The production designer Peter Lamont, who has died aged 91, was born in London. His father was a signwriter who sometimes worked at Denham film studios, in Buckinghamshire, where Peter visited him regularly and later got a job as a runner.

After two years in the RAF, he returned to Denham and worked as a junior draughtsman for more than a decade.

Among the first films he worked on was ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’ at Denham for Walt Disney under the guidance of legendary set designer Carmen Dillon who was at her very best on this film.

ABOVE and BELOW – Some of the Film Studio Sets for ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’ which Peter Lamont may have worked on in the design stages along with Carmen Dillon

Much later he worked on every James Bond film between Goldfinger (1963), the third in the series, and Casino Royale (2006), the 21st official instalment. He was absent during that time only from Tomorrow Never Dies, which clashed with James Cameron’s Titanic (also 1997). It was Lamont’s work on the latter which brought him an Oscar, following nominations for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), the Bond adventure The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Cameron’s horror sequel Aliens (1986).

As he moved up the ladder from draughtsman to set decorator and art director before finally being appointed production designer on For Your Eyes Only (1981), Peter Lamont became a prized member of the Bond family. “I so admire Peter and his colleagues,” said Roger Moore in his 2008 autobiography My Word Is My Bond. “They make the impossible possible and the unbelievable believable.” Michael G Wilson, who with Barbara Broccoli took over the producing reins from Broccoli’s father, Albert, said: “The first thing we do when we start working on the script, and we’re thinking about locations and whether we can do this or that, is we call up Peter Lamont.”

His responsibilities on the series were wideranging and unpredictable. On Goldfinger, he was recruited by the great production designer Ken Adam to help design Fort Knox. For the sea-bound Thunderball (1965), he took a crash-course in scuba-diving after Adam told him: “You’d better learn to swim underwater.” The film, shot partly in the Bahamas, also required him to spend time at RAF Waddington studying a Vulcan bomber in preparation for building a 14-ton replica which then had to be shown sinking at sea.

One of his most challenging assignments came as one of the art directors on The Man With the Golden Gun (1974). The night before he left for the Thai island Khao Phing Kan, the production designer Peter Murton told him to be prepared to stay for some time.

“I came home seven months later,” he told Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury for their Bond encyclopedia Some Kind of Hero (2015). “It was a place that was undeveloped at the time. Believe me, the Bonds have always been first in these places. I was the one who ran everything. Telephones didn’t work. Telexes took three days, and a letter – God knows where it went.”

Peter also taught the actor Christopher Lee to assemble the golden gun brandished by his character, the villain Scaramanga, and comprised of everyday objects such as cuff-links, a lighter and a fountain pen. Lamont commissioned the prop from the London jeweller J Rose when the one supplied by Colibri, the credited jeweller, proved unusable.

After the soaring costs of Moonraker (1979), the series went back to basics with For Your Eyes Only, for which Peter stepped into Ken Adam’s shoes. John Glen, the film’s director, said: “He was reaching a stage in his career where we were either going to promote him to production designer or he was going to leave the fold and do his own films for someone else because he was that good you couldn’t ignore him anymore.”

Peter Lamont produced impressive sets resourcefully; the ceremonial barge in Octopussy (1983), for instance, was constructed from a pair of abandoned boats which he found on the banks of Lake Pichola in Udaipur city in India. He also came to the rescue in 1984 when the 007 stage at Pinewood burned down following an accident on the set of Ridley Scott’s fantasy adventure Legend. Within 12 weeks, Lamont had overseen the reconstruction of what was now renamed the Albert R Broccoli 007 Stage, and had parcelled out sections of the latest Bond production, A View to a Kill (also 1985), to other stages.

To avoid the bureaucratic complications of filming a tank chase in St Petersburg for GoldenEye (1995), he proposed building sections of the city at Leavesden studios.

I can say that this outside set at Leavesden was terrific. My family and I visited there after filming had been done. The reason for the visit was that the family owned company we have, hired some very large storage tanks to Eon Productions for Goldeneye and these were to complete the set of a Russian Nerve Gas Plant. We asked to be able to visit and were allowed to literally wander around the very large site – now the Harry Potter experience.

There we saw and walked up the St Peterberg street set that days or weeks before, action had taken place with James Bond driving a rampaging tank around the city – actually this set.

There were numerous Lada cars littered around the set and near area I remember.

