THE WICKED WEST

 

A few years ago, I decided to write a followup to my 2004 book Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, a cultural study of American horror films. 

At first, I imagined it as a book about horror remakes, reboots and “re-imaginations”—because those were dominating the genre at the time.  (This was somewhere in the lull between “torture porn” and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.)   I outlined the book, started doing research, and even wrote a first chapter… then changed my mind.

When I came back around to the project a year or two later, I decided to make it a book entirely about supernatural / metaphysical horror films—focusing especially on films made since the mid-1980s.  I had been working for several years on a Discovery Channel series called A HAUNTING, which seemed to be in line with the latest trends in the horror genre, and I had strong opinions about why and how such stories work.  So I started writing.  Again I created a full outline, did some in-depth research, and completed a first chapter.  I was feeling pretty good about it, but somewhere along the line I got distracted.

One of the things that distracted me was exploring L.A.  Every weekend, my wife and I would go hiking at scenic spots in and around the city, and I quickly realized that every scenic spot in and around L.A. has been featured in a movie at some point.  Many of the more remote locations have a long history of use as filming locations, especially in westerns.  Although I had never been a particular fan of westerns—I naively thought it was a genre built on clichés—visiting these filming locations prompted me to start watching some studio-era westerns I'd never seen.  I found a great old-fashioned video store called Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee that had a lot of stuff never released on DVD.  After that I was hooked.

Somehow, over the next few years, my prospective horror book became a book about westerns.  Initially, I thought of it as “a book about the other great American film genre about violence."  I had an idea that westerns generally presented a very conservative perspective on violence, while horror films are more liberal.  But that simplistic notion disappeared once I actually started watching the movies.  My hope is that end result of my cinematic exploration will be a compelling introduction to the genre for people like me: members of a certain generation (raised on action, horror and sci-fi films) who have never really given westerns a chance. 

2015 was a big year for westerns.  Films like THE HATEFUL EIGHT, THE REVENANT, and BONE TOMAHAWK made a big impression on younger moviegoers—in part, I think, because they aren't what we expect from westerns.  They are adventures, thrillers, horror films.  But still westerns.  Personally, I don’t believe that any genre is ever pure.  I can’t write about the horror genre without also writing about psychological thrillers and dark sc-fi, and sometimes even comedy.  I don’t think anyone can, or should, write about westerns in this day in age without also considering “hidden westerns” that are more readily identified with other genres.  (I borrow the term "hidden westerns" from filmmaker John Carpenter, who has made more than his fair share of hidden westerns.) 

When I started obsessing about westerns, I noticed that the most comprehensive and authoritative books on the subject tend to assume that the genre basically died in the mid-1970s, with maybe a few gasps of new life in the early 90s and late 2000s.  Being a horror fan, of course I love the idea that the western genre is undead… returned from the grave, somehow transformed by its years in purgatory.  Hence the title of my book: The Quick, The Dead and the Revived.

It’s not a book about horror-westerns.  It’s a book about the most intelligent and influential western films from 1939 to 2010, in the same way that Nightmares and Red, White and Blue was about the most intelligent and influential American horror films from 1931 to 2000.  I tried to examine all of the classic A-westerns.  There are three chapters alone on the 1950s, the decade that produced the most iconic films in the genre.  There’s also a chapter on spaghetti westerns, as well as chapters on urban westerns of the 1970s, space westerns of the 1980s, neo-westerns of the 1990s, and the postmodern westerns of the 2000s.  I think the book proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the genre remains vital—if still somewhat hidden and underappreciated.

Now, because I know that my name on a book cover is probably not going to draw my fellow horror fans to the western genre, I want to point to some places where the two genres overlap in interesting ways.  I think most horror enthusiasts are vaguely aware of the more overt attempts to blend the two genres—mostly B-movies and DTV features about ghosts, vampires and zombies in the Old West.  Stuff like CURSE OF THE UNDEAD (1959), BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA (1966), Charles Band’s GHOST TOWN (1988), DEAD NOON (2007) with Kane Hodder, etc.  I’m not a big fan of that type of horror-western.  I prefer more subtle overlaps.

Gary Cooper and Boris Karloff in UNCONQUERED

For example, I can’t watch Cecil B. DeMille’s western UNCONQUERED (1947), which stars Boris Karloff as the villainous Chief of the Seneca Indians, without thinking about how DeMille typecast Karloff as another “monster.”  (UNCONQUERED is a very un-PC movie.)  In a similar way, I can’t help but think of John Carradine’s performance as a rather effete Dracula (in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA) when I watch him in westerns.  And Carradine was in a lot of westerns, including some of John Ford's best work.  Likewise, Lon Chaney Jr.—best known for his performance in THE WOLF MAN and its sequels—made more western films than anything else, right up to the very end of his career.  Even Vincent Price dabbled in the genre, most notably in Sam Fuller’s THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1950).

