Day 11 - Ben Johnson

I haven't been aligning my entries with the actual stars chosen for the Turner Classic Movies program this month, but today I am breaking that because my absolute favorite cowboy finally got his own day of programming - Ben Johnson.  Now, I know most of you are probably thinking, "who the heck is Ben Johnson?!" but I tell you, he is a treasure in film history.  Ben (yes, I refer to him as Ben) is that guy, that third cowboy on the right in all those old Westerns you knew and loved as a kid.  His voice is always his dead giveaway because of his pronounced Oklahoma cowboy drawl.  You might even think he's putting it on, but once you watch him, you know he isn't even acting.  That's just him.

Ben as Tyree talking to his horse, Laddie, in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (RKO 1949)

Ben is often described as a "genuine" cowboy and I think this adjective is the perfect one for him.  Ben started out as a cowboy and died a cowboy.  But he got into Hollywood when Howard Hughes came through and hired him to help lead a herd of horses through Arizona to Hughes' movie location.  I've heard lots of stories of how it really happened, but the one I read from an interview with Ben was that Hughes had a prize stallion that he didn't want to get hurt.  Well, one day during shooting, all the horses started to stampede together, including the stallion.  Ben hopped up on his pony and went after the horse, lassoed him and got him out of the rush so fast, Hughes knew he had to put Ben in a Western.  Pretty soon others started noticing how Ben added a natural presence to create a more "believable" Western.  What could make a cowboy more convincing than to cast one that had actual, hard-earned saddle sores?  Ben was also a stuntman, as his background made a lot of that work easy for him.  That didn't mean he didn't have his limits - he and Harry Carey Jr. both had to learn how to ride "Roman style" (standing up with feet on separate horses's backs) for the film Rio Grande.  They worked hard at it and fell an awful lot.  Battered and bruised, the team finally succeeded only to be met with something like "their stunt doubles did a great job!"  Nope, that was really them!

Since I can't really contain myself, here are some of my favorite Ben Johnson films and why I love each one:

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1948): Ben was only supposed to have a minor role in this film, but he manages, with his drawl and his good humor, to steal every single scene he's in.  Here he plays Cpl. Tyree, a rider in the US Calvary post Civil War, who has a reputation for being the best point rider because of his super sharp eyesight.  His repeated (and hilarious!) line, "that ain't in my department" is always delivered with that deadpan attitude that makes even John Wayne, his commanding officer, smirk.  What's more, Ben also did the most dangerous stunt in the film - on the run from the renegade Indians, he jumps his horse over a narrow canyon (see below).  According to Ben, what you couldn't tell from the film was that the canyon was 70 feet deep and a heck of a lot scarier than it looks!

Ben and his horse are just a blur!

Rio Grande (1950): Ben has a bit of a larger part, still playing a guy in the US Calvary named Tyree, but this time he's wanted for murder (self-defense!) and is only running in order to give his sister (the girl at the center of the feud-turned-murder) time to get out of town so her name wouldn't be run through the mud.  It's a pretty noble thing to do, so Tyree gets help from the other members of the Army unit, including straight-laced rule follower Lt. Col. Kirby York (again, John Wayne).  You can't help but root for Tyree, who coined the phrase, "Get it done, Johnny Reb!"**  Seriously, though, Rio Grande is one of the best Westerns of all time and you should definitely see it!  Fun fact too - the song that Ben, Harry Carey Jr., and Claude Jarman (who plays York's son) sing in this film was actually written by Dale Evans!

Wagonmaster (1950) I've already mentioned, but I have to say again, Ben finally got to play the lead!!  He makes a great hero in this movie, very convincing as the reluctant but tried-and-true cowboy.  He doesn't want to get involved, but knows it's the right thing so he does.  And does again.  It's this dual desire to be the individual, off from society while also wanting to protect society (women, children, Mormons who need a guide) and be a part of it.  Ben does a great job bringing both of these conflicting desires together; maybe it's his very nature of being in films without wanting to be an actor.  Ford often referred to this as his favorite Western and sadly people just don't watch it enough today.  (Except miracle of miracles - TCM is finally showing it tonight!!!!!!!!!)   

Chisum (1970)  An aging cowboy, Ben plays James Pepper, the foreman of the massive cattle ranch owned by John Chisum (John Wayne) during the Lincoln County Land War.  It's an entertaining enough movie, featuring Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett as well, but I have to tell you, when you watch, make sure you turn up the volume for all of Ben's lines.  Pepper mumbles to himself a lot, so you'll probably miss most of his lines, but I guarantee you they are worth hearing.  Ben fits this profile so well you can almost see his old roles in Rio Grande having turned into this one.  Plus he gets to be the only person to tell John Wayne exactly what's what: "Way I see it, all this speechifyin', store-keepin', prayer-meetin' don't amount to spit in the river.  There's only one thing that's going to make this territory know who's bull of the woods.  And you know it."     

