The two most popular genres in the movies are horror films and Westerns. So, it was inevitable that the two genres would be combined for box-office appeal. The result was, as you'll see, a new kind of Western, one that took place in...
By JOE WINTERS (Note: This is the first installment of a two-part article on the mixture of horror genres and Western genres in films. The second installment will be exhumed next month.) Saddle up, pardners, to re-live those thrilling days of yesteryear, when men were rough, women were tough, and monsters were rare stuff! Oh, give me a home where the Frankensteins
roam, At this point, if you’re expecting a last minute Cavalry rescue, forget it.
Before the horror film became a genre unto itself, there was the Western. Rip-roarin’ adventures where the hero got the girl, the villains got killed, the settlers were rescued, and the horses got a well-deserved rest. Then, with the Thirties, came the popularity of the horror film, an all-new type of escapism that would go beyond boundaries where no cowboy would dare to ride.
In time it was inevitable that the two genres would meet and intertwine. The results were among some of the weirdest hybrids to hit the screen. At first there was nothing out of the ordinary. Hooded killers and masked riders were usually no more than run-of-the-mill hombres. The 1931 serial Phantom Of The West starred Tom Tyler who appeared in well over a hundred westerns and would achieve minor fame as the undead Kharis in The Mummy's Hand (Universal, 1940) and in the title role of the Republic serial The Adventures Of Captain Marvel (1941).
Haunted Gold (1932) featured sliding panels, secret rooms and a young John Wayne, but no ghosts. In Randy Rides Alone, the young Duke encounters a mysterious hooded killer and walks into one the most errie settings in B-western history--entering a saloon with a player piano tinkling merrily, he finds all the saloon's inhabitants murdered!
An early cross-breeding of Western, Science Fiction and Musical (!) would materialize with low budget Mascot Studios’ serial The Phantom Empire (1935) starring the singing cowboy Gene Autry. A lost civilization beneath the Earth was threatened by greedy surface-dwellers and retaliated with futuristic weaponry. Autry, as himself, joined in the adventure, occasionally taking time out to warble on-air tunes from his Radio Ranch. This cornball combo kept the kiddies coming back for more each week.
In Vanishing Riders (Spectrum Pictures Corporation and Ray Kirkwood Productions, 1935) the heroes and their horses wore skeleton costumes to spook their enemies, a device later used in Hammer Films’ Night Creatures (1962). Johnny Mack Brown, hero of countless Westerns, rode in Desert Phantom (Supreme Pictures, 1936) to rescue a pretty girl from an old enemy. At the same time he had to foil an unseen sniper, rumored to be a ghost, from frightening the girl and her crippled stepfather off their land.
In the modern day Western Ghost Patrol (Excelsior Pictures Corp., 1936) a mail plane crashes in the Shiloh Mountains and a half million dollars in bonds vanishes. Bad men have control of a ray gun so F-B-I agent Tim McCoy, wearing another of those ridiculously big cowboy hats that tend to make easy targets, must stop them and rescue the inventor and the inventor’s pretty daughter. Electrical effects by Kenneth Strickfaden, whose gadgetry had graced Universal’s earlier Frankenstein films, added a sci-fi touch to the more typically action-packed horse opera happenings. In addition to likeable heroes, spunky heroines, and vile villains, outdoor scenery in authentic Western locations helped, as did superior stunt work.
A master of the latter, Yakima Canutt, was on hand for Risers Of The Whistling Skull (Republic, 1937), a feature with hints of the supernatural. The Three Mesquiteers (Stoney Brooke, Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin, played respectively by Robert Livingston, Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune) help a young lady (Mary Russell) search for her father. The trail leads to the lost city of Lukachuke and hidden treasure, mummies, secret panels, cultists and sacrificial rites. The fictional mountain top landmark of the Whistling Skull was the impressive result of glass shots positioned in actual Utah locations. This was the fourth in a series of over 50 films to feature the Three Mesquiteers, played at times by other actors including John Wayne. Years later, Ray "Crash" Corrigan would round out his career playing the title monster of It, The Terror From Beyond Space (1958).
There was nothing supernatural about The Terror Of Tiny Town (Astor/Principal, 1938), but it did gain a small amount of infamy as the first (and last?) all-midget Western. It was directed by Sam Newfield, efficient in a variety of low budget westerns (including Ghost Patrol) and minor horror favorites for PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) including The Mad Monster (1942), Dead Men Walk (1943), The Monster Maker (1944) and The Flying Serpent (1946).
In the Forties, Westerns continued to go their own way with major stars like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Errol Flynn, and ace directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Raoul Walsh helping transform the genre into a great American cinematic art form. Like most genres, films of a fantastic nature were likewise evolving, but it would be a while before science fiction or the supernatural would again cross paths with Westerns.
As the decade drew to a close, modern day cowboys did figure into RKO’s 1949 big monkey movie Mighty Joe Young. That film’s special effects wizard Willis O’Brien had also wanted to do a cowboys and dinosaurs movie for some time. O’Brien sold his story idea to producer brothers Edward and William Nassour, and the result was The Beast Of Hollow Mountain (United Artists, 1956). O’Brien himself was not on board for this one, and the tyrannosaur appeared rather late in the picture. Years later an O’Brien protégé and an effects master in his own right, Ray Harryhausen (who worked with O'Brien on Mighty Joe Young, did a much better job of it with Valley Of Gwangi (Warner Brothers, 1969). Also based on a story by the late Mr. O’Brien that he’d wanted to make himself, Gwangi is an impressive work that still holds up well.
After the splash made by Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954), yet before the Mexican monster boom that took off with El Vampiro (1957), film makers south of the border kicked in with Swamp Of The Lost Monster (1956), a hokey hoax of Western and Gil Man terror in color. You know there’s trouble when the river everyone has to travel features a skull on a stick in the foreground. On land Gaston Santos and his horse Moonlight ride to aid a family beset by misfortune, death and a walking fish monster. Along the way the creature fires a spear gun and operates a telegraph. What can this mean?
If you can survive moments of terrible dubbing of the movie’s comedy relief character named Squirrel Eyes, all will be revealed, including what appear to be the hero’s Speedos during one underwater encounter, more out of place than the monster. Dinosaurs were one thing, but there were other equally outlandish denizens of the old West such as the Teenage Monster (Howco, 1957). Set in 1880 and "based on a story handed down through the years (it could have happened)" a nine year old boy is mutated by a fallen meteor. As a teenager (played by the nearly 50 year old actor/stuntman Gil Perkins) he’s a hairy, mindless brute who roams the countryside, occasionally kills folks and groans limited remarks combined with dubbed-in dialog that makes Tor Johnson seem like Rex Harrison.
Anne Gwynne plays the protective mother. Anne is familiar to Universal fans of such Forties faves as Black Friday and Weird Woman. With makeup by Jack Pierce, who had definitely seen better days during his heyday back at Universal, Teenage Monster, also known as Meteor Monster, is slow going designed to cash in on the teen monster craze of the late Fifties. The film’s director-producer-cinematographer, Jacques Marquette, gave us more low-budget Fifties fun when he produced The Brain From Planet Arous and Attack Of The 50-Foot Woman. He then enjoyed a long career as a cinematographer on such Roger Corman quickies as Bucket Of Blood and Creature From The Haunted Sea and numerous TV series. Thanks, Joe! All these spooky villians and mouldy monsters and rootin'-tootin' six-gun heroes really make for fun viewing. And there's even more wild and weird Westerns on tap in Part Two of this article. Stay tuned, buckaroos! Article copyright © Joe Winters |
