The Train Robbers

A group of train robbers, a lady in need of desperate help, two boxes of dynamite, and mysterious people chasing a small band of treasure hunters…  Sounds like a cross between Return to Devil’s Hole and The Man Who Murdered Himself, right?  Unfortunately, both of those episodes were far better than The Train Robbers, a 1972 movie directed by Burt Kennedy and starring John Wayne and Ann-Margret.

Ann-Margret plays a woman, Mrs. Lane, whose husband helped rob a train but was subsequently killed; not, however, before he told her where the money was buried.  She hires Mr. Lane, played by John Wayne, a drifter who drifts because he’s good at it, to find the gold, which is somewhere in the Mexican desert.  He hires four other men, whose characters never really become distinct from each other except for the youngest man, played by Bobby Vinton. 

The Train Robbers then proceeds to fill up 132 minutes of time as they undertake the journey to retrieve the gold.  Naturally, other people are also after the treasure.  Much time—far too much time—is spent on long camera shots of the good guys riding their horses, accompanied by slow, peaceful music interspersed with shots of the bad guys, numbering twenty in one group as well as another man following on his own, accompanied by fast-paced and loud music.

There are a number of shoot-outs, including a climactic scene when the hardy adventurers return to the isolated, one-train track Texas town from which they embarked upon their trip.  The best part of The Train Robbers was the ending, which had a twist but not the one I was expecting.

Two bonus features are included on the DVD.  One is called “Working with a Western Legend” and it includes interviews with a few of the actors and stunt men who worked with Wayne along with scenes from The Train Robbers.  The second is called “The Wayne Train” and lasts about five minutes; it provides details about the train that was used in the movie and is an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the film.

The Telegraph Trail

Stringing telegraph wire from the East to the West Coast was a difficult and sometimes dangerous endeavor and, regardless of whether the events in The Telegraph Trail actually occurred, this 1933 black-and-white movie provides a pleasant diversion for 54 minutes.  Starring John Wayne as John Trent, an Army scout, and Frank McHugh as Tippy, a soldier, this is an action-packed movie with plenty of humor and a romance thrown in for good measure.

After a brief prelude showing scenes of how new technology opened up the West, first by covered wagons in 1830, then with stagecoaches in 1840, followed by the Pony Express in 1850, and finally the telegraph in 1860, the audience sees a group of soldiers attacked by Indians who want to destroy the new communication system.  However, one man is able to send a message to the nearby Army fort before dying in the arms of Alice (Marceline Day), a young lady who happens to ride by in a stagecoach with her uncle at just the right moment. 

At the fort, John Trent volunteers to finish the job of stringing the final section of telegraph wire and Tippy, his trusty sidekick joins him.  The remainder of The Telegraph Trail details the machinations of a white man on the side of the Indians, for reasons that become clear early on, and alternate them with serious and humorous scenes of John, Tippy, Alice, and other townsfolk attempting to finish the telegraph.

There are only the most tenuous of connections between The Telegraph Trail and ASJ.  At one point Tippy asks, “Did I ever tell you about that little redhead I met in Wichita?” which called to mind what Heyes said in How to Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson when Harry Wagoner captured the boys.  The place where the telegraph wire is being laid is called Red Bluff rather than Red Rock.  Tippy reminded me of Kyle but he talks non-stop like Heyes.

There is a musical interlude but unlike Journey from San Juan and The Legacy of Charlie O’Rourke, the singers/musicians are men; they play “Oh Susannah” as well as “Mandy Lee,” a traditional song written in 1899.  So just like Wheat’s comment about Black Jack Ketchum in The Day They Hanged Kid Curry and Heyes’ comment about the Brown Palace hotel in Denver in The Posse That Wouldn’t Quit, using this song in The Telegraph Trail is anachronistic.

This is clearly an old movie: Many scenes are grainy; the chase scenes look as if the action has been speeded up; and the dialog between High Wolf, the Indian leader, and the white man who is his accomplice, is stereotypically awkward.  The climactic battle lasts far too long, in my opinion, and the ending of the movie is very abrupt and predictable.  Despite all that, however, for a film that is almost 80 years old, The Telegraph Trail is enjoyable and worth watching.

Audio recordings of “Mandy Lee,” archived by the Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/7410/ (from 1902) and
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/9629/ (from 1924)

Vera Cruz

If the word “frenemy” had been around in the late 1860s, it would have certainly described the relationship between Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster), an outlaw, and Ben Trane (Gary Cooper), an ex-Confederate Army colonel.  When they first meet each other in Mexico at the beginning of the movie, Erin and Trane engage in some horse trading but, unlike the scene in Wrong Train to Brimstone, the outcome in Vera Cruz is rather different and it nicely sets the tone for the rest of the film.  Erin has a gang of men working for him, one of whom, Tex, is played by Jack Elam (Boot Coby in Bad Night in Big Butte).

In Vera Cruz, Cooper and Lancaster play two Americans who take sides during Benito Juarez's uprising against Emperor Maximilian—and note the use of the plural "sides."  Caesar Romero (Senor Armendariz in The McCreedy Bust, The McCreedy Bust: Going, Going, Gone, and The McCreedy Feud) plays a noble in the service of Emperor Maximilian and it was very interesting to see him portray a Frenchman. 

He is all dolled up in military finery; his wife, a countess, wants to return to Paris so, naturally, he hires a group of misfit Americans who have demonstrated their prowess with rifles to accompany her and her large retinue to the coast, where she will embark on a ship at the port of Vera Cruz.  Of course, all sorts of twists and turns and treachery occur before they reach their goal.