Ben was also great in The Train Robbers (1973), Junior Bonner (1972), The Sugarland Express (1974), and My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1991).  He was also in The Wild Bunch (1969), but I'm not a big fan of that movie and I hate that Ben plays a bad guy with no redeeming value (and not enough screen time).  I've also been meaning to see him in Hang 'Em High (1968) and a few others.  And thanks to TCM today, I've got several lined up on my DVR!  I also need to re-watch Angels in the Outfield (1994) because Ben got to play the team's owner, Hank Murphy, who was very much based on real-life founder and first owner of the Angels - the one and only Gene Autry.

 Left: Ben in his Oscar-winning role!!  (Columbia Pictures, 1971)


I think what sets Ben Johnson apart for me is his honesty.  He never considered himself a movie star, or even an actor.  He just read the lines like he'd normally do and that was about it.  But over the years the parts became scarcer, until Ben was finally offered a role in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971).  The only problem was that Ben hated all of the foul language in the script - to him, that kind of cussing wasn't necessary and he sure wasn't going to use it.  So he and Bogdanovich struck a deal - Ben was allowed to rewrite his lines to remove the language and he in turn gave one heck of a great performance.  So good, in fact, that he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, despite the fact that his character, Sam the Lion, only appears in about 20 minutes of screen time.  Ben did such an amazing job creating this character that sort of acts as a father or grandfather for everyone in this small, dying town in 1951 Texas.  He's the town's moral compass and he affects the lives of everyone there.  Fun fact too - Sam the Lion owns the town's movie theater and in several scenes you can see the film posters out front.  The first one you see is a little in-joke - it's Wagonmaster, Ben's first (and only real) starring role.  

But you know what, that Oscar didn't mean half as much to him as the one award he worked so hard to earn - the title of World Rodeo Champion in Roping.  There's even a charity rodeo tournament that Ben helped set up in his name.  Really I could just go on all night about this guy, but I'll try to wrap this up.  Ben Johnson captured the spirit of the American West because he was the last of the true cowboys.  His own honesty and humility may never have brought him much fame on the big screen, but it kept him true to his roots as a hard-working horse wrangler.  I think that to watch Ben is about the closest most of us will ever get to seeing a "genuine article" of a figure so ingrained in the mythos of America.  I could build Ben up to be the embodiment of so many ideals and a legend on screen, but I know he would hate that, so I'll just end by saying that in everything he did, he was a top hand and the world is an emptier place now that he's no longer out riding the range.          

**P.S. Catherine, when I say "Let's go, Alamo!", it's actually one of Ben's lines to his best friend in this movie.

3 Godfathers (1948)

Three bank robbers, a baby and a lot of sand.  Think they'll manage?

Intro.

I went back to holiday films the day of Christmas Eve in order to watch one that I usually forget about but still enjoy - 3 Godfathers.  It's a take on the story of Christ, with enough religious allusions to keep any analyst happy.


Overview
Robert Hightower (John Wayne); Pedro, "Pete" (Pedro Armendáriz); and William, the Abilene Kid (Harry Carey Jr.), are three cowboys who come into the town of Welcome, AZ and rob the bank just a few weeks before Christmas.  They make a good break for the border too, with the Kid getting shot in the shoulder.  But Marshall Buck Sweet (Ward Bond) is on their trail with a posse in no time and a game of chess plays out as both groups try to get to the few water towers in the middle of the Arizona desert.  Bob, Pete and the Kid make it to the first tank, but find that the Marshall's boys have beat them to it via the railroad.  The posse follows the railroad to the next stop, Apache Wells, but the three outlaws decide to double back and head to Terrapin Tanks.  They barely make it, having run out of nearly all their water and baking in the sun.  The Kid isn't doing well without water and when they hit a massive windstorm, they have to take shelter and lose their horses in the night.  They walk the rest of the way, but find that someone has dynamited the tank and destroyed the well.  A wagon is there without horses and in it they find a woman about to give birth (her husband died chasing after their stock).  Pete helps deliver the baby as Bob and the Kid squeeze some barrel-head cactus to get some water.  The three men talk to the woman once the baby's born and it's clear that she isn't going to live through the night.  With the last of her strength, she names her child Robert William Pedro Hightower after his three new godfathers, who have agreed to save him.  After she dies, the three men try their best to care for the child, which means heading to the nearest town - Welcome.  Still without water, Pedro and the Kid both die on the way, and Bob barely makes it into the town before collapsing at the Marshall's feet.  But what will become of little Robert William Pedro and his sole godfather?

