Dodge City (Warner Bros.) (1939)

mees only a few yeare ago after bringing & the Warbuadreds of oatlaws, gun ‘ waleh fightere and bed men te justice. Bred s 06 be. ei ae edd 2 Se weiter vewrtiem, ap Hquec eould be cold ie t . 5 4 a r. * I aly Ht i T f tt a eee ate if ef Dodge City woulga*t permit Wer « Ghristien berial, hes her een lg Aas Sheridan, ‘ Breese ‘3 sweetheart and host . bee at his presporoes Gay Lady saleen and dancs hall. . Séttie of the pleneer Dodge City semaine now. Abeut the cnly thing left standing to remind the 10,000 citiagns ef the thriving southwest survived eva Kansas town of ite pest is the ' | eemetery em Beot Hill. But even the Cott alzthes has changed. Onee en the out exde-quma of skirts of Dodge City, it hap been them in ing city NN — | = = od SOING SKILL termed screen ac i The pole playing actor can elaim new he is the only man istery who has ever lassoed a wild deer. Willams, whe plays one of the principal sepporting roles im Dedge City,” the big Warner Rees. western coming to Strand Theatre, was tendiag hie polo peaics one Sunday at his ranch ea the eutekirts of North Hollyweed when one of his wranglers to glanee up. “liey!” the wrangler shouted. “There's a deer.” Ard sure enoegh a two-yearald doe was atrenking like lightning across Williams’ property 100 feet distant. Williams leaped on one of his naddied horsce and, lariat swing: ing, started im pursuit of the animal. Within a few moments he had dropped the rope over the doe'n head. The strapping, 240pound actor then nonchalantly tossed the wild animal over his shoulders and carried it off to one of his stock sheds. s oa Cowboys Were Cops Forty cowboys engaged to ride herd om 2000 steers working in ‘*Dodge City,’’ rode herd one Sunday om the population of Modesto, Calif., and environs, instead. An estimated ten or eleven thousand persons drove thirty-five miles to the location site that Sunday to wateh Errol Flynn, Olivia de Haviland and the other stars enact Bones ANN SHERIDAN ROLE BASED OX REAL CHARACTER The role played by red-haired Ann Sheridan in “ City,” whieh opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre, is a parallel in many particulars of the real life story ef Dera Hand, whese funeral was the mest lavish ever seen in Dedge City’s Boot Hill cemetery. Dera was a one time New York opera singer wheee yearning for adventure teok her outside the ecaveations, and finally caused her to become a well known character all over the west. Bhe became a dance hall queen Dedge City and the good ef Mayer “Dog” Kelly, shot by a jealous cattleaimed hie rife through tals if H ene or two of the paremurred at conducting burial ceremonies, the minfeter at the littl “community ebureh” which had held Dodge City’s original Babbath services teered to conduct the funerel, sad ail ef the gamblers, eattle brokers, aed “men about tewn” pooled their contributions i! i Ia City” ehet, but she dees rule the Gay Lady ealeon by finesse and her weman’s wite; and in one fist fight with Alan Hale, demeastrates that she is alec a disciple ef direst acticen. ANN SHERIDAN Mat DC-\B Star Would Rather Be Wearing Slacks Warner Bros. are giving Ann Sheridan, their curvaceous, titianhaired lovely, the glamour treatment. To this end she is being cast in a series of exotic roles, the latest being the dance hal! belle in ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ the western starring Errol Flynn. Personally, however, Ann would rather be playing western heroines or deep dramatic things. ‘‘It’s the clothes,’’ she explains. ‘‘I don’t like them. They’re too uncomfortable. I’m afraid to sit down or lean against anything for fear of rumpling them.’’ Has Historic Role The role which red-headed Ann Sheridan plays in ‘‘ Dodge City’’ —that of a dance hall queen and sweetheart of the town’s big-shot gunman—had its counterpart in a real life character named Dora Hand. Dora was a one time opera singer in New York whose thirst for adventure brought her out to wild and woolly Dodge City, where she worked as an entertainer in a dance hall and saloon. Toughest Of All F rontier Towns Was Dodge City By FRANCIS HEACOCK Paradoxically enough, the most colorful and fabulous cow town on the entire frontier of an expanding United States during a period of what has most aptly been described as ‘‘wild and woolly’’ is perhaps the least familiar to this modern generation. Almost everybody has heard the picturesque name of Tombstone, Ariz., Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wichita and Abilene, Kansas, San Antonio and El