Joseph Kane | Subjects | Structure and Story Telling | Visual Style | Rankings

Films: Gold Mine in the Sky

Cheyenne: War Party | Deadline | Big Ghost Basin

Classic Film and Television Home Page (with many articles on directors) | Television Western Articles

Joseph Kane

Joseph Kane: Subjects

• Fancy cities in the Old West (In Old Sacramento, St. Louis: The Plainsman and the Lady)
• Positive look at Native Americans (The Plainsman and the Lady, Big Ghost Basin)
• Hero develops friendship with younger man (In Old Sacramento, Bob Hover: Big Ghost Basin)
• Men who have trouble with subordinates (hero Fred MacMurray and mate John Russell: Fair Wind to Java, police Lieutenant and his Sergeant: Accused of Murder)

• People who dress as other people (Burnette impersonates woman sidekick: Gold Mine in the Sky, heroes swap clothes: Big Ghost Basin) related (Burnette dresses as cow: Public Cowboy No. 1)
• Outdoors activities (fence mending: Deadline, parking lot and attendants, breakfast on terrace: Accused of Murder, paleontology, investigating monster: Big Ghost Basin)
• Mud and tripping (motorcycle cops, detective fall in creek: Public Cowboy No. 1, mud in Old West street: In Old Sacramento)

Joseph Kane: Structure and Story Telling

• Westerns mixed with modern crime (high tech and crime: Public Cowboy No. 1, gangsters: Gold Mine in the Sky)
• Westerns mixed with science and technology (high tech and crime: Public Cowboy No. 1, paleontology: Big Ghost Basin)
• Westerns with much music (Gene Autry: Public Cowboy No. 1, Gene Autry: Gold Mine in the Sky, saloon singer and quartet: In Old Sacramento, saloon singer: Deadline)
• Crime films with much music (nightclub singer, band at dance hall: Accused of Murder)

• Thriller writers (W.R. Burnett: Accused of Murder, Steve Frazee: Big Ghost Basin)

Joseph Kane: Visual Style

• Complex camera movement (Accused of Murder)
• Camera movement in crowded places of entertainment (saloon: Fair Wind to Java, night club: Accused of Murder)

• Buckskins (mountain family: Mountain Men)
• Uniforms (Fred MacMurray and John Russell's white clothes on ship, Dutch soldiers: Fair Wind to Java, sailors, Marines, police, parking lot attendants: Accused of Murder)

Rankings

Feature films:

• Public Cowboy No. 1 ***
• Gold Mine in the Sky ***
• In Old Sacramento ** (songs ***)
• The Plainsman and the Lady **1/2
• The Last Bandit **1/2
• Fair Wind to Java *1/2
• Accused of Murder ***

• War Party **1/2
• Deadline **
• Big Ghost Basin ***1/2

• Mountain Men **1/2

Gold Mine in the Sky

Cheyenne: War Party

Cheyenne: Deadline

Deadline sometimes shows a geometric visual style:

• Cheyenne moves through a V-shaped gap in two rocks.
• He finds a body in a V-shaped area framed by two tilting tree trunks.
• In the final gunfight, we see a deep focus framing between the V of Cheyenne's legs: a striking shot.
• The close-ups in the shoot-out have the heads framed against geometric, rectilinear compositions of the town's buildings and signs. These seem Mondrian-like.

Cheyenne: Big Ghost Basin

Big Ghost Basin is based on the short story "The Fire Killer" by Steve Frazee. Frazee was a Western writer who was also prestigious in the mystery field, for his tales that hybridized crime and the Western. "The Fire Killer" is reprinted in The Best Western Stories of Steve Frazee (1989).

The basic premise, a mystery about an unknown monster (?) attacking in the countryside by night, is also the subject of the French film Le Pacte des loups / The Brotherhood of the Wolf (Christophe Gans, 2001). The two films have very different solutions, however.

Bob Hover, one of the actors, is perhaps better known as a bodybuilder, and a model for physical culture magazines of the era. This is likely one of his best roles.