse James. I hope if you haven’t seen this one, you’ll give it a chance—it is very entertaining and different.

 

 

Another classic, The Magnificent Seven—starring heavy hitters such as Yul Brynner, Robert Vaughan, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn—also makes my list of best westerns.

 

A group of mercenaries band together to protect a small Mexican village from a marauding outfit of outlaws who will stop at nothing to take over. But…there are only seven of them and they must stand against what looks to be unbeatable odds.

 

Although it’s somewhat predictable, it’s one you won’t want to miss. Realistic, but avoids a lot of gore, and it’s well worth watching if for no other reason than the beautiful score by Elmer Bernstein. (Well, and who DOESN’T want to watch Yul Brynner in anything he’s in!)

 

 

 

This is a great trailer for The Magnificient Seven–take a look!

John Wayne has made a LOT of western movies, but one of my favorites is El Dorado—probably because I really enjoy seeing Robert Mitchum in just about anything. This flick also includes James Caan in one of his very early appearances on the silver screen.

In a nutshell, Cole Thornton (Wayne) is a hired gun who comes to the aid of an old friend, J.P. Harrah (Mitchum), a sheriff who has become a laughingstock because of his drinking. A wealthy cattle baron is determined to steal water from another ranching family, the MacDonalds, and hires his own gunfighter, Nelse McLeod, (Christopher George), an old nemesis of Thornton’s.

Is there any way that Thornton and Harrah can protect the McDonalds? It’s been common knowledge for years that Thornton and McLeod are evenly matched in their shooting abilities, and Thornton has a bullet lodged near his spine that sometimes affects his ability to draw and shoot—a secret he must hide if he has any hope of surviving and saving the MacDonalds.

As for western movies that didn’t make it to my “favorites” list, probably my number one pick for this week would be, surprisingly, a John Wayne movie that he often said was his own personal favorite—The Searchers. Many readers will disagree with me on this, I know.

Ethan Edwards (Wayne) returns to his brother’s home after an eight-year absence. In a nutshell, his brother’s daughters, Debbie (Natalie Wood) and Lucy, are abducted by Comanches. The Comanches have killed almost everyone else in the family and burned down the house.

Edwards goes in search of the girls, finding Lucy murdered. When, five years later, he and Martin Pawley (Debbie’s adopted brother) find Debbie, she refuses to leave with them. Edwards tells Debbie he’d rather see her dead than living as a Comanche and tries to kill her! Martin saves the day, and in the chaos, Edwards is wounded by a Comanche.

There’s a lot more to this before the end of the movie, but I don’t want to give away the last part of it. The main reason I don’t enjoy this one is because of Edwards’ obsession with finding Debbie, even to the point of wanting to kill her because she’s chosen to stay with the Comanche.

Also, it just seems like this entire movie goes on and on and on…That being said, there’s no denying that I’m definitely in the minority. The Searchers won many awards and is filmed beautifully, and it’s hard to say anything bad about any movie John Ford directed. It’s a masterpiece, but it’s not my cup of tea, mainly because I was so disappointed in Edwards.  

We’ll do more on this next month! I have really enjoyed revisiting these movies and I always see something I never saw before when I watch them. Hmmm…maybe I better give The Searchers another chance…

What’s your least favorite western movie and why?

 

 

Man, myth, devil, or angel: who or what was Joaquin Murieta?

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chelley kitzmillerPetticoats and Pistols is pleased to welcome Chelly Kitzmiller to Wildflower Junction.

Every book begins with an idea-a spark of imagination that excites the writer and makes him or her anxious to pursue the subject, and then to write about it. For me, Finding Joaquin Murieta was the beginning of a life-long romantic adventure. He has taken me on a journey I will never forget and opened door I would have never thought to open.

ChelleyKitzMiller_ElDorado200My new book, El Dorado, was conceived over the kitchen sink. I guess I was day dreaming. I saw alittle Mexican boy in white clothes sitting next to his aged grandfather. There was a small campfire burning brightly and behind them were some hills. Grandfather was telling the boy the story of Joaquin Murieta, California’s Robin Hood Bandit, and at the end of the story, when Grandfather said that Joaquin was no more, a shout was heard from the hills behind them, “I am Joaquin. You will remember my name.” The boy and the grandfather turned and saw a Zorro-like horseman sitting astride a rearing black stallion. Behind them was a full yellow moon.

