Café Roxy is an IDEA for coffee houses, cafés, restaurants, libraries and wherever people gather to eat, drink and have a good time. To attract customers during off hours: Show Free Movies! Movie Theaters as well can offer Saturday Matinees for $1.00 and profit off concessions. Public domain programs that include feature films, TV shows, cartoons and serials still hold the power to entertain. www.fesfilms.com
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone! I just found the photo I referred to in my Aug. 22, 2009 blog. Since Santa Claus is also in the picture, it must be Christmas time! Or could it be the Mystery Science Theater 3000 costume ball at their first convention?
So I found the 9/19/94 New York Times in the bottom of a box of movie posters. The picture was not on the cover like I remembered but way back on page 2 of the entertainment section. I built the robot head out of fiber glass using techniques I had learned in the prop department at the Guthrie Theater. In retrospect, the head is too big for the rest of the costume since I am no giant, although it helped boost the costume above 7 feet. I won first prize, probably for strutting around in discomfort, and almost fell getting off the stage. The only video we have of the robot in the parking lot and entering the convention is incorporated into THIS VIDEO.
Click on the photo to open it full size. Besides me, the big tin one, Scott Johnson is a deranged Torgo from "Manos, the Hands of Fate." Scott is my brother-in-law. My son Jeff (age 13 at the time) is the short Torgo in the middle. My wife Chris is behind Scott with her back to the camera. Santa Claus is...?
So Merry Ho-Ho-Ho Christmas from the Hall family, 1994.
I have always been fascinated by "haunted house" films and TV shows. The earliest one that made an impression was some version of Mary Roberts Rinehart's THE BAT glimpsed on a flickering TV. This might have been the "Broadway Television Theatre" version broadcast live in November of 1953 when I was 7. There is also a "Dow Hour of Great Mysteries" version from 1960, which I should have remembered more clearly being 14 at that time. It is unlikely either will ever surface for a re-see. My memory is people walking down dark hallways and stairs by candlelight. A masked madman stalks the creepy mansion. Suspense builds. The unseen in the shadows engenders fear until... something happens.
That pretty much sums up horror films! I always try to watch a haunted house film today, but mostly they put me to sleep. Seriously, most do not deliver and simply bore. What still spooks one today is a good question with a different answer for everyone. The 1927 Cat and the Canary superbly establishes mood with terrific sets and camerawork, but excessive comedy and unappealing stars Laura LaPlante and Creighton Hale weaken the second half.
The 1930 sound remake called The Cat Creeps is a lost film! I urge you to watch the fascinating 1 minute and 43 seconds that survive although without sound track here on Youtube. The 1926 version of "The Bat" succeeds with eerie shadows and real danger, as does the fascinating 1930 remake by Roland West shot in 70mm widescreen! I need to re-watch the 1959 version with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorhead though I've always felt it lacked shadows, dark camerawork and mood.
Other childhood horrors I remember fondly lurched through the gothic episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, all of which were released on video this year. I have been watching them daily for the past few weeks courtesy of Netflix. Half of them are merely crime stories and I skipped a few. Ah, but a lot of the scary shows are absolutely terrific with stories by Robert Bloch, direction by John Newland, Ida Lupino and John Brahm and starring William Shatner, Henry Daniell, Patricia Medina, Ron (Sherlock Holmes) Howard and Karloff himself. Better yet, the best ones still frighten. You can watch a six minute Promo Reel with highlights from the spookiest shows. One viewer commented the following, which is better said than I can:
"The horror episodes of Thriller are the best ever done. They are truly frightening - not the pathetic hack/slash/gore formula common nowadays, a poor substitute for geniune fear, which these episodes so convincingly convey. They are in a class by themselves, true masterworks of the horror genre. Beg, borrow, or steal a video copy of them. Wait until night, when things are still, then turn off the lights and watch them. You will not be disappointed."
The episode I remembered by title all these years since 1962 was The Hungry Glass with William Shatner. It unfolded a bit different than I recalled, but the scene of two ghosts pulling the heroine into the mirrors startled me. They all have outstanding sets, dark lighting, shadows and slow trips up stairs to the locked door. Some are half hour stories stretched to fill hour shows, but the padding creates suspense that today's TV has no patience with. The first horror episode is the seventh show in the series -- The Purple Room. A man must stay overnight in an eerie house in order to inherit. He is visited by a specter resembling the James Cagney make-up of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera for "Man of a Thousand Faces."