My favorite early horror movies are those that came out of RKO in the 1940s, under the auspices of producer Val Lewton and directors Jacques Tourneur and Robert Wise.  So I was thrilled to find that Lewton’s only western, APACHE DRUMS (1951), plays like a forerunner to George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  (I was, in fact, so excited that I emailed Romero to ask if he’d ever seen it.  He said he hadn’t.)  Tourneur and Wise also made their own forays into the western genre.  Tourneur’s STARS IN MY CROWN (1950) is only marginally a western, but it’s a personal favorite of mine.  I think of it as an Old West version of Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, although STARS was made a few years before Bradbury wrote his novel.  Wise directed one of my favorite noir westerns, BLOOD ON THE MOON (1948), starring Robert Mitchum, as well as one of the most intense westerns of that time period, TWO FLAGS WEST (1950).  And speaking of noir westerns…

There are some obvious crossovers of film noir and the western films.  Hardboiled detectives on dusty streets, that kind of thing.  But I don't want to name them, because much prefer straight westerns that have a streak of dark naturalism or fatalism in them.  I love vaguely metaphysical westerns like PURSUED (1947), YELLOW SKY (1948), and COLORADO TERRITORY (1949), so I wrote an entire chapter about these psychological / noir westerns in my book.  

Robert Mitchum in the noir western BLOOD ON THE MOON

Once you get to American cinema in the 1950s, it’s almost impossible to avoid talking about westerns.  It was by far the most popular genre of the day, in film and in television—although science fiction gave it a good run for its money.   That said, it should come as no surprise that some of the best-known sci-fi and horror filmmakers of the day made some pretty innovative westerns. 

Andre De Toth is primarily remembered as the director of the 3-D Vincent Price vehicle HOUSE OF WAX (1953), but he was actually more of a western enthusiast than a horror enthusiast.  John Ford personally recommended him to direct RAMROD (1947), and De Toth cast his wife Veronica Lake in the lead female role, opposite Joel McCrea.  De Toth went on to make six more western films with screen cowboy Randolph Scott in the 1950s, plus one with Gary Cooper (SPRINGFIELD RIFLE, 1952) and one with Kirk Douglas (THE INDIAN FIGHTER, 1955). He rounded out the decade with one of my personal favorites, DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959)—a particularly bleak film featuring one of Robert Ryan's best performances.

Andre de Toth

Jack Arnold—the man behind Universal’s monster movies IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953) CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954), and TARANTULA (1955)—made MAN IN THE SHADOW (1957) starring Orson Welles as a cold-hearted rancher, Audie Murphy’s best western NO NAME ON THE BULLET (1959), and the blaxploitation western BOSS NIGGER (1974) with Fred Williamson.

William Castle and Roger Corman each made several westerns in the 50s, although the merits of those films are debatable.  Some have argued that Corman’s directorial debut, FIVE GUNS WEST (1955), was the inspiration for ensemble action movies like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE DIRTY DOZEN.  Corman himself, however, was quick to abandon the genre—although he later produced two compelling westerns from director Monte Hellman, THE SHOOTING (1966) and RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND (1966), both starring Jack Nicholson.  And I’ve always been fascinated by Corman’s claim that he helped to develop the Gregory Peck vehicle THE GUNFIGHTER (1950), one of the most iconic westerns ever made, when he was still a lowly script reader at Fox. 

Jack Nicholson and Millie Perkins in THE SHOOTING

Edgar G. Ulmer is not as well known as Castle or Corman (although his following seems to grow every year) but he made a western that is more interesting than anything either of them did in the genre.  I’m not sure what to say about THE NAKED DAWN (1955), except that if you are a fan of Ulmer’s work (which includes Universal’s THE BLACK CAT and DETOUR), you should definitely check it out.  It's a unique film in the genre.  Ditto Ray Milland’s directorial debut A MAN ALONE (1955), a very strange—eerily effective—little western.  And while we’re on the subject of strange…. Did you know that Rod Serling wrote a western?  It’s called SADDLE THE WIND (1958), and it’s pretty good…. Although not as good as some of the western episodes Serling wrote for THE TWILIGHT ZONE.   Serling also reportedly wrote an early draft of Marlon Brando’s ONE-EYED JACKS (1961), but we probably shouldn’t give him credit—or assign him blame—for that one.

Gene Fowler Jr. is another name that is familiar to classic horror fans.  He directed the cult classics I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957) and I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958).  He also directed SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL (1958), a respectable B-western that gave Charles Bronson his first lead role and paved the way for Roger Corman to cast Bronson in a comparable breakout role in MACHINE-GUN KELLY (1958).  Even more striking are Fowler’s credits as an editor.  He worked on Fritz Lang’s WESTERN UNION (1941), Sam Fuller’s RUN OF THE ARROW (1957) and FORTY GUNS (1957), Clint Eastwood’s first American western HANG ‘EM HIGH (1968), and the controversial A MAN CALLED HORSE (1970).  

Charles Bronson and John Carradine in SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL

Italian westerns are, of course, some of the most violent and horrific westerns around, reflecting a backlash against the genre in the late 60s and early 70s.  Horror icons like Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci were part of the trend.  Bava directed one of the many pseudo-sequels to the immensely popular RINGO (RINGO IN NEBRASKA, 1966), as well as the western-comedy ROY COLT AND WINCHESTER JACK (1970).  Not his best work, but entertaining.  In addition to creating storyboards for the opening sequence of Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968), Argento co-wrote the Zapata western THE FIVE MAN ARMY (1969) and the ultra-violent CEMETERY WITHOUT CROSSES (1969).  According to some sources, he was also involved with CUT-THROATS NINE (1972).  Fulci likewise has three hyper-violent westerns to his name: MASSACRE TIME (1966), FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE (1975) and—depending on who you ask—A BULLET FOR SANDOVAL (1969). 

