Tom Mix -- Photoplays of Strenuous Life, Reckless Riding and Daring Adventure -- August 11, 2021

Omaha Bee, 28-August-1921

When I first saw this ad, I did not recognize the title as a Tom Mix movie. I investigated and learned that it was. After Your Own Heart appears to be a movie about racing cars. Tom Mix liked fast cars. I have seen the memorial near Florence, Arizona where Tom Mix died in a fast car.

Before air conditioning, theater business tended to decline or shut down during hot weather. The Moon Theater in Omaha advertised "Gigantic Arctic Cooling System/It's Winter All Summer in the Moon.".

Motion Picture News, 30-April-1921

The Moon Theater used this poster to advertise Tom Mix in The Road Demon, another movie about racing cars. 

Clovis News, 11-August-1921

Great Falls Tribune, 28-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Exhibitors Herald, 27-August-1921

Fox had big plans for Tom Mix during the 1921-1922 season. "Tom Mix is scheduled to make about seven photoplays of strenuous life, reckless riding and daring adventure."

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Fox boasted about "Fox Stars and Fox Productions for 1921-1922. Tom Mix was featured prominently, and was to have a "wonderful record of never having made a failure."

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

The same ad also featured Buck Jones, who started out as Fox Film Corporation's second-tier cowboy star. He went on to have a strong career, well into the talkie era. "His genial good nature and clean, breezy type of manhood have made him a strong favorite."

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Tom Mix and Buck Jones planned to spend their vacation taking a crew of cowboys around the rodeo circuit. Back in 1920, Tom Mix had won a bull-riding prize at Prescott Frontier Days, which claims to be the world's oldest rodeo.

Bemidji Daily Pioneer, 06-August-1921

Buck played a Mountie named Jock MacTier in Get Your Man.

Exhibitors Herald, 27-August-1921

"Stories of rapid action and replete with thrills have been provided for the fast riding and hard fighting star..."

Newark Journal, 18-August-1921

Sunset Sprague is a great character name and film title. 

Moving Picture World, 20-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Hoot Gibson was a contemporary of Mix and Jones. His movies tended to emphasize humor.

Moving Picture World, 20-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 13-August-1921

Tom Santschi (hard name to spell) had a long career, but mostly worked in small character parts after the mid-1920s.

Newark Journal, 04-August-1921

Art Acord was another contemporary of Mix and Jones, who appeared in many silent films, but did not make the transition to talkies. He served in France during World War One and was decorated for bravery and won an Army boxing title.

Barbara Britton 100 -- September 26, 2019

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Actress Barbara Britton was born 100 years ago today, on 26-September-1919.  She appeared in a lot of westerns.

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Colonel Tim McCoy 125 -- April 10, 2016

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Happy 125th birthday to western star Colonel Tim McCoy.  He was born in Michigan on 10-April-1891.  He became a rancher in Wyoming and got to know the Native American tribes, treating them with respect.  They taught him to talk sign.

He served in the US Army during World War One.  After the war, he became Adjutant General of the Wyoming National Guard.  He served in the Army again during World War Two.

He got involved in movies by serving as a consultant on the silent epic The Covered Wagon.   He starred in a series of silent features for MGM.  When talkies came, he worked for Columbia and lesser studios.  After the war, he performed on an early television show, teaching children about western history.

I own a copy of his memoirs, Tim McCoy Remembers the West. He spoke very respectfully of the Native Americans he knew and worked with.  He reminds me a lot of a couple of my uncles, what they used to call a straight arrow.  

Moving Picture Magazine, August, 1928

Eli Wallach 100 -- December 7, 2015

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Today is both Pearl Harbor Day and actor Eli Wallach's 100th birthday, so he celebrated his 26th birthday on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked.

He lived to be 98.  I'll just recycle what I wrote in 2014:

Actor Eli Wallach died at age 98.  He was a pioneering method actor and a World War II veteran.  He performed in Tennessee Williams (Baby Doll), Arthur Miller (The Misfits), Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim) and Mario Puzo (The Godfather Part III), but people who heard about his passing talked about The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.  They especially talk about Tuco in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. 

They remember scenes like Tuco in the bubble bath.  The one armed man enters the room.  "I've been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left."

Tuco shoots him with a gun he held in the bubbles.  "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

Grauman's Chinese -- Gene Autry and Champion -- May 16, 2015

Singing cowboy Gene Autry and his horse Champion left hand, foot, and hoof prints in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese on 23-December-1949. DSCN4140.

