Fort Defiance, Promos and Lobby Cards

It's time to upload all the lobby cards and promos I've discovered so far for Fort Defiance. There are some beautiful pictures here. I try to get them in as high a resolution as possible, but a couple are quite small.

The descriptions of some of these contain plot spoilers.

Some Posed Promos

Peter Graves as Ned Tallon.

In these pictures Peter Graves doesn't seem to be trying to look particularly blind, as his character is. Of course, I love his character in this film. On IMDB it appears to be his fourth role, but two of those roles were uncredited. It's his second big appearance since Rogue River, and was released in the same year. He's just so young, it's hard to get over it. As a character, Ned is wonderful. Determined and brave (occasionally a little stupid.) Blinded some years ago due to his brother's feud with Dave Parker, the local saloon owner, he's left on the family ranch while his brother is away at war. He may not have top billing, but the entire film revolves around his story.

Peter Graves as Ned Tallon and Tracey Roberts as Julie Morse.

Again, Peter Graves is looking cute and handsome, but doesn't seem to be in character as blind Ned. Tracey  Roberts' character is supposed to be about his age, but the actress is twelve years older than him.

Tracey Roberts as Julie Morse.

This was interesting casting. As I said above, she/s twelve years older than Peter Graves, but meant to be the same age. She sometimes comes across as quite hard - but perhaps a dance hall hostess would have to be hard at times. It may be the protective part in me. I want her to be sweet and homely, to be a nice innocent girl for Ned - but perhaps it's best that she's not. She'll need to stand up for him quite a lot in life, I feel.

She's also in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode 'The Love Affair.' Her last appearance, believe it or not, was in Mr Bean!

Ben Johnson as Ben Shelby.

I like Ben Johnson. I like the character he plays in this film, but I like him anyway. He seems to have quite a following on the internet. He's also been in two episodes of Route 66, and three episodes of Gunsmoke (I'd like to see them) and is a hell of a horse rider.

Here he plays Ben Shelby, a rancher and ex-Civil War soldier who has come to the Tallon ranch to gain revenge on Johnny Tallon, who let Ben's brother and his entire regiment get slaughtered in the war. He doesn't expect to fall in with Johnny's brother Ned, and his Uncle Charlie, but he ends up forming a life-long friendship.

Dane Clark as Johnny Tallon.

I like Dane Clark too. His character in this film as Ned's brother is wonderful. He does seem as if he's from Arizona by way of Brooklyn (where Clark was born) but I can forgive him that. He has such a wonderful dry, acerbic sense of humour and although he pushes Ned around and may have been a coward at one point in the Civil War, he's just brilliant. Everything he does seems to stem from a sense of guilt and responsibility towards Ned, so you can forgive him a lot. Since the war he's been knocking around robbing banks and killing, but it seems that his moment of war cowardice and the robberies since were all due to his drive to survive and get money to help Ned.

He's also in one episode of Mission: Impossible (Hit), and (this is awesome) has also been in an episode of Quincy M.E.! He's also been in Highway to Heaven, but we'll gloss over that. 

Stills from the Film.

Ned throws himself to the ground as Ben Shelby shoots an interloper who wants to make off with their cattle. I think this is about the only lobby card where you get to see Uncle Charlie (far right), who's a wonderful character played by George Cleveland.

Ben and Ned have a confrontation with Brave Bear, who is about to take their cattle in response to pressure on the Native Americans by the government. Brave Bear was played by Iron Eyes Cody, who was actually the son of Italian immigrants and not Native American at all, although IMDB says 'He married an Indian woman, Bertha Parker, and together they adopted two Indian sons. Iron Eyes Cody lived and worked as an Indian for all his adult life; he labored for decades to promote Native American causes, and was honored by Hollywood's Native American community in 1995 for his efforts.'

During the Indian attack, Johnny gives Julie a gun so she can defend herself and Ned if needs be. It's a moment which shows the caring behind Johnny's toughness and bravado.

Three stills of the Indian attack. It's a silly attack - basically they circle round and round the stagecoach so the white men can pick them off one by one - but it does make for some dramatic filming and lovely shots of horses.

In desperation, to stop Johnny taking him to San Francisco against his will, Ned pulls a gun on his brother.

This is the same as the one above, but a different card, so I've included it for completeness' sake.

Johnny wrestles the gun from Ned.

In the end, Johnny agrees to let Ned stay with Ben, and promises to sort out Dave Parker, who wants to kill all the Tallons, so he goes to Dave Parker's saloon to force him to buy the ranch so that Ned can set up somewhere new. Dave Parker isn't there, so he has to deal with his man, Joe Doniger (Duke York), who gets as far as saying, 'Over my dead - ' before Johnny takes him at his word. He's shown here with his gun out, which is about a tenth of a second before Johnny shoots him.

