Ben Johnson

[JackFavell]

Love that last shot of Ben and Joan. You know, when I watch this movie (or his others), I don't realize how classically handsome Ben is. Your caps really show this well, his face has a symmetry I don't remember seeing before in him. Is it the uniform? Is it makeup? His hat? Is it the character he's playing? The camera angles? Or is it that I never really looked at him this way before?

[knitwit45]

Wendy, I have been thinking the same thing. Look at how proudly he stands in that uniform. Others just wear the clothes, but he becomes the U.S.Cavalry, a representative of his and your leaders of the nation. I haven't even seen the movie, but this photo alone makes me want to!

[JackFavell]

Oh, girl, you've got to see it!

You are so right about his representing the U.S. - I think he has a kind of iconic image, at least among certain filmmakers.

[CineMaven]

Though I don't speak of him much, and know next to nothing about him as you gals do, he is the reason why "The Last Picture Show" is one of my favorite movies of the 70's. I'll share why the other thirty films are favorites of that decade as well. Don't worry...don't worry. Not here in this thread.

By the by Wendy...where'd Lollabrigida go, and who's that on the bike?

[JackFavell]

That's Sir Ralph Richardson in his 70's, on his way to a tree planting ceremony, courtesy of Moira!

[pvitari]

Bringing back an oldie but goodie...



A friend of mine (a male friend, not on SSO) wrote in an e-mail, there never was anybody better than Ben at wearing the 7th cavalry uniform.

I'd agree he's kind of good-looking too. :) :) :)

[pvitari]

Since we've been talking about Ben in the 7th Cavalry, I decided to make this today's post to the webpage:

[JackFavell]

Oooh, baby! That first one with the arrow is one of my faves.

[pvitari]

The first pic is from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the second one from Rio Grande. Sorry, I should have made that clear in the earlier posts.

[pvitari]

Monday post. This publicity photo is on the fuzzy side but it looks a little better in this reduced size.

[JackFavell]

Awww! He's adorable. What warmth.

[pvitari]

I scanned in the entire program for the First Annual Florida Mid-Winter Western Film Round-Up 1976 Program. PHEW, that's a mouthful, but that's what it says on the front of the program.

Ben attended this festival and autographed it "To Someone special - Lois" -- and Lois' program ended up on eBay which is where I got it. Lois, wherever you are, your program is getting lots of TLC.

You can go to the webpage to see the whole thing, which I recommend you do because it's lots of fun to look at and the list of films screened (I assume 16mm prints) will make your mouth water. An amusing boo-boo: Fort Bowie is listed as one of the color films (it's in black and white) while She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is not! And Pawhuska in the bio is spelled "Pawhuskie." ;)

Here's the page with Ben's pic (from Wagon Master) and bio and his autograph.

[pvitari]

Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild wild horses we'll ride them someday



Thank you, Rolling Stones for that musical introduction to today's post... a publicity pic for the 1985 TV movie Wild Horses.

[pvitari]

Another Wild Horses picture.

[pvitari]

Yesterday was interesting (to put it mildly). One of the faculty I work for, Natasha Trethewey, was named the new Poet Laureate of the United States. Sweet! ;)

Moving on...

Lloyd Fonvielle has a great post today at his blog, mardecortesbaja.com, in which he gets into a discussion of horsemanship as the true hallmark of the Western genre, rather than gunplay. Of course you can't talk about horsemanship in Westerns without mentioning Ben, and Lloyd, who is a Ben fan and who had worked very briefly with him on Cherry 2000, wrote this:

"The stars of the [Western] genre were always superb horsemen -- something you can't just fake, even with a push-button movie horse. Especially in the classic American Westerns of the Fifties -- those by Ford, Boetticher and Mann -- the way a man sat and handled a horse was a key to his personality. Ford became obsessed with the poetry of Ben Johnson's horsemanship and tried to make him a star. He never succeeded in this, but Johnson is given aria-like interludes of riding in many of Ford's great Westerns -- passages of cinema that elevate Johnson to a transcendent heroism beyond the reach of many actual stars."

http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/2012/06/ ... e-western/