ZorroNow, it’s only fair to say that I had been planning a driving vacation with my husband and had gotten the Automobile Club book on the Mother Lode, ie. Gold Rush Country. In it is a brief bio of Joaquin Murieta, so I was not unfamiliar with the name. But I was unfamiliar with his deeds.

I couldn’t get the image out of my mind and it eventually became a book, but it’s what happened during the writing of the book that has changed my mind about the paranormal.

I didn’t recognize it first. I didn’t put two and two together until it practically hit me in the face. There were incidents, which at first I wrote off as coincidences. Only now, after much reflection, do I see them differently.

JoaquinThe very first book that I wrote and never completed, took place in 1870 Arizona, around Tucson. I did a ton of research on Apaches and such. Some of that research involved General Stoneman in San Francisco. Once I had the over-the-sink vision, I became obsessed with writing El Dorado instead of the one I was working on. But I really didn’t want to do a whole bunch of new research. I decided to try to use my vision with some of the research I’d already done. Joaquin is a character that you can pretty much do anything with since there isn’t any proof of his birth or death.

According to the Joaquin legends, he was only 18 years old when he died in 1853, not old enough to be a hero in a romance novel. So, I tacked a few years onto his age, which brought the date up to 1870, the year I’d researched for the Arizona novel. There is speculation that Joaquin didn’t die at the massacre on the Cantua (a spot in the road off California’s I-5 freeway) as reported by Captain Harry Love’s California Rangers, but retreated to Mexico and recuperated from wounds there. Picking up on that idea, that Joaquin didn’t die, but did indeed survive, I brought him to the San Francisco I had researched in 1870 and had him looking to get revenge on the men who killed his wife back in 1852 or 1853. And so the book began.

Only after I was half way through the book did I pick up some new research material that casino online speculated that Joaquin eluded the California Rangers, returned to Mexico and found his way to San Francisco in 1870. I was more than a little surprised by this information.

We were living in Placentia, CA when the book was conceived. My hubby was transferred to KernThelateJackPalanceandhishorseFiesta County, CA. Soon after we made the move, I discovered that Joaquin was said to have come through the town of Tehachapi, near Bakersfield. I also found out that Academy Award winning actor, Jack Palance, was convinced that Joaquin had buried gold on his Stallion Springs property. In fact, he hired someone to hunt for it.

A woman who knew me through someone else called me because she was thinking of moving to Tehachapi and wanted to look at property. She asked me to drive her around. She was semi familiar with Tehachapi’s history and had been to Tehachapi a long time ago. I drove her to the end of Stallion Springs and she told me that somewhere in the vicinity there was a tunnel through which Joaquin Murieta and his horse gang used to escape. When she told me this, she had no idea that I was writing about Joaquin.

Joaquin gallopingAfter finishing the book, my agent sent it out to publishers. I got a rejection that clearly stated that Mexican heroes were not saleable. I was shocked. After I recovered, I rewrote Joaquin to be half Mexican and half white. Then more new research material came my way and the author claimed that Joaquin’s mother was a Mexican maiden and his father a Yankee engineer who came to Mexico, fell in love with a young Mexican girl and produced Joaquin.

After a number of such incidents, I planned a publicity trip for a writer friend through the gold rush country and picked up research material along the way. During the trip we stayed the night at a B & B. A guest informed us that the owner read palms and handwriting. We immediately scheduled sessions and during my session she told me that Joaquin had a large ego and that he was sitting on my shoulder helping me. When I finished the book he must have jumped off my shoulder and run away because I never had another incident until…recently, while writing about another real life character, Cochise! Stay tuned.

HappyTo all you pet lovers—My organization, Have a Heart Humane Society, is going to be holding a fundraising auction with Ebay Giving Works Oct. 22, 2014. Our goal is to raise $10,000 for spay and neuter. Please check out our Facebook page and Pinterest to see some of the items up for bid. Here are a couple of examples: a one night stay continental breakfast at the stars’ hotel, Sunset Towers in Hollywood ($500 value), a Prada dress, a Juicy Couture satchel, a Bulova diamond watch, a critique of your first three chapters by Christian Writer Lauraine Snelling and so much more. Please like our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/haveahearthumanesociety

ENTER A COMMENT TO WIN A COPY OF HEARTBREAK RANCH, AN ANTHOLOGY I DID WITH FERN MICHAELS, JILL MARIE LANDIS AND DORSEY KELLEY!