The above was taken on the set of The Lawless Breed (1952). Another picture, with Rock Hudson and Julie Adams (no lightbulbs in sight): Watch full movie on YouTube
The Westerns of Raoul Walsh Jeff Arnold’s West...The blog of a Western fan, for other Western fans This is a very good read , with a lot of new material mixed in with the old. In "Birth of the Nation": He later said, “That was a real tough job … I would have to stay up half the night, you know, one, two, three o’clock in the morning.” He had to roust cowboy extras out of the bars. “Half of them were drunk” and “a couple of them would be in jail.” Walsh directed the military charges and some of the actors angrily refused to ‘change sides’ and be filmed as both Union and Confederate soldiers. On the set of CHEYENNE He never bored you with the truth "It’s not always easy to know exactly what happened in Walsh’s life. As Ms Moss says, “The line between what was fiction and what was fact would always be blurred in his imagination.” "He wrote an autobiography late in life, Each Man in His Time, but while that was well received and is certainly entertaining, it would be inadvisable to use it as a reliable source: much of it reads closer to a novel than a bio, his ‘memory’ was extremely selective, it’s full of anecdotes of uncertain authenticity, and matters he didn’t want to dwell on (such as marriages) were simply omitted." "As one ex-wife said, “He’d tell the wildest tales. He never bored you with the truth.” But Moss has managed to piece together a detailed life of Walsh that is well worth reading (and I am grateful to her for this much more piffling contribution to Walshiana)." A Western youth "Walsh’s love affair with the West began early (according to him): “I stayed on the family ranch, grew up on a ranch. Worked part of the time in Montana, then I went back to Texas and got a job with the government breaking horses.” He joined a cattle drive to the Rio Grande. He said that “… although I could fork a horse, throw a rope, roll a cigarette with one hand, and cuss with the best, I knew nothing about trail driving. Knowledge came the hard way.” He got involved with a Mexican woman and had to hightail it out of town accused of rustling. Who knows, it may have been true." (READ MORE)
Raoul Walsh's Obituary 1983 (Just read the BOLD print) (An extraordinary Obituary indeed! It could have served as an outline for any Author waiting to write a book about his life!) "Raoul Walsh, a dynamic movie pioneer and a major director for nearly half a century, died of a heart attack Wednesday night at Simi Valley (Calif.) Adventist Hospital near Los Angeles. He was 93 years old." "Mr. Walsh was noted for virile, swiftly paced action and adventure films that crackled with the fury of conflict and combat - in the military, the underworld and on the frontier." "The vigor, toughness and earthy humor of most of his best films showed the prowess of men as fighters and lovers, and reflected their mentor, a former cowboy whose wrangling and frontier adventures lent authenticity to the vitality and power of his work." "Mr. Walsh directed more than 100 movies and won particular praise for such silent films as the fantasy ''The Thief of Bagdad,'' starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr.; ''What Price Glory?'' the ribald World War I drama, and ''Sadie Thompson,'' with Gloria Swanson as the South Seas siren. His Film Introduced John Wayne" "Sound-movie achievements included ''The Big Trail,'' an epic odyssey of American pioneers that introduced John Wayne; the turn-of-the-century romance ''Strawberry Blonde,'' and such potent and increasingly praised melodramas as ''They Drive by Night,'' ''High Sierra,'' ''Manpower,'' ''Objective Burma'' and ''White Heat.'' "Directing skillfully, quickly and exuberantly, Mr. Walsh's major aim was to entertain. He denied having any philosophy about moviemaking, once saying: ''I just did my job. I let others make up the theories.'' "He was widely respected for his patience and advice to actors, counseling one that a scene ''was fine for the last act of 'Macbeth.''' ''Now let's do it for us.'' "The director was an inveterate spinner of yarns, and Richard Schickel, the critic, wrote that, like Mr. Walsh's anecdotes, ''He used the screen as he used words, to tell stories simply, clearly, humorously, sometimes poignantly, always with plenty of movement which never seemed forced 'Technical Skills'." "Andrew Sarris, the critic, wrote that the movie maker ''always possessed the necessary technical skills and artistic instincts to bring off the most ambitious physical spectacles,'' adding that ''his best films are genuinely exciting, though neither profound nor pretentious.'' "A tall man with a jutting jaw and square shoulders, Mr. Walsh invariably wore cowboy boots. He had a crusty charm, independent spirit