Ben Johnson

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    I reviewed those two DVDs on my website.


    Fort Bowie is widescreen, thank goodness (Encore Westerns runs it only in pan and scan) and the source print used is in excellent shape, but the transfer has TERRIBLE artifacting problems, with ghosting lines afflicting everything. It's a mess.





    Fort Defiance is free of the ghosting but has a rash of white specks splashed across the top of the frame, especially on the left side, noticeable mostly against shots of the blue sky. They look like something that also crept in during the transfer, rather than something on the print. TCM ran this a few months ago and there were no white specks, it was a crystalline print.


    It's a big disappointment; I was really looking forward to these DVDs.

    Sorry I was gone so long! But I went to Oklahoma for a whole week to attend the Ben Johnson Film Festival on June 11 in Pawhuska and then travel around Osage County and the area. I wrote up a report on the festival and the rest of the trip at my Ben Johnson website.


    Festival souvenirs


    I took LOTS of photos and everything is posted at http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com/festivals if you want to take a look. Osage County is pretty as a picture -- well, hundreds of pictures actually, that's how many I took -- and I had a great time. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is really beautiful.



    We even got a tour of the Chapman Barnard ranch bunkhouse (the ranch where Ben Sr. was foreman and Ben Jr. cowboyed until fate took him to Hollywood -- the bunkhouse is now the Prairie Preserve HQ) by Ann Miller Whitehorn, Ben Jr.'s niece.



    Also, I'm delighted to report that Fort Bowie has been reissued and it looks great now. There was a problem with the equipment that did the transfer and that's why the original DVD looked so awful. Here's a frame grab from the new and improved Fort Bowie:

    Phew! Coming up for air after spending a couple of weeks screencapping Fort Bowie. The re-pressed DVD looks super good. ;) If you're interested in seeing the screencaps, come on over to http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com.


    Here are a few samples.


    The young fellow over on the right is the great singer/songwriter/actor/radio host Johnny Western. Probably his most famous recording is the theme song for Have Gun, Will Travel.
    =







    Yes, the Ben Johnson fans have been asking TCM for some time to devote one of the annual August "Summer Under the Stars" festival days to Ben and this year we finally got our wish.


    Go here:


    http://www.tcm.com/summer/index.html


    For TCM's fabulous SUTS website. Click "11" on the speedometer and you'll get the page for Ben, with a bio and a wealth of information and photos for each film. It's the same for every day in August. This is just an amazing site!

    Hello everyone, just wanted to let you know about the latest post at my Ben Johnson webpage. It's actually an article (written by yours truly) about a TV pilot that Ben filmed about a year before he died. He was going to serve as host and narrator for a show that was to be called Lost Mines and Buried Treasures, kind of an Unsolved Mysteries about the old West. The first episode explored the famous mystery of the Lost Dutchman Mine. They filmed scenes with Ben in his living room and in the Superstition Mountains (where the Lost Dutchman Mine supposedly was... or is) as well as re-enactments of some of the stories about the mine.


    Link to the website: http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com


    I interviewed Rick Simpson of Skeleton Creek Productions in Enid, Oklahoma, who told me all about his family's friendship with Ben and how the show came about. He also kindly sent me some pictures from his personal collection.


    Unfortunately Ben died before the show was picked up for a series and that was the end of it, except that Skeleton Creek does sell copies of the pilot on DVD. All the info is at my website... so I hope you all stop by for a visit, and enjoy the articles and pictures.


    Rick told me a lot of great anecdotes about Ben and I couldn't get them all into this article, so there will be a follow-up piece eventually with the rest of the stories!


    Here's one of the pictures Rick sent me.


    Hi all, I did another interview which I hope you will enjoy on my webpage http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com. The interview is with Cheryl Laymon, who founded and published Oak Tree Express magazine for six years in the 1990s, about the lives and activities of everyone's favorite movie cowboys and cowgirls as well as the folks -- directors, writers, etc. -- behind the camera. She also used to work for the Motion Picture and Television Fund and helped organize the Golden Boot Awards for several years.

