Although I haven't gotten a western made yet, there's interest in a western series I've created (on paper). If you'd like to take a look at the sort of things I write, please visit my website, www.henrycparke.com. Thanks for looking!
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Turner Classic Movies for a short piece about Western movie fanatics. See it HERE.
MY ‘TRUE WEST’ COLUMNS
As Film Editor of TRUE WEST MAGAZINE, every month I explore the world of Western film and television. Below are links to my columns, beginning with the most recent.
On July 30th, 2015, I was the guest of hosts Bobbi Jean Bell and Jim Christina on ‘Writer’s Block’, their L.A. TALK-RADIO talk-show about the art and craft of writing. You can click PLAY to hear it, or DOWNLOAD to download it.
ROUND-UP ON THE RADIO!
Last Christmastime I was a guest on AROUND THE BARN, and had a great time talking about the Round-up, my writing, and Gene Autry’s Christmas music. To listen, click HERE.
Other Stuff I Write
While this blog is strictly about Western stuff, I also write another blog, Stalling Tactics, which is about anything else. If you'd like to read my most recent post, COSTUME DRAMA TRAUMA, go HERE.
COME
TO THE L.A. BREAKFAST CLUB ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, FOR ‘THE GREATEST WESTERNS EVER
MADE’, WITH TRUE WEST’S HENRY C. PARKE
That’s
right, my book, The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, and the People Who Made
Them, has been published by TwoDot, and I’ve been asked to speak about it. If
you like Westerns, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t, and you’re
in the L.A. area, we’d love to have you join us, have a delicious breakfast, and you can purchase a book if
you’d like. The Los Angeles Breakfast Club is a fascinating organization,
started 99 years ago, to promote friendship, and the illustrious members over
the years have included all of the studio heads, from Disney to Zanuck, not to
mention Tom Mix. You can buy tickets, and learn all about the Club, here: https://www.labreakfastclub.com/event-details/greatest-westerns-ever
I’ve
been the Film and TV Editor of True West magazine for nine years, and the book
is based on about eighty of my articles. I don’t mean to brag, but here are a
few reviews:
“Film
and TV critic for True West, Parke presents a collection of his
essays that will be a treat for western film fans… There’s plenty of
behind-the-scenes detail and also sharp examination of the cultural impact of
western films and of the social changes that affected their content… Parke’s
enthusiasm is infectious.”
― Booklist
"A
great read... a comprehensive, carefully curated look at the western genre on
film and television. Chock full of personal anecdotes that bring humanity to
its pages."
--
Patrick Wayne, Actor, The Searchers
"Honored to be featured in this new book by Henry C. Parke, film and TV
editor for True West magazine. It’s an in-depth, on point, and eclectic review
of the Western film and TV genre, from John Ford to Taylor Sheridan. If you
love Westerns, you’ll get lost deep in this one."
--
John Fusco, Writer, Young Guns and Young Guns II
Here
are links to a couple of places where my book is available:
The
TCM Classic Film Festival is back in Hollywood, from Thursday, April 18th,
through Sunday the 21st, and as usual, they will be headquartered at
the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The venues where films will be screening are the
Chinese Theatre IMAX, several of the Chinese Multiplex Theatres, the Egyptian –
newly refurbished by Netflix, the El Capitan, and there will be poolside screenings
at the Roosevelt. Check out their website here -- https://filmfestival.tcm.com/programs/schedule/20240418/
They
have, as always, a wonderful array of films that are almost never shown in
theatres. While the packages are insanely expensive, if you go on the stand-by
line for a movie that isn’t THAT popular, or one that’s in a HUGE theatre, you
can often get in: those tickets are only $20, and with a valid student i.d.,
only ten!
Among
the screenings that will be of particular interest to Western fans, on Friday at
9:30 a.m., at the Multiplex 4, they’re showing MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, the 1949
follow-up to SON OF KONG. A western? No, but it stars Ben Johnson, and it’s
introduced by John Landis, director of not only ANIMAL HOUSE, but THE THREE
AMIGOS! At 12:15 p.m. in the same theatre, Leonard Maltin is introducing the
1936 version of THREE GODFATHERS. This is not the John Ford, John Wayne 1948
Technicolor version. It’s directed by Richard Boleslawski, and stars the movies’
Boston Blackie, Chester Morris in the Wayne role, plus Walter Brennan before he
was cute and folksy, and Lewis Stone, when he was playing outlaws instead of
Mickey Rooney's father in the HARDY family films. Very tough, very gritty, very
good.
That
night at 6, still in theatre 4, it’s John Ford’s 1936 film THE PRISONER OF
SHARK ISLAND, starring Warner Baxter as Dr. Mudd, who treated John Wilkes Booth
after he assassinated Lincoln, and was sent to prison for it. The cruel prison
guard is the great John Carradine, and his son, Keith Carradine, will introduce
the film.
