As a child of the 40’s and 50’s a big portion of my entertainment was the Saturday matinee at the local Lyric Theater in a small town in Alabama. Usually there would be a double feature of Westerns, a color cartoon, sometimes a comedy with the likes of the Three Stooges, a serial of some sort, previews, a newsreel, and plenty of popcorn, candy, a drink, and practically every kid in town. Admission was 11 cents!
My favorite was Charles Starrett as The Durango Kid.
Others I can remember from those days would be:
Allan “Rocky” Lane
Johnny Mack Brown
Sunset Carson
“Wild” Bill Elliott
Rex Allen
Lash LaRue
Whip Wilson
Roy Rogers
Gene Autry
The Cisco Kid
Bob Steele
Tim Holt
Later on, when TV brought in replays of those old movies, I’d see additional ones like:
The Three Mesquiteers
early John Wayne Westerns
Hopalong Cassidy
and no telling how many others.
Well, Chefguy, I never saw the masked man and his faithful Indian companion in the old B&W format B’s. TV and a color A picture later on, yes. But Lone was radio for me. I may have watched two episodes of the TV version before deciding they just couldn’t do that to my favorite cowboy type hero.
I know that Clayton Moore gets the recognition for “being” Lone, but for me the old voice of Brace Beemer was it.
Oh, I see where you’re at now…I remember those fight scenes in the Bob Steele pictures where they would speed up the film for some reason. It always made the movie seem ‘fake’ to my young eyes.
Yeah, and what I liked even better was how their blue jeans had cuffs about five inches tall and the hats were so big you could wash clothes in them. And they could go all day shooting a six-shooter without reloading. (Course, that hasn’t changed all that much).
And they didn’t bother to aim, either. Just whip up your gun, snap off a shot, drop the gun again. Sometimes accented by a little “punching” motion of the hand as you squoze the trigger.
Still lots of fun. We’ve got a few of John Wayne’s first oaters on DVD, and they’re good clean fun to watch.
Zeldar. You’re just a smidge older than I. I saw all of those shorts and movies on tv(got in 1949 or 1950). With a tv this early, I didn’t listen much to radio.
I remember a Johnny Mack Brown western where he got killed at the end! Killed! I don’t think I dreamed this. Only time I can remember seeing one like that.
Loved the Three Mesquiteers, Ken Maynard and Tarzan, Bob Steel and Hoot Gibson. That’s how I remember it.
Jimmy Wakely, I think Buster Crabbe was in a few Western shorts, “Lighting” Tim McCoy(who taught Western cowboys the art of the “quick draw.” He was truly one of the more interesting persons in the biz. Read about him sometime. I remember him dressed in all black.
“B movies, in black and white,
B movies, on rainy Tuesday nights
B movies, they make me feel alright”
-Fabulous Poodles
I was too young to see them in the movie houses, but I watched them on TV. I can remember watching Roy Rogers when I was a kid. And during the 80s, before infomercials ruined Saturday morning/afternoon tv, I wolud enjoy the old Gene Autrey shows.
I think Pat Buttram and Smiley Burnett are my favorite sidekicks, though I was a fan of Buttram from ** Green Acres** before I remember seeing him in the westerns.
Here’s an obscure b&w western for you, The Baron of Arizona, starring Vincent Price. It’s based on a true story about a man who devised a detailed plan of deception and forgery to almost take possession of most of the Arizona territory. Not a “shoot-em-up,” but interesting in the amount of effort this man made to get his scheme in motion.
Back in my night owl days, I used to watch Maverick all the time. And I wasn’t interested in Gunsmoke in its heyday, but I’ve been enjoying it on TV Land lately.
Okay. If we’re going to add in the westerns from early TV years, I can mention a few from when I was captain of the Tube Team at college. We didn’t need a TV Guide because I was it.
The westerns from those days included:
Cheyenne
Sugarfoot
Bronco Lane
Rawhide
Gunsmoke
Maverick
The Virginian
Cimarron City
Wagon Train
Bonanza
Wyatt Earp
Bat Masterson
Wanted: Dead Or Alive
Trackdown
Jim Bowie
Yancey Derringer
The Rebel (Johnny Yuma aka Nick Adams)
Branded
The Rifleman
There must be at least another ten I can’t remember right off.
Should Little Beaver be in there somewhere? Robert Blake?