Highlights

There are a lot of reasons I like this movie.  The first is that it's a tribute film; the movie was originally made back in 1916 and starred Harry Carey, who was friends with director John Ford.  After Carey's death in 1947, Ford dedicated his remake of the movie to Carey.  The beginning shot has a rider coming up a ridge and pausing in moonlight, with the words "In memory of Harry Carey, Bright Star of the Western Sky".  Even better, Carey's son, Harry Carey Jr., is in the film as well, and it marks his introduction to film (probably in a main role, as he had already appeared in a few films, including the only one to feature both of the Careys - Red River).  This time the film's in technicolor and has a bit of a different storyline (though I can't comment more as I haven't seen the 1916 original). 

Not only did Ford make such a fine film, but he called on a lot of his regular actors and actresses: John Wayne, Ward Bond, Harry Carey Jr., Mildred Natwick, Jane Darwell, Hank Worden and of course, Ben Johnson (see my Ben Johnson fangirl blurb here), all of whom give good performances.  Harry Carey Jr. does a great job in this role - this is, in truth, how I always picture him too, as a young kid with a good heart even when he gets mixed up in some trouble.  It's sort of an iconic trio that the three make that appears in many Westerns.  Bob's the leader, the planner, the one who's been around before and has to make the decisions.  William is both in name and character "the Kid", young, more or less innocent (he was just the lookout), shy and in need of protecting.  And Pete is sort of the in-between guy with some knowledge and a past no one really knows (what? He was married and has kids somewhere??), but he's the one to keep looking on the bright side or cracking jokes.  The premise is pretty simple too, as each group (the lawmen and the outlaws) try to outfox each other.  But what makes this Western different is the baby.  Well, it starts before the baby, as Ford sets up these "outlaws" to be the heroes.  We get the feeling they're not too terrible from their general kindness towards the folks in town and how Bob and Pete take care of the Kid.  And we start rooting for them as we see them struggle across the desert.  So it's natural that we keep cheering for them once they decide to throw away their money and their freedom (and quite possibly their own lives) to save this orphan.  It's their redeeming act and the extenuating circumstances that come up in Bob's trial.  That decision to honor the woman's request that they save her child is the real turning point of the film.  It's a very human decision to have to make and it's what separates the good guys from the bad.

Having the story take place in the West is a perfect setting, as the West is often associated with rebirth and opportunities to start over in life.  To further that image of rebirth are all the allusions and parallels to the story of the birth of Christ.*  First we have these three men who find a child.  The same child ultimately saves them too.  When the men are trying to figure out where to go with the child, the closest towns all coincidentally have Biblical names - Damascus, New Jerusalem and Cairo.  This might be minor, but the men are also denied water from three tanks before finding the child (sound like being denied at three inns?).  The men also find a family Bible in the baby's wagon, and consult it for answers.  When Bob is about to give out, he opens the Bible and reads a passage about Christ asking for a donkey to be untied and brought to him so that he may ride into town on it (I think that's the passage about Palm Sunday).  Sure enough, a donkey appears and helps Bob and the baby get into town.  But the biggest part of the parallel is that the story takes place just before Christmas; Bob arrives in town late on Christmas Eve.       

Finally, a word on John Ford, my favorite director.  Ford strove for authenticity in his pictures, often shooting on location.  There are stories about how he'd get actors roaring drunk at night then wake them up at the crack of dawn to do a scene when their character would have to have a hangover.  In 3 Godfathers he waited until a real sandstorm came and forced everyone to bear the weather in order to film the scene.  Also important to Ford was to have some sort of civilization even in the harsh wilderness, and often used rituals to illustrate it.  Most of his Westerns contain a wedding, a social dance, or a funeral.  3 Godfathers is no different, as the men hold a funeral for the woman, with the Kid singing "Shall We Gather at the River" (which, I swear, must have been Ford's favorite hymn of all time).**  It brings a certain feeling of order and familiarity to the otherwise brutally harsh West.  It's a reminder of compassion in the face of cruelty as well, just as sure as there's a heart of gold beneath the rags of a bank robber. 

Review and Recommendation

Although not as famous as many of his Westerns, I'd argue that 3 Godfathers is a great example of Ford's work.  A simple yet elegantly told story has all the right aspects to make it a great film.  Fine acting, good story lines and brilliant directing make it one of my must see - not just around the holidays, but at any time of the year.

