THOMASINE & BUSHROD (1974) – The Frontierado Holiday is Friday, August 4th this year, so here is another seasonal post – a review of the black western Thomasine & Bushrod. This tale of a pair of outlaw lovers is a nice change of pace since it is set in the fading Wild West of 1911-1915. Automobiles are beginning to show up here and there, making Thomasine & Bushrod a fascinating fusion of “Robin Hood Outlaw” tales bridging both the old west and the later Pretty Boy Floyd era.
The film opens up in 1911 Texas by treating us viewers to a few scenes of the female bounty hunter Thomasine – played by THE Vonetta McGee – by turns using her tracking skills, marksmanship and feminine allure in order to bring in a few of her targets for the rewards on their heads.
While collecting the money from her most recent success, Thomasine sees a fresh Wanted poster for her old boyfriend J.P. Bushrod, a gunslinging bank robber and rustler portrayed by Max Julien from the previous year’s blaxploitation hit The Mack.
Bushrod has been lying low as a horse trainer for ranchers and we are introduced to him stopping an act of animal cruelty by one of the other ranch hands, then slugging him. Knowing the ripples from this violent incident will result in his cover being blown and the law coming down on him again, J.P. returns to life on the run. Continue reading
Frontierado is celebrated the first Friday of every August, so this year it will be marked on August 4th. This holiday celebrates the myth of the old west, not the grinding reality. Here’s a seasonal post regarding my look at an opera version of the original Django spaghetti western from 1966, which strips the story down to its essentials, with no gold subplot.
DJANGO: AN OPERA – Here at Balladeer’s Blog I love sharing my enthusiasms. My blog posts where I provide contemporary slants to Ancient Greek Comedies to make them more accessible have been big hits over the years, so I’m trying it with operas. A little while back I wrote about how Philip Wylie’s science fiction novel Gladiator could be done as an opera. This time I’m addressing the 1966 original version of the Spaghetti Western titled Django. 
LANGUAGE: Spanish. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that most of my fellow English-speakers find English-language operas to be silly. The prosaic nature of the forced rhymes in a language we are well-versed in does seem to rob opera of its mystique and its grandeur. 
Scene One: The opera would open with a stage version of one of the most iconic visuals from the 1966 film. Our title character, DJANGO, clad in his long blue jacket with his well-worn Union Army uniform underneath it, slowly, wearily drags a coffin behind him as he walks along singing his mournful song. He pulls the coffin via a rope slung across one shoulder. 
RELIC OF FORT TEJON (November 3rd, 1957) – Here’s something a little different from the usual for Balladeer’s Blog’s Forgotten Television category. The 1950s James Garner series Maverick was an all-time classic, but this particular episode is often overlooked. 
Previously, I’ve examined the 
BUCKSKIN FRANK LESLIE – Franklyn Leslie, full name Nashville Franklyn Leslie, was better known as Buckskin Frank. “Nashville” was, he claimed, his actual first name, NOT a nickname. 
Documentation starts to show up regarding Buckskin Frank on July 11th, 1869 when he arrived in San Francisco via the steamship Portland according to the passenger information published by the Daily Alta California. 
PONY BOB – Robert Haslam, better known as Pony Bob, holds multiple records set in the Pony Express during its year and a half history, including the longest individual round-trip ride – 380 miles – when one of his relay riders was put out of action during the Paiute War in 1860. 
With Frontierado rapidly approaching on August 5th – or for those of us who kick things off the night before – August 4th – let’s take a look at some of the most obscure but laughably weird Italian westerns. And what better way to start that list than with one of the countless Spaghetti Westerns with phony Django titles? 
1. DJANGO KILL (1967) – Originally titled If You Live, Shoot!, this was one of the many Eurowesterns to be re-released to theaters years later as a phony Django movie just so it could clean up on the guaranteed cash cow of the Django name. 
The Frontierado Holiday is about the myth of the Old West, not the grinding reality. The Danites – the gunslinging Knights of the Mormon faith – are an underutilized and underappreciated element of Old West fiction. 
In Deseret itself there were conflicts with Mexican raiders after the end of America’s war with Mexico (1846-1848). Danites would also be called upon to battle various Native American tribes in Deseret, in the role of oppressors rather than oppressed much of the time. 
BOSTON – Warren Fremont Upson, better known by his one-word nickname, was one of the Pony Express Riders aka Expressmen to ride with the service for its entire existence from April 3rd, 1860 to October 26th, 1861. His real name was so seldom used in the old west that in some sources on Pony Express history he was listed only as “Boston.” 
Our hero spent most of his time riding and exploring in the Sierra Nevadas, hunting and cooking his own food and acquiring a familiarity with the mountain range’s often-treacherous curves and turns and sudden drops. That familiarity would pay dividends later in life when Boston was assigned to the most geographically dangerous route of the Pony Express. 
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