and an overriding passion and knowledge of the out-of-doors. A black patch replaced his right eye, which he lost in 1928 when a jackrabbit crashed into the windshield of his car." "Raoul Walsh was born in Manhattan on March 11, 1887. His father was Thomas Walsh, an Irish immigrant who became a noted men's clothing cutter and later co-owner of a profitable garment business. His mother, the former Elizabeth Brough, was of Irish and Spanish descent. Learned Riding in Mexico" "The youth attended Manhattan public schools and Seton Hall College, but had an early wanderlust, halting his studies to sail with an uncle on his cargo schooner to Cuba. The ship was crippled by a hurricane and towed to Mexico, where the teen-ager learned riding and rope-twirling from a friend and then struck out on his own, becoming a wrangler with a trail herd going to Texas." "He drifted up to Butte, Mont., then a rugged frontier mining town, worked for an undertaker, learned primitive surgery from a country doctor and later, back in Texas, broke horses for the United States Cavalry." "In San Antonio, he accepted an offer to rope a horse on a treadmill that was towed across a stage in ''The Clansman,'' a Civil War and Reconstruction Era melodrama. That opportunity, he recalled, determined his lifetime career." "In 1912, he became a cowboy actor in one-reel movies. Soon after, he was hired by D.W. Griffith, the silent-film titan. Young Walsh acted, rounded up horses and hired experienced cowboys at the Los Angeles stockyards, advanced to assistant director and occasionally directed adventure shorts. Like many early directors, he learned the basics of his craft from Griffith, improvising from two-page script outlines and mastering the technique of rapid-cutting for fast-moving narrative. Played John Wilkes Booth" "Griffith sent him to Mexico, where he shot documentary scenes of Pancho Villa, the bandit, and portrayed the young revolutionary for ''The Life of Villa.'' Mr. Walsh then assisted Griffith in directing ''The Birth of a Nation,'' based coincidentally on ''The Clansman,'' and portrayed John Wilkes Booth in Griffith's epic." "Mr. Walsh was lured from Griffith's studio by William Fox, who offered him $400 a week, 10 times more than he was earning. He directed several Theda Bara pictures, including ''Carmen,'' and also a highly praised indictment of criminal-justice corruption titled ''The Honor System.'' "The director won increasing recognition for the imaginative fairytale wit of ''The Thief of Bagdad,'' the grim battlefield scenes and bawdy antics of Victor McLagen as Captain Flagg and Edmund Lowe as Sergeant Quirt in vying for the affection of Dolores Del Rio as the fickle Charmaine in ''What Price Glory?'' and for the uncommon candor of ''Sadie Thompson,'' in which the director also ably played the role of a marine smitten by the wandering temptress. Versatility Over Wide Range" "His directorial versatility was also demonstrated in such varied films as ''The Bowery,'' a robust comedy; lively musicals including ''Going Hollywood'' and ''Artists and Models,'' and the nostalgic and charming ''Strawberry Blonde,'' starring James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland, with Rita Hayworth in her first major role." "But Mr. Walsh was best remembered for such taut, terse and realistic films, made for Warner Bros., as ''The Roaring Twenties,'' with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart as warring gangsters; ''They Drive by Night,'' with hard-living truckers George Raft and Bogart; ''High Sierra,'' with Bogart as a fugitive brought to bay on a mountain peak; ''Manpower,'' with Raft and Edward G. Robinson as power linesmen competing for the favors of Marlene Dietrich; a clutch of Errol Flynn adventures, highlighted by ''They Died With Their Boots On,'' ''Gentleman Jim'' and ''Objective Burma,'' and, later, ''White Heat'' and ''A Lion Is in the Streets,'' starring Mr. Cagney as, respectively, a psychotic gangster and a back-country demagogue." "Some reviewers criticized Mr. Walsh for emphasizing visual excitement at the expense of characterization. He acknowledged that he ''generally decided to play for the public, because that's what kept us alive,'' but among his many commercial successes were a number of distinguished achievements and hundreds of indelible scenes. He was described as a great celebrator of life, who thoroughly enjoyed making movies." "Mr. Walsh retired in 1964 with his wife, the former Mary Simpson, to a ranch in the Santa Susana Mountains in southern California, where the proud frontiersman raised quarter horses and Hereford cattle and deplored the encroachment on wildlife by freeways and sprawling developments." "Besides his wife, his survivors include a brother, George Walsh, a former film actor. A private service will be held Monday in Simi Valley."
