AUTRY & INSP CELEBRATE ‘THE VIRGINIAN’S’ 50THANNIVERSARY!
On Saturday, September 22nd, the Autry will mark the landmark television series’ half century with a day and night of activities. Simultaneously, the INSP network will present a marathon of episodes, to welcome the series to its regular Saddle-Up Saturday programming. The series was a landmark for many reasons. The first non-anthology series to run 90 minutes, it was essentially a whole movie every week.
Happily, many of the stars of the series will be attending the Autry event, including James Drury, who played the title character of The Virginian (his character had no other name), in all 249 episodes. Also attending will be Clu Gulager (Emmett Ryker), Randy Boone (Randy Benton), Gary Clarke (Steve Hill), Sara Lane (Elizabeth Grainger), Diane Roter (Jennifer Sommers), Roberta Shore (Betsy Garth), and Don Quine (Stacey Grainger).
James Drury
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., THE VIRGINIAN stars will be signing autographs in the lobby (I assume on a rotating schedule, and they charge for this).
There will be screenings of episodes in the Wells Fargo Theatre, and at 1 p.m., the stars will take part in a panel discussion, moderated by the Western Clippings website author Boyd Magers.
From 2 to 4 in the Autry Cafe, Stuart Nisbet, the bartender in the series, will present ‘Saloon Stories From Bart the Bartender.’
And from 5 to 9 p.m. in the Heritage Court there will be a chuck-wagon dinner with the cast (this even is sold out). To learn more about the event at the Autry, go HERE.
INSP will begin their marathon at ten a.m. western time, with THE EXECUTIONERS, the first episode of the first season.
Incidentally, THE VIRGINIAN is, of course, based on the novel by Owen Wister, published in 1902, and which has been filmed at least five times, starting with Cecil B. DeMille’s 1914 film, starring Dustin Farnum. It was filmed again in 1923 starring Kenneth Harlan, and the first talkie version was in 1929, with Victor Fleming directing star Gary Cooper. It was done again in 1946, starring Joel McCrea, and a TV movie version, starring Bill Pullman, in 2000.
If you’ve only seen the series, you’d be surprised to read the novel, and learn that Trampas, Doug McClure’s character, and close pal of the Virginian, is his deadly enemy in all of the other versions, my favorite being Brian Donleavy opposite Joel McCrea. And if you read the book, then watch HIGH NOON, also with Gary Cooper, you’ll be struck by the fact that, despite its claims of being based on the story THE TIN STAR, the movie is largely plagiarized from the last few chapters of THE VIRGINIAN.
To see the DEAD MEN: THE SERIES TRAILER, go HERE.
When I spoke to director Royston Innes, he told me how the project came to be, and what he and Ric Maddox envision for its future.
ROYSTON: The time is right for westerns, although my next project is a film noir. For me, it’s not so much about the Western; it’s more what’s behind it. I go to films these days, and there’s just no real men. I’m Australian, so you grow up with a certain ruggedness. Every child has moments when you come home from a fight, and you’ve gotten mangled. And your dad says, “Well, you did good.” There’s something a little tougher. But you find with so many actors these days, they come out to L.A. , and they get ‘into the program.’ And slowly but surely they become part off the machine, and they lose what was so interesting about them. Know what I mean?
R: Yes it does. And I believe it’s because they think there is something further ahead of them, almost like an idea of who they should be. It’s all created by fear. So when we decided to go to Arizona to shoot, it was really important to me to get real cowboys. And my strength, because in my youth I was very devoted to acting, and I studied with the very best in the world – I spent two years studying with Mike Nichols. I went to the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York , and I sought out the best teachers around. I was very happy to finish it at the time I came out to L.A. , I quit. What I really like to do is (work with), I wouldn’t say unknown actors, but with people who just aren’t actors. But what they are is they’re character. For example, the gentleman who plays Virgil (friend of Roy Struthers), Brent Rock, you would have seen him in the trailer –
H: He reminded me of a younger Sam Elliot.