Robert Taylor teaches the women to shoot in
WESTWARD THE WOMEN
Saturday
morning they’ll be showing a rare 35mm nitrate print of ANNIE, GET YOUR GUN at
the Egyptian Theatre. At 6:15 at the Egyptian, it’s WESTWARD THE WOMEN, with
Robert Taylor leading an all-female wagon train, directed by William Wellman,
and written by Frank Capra – he wanted to direct it himself, but couldn’t get
it set up. Its premise might sound cute, but it’s a serious film, beautifully
done, and Robert Taylor does some of his best work as a man who truly doesn’t
expect many of his charges to survive. If you’d like to read the article I
wrote about Robert Taylor’s Westerns for the INSP channel, here’s the link: https://www.insp.com/blog/robert-taylor-hollywood-star-husband-to-barbara-stanwyck-and-cowboy/.
WESTWARD is introduced by this year’s honoree for the Robert Osborn Award,
Jeanine Basinger. I was not familiar with her until I interviewed Dana Delaney,
who told me of her college experience, “Wesleyan is more of an academic school
than a theater school. But they had a wonderful film department run by Jeanine
Basinger, and that was where I really developed my love of westerns.”
Sunday
at 9:30 a.m. in the Multiplex 6 they’re showing 1932’s LAW AND ORDER, the first
talkie version of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, starring Walter Huston as
Wyatt Earp, and Harry Carey as Doc Holliday, introduced by Brendan Connell Jr.,
C.O.O. of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
And
at 3:15 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, see the premiere of the 70mm restoration
of John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS, introduced by the director of THE HOLDOVERS, and
two-time Oscar-winner for scripting SIDEWAYS and THE DESCENDANTS, Alexander Payne.
MASON
BEALS – THE MAN WHO WOULD BE TEDDY ROOSEVELT
ELKHORN,
the new INSP series which airs on Thursday nights, stars Mason Beals as 25-year-old
Teddy Roosevelt, a well-educated, socially prominent urban up-and-comer with a happy
homelife and a growing political career, who saw his life shatter when, in one
day, his mother died of Typhoid, and his wife died giving birth. Determined to
rebuild his life, the frail, sickly young man abandons east coast city life and
travels west, settling in the Dakota Territory.
Mason
Beals, who plays Teddy has, to put it mildly, followed a non-traditional route
to stardom. His self-generated career began as a reaction to desperate boredom.
“For about nine months, I lived in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, in this town
called Bonners Ferry. That’s because my dad had traded a Jeep for an acre and a
half of property. My parents wanted to live debt free, so we built this place
that looked like Noah's Ark, and lived there when the building was three-quarters
finished. We were really trapped inside in the wintertime, and my younger
brother and I were as bored as could be. I was just chopping and stacking
firewood all winter, and I just started making YouTube videos, doing silly
little vlog type things, and eventually started making stuff that was more scripted.
That's where I learned how to edit and shoot.”
Mason Beals as Teddy Roosevelt
When
his family moved back to his hometown of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, the performing
bug had bitten him, “but there wasn't much of an acting scene out there, so if
you wanted to act, you had to make your own stuff.” He moved to Austin, “and I
worked for a production company as an editor, as a shooter, sometimes
producing, directing, and continued to make short films,” until his final move
to Los Angeles, when he “started to do work with other people.”
Unlike
many men his age, the Western genre is not foreign to Mason. “My dad’s a really
big movie fan. He’s a blue-collar guy, did hardwood floors for 30 years. I was reminiscing about how we were going to Blockbuster
every week, and I remember he and I had watched 3:10 TO YUMA for the first time
and I just loved it. And TRUE GRIT is great. So there were a handful of
westerns, and I always enjoyed them. And now having done one, anytime I watch a
Western, it's very much like, now I know how the sausage is made a little bit
more. So it's very fun to watch it from that angle; they’re such a fun genre.”
He
credits his father’s example in preparing to take on the responsibility of
playing a lead in a series. “A hard work ethic is needed for something like
this, and I definitely got that from my dad. I did hardwood floors with him for
a good period of time. I mean, he's just the hardest worker that's ever graced
this earth, and so learning from him, it teaches you a little bit of grit, and
learning how to be a little bit rough and tumble, going with the flow of
things. Keeping a positive attitude when things go wrong; he would always keep
a good demeanor. That kind of psyche skill.”
In
what ways was does Mason think he and Roosevelt are alike? “You know, when I
was reading about his time (in Elkhorn), he talked about how scared he was when
he came out here. And he said, by pretending to not be afraid, he became not
afraid. I really did relate to that, because the role is intimidating in a lot
of ways because he's such an icon. It's definitely an adventurous kind of a
shoot. I really relate to the fish out of water element. I was bullied in
school and TR was bullied.”
Teddy at his wife's deathbed
Mason
brought some Western-ish skills with him, but others he’s had to learn as he
goes. “Horseback riding was definitely new for me. Even though I had grown up
around people who had horses, I just had never had the opportunity. But it was a
pretty quick learning period; I had just a handful of lessons, and then the
experience came just being on-set. I learned a lot; I feel very comfortable on
horses now in a way I didn't really think I was going to. I'm kind of a coward
in a lot of ways. Riding, that's probably the biggest skill that I've like
taken away from this. But I grew up shooting guns, growing up in Idaho.”
