Tex Ritter! I didn’t even know that he was an… actor? We had like Tex Ritter comics when I was a child, but I thought that was a … German thing?

… No, that was Tex Willer. Which is Italian.

Let me see if you can detect a certain pattern in the names of the roles Ritter was playing:

No? No pattern?

Geez.

This is most amiable. I guess this is one of those B movie things? I mean, it’s not part of a serial, but it looks like it’s Extruded Western Product — they had to keep the kids entertained, week in, week out at the movies.

It’s cheap and cheery, with gags, music and action.

That said, it’s not actually like good — there’s no reason to watch this unless you’re really curious about what one of these movies were like. (Which I am.)

Sing, Cowboy, Sing. Robert N. Bradbury. 1937. ⚁

They’re so young!

I saw this movie at the time, and I was… unimpressed? Yeah. I thought it was kinda… sophomoric? Jejune? One of them there words. But that’s all I remember: I remember nothing of the movie itself.

So I’m excited to watch this again, because I’ve grown to appreciate Tarantino in some of his better movies (Jackie Brown, Once Upon etc, etc).

It looks kinda cheap? Was it really cheap?

It was!

What? I thought it was super duper successful? I guess not…

OK, resetting expectations again…

OK, I’m kinda bored now. Everybody talks in exactly the same voice, and it’s getting annoying listening to the same guy shouting at himself all the time.

At least it has a happy ending.

I liked the timeline, but the rest was kinda … snooze-worthy.

So: I was right the first time around when I watched this when I was 25.

Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino. 1992. ⚂

Oh! This is one of the remaining movies from that 50 movie DVD box set I bought many years ago — it’s all public domain movies (mostly because they’re from smaller movie studios that went bankrupt).

So this is an early talkie… and Erich von Stroheim co-directs and stars in this one.

This is so oddly paced. I mean, I’ve seen a bunch of these early talkies, but this just doesn’t quite connect. It’s a weird farce, but it’s paced as if it’s an Ionesco play.

OK, I’m bailing on this one after 35 minutes.

The Great Gabbo. Erich von Stroheim and James Cruze. 1929. ⚀