Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Favorite TV Episode Blogathon: The Virginian, “Old Cowboy”

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One of the things I like about The Virginian is that it never lets you forget that its characters actually make their living at ranching. Even if the plot of the episode doesn’t revolve around it, there’s always some herding of cattle or breaking of horses going on in the background, or at the very least some scraps of dialogue about the day’s work, reminding us that Shiloh Ranch is, in fact, a working ranch. That’s in contrast with other westerns like Bonanza, where I find it hard to summon a recollection of ever seeing a live cow. And the episode that I picked to spotlight for this year’s Favorite TV Episode Blogathon, season three’s “Old Cowboy,” may have more scenes of ranch work in it than all the Bonanza episodes I’ve seen combined.

The titular character of “Old Cowboy” is Murdock, played by guest star Franchot Tone, who’s utterly transformed here from the dapper, sophisticated leading-man roles he played in 1930s and ’40s films—a stooped, craggy-faced, gravelly-voiced, often touchy and boastful old man. Murdock is an elderly ex-cowboy, now reduced to tramping the roads on foot with his young grandson Willy (Billy Mumy). He clings to the glories of former days by telling stories of his exploits driving cattle up the Chisolm Trail in his youth, and won’t admit that he’s any less a top hand than he ever was—and though it’s plain from the first scene that Willy knows exactly what his grandfather is and is not capable of, he plays along with the elaborate pretense, echoing him and agreeing with him.

When Murdock—bluffing a little too much, as we will see is his habit—loses badly in a poker game with some Shiloh hands, Trampas (series regular Doug McClure) takes pity on him, and much to the dismay of Shiloh’s foreman, the Virginian (series regular James Drury), offers him a job at the ranch. Murdock, scorning the idea of helping out with chores around the barn and bunkhouse, insists on doing a full day’s work as a cowboy, though it’s plain to all that he is no longer up to it. His insistence on tackling jobs too hard for him and his bragging about his experience and skill as a cowboy cause one calamity after another, earning him the ridicule of the other ranch hands and starting trouble with a hot-tempered rancher neighbor who is not at all amused by a mix-up in the branding of calves.

Matters only grow worse when Murdock sees that Willy has taken a shine to Trampas, the real top hand on the ranch, and has begun to tag after him and imitate him as he used to do his grandfather. The old man’s jealousy spurs him to unreasoning resentment of Trampas and more foolhardy actions that even Willy can’t pretend to excuse—and which finally lead to a disastrous fire that threatens the livelihood of all the surrounding ranchers. Called on to help with the Virginian’s efforts to save their herds, Murdock is given one last chance to try and recapture some of his boasted prowess as a cowboy…but is it too late?


(Another thing I’ve noticed on The Virginian is that the stunt doubling is usually very good, and “Old Cowboy” is no exception—Franchot Tone’s double does an excellent imitation of Murdock’s stoop-shouldered, lumbering gait, even when wrestling with a calf or trying to hang onto a bucking horse.)

Written by Gabrielle Upton and directed by William Witney, veteran action director of a multitude of B-Westerns, this episode is really one that revolves entirely around ranch work: herding, roping and branding cattle, digging post-holes, barn chores…plus the hazards of fire, stampede, dust storms, and wolves. With plenty of other episodes about showdowns with outlaws and other extracurricular activities, it’s nice to see the Virginian, Trampas and the rest of the Shiloh crew (including regulars Randy Boone and L.Q. Jones, who both play nice supporting roles in “Old Cowboy”) given a plot that centers on what they’re supposed to be doing all along: being cowboys.

Ten Favorite Movies Watched in 2015

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Time again to tally up my ten favorite movies seen for the first time this year. I notice this year’s list has a little bit of a different feel than those of recent years—a good half of the films featured are comedies or lighter-hearted fare, and it also features more color films than usual…a whopping three.


The Swan (1956)
In a fictitious European country, a young princess has been groomed to restore her family to the throne by marrying her older cousin the Crown Prince. But when the Prince comes to visit, his unpredictable behavior and the princess’ conflicted feelings for her brothers’ handsome young tutor threaten to cause upheaval for all involved. Funny, sad, romantic, and absolutely gorgeous to look at.