What is sad is that young folk won't see his films as they don't contain explosions or CG enhancements. Love an occasional black and white film done well.
"Raoul Walsh visits Joan Crawford at the Twentieth Century Fox Studios" I don't believe Joan Crawford ever appeared in a movie directed by Raoul Walsh, but she had a small part in the movie, The Best of Everything, directed by Jean Negulesco, filmed at Fox Studios in 1959. Mr. Walsh had just finished directing A Private's Affair also filmed at Fox Studios the same year.
Wild Girl (1932) - Charles Ferrell, Joan Bennett, Ralph Bellamy Joan Bennett, Ralph Bellamy, and Raoul Walsh filming in the Sequoia National Forest “Beautifully photographed and robustly directed adventure set in the West. ... The location shooting much improves the film, and Walsh’s unpretentious handling, speedy pace and sense of humor ... keeps things going even when the script bogs down in plots and sub-plots.” -Peter Bogdanovich "... Wikipedia describes the film as an 'affectionate parody of . . . silent Westerns,' and that’s perhaps a helpful way to approach it. Otherwise you might end up laughing out loud at the introduction where the characters introduce themselves straight to camera, only to wonder if that was the intended reaction." - Karina Oliveira WATCH ON YOUTUBE (78 mins) It's worth watching just for the scenery. By the way, the character played by Charles Ferrell was never given a name. . .
History of advertising: No 110: The Hathaway man's eyepatch It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. "David Ogilvy, on his way to a photo shoot for his new shirt-maker client, stopped off at a New York drugstore to buy a few 50 cent black eyepatches – and unwittingly blazed the trail for a new style of advertising. It was 1951, and Ogilvy’s client was CF Hathaway, a small shirt-maker from Maine. The company, having never advertised before, was planning to spend just $30,000 to compete with much better-known brands." "Ellerton Jette, Hathaway’s president, admitted Ogilvy would never get rich handling his account – but he promised he would never fire the agency or change any copy. Ogilvy knew he must do something unorthodox. Although he had toyed with the idea of using an eyepatch as part of the campaign, it wasn’t uppermost in his mind." "Handing over the eyepatches to the photographer, Ogilvy told him: "Just shoot a couple of these to humour me. Then, I’ll go away and you can do the serious job." Later, having seen the results, Ogilvy admitted: "We knew we’d got something." "Without the eyepatch, the Hathaway campaign would have been a simple example of shirt advertising with a well-dressed man shot against an opulent background. With the eyepatch, the ads had what Ogilvy called "story appeal", arousing reader curiosity. How, they wondered, had the man lost his eye?" "The ad’s impact was immediate. Its first insertion in The New Yorker cost just $3,176. Within a week, every Hathaway shirt in the city was sold. Ogilvy claimed to have been bemused by it all. He said of the eyepatch: "For some reason I’ve never known, it made Hathaway instantly famous. Perhaps, more to the point, it made me instantly famous."