Karloff first acts in the tenth episode, "The Prediction," about a mentalist who starts seeing the truth about the future. A good show but not scary. "The Cheaters" features a decrepit house where spectacles are created that show the wearer the truth; years later a man returns to the even more run down place to see his truth, which naturally drives him mad. Don't miss "The Well of Doom" with Henry Daniell costumed like the vampire in London After Midnight and acting like the Devil himself. Don't miss "Parasite Mansion," "The Prisoner in the Mirror," "The Premature Burial" or "The Devil's Ticket."
Perhaps spookiest of all is "The Pigeons from Hell." Adapted from a Robert E. Howard story, taking place entirely at night, two brothers from up north whose car is trapped in the mud somewhere in the Deep South who take refuge in a deserted plantation house devoid of furniture surrounded by noisy pigeons who give off otherworldly vibes. As they settle down for a night's sleep, one brother ventures upstairs, only to return a few moments later with a split forehead, blood streaming down his face, hatchet in hand and looking ready to kill. The other brother flees the big house, runs into the woods, falls down, and is found by the local sheriff to whom he relates his harrowing experience. The investigation continues into the night and into the gloom of a forbidden room where the lantern keeps blowing out.
At the climax of Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 suspense classic The 39 Steps, hero Richard Hanney yells at the stage of the crowded London Palladium the enigmatic question: "What are the 39 Steps?" This is my favorite movie moment ever! These are my fond reflections on that oft-viewed scene that still stops my heart with anticipation of the answer.
The specific answer (revealed under the video below) really doesn't matter. In the John Buchan 1915 adventure novel from which Hitchcock borrowed the title and hero's name but little else, the 39 Steps refers to a specific location in Scotland where 39 steps lead down to the ocean. I read the novel as a teenager but don't recall details. I hated the 1959 color remake because it copied the original scene for scene but extremely poorly. The 1978 and 2008 versions go back to the book and I need to check them out.
Needless to say, do not read further unless you have seen the 1935 original. You can watch it online right this second if you subscribe to Netflix. A high quality six-part download starts here on Youtube. The last seven minutes that include my favorite movie scene and favorite moment are in the video below.
Let's back up. Many of these blog ramblings are about what films impressed me when I was young, because those happy times turned me into the raving cineaste who continues to watch away his life. Not a complaint, but that's who I am. I first saw The 39 Steps in 1964 when I was a senior in high school. I saw it in the small movie theater inside the University of Wisconsin student union in Madison. Though not yet a college student, anyone could walk in to see the films. Both my mother and father had attended the U. We lived about one mile from the western edge of the University and five miles from the student union on the eastern end, and I was comfortable going there on my own.
I had long been a Hitchcock fan from his 1955-1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show. I had lived through a solo theater viewing of Psycho (1960) when I was 14, and had seen The Birds first run in a theater only recently. However, I had never had the chance to see The 39 Steps or any of his other early films. They did not show British films on TV in those days. No video, either, though it's hard to imagine those dinosaur days before VHS came into common usage around 1980. Few film books had been written either. I had William Everson's "Classics of the Silent Screen" (1959) but his "Films of Laurel and Hardy" was not published until 1967.
I mention the dark ages of film scholarship and accessibility to explain one simple fact: when I walked into The 39 Steps screening that memorable evening, I had absolutely no idea what the film was about! I only knew it was an Alfred Hitchcock film about an innocent man on the run, pursued by both the police and a spy ring. I assume I knew that much, but I had read nothing more. The time, location, setting and viewing age can all affect one's reaction to a great film. Watching it for the first time today on Youtube you can see how good it still is, but you can't possibly share my emotional response.
I'll skip most comments about great acting, sets, camera work, ingenious plot and man-on-the-run theme that Hitchcock used many times. I do love that vintage helicopter! There is a big surprise right in the middle when Hanney is shot point-blank by the villain and crumples to the floor. You expect he will get out of his predicament in some manner when he walks into the lion's den, but not by being shot dead. Like the shower scene in Psycho, after this point the viewer can be led down any garden path the director chooses, or is it "up?"
