As anyone who reads these articles would know, I tend to write this same story each year on 30 April about a film I really like ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men‘

It is 72 years ago today, on 30 April 1951 that Richard Todd opened the curtains at his home at Pinkneys Green Nr Maidenhead, before heading off to Denham for the first day of filming for Walt Disney’s ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’, only to see that the garden and countryside around was covered in a blanket of snow.

This event had caught the Walt Disney organisation out as they had not thought of such a possibility – however things were quickly re-adjusted to suit but from that moment on, they made sure that there was always an alternative scene to be shot if, again, the unexpected happened

The snow went within a few hours but the following cold days were spent at Burnham Beeches with outdoor scenes being shot.

ABOVE – Here we are at Burnham Beeches along with Perce Pearce, Carmen Dillon and Alex Bryce, the Second Unit Film Director on this production. In fact he did virtually all of the outside action scenes for the film at Burnham Beeches

I have to say that I do feel the filming there was a little early because although the trees were in leaf they were not in full leaf as later when they are even more attractive and photographed in Technicolor so well.

These Scenes being filmed – probably in Denham Film Studios where the site sloped down onto the River Colne – certainly filmed on that river.

BELOW – Filmed at the rear of Denham Film Studios as the ground slopes down to the River Colne – it looks good though !!

ABOVE – Two young fans – and competition winners – with Richard Todd at Denham Film Studios during the summer of 1951

It must be said that this film is one of – if not the best – Technicolor film ever

“Cattle Queen of Montana” was a film that Ronald Reagan and Barbara Stanwyck both really enjoyed making – they got on well together and were friends

Ronald Reagan and Barbara Stanwyck only starred in one film together, the 1954 Western “Cattle Queen of Montana.”

Maybe not a great film but it looked good on the enormous Cinemascope screen with it’s wonderful location filming  

“Cattle Queen of Montana” tells the story of Sierra Nevada Jones (Barbara Stanwyck) who along with her father leaves Texas for Montana. As a family, they have inherited a large portion of the land, and they wish to continue to raise cattle.

Sierra ends up fighting both the Indians and Tom McCord, a local man who uses some of the Indian tribe in a bid to to steal the land from Sierra. 

Enter Farrell (Ronald Reagan), a man who appears to be a hired gun for McCord. Farrell and Sierra encounter each other at the beginning of the film, when she is bathing in a lake. Farrell warns her about the Indian tribe.

Their paths cross many times, especially when McCord offers Farrell a bounty to kill Sierra. It turns out that Farrell is not what he seems to be – he is a U.S. Cavalry agent sent to investigate the issues between McCord and the Indians. 

Predictably, a romance between Farrell and Sierra develops, especially since they end up sharing the same opinion about McCord.

Farrell and Sierra get rid of McCord and his gang, and they ride off into the sunset, knowing that the land will stay with Sierra, and peace with the Indians has been achieved.

Both Ronald Reagan and Barbara Stanwyck had fond memories of working on the film. In his autobiography, Where’s the Rest of Me?, Reagan reflected on the “scenic Glacier National Park” and Barbara Stanwyck’s absolute professionalism. “Somehow working outdoors,” he wrote, , “amid beautiful scenery and much of the time on horseback never has seemed like work to me. It’s like getting paid for playing cowboys and Indians.” 

Ronald Reagan admired Barbara Stanwyck’s acting ability and her stamina. She took her work very seriously, and expected others to do the same.

In a letter he later wrote to a friend, Ronald Reagan wrote, “She [Stanwyck] is a professional. Her only intolerance is of those who won’t take our profession seriously, and who come to work without their lines learned or who are late and careless in their work.

Barbara is ready every day exactly on time, her lines learned perfectly for each day’s shooting, prepared to undergo whatever has to be done to make the scene better for the audience who will eventually see the film.”

Much like Reagan, Barbara Stanwyck loved the open land and took any opportunity she could to act in Westerns. What comes through clearly  in “Cattle Queen of Montana” is Reagan and Stanwyck’s enjoyment of the job they were doing. 