That Darn Cat! (1966)

When a prowling housecat brings home a clue to a recent kidnapping, an FBI agent (who of course is allergic to cats) is assigned to tail the cat in hopes of being led back to the criminals—setting up operations in the home of the cat’s owner and putting on quite the spectacle for nosy neighbors. A mix of slapstick-comedy pratfalls and witty dialogue that had me grinning for a week afterward.



Goodbye, My Lady (1956)
I don’t know why this lovely film isn’t better known among dog lovers. A young boy living with his uncle in the Mississippi swamps finds a stray dog of some unusual breed, and forms a close bond with her while training her as a bird-dog. But there is still the question of where the dog came from…


The Affairs of Martha (1942)
A posh Long Island community is thrown into a flurry at a rumor that one of their maids is writing a tell-all book about her employers. It’s true…and as housemaid Martha juggles her secret and another secret concerning her employers’ son, comedy ensues.


Angels in the Outfield (1951)
A loud-mouthed bully of a baseball manager begins hearing the voice of an angel promising him divine assistance if he mends his ways. But when a little orphan girl claims to see angels on the field, it launches a media circus. Watched with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it’s great fun (the Shakespearean-insult scene is priceless). And can I please have Janet Leigh’s entire wardrobe?


The Cockeyed Miracle (1946)
This year’s obscure entry: a quirky, absurd little comedy in which a man lingers as a ghost to try and straighten out the financial tangle he left his family in, assisted by the ghost of his father. There’s a few slips into unimaginative silliness, to be sure, but it’s kept afloat by a deft mix of comedy and poignancy in the right places and a cast who just seem to be having fun.


My Darling Clementine (1946)
After watching this fictionalized retelling of the story surrounding the O.K. Corral gunfight, I think I now understand the term “elegiac” applied to John Ford’s Westerns. Read my post about this movie here.


Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958)
A wealthy heiress is trapped in a nightmarish situation when a man claiming to be her dead brother turns up—and strangely, no one will believe her when she says he isn’t her brother. A plot that seems a little strange at first, but then takes a terrific twist at the end that changes the perspective on everything that happened before. It reminded me a little of the atmosphere of a Mary Stewart novel, with its Mediterranean setting, fast cars and glamorous ’50s fashions.


A Date With Judy (1948)
This is the equivalent of cinematic cotton candy—cute and humorous with some sweet songs. A couple of high-school girls who think they know much more than they really do cause a series of humorous mix-ups in their families’ affairs, all the in the loveliest of vintage fashions and Glorious Technicolor.


Intruder in the Dust (1949)
It was almost a coin-flip between this one and George Washington Slept Here for the final spot on this list—I sure laughed hard enough at the latter, but overall, Intruder in the Dust is probably the superior film. Filmed on location in the Deep South of its setting, it has a realistic look and feel and a plot that rather interestingly foreshadows To Kill A Mockingbird, with a young boy and an old woman forming an unlikely team to help a black man accused of murder prove his innocence.

Runners-up: George Washington Slept Here (1942), Mister 880 (1950), Night Must Fall (1937), The Little Foxes (1941), Operation Pacific (1951), The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), Watch on the Rhine (1943), San Quentin (1937), Torpedo Run (1958). Worst film of the year? Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), which took an interesting premise and a good cast and sunk both like lead weights.

If you’re interested, you can see the full list of films I watched this year on my Letterboxd account. That includes some but not all re-watches; I only log a re-watch if I want to tag it with a genre.

Previous years’ lists: 2014, 2013, 2011.

My Darling Clementine (1946)

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In all my years of watching Westerns, this one was somehow inexplicably the one that got away. Honestly, how did it take me this long to get around to watching a 1940s John Ford Western with a cast full of familiar faces? But now that I think of it, perhaps I wouldn’t have appreciated it as much years ago; I think I watched it at just the right time.