AND
THAT’S A WRAP!
Coming
in the next Round-up, my interview with TOMBSTONE costume designer Joseph
Porro!
Happy
Trails!
Henry
All
Original Contents Copyright April 2024 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
His thoughts on Murder at Yellowstone City, his other Westerns, American Films in General, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in
Particular
By Henry C. Parke
Richard Dreyfuss, an
Oscar winner for The Goodbye Girl, beloved for Jaws, American
Graffiti, Close Encounters and so many more, has finally made a Western
movie. It’s about time: after all, the
American history enthusiast is a Civil War reenactor. “Why wouldn't I be? When you realize how
heavy their packs were, and what they did with all that weight on them, it's
astounding. We made America to build a different and better country than any
other country had ever tried. I have a great deal of pride, however badly we
might have done it. I call it an imperfect miracle.”
Isaiah Mustafa and Richard Dreyfuss
In Murder at
Yellowstone City, a forlorn former goldrush town in Montana gets a sudden
influx of hope when a man dynamites the old mine, and creates a new gold
strike! Then a freed slave (Isaiah
Mustafa) arrives in town just as the gold striker turns up dead. Gabriel Byrne is the law, Thomas Jane is the
pastor, and Anna Camp is his wife. Richard Dreyfuss is the Shakespeare-quoting
saloon proprietor. Produced by RLJE Films, distributed by AMC, Murder at
Yellowstone City is available on AMC+, for rent or sale through Prime, and
on DVD and Bluray. “What appealed to me
about the film was that it was a kind of metaphor for America,” Dreyfuss
explains. “About people who had come to America, who were being given a second
chance.” It’s actually Dreyfuss’ third
chance at a Western; the first two were for television.
Svetlana and Richard Dreyfuss on the red carpet
The Big Valley
episode, Boy into Man, was a star-turn for young Dreyfuss as a boy
trying to protect his younger siblings when his mother disappears. And in addition to the Big Valley
stars, his mother was Diane Ladd, and he was directed by Casablanca star
Paul Henreid. “I worked with Barbara
Stanwyck, and that's no small thing: she's part of my innermost fantasy of what
it's like to be a movie star. And when I got to work the first morning, she had
been there since 4:00 AM, and the crew made it crystal clear to me that they
were Missy's crew and they were proud of it. And they didn't want to hear any
criticism of Missy. And I had seen every film she'd ever made. So my tongue
cloved to the roof of my mouth for most of the time that I was on that show.”
Richard Dreyfuss, Lee Majors, Darby Hinton
and Margot Jane on The Big Valley
“I walked in and there
was Paul Henreid, and I said, ‘Oh my God, it's an honor to meet you, Mr.
Henreid.’ And he then asked the question, which is always answered with the
actor's oath. The question was, do you know how to ride a horse? And I said, ‘I
was raised on a ranch outside of Las Vegas: of course I do!’” Actually, he grew
up in Brooklyn.
There was a scene where
Dreyfuss had to drive away in a buckboard with his younger brother and sister
beside him. On the day of the shoot,
Dreyfuss pulled the wrangler aside, “And I said, ‘Excuse me, how do you do it?’
And he went, ‘Oh my God, this is really hard, and you've got two little kids
sitting next to you on this wagon.’ So I
was terrified, and I put the two kids on the buckboard and they yelled, Action!”
Darby Hinton, the boy in
the wagon, remembers, “He only had to go three or four feet, pull up, and
stop. But when they said action, he did the only thing he’d seen in the
Westerns. He yelled “Yee-haw!” and they took off!”
Dreyfuss recalls ruefully,
“And away they ran! Cut! Cut! Cut! I was
out of control,” he remembers with a laugh.
“They were afraid that I was gonna kill these kids.” The wranglers eventually caught up with the
wagon, got control of the horse, and brought them back.” Henreid was furious
with me. And he said, ‘Do you know why you got this part from me?’ I said, ‘I
did a good reading?’ And he said, ‘No! It
is because you said it is an honor to meet you Mr. Henreid!’”
Dreyfuss got through the
show somehow, “And at the end of the show, Barbara Stanwyck came up to me and
she said, "You know, you're the best actor that's ever guested on this
show." And walked away. And I believed her, and I did something I'd never
done before, or since. I invited my family and my friends to watch it with me.
And I realized, as we all were watching, that what Barbara Stanwyck had done
was to say to herself, ‘If I don't say something nice to this kid, he's gonna
blow his brains out because he's such a terrible actor.’ So she said this nice
thing, and I watched that performance, and I wanted to chop my tongue off. But
it certainly did provoke me into being better.
“I did the first Jewish Gunsmoke.”
“This Golden Land” won the Mass Media Award from The National Conference of
Christians and Jews. Hal Sitowitz’
script was nominated for a Writers Guild award for Best Episodic Drama.
