Tag Archives: Henry Fonda

Picture This – New Mexico

24 May

We just returned from our annual field trip to New Mexico. For those who may not know, every spring another professor and I take students on a journey through the land, art and cuisine of the Land of Enchantment. This was one of our best experiences with great students and great learning opportunities. Instead of chronicling the entire venture, I decided to post my favorite photograph from each day.

On the drive out, we stopped at Cadillac Ranch, one of the most famous examples of Pop Art, and we all added our own touch to the masterpiece. 

On the second day, we made our way closer to the final destination of Santa Fe. However, we stopped at the home of artist Peter de la Fuente along the way. He is the grandson of Henriette Wyeth and Peter Hurd and does everything he can to carry on the family tradition. Currently, he does it on an 80,000 acre ranch.

Once in Santa Fe, we went on daily excursions that included hikes and moments of historical instruction. However, the highlight of the next say was our meal at Horseman’s Haven. If you love breakfast burritos covered in green chili sauce, then that is the place you need to go.

By far, my favorite hike is at Tent Rocks. It is a stroll through a slot canyon before a climb to the top of a mesa. Its true name is Kasha-Katuwe.

Our most time-consuming excursion is the drive to Chaco Canyon, the home of the Anasazi. No one knows for sure what if the canyon was a religious center, a commercial center or the home to thousands. It could have been all of that. 

We also drove to Taos. However, we did not stop in town. We went straight to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and walked across to get some great pictures and some great shakiness over the height.

Acoma Pueblo is always one of our favorite stops. It is the oldest inhabited community in North America. There are great views from the top of the mesa on which the pueblo sits. However, I am always amazed by the streets within the community. I expect Henry Fonda to ride up on a horse at any minute. In fact, he did ride up on a horse in My Name is Nobody.

We also visited the ruins at Bandelier National Monument. Climbing the 140 foot ladders is always a highlight. However, it best moment is when we convince the students to sniff a tree.

On the final day, we did something completely different and new to our trip. A few of us went to Meow Wolf, an interactive art experience supported by Santa Fe resident George R.R. Martin. It was a weird and awesome thing to do.

After that, we made the long drive back to Tennessee. Hopefully, this trip to New Mexico was a learning experience for everyone.

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About Time

11 Nov

A few posts ago, I mentioned that this semester has flown by. My timing has been completely off, and it will be difficult to cover everything that I need to go over. One of my colleagues said that he is facing the same thing. It is as if the semester has been shorten. He also thought that previous semesters may have been longer, and this semester is the way it is supposed to be.

On top of all that, I saw Interstellar and its time warping plot. I will not spoil it for anyone, but it made me wish that I could slow down time. At least, I could get caught up on my lectures.

Between the feeling that time is flying and the viewing of the movie, time has been on my mind. Obviously that led me to all of the things that are related to time. You know, things like TIME magazine. Heck, it has time written all over it. Then, there is the Allman Brothers song, “Ain’t Wastin’ No More Time”. Better than that, who could forget the Isaac Hayes rendition of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”? It is only 18 minutes long.

In the movie world, there is Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Phoebe Cates sending every young male into a testosterone-fueled frenzy.Phoebe

Fast times. Man, that is the truth. I always heard that time goes by faster as you get older. I did not believe it, but I should have.

Maybe I could become a time bandit. You remember that movie, right? Time Bandits hit the screens the year before Phoebe Cates hit the hearts of all those young males. It starred Sean Connery, who was still trying to get away from his James Bond persona. Time finally allowed him to escape the clutches of 007.

It is a good thing that Charles Bronson was not after him because no one could escape the Man With the Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West. I wrote a post about Henry Fonda playing one of the baddest dudes in movie history, but he could not escape Bronson any better than the other people in that movie.Fonda

Of course, if you want to get serious about time, then you should read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Doctors once told him that his time was running out due to ALS. He fooled them.