    Cheryl sent me this amazing photograph which was printed in the magazine's very first issue, taken at the opening ceremonies of Universal Studio Florida's "Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show" in July 1991 (the show was closed down in 2003)


    Left to right: James Drury, Patrick Wayne, Doug McClure, Chuck Connors, Universal Studios Florida president Tom Williams, Denver Pyle, Robert Fuller, Hal Needham, Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.


    My pal Mary-Kate has put together a nine-minute video tribute to Ben Johnson and posted it to youtube. A must-see for all Ben Johnson fans! (The Duke shows up in several places, too.) ;)


    [extendedmedia]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BvsGpI65Ko[/extendedmedia]



    Er, I don't know why the picture isn't showing up, but just click on the blank space and it will take you to the video.




    I just finished the book and found it awful. While there was some new information in it, mostly about Ben's childhood/family and mostly from his half sister and an aunt, my 14 year old can put together more coherent paragraphs. The book is seperated into half poorly written bio and half IMDB cut and paste as Gorch says. Even the half that is bio spends the vast majority of the time simply listing actors and release dates.

    He draws out the most lurid piece of Maureen's book and the Duke's life and lists them as facts, even alluding to Duke and John Ford being romantically involved, based on nothing but his extrapolation of Maureen's seeing Ford kiss a man and young Duke spending a lot of time on the Araner. In fact, most of the "original thought" in the book is supposition based on snippets of information that might or might not be connected. He also states as fact that Duke had an affair with Gail Russell (probably did0 and then blames Duke'sabruptly ending it for her self destruction.

    It really bothers me that this same guy has now written a "tear down the legend" book on the Duke. The good thing is that if he uses the same writing style, no one will ever finish it.

    I agree with everything Batjac says though in the end I'd have to recommend the The Nicest Fella to anyone looking for a bio of Ben Johnson, since it is the only one out there. Apart from the many, many typos, the only errors I've found regarding Ben himself are fairly minor, like saying a Universal film was a Disney film, or an incorrect description of a character he played in a movie.


    Apart from The Nicest Fella, the book to read is Harry Carey Jr.'s Company of Heroes, in which Ben plays a large part, and Dobe has many great stories about him. There are many other books that have stories and reminisces about Ben and add to the knowledge out there. I have a book page at my website which lists some of these books -- http://benjohnsonscreencaps.shutterfly.com/books


    Sometime this month I'll be adding another book, Big Bluestem: Journey Through the Tall Grass, by Annick Smith, which is all about the tallgrass prairie of Osage County, where Ben Johnson grew up and learned to cowboy. This is a gorgeous coffee table size volume with beautiful color photos of the prairie, and it has some great stories about the two Ben Johnsons, Sr. and Jr., and Ben Jr.'s mother Ollie.


    There are also some extensive interviews with Ben available in books like Herb Fagen's White Hats and Silver Spurs, and Tim Lilley's Campfire Conversations.




    I reread my post. I guess I was pretty harsh and I need to add that as the only Ben Johnson bio available, it has its place. I just wish someone who could write would take on the project with an actual editor. Unfortunately, the more years pass the less likely I guess that is. Too bad, a good writer could make so much of Ben's story and of so many of the characters he played.

    I completely agree about Dobe's book. A wonderful read and so much more about who Ben abd Dobe were and less about who they stood beside in front of a camera.

    A woman named Kathryn Jones was working on a bio of Ben Johnson. I know she had interviewed some of his friends and family. No idea what happened to her project, though.


    Wasn't Harry Carey, Jr. working on another book about his non-Ford films? I wish he had been able to finish it, as I'm sure it would have been just as great a read as Company of Heroes. He and Ben worked on a quite a few other films together that were not directed by John Ford. I'm sorry we won't get those stories.