Leave It to Cleavage

Oh the thrilling effects we could mention!
Filled to spilling with sexual tension!
Wearing cheap cardboard glasses
This is deep for the masses
Giving killing an extra dimension!

David Cairns

Ella Bella

She's one of the forties film beauts
Is stunning in formfitting suits
Impeccably dressed
When trekking out west
With guns drawn, she'll floor you in boots!

Ella Raines in Phantom Lady and Tall in the Saddle (both 1944). We hope you've enjoyed our tribute to actress Ella Raines, and we'll return to her films soon. But starting tomorrow is our annual Countdown to Halloween.

The Hills Have Thighs

Way out west some girls kiss in saloons
But they're dressed like some sissy who swoons
This gal's rough, she'll attack you
Give her guff and she'll smack you
So don't pester this miss, cowboy goons.

Randolph Scott and William Bishop separate Ella Raines and John Ireland in The Walking Hills (John Sturges; 1949).

Western Schwing

When Ella, her guns drawn, is winking
The swells in this one-horse get thinking
Her shorts have such shape
They down quarts as they gape 
This belle star's hot buns lead to drinking.

David Cairns

Ella Raines in a publicity shoot for Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin; 1944).

Calamity Raines

Where she dwells there's no Gucci or furs
No rich swells there to smooch, no monsieurs
Just musty old garments
On crusty old varmints
So Miss Ella goes butch and wears spurs. 

David Cairns and Surly Hack


Ella Raines plays Arly Harolday in Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin; 1944).

Even Cowgirls Get to Choose

With each kick of her heels sharply spurring
The depiction of 'female' she's blurring
In plains drifter gear
Miss Raines would appear
And wicked strange feelings start stirring. 

Ella Raines portrays a very sexy tomboy in Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin; 1944).

Hard Raines

In boots and chaps dressed no gal's greater
Galoots way out West want to date her
"Can't stand 'em!" she'll say
"Ride tandem? No way!"
First shoots and asks questions much later.

Ella Raines comes out shooting in Tall in the Saddle (Edwin L. Marin; 1944).

Ella Raines Supreme

This knockout surprises on screen 

An ocular prize in each scene 
When Ella's in color
All else will seem duller
Her sockets hold eyes vivid green.

Above: Ella Raines in Singing Guns (John Sturges; 1950). Top: A glamour publicity photo. August 6th, 2020, marks the centennial of the birth of actress Ella Raines.

Saddle Champ

You slackjaws had better skedaddle
This crack shot rides tall in the saddle
A tomboy in chaps
She dominates saps
Her backside John Wayne wants to paddle.



Pistol-packin' Ella Raines and John Wayne co-star in Tall in the Saddle (1944).

Tumbling Tumbleweeds

Brother Can You Spare a Dame

So fraught were the day's economics,
As naughty were chorines and comics.
'Cause wolves at the door
Demanded much more
Than watered-down westerns with Tommix.

 

Donald B. Benson

The camera passes through the spread legs of chorus girls in the Busby Berkeley choreographed production number "Young and Healthy" in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon; 1933).

All is For Nautical

With a sidearm, Duke's bidding was done
Many died, Ringo Kid always won
But when under the water
Wayne would blunder at slaughter
When not fried, giant squid are no fun.

John Wayne wrestles with a giant squid in Reap the Wild Wind (Cecil B. DeMille; 1942). Wayne played the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (John Ford; 1939), the film which lifted the actor out of B westerns.

Pall in the Saddle

Disinterred, this conniving old perv
Treats the world as his private preserve
When the lout goes out stalking
Body outlines they're chalking,
And your girlfriend's his lively hors-d'oeurve.



John Carradine is the title vampire in the western-monster genre mash-up, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (William Beaudine, 1966). It's high and dry noon at Vampire Weekends.

Oil Riot on the Western Front

With a foe who's an oil baron's goon,
It's a showdown to spoil your high noon
There's no law, so the Swede
Is drawing a bead,
And will throw at his foil a harpoon.



Sterling Hayden stars in Terror in a Texas Town (1958), the last feature directed by the great Joseph H. Lewis. This fabulous gonzo western is showing in Chicago tonight at the Portage Theater.  

Postscript: Here's my review of the film.

R.I.P. James Arness

Reluctantly, Matt pulled the trigger
and outlaws fell flat, mortis-rigored
No draw could dislodge
the lawman of Dodge
As sheriff they can't come much bigger



For twenty years on Gunsmoke, in black-and-white and color, James Arness was Matt Dillon, sheriff of Dodge City, Kansas. Also pictured: Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell.

In Deed I Do

A man whose ambitions were great
laid plans that were big and first rate
Why steal something small
when you might get it all?
James Reavis tried stealing a state



Okay, so it was the 1880s and still a territory. Based on an amazing but true story, James Addison Reavis (Vincent Price) forges records and documents in an elaborate scheme to become The Baron of Arizona (Sam Fuller, 1950).

Pal of the Lonesome Pine

At home in the cacti and pine
was sidekick named Andy Devine
His voice like a joke
a high, squeaky croak
combined with a nasally whine



Sidekick sublime Andy Devine specialized in Westerns, appearing in almost 400 hundreds films. Devine starred in comic books (above), had his own television show, Andy's Gang, and played the jovial "Jingles" to Guy Madison's Wild Bill Hickock (below) for seven seasons.

Robert Ryan

From Noir City streets to the West
at bad Robert Ryan was best
So rugged and tough
he didn't do fluff
There's Ryan and then there's the rest.


Top: Rod Steiger, Robert Ryan and Anita Ekberg in Back From Eternity (John Farrow, 1956). Above: Publicity still from 1951. Below: Ryan battle Robert Preston in a lobby card for Best Of The Badmen (William D. Russell, 1951). That's it for our November Noir tribute to actor Robert Ryan.

Over Charged

The arrows and tomahawks flew
And streams of tobacco juice spew
This plus Vera Miles,
whose feminine wiles
were thrust from the screen into view


The Charge at Feather River (Gordon Douglas, 1953). This western is the zenith of fifties 3-D's flying-objects phase. This included such appetizing effects as expert tobacco-spitter Frank Lovejoy aiming at a rattlesnake, and squirting the stream right at the camera and out into the audience.

Gene Barry, R.I.P.

What debonair dude roamed the west
and kept his cards close to his vest?
From guns would refrain
but wielded a cane...
Bat Masterson, maybe you guessed

Television, film and stage actor Gene Barry died on December 9, 2009. On television Barry had a featured role in Our Miss Brooks, and starred as derby wearing dandy Bat Masterson from 1958 to '61, and later in Burke's Law and The Name of the Game. His films include War of the Worlds, China Gate, Forty Guns, Thunder Road and Naked Alibi. In 1983 Barry received a Tony nomination for his performance in the musical La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway, where he had started out in the 1940s. Photos (top to bottom): Bat Masterson (from this Gene Barry tribute site); with Ann Robinson in War of the Worlds (George Pal, 1953); AP file photo.