Dreyfuss plays a Russian-born Jewish son who is furious with his father for
refusing to bring charges against the three cowboys who killed his brother.
Here he gets to ride horses and fire shotguns. It felt good to play a Jewish
character in a western, “in the sense that, yeah, I'm Jewish and I like being
Jewish. And so it was an opportunity to kind of flaunt my being Jewish. But I
didn't think it was a particularly subtle, well-written script.”
Growing up, Westerns were
not Richard Dreyfuss’ primary focus. “I was a fan of movies, sound American
films. What my daughter disdainfully calls ‘black and whites’. I had probably
seen every movie ever made by an American studio between 1931 and ’60, I knew
everything about everyone. I used to set my alarm for three o'clock in the
morning and watch A Guy Named Joe with Spencer Tracy. And I would sit
this close to the TV so I could keep it quiet, but my mother would inevitably
wake up and come down the hall looking very much like the Wreck of the
Hesperus. She would say, ‘What are you doing?’ And I would say, ‘Spencer Tracy.’
And she said, ‘I'll get some cheese.’ And we would sit there together and watch
Tracy, and [Charles] Laughton movies, and wow: they do not make them the way
they used to.
“You know the story about
when the Germans occupied Paris? They said to the film theater owners, we’ll give
you a week to play anything you want. And then the German films will come in.
And every theater in Paris played Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And at
the end of the occupation, every theater in Paris again played Mr. Smith.
You know why and I know why. I once was
the keynote speaker to a room of about a thousand people, and Jimmy Stewart.
And I described Jimmy Stewart as a metaphor for America, that he was the
perfectly innocent American before the war. And I was specific about saying, in
Mr. Smith, there's this scene when he meets Claude Rain's daughter. And
he's so nervous, he keeps dropping his hat. It's hysterical. And then he went
to war, a very real war. His war was from the sky. And when he came back, he
never made another innocent American film again. And he never made a film that
blamed the Indians for everything. He was a complicated guy. At the end of that
luncheon, I was on my way out, and his daughters ran up to me and said, our dad
can't talk to you right now because he's crying. But he wanted you to know that
he never knew that anyone had ever watched him that closely. And I thought,
God, this guy's been a star since 1934. And he didn't know that people watched
him that closely.”
AND THAT'S A WRAP!
I hope to see many of you good folks starting this Thursday at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood! It has the best Western representation in years, beginning at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, with the premiere of the restoration of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo! And yes, the lovely star Angie Dickinson will be there! They'll also be showing the great noir Western Blood on the Moon, the great musical Western 7 Brides for 7 Brothers -- Russ Tamblyn will be there (!), plus the great silent Western Clash of the Wolves, plus The Wild Bunch, and Treasure of the Sierra Madre!
And the following weekend, it's the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival! It's a wonderful free event -- if you'd like to attend, go HERE for the official website. And be sure to visit the Buckaroo Book Shop at the Festival, where you can meet your favorite Western authors, and hear their presentations. Click the Rendezvous with a Writer Facebook Page link to get the details!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright April 2023 by Henry C. Parke. All Rights Reserved
On Monday, November 28th,
at 10 p.m. Eastern time, the second of INSP’s County Line movies
starring Tom Wopat, County Line: All In, will play on INSP.It’s also streaming on Vudu, and is available
to purchase on Amazon.
No disrespect to Waylon
Jennings, there’s nothing wrong with being a good ol’ boy, but fans who know Tom
Wopat by his portrayal of rural characters in movies like County Line
and series like TheDukes of Hazzard may be surprised to learn
that he’s also a major Broadway musical star. Tom certainly has his country
credentials, growing up in Lodi, Wisconsin, “On a farm.Every other farmer had a little dairy farm.”But his goals would soon draw him beyond his
state’s border, and he credits Wisconsin’s education system for preparing him.
TOM WOPAT:Back in the sixties. you remember when
Kennedy said we we're going to the moon in nine years?We did, you know. I think that our schools in
Wisconsin were exceptional, in that decade especially. And I was fortunate
enough to have really fine music teachers, even when I was a little kid.The local music teacher kind of took me under
her wing and encouraged me to learn songs and do solos. And then a guy from
North Carolina came to the University of Wisconsin, and he, again, took me
under his wing and taught me. I sang opera, I sang German Lieder art songs. I
had a really wonderful musical education in our little high school.
HENRY PARKE: So you were
first attracted to music, rather than acting?
TOM WOPAT: Definitely. I
did my first musical when I was 12.I
kinda learned acting just in self-defense (laugh). I started getting better and
better parts and, when I went to the University, (I did) West Side Story,
and Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar -- I played Judas in
that. It was amazing. And also there were guys that, again, took me under their
wing. I was directed towards the summer stock theater in Michigan, where I
could get my [theatre actors’ union] Equity card. After I got my Equity card, I
took my ‘68 Chevy and 500 bucks and two guitars and drove to New York.
When I got to New York,
it was pretty quick. I got there in the fall of ‘77, and by the spring of 78 I
was in an off-Broadway musical. I left that one to go to D.C., where I played
the lead character in The Robber Bride Room, the Bob Waldman musical. I
left that to go back to Broadway and replace Jim Naughton in I Love My Wife.