Also there was a very large outdoor model of the large parabolic dish thet was the scene of the fight to a finish between James Bond and the villain played by Sean Bean

Judi Dench, cast in that film for the first time as the intelligence chief M, singled out for praise “the flat Peter Lamont designed … this gorgeous apartment in Canary Wharf”. On Casino Royale, he designed over 40 sets, from the casino’s salon privé to the building site where the film’s spectacular pursuit was staged.

Before the Bond films, art-directing credits included Sleuth (1972), starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, and the Nazi-hunting thriller The Boys from Brazil (1978), also with Olivier.

As production designer, he worked on the wartime spoof Top Secret! (1984) as well as continuing his collaboration with James Cameron on the action comedy True Lies (1994) another big one very much in the Bond style.

It was Bond, though, which dominated his life, as reflected in the title he chose for his 2016 autobiography, The Man With the Golden Eye: Designing the James Bond Films. In it, he revealed that he had not intended Casino Royale to be his swansong.

In 1952 he married Ann Aldridge; she predeceased him. Peter Lamont is survived by their daughter, Madeline, and son, Neil, an art director and production designer who worked with his father on several films including GoldenEye and Titanic.

I mainly know Valerie French for her leading role in ‘The Secret of Treasure Mountain’ released in 1956 which was a supporting film and not a major Western but nonetheless it is a film I like.

Prior to this she had a starring role in the excellent Glenn Ford Western ‘Jubal’ having only the previous year left England to make her home in California.

She never really cracked into the big time but did lots of Television shows of the day and then went back to Theatre where she seemed to have been more successful

After she left England, Valerie set up home in Malibu where her neighbours included Kim Novak, Shirley MacLaine, and Rod Steiger – and Elvis Presley had rented a cottage nearby from Hugh O’Brien at that time. She loved the location but during the frequent times when she was involved with a film, she had little time at home to enjoy it.

Valerie always dreamed of Hollywood even in the days that she was on the bus heading for rehearsals in London at the Saville Theatre – this I remember was the very Theatre that, just over a decade after this, we went to see Chuck Berry and Del Shannon perform there – what a night that was.

ABOVE – Valerie French looking lovely in ‘Jubal’

Valerie French was a British film, television, and stage actress. Born Valerie Harrison in London, England, she attended Malvern Girls’ College in Worcestershire. In 1951 she made her stage debut in Treasure Hunt at the Theatre Royal in Windsor. French’s early career was marked by her popularity as a young starlet who was frequently photographed attending show premieres and parties in London during the early 1950s. In 1954, she made her film debut in Maddalena, and the following year she was hired as a contract actress for Columbia Pictures. After moving to the United States in 1955, French acted in several western films in Hollywood, such as Jubal (1956), The Hard Man (1957), and Decision at Sundown (1957).

Valerie French had roles in several television series throughout her career, appearing in over twenty shows between 1953 and 1982. During the 1950s and 1960s she acted in multiple episodes of The Edge of Night, Alcoa Theatre, and Have Gun-Will Travel. French’s stage career took off in the 1960s; her Broadway credits include Inadmissible Evidence (1965), Help Stamp Out Marriage! (1966), and A Taste of Honey (1981).

Valerie French was married and divorced twice, first to playwright and screenwriter Michael Pertwee in 1952, and later to actor Thayer David. She died of leukemia in 1990

Although Christopher Plummer had appeared in quite a few TV films, this was one of his first feature films – and it is a good one.

He has just passed away, so I thought we would do an article on one of his lesser known earlier films.

‘Wind Across the Everglades’ is set in Florida – in the Everglades – at the turn of the century. It is the story of a booze ridden conservationist played by Christopher Plummer attempting to preserve the area’s wild life against the onslaught of property developers.

ABOVE – On Location in the Florida Everglades

The Technicolor outdoor location sequences are visually stunning

Also starring is Burl Ives in the type of role he had played before as ‘Big Daddy’ in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ and also in ‘The Big Country’ just before that – in fact these three films came out pretty close to one another.

I always had the impression – and still do – that Burl Ives could hold his own in the acting stakes no matter who he was cast with – he is a powerful personality and someone who adds more than a bit of style to whatever film he is in.

His ‘Ugly Bug Ball’ song from ‘Summer Magic’ for Walt Disney some years before this is so memorable – and he delivers it perfectly

Chana Eden played the female lead in the film – she didn’t have that well known a career but after this, she was in quite a few high profile TV shows such as ‘Rifleman’ with Chuck Connors

Here she is ABOVE in Florida on the set of ‘Wind Across the Everglades’

In terms of film making and indeed in terms of general interest I have always had a fascination for the Everglades ever since seeing one of my favourite Westerns ‘Distant Drums’ at a showing in our local village hall in the early fifties. Great Film.

