Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: Cowboys - Hollywood Style! Part II

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies

Cowboys - Hollywood Style! 

Part II

Everybody loves a cowboy!

Especially those of the Hollywood variety.

How do those fancy six-shooters manage to dazzle on the big screen?

Well, today, for a second time, we'll be rounding up a herd of films which aim to give us a behind the scenes look of how those men in spurs make it all look so effortless and manly.

So, saddle up, boys and git along little doggie.

We're going riding!

Yee Haw!

--- ---

It Happened In Hollywood

(1937)

While hospitalized young Billy meets his silent movie idol Tim Bart but then the talkies came, destroying Bart's career. Now Bart must convince his young friend he is still a star.

This comedy was directed by Harry Lachman and stars Richard Dix, Fay Wray and Victor Kilian.

The film was originally titled Once a Hero.

Toby, the name of Dix's horse, is based on Tom Mix's horse, Tony.

--- ---

Shooting High

(1940)

Jane Pritchard sides with the Carsons in a generations-old feud which her family wages with the descendants of Wild Bill Carson, first United States Marshal of Carson Corners. Will Carson insists that a Pritchard killed his grandfather when the Marshal came into town on a marauding expedition led by The Hawk. Will maintains his grandfather had joined the gang to trap the leaders and a trigger-happy Pritchard had kept him from doing so. A crew from Signet Pictures comes to town to film the story of Wild Bill's life. Will is in love with Jane's sister, Marjorie but her banker-father opposes the match. Will and Marjorie argue, and she becomes infatuated with Bob Merritt, who is to co-star in the film with Evelyn Trent. Jane and Sheriff Clem Perkle get rid of Merritt by telling him the townspeople are going to ride him out of town on a rail. Movie director J. Wallace Rutledge agrees to let Will play the role of his grandfather. On the day a bank robbery scene is to be filmed at Pritchard's bank, four supposed actors who have joined the troupe turn out to be bank robbers for real. The townspeople, seeing Will chasing after the robbers, assume he was part of the gang and has reverted to what they consider the character trait of the Carson family.

This Western was directed by Alfred E. Green and stars Jane Withers, Gene Autry, and Marjorie Weaver. 

Jane Withers admired Gene Autry and asked her studio if she could appear in a movie with him. At the time the thirteen-year-old star was the number 6 box office draw in the country. Withers was under contract to 20th Century Fox, and would not be allowed to work on a Republic picture. She was able to convince the studio to work out a deal so she could appear with Gene Autry, and this movie was the result.

The original script had Autry kissing Marjorie Weaver at the end, but that ending was dropped when his fans objected.

This is the only movie Gene Autry made for 20th Century-Fox. All his other movies were made for his home studios: Mascot, Republic Pictures and after WW 2 Columbia Pictures. This is the only movie or television production in which he did not play himself and his first without the comic presence of Smiley Burnette.

--- ---

Bells Of Rosarita

(1945)

Sue Farnum inherits a circus, but her dead father's partner is trying to take it away from her. Roy and Bob Nolan are filming a movie on location at the circus. They and a number of other western movie stars come to Sue's aid, putting on a show and catching the bad guys.

This musical Western was directed by Frank McDonald and stars Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Adele Mara and Gabby Hayes... oh, and Trigger, of course.

Three of the four actors who portrayed Red Ryder on the screen appear in this film. Don "Red" Barry, the first Red Ryder, Wild Bill Elliott and Allan "Rocky" Lane. Jim Bannon, not in this film, was the fourth Red Ryder.

I have always wondered how Dale Evans felt bout being billed third, after a horse. She (married three times previously) was the third wife of singing cowboy film star Roy Rogers. The two married in 1947. During her time at 20th Century Fox, the studio promoted her as the unmarried supporter of her teenage 'brother' Tommy (who was actually her son, Tom Fox, Jr.), a deception that continued through her divorce from Butts in 1946 and her development as a cowgirl co-star at Republic Studios.