Before I fool myself by thinking that something can be done to slow down time, I am going to stop writing and figure out how I am going to get all of this history covered before time runs out on the semester. Yep, “I Ain’t Wastin’ No More Time.”

 

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The Makers of Legend

11 Mar

This semester, I am teaching Expansion of the United States and had my students read The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel, an excellent study of how a historical event can get turned into a movie.

The book is chronological, and the reader can see how the story continues to evolve as different people use it for different reasons. I will not go into great detail, but, as the story gets passed on, those who tell it do so with various reasons. In the end, the story barely resembles the reality, and the reality, to many, would be more interesting.

I chose this book because I want my students to know that there is more to history than what happened in the past. History is also about who interprets it and when they do that. I believe it is as much about the people looking into the past as it is about people who lived in the past.

One of my favorite movie lines comes from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. When Senator Ransom Stoddard finished telling reporters about his life and what happened in the town of Shinbone, Maxwell Scott, the newspaper editor, rips up the notes and throws them into the fire.Print the Legend

Ransom Stoddard: You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?

Maxwell Scott: No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

That line conveys the difficulty that historians of the American West, or any other history, faces when trying to find out what happened way back then. Dime novels. Newspapers. Journals. Diaries. Inaccuracies and embellishments can be found everywhere.

However, it is not just those who record history who cause problems. Those who took part in history do the same. In the book I mentioned, the story was being told incorrectly from almost the beginning, and those incorrect accounts were coming from people who were there.

This brings me to a video I stumbled upon while scanning through YouTube. It is called The American West of John Ford and should be watched by anyone who likes the Western genre. John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda reminisce about working with Ford and take turns interviewing him.

During those interviews, all of them freely admit that Ford was not interested in depicting historical accuracy. He was interested in telling stories within a Western backdrop. He used the genre to study the human condition. However, there was one part of the documentary that got my attention.

While talking about My Darling Clementine, about the actions at the OK Corral, Ford said that Wyatt Earp had personally told him what happened at the gunfight and drew a map for him. In the movie, Ford depicted the gunfight just as Earp had described. According to Earp, a stagecoach came by, and he used it for cover to get closer to those he was after.

I have read a ton about Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral. I have been to Tombstone, Arizona and stood where the gunfight took place. At no point have I ever heard about a stagecoach being used as cover. It could have happened, but that would be a new take on it for me. Hopefully, a historian can tell me that I am wrong, but I do not think a stagecoach had anything to do with it.

So, who are the makers of legend? Was it John Ford, a director who admitted to not caring about historical accuracy? Was it Wyatt Earp who could have embellished a story to impress his Hollywood friends? Was it the director of the documentary who included that story in his movie? Is it me for writing about it?

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Trust Your Pants

18 Sep

In the early days of this blog, I wrote a post that I thought was pretty good. It was an early effort, but it was the best thing I had done to that point. At least, I thought it was good. Heck, I even thought it was funny.

Then, I got a comment that blasted me for being mean, unfair and totally over the line. This thing went on for a couple of paragraphs. How could I say something like that? Don’t I have feelings? On and on and on it went.

After a while, I started thinking that maybe it was a little rough and deleted it. That was during the days that I was looking for and needed positive reinforcement. I didn’t need to produce posts that people found to be negative. Today, it wouldn’t bother me, but it bothered me then. Now, I regret that I deleted it. This is my blog, and I am going to write what is in my head. If someone doesn’t like it, then they can leave a comment. Hopefully, it will lead to a good discussion.

So, what was this post about? Politics? Religion? Controversial social issues? No, it was about suspenders, the things that some people wear to hold up their pants.

I saw a guy who was wearing suspenders, but he was also wearing a belt. It seemed weird to me that someone would wear both. Not only that, the suspenders and belt were two different colors. If you are going to wear both, then they should at least match.

Seriously, who wears a belt and suspenders? I wrote several paragraphs about how strange this is and about how someone could think this is a good idea.