Barbara Stanwyck’s friendship with both Reagans (Stanwyck and Nancy Reagan had also starred together in a 1949 film, “East Side, West Side”) continued well into Reagan’s presidency.

She had replied to a letter that he had written to her after she had won a particular accolade and the letter began formally, addressing Reagan as “Mr. President,” but she couldn’t help adding in a postscript: “Ronnie—If I had known during the filming of ‘Cattle Queen’ that you were going to be President of our country I would have given you first billing!!”

Ronald Regan replied to her and reaffirmed the joy that their friendship brought to him and Nancy, and their support of her accomplishments and well-deserved honors. In his typical humorous way, Reagan couldn’t resist adding a less formal note: “Incidentally, I appreciate your willingness to give me top billing in the picture but it might have set me back–RR as …..?” 

This picture was published in a magazine in January 1958

The Reporter had spent a day on the set / location for the popular Television Series. They were shooting outdoor scenes about 5 miles out of Beaconsfield up a muddy track off the A40 on a pretty cold winter day.

Gurth played by Robert Brown was a fixture in the ‘Ivanhoe’ series as sidekick to Ivanhoe himself. He was walking around the location, making ready for a scene in an open top tunic which cannot have been comfortable in such low temperatures. Part of an actors job it seems and this role would have given him good, well paid employment for a year or more.

A lot of filming was done on pretty good studio sets at Beaconsfield, although I have read that the first Pilot Episode was made at Pinewood and in Colour.

Roger Moore would come to know Pinewood pretty well in future years – I am pretty sure that he lived at Denham close by

The Series of 39 Episodes was shown throughout 1958 and it has been repeated many times since

In Episode No 32 – which was first shown in November of 1958 there was an actress well known on this site – the lovely Joan Rice. She played Marcia in ‘The Night Raiders’

BELOW – Joan Rice as Marcia in ‘The Night Raiders’ Episode 32 of Ivanhoe

Joan Rice played Marcia, and here she is with her father in the story who were being terrorised by The Night Riders

Joan Rice was back in familiar territory here after she had played Maid Marian a few years before. It is pretty obvious that this had no-where near the budget that the Walt Disney film had.

ABOVE – Ivanhoe comes to the rescue

ABOVE – Joan Rice and her father in the film, wave in gratitude

ABOVE – Joan Rice is star billed as she should be. Just look at the cast though – Anthony Bate and Edwin Richfield in early roles

We certainly loved to see these in the fifties

Clint Walker was certainly very popular in England when tghe series ‘Cheyenne’ appeared on Television. There were 108 hour long episodes from 196 to 1963 so Clint had some successful and continuous work on this one but at the same time he was making films – and quite a few of them including ‘Yellowstone Kelly’ ‘ Golf of the Seven Saints’ and ‘Fort Dobbs’ in which he starred alongside Virginia Mayo

Clint Walker was well liked by audiences both TV and Cinema

ABOVE – Jack Mahoney as ‘The Range Rider’ which came a few years earlier. It was shown on the BBC channel in England – at that time this was the ONLY TV channel – and as young boys we just loved the show.

This was a Republic film made in wide screen / their wide screen process called Naturama.

However this heading is leading me into a different subject and I will explain. The whole of March 2023 I have been on holiday in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and during this time we ventured up into the Barossa Valley – a famous wine growing area – and went to the town of Kapunda.

One of the attractions of many, was the Museum which had been used a few years ago as a cinema – and the remains are there clear to see and on the bill board was still a poster for ‘The Maverick Queen‘.

I always get mixed up with TWO films both starring Barbara Stanwyck – ‘The Maverick Queen’ and ‘Cattle Queen of Montana’ – the reason us that they were made within a couple of years of each other,

When Barbara Stanwyck’s era of Hollywood stardom came to an end in the early fifties, she then became the star of a number of TV Western series, which cast her as a tough leader of an outlaw gang.

The Maverick Queen has a bigger budget (and was shot in colour) but and wide screen

Again an Australian film – this time starring Chips Rafferty

King of the Coral Sea deserves a ten score because the love and passion by all concerned in the making of this little gem shows through on the screen.