--- ---

Bronco Billy

(1980)

"Bronco" Billy McCoy is the proud owner of a small travelling Wild West show. But the business isn't doing too well. For the past six months, he hasn't paid his employees. At a gas station he picks up Antoinette Lily, a stuck-up woman from a rich family, who was left behind without a penny by her husband John Arlington on their wedding night. Billy likes her looks and hires her as his assistant. She seems to bring them bad luck and the business gets even worse. In these hard times, she loses her reluctance and starts to like her new way of life, and Bronco Billy.

This comedy-drama Western was directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Eastwood  and Sondra Locke.  

Beverlee McKinsey was not quite nine years older than her "stepdaughter" Sondra Locke. Antoinette says her father died when she herself was nine years old, which makes for implausible casting. Unsurprisingly, it had been Locke - an individual of boundless vanity - who recommended McKinsey for the role. Antoinette is said to be turning 30 years old where actually Sondra Locke was 36 at the time the movie was made. During a promotional interview with Us Weekly, Sondra Locke pretended she was three years younger than she was.

Sondra Locke's favorite of the movies she did with Clint Eastwood. Scatman Crothers stated that his role as Doc Lynch was his second favorite after his role in The King of Marvin Gardens (1972).

Many of the actors and actresses with whom Eastwood directed and acted earlier in his career are in this movie. Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney and Sam Bottoms were all in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Locke and McKinney were also directed by Clint Eastwood in The Gauntlet (1977) and were in the comedies Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980) without Eastwood's direction. Geoffrey Lewis and Walter Barnes first worked with Clint Eastwood as actor and director in the western High Plains Drifter (1973). They re-teamed as just actors in Every Which Way But Loose (1978). Geoffrey Lewis first worked with Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and worked together again in Any Which Way You Can (1980) and Pink Cadillac (1989). Eastwood later directed Lewis without appearing in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). Dan Vadis worked with Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter (1973), The Gauntlet (1977), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), and Any Which Way You Can (1980).

This movie was shot on a very low budget compared to other movies made by Clint Eastwood. The production shoot for this movie ran for less than six weeks and was completed around two to four weeks ahead of schedule. The picture grossed around five times its budget cost at the box office. Though, Clint Eastwood considered this take insufficient. He said,  "It was an old-fashioned theme, probably too old-fashioned since the film didn't do as well as we hoped. But if, as a film director, I ever wanted to say something, you'll find it in Bronco Billy."

The fourth of six movies made by real-life couple Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke.

Clint Eastwood kicked Sondra Locke under the table when she couldn't work up tears for her crying scene in the bar. That was the extent of his direction.

The soundtrack, which was headlined by Merle Haggard and Ronnie Milsap, also featured singing by Eastwood himself.

--- ---

Urban Cowboy

(1980)

Bud Davis is a country boy who moves to the city to visit his uncle and his family. He starts hanging out at Gilley's, the popular nightclub owned by Mickey Gilley himself. He takes a job at the oil refinery where his uncle works, hoping to save enough money to buy some land. He also meets a cowgirl named Sissy, they dance together, fall in love and suddenly get married. And then their marriage is shattered when Bud sees Sissy allegedly seeing con man Wes, who teaches her how to ride the mechanical bull... and plans to rob Gilley's. When a bull-riding contest at Gilley's is announced, Bud decides to sign up. Can he win the contest and save his marriage to Sissy?

This romantic Western was directed by James Bridges and stars John Travolta and Debra Winger.

The script was originally written for Dennis Quaid for the central role of Bud

Gary Busey, fresh off of his Oscar nomination in The Buddy Holly Story, revealed in his memoirs that he was offered the lead role of Bud as his next project.

This picture was the movie that John Travolta did instead after turning down the lead role in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo (1980). He also turned down Xanadu (1980) in order to do this movie.

James Bridges said he didn't like Debra Winger the first time he saw her. "Suddenly there was this tough, terrible chick standing in front me. She came dressed for the part - in T-shirt, Levi's and no bra. Real tough." But after testing Winger, Bridges did a complete about-face. "The camera is in love with her," he said.

