Category Archives: FRONTIERADO

FRONTIERADO: THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE FREAKY – JEWISH GAUCHOS (1975)

Frontierado is fast approaching but before I switch over to looking at high-quality westerns I still have some oddities to examine. For this go-round it’s the movie Jewish Gauchos based on the 1910 novel by Alberto Gerchunoff. The film deals with the musical adventures of a group of Jewish immigrants from Russia working as gauchos (Argentine cowboys) in Argentina in the very early 1900s.

This film plus a few westerns filmed in Israel but set in the American frontier make up the very, very unusual subgenre called Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO SAGA – DUSTY MURTAUGH

Another one of my sisters okayed me posting the Saga I wrote for her back in 2009. (Well, one paragraph is new. You never know when inspiration will hit you.) For fhe Blackwater Kid’s Saga click here: https://glitternight.com/2011/05/21/frontierado-saga-the-blackwater-kid/

For Amarillo Rose’s Saga click here: https://glitternight.com/2011/05/23/frontierado-saga-amarillo-rose/

For Six-Gun Sara’s Saga click here: http://midaevalmaiden.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/six-gun-sara/

 Dusty Murtaugh 

 

Deborah Ann “Dusty” Murtaugh was born in California in approximately 1859. She ran away from home at 15 disguised as a boy and found a job tending to horses for the Wells Fargo stagecoach company for a few years.  This was when she Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO SAGA – AMARILLO ROSE

Well, my sister Rosemary okayed me posting the Saga I wrote for her in 2009, so here we go, in the grand tradition of the Blackwater Kid (me) and Six-Gun Sara (Sara at Lifewith4cats and Midaeval Maiden) here is the epic saga of Amarillo Rose. For the Blackwater Kid’s Saga click here: https://glitternight.com/2011/05/21/frontierado-saga-the-blackwater-kid/

And for Six-Gun Sara’s Saga click here: http://midaevalmaiden.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/six-gun-sara/

 AMARILLO ROSE 

The woman history remembers as Amarillo Rose was born Rosemary Wozniak in June 1848 in Pennsylvania. Little is known about her early life but shortly after the end of the Civil War she Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO SAGA – THE BLACKWATER KID

Following in Six-Gun Sara’s gutsy footsteps, here is the very first Frontierado Saga I wrote back in 2009. It was the one for myself to show people what I meant by customized sagas. I felt my own name wasn’t western enough so I made the Blackwater Kid’s real name be Nathanael Greene Larraby instead. Many of the figures the Kid interacts with are from the Bad Movie world so they may not be as recognizable as the figures Six-Gun Sara interacted with.
 
The Blackwater Kid 
 

The Blackwater Kid was born Nathanael Greene Larraby (his parents named him after Revolutionary War hero General Nathanael Greene) in 1846 in Springfield, New Jersey. At seventeen he was admitted into Princeton but after causing a minor scandal with his Continue reading

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SIX-GUN SARA ENTERS THE FRONTIERADO VALHALLA!

Frontierado is coming up on the first Friday in August and a powerful new cultural force has just been added to help spread the good word (“Did you know Frontierado has a wonderful plan for your life?”) about the holiday. That force is Sara from the Lifewith4cats blog and the blog called Mideival Maiden. She was one of the respondents when I mentioned how I do customized sagas for people if they want and she is so nice she ran it on her blog and also linked to my main Frontierado post to help spread the word about my made-up holiday! How cool is that?

Here are links to the two blog posts Six-Gun Sara was kind enough to make about all this – http://midaevalmaiden.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/the-day-you-stop-playing-is-the-day-you-begin-to-die/

http://midaevalmaiden.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/six-gun-sara/

As the global commisioner for Frontierado, let me Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO TRIPLE FEATURE OF THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE FREAKY

With the Frontierado holiday coming up the first Friday in August I’ll be devoting more and more coverage to it. To learn more about this holiday click here: https://glitternight.com/2010/07/28/just-9-more-shopping-days-until-frontierado/

As we get closer to Frontierado I’ll begin examining quality westerns but for now you can once again think of me as the Bronson Canyon Kid (bad movie buffs will get it) as I take a look at three more weird westerns.

