Tag Archives: John Carradine

Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

February 28, 2013 Leave a comment

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Directed by John Ford, Based on a true story, In the 1870′s, the Cheyenne Indians are taken from their Wyoming homelands and moved to a barren Oklahoma reservation. After a year of waiting for Federal aid that never arrives, the original band of 1,000 has been reduced by disease and starvation to a mere 286. Desperate, the survivors decide to make a 1,500-mile trek to their former Yellowstone hunting grounds. Accompanying them is Deborah Wright, a Quaker schoolteacher sympathetic to their plight. And pursuing them is a cavalry troop headed by Captain Thomas Archer, Deborah’s betrothed, who hopes to resolve the dilemma without bloodshed. But a young hotheaded Cheyenne brave named Red Shirt precipitates several skirmishes in which U. S. soldiers are killed. When the newspapers play up the incidents by depicting the Cheyennes as “marauding savages,” Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are pressured into organizing a war party.

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Five Came Back (1939)

November 19, 2012 Leave a comment

Directed by John Farrow, In Los Angeles, nine passengers board the Silver Queen, a plane piloted by Bill bound for Panama City. Bill’s human cargo consists of Crimp, a detective determined to return his prisoner, the anarchist Vasquez, to a South American capital to collect a $5,000 dollar reward; wealthy Judson, who is eloping with his secretary, Alice; the elderly Professor Henry and his wife Martha; Tommy, a gang chief’s small son; his chaperone Pete, a gunman; and Peggy Nolan, a woman of the streets. When a heavy storm forces the plane down in a dense jungle, the voyagers’ true natures emerge as Bill and his co-pilot Joe labor to repair the craft. as the days wear on, Peggy becomes a substitute mother to little Tommy, On the twenty-third day, the plane is repaired, but it can only carry five passengers.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

November 16, 2012 Leave a comment

Directed by John Ford, Tom Joad returns from prison, where he was serving time for manslaughter, to his family’s Oklahoma farm and finds the house abandoned. Muley, his half-crazed neighbor, tells Tom about the recent dispossession of the sharecroppers, who have been driven out by drought and the greedy land companies. Tom finally locates his family as they are about to pack their belongings on a dilapidated truck and head West, lured by promises of work and high wages in California.

Mary of Scotland (1936)

August 17, 2012 Leave a comment

Directed by John Ford, Based on a true story, In 1561, Mary, the young widow of Francis II of France, sets sail for her native Scotland to re-establish herself as monarch. In spite of attempts by her politically insecure cousin, Queen Elizabeth, Mary lands safely with her Italian secretary, David, and rides to Holyrod Castle near Edinburgh. Immediately upon her arrival, Mary is confronted by her half brother, James, the Earl of Moray, who is the leader of the country’s ruling noblemen, and is questioned about her devotion to Catholicism and her refusal to marry. While the noblemen select a council for Mary, the queen is denounced publicly as a “wicked” Catholic by John, an outspoken Protestant leader. Knox’s accusations are countered by the equally eloquent Earl of Bothwell, who in spite of his own Protestantism, pledges his loyalty to Mary and demands that he be named Scotland’s military chief. Enraged by Mary’s success at charming her court, Elizabeth plots with Throckmorton, the new Scottish ambassador, to use Moray against her. At the same time, David encourages Mary to wed Lord Darnley, a Catholic who is the heir to the English crown after Elizabeth.

The Ten Commandments (1956)

September 6, 2011 Leave a comment

Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, During the rule of Rameses I in Ancient Egypt, the pharaoh is informed that the Hebrew slaves believe that a recently seen star portends the arrival of a deliverer who will free them. Wanting to subvert the deliverer, yet unwilling to kill all the Hebrew slaves, Rameses I theorizes that the deliverer must be newly born and so orders the death of every male, Hebrew infant. To escape the edict of Egypt’s Pharoah, Rameses I, condemning all newborn Hebrew males, the infant Moses is set adrift on the Nile in a reed basket. Saved by the pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah, he is adopted by her and brought up in the court of her brother, Pharaoh Seti. Moses gains Seti’s favor and the love of the throne princess Nefertiri, as well as the hatred of Seti’s son, Rameses. When his Hebrew heritage is revealed, Moses is cast out of Egypt, Moses, learns of his true heritage as a Hebrew and his divine mission as the deliverer of his people.

Stagecoach (1939)

May 2, 2011 Leave a comment

Directed by John Ford, A simple stagecoach trip is complicated by the fact that Geronimo is on the warpath in the area. The passengers on the coach include a a drunken doctor, two women, a bank manager who has taken off with his client’s money, and the famous Ringo Kid, among others. As they learn something about each other in the process.

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