Then, I wrote about how it brought to mind a scene from one of my favorite movies, Once Upon a Time in the West. Henry Fonda plays Frank, a notorious gunfighter.Henry Fonda

Frank is talking to a man who has betrayed him in some way. That same man is wearing suspenders and a belt. Frank thinks this is strange and says, “How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can’t even trust his own pants.”

If memory serves, then he proceeded to shoot the belt, the suspenders and, eventually, the man.

Is there a lesson here? Perhaps. In the real world, someone who wears suspenders and a belt is going to be looked at funny. In a Sergio Leone movie, someone who wears suspenders and a belt is going to be shot.

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Is Rod Serling as Frustrated as Me?

27 Apr

Why are builders called contractors? Their job involves construction, not contraction. It seems to me that they should be called constructors.

That’s the kind of crap that’s running through my mind. I had this great post playing in my brain about last night’s B.B. King concert, but that one is going to be put on hold. This has been a frustrating evening, and the things that frustrated me have affected the B.B. King post in a couple of ways. First, it got my mind off track. Second, it made me start typing too late to give the subject justice.

Instead, we have a post about frustration. The other day, I bought Fort Apache on Blu-Ray. It’s the John Ford movie starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple and John Agar, who ended up being her real life husband.Fort Apache Two

It’s a fictional portrayal of George Custer and the defeat that he suffered. I’ve always thought it was weird that they placed a fictional cavalry against the Apache when they could have portrayed a real cavalry against the people they really fought.

The portrayal of a fictional story instead of a historical one is not what frustrated me. That came from the Blu-Ray player that suddenly froze up. My parents have a movie room that is designed to provide a great movie watching experience. Tonight, it provided a frustrating time of trying to figure out what was wrong with it. My dad had me call the guy that put the room together for them. On a Friday night. During his time off.

Finally, I texted my nephew who can fix anything. He sent back a simple reply – unplug it. That did the trick. Then, I was frustrated because I didn’t think of that.

We watched the movie, and I went home to get some work done. Part of that work involved emailing some pictures to my insurance agent. I won’t bore you with the details of insurance, but I will bore you with the details of my frustration. My school account would not email the images. I tried over and over. It’s a Gmail account, so I figured it could do anything. Apparently, it can’t.

That’s when I swapped over to my personal email. Hell, it wouldn’t even download the pictures. After that, I went back to my work email to send the pictures one at a time. Each email took forever. At the top of the screen it said:

Sending…

Still Working…

I don’t know how long it took each email to go through because I finally walked off. When I got back, they had been sent. Well, I guess they had been sent. They could be in The Twilight Zone for all I know.Twilight Zone

Sometimes, I think the world is becoming one big Twilight Zone. Look at the crazy things that happen. Some of it is serious, and some of it is downright ridiculous. Through it all, Rod Serling is standing out of sight talking about the signpost up ahead.

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Listeria – Western Actors Edition

24 Oct

I know that this edition of Listeria is coming along soon after the last edition of Listeria, but I went overboard on my last trip to the magazine stand. Besides, this one covers one of my favorite subjects – Western movies. I grew up watching them with my dad, and that experience played a role in my interest in the history of the West.

American Cowboy published a special issue called “Legends of Western Cinema” and listed the 20 greatest Western actors. However, there is one problem that needs to be addressed before I begin. When people think about Westerns, or the history of the West, they think about cowboys first. Some of the greatest Westerns don’t involve cowboys at all. They involve mountain men, Native Americans, cavalry and all sorts of characters. In the real West, not everyone were cowboys. A good way to see this? If there are no cows around, then there are probably no cowboys around.

The rant is over, so here we go with the list. These are the 20 greatest Western actors according to American Cowboy in the order that they have listed. I will list my favorite movie of each and add the actors that I believe should be included.

