Why? Oh no, its not Henry Fonda again, is it? Theyre all backstage getting changed. Some of them have the hump with the small dressing rooms and are threatening to call their agents. We're on in 15! You guys have no idea how difficult it is organsing this fkn choir. Theyre never happy.
So is Gail Russell too : outstanding performance and a beautifully scripted role.
Yes it is, and it is a great little movie because it is really about character not the action. Burt Kennedy wrote it as he did the other three films that I put at the top of the Boetticher/Scott collaborations with Seven Men From Now: The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station.
And that's a tough job for a screenwriter : being able to keep pace with character...but without falling into the dull-psychology trap ! And the brief final sequence of COMANCHE STATION, which is also the last one of the famous trio, is a stellar example of that Kennedy's magic touch !
Incidentally, for many years this movie has been for me what Debbie Edwards is for his uncle Ethan : a long, long search! At that time the movie was still under Michael Wayne's claws and he would run it very scarcely in the US but never abroad. Last time the movie had been broadcast on french TV was in 1978 (one year before John Wayne's death).
I eventually got in touch with Budd Boetticher whom, very nicely, sent me a tape copy of it along with his cut of ARRUZA. And this had been the beginning of an unfortunately and sadly too short overseas friendship : he passed away a few month later.
Boetticher did some good stuff, without doubt. an original talent. And Kennedy proved he had plenty in the tank coz he was still making good westerns - even comedies -right through the 60s.
the choir is ready now, but everyone seems to have gone home? would be like performing in front of the cleaners?
And that's a tough job for a screenwriter : being able to keep pace with character...but without falling into the dull-psychology trap ! And the brief final sequence of COMANCHE STATION, which is also the last one of the famous trio, is a stellar example of that Kennedy's magic touch !
Again, I agree with you. Even when I watch it now, all these years later, and after having seen it numerous times, I still get a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.