I later learned that some of the underwater swimming sequences in the MGM Tarzan films were done at Silver Springs in Florida – certainly that was the case for ‘Tarzan Finds a Son’ and ‘Tarzans Secret Treasure’.

Also the classic ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’

I am really surprised that I don’t know this film but now have purchased the DVD so expect I shall rectify that but I have the feeling that this is one I will really enjoy.

It does seem to have been a happy film to make from the photographs we see which is underlined by this charming one of the writer and leading lady

A very young Peter Falk makes his screen debut in this film

Screenwriter Budd Schulberg with actress Chana Eden on location of “Wind Across the Everglades” in Chokoloskee. BELOW

This is taken from a Review written at the time :-

When we reach the climax of the film Christopher Plummer is alone in a boat with Burl Ives – the self-acknowledged “king” of the poachers – and then the film takes fire. The showdown test of character and resolution between these two stubborn men in a sequence that takes some twenty minutes is exciting and colourful. Burl Ives in a red beard and black hat, adorned with the plume of an egret, and wearing a cottonmouth moccasin as a wrist adornment, is the lustiest looking thing in the film. He has it all over Christopher Plummer, who is adorned with little more than hair and sweat. Chana Eden plays a sultry swamp charmer The “swamp rats,” are played by various roving actors, jockeys, prize fighters and circus clowns, but the natural outdoor settings, in the wilds of “the “glades,” are for real. So are the birds that fly in clouds and the dawns and sunsets. There is definitely life in this odd film.

and – another Review – more recent with the film being showed at a Film Festival in 2019:-

It’s early twentieth century as game warden Walt Murdock (Christopher Plummer) intent on stopping the decimation of the local plume birds, slaughtered in droves to supply all those rich ladies with fashionable feathers in their hats, and finds himself at dangerous odds with both the town businessmen, and the fierce and brutal gun-toting poachers living out in the wild ‘glades, leading to an inevitable confrontation with their larger-than-life leader Cottonmouth (Burl Ives).

With its unabashed focus on environmental concerns, its heavy ‘nature’ setting, what a unique oddball of a Hollywood film Wind Across the Everglades is. Rarely a Hollywood film of the 50’s was particularly concerned with ecological concerns.

With so much of the production having been set clearly in the inhospitable Florida Everglades, as Christopher Plummer’s courageous Murdock is taken in by the poachers for almost the film’s entire second half, with Burl Ives’ brutal Cottonmouth taking a liking to the young man, sensing a bit of a similar wild man in his spirit despite the fact that he knows he’s there to end their livelihood and take him back to the law. — Director Nicholas Ray was fired during production (with legendary screenwriter Budd Schulberg having taken over at some point) makes this production – and film — all the more fascinating.

A young Christopher Plummer

It’s a gorgeous looking film, with the various colours and textures of the swamp popping off the 35mm print

Not everything works in the film, though. While Cottonmouth’s actions in the last third of the film, voluntarily agreeing to go back with Murdock, as his eventual prisoner, if Murdock can navigate his way through a murky and danger-filled swampland he is unfamiliar with and that Cottonmouth knows like the back of his hand, are never entirely convincing (feeling more like a script contrivance that no one ever overcame than something from the character). Murdock’s love interest, played by Chana Eden, is even more thankless than these roles tended to be at the time, setting it up without much development or narrative interest.

“Wind Across the Everglades”, a film I hadn’t even heard of before, is a fascinating, beautiful film – an admirable one, obsessing over things not usual for Hollywood of that time, in its subject matter and setting. Even seeing it on a cropped 35mm print was worth it (the only other way it appears available is on similarly cropped DVD from Warner Archives).

This picture came from a newspaper article on a very different subject to the films of the time, but looking closely at it, we get a glimpse of what is showing in one particular Cinema in the West End – probably later in the summer 1953.

Abbott and Costello meet Captain Kidd with that great film actor Charles Laughton.

This was released at Christmas 1952 and did pretty well at the Box Office.

It seems a strange coupling between these two popular comedians on film and Charles Laughton but it does seem to have been a successful one but just maybe Charles Laughton wanted, in a way,to reprise his famous role as Captain Blighe but this time with a nod towards comedy and possibly a touch of Robert Newton’s Long John Silver.

