I think a couple of people expressed an interest in this 1948 film from Universal. I saw it on Western Encore yesterday, so it probably will be in rotation there for a while.
Directed by George Sherman (whom I know best for "Big Jake") and starring Dan Duryea and Yvonne De Carlo, Black Bart is a very fun movie loosely inspired by the California stage coach robber.
Actually, the movie kept making me think of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" as I watched it. It is about outlaws, and the plot is doublecross piled atop doublecross. The final shootout ended in a way that brought the ending of "Butch" to mind.
The dialog was also very witty. "You trust me that much?" "No, but I ride a faster horse."
Black Bart
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moira finnie
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Re: Black Bart
Mike, I came in on this new-to-me movie on Encore very late into the game, but the sight of Percy Kilbride and Jeffrey Lynn as a pair of cowpokes and Dan Duryea as the title character at his weasely best was really captivating. Of course, when I tried to see if this movie might be on DVD to rent, I was out of luck.
I'd never thought of Kilbride-Lynn in Western terms, much less Frank Lovejoy, who made his debut in this flick. I never even got to see Yvonne de Carlo as Lola Montez!! You were absolutely right about the snappy dialogue, and though numerous others were credited with contributing to this script, I think some of the apt humor may have come from the sharp pen of the legendary screenwriter William Bowers, who also wrote screenplays for The Gunfighter, Support Your Local Sheriff, and The Sheepman, as well as nifty noirs such as Pitfall, Criss Cross, Larceny, The Mob, Tight Spot and many more films with particularly memorable lines. Some of the wit inherent in Black Bart's lines can be seen here.
I looked through the schedule there but the sometimes awkward layout of their schedule (set up similarly to the FMC, which is Encore's parent corp), yielded nothing under this title! Of course that doesn't mean that Black Bart (1948) won't show up again, though the heavy rotation of the same movies over and over again over at that site is most frustrating. I really hope this turns up again soon, though there seem to be DVD-r copies of this around the internet.
I'd never thought of Kilbride-Lynn in Western terms, much less Frank Lovejoy, who made his debut in this flick. I never even got to see Yvonne de Carlo as Lola Montez!! You were absolutely right about the snappy dialogue, and though numerous others were credited with contributing to this script, I think some of the apt humor may have come from the sharp pen of the legendary screenwriter William Bowers, who also wrote screenplays for The Gunfighter, Support Your Local Sheriff, and The Sheepman, as well as nifty noirs such as Pitfall, Criss Cross, Larceny, The Mob, Tight Spot and many more films with particularly memorable lines. Some of the wit inherent in Black Bart's lines can be seen here.
I looked through the schedule there but the sometimes awkward layout of their schedule (set up similarly to the FMC, which is Encore's parent corp), yielded nothing under this title! Of course that doesn't mean that Black Bart (1948) won't show up again, though the heavy rotation of the same movies over and over again over at that site is most frustrating. I really hope this turns up again soon, though there seem to be DVD-r copies of this around the internet.
Re: Black Bart
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Mike:
I'm so glad you brought up the similarity to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because I caught the movie about 20 minutes in and all through it all, it was like a sort of Deja Vu (tip of the tongue thing), that I had seen it before but couldn't put my finger on where. Now, I know.
Moira:
Yvonne did a fine Lola. In fact she was the only one playing the role in an honest way. Everyone else was pretty much tongue in cheek. Percy Kilbride just couldn't shake Pa Kettle for me, I kept expecting Ma to come in telling him to pull up his jeans or something.
Mike:
I'm so glad you brought up the similarity to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because I caught the movie about 20 minutes in and all through it all, it was like a sort of Deja Vu (tip of the tongue thing), that I had seen it before but couldn't put my finger on where. Now, I know.
Moira:
Yvonne did a fine Lola. In fact she was the only one playing the role in an honest way. Everyone else was pretty much tongue in cheek. Percy Kilbride just couldn't shake Pa Kettle for me, I kept expecting Ma to come in telling him to pull up his jeans or something.
Anne
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