So within six or seven months of being in New York, I was on Broadway in the
leading role.
HENRY PARKE: When you
were doing so well on Broadway, why did you go to Hollywood?
TOM WOPAT: To quote Larry
Gatlin, they made me an offer I couldn't understand (laugh). It was shortly
after I finished an off-Broadway run in Oklahoma. I read for Dukes,
and that afternoon they called and said, you want to fly to LA and do a screen
test? I said, I guess so. I don't know (laugh), I'm just a farm boy from
Wisconsin. So I packed up a few things in a paper bag and got on a plane. And
10 days later, we were shooting in Georgia.I mean, I went from Wisconsin in the fall of '77 to New York, and was on
Broadway in the summer of 78. And in the fall of 78 we were making the Dukes
of Hazzard.
Tom Wopat and John Schneider
HENRY PARKE: That's
amazingly fast.
TOM WOPAT: Yeah, it was a
bit of a whirlwind. When I found out I got the part, I was more frightened than
relieved. I had just put my toes into the water in New York City, doing
Broadway, and then all of a sudden I gotta go and do a role in an action
series. I had no idea how to approach television. It's a different ballgame
than being on stage.But I figured I'd
make a little money and go back to Broadway, but not so: Dukes was a big
hit immediately. So then I moved to LA for a few years.
HENRY PARKE:You mentioned going to Georgia to shoot. I
thought the series was shot at Warner Brothers in Burbank.
TOM WOPAT:We shot five shows in Georgia, and it was a
little grittier, a little more adult show than what it ended up being. They
started preaching to the choir a little bit. And some of the scripts got fairly
cartoonish for a while. We even had a visitor from outer space in one episode (laugh),
which is really bizarre.
HENRY PARKE:How did you get along with John
Schneider?
TOM WOPAT:I’ve got six brothers, but I count John as
number seven. I really, really enjoyed
my time. I enjoyed our cast. Our cast was very close and still is, really a
nice bunch of people.
HENRY PARKE: You worked
with two of my favorite actors in that regularly, Denver Pyle as Uncle Jesse,
and James Best as Sheriff Rosco Coltrane.
TOM WOPAT: Terrific actors,
terrific. And Sorrell Booke [Boss Hogg] might have been the best of the bunch.Denver and Jimmy probably had more
visibility, but Sorrel was kind of ubiquitous for a while. He's in What's
Up, Doc? He was on M.A.S.H. And he was a really, really talented
guy. All three of them were very talented and very helpful to the younger crew.
HENRY PARKE:Why did you and John Schneider famously walk
out?
TOM WOPAT: Well, they [the
Dukes producers] sell all the dolls and the cars and all that
merchandise stuff, and we were supposed to get a pretty good taste of that.But the way they did it is they had a series
of shell companies.So they would buy
the company that made the toys, they would buy the company that licensed
everything. They were making half a billion dollars a year, and we were getting
a check for a couple of grand. So we thought we were being cheated. And
unfortunately, that's the word we used in our lawsuit, and they took umbrage to
that and then sued us. In retrospect, it might not have been the best bunch of
decisions that we made. However, it was the first time that two stars of a show
had walked out together, and that meant something to other actors in the
business.We didn't really get a raise
(laugh). They just dropped all the lawsuits. And we did get a couple of new
writers, and I was able to direct a half a dozen episodes. I very much enjoyed
that.We had a little more control of
the artistic input into the show. I mean, that could be an oxymoron for Dukes
of Hazzard, but John and me, we had a lot of skin in the game. We were out
there every week doing this stuff, and they kept shortening the shooting
schedule.And they wanted to use
miniature cars and barns and stuff. They were doing stunts that weren't stunts,
filming stuff with toys and presenting it like it was real. And that was kind
of an insult. So, for one of my last episodes, I took out all the miniature
stunts that they were gonna do, and I put in footage from earlier shows, different
angles of jumps and crashes that we did that weren't used.We had this huge backlog of stuff like that,
and I put it to good use. And John got to direct; John directed the final one. In
retrospect, we may have shortened the life of the show a little bit with our
walkout, but you know, hindsight's 20-20. We moved on and had a lot of success.
I started making records, and from 1991 until 2013, I was probably in a dozen
different shows on Broadway.
HENRY PARKE:Including your first historical Western role,
as Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun.
Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat
TOM WOPAT:We had so much fun!Bernadette Peters is the perfect leading
lady, and I worked with her for almost two years.That's really the high point of my Broadway
career.Then Glengarry Glenn Ross opened up a
whole different territory of parts to me. People were not aware that I had any
range. They're used to seeing me as the big dog in a musical. And in Glengarry,
I was the patsy, I was the one who got taken advantage of. That was interesting;
that was hard. Because I'm so used to playing the hero.Playing
somebody that gets skunked, it's not a feeling I wanna walk around with all day
(laugh), but I've had other interesting parts. I did a thing with Cicely Tyson,
The Trip to Bountiful. That's the last time I was on Broadway.
