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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoTeeNwI6FI&t=2179s
If you’re a fan of the Rat Pack, which I am, and would like to see them act out Gunga Din (One of my favorite movies), this might be the film for you.
This IMO underrated film was produced by Sinatra and directed by John Sturges, a director who brought us some fine Westerns, “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957), “Last Train from Gun Hill” (1959) and “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) among them and it shows.
IMO the only people who will not like this western are the WOKE A Holes and I don't give a fart in gale for what those America/Western Civilization HATING Maoist think. In fact, if they liked it I would not. Any of you have a problem with that? I could not care less.
Sammy Davis Jr. as Jonah Williams, just like Sam Jaffe as hero water carrier steals every scene they are in.
Frank does a good job but he is playing Victor McLaglen's role and you can't really beat McLaglen playing a sergeant.
Dean Martin IMO does a better job than did Cary Grat, which is really saying something.
Peter Lawford IMNSHO, is totally outclassed by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Joey Bishop as Sgt Boswell is far batter than Robert Coote as Sgt. Bertie Higginbotham
I'd say Joan Fontaine as Emaline 'Emmy' Stebbins and Ruta Lee as Amelia Parent are equally easy on the eyes and good at their minor roles.
Just a few of my favorite Sgt 3 lines:
Trooper #1 “Do we look for him?”
Trooper #2: “Bring him back?”
Sgt. Mike Merry (Sinatra): “Nah, don’t worry about it. He’s looking for the ghost dancers. Maybe he’ll find them. They’ll know what to do with him.”
Chief Watanka “We ask him questions. He did not answer. So we leave him here to rot. No food. No water. Til great buzzards come.”
Sgt. Chip Deal: “You bring any food? Any water? Any liquor?”
Sgt. Mike Merry: “No.”
Deal: “You ain’t much good, are you?
I'll start the ball rolling with Ben Johnson
Ben Johnson's Last Trail Ride
On the 20th anniversary of his death Arizona state historian revisits Ben's final ride out West.
Sometimes at night, the howling wind would commence to blow. For shelter, we pulled canvas bed tarps over our heads.
Sitting around the campfire, we scraped sand off our steaks before taking a bite. One night, a gust lifted our dinner table skyward and dumped our meal on the gritty ground.
When we retired for bed, we crawled as deep as we could into our soogans, then awoke in the morning, spitting sand. We were livin’ high style, sleeping on cots in tents.
I was in Monument Valley again, sharing a small canvas tent with Ben Johnson, a far cry from our early days in the valley of the rocks near the Arizona-Utah border when we slept on the ground at the foot of a towering butte up near Susie Yazzies hogan.
During the spring of 1996, Arizona Highways Magazine Editor Bob Early had asked photographer Gary Johnson and I to join Don Donnelly's trail riding outfit in Monument Valley to report a story about Ben. The legendary cowboy actor was making a sentimental journey to the place where Hollywood Director John Ford had discovered him, while filming one of his Cavalry Triads 1948's Fort Apache.
I had ridden as a horseback historian in Donnelly's trail rides for about 10 years, starting in the 1980s. I talked history during the day and sung classic cowboy songs around the campfire at night. We toured spectacular scenic places: Canyon de Chelly, the Bradshaw, Chiricahua and San Francisco mountains, the Mogollon Rim and, of course, Monument Valley.
Path to Hollywood
Howard Hughes is credited with bringing Ben out to California from Oklahoma in the late 1930s. Hughes had bought some horses from an Oklahoma ranch where Ben worked and liked the way he handled horses. The movie director offered him a job in Hollywood, bringing horses to northern Arizona, where Hughes was filming The Outlaw starring Jane Russell. Ben's weekly wages went from $40 to $175."Iit did not take me long to figure out this was a good deal." he told me on his last trail ride.
When the filming was finished, Ben found work in the movies. During the early 1940s, he wrangled and performed stunt doubling for John Wayne, James Stewart, Joel McCrea and Gary Cooper. Hughes introduced Ben to Director John Ford who hired the horseman to perform stunt work and double in 1948 for Henry Fonda in Fort Apache. As they say,The rest is history.
While filming the movie, a team of horses pulling a wagon spooked and stampeded with three actors on board. Ben, seeing an accident in the making, rode after the team and, just like in the movies, he grabbed the halter on the lead horse, saving the actors from serious injury or worse. A grateful Ford promised him more work.
I thought maybe he might give me a speaking part in his next film"Ben said. He invited me into his office one day and told me to sit down, then he handed me a piece of paper. I read down to about the third line and saw a $5,000 a week. I stopped reading, grabbed a pen and signed it.
I did not even ask what I had to do"he said with a grin.
One of Ben's best roles was his Oscar-winning performance as Sam the Lion,the owner of a pool hall in a small Texas town in 1971. The Last Picture Show. He did not ride a horse in that one. He stole the show at the Oscars when he raised his award in his hand, grinned and said, "This couldn't have happened to a nicer fellow!
One evening, we were sitting around the campfire as the wind kicked up sand and a light rain began to fall from the dark clouds hanging over Monument Valley. Ben was sharing the story behind his famous barroom fight with Alan Ladd in 1953's Shane. Ben was six-foot-two next to Ladd's five-foot-five frame. Ben's character had to lose the fight, but the actors had to make that look realistic for audiences.
He could walk under my outstretched arm,said Ben, as his weathered face broke into a big smile, so they put him on a platform and had me stand in a hole.
He is the only movie star to win a World Championship rodeo buckle and an Academy Award. In 1982, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Twelve years later, he earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On the last day of our trail ride, Donnelly staged a small rodeo with no rough stock, just events that included balancing an egg on a spoon at a gallop and barrel racing. I came in second place in the barrel race; Ben finished first. I was the proudest second-place finisher you ever saw!
Near the horse corral, six-year-old Bronco Grinstead was trying to rope a rubber steer head sticking out of a bale of hay and had trouble getting his loop to fall over the horns. Ben took the rope and offered him a few tips. Bronco wasn't aware he was getting advice from a former world champion. His folks later told him when he was old enough to understand. Ben built a loop, then noticed a number of us had gathered to watch.
He grinned sheepishly and said,Boy, better not miss! He didn't, and Bronco was noticeably impressed, more than all that movie star stuff he had been hearing about all week.
A few days after Ben died, Arizona songwriter Ted Newman and I sat down and wrote a tribute to our friend, “Ben Johnson Evening Star,†that
Arizona Cowboy Magazine later published:
There's a brand new star in the evening sky, and it shines all over the land. Bringing memories dear of a star here on earth of a cowboy*—ever so grand.
The stuff of real heroes, bigger than life, with simple values so plain. Honesty, realism and always respect. The likes we'll not soon see again.
Ben Johnson, an honest name for a man of decency, honor and pride. The man on the screen was the man in real life, bringing balance to life's ride.
He didn't play cowboy. He was what you saw. He was down home and cowboy clean through. He could rope, he could ride and compete with the best. Everything that he did was all true.