Thew film was made on a budget of around 25,000 Pounds Sterling which is a meagre budget by any standards even in those days.

Chips Rafferty produced this film, and put nearly all of his own money into it – it came good though and recouped it’s costs within 3 months and went on to make a sizeable profit.

Much of the filming was done at Green Island – just off Cairns in Queensland, Australia

King of The Coral Sea may not have the flashy Hollywood production values of a huge budget, but it does have a charm that has only increased as the years have gone by.

This film was also the screen debut of old Rod Taylor, ironically playing an American, an accent he had done often for Radio Dramas. He very soon after this had a part in ‘Long John Silver’ and from that film he was noticed by Hollywood Producers and so – off he went.

Charles Tingwell was also offered a Hollywood contract but he turned it down in favour of going to England where he forged a successful career, returning to Australia for good in the 1970’s.

K

Kangaroo (1952)

Kangaroo  was the first big-budget US production in Australia, but was not a great success.

An Australian Style Western film by Twentieth Century-Fox brought American stars Maureen O’Hara and Peter Lawford along with other well-known actors from the US and Britain to play Aussie characters in the bush again.

The film had an American director and writer, but predictably included Chips Rafferty as the local policeman, a young Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell as a poverty-stricken stockman, Aboriginal actor Henry Murdoch in another of his many appearances as a stockman. The story was a complex one of two city conmen out to swindle Maureen O’Hara’s dad out of his cattle station. The film ticks the boxes for Australian wildlife and exotic people, but was not liked by critics for its clumsy script. It failed at the box office in both countries.

Filmink magazine said that “This film isn’t as bad as its reputation (Richard Boone is excellent as Lawford’s friend and there’s some great visuals), it’s just frustrating because it should have been better – it’s flabby and goes all over the place, Lawford is a wet fish of a leading man, and it needs more action… It would have been more entertaining if it had embraced being a Western more.

Maureen O’Hara claimed that Richard Boone and Peter Lawford were “rude and disrespectful to many Australians and to the press as a whole and the Australians came to dislike them both with a passion.” 

Maureen O’Hara wrote that 20th Century Fox told her to make a personal plea to the press not to report the arrests of Richard Boone and Peter Lawford in a gay brothel with underage boys. 

It was the first Technicolor movie filmed on-location in Australia. 

Tyrone Power was originally intended for the lead role of John W. Gamble which in the end was cast with another American actor, Richard Boone. Other names had been talked about – Richard Widmark and Errol Flynn and Jean Simmons in the Maureen O Hara role

Hollywood star Maureen O’Hara had to contend with swarms of flies and being “clawed something awful by a cuddly koala” during the shooting of the film Kangaroo around Port Augusta.

South Australian premier Tom Playford gave a housing estate at Port Augusta to be used by the cast and crew of 1952 American 20^th Century Fox film Kangaroo. Dubbed “Zanuckville” (after producer Darryl Zanuck), the estate housed up to 150 people to shoot the first Technicolor film in Australia, directed by Lewis Milestone.

Playford also turned on a gala reception for the film’s star Maureen O’Hara (with Peter Lawford, Finlay Currie, Richard Boone, Chips Rafferty and Charles “Bud” Tingwell) when she arrived in Adelaide from Sydney in late 1950.

The film was made using Fox funds “frozen” by the Australian government under postwar restrictions. Although Kangaroo wasn’t a critical or box office success, about £446,000 was spent in South Australia on the production.

Milestone moved the setting to Port Augusta because the original New South Wales locations looked no different from Southern Arizona and California. Milestone also extended his 61-day shoot to seven months.

Problems piled on from there. Temperatures were very high in Port Augusta but rain kept occurring. The script was constantly rewritten (action changed from the 1800s to 1900) and the isolated “Zanuckville” had trouble sourcing materials, with equipment and costumes needed from Hollywood. Scenes were shot at Wolundunga Station, at the foot of Mount Brown, at pubs and places in and around Port Augusta and on a coastal ship at Moonta.