As far as I’m concerned, FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE is the nastiest postscript on the spaghetti western subgenre—although Sergio Corbucci’s THE GREAT SILENCE (1968) remains the best.  Others point to DJANGO, KILL! (1967) as the darkest Italian horror-western.  It's certainly the weirdest.  And there’s no question that DEATH RIDES A HORSE (1966), one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorites, is filled with indelible horror imagery.  These films all influenced increasingly dark and bloody American westerns, like WELCOME TO HARD TIMES (1967), THE STALKING MOON (1968), SOLDIER BLUE (1970) and Robert Aldrich’s ULZANA’S RAID (1972).  

Did I mention Robert Aldrich’s other westerns?  The filmmaker who gave us WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) and HUSH… HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964) also gave us APACHE (1954) and VERA CRUZ (1954), both starring Burt Lancaster.  I remember when I went to the Deaville Film Festival in 2009 with my NIGHTMARES IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE documentary, the thing I was most excited about was the fact that they were screening all three of Aldrich’s major westerns.  The French still appreciate this genre, even if most (younger) Americans don’t. 

I could go on.  Christopher Lee co-starred in a British-Spanish western that pioneered the rape-revenge subgenre (HANNIE CAULDER, 1971).  Charles Bronson starred in a Native American version of JAWS (THE WHITE BUFFALO, 1977).  PSYCHO’s Anthony Perkins made an excellent law-and-order western with Henry Fonda (THE TIN STAR, 1957).  HALLOWEEN’s Donald Pleasance played terrifying villains in the revisionist westerns WILL PENNY (1967) and SOLDIER BLUE (1970).  John Carpenter has written several westerns, including an early script that was optioned by John Wayne’s production company (and later made--badly--as BLOOD RIVER, 1991).  I’d argue that Wes Craven made a western (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, 1977).  George Romero's most recent Dead movie (SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, 2009) was an homage to the Gregory Peck western THE BIG COUNTRY (1958).  The list goes on and on, and I’ve included many these titles in my book. 

So, horror fans… welcome to The Wicked West.  Read on.

MOVIES MADE ME #39: DRIVE

The hell with the Oscars. DRIVE was the best movie I saw this year. In fact, it’s the best new American movie I’ve seen since NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Why? It showcases all the strengths of filmmaking as a medium. Through artful and ruthlessly efficient decisions about characterization, sights and sounds, all old things are made new again.

(Advance notice: Spoilers ahead. If you haven't already seen the movie, do yourself a favor...)

DRIVE, like NO COUNTRY, is essentially a genre film - a horror-tinged elegiac western disguised as a romantic crime drama. As a story, it’s nothing new. The first scene establishes Ryan Gosling’s Man with No Name as a dangerous hero with a professional code. Anyone raised on genre movies knows that, if he sticks to his professional code, he’ll be okay. We also know (because we’ve seen a few Michael Mann movies, and the opening credit sequence practically screams at us to remember movies like THIEF and HEAT) that he won’t stick to his code. The self-centered minimalist (a clear case of arrested development) falls in love, and suddenly his world becomes richer and more complicated. Because I’ve been immersed in westerns lately, I saw similarities to the classic 1953 western SHANE.

“Even I could read the endurance in the lines of that dark figure and the quiet power in his effortless, unthinking adjustment to every movement of the tired horse.”

In SHANE, we are introduced to the main character through the eyes of a young boy -- named Bob in Jack Schaefer’s novel, Joey in the 1952 movie adaptation with Alan Ladd. “He rode easily,” Bob remembers, “relaxed in the saddle, leaning his weight lazily into the stirrups. Yet even in his easiness was a suggestion of tension. It was the easiness of a coiled spring, of a trap set.” The pre-credit sequence in DRIVE introduces us to the same type of character. Schaefer could just as easily be describing Driver: “all his movements were deft and sure,” he wore “a frown of fixed and habitual alertness,” with “eyes that were endlessly searching.” In short, he’s a professional so in tune with his job and his environment that he seems to operate completely on instinct and intuition. What Schaefer conveys through words, filmmaker Nicholas Winding Refn conveys largely through sound design. (This New York Times article explains the techniques better than I can.)

On the surface, the filmmaking and the character are each as efficient as a Swiss watch. The brilliance of the filmmaking is that it’s constantly hinting at what lies beneath the surface. As the story progresses, the storyteller subtly peels away more and more layers. There’s a quick scene at the end of the credit sequence in which Driver returns home to a dark, mostly empty apartment. This tells us everything we need to know about his lifestyle. (Again, I’m reminded of HEAT... Do all career criminals prefer minimalist decor?) A few minutes later, he’s in an elevator with his attractive neighbor Irene. A quick glance is all it takes to convey his loneliness... and his resolve to keep life simple by remaining lonely. No dialogue necessary.

