Golden Saddles and Silver Spurs

[mrsl]

Has anyone seen this documentary? It's on the Western genre going from the silents to about 1960. Towards the end, it says something to the effect that: 'All those great cowboys are gone now and we have to look to the youngsters like Clint Eastwood, and Kevin Costner to . . .' so I assume it was done in the 60's.

Anyway, I learned quite a bit about the silent cowboys I had not known about. As in so many other genres, many could not handle the transition to talkies - Side question: Was it their voices or acting ability?

Guys like Johnny Mack Brown, and Hopalong Cassidy made hundreds of movies before becoming big stars on their own. And there must have been listed at least 30 singing cowboys, but only Gene Autry really made it to the top. There was a guy names Eddie Dean, who I never heard of that was a singer on radio before going to movie westerns. Even John Wayne did a couple of movies where he did some singing to the girl (with a dubbed singing voice) - that was a hoot!!! Many of Roy Rogers movies were actually western musicals in every sense of the word, with staged numbers and choral sequences.

Of course there is a reasonably good sized tribute to Randolph Scott (cue the chorus, if I may), and Harry Carey, Sr.

I thought I was pretty much up on westerns until I saw this doc., now there is so much more to look for. Oddly, Joel McCrea was only mentioned minimally as was Gary Cooper, (although they did suggest that Randolph had 'taken on the mantle' from Coop), Clark Gable was also considered a cowboy because he started in several before catching on as the romantic contemporary type.

They did a large coverage of sidekicks also, including Ben Johnson, Smiley Burnett, and of course Gabby Hayes. I was surprised they didn't mention Harry Carey, Jr. though.

It's on the Encore Western channel of course, and will be rerun on May 11th. For those of you who are western fans, you will probably find a lot to learn about.

Anne

[moira finnie]

I love this documentary, Golden Saddles and Silver Spurs(2000) from the Encore Western channel, Anne. If you're interested, it is based on a book by a pioneer film historian, William K. Everson called "The Hollywood Western: 90 Years of Cowboys and Indians, Train Robbers, Sheriffs and Gunslingers, and Assorted Heroes and Desperados", published in 1992. Everson manages to be entertaining and scholarly simultaneously and his enthusiasm for his subject matter is infectious.

Even John Wayne did a couple of movies where he did some singing

Yeah, that "Singing Sandy" early movie of John Wayne is a hoot, and I expect that we'll be seeing more than a few of his well known and obscure films in the next few weeks, as the centennial of his birthday arrives on May 26th. The American Film Institute will be having a great blowout for several weeks. If anyone's lucky enough to be attending this, I hope they post about it. You can read about that festival here.
Here's a beautiful picture of Mr. Wayne as a graceful and appealing youngster in his first starring role in Raoul Walsh's movie The Big Trail(1930):


Wish that I had a recorder for the next time that Encore shows the film, Golden Saddles and Silver Spurs!

[Lzcutter]

Moira,

Do you think we ought to tell the folks at the AFI theater that the still they show for the Rio Grande screening is really from Rio Bravo?

[moira finnie]

Do you think we ought to tell the folks at the AFI theater that the still they show for the Rio Grande screening is really from Rio Bravo?

Nah, why ruin their day?

[mrsl]

Knowing John Wayne from Stagecoach on, although he looked pretty good, he was never what I would term handsome. Today after seeing about 10 of his really early 1930's films, I see he really was, and your photo helped, Moira, he was pretty cute!

They have a shot of JW and Ben Johnson, and one of BJ and Harry Carey, Jr. in the documentary, and I have to say, Ben, like John Wayne aged in their faces. John lost his youthful good looks, but always had that 'something', but even in The Last Picture Show, Ben still retained his rugged look. Seeing them together today in Chisum they almost looked like twins! Same size, same ruggedness, same ease on a horse.

This may seem harsh to those of you who loved and idolized Roy Rogers, but he basically got his big break by Gene Autry going into service during WWII. The documentary doesn't really infer it, but the time element is there, and it seems RR was a little sneaky in leaving a starring radio job to enter the movies at an opportune time for him. He did have a better singing voice than Gene, but I still think it was a little back handed of him to take advantage of the situation. But don't mind me, I'm just a judgemental old biddy!

Anne