*I was going to make a comment about the three wise men and how they were following that "Westward leading" star.  Although that's a good thought for the fact that the film takes place in the West, the men go in just about every direction but West until Bob has to return to Welcome with the baby.

**Harry Carey Jr. has an amazing singing voice.  I really wanted to say that.  Also, he sings a "lullaby" to the infant, which sounds great till you realize he's singing "Streets of Laredo," an old folk song about a dying cowboy.  Surely you'll know some of the chorus: "so beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, sing the death march as you carry me along.  Take me to the green valley, there lay the sod o'er me, for I'm a poor cowboy and know I've done wrong."  He doesn't sing all of that to the baby, but he knows the song and his singing it is kind of like him singing about his own death.  One of the many details that makes this film worth seeing.

Shane (1952)

Heads up - this post is rather long and full of rambling about Westerns.  If you don't like the genre, feel free to skip it!

Intro.
Okay, so you know those films you've heard of for years that are supposed to be the standards of a genre?  Like, Gone with the Wind is supposed to be a standard for epics or love stories or The Sound of Music is supposed to be a standard for musicals?  When it comes to Westerns, I've seen a lot of the standards, mainly from the classic era (Stagecoach, High Noon) and some from the spaghetti Western era (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly).  Now one Western I've always heard about but have never seen was Shane.  It's been on my DVR for longer than I'd really like to admit, and I wanted to watch it as part of my now-abandoned theme for November (November was supposed to be cowboys, but that didn't really happen). Anyway, even the write-up in TV Guide said that Shane was a four-star masterpiece with rare characterizations of depth and poignancy.  Who could resist a film like that?

Overview

One of the best parts of Shane is that the story is pretty easy to follow.  It's iconic, really - a drifter rides up to a homestead, offers to help work the farm, then finds himself drawn into ongoing feud between the homesteaders and the ranchers who want their land.  The ranchers are led by the biggest bull in the area, Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer) and the homesteaders find a leader in Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) [the homesteader who has drifting gunman Shane (Alan Ladd) working for him].  Joe's wife Marian is a strong influence on both men and we wonder at her wonderment, and her son Billy's adoration, of this tall, silent stranger, Shane.  The boiling dispute between the ruthless ranchers and stubborn farmers comes to a head when Shane comes to blows with one of Ryker's big men, Chris Calloway (Ben Johnson).  Homesteaders get their homes burned, livestock killed, all the awful stuff you can imagine so they saddle up and prepare to get out of Dodge, so to speak.  But Joe wants to make one last stand to protect what is rightfully and legally his.  It's about a lot more than land at this point, but what Joe doesn't know is that Ryker has hired a really fast gunman to take care of the homesteaders.  Even after learning this, he's determined to go off and fight, but Shane fights him instead, keeping Joe alive while Shane goes in his place to the final showdown.  Will he live?  If so, will he ever be able to settle down and live a "normal" homesteader's life?  Or will he be forced to wander between the winds (oops, wrong Western!)?

Highlights  

First of all, I loved the simplicity (and I mean that in a good way) of the story.  Like I said, it is classic and I believe part of the reason the film is such a staple or essential movie, is because it takes such a popular Western storyline and makes it work really well.  That being said, I wish I had seen Shane much earlier in my Western film experience, as I feel like it could be a good basis to which you can compare other films because there are a lot of fundamental ideas, plot points and characterizations that are honed and done well here.  I could write a book about all the films that it reminded me of, but that would be a book, not a blog post.  Two things really made the film good - fine acting and beautiful camerawork.  Now, John Ford is my favorite Western director and his cinematography is amazing.  He literally based some of his storyboards on Remington paintings (don't believe me? Watch She Wore a Yellow Ribbon).  The shots here are just as beautiful and well constructed and give a good feel for the isolation of the homesteaders and the rough life they have on their settlements.  The landscape is just as violent as the men who control it.  (More on violence later)  As for the acting, I couldn't believe that the top credits went to Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur when really I found myself paying more attention to Van Heflin.  He's incredible - in this sense, he becomes the everyman, the hard-working American trying to build a life for his family.  He's the stuff of legends.  His transformation from a quiet, peaceful man to one who wants to face certain death to preserve his principles is inspiring.  It all really comes to light at the cemetery when the homesteaders bury their dead before leaving their homes for good in fear of Ryker.  It does make you wonder about his intentions - is he really doing it for principle or so that his wife and son will look at him the way they admire Shane?  What makes a man a real man in country so rough?  What makes a man at all?  And if a man survives by countering violence with violence, isn't he just as wild as the country around him and unfit for things like a wife and a home?