Brent Rock
R: He is; he’s got the presence -- he’s on-screen, and he electrifies. And he’s a real cowboy, a real horseman who lives in Tombstone , Arizona . He’s on his horse every day; he does it for a living. That’s who I want in my films: real men. Because of the, as you say, the vacuum of personality that happens, you have to go and search these people out. And I want to give them the opportunity. Because if you cast right, and they trust in you, and they believe in you, and I do my job, you’re going to get a better performance than any actor could give you.
H: Any particular western filmmakers have an impact on you?
R: You know who had a big impact on me? It was about ten seconds, in a film by Jim Jarmusch called DEAD MAN. It’s a fantastic film; it’s one where you can almost sense the sweat and the grime. There’s a scene when he’s coming into town, and it’s his point of view, what he’s seeing through the carriage door. And it’s so dangerous, it almost feels unlivable, and pioneering, and there are no rules. That moment had a massive impact on me. Is there a western director who’s had a massive impact on me? No. It’s more about authenticity, and celebrating the real man.
H: How did you and Ric Maddox get together?
R: I directed Ric in a play, here in Los Angeles . Ric had been in the armed forces in Iraq , and this was a play about Iraq , and I chose him specifically and another fellow who had just come back, and they were amazing. Ric and I struck up a friendship, and we were talking one day about business, and what films he’d seen recently. And gotten a bit nostalgic about certain actors, like the Yul Brynners, the John Waynes, and where have these men gone? We live in an amazing time where there’s no excuse now for anyone not to pick up a camera and create something. There’s so much available. So on that idea, of the real man, and there’s no better genre (for that) than the western, we started to create something. We kind of inspired each other, and one would write, wouldn’t it be great if this would happen? And it turned into a series that I’m really proud of. Each episode is ended with a little twist.
Ric Maddox
H: How long is each episode?
R: From seven to ten and a half minutes. We’re premièring the first two episodes on Wednesday, September 26th. I’m not going to give anything away, but the first episode sets up where things are going, and I just wanted to give people a little bit of a taste of the speed and the action that they can expect with episodes.
Aiming low
H: You wouldn’t object to that, would you?
H: Speaking of locations, how did you like shooting in Arizona ?
H: I’ve been talking to some actors in the new LONE RANGER movie, and they had a crash course, and they absolutely loved it.
R: Going back to Arizona , Ric had shot a film there before, called MATTY, and when he told me about the people in Arizona , it just felt right. We made a half dozen trips up there, scouting locations, and our budget, while big for a web series, is rather small. And when people understood what we were trying to do, for the western, they opened up their homes to us; they opened up their land to us. Amazing group of people called the Bell Boys, they have a livestock company, and they helped us with all the horses and the cattle, for next to nothing. Amazing individuals –friendships that I will keep. Couldn’t find a better place to shoot than Arizona – now I’ve just got to get those damned tax credits.
Director Innes, D.P. Hudson
H: It’s been so long since I talked to anyone who actually shot film.
There’s a saying among magicians that if you know a hundred ways to control a selected card, but only one way to produce it, you know one card trick; but if you only know one way to control a card, but a hundred ways to produce it, you know a hundred tricks.
In some ways screenwriting – in fact any kind of writing – is like performing magic. While there are a limited number of plots, there are infinite ways to tell them. As Alexander Pope said, you should write, “…what oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”
Michael B. Druxman proved his abilities as a story-teller with his screenplay to CHEYENNE WARRIOR (1994), which I have described here as not only the best micro-budget western I’ve ever seen, but also one of the best Westerns of the last twenty years. The movie, directed by Mark Griffiths, is one of the most successful that Roger Corman has ever produced. It’s combination of solid western qualities, plotting and believable romance has generated a considerable international following and fan base.
Not surprisingly, Druxman immediately set to work plotting the sequel. Unfortunately, Corman, who owned the characters in the story, was not convinced a sequel was warranted. When Corman couldn’t be convinced, Druxman rewrote the sequel to make the characters similar, but not the same, with an eye towards making it with the same leads, Pato Hoffman and Kelly Preston. Sadly this did not produce a movie, but it did produce a very fine script, entitled SARAH GOLDENHAIR. Thinking it some of his finest work, Druxman took the very unusual step of publishing this unfilmed screenplay.
