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Charlie started in the entertainment business with his own Salt Lake City based show, "Hotel Balderdash," on which he played several different characters; as well as hosting Arizona based shows such as, "Dining Out In Arizona," "Chrome Highway," and "At Home in Arizona." He has also appeared in movies and network television programs such as: "The Highriders," "Good-bye, Franklin High," "The Lucifer Complex," "Greatest Heroes of the Bible," and "Mark Twain's America." His most recent film, "Out of Reach," will be released in the Summer of 2007.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

POLITICS IN THE SADDLE - Part 3. The Story Behind "High Noon."

High Noon, released in 1952, is considered a Western film classic. President Eisenhower loved to screen the film while he was in office, Bill Clinton has declared it his favorite film, and Ronald Reagan said that it showed a "strong dedication to duty, law,and well being of people with conservative/anti-communist views."
All this would have been a shock to Carl Foreman who wrote the screenplay as an indictment against the so-called "Communist Witch Hunts" or "McCarthyism," named after Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, and hearings on the subject in 1950. As a young man, Foreman had joined the Communist Party, and now knew it was just a matter of time before he would be called before the House on Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC to testify. He also knew that he would beexpected to name other Communists and Communist sympathizers. Indeed, after completion of the script for High Noon, he was called before the committee and pleaded his "Fifth Amendment" rights. Feeling that his "non-testimony" before the HUAC would blacklist him from working in Hollywood, he immediately re-wrote many scenes that would appear in the film to reflect his own beliefs on the committee and his plight.
"I became the Cooper character," Foreman would later say. "I felt that, like the marshal, I had been abandoned by everyone and left alone to fight the battle." Marshal Will Kane would end up leaving Hadleyville and Foreman would leave his country for London.
Like the brave marshal he played in the film, Gary Cooper wanted to defend Foreman for standing up for his rights. John Wayne and Ward Bond, both well known conservatives, warned Cooper that it would be unwise and unhealthy for his career. Cooper backed away from the fight.
The film's young producer, Stanley Kramer, and Columbia Pictures president, Harry Cohen where able to silence any publicity about Foreman's rewritten content and America enjoyed what film-goers viewed as a well-crafted, taunt, little Western with the interesting advantage of being told in real-time, much like the popular television program 24 today.
Even though the screenplay was based on a short story, "The Tin Star," by John W. Cunningham, Foreman was able to write enough of his beliefs into the screenplay to get his point across. Wayne called it the "most un-American thing he had ever seen," and promised, along with Hawks to one day film their version of the same story. Indeed Hawks and Wayne would live up to their word when they made Rio Bravo, a few years later.
High Noon would go on to be nominated for several Oscars including, Best Picture, Best Director, and Carl Foreman for Best Screenplay. It would win, among others, Best Actor for Gary Cooper, and Best Song as sung by legendary Western star, Tex Ritter. Surprisingly, Cooper was out of town and asked none other than John Wayne to accept his Oscar for him, which Wayne graciously did.
Others connected with the film would suffer to varying degrees due to alleged Communist backgrounds. Co-star Lloyd Bridges, although not blacklisted, was "gray listed," meaning that his promising career was not stopped but curtailed, until his successful TV series Sea Hunt gave him a much needed boost. Famed cinematographer Floyd Crosby (father of musician, David Crosby) was likewise gray listed for a time due to the fallout.
Carl Foreman, would go on to a popular screenwriting career with films like: A Hatful of Rain, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, and MacKenna's Gold.
Today, the film that was a screen writer's retaliation against the HUAC has become a Western film classic, recognized as just that by such diverse presidents as Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bill Clinton. President Reagan's saying that it is an indictment against Communism isn't exactly what Carl Foreman had in mind, but it proves that, no matter how it's packaged, a classic Western is something that is inherently about the legend called "the winning of the west." In the end, no matter what, it boils down to good over evil. Something that, all too often, the films of today have forgotten.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

KINGMAN TO GET FEDERAL GRANT FOR BEALE HOTEL

Kingman, Arizona has been given a federal grant to revive the historic Beale Hotel (or Hotel Beale - take your pick). This, as many Western fans will know, is the hotel that Andy Devine's family owned when Andy was a kid, and where legend has it he had the accident that may have caused his unusual voice.
Andy Devine's history in film and television is remarkable with hundreds of appearnces in both mediums. Of particular interest to Western Fans should be the time he spent in the late 1940s as sidekick to Roy Rogers. In the 1950s, he moved to television with a hit kid's show, "Andy's Gang," and the show he is best remembered for, "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok," as Jingles, which played on television in reruns well into the 1960s. Films include, John Ford's "Stagecoach," and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," both with the great John Wayne.
This is an exciting new step in revitalizing the historic town of Kingman, which is right in heart of the longest stretch of Route 66 still in use. Andy Devine Days has been a staple of the town for decades and now, with the restoration of the Beale, things seem to be moving in a great direction to make Andy Devine Days a terrific time to visit Kingman.