One escape and adventure follows another with the hero and viewer wondering "What the heck is going on?" right up to the denouement in the London Palladium. The suspense builds by painting Hanney into an impossible trap. Wanted for murder, he is surrounded by dozens of police closing in. Only he and Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) are aware of a spy ring stealing secrets that day and that moment. Hanney connects the villain with a missing finger to the vaudeville act onstage, Mr. Memory who knows everything. The viewer figures it out at the same time, and yet how can Hanney possibly extricate himself? How? How? How? The question lingers as the suspense builds. There is no obvious way out.
The quick thinking of the hero saves the day, unlike conventional climaxes resolved by a bullet, fight or chase. Hanney turns the tables on Mr. Memory by challenging him in his own act with the question "What are the 39 steps?" In the brief moment that follows the viewer absolutely knows that Memory must answer, because his professional reputation is at stake. He knows everything and must answer all questions, even if the last question will lead to his own death. He answers, is shot, the bad guy is apprehended and the film fades out within three minutes. It's a surprise ending out of the blue and a most satisfying one. Partly because of when I saw the film in my viewing life, I count it as my very favorite scene and climax of all the movies I have seen. Ever.
Re-watch the climax of Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps here:
And what are the 39 Steps? Mr. Memory answers Richard Hanney's question from the audience: "The 39 Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of ...." A bullet cuts short the revelation.
A quick note on posters for the film. The color poster at the top is from the original 1935 release. One sold in 1992 by Christies for $14,300. The similar poster to the right was taken from the exact same litho plates, but with less color. Although undated it is assumed to be from the 1938 re-release. This poster sold in 2002 for $920. I have a near-mint example of this 1938 poster hanging on my wall, and have decided to keep it rather than testing the current market value at auction. Time may prove it to be more valuable. It is right now to me.
I recently ran across a DVD I had copied off Turner Classic Movies maybe 5 or 10 years ago, who knows? The 1929 MGM silent film with music and effects track is Tide of Empire. This fast-moving, large-scale A-western directed by Alan Dwan is set in the Gold Rush days. Having just scanned through it a few times I can highly recommend it. The ruggedly handsome hero is future cowboy B-star Tom Keene, here billed as George Duryea. So Tom started at the top with MGM but rode off to greener valleys, much like Johnny Mac Brown made love to Greta Garbo in silents until sound revealed his very southern accent and true calling in the West.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 brings a tide of gold seekers to the area, disrupting the lives of the Guerrero family who have owned nearby Rancho Chico for generations. Among these are Dermod D'Arcy, in partners with a jailer, Bejabbers. At a fiesta where horse races are traditionally run, a stranger notices Dermod's exceptionally fast horse, Pathfinder, and urges him to enter the horse in the race. It becomes a three-horse race, with Don José Guerrero betting his ranch that his horse will win. When Pathfinder wins, Dermod takes the ranch as his share of the winnings and gives it to Don José's daughter, Josephita, with whom he had fallen in love earlier, when he met her. Dermod and Bejabbers leave to search for gold, and the town grows rich as more and more gold is amassed. Meanwhile, a bandit chief, Cannon, met Josephita's brother, Romauldo, and forced him to join the gang.
The female star of the surviving silent version is Renée Adorée, the French star of The Big Parade who is quite appealing there and in other late silent MGMs. Sadly she only made 3 more films after Tide before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 35. A curious credit appears on the IMDB that a second version of Tide of Empire was made with the same cast except that Joan Crawford replaced Renée. Is this a lost sound version, a lost Joan Crawford film, or a mistake by IMDB? I wonder because extensive Joan Crawford sites such as this one do not even mention the film. In search of one mystery I found another.
I recall that Robert Osborne said in his introduction that Buster Keaton was rumored to have visited the set with his wife Natalie, and that Buster appeared in the film in a cameo, but no one could quite find him in the film today.
Certainly Keaton would be welcome on any MGM set between his big hits The Cameraman and Spite Marriage. My wife and I took up the challenge and ran through the crowd scenes again and again until we thought we found him. This may have been ten years ago. My clear memory is that we found Buster in heavy disguise (mustache and beaver hat) but right up front in a wedding scene at the end of the film. My intention today was to put this scene on Youtube with a link so Keaton fans could see the lost scene. Much to my surprise today, there is no wedding scene!
