Adventures in Blu-ray: Along Came Jones (1945)

The town of Paynesville isn’t a particularly welcoming one to cowpokes Melody Jones (Gary Cooper) and George Fury (William Demarest) as they ride in one day...but there’s an explanation for this.  Native Paynesvillian (definitely not a favorite son) Monte Jarrad (Dan Duryea) has a $1,000 price on his head after a stage robbery nets him…

You could get lucky…but it will be tough luck!

On radio and television, Jack Benny created for himself a legendary character that possessed many unflattering qualities: avarice, cowardice, narcissism, etc.  Such an individual would be tiresome to be around (if the tell-all books being written by ex-White House staffers is any indication), so to make Benny more sympathetic, his hard-working scribes also infused him…

Book Review: Shooting the Breeze with Baby Boomer Stars

Edward “Torchy” Smith may be a familiar name/voice to those of you who make listening to IHeartRadio a routine activity.  He’s the host of Baby Boomers Talk Radio, a program that from its inception has made its mission to appeal to what Smith calls “the new Lawrence Welk generation minus the bubbles” by interviewing celebrities…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Joseph H. Lewis Double Feature – My Name is Julia Ross (1945) and So Dark the Night (1946)

He was known as “Wagon Wheel Joe” to his peers in the motion picture industry—a mocking nickname given to him by those who edited his B-Westerns during director Joseph H. Lewis’ early moviemaking days.  Joe is a solid example of the kind of film director who, to borrow an observation from author Gregory Mank on fellow…

It’s not E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed…but beggars can’t be choosers

Many apologies, cartooners, for allowing the blog to go dark for the past few weeks; there has been much outside activity here at Rancho Yesteryear—notably some extracurricular projects plus preparations for an event that looks like it’s shaping up to become what I have decided to label The Great DVD Purge of 2019.  This one won’t…