I never understood ARGH!!'s fascination with movie tough guys. Well, okay, Robert Mitchum, sure -- everyone likes Robert Mitchum -- and I'd understand if he got all misty for Lee Marvin or Charles Bronson, say... but Wallace Beery? Guy sounds like a right nasty piece of work. And ARGH!! is obviously nutso for Joe Don Baker, too (who died yesterday at age 89; I had thought he was long gone). He's constantly recommending these kinda-crap 70s action thrillers Joe Don starred in (okay, Framed and The Pack are pretty good) where Joe Don basically Buford Pussers his way through the film, smoking cigarettes and looking rumpled, pissed-off and slightly hung over, which is kind of how you imagine Joe Don Baker always looked.
ARGH!! doodle of Joe Don Baker
So with Joe Don gone, I asked ARGH!! to explain himself and comment on favourite Joe Don movies. He writes with a lot of ellipses and lowercase... I have elected to just do it his way... he spills that one of his aliases is Nick Mitchum.... I assembled the following from his posts, but with his knowledge and blessing... find him on social media, he has entertaining posts... probably an art show coming up... Joe Don will be represented somewhere...
my fascination with movie tough guys?...i grew up a skinny uncoordinated geek...the jerry lewis of richmond...picked on and called homo by the macho jocks in high school...i loved humphrey bogart and robert mitchum movies and mickey spillane's mike hammer books...and i alway liked southern caricature cartoon characters...reddy in ruff n' reddy...deputy dawg...huckleberry hound...i lived out my revenge on the jocks fantasies in my joe mason cartoons...joe was partly based on a hybrid of yosemite sam and inspector clouseau and dean martin as matt helm...cows and living shits and other evil oppressors were the jocks...in the 70s i loved dirty harry and paul kersey in the movies...JDB was the meanest but also the most likable tough guy at the time...in my mind a combination of reddy and deputy dawg and mike hammer and fat elvis if he had faked his death to become a drive in movie star who worked with directors i liked...phil karlson and robert clouse...i wanted to be joe don baker...joe mason's meaner and tougher big brother...nick mitchum = nick tosches + nick nolte + robert mitchum + jdb as mitchell...
top 5 [Joe Don Baker movies]...framed...mitchell...the pack...golden needles...speedtrap...wacko....ok top 6...all 6 belong in my top 5 list...charley varrick and the outfit are fave costarring films...framed...mean and gritty and sweaty and ultra violent......the pack...real scary...jdb to the rescue...they’re not pets anymore sez it all…looks like it could've happened on galliano when i used to camp there...mitchell...a sleepy mean jim rockford and/or joe mannix...a key largo shoot out on a boat...remade as the guard with the irish jdb brendan gleeson...golden needles...a 1970s hong kong kung fu raiders of the lost maltese falcon...speedtrap...mitchell crashing cars and busting heroin dealers again...wacko...mitchell gone to seed pursuing the lawnmower killer in a high school on halloween...all the best of the 70s..oops...wacko is 1982...
i saw this at the lux...vancouver bc's skid row grindhouse theatre...new double bill every monday...wednesday...friday...$2...many weeks i saw all 6 movies in the 1960s and 70s and 80s...it was an hour bus ride into the city from the 'burbs...photo by Fred Herzog.
i missed this one when it was released...took many years to track down a copy...for the time (1972) and the budget i think it is a real good movie...i wish i had seen it on the big screen...ahead of it's time for 1972...one of the first movies about vietnam vets coming home all fucked up by the war...
the first one is the best one...the only one with jdb...bruce glover...crispin's dad...played deputy grady coker in the first 3 movies...i read an interview where he talked about what a great guy jdb was...but he told the interviewer not to ask him about bo svenson...he didn't want to talk about him...hmmmm
i first saw framed heavily edited on network tv...then i saw it uncut at the lux...
saw this at the delta drive in and again at the clova...
first time at the lux...many years later a bootleg dvd and finally last year on blu ray and dvd...
The Shadow of Chikara...also known as Demon Mountain...The Ballad of Virgil Cane...Thunder Mountain...Wishbone Cutter...The Curse of Demon Mountain...
first time at the hillcrest drive in in surrey...second time at the coronet on granville... [Posting a song from the soundtrack]:
he don't look back he's insane...
he knows gangsters and indians...
he's an american saint…
when i was young i wanted to be be a letter carrier when i grew up...not an astronaut or a fireman or a rock star like all my friends wanted to be...i wanted to be a letter carrier like cody in the outfit... the most fun you can have at the drive-in... the king of the lux theatre on hastings... raise a glass to joe don.
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