Clint Walker dead at 90! (1 Viewer)

[Flashgear]

Nice Color photos of Will Hutchins (Sugarfoot), Jack Warner and the big man himself, Clint Walker on the WB studio lot in 1957...

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Nice photos, Randall!

As mentioned earlier, I watched the 1972 TV movie The Bounty Man in honor of the big man's passing. It was quite good, if a bit different. A very fetching Margot Kidder co-starred, along with John Ericson, Richard Baseheart and (briefly) Gene Evans and Arthur Hunnicutt. Solidly directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, and Clint was in fine form as the hard-bitten bounty hunter (though he looked a bit odd to me with a moustache.)

Also watched 1974's Scream of the Wolf, with Clint in a rare villainous role (which he played very well, one of the best performances I've seen from him) as a big game hunter with an interesting, atavistic philosophy, who at first refuses to help his old hunter buddy Peter Graves track down some beast that's been murdering the local populace. Jo Ann Pflug and Phillip Carey also star in this very interesting and tense thriller from the winning team who brought us many creepy 70s TV movies: writer Richard Matheson, director Dan Curtis and composer Robert Cobert.

Hadn't seen either of these before and enjoyed the heck out of 'em, though the prints available on You Tube were not great. I'm thankful to You Tube, though...if it wasn't for the kind souls who uploaded these kinds of films and shows on there, I wouldn't have a chance to see them. So many very well done 70s TV movies of the week rusting in the vaults...wish some studio could get the cream of the crop out on dics one of these days. Hopefully some nice made-for-TV goodies will be coming out from Kino from their recent Disney deal...

Also in 1974, Clint Walker starred in the sci-fi horror flick Killdozer. There's an excellent print of this on You Tube, which I plan to view this coming week if time permits.

 

[Flashgear]

Very interesting, Jeff. Thanks for that info and pictures. I'll have to check those tv movies out on Youtube. I'm thankful that we can watch some of the great old '70s ABC movies of the week there, even if in lesser video and presented in segments. My all time favorite is 1973's Isn't it Shocking? with Alan Alda, Edmond O'Brien, Louise Lasser, Bonnie Bedelia, Ruth Gordon, Will Geer, Lloyd Nolan among others in a production so good it should have been a theatrical feature. (Directed by John Badham with lovely music by David Shire).

Ironic that we see such a young Margot Kidder in that publicity photo for Bounty Man, with both she and Clint passing away within weeks of each other. I haven't seen Killdozer since it's first airing, but I remember it as a lot of fun. Wow, John Erickson is barely recognizable from the clean cut kid we remember from Bad Day at Black Rock and Honey West. I've been watching some of Clint's episodes from season two of Cheyenne in memory of our childhood hero. I'll re-watch Yellowstone Kelly, Fort Dobbs, Sam Whiskey and Dirty Dozen soon.

Even though Clint and Jack Warner look friendly in those photos I posted, we know that their professional relationship was testy. Warner was a tightwad and wanted part of all his star's personal appearance fees. Same as with James Garner, et al...And it's beyond a doubt that Warner hindered Clint's career. He, like so many, could and should have been a bigger star in movies.

 

[Flashgear]

Gene Autry Museum of the American Western, "A Word on Westerns" video interview of Ann Robinson who appeared in the very first episode of Cheyenne with Clint Walker and James Garner. A short video clip of Clint at the 2015 Westerns festival at Kanab, Utah follows...