Once more, where the heck is Buster? The IMDB lists him as uncredited as a character called "Bump." So I looked and looked and finally found two seconds of bonafide, I swear it's him, Buster Keaton. But look fast in the clip that follows. Right after the frog race is a brief shot of the fiesta party. Keaton's head is directly above Renée's in the top left quarter of the frame. He opens his mouth wide in a Buster expression and in two seconds it cuts to the title "Come Josepheta ... dance for us!" The next short scene before she dances is a continuation of the same shot. It is harder to be certain it is Buster, because the character is laughing. After the dance, I repeat the Buster cameo without the inter-title for a second look. Tune in the next time Tide of Empire is on TCM. I will. I need to make a sharper transfer!
If anyone knows of another Buster glimpse in the film, I'm all ears. Anyway, he was there that day and looks like he had fun! Viva Keaton!
But first lets get the "turkeys" out of the way. We live in Vikings country, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our turkey Viking is the NFL football team. Everyone knows the great warrior (no disrespect intended) Brett Favre should have retired at the top of his game ... last year. When they talk about going to the Super Bowl before the first game is played, you know it's about over. It's over.
Gathered in my home this Thanksgiving were wife, Chris, her brother Scott, her sister Nancy, husband Greg and two teenage sons Nick and Brendan. My son Jeff couldn't make it here from San Francisco. All of us have fun by making relatives sit through, or at least sample, really bad movies. If they are truly boring, I may walk out and go watch a western, which they may consider an equal waste of time. Some half-baked turkeys in our home are Anthony Adverse, Tender is the Night and the seasonal gobbler (wow, a bad movie with a turkey/thanksgiving theme) Plymouth Adventure.
We watched PA last year -- colorful but boring and unconvincing. I hope Spencer Tracy was well paid. Gene Tierney looked like no Pilgrim. Will they make it to the new world??? Yes, they do! So when it was on TCM this week I taped it for the guests. We only got around to running the credits as they were putting on their coats. The mere music sped them out the door. Mission accomplished.
Also on TCM last Sunday was a film we had missed in earlier showings -- The Viking, made in 1928 in full and still stunning two-strip Technicolor. I taped it and watched it on Wednesday night with Scott. After the big turkey dinner the next day, talk turned to the film because of rumors we had descended from Eric the Red or Leif Ericsson, plus a silent all-color film was pretty scarce. A suggestion to show a few minutes turned into re-watching the entire movie with two teenage boys who may have never seen a silent film before. No grumbling, no leaving the room and no fast forwarding. It entertained. I sat in the one big chair without a view of the screen and slept through the first half. After turkey I would have slept through London After Midnight.
So what the heck is so good or fascinating about The Viking? The blue-red color hues surely give it an ancient look.... Skip that, it's perky, pretty and busty Helga pictured here and played by Pauline Starke. Helga is the only woman on a long ocean voyage to uncharted lands ... some costume, huh?
From the IMDB: "Yes, it's true, an all color silent movie! The title refers to Leif Ericsson, who leaves Norway to search for new lands west of Greenland. On the way he vies for the love of Helga with his companion Egil and Alwin, an English slave. More conflict arises when he stops at the colony of his father (Eric the Red) in Greenland, for Leif has converted to Christianity, which his father hates. He also has to deal with the unrest of his crew, who fear falling off the edge of the Earth."
Director Roy William Neil helmed most of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films and Roy knew even in 1928 how to move a film right along. It's loaded with viking sword fight action. The young hero is played by Le Roy Mason, who went on to a long career in B-westerns as the head bad guy vs. John Wayne, Roy, Hoppy, Gene and more. Le Roy is right up there with Roy Barcroft and Douglas Dumbrille. The older hero who plays Leif Ericson is Donald Crisp, silent film director and distinguished actor from The Birth of Nation to his Oscar role in How Green Was My Valley. Pauline Starke appeared in Griffith's Intolerance (1916) and was 27 when she made The Viking. Alas, that's too old for a leading lady in Hollywood and Pauline's zenith was also her farewell to stardom. Here is a nice still of the three stars. Double click to enlarge the photo. They are all good, the many vikings are manly, and the largely true story of the first trip to America is convincing. The Viking was our Thanksgiving desert this year!
Be sure to catch The Viking the next time it is on TCM. If anyone would like to borrow my DVD (sending a copy would be an FBI violation!), then send me an email to fesfilms@aol.com.
