Ben Johnson

[pvitari]

Teensy bit of news -- Nick Redman revealed in a thread at Home Theater Forum that Warner Bros. will "revisit" The Wild Bunch in 2014, so it looks like another restoration is on the way.

[pvitari]

In addition to the Wild Bunch news, there's some John Ford Blu-ray news (sort of).

George Feltenstein did an online chat with Reddit a couple of days ago (here's the link: )

in which the following exchange took place:

[–]kingofthejungle
What are the chances we'll see some more John Ford films on Blu-Ray from Warner?

[–]warnerarchive-george
Yes, there's a FORD in your future :), actually several of them are likely, but nothing that can be announced at the moment. Those will likely come from WHV, not WAC. Thanks!

I sure hope that means that Blu-rays of 3 Godfathers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Wagon Master are on the way! And I'd love for WB to revisit The Searchers, which has a weirdly yellow-ish palette on the Blu-ray. I know there are problems with the original elements but I wonder if the latest digital tools can fix that. Technology is improving all the time and it's been a few years since that Searchers Blu-ray came out.

I did post a picture today too, from The Wild Bunch. How come all the cast gets listed except Ben, even though he is in the picture? :)

[pvitari]

Here's another one of the Ben from the back photos... it's a publicity photo from Chisum.



Speaking of which, I uploaded a new version of the following to the "Chisum Photos" album in the Ben page Photo Gallery section. The old one was a reproduction made for me by a collector. This is an actual publicity still -- not vintage from the film's original release, but it seems to have been officially issued by Warner Bros. in 1995. At least that's the date on it.

[JackFavell]

Gad, I always loved that scene where he's waiting for Chisum to give him a stern talking to. What a nice shot! Glad someone else thought enough of Pepper to create a still of him.

[pvitari]

A still from one of my favorite scenes in One-Eyed Jacks, the one where Marlon Brando's Rio jumps up, kicks away the chair and orders Ben's Bob Amory to "Get up, you scum-suckin' pig! Get up!" Bob sits there frozen, he's so surprised. Not that he didn't deserve Rio's anger after insulting his girlfriend.

[pvitari]

I am computer-less at home right now (except for an ancient first-generation iPad) because my computer started making weird metallic "thunk thunk" noises which indicated to me the hard drive was on its last legs. So I hauled it off to the computer store and bought a new one and both are still at the store where the nice tech people will copy all my files over to the new computer. Yay! ;) But I have a computer at work and it only takes a few minutes to post a new picture. ;)

Here is a German lobby card from The Wild Bunch. Another "Ben from the Back" picture! He's punching out Jaime Sanchez's Angel after Angel shot Teresa. Not that Tector cares about Teresa, but his swift action forestalls Mapache and his soldiers -- who think Angel was aiming for the general -- from shooting Angel dead.

[pvitari]

More Wild Bunch! TCM ran it last night so I felt compelled to post another Bunch photo today. This is a nice scan but it doesn't show how really gorgeous the physical photo is -- it's a vintage oversized 11x17 (I think that's the size) poster on stiff card stock and my eyes bugged out of my head when I opened the envelope and saw it. I hadn't even noticed the size when I bought it on ebay, I thought I was getting another 8x10. So it was a wonderful surprise when it arrived in all its oversized glory. Tap Canutt, standing behind Ben, is Yakima Canutt's son. You can download a bigger scan here: https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.co ... allery/483

[pvitari]

More "Ben from the Back"! :) This is a lobby card from Rebel in Town. Ben is the rider on the right wearing the brown shearling jacket. That's J. Carroll Naish on the left playing his father. On the porch of the marshal's office, you can see John Payne holding onto Ben Cooper.

[pvitari]

Monday -- bleh. But this should pep up the day. :) It's a "vintage reproduction" -- a reproduction from the 1980s, signed by Ben. It's from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

[pvitari]

Two pictures of Ben and Harry Carey, Jr. in Bergamo, Italy, when they attended the 1996 Bergamo Film Meeting. These pictures are in Walt Farmer's monumental history of Wyoming film production on CD, "Wyoming, A History of Film and Video in the 20th Century" (http://www.theastrocowboy.com/bigbook/bigbook.htm)

With Italian film historian and author Carlo Gaberscek. He is an expert on the American western. JackFavell especially will love this photo. :)


With Marilyn Carey, Dobe's wife.

[MissGoddess]

I bet the Italians loved those two cowboys!

[JackFavell]

Wonderful!

[pvitari]

Please note a correction -- the lady in the second photo is Marilyn Carey, Dobe's wife. :) Sorry about that mistake! ;)

Did you all like the She Wore a Yellow Ribbon photo from Monday? I love that one, it makes Ben look so movie-heroic. :)

[MissGoddess]

Yes, I love it---and would love to post it on my Facebook page at some point---would you mind?

[JackFavell]

Yes, it's beautiful.