This isn’t really a formal review; it’s more of a rambling appreciation—perhaps that suits better, because the film has a rambling, hard-to-identify quality of its own. The basic premise is simple: after the murder of his youngest brother, Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) takes a job as marshal of Tombstone, with his brothers Morgan (Ward Bond) and Virgil (Tim Holt) as his deputies. They form an unlikely alliance with melancholy, alcoholic gambler “Doc” Holliday (Victor Mature), and eventually evidence about the murder leads them into the famous showdown with the Clanton family, led by sinister Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan) at the OK Corral.

If you’ve done any amount of reading about the historical OK Corral shootout, which I haven’t, you’ll know right away that the characters and events presented in this version are largely fictional. And I didn’t mind that. Taking it as fiction frees you to simply enjoy it as such.

I don’t know whether My Darling Clementine is a film that would appeal to every viewer. It’s a surprisingly quiet film, in that it has a rather slow, measured pace; it’s made up of a series of small scenes and incidents that connect loosely to each other. The style reminded me a little of They Were Expendable, another Ford film I love, though the latter has a much stronger thread of actual historical events holding it together. (There’s some visual similarity too—the likeness between these two shots jumped out at me right away.) Much of the dialogue is brief and spare; there is a good amount of time spent in silence, simply observing the actions of the characters. And yet at the same time, it takes the time for a full rendition of Hamlet’s soliloquy, begun with pathetic dignity by an inebriated traveling actor (Alan Mowbray) atop a table in a smoky saloon, and quietly finished by Doc Holliday, in a scene that somehow tells us everything we know or need to know about Holliday himself. (It was a curious coincidence that I had just finished reading Hamlet the very day I watched My Darling Clementine.) The inevitable confrontation with the Clantons is always coming, always hanging in the background, though it’s put aside for quite a while to focus on Holliday and his own troubles.

Yet in spite of its understatedness, or perhaps because of it, the film can still hit hard when necessary. There’s perhaps one of the most shocking murders you’ll ever see on film—not shocking in a graphic sense but simply in its jump-out-of-your-seat unexpectedness and cold-bloodedness (and I even knew that that particular character was going to die; I just didn’t know how and when). The two most tragic moments are silent, framing striking, wordless shots that convey the stunned grief of the characters involved.

Both important female characters are entirely fictional. I really loved the character of Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs)—a young woman from the east, a friend and it is implied once a sweetheart of Holliday’s, who comes looking for him to try and persuade him to return home. She’s sweet and serene (in the loveliest of simple, period-correct hats and dresses, no less) but also quietly practical; she understands people better than her seemingly innocent appearance suggests. She’s not overwhelmed by the roughness of Tombstone, and has sense of humor enough to appreciate Wyatt Earp’s painfully awkward attempts at expressing his admiration for her. I was a bit puzzled at first by the character of Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), who seemed meant to be part Mexican or Indian or both, but whose mannerisms and accent were entirely American. But I thought Darnell did a good job conveying her wistful, jealous love for Doc Holliday, which is evidently not returned in the way she wishes, and her distress and indecision in the scene where Wyatt questions her insistently about an important piece of evidence in the murder case is well done too.

But the real star of My Darling Clementine is the visuals. It’s probably the most beautiful black-and-white cinematography I’ve ever seen (where in the world was the Oscar nomination?). The opening shot of the cattle coming up over the hill with Monument Valley in the background almost literally took my breath away, and throughout the whole movie I just loved looking at it. The atmosphere of the Tombstone scenes is crammed with detail—the night scene where the Earp brothers first ride into town, for instance, the streets seething with activity and raucous with music and voices. Then by contrast, a bright, quiet morning with crowds of the more upstanding settlers walking, riding and driving into town to attend a social on the site of the town’s first church. Every shot is framed in a way that makes you pay attention to detail.

When I finished watching the movie, one of the things it left me wondering was exactly how I would describe it to someone…and yet here I’ve apparently spent a number of paragraphs trying to do just that. Like They Were Expendable, it has a lot of those little moments that get under your skin and make you think about them again afterwards. I can say one thing pretty definitely, though: if you’re a serious Western fan and My Darling Clementine has escaped you for as long as it did me, I certainly recommend giving it a try.

This post is a contribution to Legends of Western Cinema Week, hosted at A Lantern in Her Hand and Meanwhile in Rivendell, so be sure to hop over there and see what movies other participants are talking about!