HENRY PARKE:And you played Sky Masterson in Guys and
Dolls.
TOM WOPAT: Oh man, what a
dream cast. Nathan Lane was Nathan Detroit, Faith Prince was Miss Adelaide,
Josie de Guzman was Sister Sarah.One of
my favorite parts is playing Billy Flynn in Chicago, because he shows up
late and leaves early, and he wears one outfit.
HENRY PARKE:In 2010 you did the film Jonah Hex, which
is certainly an edgy Western --somewhere between historical and steampunk.
Tom Wopat in Django Unchained
TOM WOPAT:It's like, metaphysical.I read for it and they decided I could wear a
dental prosthesis and (laugh) pull it off. That was kind of a complicated
situation. I think they went through three directors getting that thing filmed.We worked in Louisiana.I enjoyed it. It wasn't the most fun I've had;
I'll tell you the most fun I’ve had doing a Western was Django Unchained.
Oh my gosh. That was great. Basically, my part [as a U.S. Marshall] is kind of
a one- trick-pony, but what I did in the movie is exactly what I did in the
audition.Tarantino was very, very
gracious. People don't know, but Tarantino used to study acting with James
Best. [Tarantino] would take a bus up from Torrance, and he would have a class
on Thursday night, and then Jim would let him sleep in the classroom.Then he would come over to Warner Brothers
the next day, I think he's 18, 19 years old, and hang out on the set being one
of Jim's guests. So now he has a habit of using TV stars in his films; like Don
Johnson was so super in Django. I enjoyed Longmire, another
Western.I'm playing kind of a villain
in a sense. It's always implied that I'm taking money from the oil companies to
let them do what they want in my county. That was a quality organization. And
one of the producers was the daughter of one of the people that worked on Dukes
at Warner Brothers.
Tom Wopat in Longmire
HENRY PARKE: You shot Django at Melody Ranch.
TOM WOPAT:Right, the Gene Autry place.
HENRY PARKE:As a singer, did you feel any Gene Autry
vibes there?
TOM WOPAT:No. But you feel the vibes of his horse
that's buried there standing up -- you know that?He buried Champion standing up. We had a good
time. One notable thing that Tarantino does is, when you go to the set, you
check your phone. There's no cell phones on the set.Which I thought was genius, and it's not
brain surgery to do that.You want
everybody focused on what they're supposed to be doing, not checking their
email.
HENRY PARKE: Right. And
there's way too much of that on sets these days.
TOM WOPAT:When I was doing A Catered Affair one
time, there was a kid down in the front row and he was looking at a cell phone
and I was like six feet away.I'm
sitting at a table right at the edge of the stage and I just looked down there
and I just shook my head back and forth and he put the phone away.
HENRY PARKE:I was surprised to realize that the first County
Line movie you made for INSP was four years ago.
TOM WOPAT: Yeah, it was a
while back, and it was actually their first action movie. Their previous movies
had largely been romcoms, maybe with a little bit of drama to them.Ours was the first action one. I had so much
fun. I had such a great time. And then, they asked if I wanted to do two more, two
sequels back-to-back. I said, yeah, you bet. So we filmed them down in
Charlotte and around there. And again, a lot of fun, the most fun, really, I've
had since Django or Dukes. Because in these shows I'm kind of
the big dog, the leader of the pack and I enjoy being able to set the tone on
the set, and making sure everybody has a good time. So I take the cast and crew
out bowling, or I'll bring in a big pot of chili that everybody has to have a
taste of, or make ribs for everybody. I enjoy that kind of hosting situation, and
being the alpha male.It's not probably
the most attractive thing to be the alpha male, but (laugh) I enjoy it.
HENRY PARKE: And you need
one.
TOM WOPAT: Usually
there's a leader on the set. When we were doing Dukes, the leader on our
set was a director of photography, Jack Whitman, may he rest in peace. He set
the tone. He had come from shooting Hawaii 5-0, so him and his crew had
all come from Hawaii. And there was a certain vibe on the set that was focused
but gentle. And erudite. He was a real leader in a very soft-spoken way. He was
a good guy to learn from.
HENRY PARKE: For folks
who haven’t seen the first County Line movie, and don’t know your
character, Sheriff Alden Rockwell, what does the title refer to?
TOM WOPAT:There’s a café, basically a diner, that sits on
the county line, on the road.There's a
line that runs down the middle of the café, a line drawn across the table
exactly where the county line is, so if I have a beer, I have to put it in the
other county, because we don't drink in my county.There was cooperation between me and the
sheriff in the next county [Clint Thorne, played by Jeff Fahey], and we had
actually served together in Vietnam as Marines, so we’re heavily bonded.
HENRY PARKE:I don’t want to give away too much, because
it’s a good mystery as well as a rural crime story.
TOM WOPAT:It's a little bit like Walking Tall.
HENRY PARKE:Yes. Alden Rockwell became a widower in the
first film.And the diner’s
proprietress, Maddie Hall, is played by Patricia Richardson.
