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Incident of the Widowed Dove 1/30/59
Incident on the Edge of Madness 2/6/59
Incident of the Power and the Plow 2/13/59
Clint Eastwood later had the image of a man's man but Rowdy Yates as a bit of little boy in him. The production notes say that Gil Favor sees him as a potential trail boss someday and so keeps looking after him. It's hard to see how he saw Rowdy as a trail boss in this one. The drovers get a brief respite in a town run by a corrupt marshal, (incongruently played by that great old character actor, J. C. Flippen), who likes to arrest people he doesn't like and then shoot them in the back while they were 'escaping'. Rowdy meets a pretty young woman who asks for money to escape the town and he gives her everything he's got and what's coming to him, which Favor refuses to give him. They have a fight, which Favor wins but results in Rowdy leaving the drive to be with the woman, who turns out to be the wife of the marshal. Later we see Rowdy get beat up again - by the marshal. Try to imagine J. C. Flippen, (age 60 at the time), beating up Clint Eastwood, (28). I can't, either.
Incident on the Edge of Madness really is. A confederate Colonel who used to be Gil Favor's commanding officer tries to recruit his men for a cockamamie army that will make him Emperor of Panama. Some of them actually go for this, including Lon Chaney Jr. Who does his specialty, his umpteenth version of Lennie Small for "Of Mice and Men" (1939), who goes nuts when he's disrespected by the future emperor. I'm sure this sort of thing was a frequent occurrence on the trip north for a trail drive.
I once saw a Marlon Brando interview in which he alleged that the attitude of Hollywood toward Native Americans was that "The only good Indian was a dead Indian." I thought about that and realized that that wasn't true at all. That might have been the attitude of the solders, the railway workers, settlers on real wagon trains and the drovers on real trail drives but it wasn't Hollywood's attitude at all. Bigots on their movies and TV shows were always bad guys or fools and the heroes were tolerant and even admirers of the natives. That's certainly true of Incident of the Power and the Plow in which Gil Favor, after negotiating a passage through the territory of the bigoted rancher Brian Donlevy, regrets having made the deal when he sees Donlevy having a Commanche whipped. He later buys some candy canes for the Commanche's son when a general store owner refuses to serve them. Donlevy then reneges on the agreement, forcing them to go through Commanche territory where the candy cane gesture allows them to survive. Donlevy wants a conflict so he can wipe out the Commanche's rather small tribe and take their land to add to his. Favor and his men side with the Comanches. I don't know how realistic that is, but their heart - and that of the audience- was in the right place.
Clint Eastwood later had the image of a man's man but Rowdy Yates as a bit of little boy in him. The production notes say that Gil Favor sees him as a potential trail boss someday and so keeps looking after him. It's hard to see how he saw Rowdy as a trail boss in this one. The drovers get a brief respite in a town run by a corrupt marshal, (incongruently played by that great old character actor, J. C. Flippen), who likes to arrest people he doesn't like and then shoot them in the back while they were 'escaping'. Rowdy meets a pretty young woman who asks for money to escape the town and he gives her everything he's got and what's coming to him, which Favor refuses to give him. They have a fight, which Favor wins but results in Rowdy leaving the drive to be with the woman, who turns out to be the wife of the marshal. Later we see Rowdy get beat up again - by the marshal. Try to imagine J. C. Flippen, (age 60 at the time), beating up Clint Eastwood, (28). I can't, either.
Incident on the Edge of Madness really is. A confederate Colonel who used to be Gil Favor's commanding officer tries to recruit his men for a cockamamie army that will make him Emperor of Panama. Some of them actually go for this, including Lon Chaney Jr. Who does his specialty, his umpteenth version of Lennie Small for "Of Mice and Men" (1939), who goes nuts when he's disrespected by the future emperor. I'm sure this sort of thing was a frequent occurrence on the trip north for a trail drive.
I once saw a Marlon Brando interview in which he alleged that the attitude of Hollywood toward Native Americans was that "The only good Indian was a dead Indian." I thought about that and realized that that wasn't true at all. That might have been the attitude of the solders, the railway workers, settlers on real wagon trains and the drovers on real trail drives but it wasn't Hollywood's attitude at all. Bigots on their movies and TV shows were always bad guys or fools and the heroes were tolerant and even admirers of the natives. That's certainly true of Incident of the Power and the Plow in which Gil Favor, after negotiating a passage through the territory of the bigoted rancher Brian Donlevy, regrets having made the deal when he sees Donlevy having a Commanche whipped. He later buys some candy canes for the Commanche's son when a general store owner refuses to serve them. Donlevy then reneges on the agreement, forcing them to go through Commanche territory where the candy cane gesture allows them to survive. Donlevy wants a conflict so he can wipe out the Commanche's rather small tribe and take their land to add to his. Favor and his men side with the Comanches. I don't know how realistic that is, but their heart - and that of the audience- was in the right place.