He breaks down, of course, or there would be no movie. There is another quick scene that encapsulates his budding relationship with Irene’s son Benicio. In the elevator, the boy stares up at him. Driver stares back. It seems at first like an awkward moment. Then the boy blinks and smiles, and we realize that they were having a staring contest. Again, no dialogue necessary. We understand that Driver has already entered Benicio’s world, and belongs there. Why? Bob/Joey explains: “His eyes were still and steady and you knew the man’s whole attention was concentrated on you even in the casual glance.” What more does a kid want from a father? “He was a man like father in whom a boy could believe in the simple knowing that what was beyond comprehension was still clean and solid and right.”

Only a few words are exchanged between Driver and Irene in the subsequent kitchen scene. They have two conversations. One real. One implied. It’s the same thing between Shane and Bob/Joey’s mother Marian (played by Jean Arthur in the film) in SHANE. Bob tells us that Shane “always regarded her with a tenderness in his eyes he had for no one else.” A short montage illustrates the same thing in DRIVE: With Irene and Benicio, Driver is 100% present. That’s a simple thing to say, but it’s rare in real life. How many of us are so intensely focused? How many of us listen without waiting to talk? How often do we stop to really observe? In another other movie, the silence in the kitchen scene would segueway directly into a hot and heavy sex scene. Not here. Expectant breathing is sexy enough. Bob observes that he and his mother are “more vibrant, more alive” around Shane, because Shane is always there, always in the moment. As the song goes, “A real human being...” And yet.

Marian says of Shane, “I like him... He’s so nice and polite and sort of gentle. Not like most men I’ve met out here. But there’s something about him. Something underneath the gentleness. Something dangerous.”

“You could fairly feel the fierce energy suddenly burning in him, pouring through him in the single coordinated drive.”

DRIVE keeps things simple. It gives us very little information about Driver’s past. (Bob observes, “His past was fenced as tightly as our pasture.”) We know he moves around a lot. We know he’s new to his apartment building. We know he’s only been at his current job for four or five years. Like Shane, he’s a drifter with very little to lose. That partially explains his willingness to risk all, but a man doesn’t risk his life on a regular basis without some deeper psychological reason.

I’ve been reading a biography about Audie Murphy, American’s most decorated WWII veteran. Murphy says: “People don’t realize that after you’ve come out of a war nothing much gives you a thrill.” Murphy was constantly getting into fights, and remained addicted to high-stakes gambling for most of his life. Actor Lance Henriksen says it another way: “I was in a bar once with this guy who was provoking everyone around him, including me. He pushed people to the point where they were ready to fight. Then he would get happy - because when everybody around him was operating at a certain adrenaline level, he felt normal... When he’s surrounded by chaos, he’s in his element.” That’s the backstory on Shane and Driver. It’s all we need to know.

In SHANE, the hero allies himself not only with Marian and Bob/Joey, but with their husband and father. There’s never any doubt that Marian is attracted to him, just as there’s never any doubt that Irene is attracted to Driver... her breathing pattern alone conveys her anticipation. But Shane’s personal code dictates that he won’t act on it. In DRIVE, Irene announces that her husband Standard is coming home from prison and Driver takes a step back to preserve the family. He doesn’t have to say a word about it. His actions show that he respects the sanctity of those familial bonds, and he resolves to protect them as a unit.

Standard is trying to do right by his family, just like Joe Starrett in SHANE. “I have a lot of making up to do,” he says upon his return home. He has to make up for lost time, and re-establish himself as a husband and father. The first thing he does is tell Driver (without saying a word) that Irene and Benicio are spoken for. In any other film, the exchange between these two men would escalate into violence, or at least the threat of violence. Here, it’s all subtext.

Shane and Joe Starrett have a similar exchange when they first meet, with Bob standing between them like a helpless referee. Bob remembers, “I stared in wonder as father and the stranger looked at each other a long moment, measuring each other in an unspoken fraternity of adult knowledge beyond my reach.” Boundaries are established. Intentions are conveyed. Then they can move forward. A few scenes later, Driver is sitting at the dinner table - the fourth member of a family of three. Standard refers to him as “my new friend.”

Standard never admires Driver the way that Joe Starrett comes to admire Shane. That admiration comes instead from the character of Shannon, Driver’s employer and his only friend, played by BREAKING BAD’s Bryan Cranston. Shannon is willing to gamble everything he has on Driver, because he's the closest thing Shannon has to a son. “You put this kid behind the wheel,” he tells a loan shark, “there’s nothing he can’t do.” Up to a point, Driver follows the lead of this slightly weasely father-figure. Perhaps that’s why everything goes wrong.

The pivotal scene in the film, and the note on which the story diverges from SHANE, involves a short conversation between Driver and Irene. Driver contemplates telling Irene that Standard is planning to pull off a jewelry store heist in order to repay a debt and protect her and Benicio. He decides, instead, to secretly help Standard. His motives are noble: He wants to protect Irene and Benicio, without destroying the bonds of their family. He wants to deliver for them the way he delivers for Shannon. For that, he’s willing to break his professional code -- the source of whatever inner peace he has in his life.