It was filmed in SuperCinecolor

However I now turn to the supporting film ‘No Escape’ which ran for a mere 76 minutes but from the reviews I have seen, it was a very good thriller

No Escape 1953 with Lew Ayres, Marjorie Steele and Sonny Tufts

Quite often – and this is proof of that – a “B” picture needn’t be of inferior quality.

Back in the 1930s, Lew Ayres was on top of the world in Hollywood. After starring in “All Quiet on the Western Front”, he had a steady career in Hollywood. When he had got the lead in MGM’s Dr. Kildare series, Lew Ayres continued on his winning ways. However, WW2 arrived and he was an avowed pacifist. While he bravely volunteered to be an orderly in the military, his refusal to fight soured him with the public and the studios.

As a result, his career, with a few exceptions (such as “Johnny Belinda” in 1948), was mostly flat in the post-war years. He worked but the quality of the films declined. This is why he starred in a low-budget film like “No Escape”…a film that paired him with Sonny Tufts – who, himself, had fallen even further in his career thanks to his off-screen habits.

However No Escape turned out to be a really good and tense thriller

This is, or was another treat for fans of the absurd Horror films of the Fifties – it is possible to reel a few of them off Tarantula, Attack of the 50 ft Woman, and even The Giant Claw featured on here before.

This time, audiences were treated to the science-fiction thriller, The Amazing Colossal Man. The film revolves around a character named Colonel Manning, who strays too close to the test of an atomic device in the Nevada desert and is bombarded with “plutonium rays.”

This was but one of many such films released in the 1950s

Ants exposed to radiation grow to enormous size and threaten humanity in ‘Them’ ; The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), tells the tale of a dinosaur, thawed out by an atomic test in the Arctic, that ravages New York City.

In one of the best of this class of film, a man survives being caught in a nuclear test, only to find himself shrinking away to nothing in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). This was in a different category to the other films mentioned – this was well made and extremely well done with very good special effects.

‘The Amazing Colossal Man’ was produced and directed By Bert I. Gordon who made a career out of making his own films without the financial clout of the major studios. He was ingenious in the way he went about it too.

Bert Gordon had established a style and mastered a technique, which perfectly suited the production budgets he had – which were at best, meagre.

The following year saw another three films, including a sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man (War of the Colossal Beast ), and another giant monster picture (Attack of the Puppet People) and Earth vs. The Spider, perhaps among the best of the giant tarantula films.

Rarely had Gordon used the rear-projection technique so well or with such frightening results as he did in Spider. What’s more, it remains the only film ever made in which a dead giant tarantula is brought back to life by the music of a high school rock ‘n roll band.

Likely as a reaction to changing audience tastes, in the 1960s and early ‘70s, Gordon made a sharp break from giant monster pictures, trying his hand instead at human-scale adventure films, fantasies, thrillers and sex comedies. For the most part the films weren’t as popular or memorable.

However back to his normal style was 1965’s Village of the Giants (with Beau Bridges and a young Ron Howard, – a group of teenagers try to deal with growing up, adults and unexpected gigantism. Sounds a strange mix

In the mid-70s, perhaps recognising what audiences really wanted from him Bert Gordon returned to the genre that created him with a double bill of giant (or at least big) monsters pitted against all-star casts.

Very, very loosely based on an H. G. Wells story (and returning to a premise Gordon visited in a couple of his earlier films), Food of the Gods was both a technical and commercial success and marked the pinnacle of Gordon’s career.

The film was was an instant classic in schoolyards across the US. Watching it now it still contains a number of surprises, as well as Marjoe Gortner’s finest performance, as a football player who saves the day.

Not a good end for Ida Lupino in this one though – it was one of her very last films and in it she ended up by being eaten by giant mealworms

Also when I look at the picture above, I hadn’t realised that English actress Pamela Franklin was in this – she was a pretty girl. She appears to have one of the two leading roles

Riding on the success of Food of the Gods, Bert Gordon returned to H.G. Wells the following year with Empire of the Ants, in which a colony of giant, super intelligent ants, in search of slave labour, absolutely destroy corrupt real estate developer Joan Collins’ plans to turn a small island into a resort.

BELOW – Joan Collins gives one of the ants a kiss

Bert Gordon’s effects had never been better and the film was another big hit during a summer that found it pitted against the likes of The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Car, Viva Knievel and Star Wars and that’s saying something.

Empire of the Ants marked the end for Bert Gordon and giant monsters but he left a legacy of B Movie classics.

I have just received this book and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in films – particularly British Films.

The Author is Barbara Roisman Cooper who, although from the USA in fact California, is a real lover of Great Britain and our way of life.