Well, no follow-up to CHEYENNE WARRIOR has happened yet, but Michael Druxman has revealed the further machinations involved in the attempt, with the publishing of his new book, CHEYENNE WARRIOR II / HAWK. You see, Roger Corman eventually came around and hired Druxman to write a sequel after all, and he wrote CHEYENNE WARRIOR II. Upon reading it, Corman felt certain changes were necessary, in order to give the film a stronger female lead – ironic considering he had grave doubts about the original CHEYENNE WARRIOR because Kelly Preston’s part was so prominent.
The second draft became HAWK, and as Corman was getting ready to put it into production, Canadian tax-shelter problems stalled and eventually killed the project. Druxman has printed both drafts of the screenplay in one volume, providing readers, and especially writers, with the rare opportunity to compare different versions of what is substantially the same story.
The similarities are obvious: both versions, as well as SARAH GOLDEN HAIR, revolve around the infamous Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Many of the characters are the same. The differences are often more subtle: a white man is caught by Cheyenne poaching rabbits on their land. In one version, the action is seen from the white man’s perspective; in the other, from the Indians’. A Scandinavian couple are father and daughter in one version, and husband and wife in the other. Then there are the major changes: Rose, a ‘Calamity Jane’ sort of character, is one of the two leads in one version, and doesn’t exist in the other.
CHEYENNE WARRIOR II / HAWK is a terrific read, and one of them would make a terrific film (and one would make a good film). Michael Druxman’s character, Soars Like a Hawk, usually just called Hawk, was one of the great strengths of the original film, and he’s a great strength here, because he is a ‘noble’ Indian, but not of the incredibly stoic, humorless sort.
Over the years, I’ve always warned beginning screenwriters to make a script the absolute best that they can before showing it to a potential buyer, since it’s nearly impossible to get them to read another draft: you get one shot. Here you can compare two different versions of the same story, and see which you prefer. I have a strong opinion as to my favorite, but ironically, I believe the other version is the more commercial.
Reading CHEYENNE WARRIOR II / HAWK, whether you’re a fan of the original CHEYENNE WARRIOR, and wanted to know what happened to those characters, or whether you want to deepen your understanding of the screenwriting process by comparing the two different versions, offers a unique opportunity for the reader that should not be passed up. If you’d like to read my interview with Michael Druxman, and my review of CHEYENNE WARRIOR, go HERE. For my review of the SARAH GOLDEN HAIR screenplay, go HERE. To purchase CHEYENNE WARRIOR ll /HAWK, or any of his other published screenplays, contact Michael B. Druxman at druxy@ix.netcom.com or PMB142, 6425 S. IH-35, Suite 150, Austin, Texas 78744.
Just found out that on Wednesday, September 19th(tomorrow) at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood , Kirk Douglas will be appearing before the movie, at 7:30. Details HERE.
SEE ‘NOW THEY CALL HIM SACRAMENTO ’ ON THE BIG SCREEN!
If you’re going to be in Portland, Oregon on Sunday, September 23rd, run, don’t walk, to the Mission Theatre to see NOW THEY CALL HIM SACRAMENTO (1972). This rarely seen and quite amusing Spaghetti Western comedy is a fake ‘Trinity’ film, with Michael Forest playing the Terence Hill role, and Fred Harrison as Bud Spenser. And Michael Forest , famous for STAR TREK, and various Spaghetti Westerns and Roger Corman movies, will attend! Also, Roger Browne, the English voice for Terence Hill, and former president of the E.L.D.A. (English Language Dubbers Association) will attend. To learn more, go HERE. To read my review of SACRAMENTO , and to contact video distributor Dorado Films, go HERE.
Okay, that’s gotta be it for this week’s Round-up! Sorry for delaying this until Tuesday night.
Next week I’ll tell you about a Cowboy Church you can attend, a partial staging of the RAMONA pageant at the very place where the book was written, and more!
All Original Contents Copyright September 2012 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved