Hopalong Cassidy Films Live on Forever
California Carlson and Hopalong Cassidy
After almost 40 years of riding across American TV and movie screens, the cowboy actor William Boyd, best known for his role in Hopalong Cassidy films as Hopalong Cassidy, died on September 12, 1972 at the age of 77.
His greatest achievement was to be the first cowboy actor to make the transition from movies to television. After World War II Americans began buying television sets in large numbers for the first time, and soon I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners were standard evening fare for millions of families. But despite their proven popularity in movie theaters, westerns were slow to come to TV. Many network TV producers scorned westerns as lowbrow “horse operas” unfit for their middle- and upper-class audiences…As if I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners was highbrow.
Hopalong Cassidy and Robert Mitchum
During the 1930’s, William Boyd made more than 50 successful “B-Westerns” starring as Hopalong Cassidy. After the war, Boyd recognized an opportunity to take Hopalong into the new world of television, and he began to market his old “B” westerns to TV broadcasters in Los Angeles and New York City. A whole new generation of children thrilled to “Hoppy’s” daring adventures, and they soon began to ask for more.
Rethinking their initial disdain for the genre, producers at NBC contracted with Boyd in 1948 to produce a new series of half-hour westerns for television. Soon other TV westerns followed. In 1959, seven of the top-10 shows on national television were westerns. The golden era of the TV western would finally come to an end in 1975 when the long-running Gunsmoke left the air, three years after Boyd died.
Kevin Costner Epic “Horizon: An American Saga”
The Western film genre has been eulogized since at least the early 1950s, but while it may occasionally falter in popularity, it’s never truly gone away. And this summer, Kevin Costner returns it to its proper place in the American cinematic firmament with his four-part Kevin Costner epic “Horizon: An American Saga”. Costner not only stars in the film, but he also returns to the director’s chair for the first time since 2003’s “Open Range” and co-wrote the script with Jon Baird.
The film co-stars an ensemble cast consisting of Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Giovanni Ribisi, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Michael Rooker, Danny Huston, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jeff Fahey, Will Patton, Tatanka Means, Owen Crow Shoe, Ella Hunt, Jamie Campbell Bower and Thomas Haden Church.
Described as a two-part event, the film is scheduled to premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2024, with Chapters 1 and 2 scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on June 28, 2024 and August 16, 2024, respectively, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Kevin Costner first commissioned Horizon as a single film in 1988, and later approached Walt Disney Pictures with the project after the release of his 2003 film Open Range. It was announced in January 2022 that Costner was set to direct and produce the film, a passion project for him, in addition to starring. It began casting in February. In April, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema joined the production to distribute. In a June interview, Costner stated he plans to make four movies out of the premise, and was looking to cast over 170 speaking roles.
In August, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jamie Campbell Bower, Luke Wilson, Thomas Haden Church, Jena Malone, Alejandro Edda, Tatanka Means and Michael Rooker were cast in the film. Isabelle Fuhrman, Ella Hunt, Jeff Fahey and Tom Payne would be amongst numerous casting announcements made throughout September. In October, Will Patton, Owen Crow Shoe and Danny Huston were added to the cast.
Filming of at least the first installment began on August 29, 2022 in southern Utah, concluding in November. Filming of the second installment began by May 2023, before concluding in the summer of that year.
Killers of the Flower Moon Trailer Released
The Killers of the Flower Moon trailer has debuted today. Based on the 2017 non-fiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by American journalist David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon will be Scorsese’s first outing since 2019’s Oscar-nominated The Irishman debuted on Netflix. Enjoy the Killers of the Flower Moon trailer here:
Initially scheduled to enter production in 2018, Killers was one of the many film projects hobbled by the pandemic, and didn’t get off the ground properly until February 2021. Its ballooning $200 million budget apparently makes it the most expensive film ever shot in Oklahoma – judging by the epic scale of the trailer, it’s not hard to see why.
Starring DiCaprio alongside Lily Gladstone, Brendan Fraser, Jesse Plemons and Scorsese stalwart Robert De Niro, the plot centres on a series of murders taking place in Osage County and Washington County in the early 1920s, after large oil deposits were discovered underneath land owned by the Osage people.
According to a Deadline feature on the making of the film, Scorsese and his two leads agreed early in pre-production that they did not want to “serve up a white-savior Western” that focused on the heroic deeds of FBI agent Tom White –the character DiCaprio was initially slated to play. DiCaprio reportedly suggested shifting the focus of the film to one of the suspects, Burkhart, and he wound up with the role, while Jesse Plemmons came on to olay White. De Niro plays William Hale, the uncle of Burkhart, and a key figure in the film’s central conspiracy.
“I’d read the book a few years earlier and the Tom White character was more prominent,” De Niro told Deadline. “That was right for the book, but Marty and Leo’s idea to focus on the relationship between Bill and Ernest made sense to me. They wanted to focus more on that dynamic instead of Tom White coming in and saving the day.”