Quick, open the present! Santa's surprise is a brand new (old) public domain Christmas show that no one else has. Only me. Wow, what is it? Got your attention? We'll get to it shortly.
This column is mainly an ad. Buy my new Christmas DVD as a gift to your viewers. That's all. "A happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" says Santa at the end of "A Night Before Christmas." The end.
OK, I don't actually do ads in this blog. For specific "Buy this, it's good" ads, visit my website and check out the Festival Films/Café Roxy Christmas Programs. I only write here about films or projects that are new or of possible interest to others or have been consuming my week, and I try not to be boring.
This project started nine days ago when two active customers in Nevada wanted Christmas shows for local TV. They had shown the Beverly Hillbillies / Petticoat Junction X-mas shows last year and now wanted to get Scrooge, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, A Christmas Without Snow, Christmas Cartoon Festival and a special 2-hour compilation of the best of TV Christmas shows. This last program of shorts I would make up fresh. They asked for the Burns and Allen Christmas show, which I have but only in poor quality. One of them summed up their desire in a way I could not have written better:
"My thoughts are, back as a little kid and being born in 1958 we used to watch black and white TV, of course. The big thing was shows had audiences and loved the Christmas specials by whom ever. We knew when there was a show coming up in November and specially in December it would be a Chhristmas show. I am trying to wear the past time travel helmet and I know this new generation would get a kick out of it as us parents recite back in those days! Oh man, I am getting old, lol. So now you know my thoughts gentlemen. Retro blast of the past to the way it was, and now you too know how it feels."
Of all the 1950s popular TV series, none had more Christmas shows than "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" because they often worked in two each season as in "Boys' Christmas Money" (12/19/52) and "Late Christmas Gift" shown the next week of the first season on 12/26/1952. Season Two only had one X-Mas show -- "The Miracle" -- and this is the surprise I obtained recently and added to the new "Best of TV Christmas" show, as per line-up shown in the poster on the left (which anyone who buys the show can use to promote it in move theaters or on TV.) That's a plug, but try it, it works.
At first I had included the Captain Gallant Christmas show "The Boy Who Found Christmas" and called the program "Christmas Film Fun." Cuffy, played by Buster Crabbe's son in the series, runs away to find lost presents and during his adventure discovers the true meaning of Christmas. It's a good show and was the only "serious" episode among all the comedy, but a few days later it struck me (I'm slow) that few remember Captain Gallant while everyone loves Betty White. Her Christmas show, which I offered on another disc, is from her 1957 one-season series "A Date with the Angels." It concerns a department store Santa who gives away presents, thus thawing the heart of the Scrooge-like manager. So I replaced Betty for Buster and re-named the show "A Classic Christmas." You can even call it "A Classic Christmas with Betty White & Friends!"
Back to the Ozzie rarity. "The Miracle" is not only a good Christmas show that has not been on the market in any DVD collections, it is unique in the entire series of over 400 shows. It's Christmas at the Nelsons, natch, and Ozzie brings home a merchant gift of a barometer that says it will snow soon. This recalls a memory leading to a flashback of when Ozzie was a kid in around 1915. Ricky plays Oz as a kid while David plays his older brother Al. Ozzie and Harriet play their parents. The miracle in both the past and present stories is that the father promises snow when it isn't supposed to. (Ozzie's barometer is a fake that never changes its reading.) Guess what? It snows anyway.
July 15, 2010: NEW YORK (AP) - Roy Rogers' stuffed horse, Trigger, has been sold at auction for more than $266,000 in Midtown. Christie's said Rogers' faithful companion was bought by cable's RFD-TV in Omaha, Nebraska, at an auction Wednesday of items from the now-closed Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri. Roy Rogers' stuffed and mounted dog, Bullet, fetched $35,000 on the second day of an auction of the movie cowboy's belongings in New York City.
The television network's chief financial officer says Rogers' reflects the company's values. The station calls itself "Rural America's Most Important Network." CFO Steve Campione says the company hopes to start its own museum. He said the company is looking to buy more Rogers items at auction.
When I heard this news back in July I said to myself I should contact RFD-TV to see if they needed any Roy Rogers movies. I didn't. But better yet, they contacted me this past week inquiring about the Roy Rogers TV shows from 1951 to 1957. All episodes are in the public domain except for some from the final season. I mailed off some sample episodes on DVD-R, but recommend they acquire on BetaSP for maximum quality because RFD-TV is a national cable company.
