Ben Johnson

[JackFavell]

I think I've said too much already....

[knitwit45]

Wendy, you SAID what I was THINKING....Now, think about our Ben in chaps......zowie......

[JackFavell]

Well, I have looked high and low for a picture of Ben in chaps, and I could only find one, from that same Bonanza episode that I posted at the beginning of the thread.

In this photo, Ben has just been tossed from a wild horse, forced into a competition with an envious younger man who wants his job as Top Hand. He is rubbing his leg which was injured in the fall.



Not bad for a man of fifty five! Ben does some great stunt work in this TV show.

I am positive that I am overlooking some other movie, but maybe I am thinking of his fringed buckskins in Wagon Master instead.

[klondike]

I know this episode!
It's one of the very few post-Adam episodes that I really, honestly enjoyed, and have kept in my "Bonanza" collection.
I've often opined that this one is a very fitting book-end to another rarely-good episode from that same, late season, titled "A Time to Move On", in which Ed Begley, Sr. played a 60-something drover who had run cattle for the Cartwrights for over twenty years, but needed to step-down to ranch-handing, or quit. The battle between his rock-hard pride, and the practical reality of his changing world, made for an extremely moving story of integrity, sacrifice & desperation.

[JackFavell]

Oh, Klonny! You and I come down on the same side here... I am not the biggest Bonanza fan, and especially the later episodes, so I put off watching this one for a while. But Top Hand was one of the best I've seen, and I just loved the detail in it, the way it built up, and how everything turned out. It was a very well wrtiten story. Nothing was overdone, or tied up too quickly....the characters were very realistically portrayed. It really has the feel of a "western movie" with lots of riding and outdoor locations. Ben is marvelous and I love the fact that they gave him stunt work - you can see his face as he's balancing between the two racing horses! This episode was one of the best Bonanzas I've ever seen.

I am going to go look up the Ed Begley episode on you tube now... he's a marvelous actor. There hasn't been a single performance of his that I didn't like.

[MissGoddess]

I can't believe I've never seen that BJ "Bonanza" episode. Sometimes I think TV Land only shows a select few of the same shows. I have seen Ben on the show but I'm not sure it was that one. Thanks for posting the link.

And I definitely prefer the early (Adam) years to the later episodes.

[JackFavell]

Oh MissG, I hope you get to watch that episode. I really loved it, and it makes me long for the days of good television stories.

Disappointingly, I cannot find the Ed Begley episode anywhere.

[JackFavell]

I recently found this photo from Shane on ebay. Although it could be footage shot for the movie, I think this might have been a costume and makeup test photo. There is never a scene in the final cut of the movie in which he looks like this. Ben looks far too neat and orderly for this to be from the actual movie.



I like to think that Ben went out and rolled around on the ground a bit once he got that costume, and roughed it up a bit.

Here's Ben looking more like himself, a real cowboy:

[JackFavell]

Of course, it could be a deleted ending to this scene, the one in which Chris Calloway sits listening guiltily to Ryker and his men laughing while Joe Torrey's funeral is taking place. Chris makes his decision to help Shane right after this scene. It's tantalizing to think that Ben might have had an extra scene, in which he makes that decision more clear.

[knitwit45]

wow. thanks for the screen caps, his eyes are positively icy, aren't they? again...wow.

[JackFavell]

The funeral scene is actually my favorite in Shane, Nancy. It reminds me of John Ford, and I like the contrast between life and death - with the children there and the young animals standing near their mothers.

His eyes are cold, aren't they? But I think his coldness and anger is directed inward, toward himself. Something big is happening to him. The cattle men can see the funeral party from the saloon/store, and the casket being lowered into the ground. We see Chris (Ben) watching, as the sound of the funeral music drifts up to the porch where he is sitting. He looks over to Ryker, who is laughing and joking with his men. Chris is literally changing his mind about what kind of man he wants to be, right before our eyes. He just can't stomach the other men joking while a man goes into the ground. You see it in his eyes, and the guilt-ridden way he is rubbing his hands, as if to wipe away the stain of it. I actually feel sorry for him, because he sees his own part in Torrey's death. He was not there during Torrey's shooting, but he knows he has influenced the way things have gone up to this point. He has come down on the wrong side and he knows it.