Since she first came over, she has done the trip more than 70 times and during that time , with a keen interest in Theatre and Films – and also in Sherlock Holmes for reasons I am not clear about, she has interviewed quite a few of our ‘stars’ for this book and others that she has written.

Written by Barbara Roisman Cooper

ABOVE – One of the stars interviewed is Joan Collins – and among many other things she discusses is the filming of ‘The Virgin Queen’ for 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. She does not speak that well of Bette Davies who she says was ‘horrible’ to work with

Great Interviews

ABOVE – Samantha Eggar, I found interesting because she talks about the film ‘Dr Crippen’ where Donald Pleasance plays the title role with her as his lover. This is a film I know and like – I thought that they were both very good and Donald Pleasance fitted the part of Dr Crippen perfectly.

She describes how well they got on during filming and how much fun he was to be with.

She also mentioned Sir Donald Wolfitt who was also in this film – and as a young actress she had been in his Theatre Company for a while. She seemed to get the wrong side of him at that time although she greatly admired him as a stage actor – and for what he had done for Theatre in the country
My view is that Sir Donald Wolfit was a wonderful and powerful stage actor – and also an actor manager – probably one of the last of the breed – and as such he took Shakespeare to the masses, touring the length and breadth of England. This is as well as his mid-day productions in the heart of the West End of London during the War, when German bombs were raining down on the capital.

A few years after this book – Volume 1 – Barbara Roisman Cooper has produced the sequel – this time focussing on directors rather than actors.

The range of subjects—all leading figures in either stage or cinema—in terms of time period is similarly impressive, from directors such as Ronald Neame, who worked in silent cinema and in fact on England’s first ‘talkie’ nearly a hundred years ago, right up to directors still working today, such as Deborah Warner. It takes in two former directors of the National Theatre—Richard Eyre and Nicholas Hytner—plus some who have directed regularly in that South Bank building, such as Howard Davies and Michael Blakemore, and former heads of the Almeida and the Donmar Warehouse Michael Attenborough and Michael Grandage.

If that isn’t impressive enough as a cast list (not mentioned above are Ken Annakin, Pat Jackson, Charles Jarrott and Tony Palmer), there is a foreword by David Suchet and inserted comments from many other famous names such as Angela Lansbury, Matthew Bourne, Derek Jacobi, Alfred Molina, Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns, John Mills, Jack Klugman, Shelley Winters and other actors, script supervisors, choreographers, designers etc. The author must have quite an impressive address book

We all know this TV series that took TV Worldwide by storm in the late fifties – with Richard Greene well cast as Robin Hood.

I did not know though that in 1991 a film version was released on video – a feature film length and would you believe colorised – and colorised well. This consisted of a number of episodes incidents from the series cleverly put together.

I have ordered this and await its arrival – can’t wait to see it. It cried out for being made in Colour

Have look at this clip ABOVE

This is an extract from it – as our the screen images below :

Richard Greene in great form as Robin Hood

Richard Greene in great form as Robin Hood tis time with his trusty bow and arrow

ABOVE and BELOW : The famous quarter staff fight with Little John – Not that well done here really I thought but looks better in colour

BELOW – Bernadette O Farrell as Marian

This film is culled (quite seamlessly, unlike most other edited together ) from the TV series) which legendary and known and sold all over the world.

The film has been beautifully colorised, and the colours look real and natural, not faded or washed out.

Someone seems to have taken their time in producing it – in fact a labour of love that really stands out. If I were to make a list of the great action films this would not be at the top but it would feature

This is a film that is fun, exciting, and easy to watch – it should have got a cinema release.

I came across this picture – which has been colorised – and shows Mabel List greeting youngsters attending the Saturday Matinee in this Lincolnshire Town.

Not sure of the date but the lady, Mabel List worked there from 1947 until 1960. I bet that it was a good job too

The cinema had been re-named the Gaumont in 1949 and was modernised in early-1954, Reopening on 29 March 1954 with Edward G. Robinson in “The Glass Webb” showing.and with film stars Joan Rice and Donald Sindon making personal appearances.

The pictures – above and below – were taken at the Gaumont in Gainsborough, but really could have been taken anywhere at because this would be typical of cinema life at that time.

Surprising and pleasing to see just how many staff were employed there – and below just how many children attended these shows – and loved them no doubt

I have a good friend who did briefly work in the Cinemas in Whitby in the mid to late 60 s. His main base was the Waterloo Cinema in the town – now one of the most popular seaside resorts in the country

He worked for a short time at the Waterloo Cinema. It was taken over by the Leeds based Star Cinemas chain in June 1968, and after refurbishment, was renamed Ritz Cinema.