According to Debra Winger's book, she only got the part after Sissy Spacek, who originally was cast, had a falling out with Travolta.

Rene Russo and P.J. Soles did screen tests for the female lead.

In an interview on his show with John Travolta, Merv Griffin said Debra Winger was his receptionist until James Bridges the director poached her to star in his new romcom; and the rest is history.

Studio executives were against casting Debra Winger in the lead role, but changed their tune once director James Bridges threatened to quit the film unless she was cast.

Producer Robert Evans sent Debra Winger back from location because he did not think she was attractive enough for the lead; it was only at the insistence of director James Bridges that she remained in the picture.

Actress Michelle Pfeiffer auditioned for the role of Sissy and was producer Robert Evans' preferred choice, but James Bridges insisted on Debra Winger and would not budge on this casting.

 

The film's screenplay was adapted by Aaron Latham and James Bridges from an article by the same name in Esquire written by Latham. The original Esquire article centered on the romance between two Gilley's regulars named Dew Westbrook and Betty Helmer. Westbrook and Helmer's real-life relationship became the inspiration for the on-screen romance between John Travolta's and Debra Winger's characters.

 

John Travolta had a mechanical bull installed in his house two months before production began. He became so good that he was allowed to dismiss the stunt double and do the takes himself. He said, it was... "my most physical movie. That thing was brutal and hard on the body. I was trained by super stuntman Chris Howell and he taught me how to hang on and hang in there. To master it, finally, was a great feeling".

At the time the film was shot, Gilley's, used as the film's main nightclub location, was the largest nightclub in the world in terms of available space for the patrons, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Patsy Swayze, Patrick Swayze's mother, taught John Travolta how to do the two-step for the movie.

In the early scenes of the movie, John Travolta as Bud sports a beard. According to Director James Bridges, Travolta wanted to keep the beard throughout the film but, after a lunch-date with the actor in a very popular restaurant failed to attract even one autograph-seeker, Travolta was convinced to shave it off.

In the last two weeks, the shoot moved to Los Angeles where an East L.A. trailer park subbed for Bud's Houston digs. One day, gunfire suddenly peppered the set. According to a security guard, six men with sawed-off shotguns came over an embankment on the set's perimeter, firing away. It was believed, though never proven, that the assailants were members of a local street gang. No one was injured, but Travolta was badly shaken, and the remainder of filming was done on a soundstage.

The production shoot of this movie featured a closed set with many security precautions implemented to protect John Travolta from the media. Travolta had mandated no publicity during filming and was at the time known to have become reclusive. This movie though garnered much negative publicity during principal photography anyway with Producer Robert Evans once exclaiming "the press relations on this film stink and there's nothing I can do about it."

John Travolta said in an interview in the mid 1980s that the most fun he had while filming a movie was this movie, particularly while in Houston filming the Gilley's scenes. He said he got to know some of the local cowboys and their cowboy ways (wink, wink) and would sometimes hang out with them after filming wrapped.

The film featured a hit soundtrack album spawning numerous Top 10 Billboard Country Singles, such as #1 Lookin' for Love by Johnny Lee, #1 Stand by Me by Mickey Gilley, #3 (AC chart) Look What You've Done to Me by Boz Scaggs, #1 Could I Have This Dance by Anne Murray, and #4 Love the World Away by Kenny Rogers.  In December of 2018, the soundtrack was certified triple platinum by the RIAA for sales of three million copies.

 

Mickey Gilley's career was revived after the film release, and the soundtrack started a music movement. As a result of the film's success, there was a mainstream revival of country music.

After initial box-office returns were surprisingly low, a newspaper poll was taken in the summer of 1980 to figure out why teenagers were not flocking to see the film. One of the main complaints from kids was that they did not know what the word 'urban' meant.

--- ---

And that's all for now.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel. 

Lookin' For Love - Johnny Lee

from the 1980 motion picture Urban Cowboy