Saturday? Yee-hah!

Snow shovelling aside, it's still Saturday at the Lair, and that means Cowboy movies on TV. I try not to watch much TV during the week unless there's something good on the History Channel, but on Saturdays I indulge in the westerns on AMC. This morning's pick was North Passage, a 1957 classic starring James Stewart and Audie Murphy. I never tire of watching Stewart stand up to the old west bad guys, even when one of those bad guys is Murphy, someone that I'm used to rooting for as the hero. And one of the fun things about these old westerns is seeing who else got cast in bit parts. Lots of people that we came to know in later shows and movies often had small parts in these old westerns and the one that caught my eye in this one was Hugh Beaumont, who played the railroad tycoon's right hand man. Beaumont is of course much better known as Ward Cleaver from the "Leave it to Beaver" series and it was cracking me up to watch him being a cowboy. Another one of my favorite actors to watch for is James Best. We allknow him as Roscoe P. Coletrane from the Dukes of Hazzard show, but Best actually starred in many old westerns, usually in smaller roles, which is too bad, because he was usually pretty good.

But perhaps one of the strangest actors to star in a western was Oliver Hardy, who played Willie Paine, sidekick to John Wayne's John Breen in The Fighting Kentuckian (1949). Hardy, half of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy (I realize that many today have no idea who they were...) was actually a good friend of John Wayne and Wayne asked him to take the role. It's worth watching just to see him play a semi-straight role (he's still comedy relief) but it's also a great one for watching John Wayne shooting and punching the bad guys and saving the day.

Yep, I gotta have my old westerns on Saturdays now. It's a highlight of my week, which would be pathetic if they weren't truly some of the best stuff on TV. They beat that crap put out by Hollywood today hands down. Put into contest with him over water rights or the girl, John Wayne would kick Jack Bauer's ass any day.

Now my only regret is that I'd never discovered Audie Murphy as a western star when I used to work out at Arlington National Cemetery. I saw his grave every day, and while I appreciated him as the war hero that he was, I was totally ignorant of his acting abilities.