Saddle-up with screen legend Randolph Scott on June 8 as Mill Creek Entertainment has a sweet collection of twelve of his classic Westerns ready for release on Blu-ray as a six-disc set.
Titled, The Randolph Scott Collection: 12 Classic Westerns, Mill Creek Entertainment has assembled a terrific overview of his Western-themed film career, beginning in 1943 with director Charles Vidor’s The Desperadoes, which was Columbia Pictures first Technicolor film, and bookended by the 1960 film release of director Budd Boetticher’s Comanche Station.
Not only was The Desperadoes Columbia’s first Technicolor production, other “firsts” were also incorporated into the film. It was 1943 and World War II was going strong, which meant it was a no-no to film at night — those lights could bring in waves of enemy planes.
To get around this, cinematographer George Meehan came up with a series of filters to simulate night scenes — “day for night” — while using the three-strip Technicolor cameras. It also meant that make-up artist Clay Campbell had to come up with special make-up so that the actors in the “day for night” sequences wouldn’t look garish.
Meehan began his career during the silent era and had close to 180 film credits by the time he was 47 years of age, but he became ill during the filming of King of the Wild Horse, starring Preston Foster and Gail Patrick, in 1947 and never recovered.
Another innovation used in the filming of The Desperadoes was the construction of a special vehicle for tracking shots (no rails) that could hold multiple cameras and more than keep up with galloping horses and runaway stage coaches.
As for the story itself, Randolph Scott is the sheriff of the Utah town of Red Valley (some establishing shots in Kanab, Utah, but most the filming takes place out at Corriganville in Simi Valley, California), where we learn that one of the town’s leading citizens, “Uncle” Willie McLeod (Edgar Buchanan), is actually the mastermind behind the robbery of the local bank.
Into this nest of double-dealers rides Cheyenne Rogers (Glenn Ford), who was actually hired to rob the bank … the irony is, he rides in on the sheriff’s horse, which he stole from Randolph Scott, who was out looking for the actual hired gun, Jack Lester (played by Bernard Nedell), who had shot-up the place despite being told to “go easy”
It will be a cat-and-mouse game the rest of the film as Cheyenne wants to go straight and settle down with “The Countess” (Claire Trevor), who runs the local saloon. Will the sheriff uncover the real criminal mastermind? Will Cheyenne go straight? June 8 … film number one in the collection from Mill Creek.
Next up, chronologically-speaking, is director Gordon Douglas’ 1950 Western, The Nevadan, which used location-shooting in Lone Pine (a popular site for films) and much closer to Hollywood, Hidden Valley out near Newbury Park in Ventura County.
Here, Scott plays an undercover U.S. Marshall, Andrew Barclay, who is trying to discover the location of stolen gold. Karen (Dorothy Malone) becomes the target of his affections, while Forrest Tucker is badman Tom Tanner, who is being double-crossed by the evil Edward Galt (George Macready), who is Karen’s father.
By film’s end Barclay and Tanner are on the same side …
1951 saw two Westerns starring Randolph Scott and both are featured in this collection. Opening theatrically in April of that year was director Irving Pichel’s Santa Fe, which finds Scott as Britt, one of four brothers by the name of Canfield, who fought for the South during the Civil War. Everything at their Virginia homestead is in ruins so they decide to go west … but they only get as far as Missouri where a run-in with Union soldiers leads to a gunfight and the four brothers becoming wanted men.
Heading further west, Britt joins the Santa Fe rail line and soon rises in the ranks, only to discover that two of his brothers are now working for the notorious outlaw, Cole Sanders (Roy Roberts). By the final fadeout, Britt’s brothers will be dead, Sanders will die by his hands and the woman, Judith (Janis Carter — Lady of Burlesque, The Mark of the Whistler, Framed, Flying Leathernecks), who hated Britt for what he did during the war, now loves him and takes off after him as the film credits roll.
The other Western from 1951 had its theatrical debut at Christmas of that year, and this was director Andre De Toth’s Man in the Saddle, teaming Randolph Scott with Joan Leslie, Ellen Drew and Alexander Knox.
When the name of empire-builder Will Isham’s (Alexander Knox — Oscar nomination for his portrayal president Woodrow Wilson in director Henry King’s 1944 Best Picture-nominee, Wilson, plus such films as The Judge Steps Out, Tokyo Joe, The Son of Dr. Jekyll, Khartoum) spread is Skull Ranch, you know things are going to get nasty. Isham has hired guns and he has plans to expand his land holdings … in the way is Owen Merritt (Scott) and his Christmas Creek Ranch (Skull vs Christmas Creek … not so subtle in setting up the good vs evil storyline).
In any case, the ambitious Laurie Bidwell (Joan Leslie — as Velma in High Sierra, plus Yankee Doodle Dandy, Sergeant York, Born to be Bad), who had her sights on Merritt, she finally took Isham up on his offer of marriage and as our story unfolds it is the happy day … a grand marriage ceremony at the local saloon. Of course, Isham uses the opportunity to force a neighboring rancher to sell … but Merritt won’t have anything to do with the affair and is a no-show.
