The Plunderers (Allied Artists) (1960)

“THE PLUNDERERS” No. 23 John Saxon discovers that Dolores Hart has the claws of a tiger in this scene from “The Plunderers,” which stars the two with Jeff Chandler. Produced by August Productions for Allied Artists release, the film is the current attraction at the Theatre. Co-starred are Marsha Hunt, Jay C. Flippen, James Westerfield and Ray Stricklyn. Chandler, Saxon, Hart In Plunderers’ Opening Here (Advance) Jeff Chandler fell so much in love with 319 pages of bare screenplay that he built a motion picture company around them. That’s the story of August Productions and its first offering, ‘The Plunderers,” an Allied Artists re lease coming .................... Jeff, John Saxon, and Dolores Hart heading the cast. “Don’t call it a Western,” warns the six-foot-four president of the company. And although the picture’s laid in a small Texas town just after the Civil War, he’s got a point there. “The Plunderers” could just as well have been laid in modern New York City, London, Tokyo, or Bogota. What it has to say is that widely pertinent in our time. Four young cowboys ride into Trail City at dusk on their way home from a cattle drive to Kansas. They drink the saioonkeeper’s whiskey and tell him they can’t pay. The sheriff is conciliatory. They grow bolder. The townsfolk keep appeasing them. And what began with a trifle explodes in a to the Theatre, with crisis for themselves and the whole community. John Saxon plays one of the boys, a vaquero called Rondo, who precipitates the conflict by moving in on the girl Chandler loves (Miss Hart). The others are Ray Stricklyn, Roger Torrey, and Dee Pollock. It is Chandler who finally resolves the situation, but not until he, like the town, has been taught a lesson. Marsha Hunt, Jay C. Flippen, Stricklyn and James Westerfield are co-starred. Joseph Pevney produced and directed, and the script was written by Bob Barbash. Scott R. Dunlap was the executive producer. The author and Jess Rand, associate producer, are Chandler’s partners in August Productions. THE CAST the boy rides slowly out of town. _ eee THE STORY (Not for Publication) Four young cowboys ride into a quiet, forlorn Western town, Trail City. They are dust-covered, travel tired. At once they recognize the town as one which they might take over for a brief time. Resistance, they are sure, won't be put before them. These young men are Jeb, the leader (Ray Stricklyn), Rondo, a Mexican (John Saxon), the giant Mule (Roger Torrey), and Davy, the youngest (Dee Pollock). Sam Christy (Jeff Chandler), a rancher with a paralyzed right arm, refuses to become involved, and Kate Miller (Marsha Hunt) calls him a coward. But when Jeb kills the timid sheriff (Jay C. Flippen), he goes to his ranch to get his gun. The boys have learned his intention and are waiting for him there. Ellie Walters (Dolores Hart) goes to the ranch and finds him badly beaten up by Mule. She breathes new courage into him in a tender love scene. They return to town together. Davy, shocked by the killing of the sheriff, quarrels with Jeb. He goes off alone and Sam collars him. Rondo tries to force his attentions on Ellie. She flees. Rondo follows and Sam captures him also. Ellie is holding Rondo’s own gun on him when he draws a knife on Sam. Ellie shoots him dead. Then Sam challenges Mule to a knife tight, and Mule is killed. Jeb, terrified now, bursts out of the saloon with two guns blazing. Sam shoots and kills him. Most of the townsmen are for hanging Davy. But Sam, realizing the youngster was the victim of a situation he didn’t know how to handle—and of one that the town should never have let develop—tells him curtly to go home. Sam and Ellie are standing with arms around each other's waist, watching, as Ss, Geer oe ee JEFF CHANDLER a ae aE Be JOHN SAXON Noes ke ie DOLORES HART it: MARSHA HUNT lee es JAY C, FLIPPEN Be Scvisig RAY STRICKLYN oy aaa JAMES WESTERFIELD He ieee elt goat DEE POLLOCK Sa Se Die oi ROGER TORREY Bes eae HARVEY STEPHENS Ba eae ome VAUGHN TAYLOR ese 27 at JOSEPH HAMILTON i cn cic tas RAY FERRELL ieee ee Nes WILLIAM CHALLEE sat or PL ea KEN PATTERSON ELLA ETHRIDGE Gossipists Give Jeff Up Hollywood columnists who buttonhole Jeff Chandler find him a clam about his private life and a poor source of chit-chat about the screen colony. It’s a matter of