“Some men just plain have dynamite in them, and he’s one of them.”

The heist goes wrong, and soon Driver is holed up in a hotel room with a million dollars of stolen mob money. What happens next is as brutal, and as psychologically staggering, as the hotel scene in SCARFACE. Driver is transformed. (Or maybe, as in the case of SHANE, simply regressed?) The next scene, where he goes after the guy who set up the heist, is even more brutal. Up to a point, Driver’s actions seem cold and calculated. By the end of the scene, however, he is trembling. There are a few ways the viewer could interpret this. I’m inclined to remember the observations of Mr. Grafton in SHANE, just before the gunslinger erupts into uncontrollable violence. Grafton says of Shane, “He was afraid of himself.” The same is true of Driver, and we have to wonder if he has already gone past the point of no return. Can we, after seeing all of this, accept him as the loving husband and father? Is he still an ideal protector or is he just a ticking time bomb?

Joe Starrett says of Shane, “He’s a special brand we sometimes get out here in the grass country. I’ve come across a few. A bad one’s poison. A good one’s straight grain clear through.” Shane holds back from killing the henchman who threatened his new family - partly because Shane believes that, although the guy is working for an asshole, he “has the makings of a good man.” There’s no particular reason to assume that Cook (the henchman who helped orchestrate Standard’s murder) has the makings of a good man, but Driver holds back anyway... for the sake of self-preservation. He barely manages to keep himself from going over the edge. The next scene - the infamous “elevator stomp” scene - gives him another big push. Because Irene is there, in harm’s way, he can’t hold back this time. Over the edge he goes.

What makes it all the more tragic is that Driver knows the significance of this event before he acts. He kisses Irene because he realizes it's going to be his last chance. He’s about to become a different person, at least in her eyes. Less than sixty seconds later, everything has changed.

“He breathed deeply and his chest filled and he held it, held it long and achingly, and released it slowly and sighing. Suddenly you were impressed by the fact that he was quiet, that he was still. You saw how battered and bloody he was. In the moments before you saw only the splendor of movement, the flowing brute beauty of line and power in action. The man, you felt, was tireless and indestructible. Now that he was still and the fire in him had banked and subsided, you saw, and in the seeing remembered, that he had taken bitter punishment.” - Jack Schaefer, SHANE

The third act of the film is the true test of character. Shannon frames Driver’s moral dilemma simply: “What are you gonna do?” Fight or run? We can safely assume that Driver has always run in the past. That’s his nature. (“I drive.”) That’s his code. Solitude. Self-preservation. Joe Starrett says of Shane, “He’s fiddle-footed.” Bob/Joey disagrees, saying, “Shane wouldn’t run.”

Driver doesn’t run. He unmasks, becoming a killer as terrifying as Michael Myers or Anton Chigurh (in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN). The difference is that Driver’s whirlwind of violence has a noble purpose. He’s protecting his family... and not just from the goons who killed Standard, but from himself. That’s what makes Driver a tragic western hero, like Shane or Audie Murphy. He knows his story can end only one way. He tells Irene, before he goes to war, that he won't be able to come back.

Shane: “A man is what he is, Bob, and there’s no breaking the mold. I tried that and I’ve lost. But I reckon it was in the cards from the moment I saw a freckled kid on a rail up the road there and a real man behind him, the kind that could back him for the chance another kid never had... There’s no going back from a killing, Bob. Right or wrong, the brand sticks and there’s no going back. It’s up to you now. Go home to your mother and father. Grow strong and straight and take care of them.”

Bob: “This was not our Shane. And yet it was. I remembered Ed Howells’ saying that this was the most dangerous man he had ever seen. I remembered in the same rush that father had said he was the safest man we ever had in our house. I realized that both were right and that this, this at last, was Shane.”

Marian: “He’s not gone. He’s here, in this place, in this place he gave us. He’s all around us and in us, and he always will be.”

MOVIES MADE ME #37: Howard Hawks - "The Slim Years"

In his book Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, Todd McCarthy writes: "There is no question that the eight films [director Howard Hawks] directed during the eight years he and [his wife] Slim were involved - from Only Angels Have Wings to Red River - represent the greatest and most creatively vibrant period of his career." I'm certainly not going to question it, and I can't help noticing that almost all of these films feature memorable love stories. Here's the list:

1) ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1939)

"Only Angels Have Wings came from a true story. There was a little airfield like that - with a man who radioed the pilots when they'd get through the pass. A chorus girl stopped there, ran into this fellow, got a little tight, slept with him and fell in love with him. She hung around there and he married her. And they were two of the happiest people I've ever seen." - Hawks to Peter Bogdanovich

This is a story about a guy who's very reluctant to fall in love again, but who just can't help himself. The guy is Cary Grant - not the helplessly goofy Cary Grant of Hawks's earlier film BRINGING UP BABY, but Cary Grant in a more hyper-masculine mode. At times in this film he acts so self-righteous that you'd think he'd just stepped out of a Somerset Maugham novel. He's a daredevil pilot who refuses to give up his profession (which is also his true passion) for any woman, whether it's Rita Hayworth or Jean Arthur. Arthur falls for him anyway and, while her performance is a little weak (Hawks has said that he couldn't coach the actress out of her comfort zone, and Arthur has said - in no uncertain terms - that she later regretted it), her character nevertheless becomes an ideal partner. By the end of the film, she has made it clear that she loves Grant's character for exactly who he is, and wouldn't ask him to change for anything. What more can a guy hope for?

2) HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940)

"We were having dinner one night at the house, six or eight people, and we were talking about dialogue. I said that the finest modern dialogue in the world came from [Ben] Hecht and [Charles] MacArthur. After dinner we went in, and I had two copies of their play The Front Page. There was a girl there who was pretty good, and I said, 'Read the reporter's part, and I'll read the editor's part.' And in the middle of it, I said, 'My Lord, it's better with a girl reading it than the way it was!' See, The Front Page was intended as a love affair between two men. I mean, they loved each other. There's no doubt about it." - Hawks to Joseph McBride

I'm not crazy about THE FRONT PAGE (1932), but there's no question that HIS GIRL FRIDAY is on fire whenever Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are onscreen together. In classic screwball comedies, verbal sparring is the substitute for sex, and with actors of this caliber, it's hard not to feel the passion behind the dialogue.

Walter Burns: There's been a lamp burning in the window for ya, honey... here.
Hildy Johnson: Oh, I jumped out that window a long time ago.

Divorce never seemed so romantic.

3) SERGEANT YORK (1941)

A lot of critics tend to downplay this film when they're writing about Hawks as an auteur, probably because it lacks the cynicism of so many of his other films. Gary Cooper's backwoods soldier is a far cry from Cary Grant's smug businessman, and innocent Joan Leslie has even less in common with Rosalind Russell... but these two still have a pretty amusing courtship scene on her front porch, when Cooper runs off a competing beau. Sure it's hokey and mawkish, but Cooper wins the day, the girl and the audience through sheer charisma.

4) BALL OF FIRE (1941)

"I've been accused of promoting Women's Lib, and I've denied it, emphatically. It just happens that kind of a woman is attractive to me. I merely am doing somebody that I like. And I've seen so many pictures where the hero gets in the moonlight and says silly things to a girl, I'd reverse it and let the girl do the chasing around, you know, and it works out pretty well." - Hawks to Joseph McBride

Hawks says that his writers were having a hard time with the script for BALL OF FIRE until he told them how he saw it. It's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES, he explained, with a burlesque singer as Snow White and a bunch of stodgy academics as the dwarfs. The film pairs the kind of straightforward and straight-laced romantic hero that Cooper played in SERGEANT YORK with a smart and sassy Hawksian heroine, played by Barbara Stanwyck. It's an obvious mismatch - not unlike Stanwyck and Henry Fonda in Preston Sturges's THE LADY EVE (1941) - but that's what makes it fun. Stanwyck is luminescent.

5) AIR FORCE (1943)

It's tough to make a case for AIR FORCE as love story, since there are few women in the film, but this is still a very emotional film. AIR FORCE is Hawks's tribute to the airmen of the World War II-era military, and the director's affection for every soldier onscreen is as heartfelt as any romance he's ever filmed.

In 1944, Hawks produced a similar (though much less heartfelt) tribute to the Canadian Navy, called CORVETTE K-225. In that film, Randolph Scott and Ella Raines make a charming enough couple, but the character development is marginal. Hawks later told Peter Bogdanovich that "it's very hard to make a good movie out of anything like that because you are always bound by limits laid down by the Army and Navy and so forth. There are too many people who have an idea of what it should be."

In the same year Hawks also co-directed a lusty western called THE OUTLAW, which introduced newcomer Jane Russell to drooling men around the world. His co-director Howard Hughes famously said, "There are two good reasons why men go to see her. Those are enough." It seems safe to say that Hughes wasn't quite the romantic that Hawks was. Hawks took no credit for the controversial aspects of the film, which completely overwhelmed the silly plot.

6) TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944)

"So we had a party out at the house Saturday night, and I asked [Lauren Bacall] to come out there. I said, 'Can't you get somebody to take you home?' She said, 'I don't do too well with the men.' I said, 'How do you treat them?' She said, 'As nice as I can.' I said, 'Well, try insulting them and see what happens.' So she came around the next Saturday and said, 'I got a ride home.' I said, 'What happened?' 'Well, I insulted a man and he liked it.' I said, 'What did you do?' She said, 'I asked him where he got his tie, and he said What do you want to know for? and I said So I can tell people not to go there.' I said, 'Who's the man?' She said, 'Clark Gable.' She was doing pretty good. So on Monday, I went to the writer and told him about this girl who could insult people and make them like her. Insolence, you know - that they liked. I said, 'You know, Bogie is the most insolent man on the screen. Do you think we can write a girl that is as insolent as he is?' The writer said, 'It would be fun to try.'" - Hawks to George Stevens Jr.

