Our friend Andrew Wills aka Hawken Horse attended the Nashville Film Festival world premier of the forthcoming film rendition of Louis L’Amour’s Flint. He says the filmmakers knocked it out of the park.
The plot is classic save-the-ranch, but the hero is unusual. From the Penguin Random House edition of the L’Amour novel:
He left the West at the age of seventeen, leaving behind a rootless past and a bloody trail of violence. In the East he became one of the wealthiest financiers in America—and one of the most feared and hated.
Now, suffering from incurable cancer, he has come back to New Mexico to die alone. But when an all-out range war erupts, Flint chooses to help Nancy Kerrigan, a local rancher. A cold-eyed speculator is setting up the land swindle of a lifetime, and Buckdun, a notorious assassin, is there to back his play.
Flint alone can help Nancy save her ranch…with his cash, his connections—and his gun. He still has his legendary will to fight. All he needs is time, and that’s fast running out….
Those electric lights let you know that the time-frame is after 1882, when Tomas Edison lit up the financial district of Manhattan with the first commercial power station. Nice touch. Nice hat, too.
Director Ryan Whitaker told Cowboys & Indians Magazine:
The film is equally influenced by both westerns and film noir, another genre I love. It’s consciously in the tradition of those classics, but it’s not a self-aware, winking-at-the-audience kind of western. It’s grounded and earnest.
That, right there is the secret sauce. Be true to your story.
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A trailer has dropped for The Rescue, which some wags have taken to calling Yee-haw Taken. Cuz the plot is Taken in cowboy country.
Brandon Sklenar, who played Spencer Dutton in 1923, is the hero; Hassie Harrison, who played Ryan Bingham’s girlfriend in Yellowstone and roped him in real life, is the hero’s ex-wife.
A former rodeo cowboy takes matters into his own hands when his daughter is kidnapped for ransom. With her devoted dog by his side, he sets out to bring her home and will stop at nothing to find her.
No high expectations here, but it looks like a good-enuf actioner, maybe for a Friday night after a too-long week. Clearly, I need to work on my shotgun concealed carry set-up.
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Lynda Sanchez has graciously provided a link to her Wild West History Association Journal article on the Apache Scouts in the Punitive Expedition in Mexico in 1916.
Stirring the Warriors’ Soul: Apaches Ride With Pershing
The scouts were used as trackers, both in the attempt to capture or kill Pancho Villa, who had raided across the border into the U.S., and to recover deserters. They engaged in combat in one of the few engagements of the campaign, and also hunted to supplement the expedition’s food supply.
One of the great episodes of Continuity & Persistence in Frontier Partisan history.
Lynda is working on a book on the Apache Scouts, and I am looking forward to it with great anticipation.
J.F. Bell says
Interesting to see that the pictured scout is wearing an M1909 cartridge belt, notable by the addition of half-pockets for revolver cartridges. It was a transitional concept (like almost every piece of equipment between Cuba and France) that accompanied the issue of the 1903 series of service rifles, and would eventually be distilled from a handful of designs into the more familiar M1910 ten-pocket belt that served from Pershing’s Expedition to Viet Nam.
Your useless trivia for today.
JimC says
We deal in useless trivia like Vin Tanner deals in lead.
Ugly Hombre says
Not useless good info thanks. In Lynda’s article there are some super photos of Apache Scouts with 1911’s 1903’s? etc. Not long ago it was pretty easy to find good clear photos of Mexican revolution action on line nowadays its slim pickin’s seems like. Wonder why?
Quixotic Mainer says
Flint looks fantastic! I was just talking with a fellow fan about how ”Haunted Mesa” would be great as a screen adaptation. The adventures of modern Spencer are a good sign, cheesy or no. We need more frontier tales on an existential level right now.
For those interested, Field Ethos has an awesome article about an American alpine trooper using a bow in WWII to skewer
Matthew Ilseman says
Off topic, but there’s a new gunfighters podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpOkgWg10qM
It mentions Jack Hayes, Jonathon Davis, Jack Slade and others. Sources seem to be Mark Twain and John Boessenecker.
Quixotic Mainer says
I’ll load that up post haste on my next long drive! Cool that Davis came up.
Paul A Cantin says
Please let us know when the book on the Apache scouts is available. Would love to get it.
Andrew Wills says
I’m also interested to see the remake of Angel and the Badman.