Bordering on Merritt’s spread is the small ranch owned by schoolmarm Nan Melotte (Ellen Drew — Isle of the Dead, Johnny O’Clock, Cargo to Capetown, The Monster and the Girl), who brings her small herd of cattle over to Merritt for a drive to market … which sets everything in motion as Isham’s hired guns have plans to stampede the combined herd and bring financial ruin upon these hold-out land holders.
Fortunately, disaster is averted, but in the aftermath once of the ranch hands (played by Richard Crane) is found dead, not from the rampaging cattle, but of a gunshot. His brother (Cameron Mitchell) vows revenge … and a shootout at the saloon follows.
The fuse now-lit, it is an open range war culminating in a gunfight between Merritt and hired-gun, Dutcher (Richard Rober), who had turned on his boss. It’s a brutal takedown, even by Hollywood standards of the time, but it is quickly tempered with Nan rushing to Merritt’s side … ironically, Isham’s dying words urge that Laurie carry-on his legacy at Skull Ranch!!
Next up in the collection is writer/director Roy Huggins’ Thanksgiving of 1952 post-Civil War Western, Hangman’s Knot, which finds Randolph Scott in the role of Matt Stewart. an undercover Confederate major operating in Nevada, who has a pitched-battle with Union forces over a shipment of gold in the storyline’s set-up of the film.
In the aftermath of the battle, and with the shipment of gold in hand, Stewart discovers that he and his raiders have been tricked … the war has been over for a month!! They are quickly pursued by “the law,” which turns out to be nothing more than a bandit gang run by an outlaw named Quincy (Ray Teal), and are forced to take refuge in the local stagecoach station.
Among Stewart’s men are none other than Richard Denning and screen newcomer Lee Marvin … and one of Stewart’s prisoners at the station is Donna Reed. Much of the action takes place at this stand-off location, and by the film’s end the bandits are vanquished, the gold-returned and Randolph Scott’s character is now in love with Molly (Donna Reed).
It’s now the summer of 1953 and Randolph Scott is back with director Andre De Toth for film adaption of writer John Marshall Cunningham’s short story, “Yankee Gold,” which arrived theatrically as The Stranger Wore a Gun (of note, another one of Cunningham’s short stories, “The Tin Star,” was adapted for the screen as High Noon).
This was a 3D production and before shooting began, veteran screenwriter Kenneth Garnet’s script had to be radically altered because it was considered much too brutal by Hollywood standards at the time. The opening sequence was the problem … in August of 1963, Quantrill's Raiders laid siege to Lawrence, Kansas, burned the town down and slaughtered 150 of the town’s population.
Randolph Scott portrays Jeff Travis, an advance scout for Quantrill, who is shocked at the brutality that unfolds. He immediately returns south and joins the Confederate army where he finishes out the war. We pick up the action next with Travis working on a riverboat with the sultry Josie Sullivan (Claire Trevor), who is “fast” with the cards. Life is good.
One night a group of men recognize Travis from the Lawrence Massacre and so Josie says that he needs to make a quick exit … weeks later we find him in Prescott, Arizona and soon embroiled with dueling bandits — Jules Mourret (George Macready — Paths of Glory, Gilda and as Cordell Hull in Tora! Tora! Tora!, one of this final screen roles) and Degas (Alfonso Bedoya — who got off one of the greatest lines in film history in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, “"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!").
He comes to the aid of the local stage line operator Jason Conroy (Pierre Watkin) and his daughter, Shelby (Joan Weldon), with “Uncle Jake” (Roscoe Ates) as one of the stagecoach drivers. Conroy is constantly playing cat-and-mouse with the bandits over gold shipments, but when “Uncle Jake” is waylaid, tortured and murdered, Travis is all-in for stopping Mourret and Degas. By the final curtain, he does … and Josie rides west for a future with him in California.
Other cast members include Lee Marvin and relative newcomer, Ernest Borgnine, who would have his breakout role later in the year with From Here to Eternity … and two years later win the Oscar for Best Actor in Marty.
Rounding out this stunning collection of Western films starring Randolph Scott from Mill Creek Entertainment (on Blu-ray) on June 8 are: A Lawless Street (1955, directed by Joseph H. Lewis, with Angela Lansbury) and five films teaming director Budd Boetticher with Randolph Scott, The Tall T (1957 with Richard Boone and Maureen O’Sullivan), Decision at Sundown (also 1957, with John Carroll, Karen Steele and Valerie French), Buchanan Rides Alone (1958), Ride Lonesome (1959, Karen Steele returns, with Lee Van Cleef and the film debut of James Coburn) and Comanche Station (1960, with Nancy Gates and Claude Akins).
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