What can I say about this film? Bogart and Bacall are perfect together. Walter Huston recognizes the chemistry right away, when Bacall responds to his non sequitur about being bit by a dead bee. "Why don't you bite him back?" she asks, exuding sexuality. Off screen, Bogart fell in love with his co-star, and who can blame him? Bacall knows how to put the old "stinker" in his place, and he loves it. There are stories that Howard Hawks also fell in love with her, which may be why he used his wife's name "Slim" as a nickname for Bacall's character. She, in turn, calls Bogie "Steve," which is what Hawks's wife called him.

7) THE BIG SLEEP (1946)

It was a no-brainer to pair Bogart and Bacall in another film. As with TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE BIG SLEEP is driven by great performances. The real-life lovers are eminently watchable, but in this one Bacall has a little more competition... from her character's jailbait sister (Martha Vickers) and a sultry bookstore clerk (Dorothy Malone) who closes up her store early so she can seduce the private dick. The bookstore scene is unforgettable. According to Hawks:

"That wasn't the way it was written at all. We just did it because the girl was so damn good-looking." - Hawks to Joseph McBride

8) RED RIVER (1948)

Joanne Dru plays the love interest who initially comes between the father and son duo of John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in RED RIVER. If the actress doesn't seem quite up to the task, that's because shewas a last minute replacement for Maggie Sheridan, who announced that she was pregnant two days before the film started shooting. Dru has one particularly good scene with Montgomery Clift, in which she plays it tough while he removes a war arrow from her shoulder, but RED RIVER is more of a love story between Wayne and Clift (and no, I'm not suggesting that this is Duke's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN). As for Maggie Sheridan:

"Maggie had been taught by a fellow how to deal cards and the whole idea was this woman couldn't be a whore because she was too good at cards - that sort of thing. She had some great stuff to do. But Maggie married a very dull man and led a dull life for about five years. When she came back she wasn't the same person. If she'd only done Red River she'd have been a big star." - Hawks to Peter Bogdanovich

So Dru took the role and Clift became a big star. Soon after making this film, Howard Hawks and his wife Slim divorced. Hawks's next film was A SONG IS BORN, an embarrassing musical remake of BALL OF FIRE starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. Proof that good chemistry is everything.

Lance Henriksen's Ten Favorite Westerns

#1. THE BIG SKY (1952)

#2. THE PLAINSMAN (1936)

#3. SERGEANT YORK (1941) (a western "because of where the guy came from," his humble beginnings and his moral code)

#4. STAGECOACH (1939)

#5. THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE (1948)

#6. TRACK OF THE CAT (1954)

#7. VIVA ZAPATA! (1952)

#8. THE LEFT-HANDED GUN (1958)

#9. LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962)

#10. PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973)

Lance Henriksen Goes West

When I first approached Lance Henriksen about writing his biography in early 2010, I was halfway through writing a book on westerns. I had been working on it for about six months and in that time I'd watched and taken notes on more than 300 westerns - roughly two a day. When Lance expressed an interest in doing the biography, I put the western project on hold and started watching his films at roughly the same pace. I quickly realized that there was some overlap between the two projects.

Lance loves making westerns and, as filmmakers Philip Kaufman (who directed Lance in THE RIGHT STUFF) and Walter Hill (who directed Lance in JOHNNY HANDSOME) both attest, he's a natural for them. Kaufman says, "When I first met Lance, I knew. He had an intensity. I felt he was one of those real-life cowboys." Hill adds, “I think it might have been better if Lance had come along thirty years earlier – because he was born to do westerns. He looks so natural wearing the hat and riding the horse. When he walks into a bar, everybody looks up. He’s got that quality.”

When I started writing the biography, I mainly thought of Lance Henriksen as a horror movie icon - one of those rare character actors who can bring life to the darkest roles: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price. As I was writing, I began to see him in a very different light... as an actor with just as much in common with Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Lee Marvin or Charles Bronson. Much like director John Carpenter, Lance has spent a large part of his career making "hidden westerns." I count eighteen western-themed projects over the course of nearly three decades... which is not bad for a guy who got into film-making three years after the western genre effectively died at the box office. Here's the list:

THE RIGHT STUFF (1983)
It's a bit of a stretch to call the true story of the Mercury Seven a western, but I don't think it's a stretch to call Phil Kaufman's film a western. Kaufman chose to split the focus of the story between the seven astronauts ("the magnificent seven"?) and Chuck Yeager, the air force pilot who broke the sound barrier. In the film, the birth of the space program goes hand in hand with the death of an older type of hero. Think of it as a combination of "space western" and "elegiac western." Henriksen plays astronaut Wally Schirra.

CHOKE CANYON (1985)
The cowboy in this eco-thriller is Stephen Collins, who plays a research physicist fighting corporate raiders. Henriksen leads the opposition. Despite the beautiful Moab scenery, he doesn't look like he's having much fun playing the "suit." On the up side, he met one of his closest friends, stuntman Rex Rossi, on the set. Rex taught him knife-throwing and trick-riding, talents that Lance would put to good use in ALIENS and THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.

SAVAGE DAWN (1985)
This nearly-forgotten biker movie, shot in the Alabama Hills, follows the classic western movie template to a T. A heroic loner rides into a town overrun by outlaws... Chaos ensues. In this case, the heroic loner is Lance Henriksen, and the outlaws include William Forsythe, Karen Black and Richard Lynch (as a nymphomaniac priest). The designation "so bad it's good" was invented for movies like this.