THE DEVIL AND MISS SARAH (1971) – A veritable ton of familiar western stars appear in this supernatural western that sort of reminds me of Black Noon (previously reviewed in my The Bad, The Weird And The Freaky segments.) Gene “Bat Masterson” Barry plays notorious outlaw Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO: THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE FREAKY PART THREE – THE JFK ASSASSINATION IN THE OLLLLLLD WEST!

With the Frontierado holiday coming up the first Friday in August I’ll be devoting more and more coverage to it. To learn more about this holiday click here: https://glitternight.com/2010/07/28/just-9-more-shopping-days-until-frontierado/

Some e-mailers have been asking why my Bad, The Weird And The Freaky posts haven’t covered bizarre westerns like Billy The Kid vs Dracula or Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter or The Terror of Tinytown. The only reason is because of how well-known those flicks are, since I prefer focusing on below-the- radar items. Once again, think of me as The Bronson Canyon Kid as I look at another weirdass western to get us all in the Frontierado mood.  

THE PRICE OF POWER (1969) – When it comes to Spaghetti Westerns most people are only familiar with the mainstream examples like the Clint Eastwood vehicles or the monumental classic Once Upon A Time In The West. There were literally more than 550 other Spaghetti Westerns made in the 60’s and 70’s since when the Italians do something they do it in a big, big way. Those hundreds of films vary in quality from pretty good to hilariously awful and the creative talents behind them often tried to outdo each other in terms of colorful heroes and oddball plots. My favorites include those movies where the Italians took more liberties with Western history than American filmmakers ever dreamed of. 

That brings us to The Price Of Power which was also released under the title Texas. The point of this film is … well, it’s hard to say really. Even after repeated viewings. It’s difficult to determine if the filmmakers were trying to make a statement about the alleged conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F Kennedy or about the civil rights movement, or about capitalism’s impact on the political process in a free society or what. Whatever they were trying to do the end result is like a history lesson taught by Ed Wood himself. Let’s compare the Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO: THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE FREAKY, PART 2

As we continue our countdown toward the festive Frontierado holiday (celebrated every year on the first Friday in August) I figured I would do another item about a very weird western. For the details on Frontierado click here: https://glitternight.com/2010/07/28/just-9-more-shopping-days-until-frontierado/  

This film is from 1977 and it’s called Welcome To Blood City and believe me, it is OUT THERE! The best way to describe it is like a cross between Westworld and the original Patrick McGoohan series The Prisoner. The opening will likely remind people of the television series Lost with our heroes, led by Keir Dullea, finding themselves in a Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO: THE BAD, THE WEIRD AND THE FREAKY

crossed pistolsFrontierado is less than four months away and as it gets closer I’ll be doing more and more posts about it. For today, though I’ll do the first of a series of blog posts looking at various fringe westerns that combine horror and science fiction elements with the western theme.

black noonThese films aren’t bad enough for my Bad Movie page, but are offbeat for westerns and worth mentioning to start getting us all in the “Frontierado spirit”. Think of me as The Bronson Canyon Kid for these reviews. (bad movie buffs will get it)

To learn more about Frontierado click here: https://glitternight.com/category/frontierado/

2 black noonBLACK NOON – (1971) – Roy Thinnes stars as an Old West preacher who runs afoul of a practicing coven of witches. These witches operate out of a western town called Melas (three guesses) and Continue reading

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FRONTIERADO WILL BE HERE BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

Yes, just five months from now will be the first Friday in August, which regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know and love (?) as the holiday called Frontierado. Since I had just started writing this blog on June 21st of last year there wasn’t really enough lead time to do this momentous occasion justice, but this Continue reading

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