Sadly, like so many, The Ritz Cinema was closed by 1980.

Whitby Cinemas BELOW

My friend, who would have just left school at the time, when he worked at The Waterloo Cinema told me that one of his tasks had been to stoke up the boiler and keep the place warm – but he said that sometimes he would really get the maximum heat he could which resulted in more ice cream sales – at least that was the theory

ABOVE – A great Walt Disney line-up. This would really pull in the cystomers

Another Cinema is a small town was the Rio in Epworth, again in Lincolnshire.

I did actually go to this one to see ‘Barabbas’ with Anthony Quinn – which I thought was one of the very best of the bis ‘epic’ productions

The Rio Cinema – ABOVE – opened in November 1938 with a performance of “No No Nanette” by the Epworth Operatic Society.

The first film to be shown at the cinema was “Rosalie” starring Nelson Eddy & Eleanor Powell. It had a 24ft wide proscenium and was equipped with a Duosonic sound system.

It also hosted concerts with top stars such as Shirley Bassey and Billy J. Kramer.

The man most associated with the cinema was Sidney Yorke. The cinema was badly damaged by fire on 1st June 1978, although it is believed to have stopped screening films the previous May. It was later demolished and replaced by housing.

Back in 2017 on the final of BBC’s ‘Mastermind’ Isabelle Heward impressed us – as she always does – with her knowledge of the Life and Films of Billy Wilder.

After making it to the semi-finals, the Lincolnshire resident fought off stiff competition and made it to the final.

Her specialist subject in the final was The Life and Films of director Billy Wilder.

At the BBC’s expense and in order to film an intro to her appearance on the show Isabelle travelled to Los Angeles and got the chance to sit at a table in Billy Wilder’s favourite restaurant – Mr Chow – and chat to the maître d’.

Here BELOW is Billy Wilder with Marilyn Monroe

Isabelle spent a week in Hollywood and knowing as I do, that she is a great film fan with a vast knowledge and terrific memory, I know that she would have been thrilled to go there. In truth, when she came to visit California, she had not flown overseas for quite a few years and had never been to the Movie Capital but she took it on, enjoyed the experience and duly returned with a short film record of her visit there.

This film was shown on the Mastermind Programme – The Final – which Isabelle won.

Isabelle has made a number of Television and Radio appearances on various Quiz Shows prior to her winning the Mastermind Trophy and she does continue to be asked onto various shows.

In the semi final of the 2017 Mastermind there was a three way play off of those who had tied and Isabelle won that. After that show was broadcast, she told me that although she was never confident of winning normally, when she knew she was in that play-off she just ‘knew’ that she would win – as she did.

Until I watched this on Television today, it was not a Western Film that I knew – but in all fairness it was a good one, very much Cowboys and Indians in a fight to a finish but it was action packed with good studio sets cut in with location shots which all seemed to work well whilst also looking good.

Rory Calhoun was not a top line film actor, but the roles he played in films such as Apache Territory suited him well. He was a handsome and capable actor who made reasonably good Westerns and this is a good example.

Mind you it should have suited him because the film was made by his own Production Company Rorvic Productions and released through Colombia Pictures.

For Rorvic Productions Rory Calhoun starred in all they ever made Flight to Hong Kong in 1956 then The Hired Gun and The Domino Kid in 1957 lastly this one ‘Apache Territory’ in 1958.

Then they went into Television with ‘The Texan’ again with Rory Calhoun – after this he went back to films

Apache Territory is a basic story of a group of people in the desert surrounded by a horde of Apache indians intent on doing them harm. John Dehner and Leo Gordon -two extremely competent character actors- add to the film.

The two leading ladies were Barbara Bates and Carolyn Craig who played very well here and looked lovely – even when under great pressure from an Indian attack.

ABOVE – Rory Calhoun and BELOW Barbara Bates meet again – they have know one another before it seems

Preparing for a fight

Rory and Barbara talk about ‘old times’

They seem to have been thrown back together and talking things through

BELOW – An Indian Attack

ABOVE – Barbara Bates, Carolyn Craig and Tom Pittman

ABOVE – A lovely actress Carolyn Craig

ABOVE – Preparing to ride away

Tom Pittman (March 16, 1932 – October 31, 1958) was an American film and television actor. He died in a motor car accident at the age of 26