Patricia Richardson
TOM WOPAT:And Pat Richardson has a really nice quality.
It gives you a sense of comfort to see somebody that you know and recognize. I
mean, being kind of my girlfriend and also running a diner and looking after my
health, there's a comforting part of that. I think one of the real attractions
of Dukes to families is that it's about family, and it's about taking
care of your family, and making sure that nobody comes to harm. And when we're
talking family, we talk extended family. So if Boss or Rosco got their tail in
a crack somewhere, Jesse would make sure that we helped them out of it. I liken
it to The Andy Griffith Show.
HENRY PARKE:Oh, I can see that immediately. In the County
Line films Abby Butler plays your daughter, and it’s a very interesting and
very unusual relationship between you two, with her as a recently returned Iraq
War vet.
TOM WOPAT: Well, she's a
pistol, man! She didn't take any guff off me. I'm proud of her for joining the
service, but I'm frightened for her at the same time.
HENRY PARKE: Right.
TOM WOPAT:There's that one scene in the original County
Line where we're out on the porch and breaking down pistols that we've just
taken from a bunch of nefarious dudes. And I asked the director, I said keep
this in a two-shot. Because it really works, and any cuts back and forth would
be more of a distraction than a help. If you look at old movies, a lot of the
really good scenes are shot in a two shot.They let you decide who you want to watch for the reactions and who you
want to listen to. It's not like [single close-up] ‘talking heads’, which
television in the eighties got into a lot. We had a lot of fun making County
Line and we had just as much fun making these two new movies.
Tom Wopat and Kelsey Crane
HENRY PARKE:Someone who’s new to the mix is Kelsey Crane,
who plays Jo Porter, who is now the sheriff across the county line.
TOM WOPAT:She's terrific. She's got a lot of talent and
she also has the moxie to know how to work a set and how to let people do their
jobs without getting in their stuff. Cause a lot of actors will kind of try to
be the center of attention all the time. And that gets pretty old.
Tom Wopat and Denim Richards
HENRY PARKE:If there are going to be more County Line
movies, or possibly a series, the determining factor will probably be how
audiences relate to your character.Why
do you think viewers will keep coming back?
TOM WOPAT:Because Alden is the kind of a guy who, if he
sees an injustice, he's gonna try and do something to make it right. Whether he
really has the power to do that, the agency to do that, that doesn't matter.
He's going to do what he can, legally, mostly.
THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE
MOVIE-HISTORY LOVER:
VITAGRAPH – AMERICA’S
FIRST GREAT MOTION PICTURE STUDIO
BY ANDREW A. ERISH
ARTICLE BY HENRY C. PARKE
NOTE: The videos you’ll
see embedded throughout the article are not merely clips, they are complete
films, some running just three minutes, others nearly half an hour.
While most film
biographers and historians set out to teach you more about the films and personalities
you’ve already grown to love, educator, historian and author Andrew Erish has
set himself a more ambitious task: he seeks out the film pioneers who have been
undeservedly written out of the histories.The depth and detail of his research is astonishing, and his prose is
accessible and entertaining. With his
previous tome, the fascinating Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented
Hollywood, he told of the life and work of a film pioneer whose name
belongs alongside D.W. Griffith, Jesse Lasky, and Cecil B. DeMille.He wants to save Vitagraph from the same sort
of obscurity.
The output of this
initially Brooklyn-based movie studio was remarkable.“They were leading the way,” Erish explains. “From 1905 on, they were producing more movies
than anyone else in America. They were the first to consistently release a film
a week; then it became two films a week until, by 1911 or 1912, they were
releasing six shorts and one feature every week. It's just an astounding output,
and covering every kind of movie imaginable.”
The men who formed
Vitagraph were unlike any of the other movie moguls.Sam Goldwyn was a glove salesman. Louis Mayer
was a nickelodeon theatre operator. They all came to movies from business.But not Vitagraph’s J. Stuart Blackton and
Albert E. Smith.“They started out as vaudeville
entertainers.”Both English immigrants,
who arrived in America at the age of ten, Smith was a magician, ventriloquist,
and impressionist.Blackton was a cartoonist
and quick-sketch artist.“They
understood the aesthetic that ruled vaudeville, which was a variety of
entertainment that would appeal to the widest possible audience, with something
for every segment of the audience. And understanding firsthand what audiences
reacted to, as stage performers, they had insight that really no mogul coming
after them had; they had experience.”
Erish makes a convincing
case that Blackton created the first animated films.“There's absolutely no doubt about it,” he
asserts. “A lot of history books mistakenly credit, a Frenchman named Emile Cohl,
but Cohl's first animated film was made after Blackton had already made four or
five. And Cohl's very first film is actually aping a film which Blackton had
made a year earlier.”
Below is Blackton’s wonderful
1907 film, The Haunted Hotel.
The Haunted Hotel – 1907 dir.