Rain wrecked Lewis Milestone’s wish to suggest drought for his key scene of an attack by water-starved kangaroos. Among other mishaps, a sound technician was paralysed after being bitten by a spider and Lawford lost 12 pounds during the shoot and his hair started to fall out. An Aboriginal group from Ooldea (also used in the Bitter Springs film) staged a special dance at Spear Creek near Port Augusta. When drought arrived, cast and crew attended a “native rain dance” and the next morning it rained, enabling the film downpour climax.

In her 2004 autobiography, O’Hara claimed Boone and Peter Lawford were “rude and disrespectful… and the Australians came to dislike them both with a passion”. She said they were arrested in a “brothel full of beautiful boys” in Melbourne but she said the studio prevented this being reported by having O’Hara make a plea to the press.

O’Hara recalled “Australians were so excited to have us there and were one of the most gracious people I have ever encountered on location” but she “cried many nights” during the shoot. “Lawford and Boone were horrible to me even though I had saved both their hides … I still had to fight off a swarm of flies for every mouthful of food. I was even clawed something awful by a cuddly little koala bear during a scheduled photo shoot.”

ABOVE – The main three actors Richard Boone, Maureen O Hara and Peter Lawford

A Newspaper Advertisement of the time ABOVE

It strikes me that a few tears before this another film ;Diamond City’ was made and this one was another ‘Western Style film but this time, set in South Arica. This film too was a flop at the Box Office

Then shortly after this came ‘Long John Silver’ with Robert Newton filmed in Cinemascope but this was made just North of Sydney – this one was quite successful

A Western Directed by George Sherman

In the last days of the Civil War, Confederate officer Joel McCrea and associates rob a Union storehouse of $2,000,000. They head down to a small patch of Mexican territory controlled by renegade general Pedro Armendariz and start negotiating to turn the money into arms for the Confederacy.

This seems to have been film shot in three-strip Technicolor – and thats about as any colour film gets.

Director George Sherman, an expert in Westerns, directs the script well as you would expect

Another solid performance by Joel Mccrea. Yvonne de Carlo also adds strength to this feature.

The film portrays a turbulent time in American history

This doesn’t appear to be a well-remembered film from the era but lets hope that a forthcoming release of this on BluRay will help it become better known

ABOVE – maybe a welcome break from filming – and a chance to cool down in a fairly unorthodox way – but very effective I would think

Another big budget Tarzan film from MGM following the success of the first Johnny Weissmuller film ‘ Tarzan the Ape Man’

This Elmo Lincoln the very first screen Tarzan visits the set and joins Johnny and Benita Hulme = she was married to Ronald Colman

It is well know that Peter Sellers was a car addict – over the years he owned so many

ABOVE – The first owner of this lovely Rolls Royce saloon was the renowned playwright Sir Terence Rattigan, at that time resident at 29 Eaton Square, London SW1. In February 1967 it passed into the ownership of actor Peter Sellers, who had it re-sprayed silver. The original logbook records the third private owner, from April 1971, as Benedict James Colman, another resident, like Rattigan and Sellers, of London SW1 – so it appears this vehicle never went very far.

I recall a story that Peter Seller’s son Michael told many years later – he was then a small child, of say, 6 years old and overheard his father saying that he needed the front bumper re-painting for some reason. It was probably the Rolls Royce pictured above. Michael later decided to give his Dad a nice surprise, so he found a pot of paint in the shed and a paintbrush and, in his own way, he painted the whole of one front wing. Needless to say, when Dad arrived home and saw the surprise we can say, as an understatement, that he was not well pleased

BELOW – Liz Taylor with a classic Rolls Royce

1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Convertible Jane Mansfield – BELOW

Before Jayne Mansfield signed a six-year agreement with Twentieth Century Fox, she worked various small gigs, including selling books door-to-door, as a restaurant photographer, model, dance teacher, and selling candy at a movie theatre.

In 1956 she starred in “The Girl Can’t Help It,” which interestingly enough earned more at the box office than 1953’s “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

Jane Mansfield had quite a short film career, however she did win a Golden Globe award for her appearance in the adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel, “The Wayward Bus.