ALIENS (1986)
Almost nobody thinks of James Cameron's stellar sequel as a western... except for James Cameron himself, who has referred to it as a science fiction version of THE ALAMO.

NEAR DARK (1987)
This vampire version of THE WILD BUNCH is a sublime mix of beauty and savagery. Henriksen is unforgettable as anti-hero Jesse Hooker, the patriarch of a bloodsucking clan that also includes his ALIENS co-stars Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein.

"Reach" (1987)
After NEAR DARK, Bill Paxton assembled an all-star cast to make a western music video for his band Martini Ranch. Ranchers included director James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow (who plays "The Woman with No Name" in the video), Rex Rossi, Jenette Goldstein, Paul Reiser, Adrian Pasdar, Judge Reinhold, Brian Thompson and Lance Henriksen.

STONE COLD (1991)
Director Craig R. Baxley describes this as a movie about "gasoline cowboys on steel horses." Henriksen, who plays the anti-hero biker Chains, also notes the western themes: "I love bikers. To me, they are Indians, not the cowboys, and people relate to them as such."

HARD TARGET (1993)
John Woo is a modern-day Sam Peckinpah. Similarities between the two filmmakers go beyond visual style (esp. the use of slow motion) to prevailing themes of spirituality and honor, as Woo explains: "I think any artist - especially a filmmaker - should have a moral responsibility. I'm not trying to glorify violence, because in every film of mine there's a moral standpoint behind the facade of the killings." HARD TARGET is a story of literal class warfare, with Lance Henriksen's high-octane capitalist pit against Jean-Claude Van Damme's blue collar rebel.

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (1995)
Sam Raimi's eccentric spaghetti western features Henriksen as slick and stylish gunfighter Ace Hanlon - the kind of guy who who pauses to wax his mustache before he kills someone. Ace is one of the actor's most accomplished comedic performances, illustrating his enthusiasm and affection for the western genre. Henriksen also does his riding, his own shooting (he trained with Thell Reed, reputedly the world's fastest gunman) and his own stunts - including a trick dismount that wowed Raimi during rehearsals.

DEAD MAN (1995)
Jim Jarmusch's acid western features Henriksen as one of three bounty hunters who are hired to kill Johnny Depp. Along the way, he cooks and eats the other two. This is possibly Henriksen's darkest character... a shocking counterpoint to his role in THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.

GUNFIGHTER'S MOON (1995)
Henriksen's third western of 1995 is a more traditional one, owing much to classics like THE GUNFIGHTER, HIGH NOON and SHANE. This time, the actor gets to play the hero, Frank Morgan... and it's a role he was born to play. Gary Cooper couldn't have done it better. In a 1995 interview the film's writer/director Larry Ferguson conceded, "Lance brought aspects of Frank Morgan to the screen that I never knew were there."

"MILLENNIUM" (1996 - 1999)
Chris Carter describes his original concept for this series as a traditional hero's journey: "[Frank Black] was a hero I wanted to create who I think, if he embodies anything, embodies the appropriate response to the world we live in, to the newspaper headlines we read everyday. I wish there were more people like Frank Black and this is my way of addressing that." In other words, Frank Black embodies the best qualities of the laconic western hero. He says what he means and does what he says. He is an individualist and a bit of a loner, but he devotes his life to protecting his family and the community at large. He tries to restrain himself from acting hastily... and when he does strike out in violence, he does so at great cost to himself.

THE LAST COWBOY (2003)
This family-friendly western features Henriksen as a stubbornly old-fashioned rancher at odds with Corporate America. He also steps into the familiar role of loving father... a role he knows by heart.

INTO THE WEST: "Hell on Wheels" (2005)
Once again, Henriksen plays a family man - the patriarch of the pioneering Wheeler family. As Daniel Wheeler, he puts his faith in the Puritan ethic and the frontier spirit. The simplicity of the character is what makes him shine.

"Gun" (2005) - video game
I'm not a gamer, but I imagine it must be amusing to hear Lance Henriksen's voice coming out of a fat, one-eyed railroad baron in this video game by Neversoft...

BONE DRY (2007)
At heart, this indie film is really a revenge western. Like Jimmy Stewart's character in THE NAKED SPUR, the main struggle in the film is not between two men but between the main character and himself. The film asks the question: How alive is a man who lives only for revenge?

PRAIRIE FEVER (2008)
This is a surprisingly good b-grade western, because it starts out like a simple revenge story and then develops into something a little more nuanced. The final act reveals the better angels of Henriksen's gunfighter persona, and the film serves as a great companion piece to BONE DRY.

APPALOOSA (2008)
This traditional western re-teamed Henriksen with THE RIGHT STUFF co-star Ed Harris, as well as Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons and Renee Zellweger. Henriksen is right at home among his peers in the Old West, playing a complex character with the potential to be good, bad or ugly in any given moment. Time and time again, it's that kind of human complexity that makes the his characters resonate.

Ride on.

TOMORROW'S POST: LANCE HENRIKSEN'S TEN FAVORITE WESTERNS!