Filmed completely in Mexico, including, amazingly, a scene at Teotihuacan, this 1954 movie is jam-packed with action, which I occasionally found difficult to follow as it did not always make sense to me.  The DVD I watched was grainy but that did not detract significantly from my enjoyment of the movie. 

The central plot of Vera Cruz can be likened to the main plot of The Girl in Boxcar #3, although the outcome is not exactly the same.  Be sure to watch the melodramatic theatrical trailer after watching the film as it is quite amusing.

A Study in Colors

It is commonly believed that the TV show Alias Smith and Jones was created as a direct result of the success of the blockbuster movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Both productions featured two winsome young men as anti-heroes, one blond and the other dark-haired.  They were partners; one man was a gunhand, the other the brains of the outfit.

But what if ASJ was not derived from that popular 1969 movie but from much earlier source material?  What if ASJ’s ancestry was Sherlock Holmes and John Watson instead?  Having become enamored of the recent BBC Sherlock TV series, I began to read Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and noticed several similarities between Homes and Watson and Heyes and Curry.

Aside from the obvious fact that their surnames begin in "H," both Sherlock Holmes and Hannibal Heyes are keen observers of the human condition and are master manipulators.  Heyes as a high-stakes poker player and leader of the Devil’s Hole Gang and Holmes as the world’s only consulting detective who has no qualms about using people to achieve his often opaque ends.  Holmes solves crimes no one else—certainly not the police—can solve (A Study in Pink and The Sign of Four).  Heyes, a self-proclaimed genius, commits robberies that no one else ever attempted, as witness his success at opening the Pierce & Hamilton ’78 safe (How to Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson).  Heyes also makes the cognitive connection, after reading Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, that fingerprints can determine who killed Mr. Henderson (Something to Get Hung About). 

In that respect, he very much resembles Sherlock Holmes, who also sees things dull, ordinary people miss.  Neither has much respect for the law although both do have one friend in law enforcement: Detective Inspector Lestrade for Holmes and Sheriff Lom Trevors for Heyes.  Also, both men are fastidious in their eating habits; food does not seem to be very important to either of them.  In terms of clothing, Sherlock Holmes, as played by Benedict Cumberbatch, wears a blue scarf and Hannibal Heyes, as played by Pete Duel, wears a blue bandana.  In one respect, though, the men are complete opposites: Sherlock Holmes can go days without speaking (A Study in Scarlet/Pink) but Hannibal Heyes often seems never to shut up (The Bounty Hunter).

Kid Curry and John Watson have a lot in common, too.  Both are thoroughly familiar with guns and are superb shots (Curry in Exit from Wickenburg and Smiler with a Gun, Watson in A Study in Pink and The Hounds of Baskerville).  Watson watches out for Holmes and has his back; Curry does the same for Heyes.  Neither man is stupid but each sometimes has a hard time keeping up with the intellectual leaps of their partner. 

Both Curry and Watson are willing to call their partners out when they disapprove of something they've done: Curry questions Heyes’ logic, a trait Heyes is proud of (The Reformation of Harry Briscoe) and Watson tells Holmes he’s an idiot (A Study in Pink) and a dick (The Reichenbach Fall).  Both Curry and Watson like the ladies.  Curry is always helping the damsels in distress, often to Heyes’ displeasure, and Watson has a series of girlfriends, much to Holmes’ annoyance.  Also, Curry wears a sheepskin coat with wool lapels and Watson wears a parka with fur trim around the hood.  One difference between Curry and Holmes, however, is that Curry is younger than Heyes whereas Watson is older than Holmes.

Hannibal Heyes and Jedediah “Kid” Curry have so many similarities with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson—as the characters are portrayed in both the original stories and the 2010 BBC TV reboot—that it seems more than just a coincidence.  Alias Smith and Jones is certainly in excellent company if it were indeed based on such an iconic literary duo as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Aces and Eights

I can see why Tim McCoy was a big star in his day.  Despite the poor audio and picture quality, his charisma shines through Aces and Eights.  He plays Gentleman Tim Madigan, a professional gambler.  His lucky poker hand is the same as the one that allegedly was being played by Wild Bill Hickock, which is how the movie opens, although it is clear that part of the scene was cut.  But McCoy’s luck runs out in Nevada when he catches a card sharp cheating and the man later ends up dead.

Madigan rides with a sidekick who, early in Aces and Eights, draws his gun when his partner is accused of cheating; naturally the scene in the beginning of Exit from Wickenburg where Curry does the same thing sprang to mind.  Madigan, like Heyes, has a wry sense of humor: “Well, when there’s five aces on the table and you’re dealing…”

After the encounter with the card sharp, the remainder of this 1936 black-and-white movie deals with how Madigan clears his name.  He gets involved with a Mexican family and Don Hernandez, the patriarch, wears a costume that reminds me of Senor Armendariz.  The plot of Aces and Eights is actually rather good and it is a shame there is so much background static that the dialog is difficult to make out.

At only 62 minutes long, Aces and Eights would work very well as an episode of a TV series.  Oh wait!  It did become a TV series decades later: Maverick, a Roy Huggins show produced by Universal.  Could this movie have been an ancestor of Alias Smith and Jones???

A bonus for me was hearing the phrase “All bets are off!” uttered by a sheriff watching a poker game.  Aces and Eights was the first time I had ever heard the phrase in what I assume was its original context and that was a lot of fun.