Ben Johnson

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I figured out a new method of uploading screencaps, so the Fort Apache screencaps are all now posted to the Ben page. ;) https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com/johnfordfilms

Even Sgt. Beaufort and Captain York are happy about it! ;)

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20th Century-Fox's The Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection on Blu-ray is now available -- all the R&H films except Flower Drum Song, as that was made by Universal. The set right now is an Amazon exclusive. ( I imagine it will eventually be released to other retailers and that each film will be made available indivually at some point.

The Todd A-O restoration looks incredible on Blu-ray (though not quite as incredible as it did on the big screen).;) Here's a screencap made by a fan named Mark:



Mark gave me the info about how to do Blu-ray screencaps on the Mac, so I'm hoping that I can finally start making some of my own. ;)

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Somebody had a 3x5 size print made of this rather fuzzy Wagon Master still, and then got Harry Carey, Jr. to sign it. And now it's in my collection. ;) You can't see Dobe's autograph all that well on the scan. On the original it still looks new and shiny -- he signed with a Sharpie or other marker, not a pen. ;) This scan is a bit blown up in size from the original.

[pvitari]

I can now watch Blu-rays on my Mac... even do screencaps! Though the method of making a screencap is a lot more ungainly than doing regular DVDs.

So here's my first Blu-ray screencap compared with the DVD version.

Rio Grande.

Blu-ray.



DVD.




Definitely an improvement! Though no, I am not planning to redo Rio Grande or Fort Apache (sorry). I might redo some of the movies in which Ben has a smaller role. Or maybe just do a selection of screencaps. But it's nice to see Blu-ray on my Mac. I think Apple is nuts not to put a Blu-ray drive in their Macs but all they can think about is making you pay them to watch movies in iTunes.

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Here's a great clipping sent to me by Doug O'Neal, Carol Johnson's second cousin. Doug has contributed a number of photos over the years and I'll be posting tomorrow another photo he just sent me. ;) Here's Doug's page: http://dougoneal.com/ben_johnson.html

The writer exaggerates quite a bit about Ben's credits. He's got 104 movie and TV show listings on the IMDB and as we know, he also worked uncredited in a number of films but how many more could that be? Not enough to make 300. :)

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Here's a darling photo sent to me by Doug O'Neal. Ben and Doug (then just a little kid) in the pool at Ben's horsebreeding ranch in Sylmar, California, in September 1967. I am so grateful to Doug for sending me scans of his family photos!

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I had fun making Shane Blu-ray screencaps last night. The software really doesn't let me do the intense, sometimes frame by frame kind of screencapping I like, but I can still pretty much catch the good moments. :) So here are some of the screencaps and you can see the rest -- I made a total of 63 -- at https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com/movies/63148

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Happy Mother's Day -- Ben and his mom Ollie. This picture is from the January 1996 issue of Arizona Highways magazine, which you can read (or better yet, download) from here: https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com/print/25.

Ben's holding his Oscar and Miss Ollie is holding his Golden Globe and another award statuette (the black one) that I can't identify. Anyone know what it is?

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I recently acquired the script for Hustle as well as the movie's Japanese program, and on the Ben page I posted some pics of Ben from the program along with corresponding passages from the script. It's easiest just to go there and have a look, so here's the link: http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com.

You can see the entire Hustle Japanese program book here: https://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com/print/904

Here are a couple of the pics.

With Eileen Brennan as Ben's wife. Her name in the movie is Paula. Yay! ;)


With Catherine Bach, the future Daisy Duke, as a roommate of his daughter

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Candid from the set of One-Eyed Jacks.

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This Fort Defiance pic made me think of a quote I read a while back from Harry Carey, Jr. about Ben: "He had the eyes of a gunfighter and the heart of a saint."

P.S. It's Harry Carey Jr.'s birthday today. :)

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Amusing little mention of Ben, Marlon Brando and One-Eyed Jacks at the end of this "Mr. Hollywood" column. Toby Roan of 50 Westerns from the '50s sent it to me. :)

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Well, I won't be posting again until next week because of the John Wayne B'day celebration. I just finished Scott Eyman's bio of John Wayne, which I thought was a terrific piece of work and am really looking forward to hearing his remarks about Wayne. I did post a little story today about Lana Wood, who will be at the event, because she starred in Grayeagle with Ben. If you're interested in the story, here's the link: http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask Lana about Ben! I read her memoir about her and sister Natalie but she didn't mention Grayeagle in it.

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Sorry to have disappeared for so long but I have not had a moment to myself since I got back from the John Wayne Birthday celebration. Today is the first day I've had time to post something. I had a great time at the festival and I did get to talk to Lana Wood for a couple of minutes for a mini-interview about Ben -- yay! She's all big smiles and super-cheerful and happy to answer questions. I'm sure if we'd had time she would been delighted to gab more about Grayeagle (the movie she made with Ben) but they were anxious to get her out of there and on to wherever she had to go next. :)

Anyway, here's a picture I took of her and that big smile is indeed Lana. ;) The interview is on the front page of my Ben page (http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com) and a story about the birthday event plus photos are on the Festivals page (http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com/festivals).

I did get to say hi to Glenn Frankel and Scott Eyman and Scott signed my copy of his John Wayne bio (Glenn signed his Searchers book for me at last year's JW birthday bash). I've got some pictures of them together in the album on the Festivals page.

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Today I posted on the Ben page a link to a Facebook page where everyone is suddenly talking about Ben (yay!) and also a picture of Ben and a stuntman named Randy Oliver, who worked with Ben on several projects. Randy is nowadays a silversmith and makes beautiful custom designed jewelery, belt buckles, knives, etc. You can read all about it (and see Randy's picture) here: http://benjohnsonfanpage.shutterfly.com