John Wayne – The Searchers

Gary Cooper – High Noon

James Stewart – The Far Country

Henry Fonda – Once Upon a Time in the West

Clint Eastwood – The Outlaw Josey Wales

Steve McQueen – The Magnificent Seven

Kirk Douglas – There Was a Crooked Man

Robert Duvall – Open Range

Ben Johnson – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Lee Marvin – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Sam Elliott – Tombstone

Tom Selleck – Quigley Down Under

Charles Bronson – Once Upon a Time in the West

Woody Strode – Sergeant Rutledge

Gregory Peck – The Gunfighter

Paul Newman – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Tom Mix – Riders of the Purple Sage

Glenn Ford – 3:10 to Yuma

Tommy Lee Jones – No Country For Old Men

James Garner – Duel at Diablo

That’s the Top 20. I could name a bunch that belong on the list, but I will limit myself to five.

Randolph Scott – Ride the High Country

Kevin Costner – Silverado

Robert Mitchum – Five Card Stud

Robert Redford – Jeremiah Johnson

Richard Widmark – Broken Lance

There is the list. Who else should be included? Who should be omitted? What are your favorite movies? Let me know.

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Who Needs Kevin Bacon?

5 Oct

I have been sitting here trying to figure out what to write about, and I finally decided to write about what is on television. Encore is showing The Longest Day, a 1962 movie about the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Obviously, this is an important historic event, and numerous movies have been made about it. What amazes me about this movie is the ensemble cast of huge actors from that time in Hollywood history. All this time, people have been playing “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” when they could have been playing “One Degree of The Longest Day“.

It stars John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter six years after they were in The Searchers.

It stars John Wayne and Robert Mitchum four years before they made El Dorado.

Sean Connery and Gert Frobe appeared in this film two years before Connery, as James Bond, heard Frobe, as Auric Goldfinger, say, “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

It has Richard Todd, who was Ian Fleming’s first choice to play James Bond in Dr. No. Interestingly. Dr. No came out in 1962, as well.

I mean, this thing has everybody in it, and there are connections all over the place. To prevent having a post that drags out, I’ll just list a bunch of the actors and my favorite film of theirs.

Eddie Albert – The Longest Yard (although he was also good in Green Acres)

Richard Burton – Cleopatra (which I think was being filmed at the same time)

Red Buttons – Hatari! (which also starred John Wayne)

Sean Connery – Goldfinger (the best James Bond movie ever)

Henry Fonda – Once Upon a Time in the West (a great Spaghetti Western)

Gert Frobe – Goldfinger (the title character in the only James Bond movie to show a Kentucky Fried Chicken)

Jeffrey Hunter – The Searchers (which also starred John Wayne)

Peter Lawford – Ocean’s Eleven (a member of the Rat Pack who married into the Kennedy clan)

Roddy McDowall – Planet of the Apes (also in Cleopatra with Richard Burton)

Sal Mineo – Giant (appeared with Elizabeth Taylor, who was also in Cleopatra)

Robert Mitchum – Five Card Stud (starred with Dean Martin, who was also in Ocean’s Eleven and was a member of the Rat Pack)

Edmond O’Brien – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (which also starred John Wayne)

Leslie Phillips – Harry Potter Series (as the voice of the Sorting Hat)

Robert Ryan – The Wild Bunch (a movie that’s bloodier than The Longest Day)

Rod Steiger – The Amityville Horror (there was a horror in that house but not the one they show in the movie)

Robert Wagner – Broken Lance (married to Natalie Wood, who starred in The Searchers with John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter)

Stuart Whitman – The Day the Earth Stood Still (also starred in The Commancheros with John Wayne in 1961)

John Wayne – The Searchers (my favorite actor of all time)

Richard Dawson – The Running Man (but he was better on The Match Game and Family Feud)

Bernard Fox – Big Jake (which also starred John Wayne, but he was also in my favorite television show, The Andy Griffith Show)

So, I present the game, “One Degree of The Longest Day“.

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