The big, big news is that RFD-TV has acquired 33 episodes in the "Happy Trails Theater" series and is currently airing them 3 times a week. Check out their schedule. Last week they ran Southward Ho. Debuting on Sunday is The Arizona Kid. So Happy Trails are back, only a bit different. In the original series an elderly Roy and Dale introduced each film and talked with guests like Iron Eyes Cody, Peggy Stewart, Gene Autry, their son Dusty and many more. Well, these intros are gone, but you can still enjoy them in the Happy Trails versions of Roy's westerns available from Netflix.
The new intros are by Dusty Rogers, aka. Roy Rogers Jr., and his son (I assume) Dustin Rogers. They give informative and professional insights into the film, then return after the feature to sing a song and tell stories. The time slot is currently 90 minutes. The original Happy Trails shows only ran about 65 minutes without commercials and in many cases the features were cut to fit this. I will be curious to see if they run full length features at times. If RFC-TV adds Roy's TV show, the slot could expand to two-hours.
The revamped Happy Trails Theater is the only vintage movies or TV shows currently on RFD-TV. As such it's a wonderful opportunity to attract new viewers and fans to B-westerns and to Roy Rogers in particular. I'm betting the popularity mushrooms.
Just in the last week I saw two of Roy's better films, courtesy of Netflix, that I had always wanted to see. Sons of the Pioneers (1942) co-stars Gabby Hayes and Pat Brady as Roy's sidekicks. They work well together a full 9 years before Pat became the "comical sidekick" on Roy's TV series. Roy pretends to be a milquetoast easterner so he can work undercover. His chemist training helps uncover the truth about fake foot and mouth disease. Go watch it!
Of greater interest, and far more fun than I expected, was Trail of Robin Hood, a Trucolor gem from 1950. Roy plays a forest ranger or something using his own name, of course. Jack Holt, father of cowboy star Tim Holt, plays himself -- a retired old time cowboy movie star. The story even works in a screening from one of Jack's silent westerns. Penny Edwards is the girl and Gordon Jones as Splinters McGonigle is Roy's sidekick.
The very best Republic western director, William Witney, put a lot of innovation into scripts and action in the waning years of the B-western. The basic plot concerns the dread Christmas tree syndicate??? Jack Holt wants to sell the trees on his land dirt cheap so that poor families can all have a tree, whereas a big businessman wants to corner the market and jack up the prices. The bigwig is Penny Edwards' father so you know he's not really bad, but his chief henchman sure is.
In 1945 Republic filmed another great Roy Rogers Bells of Rosarita with Gabby Hayes and Dale Evans. In that film Roy played a cowboy movie star for Republic. The studio sent over 5 other cowboy stars to help Roy in the climax: Don Red Berry, Wild Bill Elliot, Allan Rocky Lane, Sunset Carson and Robert Livingston. Studio girl on the phone: "I'm sorry but John Wayne is on location and can't make it."
In Trail of Robin Hood Republic repeated this formula of guest stars in the climax. The bad Christmas tree guys scare away all wagon drivers in the area. Who will get the trees to market? The little girl in the story sees a wall of cowboy photos in Jack Holt's bedroom and gets the idea to invite them all to help out -- Allan Rocky Lane, Rex Allen, Crash Corrigan, Monte Hale, Tom Tyler, Kermit (brother of Ken) Maynard, Tom Keene and two more. The first surprise is William Bill Farnum who started films in 1914. Bill rides up and says: "I want to help too. I'm Bill Farnum. I rode with Jack 20 years ago."
Another old timer who started in 1915 rides up: "Hi Boys, I'm George Chesebro." Now George was on the ugly and scrawny side, ideally suited for playing in henchmen in well over 100 B-westerns. He strides into the bunch of good guys who turn away and will not shake his hand! Finally the little girl says, "Hey, wait a minute. I know you. You're always a meanie." George: "I know, but after making 20 pictures with Jack Holt, he reformed me." Roy: "In that case we can use you." And everyone welcomes George to the gang.
Watch the scene and a bit more of the cowboy all-stars here:
Get the complete Trail of Robin Hood from Netflix, or watch for RFD-TV to air it on Happy Trails Theater shortly before Christmas!
