I like to have a TV show or something similar playing while I paint, and I have been getting enough painting in of late that I have finished the final 3-4 seasons of Brooklyn 99 (uneven, but stuck the landing I'd say) and ended up throwing on some old westerns.
Because my back is to the television, I elevate my iPad and watch them on there - well, maybe watch is too strong a word. My visual focus is typically the model I am painting, and to make matters worse, I need to wear a magnifying visor in order to be comfortable painting just about anything these days. But I can look up and get the sense of scene easily enough before returning to my work, and catch longer bits when I am switching my colours, cleaning my brush or just stretching a bit.
I believe I have mentioned my affection for John Ford's Fort Apache (1948) before, particularly its excellent sergeants, and enjoyed it greatly again before rolling almost immediately to the second movie in Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). It is an even more solid film in some ways than its predecessor, and certainly in its early use of vibrant Technicolor for depicting the landscapes the director was so fond of.
John Wayne, usually content to be a movie star, impressed Ford with his acting ability as Capt. Nathan Cutting Brittles, a character 20 years older than the Duke himself, and was quoted as saying "nobody told me the big son of a bitch could act!" Victor McLaglen steals most of the scenes he is in (as usual), but it is Ben Johnson as Sgt. Tyree who stood out the most for me.
Playing an NCO who was once a Confederate officer, several of Tyree's lines jumped out at me, amplified by Johnson's laconic drawl, whether informing a superior officer that a topic was ""not my department, sir," or:
Captain Nathan Brittles: I don't know where you got your brains, Sergeant - God must have given you that pair of eyes. They're Arapahos, alright. Headin' the same way we are. Now why would they be movin' on Sudrow's Wells, Sergeant? Answer me that.
Sgt. Tyree: My mother didn't raise any sons to be makin' guesses in front of Yankee captains.
Looking up Ben Johnson on IMDb and Wikipedia explained the horsemanship displayed in several of his scenes; in addition to having been a stuntman and rider prior to taking speaking parts, he took a break from acting four years after this film and won a world rodeo championship in team roping!
Johnson went on to start in his own Ford western a year after his cavalry turn in Wagon Master (1950). A typical oater in most respects, but typically well done by one of the giants of the genre, Johnson (and another actor from Yellow Ribbon, Harry Carey Jr.) play a pair of nomadic horse-sellers who take the job guiding a wagon train of Mormons led by Ward Bond, across the desert to where they plan to establish a new settlement. Of course there are outlaws, challenging terrain and even Navajos to be dealt with along the way.
Now, the late 1940s was hardly a time of rampant enlightenment in America, particularly regarding indigenous peoples' depiction, and especially in Hollywood, but for my two cents, Ford and his writers do a pretty decent job treating the various tribes his characters encounter with a modicum of respect. In Fort Apache, Henry Fonda's disparaging Col. Thursby is told by John Wayne, "Sir, if you saw them, they weren't Apache," and in Wagon Master, there is this exchange:
Travis Blue: [of the indians] Near as I can figure out, he don't seem to like white men.
Sandy: Yeah, he say's we're all thieves.
Elder Wiggs: Smarter then he looks!
[Sandy speaks Navajo, evidently translating what Elder Wiggs had just said]
Elder Wiggs: Don't tell him that, you fool! Tell him we're Mormans!
[the Navajos speak in their native touge, mutterring "Mormany" repeatedly]
Elder Wiggs: What'd he say?
Sandy: Say's the Mormans are his brothers. Say's they ain't big thieves like most white men. Just little thieves.
Elder Wiggs: Right complimentery, ain't he?
At any rate, Johnson is given sufficient room in the feature to show off his charm, good looks, dry humor, and tremendous horsemanship, and worked again with Ford on Rio Grande to cap off the Cavalry Trilogy. But after standing up to the browbeating director, Ford didn't pick him for another role for over a decade.
Thankfully other directors like Sam Peckinpah liked what they saw, and ended up casting Johnson in films like Shane, The Wild Bunch, One-Eyed Jacks, and Oklahoma. And not all westerns either - he won an Oscar for his part in The Last Picture Show which I have yet to see. But a World Champion Rodeo buckle, star on the Walk of Fame, and an Oscar make for a pretty impressive c.v. if you ask me!
I also have yet to see Rio Grande, the only one not streaming on Prime Video, and am looking forward to rounding out that trilogy, as well as seeing what other old gems I can unearth from there, and what other fascinating performers I might yet turn up.
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