Gene Autry was a hillbilly music recording artist, a pioneering singing cowboy, a WWII veteran, a radio and television performer, and owner of the California Angels for many years.

I took this photo on 18-July-2009.

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Radio Ranch was the feature length condensation of the Mascot Serial The Phantom Empire. 

William S Hart 150 -- December 6, 2014

Moving Picture World, 21-October-1916

Western start William S Hart was born 150 years ago today, on 06-December-1864.  I find it interesting that a movie star was born during the US Civil War.  Hart was a Shakespearean actor who had played Messala in the original 1899 stage production of Ben-Hur.  In 1914, at the age of 49 or 50, he started acting in movies and quickly became one of the first big western stars.  He often played what was called a good-bad man, a criminal who reformed because of the love of a good woman. 

Bad guys quickly learned not to mess around with William S Hart.  Hell's Hinges is one of his easiest movies to see.  It is not what one would call a laugh riot.  \

I need to write more about him in this blog. 

Fritzi of Movies Silently is dedicating the month of December to Bill Hart:
http://moviessilently.com/2014/12/02/theme-month-december-2014-have-a-hart/

Indian Wars Refought by United States Army -- November 13, 2014

Moving Picture World, 14-Nobember-1914

Both Colonel William F Cody (Buffalo Bill) and General Nelson A Miles had served in the Civil War and the Indian Wars.  Both men won the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The Colonel William F Cody (Buffalo Bill) Historical Pictures Company produced a six-reel feature about the Indian Wars.  It featured the two men and "One Thousand Indians, Many Famous Chiefs and 1000 U. S. Troops."  I suspect it is lost. 

Clayton Moore 100 -- September 14, 2014

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Actor Claytom Moore was born 100 years ago today, on 14-September-1914.  He performed in the circus, served as a model, In the late 1930s, he began appearing in movies.  During World War II, he served in the US Army Air Force, making training films. 

Moore starred in some features at Republic Studios and some serials, including Perils of Nyoka with Kay Aldridge, The Crimson Ghost with Linda Stirling, Adventures of Frank and Jesse James, as Jesse James, with Noell Neill, and Ghost of Zorro.

The Lone Ranger. created by writer Fran Striker, had appeared on radio since 1933 and had been the lead character in two Republic serials in 1938 and 1939.  In 1949, Striker was looking for someone to play the Long Ranger on a television series.  Trendle picked Moore to play the Lone Ranger, allegedly after seeing him in Ghost of Zorro. Moore modeled his voice on the voice of Brace Beemer who had played the role on the radio for several years. 

The series, which also featured Jay Silverheels as Tonto, was a success, but Moore got fired after the second season.  Moore returned for the fourth season and stayed till production stopped. 

New property owner Jack Wrather made two theatrical features with Moore and Silverheels, The Lone Ranger in 1956 and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold in 1958.

Clayton Moore spent the rest of his life, with a short exception, making personal appearances as the Lone Ranger.  He always tried to behave in a way that would be a good example to young people.  He always wore his mask in public.   

In 1981, Jack Wrather made a movie called The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and sued to prevent Moore from portraying the Lone Ranger.  Moore started wearing sunglasses and countersued, winning the right to appear as the Lone Ranger.  The movie was a bomb, and the negative publicity from picking on a national icon made things worse. 

Clayton Moore died in 1999. 

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Stan Freberg produced the commercial in the 1960s.

Eli Wallach, RIP -- June 26, 2014

Actor Eli Wallach died at age 98.  He was a pioneering method actor and a World War II veteran.  He performed in Tennessee Williams (Baby Doll), Arthur Miller (The Misfits), Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim) and Mario Puzo (The Godfather Part III), but people who heard about his passing talked about The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.  They especially talk about Tuco in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. 

They remember scenes like Tuco in the bubble bath.  The one armed man enters the room.  "I've been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left."

Tuco shoots him with a gun he held in the bubbles.  "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

 

Herb Jeffries, RIP -- May 27, 2014

I was sad to learn of the passing at the age of 100 of Herb Jeffries, the Bronze Buckaroo, who sang with Duke Ellington and Earl Hines  and starred in a series of western "race movies."  Some sources claim that he was a white man who passed as black, while others claim that his Sicilian father was of partly Ethiopian descent. Does it matter?