policy with the six-foot-four-inch Chandler, starred with John Saxon and Dolores Hart in “The Plunderers,” coming “T’ve found that keeping your private life private is a must in this town,” he explains “Open it to public view and you expose it to all the dangers of false conclusions, rumors, and innuendo. “And in the same regard, I do for my friends what I expect them to do for me I don’t talk about their private lives either.” Absorbed in his work rather than in extracurricular activities, Chandler formed his own independent company, August Productions, to film “The Plunderers,’ an Allied Artists release co-starring Marsha Hunt, Ray Stricklyn, Jay C. Flippen, and James Westerfield under direction of producer Joseph Pevney with Scott R. Dunlap as the executive producer. Dolores Hart Ponders Fate “It was weird,” says Dolores Hart, describing how she got into pictures, and a kind of awed look comes into her blue eyes. The gifted blonde who's starring with Jeff Chandler and John Saxon in “The Plunderers,” arri Theater, was at a college prom in Los Angeles when she met a young man who’d just checked out of a seminary. “We were dancing, and he said. “You ought to be in the movies.’ Well, it was a nice compliment, though a bit trite, and I took it that way. But he was serious and said he’d see what he could do. I didn’t want to offend him he was nice, really so I just smiled and thanked him. Then he started doing something about it but like a babe in the Hollywoods. “First he went out and got a book to find out who the producers were. Then he took a picture of me with his old Brownie the worst picture of my life. And he Sent it to Hal Wallis, whom he didn’t know from Sam Goldwyn, with a letter. “Believe it or not, Mr. Wallis sent for me. We talked, and he told me to come back in a week. I didn’t, I was so embarrassed, but he called me and made another appointment. That time he introduced me to Elvis Presley. And before I knew it I was under contract to Mr. Wallis and acting with Elvis in ‘Lovin’ You.’ It was that simple and incredible.” Chandler’s August Productions borrowed her from Wallis for “The Plunderers,” an Allied Artists release produced and directed by Joseph Pevney with Scott R. Dunlap as the executive producer. TUNESMITH Jeff Chandler, starred with John Saxon and Dolores Hart in August Productions’ “The Plunderers,” an Allied Artists release now at the APE SE Tune te Theatre, is a member of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) and has published half a dozen songs. Daring Score In ‘Plunderers’ Audiences at the ......... Theatre, where Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, and Dolores Hart are starring in Allied Artists’ “The Plunderers,” are hearing something original in motion picture scoring. Breaking with tradition, composer-conductor Leonard Rosenman used modern music to score a_ picture laid in the Texas of 1868. Reason: “The theme is as modern as ‘Blackboard Jungle’,” he explains. “It needed a modern comment.” Produced and directed by Joseph Pevney for August Productions, “The Plunderers” is the story of four young cowboys who try to take over a town, and of a rancher who has to find his way back to manhood before he can stop them. The Plunderers’ Belongs In Must See’ Category (Review) Few and far between are the tales of the cow country that transcend the “‘Western” label. As far between, for example, as “High Noon” (1952) and the picture that opened at the Eph Sera gs Theatre yesterday. “The Plunderers,” which toplines Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, and Dolores Hart, sets forth a universal theme addressed to moderns in an explosive story peopled by recognizable human beings and told with distinction under producer Joseph Pevney’s direction. The result is an entertainment experience likely to get “The Plunderers” the best kind of advertising in the best possible way by public word of mouth. Interest mounts from the quiet but ominous beginning as four young strangers ride into Trail City bent on committing a misdemeanor with no more in view than a jail lodging for the night. Finding the citizens are afraid of them, they taste power, and end by trying to take over the town. It falls to Chandler to stop them. But he, psychologically shocked by having lost the use of his right arm, has to learn to be aman