| Welcome to In The Balcony. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Plus, you'll be eligible for the monthly $1 million prize. (Not really.) Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| C Starrett & G O'brien Western Double Feature; Thursday on T C M | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 17 2008, 04:37 PM (351 Views) | |
| kirgo2 | Mar 17 2008, 04:37 PM Post #1 |
|
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
On Thursday, March 20th, TCM is showing a couple of B-westerns back-to-back beginning at 10:30 a.m. eastern time. First up at 10:30 a.m. is Charles Starrett in "The Cowboy Star" a 1936 entry that's a lot of fun as Charles plays a Hollywood cowboy star who gives up stardom and heads for the "Real West". Iris Meredith and Wally Albright from "Our Gang" co-star. Next at 11:45 a.m. is "The Marshal of Mesa City", a 1939 RKO oater with George O'Brien and the lovely Virginia Vale. It's a remake of a earlier Richard Dix film, "The Arizonian" and features good supporting work from Leon Ames, Henry Brandon and Harry Cording. |
![]() |
|
| riddlerider | Mar 17 2008, 05:53 PM Post #2 |
|
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Two of my top favorites! In fact, when George appeared at the 1979 Cinecon, which I chaired, I ran MARSHAL to represent his RKO output. It's a first-rate "B" Western. |
![]() |
|
| Sgt King | Mar 17 2008, 08:14 PM Post #3 |
|
Charter Member
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I love George O'Brien! Riddle Rider - please share "anything" about Big George from the 1979 Cinecon. |
![]() |
|
| riddlerider | Mar 18 2008, 07:03 AM Post #4 |
|
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Sarge, Gravy doesn't have access to enough bandwidth to hold everything I could say about George O'Brien. Meeting and becoming friendly with your favorite movie stars carries a certain amount of risk, because they don't necessarily behave in a manner consistent with their screen personas, and they don't always live up to your idealized image of them. But I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that George O'Brien not only met but surpassed every expectation I had. And I believe that opinion is shared by every one of the 500-plus fans who attended Cinecon that year. It speaks volumes that people who were there still talk about that convention, a gathering that took place nearly 30 years ago. Just this past weekend, at the Syracuse Cinefest (which began as a Cinecon spinoff), I discussed it with old friends who brought it up after a screening of George's version of ROBBERS' ROOST. George was everything you could hope for in a movie hero. Extroverted, friendly, gregarious, etc. He was the perfect convention guest in that he loved to talk. In fact, he kiddingly referred to himself as "a man of few thousand words." He didn't really need to be the center of attention, as some stars do, but he generally was. Throughout the four-day convention, which sprawled across New York's Biltmore Hotel, there was never any doubt where he was: whenever I saw a group of people huddled together, I knew he was in the middle of it. I have been to dozens of film conventions and have worked on more than my share of them, but to this day I have never known a guest star who was more accessible than George O'Brien. What's more, he wasn't the type of guy to pontificate at length to an adoring throng. He was just as eager to know about you -- what you liked, what you did for a living, where you grew up. This trait extended -- as I quickly learned -- to coffee-shop waitresses and hotel bellhops, as well as to wealthy or influential people. At our awards banquet, George sat next to another of our guest stars, JAZZ SINGER screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. Before the dinner was over they had become fast friends, but George wasn't any more attentive to this distinguished writer than he had been to us fans. I don't believe I have ever known another man who could make friends as easily as George O'Brien. George had refused many invitations to film-fan conventions, but my Cinecon got his attention for two reasons: first, it was being held in New York, where his daughter -- a musician with the Philharmonic -- lived. Secondly, I had told him that we had engaged the Museum of Modern Art for a special screening of the Museum's 35mm print of SUNRISE, a film of which he was extremely proud. Just imagine being in MoMA, seeing a beautiful print of what some people consider to be the greatest American-made silent film, and then being introduced to its star after the lights had come up. The auditorium fairly exploded as the audience rose to give George a thunderous standing ovation. I was sitting next to George and, frankly, had been overcome by the film, which I had never seen. My eyes had welled up with tears just as George turned to me and asked, "Should I say something?" I nodded, and he took the stage, spending the next 20 minutes regaling an enthralled crowd with stories about the making of SUNRISE. Afterward, in the cab on the way back to the hotel, George and I talked some more about the picture. At one point, very casually, he said: "By the way, thank you for your tears." He knew the film had affected me and he took it as a huge compliment. We remained friends after Cinecon. George sent me numerous letters, usually written while he was on a plane, jetting off to Hawaii or someplace like that. Having enjoyed himself so much at Cinecon, he finally accepted an invitation to the Memphis Western Film Festival, and I saw him again at that event. I can't tell you how proud I was when, during a panel discussion, he referred to me as "an old friend." That's the kind of guy he was. |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · Tumbleweed Terrace · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z2.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)




11:02 AM Jul 11