[klondike]

Something big is happening to him. The cattle men can see the funeral party from the saloon/store, and the casket being lowered into the ground. We see Chris (Ben) watching, as the sound of the funeral music drifts up to the porch where he is sitting. He looks over to Ryker, who is laughing and joking with his men. Chris is literally changing his mind about what kind of man he wants to be, right before our eyes. .

I think, too, Chris is taking measure of a land in the throes of putting to rest a way of life that will soon be deader than Elisha Cook's misplaced little Confederate.
He sees the progressing disappearence of the hell-for-leather era of kingdom-carving cow barons, like the Ryker brothers & their ilk, defeated finally by an adversary they couldn't outshoot, trample or threaten away: the whispering fertility of their own earth, and the burgeoning hunger of a post-war East.
He is mulling what skin he can go on living in, as he passes the zenith of his life - a bitter, seething fossil of a drover, crippled by tobacco, liquor & misanthropy as his "times" run out, or become a member of a community, daring to put down roots somewhere, and raise something that will outlive him.
Frightening prospects indeed; to survive by relying entirely on neither fight nor flight.

[JackFavell]

I think, too, Chris is taking measure of a land in the throes of putting to rest a way of life that will soon be deader than Elisha Cook's misplaced little Confederate.
He sees the progressing disappearence of the hell-for-leather era of kingdom-carving cow barons, like the Ryker brothers & their ilk, defeated finally by an adversary they couldn't outshoot, trample or threaten away: the whispering fertility of their own earth, and the burgeoning hunger of a post-war East.
He is mulling what skin he can go on living in, as he passes the zenith of his life - a bitter, seething fossil of a drover, crippled by tobacco, liquor & misanthropy as his "times" run out, or become a member of a community, daring to put down roots somewhere, and raise something that will outlive him.
Frightening prospects indeed; to survive by relying entirely on neither fight nor flight.

Whoa! Now why can't I go deep like that into a movie I've watched a hundred times in the last two years?

I'll have to watch again with your excellent comments in mind.

That was beautifully written, Klondike. I see all that in his worried look. Ryker's way of life is doomed at this point. Does Chris choose life, or death? like you say, neither fight nor flight... How do you stop, and put your entire being into moving in a new direction? What a crossroads..... but he seizes the opportunity like a man. He really doesn't have a choice, it's change or be trampled by progress.

[JackFavell]

Shane is on tonight at 12:00 midnight ET

[JackFavell]

I think I must be crazy. I so enjoy watching Ben get the daylights beat out of him.

The fight in Shaneis a fascinating scene, just because it is so tense and so long. Ben just keeps getting up and coming back for more. The men actually stop and wait,in the middle of their fight, while another man walks into the saloon! I don't think any of Ryker's other men would be so polite. They spend a lot of time sizing one another up. Chris (Ben) has vastly underrated Shane as an opponent. He starts to realize it, but keeps thinking he can sneak in a good punch or a left hook while Shane isn't looking. He should have noticed that his partner in crime at the bar gets up and leaves - The man recognizes Shane as a gunfighter and wants nothing to do with what is going to happen. If Chris had spent time sizing up Shane before the fight, he would have been a lot better off. Shane teaches him that valuable lesson.

Anyway, I like the fight on another level as well. After reading about it, I realize that the fight was staged brilliantly, using ramps and apple boxes (differing sized crates used to heighten shorter stars). Ben was 6' 2". Alan Ladd was 5' 4". This difference is never apparent in the film. When you realize that Ben was literally hurling himself over tables, up against the bar all by himself, it becomes quite amazing to watch. I don't know how he does it, but it's kind of beautiful. I know, I AM crazy.

I think Shane was the very first film where Ben really spent time thinking about what he was to do as an actor. I am not sure why I think this, but he spends his time on screen in a very different way than in his Ford films. Rather than flying through the air like a bolt of lightning on horseback, and playing a boyish charmer, we get this serious, quiet bad man, one who can be very threatening, but who develops a conscience in the end. Ben turns his thoughts inward, using minimal gestures to express his growing dissatisfaction, or his temper. I think Ben finally got bit by the acting bug during this film. THAT is why I enjoy Shane so much.