5 thoughts on “March 3rd – Steve’s John Payne Video”
The Razor’s Edge with Bill Murray was better.
And you haven’t done a page on him, you should be ashamed. He’s billed higher than some others you’ve done pages on like Dan Duryea, Clifton Webb, Maureen O’Hara.
I’ve seen all these films years ago. The last John Payne stuff I saw was some episodes of Restless Gun, a TV series he had in the late 50’s on METV or some other retro TV channel.
I believe he owned the rights to the James Bond books and he pitched them to studios who had no interest in them at the time. He gave up and sold the rights to Cubby Broccoli and the rest is history.
DAN
Well spoken. However John Payne was an action/adventure star whose flicks sometimes were on the bottom half of double bills and consequently often critics and other types of movie people adopt a snobbish attitude to those stars and their movies and yet drool over performers who never carried either an A or B movie. For example:
1/According to Larry Buster Crabbe B movie adventure and serial movies star the A list stars like Spencer Tracy wouldn’t sit at the same canteen dinner table as the action stars who weren’t A list performers like Flynn, Ty Power etc.
2/Joel Hirschhorn in his book even ignores Audie Murphy presumably because Audie was largely confined to B westerns. Yet not only did Audie give 50s audiences great years of entertainment especially young boys like me back then but he was America’s most decorated soldier because of his bravery in war.
Maybe Murphy’s service to his country cut no ice with Hirschhorn because the likes of Joel and others weren’t “real Americans” to use one of The Duke’s descriptions of some of his fellow citizens.
However to be fair to Bruce he HAS done a Murphy page at least and indeed took the trouble to buy and post me a very fine book on Audie’s films.
My favorite Audie was his own story To Hell and Back. Have his TV series Whispering Smith with the ever popular Guy Mitchell who had the #1 song of 1956 Singing the Blues as his sidekick. Guy was in a good pseudo musical western Red Garters with other 50’s singers Rosemary Clooney and Teresa Brewer. It also had all minimalist sets and is something to be seen for its art direction alone. I believe Gene Barry starred in it.
Just uploaded Steve’s latest video….my thoughts are found below.
I love John Wayne! He was one of the first movie stars that I actually knew by name as a kid. The Duke made so many great movies, I can only guess it was a tough decision to pick his number one movie…The Searchers, The Quiet Man or…..oh…. wait a minute this video is on John Payne….lol. Hmmm….don’t nearly as much about as I do about Wayne. I have not seen many of his movies….only 6. Favorite would be #1 Miracle on 34th Street and #6 Kansas City Confidential. I have seen 4 of his Top 5….but neither #2 Dodsworth or #3 The Razor’s Edge really impressed me. Voted up and shared at UltimateMovieRankings.com. It is our post of the day. Good stuff.
The Razor’s Edge with Bill Murray was better.
And you haven’t done a page on him, you should be ashamed. He’s billed higher than some others you’ve done pages on like Dan Duryea, Clifton Webb, Maureen O’Hara.
I’ve seen all these films years ago. The last John Payne stuff I saw was some episodes of Restless Gun, a TV series he had in the late 50’s on METV or some other retro TV channel.
I believe he owned the rights to the James Bond books and he pitched them to studios who had no interest in them at the time. He gave up and sold the rights to Cubby Broccoli and the rest is history.
DAN
Well spoken. However John Payne was an action/adventure star whose flicks sometimes were on the bottom half of double bills and consequently often critics and other types of movie people adopt a snobbish attitude to those stars and their movies and yet drool over performers who never carried either an A or B movie. For example:
1/According to Larry Buster Crabbe B movie adventure and serial movies star the A list stars like Spencer Tracy wouldn’t sit at the same canteen dinner table as the action stars who weren’t A list performers like Flynn, Ty Power etc.
2/Joel Hirschhorn in his book even ignores Audie Murphy presumably because Audie was largely confined to B westerns. Yet not only did Audie give 50s audiences great years of entertainment especially young boys like me back then but he was America’s most decorated soldier because of his bravery in war.
Maybe Murphy’s service to his country cut no ice with Hirschhorn because the likes of Joel and others weren’t “real Americans” to use one of The Duke’s descriptions of some of his fellow citizens.
However to be fair to Bruce he HAS done a Murphy page at least and indeed took the trouble to buy and post me a very fine book on Audie’s films.
My favorite Audie was his own story To Hell and Back. Have his TV series Whispering Smith with the ever popular Guy Mitchell who had the #1 song of 1956 Singing the Blues as his sidekick. Guy was in a good pseudo musical western Red Garters with other 50’s singers Rosemary Clooney and Teresa Brewer. It also had all minimalist sets and is something to be seen for its art direction alone. I believe Gene Barry starred in it.
Just uploaded Steve’s latest video….my thoughts are found below.
I love John Wayne! He was one of the first movie stars that I actually knew by name as a kid. The Duke made so many great movies, I can only guess it was a tough decision to pick his number one movie…The Searchers, The Quiet Man or…..oh…. wait a minute this video is on John Payne….lol. Hmmm….don’t nearly as much about as I do about Wayne. I have not seen many of his movies….only 6. Favorite would be #1 Miracle on 34th Street and #6 Kansas City Confidential. I have seen 4 of his Top 5….but neither #2 Dodsworth or #3 The Razor’s Edge really impressed me. Voted up and shared at UltimateMovieRankings.com. It is our post of the day. Good stuff.