all over again before he can go into action. It is Miss Hart, in a scene of depth and poignancy, who gives him back the sense of wholeness. As Rondo, the young vaquero who courts destruction because of his attraction to this girl, Saxon earns his highest mark as an actor to date. Ray Stricklyn, too, is a standout as Jeb, leader of the four boys, whose sudden and violent disintegration of character is an acting highlight at the climax. Stricklyn, Marsha Hunt, Jay C. Flippen, and James Westerfield are co-starred, with young giant Roger Torrey, Dee Pollock, Joseph Hamilton, Harvey Stephens, and Vaughn Taylor in featured roles. The meaningful story and topflight screenplay were the work Marsha Hunt Adopts Orphan Chon Kai Yin, 7, Hong Kong refugee orphan, is a real Cinderella and doesn’t know the. half of it. All they’ve told her is that she’s been adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Presnell, Jr., of the U.S.A. What she doesn’t know is that her new mama is a famous movie actress. Marsha Hunt, co-starred with Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, and Dolores Hart in August Productions’ “The Plunderers,” the Allied Artists release now at the ......... Theatre, and her writer husband have adopted the child under the Foster Parents Plan, Inc., will pay for her upbringing and put her through school. Maybe some day she’ll even meet REMINDER To keep him mindful that the arm was supposed to be _ useless, Jeff Chandler had to wear a tight latex band around his right elbow while filming “The Plunderers,” an August Production in which he’s currently starring with John Saxon and Dolores Hart at the .......... Theatre. “THE PLUNDERERS” No. 2 Jeff Chandler and Dolores Hart are starred and teamed romantically in “The Plunderers,”’ an Allied Artists release, now at the .... Theatre. John Saxon heads an imposing cast of co-stars that includes Marsha Hunt, Jay C. Flippen and Ray Stricklyn. of Bob Barbash; and the musical score, a tradition-smashing modern comment on the modern theme of this picture laid in 1868, was composed and conducted by Leonard Rosenman. The dramatic flair of the photography by Eugene Polito adds considerably to the picture. Barbash and Jess Rand, who was associate producer, are Chandler’s partners in August Productions, which made “The Plunderers” for Allied Artists release. Scott R. Dunlap was the executive producer of the film. “THE PLUNDERERS” Dolores Hart in a scene from “The Plunderers,” in which she is co-starred with Jeff Chandler and John Saxon. The picture, produced by August Productions for Allied Artists, opens .......... at the Theatre. Players Seen But Not Heard Dolores Hart, starred with Jeff Chandler and John Saxon in August Productions’ “The Plunderers,’ an Allied Artists release coming to the Theatre, started going to the movies every night as a small child, but says she was eight before she discovered they came with sound. Her grandfather, projectionist at the Drake Theatre, Chicago, used to take her with him every evening, give her his watch, then lie down to sleep, and her chore was to wake him every 20 minutes to change reels. She’d peek through the hole at the picture, enthralled. But Grandpop always had the sound shut off in the booth so it wouldn’t disturb him. MATURES Dee Pollock, former child actor who drew feminine “Ahs” as Jane Wyman’s son in “The Blue Veil,” resumes his career as a gun-totin’ young cowpoke with Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, and Dolores Hart in August Productions’ “The Plunderers,” an Allied Artists release now ALG, Ss vcistecesens Theatre. CREDITS An August Production; Produced and Directed by Joseph Pevney; Executive Producer, Scott R. Dunlap; Associate Producer, Jess Rand; Written by Bob Barbash; Production Manager, Edward Morey, Jr.; Assistant Director, Bob Saunders; Photographed by Eugene Polito; Art Director, David Milton; Film Editor, Tom McAdoo; Music Composed and Conducted by Leonard Rosenman, Sound Mixer, Ralph Butler; Set Decorator, Joe Kish; Sound Editor, Charles Schelling; Music Editor, Richard C. Harris; Set Continuity, Ellya Jacobus: Makeup, Emile Lavigne, S.M.A.; Special Effects, Milton Olsen; Wardrobe, Roger Weinberg and Norah Sharpe; Construction Supervisor, James West; Properties, Ted Mossman. No. 3 eeceseeeecs eee eee e eee UF ULG cece eseeese