Ben Johnson
Re: Ben Johnson
Lloyd Fonvielle posted a column about The Last Picture Show yesterday at his blog mardescortesbaja.com. Here's the link: http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/2014/08/ ... ture-show/
In it he discusses the creative partnership of Bogdanovich and his then-wife, Polly Platt, and surmises that she guided his creativity in a way he was not able to duplicate after they split. Lloyd also has some very complimentary things to say about Ben as Sam the Lion: "...the heart of it is Ben Johnson’s powerful performance as Sam the Lion, for which he won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. The film is about the passing of time, the dying out of a small Texas town, and Sam the Lion (above) personifies what’s being lost in the process, the old breed of Texan whose world is vanishing. Without Johnson’s character, we wouldn’t have quite the same sense of what’s at stake in the film’s mournful, bittersweet parade of longing and disappointment and heartache. Johnson gives the film an epic dimension, elevates it into the highest ranks of American cinema."
Nice!
Today's post is a still from The Train Robbers. Yes, it really is that tilted!
In it he discusses the creative partnership of Bogdanovich and his then-wife, Polly Platt, and surmises that she guided his creativity in a way he was not able to duplicate after they split. Lloyd also has some very complimentary things to say about Ben as Sam the Lion: "...the heart of it is Ben Johnson’s powerful performance as Sam the Lion, for which he won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. The film is about the passing of time, the dying out of a small Texas town, and Sam the Lion (above) personifies what’s being lost in the process, the old breed of Texan whose world is vanishing. Without Johnson’s character, we wouldn’t have quite the same sense of what’s at stake in the film’s mournful, bittersweet parade of longing and disappointment and heartache. Johnson gives the film an epic dimension, elevates it into the highest ranks of American cinema."
Nice!
Today's post is a still from The Train Robbers. Yes, it really is that tilted!
Re: Ben Johnson
I posted a really nice pic of Ben and Doug McClure today at the Ben page but I'm afraid you'll have to go there to see it. Here's the link. :)
http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com
http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com
Re: Ben Johnson
Dillinger photo. For some reason, this one makes me think about Herr Doktor Freud. :)
Re: Ben Johnson
A pic from My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys -- sadly still not available on DVD, let alone Blu-ray. One of Ben's best performances in his later years. This is a new print made from a vintage publicity slide.
Re: Ben Johnson
Two versions of the same photo. The first one is a cropped version from a 6 1/2 x 4 3/4 small photo. The second is your usual 8x10 publicity still.
Re: Ben Johnson
Back in 2013 at the John Wayne birthday celebration in Winterset, I met a very friendly fellow named Larry Carriere. Larry is from Texas and he talks with the ripest of ripe Texas accents -- it's thicker than the ones you hear from the Archer City locals cast in The Last Picture Show. :) Larry told me all about meeting Ben at a charity event back in the mid-90s, and just recently he dug up some photos from that event. It was a roping to benefit cystic fibrosis which took place at the fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Tex. The pics were taken at the Houston Omni-Holiday Inn Hotel in late May or early June, 1995. Larry also sent me a Wagon Master still that had been placed in a matte along with an autographed card from Ben! I was shocked and thrilled with Larry's generosity -- that's quite an item! I will get it framed and take a picture so you can all see it.
Re: Ben Johnson
I wish this Fort Bowie still were in my collection but it's from an Italian movie website, iVid.it, as you can see from the watermark.
Re: Ben Johnson
JackFavell, this one's for you -- fingerpointing! A still from Something Big. Sadly, this is the only still from this movie that I've been able to find with Ben in it, even though he had a major supporting role in the film. There are lots of pics from Something Big on ebay but he's not in any of them -- except this one which I've had in my collection for a while but only got around to scanning in yesterday.
Re: Ben Johnson
Here's a still from Fort Bowie. The young officer riding next to Ben is beloved singer Johnny Western, who was a great friend of Ben's. Ben paid his entry fee into the Screen Actor's Guild and at one point they were even thinking of doing a TV series together. ;)
Re: Ben Johnson
The nice people at Twilight Time have released for the first time ever on home video Sam Peckinpah's "Noon Wine." Peckinpah both wrote and directed this nearly hour-long adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter's short novel for the anthology series ABC Stage 67. Ben appeared in "Noon Wine" as Sheriff Barbee.