Blackton
While Blackton was
pioneering animation, “Smith, on the other hand, was very interested in making
action-oriented films, and great with moving camera ideas and staging dramatic
moments and action to their greatest effect, in real locations, so that these
stories would appear more real. And if he was staging something at a steel
mill, he would photograph at real steel plants, and put real steel workers
mixed in with his lead actors, and it all looked real.”
They excelled in
Westerns, eventually. “The very first Westerns Vitagraph made were in Prospect
Park in Brooklyn. And they're really bad, there’s just no getting around it. But
they had a great story guy named Rollin Sturgeon, who they promoted to
director. The guy had such a strong story sense and such a strong visual sense,
and they sent him out to Los Angeles to open up a second studio, primarily to
make Westerns. He made a film about the Oklahoma land rush called How States
are Made. When the starting cannon
is fired, he covers everything in an amazing, extraordinary wide-angle shot
that starts with an empty hill.And you
start to see the crest of the hill is covered in these little dots.Then they start to move down the hill and you
realize these are people on horseback, covered wagons, the horse-buggies --
they're all coming towards the camera. That shot lasts over three minutes and
it's absolutely stunning to let it play out in real time in a single shot.”
How States are Made -- 1912
While Thomas H. Ince is credited
with “inventing” the Western, and the studio system (and for dying on William Randolph
Hearst’s yacht while sailing with Marion Davies and Charlie Chaplin), his
younger brother Ralph Ince was one of Vitagraph’s finest Western directors. “I
think Ralph Ince is second only to [D.W.] Griffith (for) his contributions to
the language of cinema.In The
Strength of Men, withthetwo guys shooting the rapids with
no protection, and then fighting in the midst of a real forest fire! It's in
front of your eyes, the way it would be if that dramatic story were really
happening for real.”
The Strength of Men –
Ralph Ince -- 1913
Vitagraph also excelled
in comedies, creating the first great movie comedian with John Bunny, here seen
assisted by fourteen-year-old Moe Howard!
Mr. Bolter’s Infatuation –
John Bunny -- 1912
Another huge comedy star
was cartoonist-turned-actor Larry Semon.Although his hilarious sight-gag comedies are forgotten in America
today, “Around the world, Larry Semon's movies have been shown, non-stop to
this day on TV in Spain, Germany, throughout South America, and Italy.”
You can watch Semon
perform with a yet-to-team Stan Laurel…
Frauds and Frenzies – Larry Semon, Stan Laurel
--1918
… and Oliver Hardy.If you’re offended by black-face jokes, you
can skip Hardy.
The Show – Larry Semon,
Oliver Hardy – 1922 Norman Taurog
While the story of the demise
of the Vitagraph company is by turns infuriating and heartbreaking – they barely
survived into the sound era -- their influence on film is inestimable.Many of their discoveries went on to notable
careers both in front of and behind the camera.“Edward Everett Horton made his first movies at Vitagraph, and became a
big silent star. Adolph Menjou started at Vitagraph, playing suave, debonair
characters. Frank Morgan, who played the Wizard of Oz, got his start in
Vitagraph movies, as a much younger man, back in the teens. And Larry Semon hired
a young guy who had directed one or two films, a kid named Norman Taurog, to be
his co-director and co-writer. And Northern Taurog went on to have an
illustrious career. He directed Bing Cosby and Bob Hope, he directed six Martin
and Lewis movies, he directed nine Elvis movies – he was Elvis' favorite
director.”
Vitagraph is
the winner of the 2022 Peter C. Rollins Book Award and received an award from
the Popular Culture Association as one of the best books of 2022.It’s available directly from The University
Press of Kentucky, in hardcover and paperback, here: https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813195346/vitagraph/
It can also be ordered from
independent bookstores, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.
I’VE GOT A BOOK
DEAL!!!!!!!!!
I am thrilled to announce
that I am writing a book for TwoDot Publishing!Tentatively entitled The Greatest Westerns Ever Made, it will feature
many of my articles from True West magazine.It’s the perfect Christmas gift – but not this Christmas. It will be in book stores in the spring of
2024.
THE INSP ARTICLES
Just about a year ago,
the very fine folks at The INSP Channel, whom I’ve known for a decade, and
written for a little bit, hired me to write a couple of articles about Westerns
for them every month.I’ve been having a
great time doing it, although between writing for them, and being the Film and
Television Editor for True West magazine, I am sure you can understand why The
Round-up has been appearing less frequently than it used to.
One really exciting thing
that has come from this was to chance to interview John Wayne’s son, Ethan, on
camera.I’m including below a link to
that interview, and links to several of my INSP articles enjoy!
What better possible way
to follow up my interview with Tom Wopat?I’ll be talking with John Schneider about Dukes of Hazzard, his
Westerns, and his new movie, To Die For.Please check out the December 2022 issue of True West, with my article
on the best mountain man movie ever made, Jeremiah Johnson!And if I don’t get to post before the
holidays, have a very merry Christmas, a happy Chanukah, a happy New Year, and
a joyous anything and everything else that you celebrate!
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Content
Copyright November, 2022 by Henry C. Parke – All Rights Reserved