Paso, Tex., Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyo., and Deadwood, South Dakota, and invariably associates them with an era when men wore Colt six-shooters on either hip and didn’t hesitate to reach for them. But few are familiar with the history or, for that matter, have even heard of the wildest and woolliest, rootin’est, tootin ‘est, shootin’est town of them all — Dodge City, Kansas. Literature and art signally have failed to capture the atmosphere of the town that was perhaps best Sasa interesting facts concerning the one-time cattle capital of Kansas ‘during his labore in connection with Warner Bros ’‘‘ Dodge City.’’ starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Seldom a day passed during Dodge City’s most hectic years. without at least one gun battle taking place; usually more. Along the wooden sidewalks of Front Street were many large barrels filled with water to be used in case of fire, but they served a much better purpose; protection for one or both contestants in a gun battle. More than 7,000,000 Texas longhorn cattle were shipped out of Dodge City during ite boom days. The town was also the shipping point of countless millions of beffalo hides. Dodge City, at one time or another, was visited by most of the great masters of the six-shooter. The cattle trade through Dedge Mat 308— THRILLING STAGE-COACH rece with ‘iron horse,” one of the exciting se queaces ia described as the ‘‘bibulous Baby = lon of the western frontier.’’ A Chieage journalist,.after a survey im the 1870's, wrote: ‘‘West of Kaneas City there is no Sunday and west of Fort Smith no God.’’ And Dodge City is west of Fort Smith. Dedge City was more than a town; it was a distillation of all the varied aspects of the old west in one spot. More traditions attach to it than to all the other famous frontier cities combined. Dr. Herman Lissauer, head of the Warner Bros. Studio research department, unearthed a host of epic of the great West soon in “Dodge City.” began in the middle '70’s and econtinued as a booming industry to the middle ’80’s. The eattlemen made their last desperate stand against encroaching homesteaders, who got their living from the soil, in 1884. That year the cattlemen of all the West met in Dodge City and formed the powerful Cattlemen’s Association and divided up the rangelands of four states . among themeelves as a protective measure against the settler. But their big industry was doomed and Dodge City’s future as the farm and dairy center of western Kansas was discernible. | Learned About Guns By ERROL FLYNN (Star of the Warner Broe. frontier melodrama ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ coming to the Strand Theatre on Friday.) This little piece is merely my answer to a request to list some of the interesting facts about the gun-fighters of the old west which I learned during the filming of ‘+ Dodge City.’’ In that picture the character I portray is supposed to be an authoritative handler of a six-gun, go naturally it was incumbent upon me to master at least the externale of the art of the old gunfighters. So, for photographie purposes, I can draw my weapon pretty fast and shoot from the hip. What follows is merely an informal listing of a few of the bits of information that I found most interesting : The gunmen and gunfighters of the old west almost unanimously preferred the single-action to the double-action six-shooters. Billy the Kid, was a notable exception. le not only used double-action pistols but preferred a .36 calibre to the heavier 44 or .45-calibre Colt most of his contemporaries used. In the old days the term ‘‘gunman’’ was used ag it is at present. It signified a fellow usually on the wrong side of the law: an outlaw or a hired killer. ‘‘Gun-fighter’’ was ordinarily used to describe a sheriff, city marshal or other peace officer. Some of the old-time gun-fighters became so proficient im the use of their six-shootere that they could get five shots away from their guns so rapidly one report could not be distinguished from the next. Usunily, however, they did this kind of trick shooting for exhibition purposes. If they didn’t hit the mark with their first bullet they didn’t have a chance to use an rvecond. The other fellow had them by that time. Odd Combination One of Alan Hale’s assignments for his role in ‘‘ Dodge City,’’ was to memorise the words and music of a Sunday School hymn of 1872, titled ‘‘Life Is Like a Mighty River.’’ Another of Hale’s assignments was to learn the rebel yell, as he played a rough, tough, unreconstructed survivor of the Lost Cause who had turned cowboy on the frontier.