Mistakes in Ads, Artwork, Credits, and Filming

Over these many years working on the Old Corral website, I've seen a bunch of errors, lapses, and misspellings. And occasionally, I'll get an e-mail about an image reversal in a lobby card or poster - and asking why the hero suddenly became a left-hander. Following are some real life examples. There are many more - but I'm not going to create a webpage of every boo-boo that we (and you) spot in the old B western. That would take too much time and too many pages to document.

And this isn't a super criticism of the B western. People make errors - I do and so do you. The folks trying to do a western in 4-5 days of shooting and a budget of $10,000 - $15,000 were under a lot of pressure. I remain amazed that they could function in that kind of low budget, no retakes environment. So give a round of applause to producers and directors like Sam Newfield, Bob Tansey, Robert North Bradbury, Spencer Gordon Bennet, Paul Malvern, Ed Finney, Harry S. Webb, and many others for being able to churn out reels of enjoyment ... and an occasional western gem.

There's scads of continuity lapses in the B western - be they errors in the scripting, foulups in filming / editing, or just plain sloppiness due to the meager budgets and / or uninspired direction. Typical lapses include:

• the hero or the baddie has his hat on ... then the hat is missing ... and back on.
• a holster is empty and then shown with a sixgun inside.
• a missing father, ranch owner or lawman suddenly re-appears at the end of the film without any explanation of how or why.
• mismatched library stock footage got added to pad the running time ... and save some production costs.

A very common "how'd he do that" relates to our hero - after a lengthy brawl on a dusty western street, his hat, shirt and pants are covered with sweat and grime. Next scene - he's clean ... spotless ... grimeless. Must have had a clean shirt, pants, and hat in his saddle bags.

Some specific continuity lapse examples:

In Tom Tyler's DEADWOOD PASS (Freuler/Monarch, 1933), watch for the various "hat changes" and "hats on and off" of both Tom Tyler and Charles 'Slim' Whitaker.
Watch John Wayne's several shirt changes in RANDY RIDES ALONE (Lone Star/Monogram, 1934).
In BLAZING JUSTICE (Spectrum, 1936), Bill Cody rides after baddie Gordon Griffith. Bill loses his hat ... and then it's magically back on.
In CALIFORNIA MAIL (Warners, 1936), watch for Dick Foran and his many horses - the no goods have stolen his palomino Smoke/Smoky. So Foran rides a paint/pinto. Then he's on a dark horse ... and then back on the paint/pinto.
In STAMPEDE (Columbia, 1936), Charles Starrett wears a dark shirt at the ranch. He enters through a ranch window but is wearing a jacket. Soon after, he gives chase to the baddies and the jacket is gone.
In Jack Luden's STAGECOACH DAYS (Columbia, 1938), keep on eye on the changing quantity of stages in the stagecoach race.
In GUN SMUGGLERS (RKO, 1948), watch for Tim Holt riding ... with and without his blue jean jacket.

A B western chock full of boo boos and production sloppiness is the Buster Crabbe FRONTIER OUTLAWS (PRC, 1944), and I re-watched it while I was doing this webpage. It includes lots of wasted scenes to pad out the time. Crabbe even does a Mexican bandit impersonation (somewhat better than Tim McCoy, but still terrible). FRONTIER OUTLAWS also includes an oft mentioned "ouch scene" - after relieving saloon owner and brains heavy Charlie King of a money bag, Buster exits out the saloon office window and cracks his head on the window frame. That wasn't the only "ouch scene" in Crabbe's PRC series - at the tail end of STAGECOACH OUTLAWS (PRC, 1945), Buster is carrying Al 'Fuzzy' St. John and Fuzzy's head meets a door jam ... and you can hear him moan. No time or money for retakes at PRC.

Another example of production / editing sloppiness occurs in I KILLED WILD BILL HICKOK (1956), a very poor quality oater and Johnny Carpenter's last starring film. Watch the first minute or two as a train runs from right to left on the screen. But they got the (stock) footage reversed and you can see the DENVER & RIO GRANDE lettering on the steam locomotive is reversed. Thus, the DENVER & RIO GRANDE name appears as DENVER & RIO GRANDE. Screen capture below. Was the film editor napping?

Monogram also had budgetary and time constraints which meant no retakes. Robert Emmett Tansey was the producer, director and did the story for the Trail Blazers' WESTWARD BOUND (Monogram, 1944). This Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson and Bob Steele entry is fun to watch, but there is a noticeable lapse. In the rootin' tootin' finale, Hoot tosses dynamite sticks at the fleeing baddies. And he does this about a half-dozen times. If you watch closely, you can see the dynamite landing in the town street but the set explosions go off several feet away. As the dust and smoke from the blast dissipates, you can spot the pretend dynamite sticks still laying on the ground. And Bob Steele is hatless in his slugfest with Harry Woods. Then all of a sudden, Bob's hat is on ... then off.