I did enjoy Shane's showdown with Chris and then his later showdown with Ryker's hired gun and the aftermath of that shootout, but it still begs this same question about violence.  I think that violence, especially the really long fight between Ryker's men and Shane and Joe, is more pronounced in this film than in earlier or even other fifties-era Westerns.  It isn't on the same level as say, The Wild Bunch, but it is different and Shane is a different kind of hero.  He reminds me a lot of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956) which really showed the older men who tamed the West with guns and violence had fallen from their place as heroes.  Tolerance, principle and the urge to settle and to build shaped the new heroes, who usually weren't as good with a gun.  This changing form of the Western cowboy hero is fascinating (to me, anyway) and really interesting in light of what was happening in the 1950s.  I don't know as much about Shane, but The Searchers was actually written and influenced by the decision of Brown vs. the Board of Education.  Prejudice was losing ground.  Gentler, less violent and more tolerant heroes were in.  Shane was just prior to this, but was also in the midst of events like the McCarthy hearings and the Korean War.  What role does a cowboy play in all of this?  Why is Shane our hero now?  He puts the good of the homesteaders before himself, using his skills against the wilderness to protect society as every classic cowboy hero does.  And what does it say about us that we cannot take this hero into our fold?           
     
Now a word about a character that really struck me in Shane.  I'm talking about Chris Calloway, Ryker's big talking lead man who gives homesteaders a lot of heat and a few punches.  This whole idea of subverting the usual hero type is also reflected in Chris.  At first I hated his character, but I think part of that was for a wholly unrelated reason (more on that below).  But one moment changed it all - after their awful, throw-down fight, it is Chris who comes to tell Shane about Ryker's hired gun, something I don't think he was supposed to do (I can't really remember clearly right now, but I remember feeling that Chris was crossing some sort of line with Ryker).  He's awful and mean and ornery, but yet he feels like he has to give Shane fair warning.  Maybe it's out of respect for a man he sees as just as capable of violence, or maybe it's because Chris isn't as evil as Ryker.

Before I go any farther with this very long and rambly sort of analysis, I have to make a small confession.   I know a lot of people are like this, so I'm going to admit it freely here.  I have a lot of trouble watching actors and actresses I like play characters that are cast against their type.  I have some back up here - Jimmy Stewart only played a bad guy once in his whole career (After the Thin Man, 1936) because he was so beloved by audiences for his guy-next-door, everyman heroism.  As for me, I love Ben Johnson.  He usually played the good guy too, as one of the sidekicks in an old John Wayne picture (love him as Tyree in Rio Grande) or the lead in my all-time favorite Western, Wagon Master.  He did a lot of stunts too, as he was born to the saddle - in Rio Grande, that's really him and Harry Carey Jr. riding and jumping as they each stand up on two horses.  He even won an Oscar for his role as the town patriarch in The Last Picture Show (a role he only accepted once his dialogue was rewritten to get rid of all the cursing, mind you!).  So imagine my surprise when I saw my favorite cowboy actor as a mean-talking, fight-starting bad guy in a black hat!**  Anyway, after I got past my initial shock, I tried to put those other thoughts and feelings aside and focus on his role in the picture.  And you know what?  He's fantastic. 

Last Thoughts and No Recommendation (for now)
I am now a bit lost - where was I before I went on my Ben Johnson fan fest?  Oh, so all in all, Shane was sort of mediocre to me.  In critical evaluation, I can see its merits and its rightful place as an essential Western.  But I didn't really get what so many other reviewers are talking about - namely this "love" between Marian and Shane.  I'm pretty sure I missed something and as such, I need to rewatch the film.  It could also be that I have trouble watching Jean Arthur because something about her voice annoys me.  Usually I can tune it out (the annoyance, not her voice), but other times it is still grating.  That and I just didn't get enough of her character; I felt like I didn't get to understand her that well (another reason to rewatch!).  I am doubting my own taste now, since I feel like I should like Shane and write a lot more about how wonderful it is.  So before I recommend it or go on anymore and embarrass myself with a lot more random Western movie facts (and I have plenty), I'm going to close this post with a question to you guys - those of you who read this far!  Does anyone have any thoughts?  If you've seen it, do you recommend this film?  Why or why not?

Some afterthoughts:
** I feel like I should mention that the whole white hat/black hat thing isn't infallible.  Even John Wayne wore a black hat now and again; heck even Gene Autry wore a black hat once in a film (granted that was the weirdest I'd ever seen him look).

*** Okay, one last completely unrelated Western fact - did you know that Ben Johnson was an extra in the musical Oklahoma?  I know, it's hard to believe.  If you watch carefully, you'll see him...and then also see him clearly exit once the dancing starts.