Star in the Dust | |
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Directed by | Charles F. Haas |
Screenplay by | Oscar Brodney |
Based on | Law Man 1953 novel by Lee Leighton |
Produced by | Albert Zugsmith |
Starring | John Agar Mamie Van Doren Richard Boone |
Cinematography | John L. Russell |
Edited by | Ray Snyder |
Music by | Frank Skinner |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Star in the Dust is a 1956 American Technicolor Western film directed by Charles F. Haas and starring John Agar, Mamie Van Doren and Richard Boone. It was based on the 1953 Lee Leighton novel Law Man.
In the town of Gunlock, sheriff Bill Jorden is due to hang Sam Hall for cattle-stealing. Jorden has to contend, however, with various citizens, including the cowboys who want to rescue Hall and the cattlemen and farmers who want to lynch him. Hall, meanwhile, is planning his escape with girlfriend Nellie. [1]
In the late 1800s in the western town of Gunlock, gunslinger Sam Hall, who has murdered three farmers, is scheduled to be hanged at sundown. Sheriff Bill Jorden faces opposition from the cattlemen’s association, who had hired Hall to kill the farmers as part of a plot to acquire more grazing land. A group of farmers, fearing that the cattlemen will spring the killer before he is hanged, want the sheriff to hang Hall as quickly as possible. Fearing violence between the ranchers and farmers, Jorden tries to call for additional help but discovers that the telegraph line serving the town has been cut. Informed that the farmers are headed to town to kill Hall, Bill meets them and reasons with them to allow the law to handle Hall’s punishment. On the morning of the hanging, Jorden brings out Hall, threatening to shoot the prisoner himself if anyone tries to stop the hanging but before Hall is executed, the ranchers set the gallows on fire, precipitating a gun battle between opposing factions. Hall is eventually hanged and the cattlemen are brought to justice. [2] [3]
The film included an early appearance of Clint Eastwood, who played a very small role as a ranch hand.
One of the movie's scenes features Coleen Gray and Randy Stuart fighting for possession of incriminating letters hidden in a suitcase. The actresses invited their husbands to watch the scene's filming, which lasted over 50 seconds and included both women punching and wrestling each other. At the conclusion of the choreographed scene, Gray recalled in a later interview, the women simply dusted themselves off, but the two husbands ..."were pale and clammy and weak in the knees" having watched their wives engage in a lengthy fistfight. [4] [5]
Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
Mamie Van Doren is an American actress, singer, and sex symbol. She is perhaps best known for the rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquency exploitation film Untamed Youth (1957).
John Lawrence Russell was an American film and television actor, most noted for his starring role as Marshal Dan Troop in the ABC western television series Lawman from 1958 to 1962 and his lead role as international adventurer Tim Kelly in the syndicated TV series Soldiers of Fortune from 1955 to 1957.
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"Sam Hall" is an English folk song about a unrepentant criminal condemned to death for robbing the rich to feed the poor. Prior to the mid-19th century it was called "Jack Hall", after Jack Hall, a thief who was hanged at Tyburn in 1707. Jack Hall's parents sold him as a climbing boy for one guinea, which is why most versions of the song identify Sam or Jack Hall as a chimney sweep.
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The Golden Boot Awards were an American acknowledgement of achievement honoring actors, actresses, and crew members who made significant contributions to the genre of Westerns in television and film. The award was sponsored and presented by the Motion Picture & Television Fund. Money raised at the award banquet was used to help finance various services offered by the Fund to those in the entertainment industry.
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Wayne D. Overholser, was an American Western writer. Overholser won the 1953 First Spur Award for Best Western Novel for Law Man using the pseudonym Lee Leighton. Law Man was made into the motion picture Star in the Dust, starring John Agar and Richard Boone, in 1956. In 1955 he won the 1954 (second) Spur Award for The Violent Land. He won the Spur Award for a third time in 1969 for his juvenile novel about the Meeker Massacre, with Lewis Patten. Three additional pseudonyms were John S. Daniels, Dan J. Stevens and Joseph Wayne; combinations of his three sons' names.
Under Western Stars is a 1938 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Roy Rogers, Smiley Burnette, Carol Hughes, and the Maple City Four. Written by Dorrell McGowan, Stuart E. McGowan, and Betty Burbridge, the film is about a populist singing cowboy who decides to run for Congress in order to seek federal assistance to help small ranchers regain their water rights during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. His campaign comes into conflict with greedy water company executives.
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Ridin' on a Rainbow is a 1941 American western musical film directed by Lew Landers and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette and Mary Lee. Written by Bradford Ropes and Doris Malloy, based on a story by Ropes, the film is about a singing cowboy whose investigation of a bank robbery takes him to a showboat, where he finds that a teenage singer's father has been working with the robbers to provide for her future. The film received an Academy Award nomination for best original song for "Be Honest with Me".
Ride the Man Down is a 1952 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane, written by Mary C. McCall, Jr., and starring Brian Donlevy, Rod Cameron, Ella Raines, Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton, Chill Wills and J. Carrol Naish. The film was released on November 25, 1952, by Republic Pictures.
Freddy in the Wild West is a 1964 West German/Italian musical Western film directed by Sobey Martin and starring Freddy Quinn, Rik Battaglia, and Beba Lončar. Playing the small role of Olivia is Mamie Van Doren, a 1950s Hollywood sex goddess. It was co-produced with and shot on location in SFR Yugoslavia. It was one of a crop of western-set German films made in the 1960s, many of them based on works of Karl May. It is also known by the alternative title of The Sheriff Was a Lady.