Before Purple Rain There Was....

 

 (tmdb)

THE PURPLE HILLS-1961-A drifter named Sheppard (Gene Nelson) shoots Beaumont, a wanted criminal for the bounty but he has to shoot his own horse and can't carry the body back. He buries the body and walks to town. Meanwhile Beaumont's partners in crime Johnny (Kent Taylor) and Chito (Danny Zapien) wait for him but become suspicious when they see vultures. They find his body and plan on collecting the bounty but they are in Apache territory and the tribe liked Beaumont for all the wrong reasons (he sold them guns, booze, etc.). To get the body back Johnny leaves Chito with the Indians and goes looking for Sheppard. Both claim the reward. To settle things the deputy marshal (co-writer Russ Bender) goes with them to the grave but they are accompanied by Amy Carter (Joanna Barnes) and her young charge Martin (Jerry Summers), revenge seeking younger brother of the deceased Beaumont. 

This modest little 60-minute western is actually a remake of a 1915 silent film. This was third film produced and directed by Maury Dexter (THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH (1962); also with Kent Taylor).

Cool TV

 
A TV show I've been watching recently on ME TV is the western WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE starring Steve McQueen as Josh Randall, a tough but not so ruthless bounty hunter who sometimes helped out needy people for free and/or sometimes proved his charges innocent of the crimes they were said to commit. A few episodes have comedic overtones and Randall is kind of a buffoon but usually after killing a man he had some remorse. It ran for three seasons on CBS from 1958-1961.

 I like to watch these kind of shows mainly for the guest stars and WANTED had it's share: DeForest Kelly, Lon Chaney, Warren Oates, Martin Landau, Jay North (in a strange Christmas episode), Michael Landon, John Dehner (in several episodes), Jay Silverheels, John Carradine and James Coburn to name a few. For around a dozen episodes in 1960 Wright King was also featured as fellow bounty hunter Jason Nicholls (he played a different role in an earlier episode), King had a featured role in Elia Kazan's A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE (1951), hosted a TV kid's show JOHNNY JUPITER (1953-54) and was in two episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Later he had a small role as a simian doctor in the original PLANET OF THE APES.

 McQueen of course went on to super stardom with roles in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE, BULLITT and others.

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The Restless

THE RESTLESS-2006-In this South Korean action fantasy a bounty hunter Yi Gwak (Woo-sung Jong) is betrayed by the townsfolk who hired him because he is a wanted man and they need the reward money. They drug him and he seems to die. He winds up in "mid-heaven" a place where souls wait to be reborn. However for some reason he is not dead and he's just in time to help battle invading demons. He meets So-hwa (Tae-hee Kim)) leader of the White Reapers who also happens to be this deceased lover (flashbacks show she was burned as a witch). Ban-chu (Jun-ho Heo) is a bad guy who wants "the holy stone" So-hwa has in her possession.

There's some great action scenes with swordplay and characters bursting into flames when they are killed and the crazy out of control finale where Yi takes on a whole evil army by himself is cool but this is essentially a love story so be prepared for some slow parts.

Star Woo was in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD after this. It was the directorial debut of Dong-oh Cho and Dong-oh Jo, a brother team who had previously been assistant directors.

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