I just watched “Badland” on Netflix.  Not an A movie, not a B movie.  Do they have a C movie?  Weak plot, and the dialogue was horrible.  Whoever wrote the script needs shot.  And I need a medal for finishing the movie.  Another failed attempt at a brooding western.  The hero loves to strike a pose.  

Some horse tack was okay (some half-seat, Sam Stag, etc.) though Wes Studi’s saddle blanket was modern.  I know it’s perfectly acceptable and it’s done, but seeing two different men dismounting on the right was strange.

Some set decoration was okay, but some was out of place. 

The hero had a Spencer (I think) rifle, which he employed.  I saw a Henry employed, and lots off SAAs.  Some SXS street sweepers.  The gun fights were okay but average.

Your mileage may vary.

He’s a Pinkerton after the war, taking out Confederate war criminals for a black boss.  If you think that’s PC, then you may not like it for that reason.

You’ve been warned.  But if you really have nothing else to do, and you’ve had a few drinks, it might be fun. 

Good defeating evil is a planned & calculated recipe in story telling since, well, forever.

It’s Hollywood’s bread and butter, “No Country For Old Men” being a rare exception. 

I think the Spencer was a repeater.  But yes, there should have been more Winchesters.  At least Monty Python was trying to be funny.   Didn’t you just love it when the Detective came walking out of the barn with his head down.  These people are totally lacking in situational awareness and he would have been shot then, if not by the SXS on the porch after winning the fight in the yard.  The sheriff would have killed his dumb ass after the waterboarding.  Which reminds me: The sheriff gives the speech about his “skill set” and engages in waterboarding, all pulled from modern parlance.  Jeesh!  Oh well, enough of that.  

I surfed through the Netflix offerings this morning for stuff I have not seen:

The Ballad of Lefty Brown;

Big Kill;

The Killer;

The Outsider;

Justice;

Buffalo Boys (trained in the wild west but ply their trade in the orient).

Yes, I live life on the edge if I subject myself to these movies.  Hope there is a gem in there somewhere. 

What did you guys think of “Hostiles” on NetFlix as well? 

clarence said

Huck Riley said
If you hate PC then you’d hate The Lone Ranger; believed to be based upon the life of Bass Reeves. 

Show me some evidence (beyond the inventions of historical revisionists, a flourishing trade) that the creator of The Lone Ranger character, George Trendle, had ever heard of Bass Reeves.  Wiki say this about the creation of the original radio program:

“Late in 1932, Trendle began discussing ideas to create a new radio series with a cowboy as the hero. He wanted a mysterious hero who would have the same type of appeal as Zorro or Robin Hood. The target audience included children, so Trendle insisted on a wholesome hero with high moral standards. Violence and romance were to be minimized. Trendle worked out the basic concept of a masked vigilante, a lone Texas ranger with a big white horse, in staff meetings with Jim Jewell and studio manager Harold True. Then it was turned over to Fran Striker to flesh out the details and provide the scripts. His contributions included silver bullets and an Indian companion. The result was The Lone Ranger, which began broadcasting January 30, 1933, on WXYZ and the seven other stations of the Michigan Regional Network.”

Maybe there’s more to the story, but where is the slightest resemblance to the career of Reeves in this account of the character’s creation?  If the true story of Reeves had been so carefully concealed, how did Trendle, a movie & TV producer, not a Western historian, learn about it?   

Check out Morgan, Thad (August 31, 2018).  Also, Burton makes this argument based on the sheer number of people Reeves arrested without taking any serious injury, coupled with many of these arrested were incarcerated in the Detroit House of Correction, the same city where the Lone Ranger radio plays were broadcast on WXYZ.  In other words, Reeves character comes closer to what Trendle was shooting for than most any other law man of the era (many of whom were know to walk both sides of the fence).

In any event, where “your” history is proven to be FOS, and the re-writing of history is designed to do exactly what is alleged to have happened here, I would place the burden on you to prove Reeves wasn’t the man behind the idea.  Why is that reasonable?  Because you say “beyond the invention of historical revisionists”.  That is exactly what you are being charged with supporting.

Or are you saying that the Lone Ranger could only be realistic if he was white?  Yeah, it wouldn’t be believable if he was black.  Same as John Wayne in the Searchers. 

Dave K. said
From what I have read about Bass Reeves his exploits and integrity as a deputy U.S. Marshal are more interesting than any fictional western lawman. I am surprised that a movie has never been made of this very courageous lawman of the old west but I suspect that had he been white the film industry would have made several by this time. We have all heard about Hickok, Earp ,Cody and Bridger since childhood  but how many ever heard of Bass or Beckwourth even to this day?Not many I suspect.  

I grew up near, and spent a lot of time (still do) where Beckworth led Crows (about 750) in wiping out Blackfeet (160) in a battle.  I’ve got a trade point and some muzzle loader slugs from when I was a kid.  Anyway, I wrote a paper about him in college.  Interesting thing I found in doing research: It is widely known, or assumed that he was a notorious liar, as it is believed many Mountain Men were.  So, when he told a story that was almost identical to Colter’s run, people just figured he was FOS.  But I found a letter written by an Army Officer who just happened to be stopped over at Bents Fort, in south-east Colorado.  He told a story about a black man who came stumbling into the fort, emaciated, tore up, starving and cold, with feet swollen beyond recognition and full of cactus spines.  He claimed to have been captured by Indians, stripped, given a head start and forced to run for his life.  Beckworth’s name was not mentioned.

During their specific “runs”, Colter and Beckworth ran in different country at different times with different Indians.  It seemed entirely plausible to me that different Indians may have done this as a “thing”, and that it was not really just a one-of with Colter.  It may have happened to many guys, but most, of course, were never heard of again.  Any way, Beckworth carried his balls around in wheelbarrow.  As did Edward Rose and other black Mountain Men. 

One of my all time favorite quotes comes from the author of a Colter book:

“In some western states this technique of elaboration to the point where it merges into untruth, is called “stuffing dudes.” Every native born westerner numbers among his inalienable rights the license to use this technique upon occasion, and considers it a gross breach of hospitality if a visitor leaves without having had a few whoppers thrown in with the usual descriptions of the country and it’s customs. Several subjects are rarely discussed under such circumstances without stretching the truth, and in telling the Colter legend, by tradition, it has become almost compulsory to exaggerate. And since no one can study Colter’s accomplishments without being affected to some degree by the contagious desire to improve on truth, I have thought it wise to work off my touch of the disease in Chapter One. Stern searchers after fact are hereby directed to begin reading at Chapter Two.
. . .
The men of the frontier believed that if a yarn told with punctilious respect for the truth fell on unbelieving ears, it was proper to elaborate on the story and make it a good one.
. . .
Therefore, it is obvious that the traditional ridicule of the stories about Colter’s Hell did not originate with his contemporaries, but rather with those who preferred to rely upon the writings of cloistered, learned men and scoffed at the reports of those who told of what they had actually seen.”

John Colter, His Years in the Rockies, By Burton Harris, Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1993.

This pretty much sums it up.

“Although there is no concrete evidence that the real legend inspired the creation of one of fiction’s most well-known cowboys, “Bass Reeves is the closest real person to resemble the fictional Lone Ranger on the American western frontier of the nineteenth century,” Burton writes in Black Gun, Silver Star.

However, Bass accomplished things that dwarf the triumphs of his fictional counterpart, in his journey from slave to one of the staunchest defenders of the very government that had failed to protect his freedom in the first place. And while the truth about the Lone Ranger may remain a mystery, the story of Bass Reeves remains an inspiration for real-life heroes to this day.”

Thad Burton