Sadly, ABC Stage 67 lasted only one season and most of its episodes were junked in the 1970s to make room in ABC's vaults for things like The Lawrence Welk Show. (!) One of the episodes that survives is an early Steven Sondheim work, the mini-musical "Evening Primrose," though only in black and white. (The show was broadcast in color.) Like "Evening Primrose," up to now "Noon Wine" survived only in black and white, from kinescopes of truly awful quality. I had a DVD dub of one of these and although I made screencaps, they were lousy indeed.
Recently someone discovered a one-inch tape dub of the original 2-inch videotape master ("Noon Wine" was shot in a combination of video and film), providing for the time a decent source, in color. Twilight Time managed to get permission to include this as an extra on their Blu-ray of Peckinpah's The Killer Elite, although "Noon Wine" itself is presented in standard definition, as Blu-ray would could not enhance the videotape picture any further.
I have made new screencaps from this much improved (if hardly perfect) version of "Noon Wine." Thanks to the enhanced picture quality, I noticed Ben in one additional scene, in the courtroom. Seeing this decent version was a real revelation -- the entire cast is just fantastic and the story is devastating. Peckinpah's career was total mud at this point due to the failure of Major Dundee, but producer Daniel Melnick viewed his work on the TV series The Rifleman and The Westerner, and felt strongly that Peckinpah was the right person to adapt the Porter novel. His instincts were right on the money. "Noon Wine" was received with high praise and Peckinpah's career was revived. His next film was The Wild Bunch. The DVD includes a commentary with Nick Redman, Garner Simmons and Paul Seydor -- all Peckinpah experts -- and this disc is well worth buying just for "Noon Wine." But The Killer Elite is fun too... it's a suspense thriller, perhaps not Peckinpah's usual cup of tea, but he manages to include some of his signature touches here and there, and the Blu-ray looks great.
With Olivia De Havilland. They would work together again in The Swarm.
I can't resist including this one of the great L.Q. Jones, looking like he wandered in from a production of Tobacco Road. :)
Sadly, ABC Stage 67 lasted only one season and most of its episodes were junked in the 1970s to make room in ABC's vaults for things like The Lawrence Welk Show. (!) One of the episodes that survives is an early Steven Sondheim work, the mini-musical "Evening Primrose," though only in black and white. (The show was broadcast in color.) Like "Evening Primrose," up to now "Noon Wine" survived only in black and white, from kinescopes of truly awful quality. I had a DVD dub of one of these and although I made screencaps, they were lousy indeed.
Recently someone discovered a one-inch tape dub of the original 2-inch videotape master ("Noon Wine" was shot in a combination of video and film), providing for the time a decent source, in color. Twilight Time managed to get permission to include this as an extra on their Blu-ray of Peckinpah's The Killer Elite, although "Noon Wine" itself is presented in standard definition, as Blu-ray would could not enhance the videotape picture any further.
I have made new screencaps from this much improved (if hardly perfect) version of "Noon Wine." Thanks to the enhanced picture quality, I noticed Ben in one additional scene, in the courtroom. Seeing this decent version was a real revelation -- the entire cast is just fantastic and the story is devastating. Peckinpah's career was total mud at this point due to the failure of Major Dundee, but producer Daniel Melnick viewed his work on the TV series The Rifleman and The Westerner, and felt strongly that Peckinpah was the right person to adapt the Porter novel. His instincts were right on the money. "Noon Wine" was received with high praise and Peckinpah's career was revived. His next film was The Wild Bunch. The DVD includes a commentary with Nick Redman, Garner Simmons and Paul Seydor -- all Peckinpah experts -- and this disc is well worth buying just for "Noon Wine." But The Killer Elite is fun too... it's a suspense thriller, perhaps not Peckinpah's usual cup of tea, but he manages to include some of his signature touches here and there, and the Blu-ray looks great.
With Olivia De Havilland. They would work together again in The Swarm.
I can't resist including this one of the great L.Q. Jones, looking like he wandered in from a production of Tobacco Road. :)
Re: Ben Johnson
Could log on to SSO last Friday, so here are Friday's and today's posts.
Chisum
The Train Robbers
Chisum
The Train Robbers