Killers of the Flower Moon has its world premiere coming up at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday 20th May, and will release worldwide in cinemas on October 6, before streaming globally on AppleTV+.
Terror on the Prairie – American Western Film
Terror on the Prairie is a 2022 American Western film directed by Michael Polish and written by Josiah Nelson. Produced by The Daily Wire, and Bonfire Legend, and distributed by The Daily Wire and Voltage Pictures. The film follows a family of pioneers as they defend themselves from a vicious gang of outlaws hell-bent on revenge on the Montana plains. The film features the cast of Gina Carano as Hattie McAllister, Donald Cerrone as Jeb McAllister, and Nick Searcy starring as The Captain, with Rhys Jackson Becker, Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis, Tyler Fischer, Heath Freeman, Samaire Armstrong, and Matthias Hues all featured in supporting roles.
Several years after the end of the Civil War Jeb and Hattie McAllister struggle to raise their adolescent son Will and infant daughter in the wilds of Montana. Hattie expresses her desire to return to her families own land against Jeb’s wishes to be self reliant and to be capable of raising their family on the own. After Jeb leaves to go to the town to look for work, four strangers arrive and ask Hattie for some food and water—although, once she sees they have collected scalps and are killers, she kicks them out. However, the outlaws do not go far. Instead, a stand-off emerges after repeated attempts to break into the McAllister cabin are foiled by Hattie and Will.
Film Threat’s Alan Ng gave the film a score of 8.5 out of 10, stating that “If you like your westerns gritty, violent, and viscerally brutal, you’re in for a fun popcorn night at home.” Ng also spoke positively of Carano and Searcy’s performances. Wade Major of CineGods, awarding three out of four stars, described Terror on the Prairie as “below the surface, it’s a grueling — and often gruesome — meditation on the lingering self-inflicted wounds left by the American Civil War in far-flung locales like frontier Montana and beyond.” Major spoke highly of Searcy and Day Lewis’s performances, though of Nelson’s screenplay had stated that it “largely hews to formula, but it’s a competent effort with well-drawn, if archetypal, characters and strong, credible dialogue.” Christian Toto wrote, in his review for Hollywood in Toto, “Terror on the Prairie lags a bit in the middle thanks to a protracted stand-off. Perhaps a bigger budget would let the production insert flashbacks or other scenes to enhance the story. Otherwise, the film charges forward, letting us marvel at how Hattie improvises on her children’s behalf.”
“Dead For A Dollar” – New Walter Hill Western
The title of the new Walter Hill Western “Dead for a Dollar” makes it sound like a spaghetti Western, and the picture opens with stunning vistas and a wistfully valorous neo-Morricone score that gives you the impression — maybe the hope — that it will be. It ends on a very different note: a series of titles explaining, with precise dates and details, what happened to each of the main characters, as if the film were based on a true story. Veteran bounty hunter Max Borlund heads deep into Mexican territory to find and return Rachel Kidd, the wife of a wealthy businessman. After learning she actually fled from the abusive marriage, Max faces a choice: finish the job he’s been hired to do, or stand aside while ruthless mercenary outlaws and his longtime rival close in on a town that’s been his temporary sanctuary.
Hill, who is now 80 but still directs with his lean-and-mean vigor and classical rawhide stoicism (the movie is dedicated to Budd Boetticher, the legendary low-budget Western director of the ’50s), builds “Dead for a Dollar” around a vintage confrontation between two men: Max Borlund, a bounty hunter played by Christoph Waltz with a worldly twinkle that basically allows him to parade himself as an impish assassin, and Joe Cribbens, a gambler and outlaw played by Willem Dafoe as the most live-and-let-live of sociopaths. These two live, in deed or spirit, outside the law. They’ve known each other a long time and collide in the opening scene, when Joe is being released from prison. But then they go their separate ways. The film turns its attention to Max on his latest mission-for-hire, which involves several characters you would never have seen in a Budd Boetticher movie of the ’50s, or even a Walter Hill Western of the ’70s or ’80s.
Murder at Yellowstone City – Old West Film Out Now
Murder at Yellowstone City, directed by Richard Gray (Robert the Bruce), is a Old West film written by Eric Belgau (Robert the Bruce) sees a former slave arrive in Yellowstone City, Montana—a desolate former boomtown now on the decline—looking for a place to call home. On that same day, a local prospector discovers gold—and is murdered. It was the first production to be shot on a new Western backlot at the site that was once the real Yellowstone City. Gabriel Byrne (Hereditary), Thomas Jane (The Expanse), Isaiah Mustafa (It Chapter Two), Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws), Nat Wolff (The Fault in Our Stars), Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect), Aimee Garcia (Lucifer), Scottie Thompson (The Blacklist), Emma Kenney (The Conners) and Zach McGowan (Shameless) star.
Murder at Yellowstone City was produced by Gray, Robert Menzies (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), Kelly Frazier (From Black) and Lisa Wolofsky (Fatman). Jane and Courtney Lauren Penn of Renegade Entertainment exec produced alongside Carter Boehm, Julie Stagner, Will Lowery and Alexis d’Amecourt.
“I’ve dreamed about the wild west since I was a kid, so to make this film with such a talented cast at our own western backlot in Montana is beyond my wildest dreams,” said Gray. “It’s the first film ever shot at the Yellowstone Film Ranch. It’s a really special story – a thrilling western. I can’t wait to share it with everyone.”
“We’re thrilled to be releasing MURDER AT YELLOWSTONE CITY,” added RLJE Films’ Chief Acquisitions Officer, Mark Ward. “This Old West film offers a unique twist on the classic western and we look forward to working with the filmmakers and talented cast.”
RLJE Films is a business unit of AMC Networks. Its recent and upcoming films include writer-director Riley Stearns’ sci-fi thriller Dual, starring Karen Gillan and Aaron Paul; David Oyelowo’s directorial debut The Water Man; Amber Sealey’s Ted Bundy pic No Man of God, starring Elijah Wood and Luke Kirby; and the apocalyptic holiday dramedy Silent Night from writer-director Camille Griffin,which stars Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Roman Griffin Davis.
Old Henry (2021) – Great Old West Film
With the gorgeous and stark grasslands of Waterford, Tennessee, standing in for 1906 Oklahoma, “Old Henry” opens with a scene worthy of Clint Eastwood’s Old West film such as “Pale Rider” and “Unforgiven”. Henry (Tim Blake Nelson) plays a widowed farmer and his estranged son Wyatt (Gavin Lewis), living out their days in a small, isolated patch of fertile land from which they scratch out a meager living. Things however, take an unexpected turn when a grievously injured stranger named Curry (Scott Haze) stumbles into their midst with a cash loot. Henry nurses the man back to health but is suspicious of Curry and the story he conjures. Soon enough a posse of unsavory characters headed by their vicious ringleader Ketchum (Stephen Dorff) turns up on their doorstep and all proverbial hell break loose.
By this point, we’ve come to suspect there’s more to Old Henry than meets the eye. He’s adept at tending to Curry’s wounds, he punches out Curry with fast efficiency at one point, he’s lightning-fast with a gun and he sure isn’t acting like a scared farmer when he’s told there’s a trio of killers headed this way. Writer-director Potsy Ponciroli does a magnificent job of creating a slow build of tension, punctuated by the occasional and stunning moment of violence. (There’s even a measure of dark and grisly humor, e.g., when a body is disposed of and hungry pigs are fed, and those are not disconnected occurrences.)
With beautiful, widescreen cinematography by John Matysiak, impeccable production design and a pitch-perfect score from Jordan Lehning, “Old Henry” is a well-paced and engrossing story — and that’s even before there’s a revelation that’s great (that we saw coming as soon as we heard a certain character’s name). The ensemble is uniformly excellent, but this is Tim Blake Nelson’s showcase from the moment he appears onscreen, and he delivers world-weary greatness every step of the way.
Outer Range: Sci Fi Western Television Series
Outer Range is an American science fiction Sci Fi Western television series created by Brian Watkins and starring Josh Brolin. It premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 15, 2022.
Royal Abbott is a Wyoming rancher, fighting for his land and family, who discovers a mysterious black void in the pasture, following the arrival of Autumn, a drifter with a connection to Abbott’s ranch. While the Abbott family copes with the disappearance of their daughter-in-law Rebecca, they are pushed further to the brink when a rival family, the Tillersons, try to take over their land.
In February 2020, it was announced that Josh Brolin had signed on to star in Outer Range. The Western television series is executive produced by Brolin, Brian Watkins, Zev Borow, Heather Rae, Robin Sweet, Lawrence Trilling, Amy Seimetz, Tony Krantz, and Brad Pitt through his Plan B Entertainment. In December 2020, it was announced that Lewis Pullman, Noah Reid, Shaun Sipos, and Isabel Arraiza had joined the cast, alongside Brolin, Imogen Poots, Lili Taylor, Tamara Podemski, and Tom Pelphrey.
The series marks Brolin’s first television series role in nearly 20 years. The Western Sci Fi series was filmed over the course of eight months in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Creator Brian Watkins says: “That part of Wyoming is like God’s country. The soil is so rich. The topography is so beautiful. It’s one of the most miraculous, wondrous places on earth. And I think the reason it was important to keep them as a traditional ranching family that was really humble was to really explore characters that stand on values, that stand on principles that really embody what it means to not care about money, but to rather care about people and land and animals and things like that. I think over the course of the season, we also see how those principles are thrown into question and they’re challenged and they’re faced with the unknown in a certain way that it really helps each character look at the very ground that they’re standing on and what it means to them in the midst of an inexplicable world.”