For those of you who might have read about some camera foulups in the Tex Ritter DOWN THE WYOMING TRAIL (Monogram, 1939), the answer is "Yup!". Purportedly, this was one of the more expensive Ritter oaters, with cast and crew on location in cold, snowy Wyoming. But cameraman Marcel Le Picard had problems and some of the chase/riding scenes across the snow are at an annoying "fast" and "jerky" speed. Back process screens were used for shots of the elk herds, and at the end, Tex is singing "There's A Valley In Wyoming" to heroine Mary Brodel with the snow and critters milling around behind them. Watch closely and you can see a 'blip' as the herd film ends and restarts over from scratch. It's easy to hit the DVD or VCR rewind and play buttons to view this over and over.

(Courtesy of Les Adams)

Above is a photo of the title lobby card for THE RAWHIDE TERROR (Security, 1934). This chaotic mess was a "Victor Adamson Presents an Art Mix Production", and a photo of Adamson / Dixon is shown in the upper left. Edmund Cobb (shown center with dark hat) was kinda the star, even though he's listed second below William (Bill) Desmond. Also acting as the hero was George Kesterson / Art Mix but he kinda disappears. Bill Patton (moustached, wearing dark shirt, gloves, jacket) is to the left of heroine Frances Morris. In the upper right is William Barrymore (Boris Bullock) as the "Rawhide Terror". Scuttlebutt was that THE RAWHIDE TERROR was originally planned as a serial, but never completed. Thus, when Victor Adamson / Denver Dixon slapped this together as a feature, continuity and logic were lost.

Below is a screen capture from the opening titles. Adamson gets credit for the story and producer functions. Note the two directors and two cameramen which confirms that two separate units were working on the film. This was a common occurrence with one unit shooting the main players and dialog while the 'second unit' cared for stunts, action sequences, riding scenes, exterior location shots with doubles, etc.

Above are screen captures of William Barrymore (Boris Bullock) in his guise as the "Rawhide Terror". Leave it to Adamson / Dixon to pioneer a villain wearing an early version of Hannibal Lecter's mask. Barrymore / Bullock's real name was Elia Bulakh (1899 - 1979).

There were some performers whose names seemed to cause all kinds of spelling chaos in posters, lobby cards, pressbooks and film credits (if their names were printed or were listed in the film credits). Some examples: in the opening titles of Tom Keene's COME ON DANGER! (RKO, 1932) and SCARLET RIVER (RKO, 1933), old Roscoe Ates is spelled "Rosco". And in the opening titles from Gene Autry's THE PHANTOM EMPIRE (Mascot, 1935), Smiley Burnette is "Burnett". Here's a longish list of other folks whose names were frequently mangled:
Edmund Cobb (sometimes Edwin or Edmond) Bud Osborne (sometimes Osbourne, Osborn) Edward Peil, Sr. (sometimes Piel) George Chesebro (sometimes Cheseboro, Cheseborough, more) Chief Thundercloud, Thunder Cloud, Thunder-Cloud Frank Yaconelli (sometimes Yacanelli) Milburn/Milt Morante (sometimes Moranti) Earle Hodgins (sometimes Earl, sometimes Hudgins) Murdock MacQuarrie (several last name variations) Franklyn Farnum (sometimes Franklin) Richard 'Dick' Cramer (sometimes Kramer) Le Roy Mason (sometimes Le Roy, LeRoy, Leroy, Roy) Budd Buster (oftentimes spelled Bud) Carleton Young (sometimes Carlton) Roscoe Ates (sometimes Rosco) Earl Dwire (sometimes Earle; sometimes Dwyer) Karl Hackett (sometimes Carl, sometimes Hacket) Jay Wilsey (sometimes Wiltsie or Wilsie) Syd Saylor vs. Sid Saylor Charles 'Slim' Whitaker (sometimes Whittaker) Glenn Strange (Glen, Glenn) Lucile Browne (sometimes Lucille) Cecilia Parker (not Cecelia) Lew Meehan (sometimes Lou) Lash LaRue or La Rue (with or without a space in last name) Director Harry Fraser (not Frazer with a Z) Director Spencer Gordon Bennet (not Bennett with 2 TT's in last name) Douglass Dumbrille (first name sometimes spelled Douglas) Dick Botiller (sometimes Botilier or Botiler, other variations) Frank McCarroll (sometimes McCarrol, other variations)		(Courtesy of Les Adams) Note there are two spelling errors in this pressbook ad - Carlton Young should be Carleton (with an e), and heroine Louise Curry should be Louise Currie.