Johnny keeps a sharp eye on the patrons of the bar while the bartender (Lee Phelps) gets him the money from the register and safe.

Would you argue with this man?

While Johnny's gone, Ned has essentially asked Julie to marry him, and Ben has turned up after riding in from the canyon. Unfortunately, Johnny's return from the bar is swiftly followed by the arrival of Dave Parker and his gang. Johnny's assured of Ned's future, so he prepares to go out and face the Parker gang alone.

Johnny goes out to face his doom.

He manages to take down the entire Parker gang, except for Dave Parker himself, before he's shot down.

Inside, Ned and Julie are listening to the firefight outside. If Johnny doesn't succeed, they will be next. But of course, Johnny does succeed. Once Johnny falls, Ben goes out and shoots Dave Parker, and it's all over.

In the street in Fort Defiance after all the dust has settled, Julie, Ned, and Ben are waiting for Ben's wife to arrive. It's been said that James Arness wouldn't have a woman sitting in front of him on a horse, for reasons of modesty. Obviously Peter Graves is not so bashful. (Actually, come to think of it, they're not on the same horse here. It just looks like it.)

Finally, a couple of colour lobby cards and posters.

Peter Graves at the Golden Globes

Peter Graves at the 29th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills, 6th February, 1972.

Photos by Ron Galella.

With JoAnn Pflug

With Walter Matthau at the 27th Annual Golden Globe Awards, 2nd February, 1970 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

Peter Graves Facebook Page

For those of you who are facebook-inclined, a long time ago I made a Peter Graves Appreciation Facebook group. It's a very small affair, with very few members, but it would be lovely to see other people there.

This is a facebook cover photo I made for myself a while ago, and I've used it for the group for now. Feel free to use and abuse.

Mission: Impossible S2E14 - The Echo Of Yesterday

Mission: Impossible, Season 2, Episode 14 - Echo of Yesterday

Can anyone tell I'm having a bout of watching Mission: Impossible recently? Can anyone tell Peter Graves has leapt back into full-obsession mode in my brain? Sorry to bombard people with poorly analysed, non-intellectual picspams, but I can't help it. It's been a hard start to the year, and January-February-March is always a bad time with SAD, so permit me to indulge in pure Graves-gazing. Pretty soon I'll go through the Peter Graves episodes of Route 66 on my other blog, and that will be fun :-)

This episode really deserves better treatment. The scenes with Cinnamon and Otto Kelman (Wilfrid Hyde-White) in the park deserves watching for the light alone, for the colours, for the carousel in the background and the beautiful air of spring. Even if we didn't get treated to images of Jim sword fighting this episode would be worth it.

 I know, I haven't done any of these edited shots for a while. I'm either too lazy or I like the shots in their original aspect. A bit of both. But I like this segue from the tape machine exhaling smoke to Jim exhaling smoke. Sexiness aside, tell me how anyone ever thought all that lot in your lungs could be good for you?

There's a focus on Jim in silhouette at his window - which works better moving than still. I'm pretty sure it's all set up so they can have a silhouette of him doing a Nazi salute at the end of this piece.

Aren't they a lovely couple? I always get the sense of Cinnamon and Rollin being something of a couple, as well as Landau and Bain.

And here's Jim's Nazi salute. He's going to pretend to be an American Nazi. I wonder if this gave Peter Graves flashbacks to Stalag 17 and how people stopped giving him good roles because he was a nasty Nazi spy?

Meanwhile, Otto Kelmann is leaving - somewhere. I don't know where, but I can't help but wonder if he's just leaving Paramount.

Jim is an over-zealous American Nazi. Look at him with his blond hair and blue eyes. The perfect picture of Nazism (if you don't look at Hitler.)

Forgetting the fact that the reason he's all excited is because he's meeting a high up Nazi, he's rather lovely when he's enthusiastic.

Earnest, pretty, tall. Or 'a man to inspire and lead.' Sigh.

The Nazi guy Jim is meeting is Col. Markus von Frank (Eric Braeden, who actually is German, and is billed as Hans Gudegast. According to IMDB that's his birth name), and he wants Jim to fight with him to test his courage. Are we going to object to seeing Jim engaged in a little swordplay? No, of course not.

Jim acts as if he knows nothing about sword fighting. I can't help but feel that he's probably some kind of fencing champion, really. He's probably an everything-champion really. (Which reminds me of Peter Graves being state hurdles champion while in high school. What I'd give to see pictures, or better still, film, of that.)

He's taken off his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves ready to fight. Jim looks extra-good with the top button undone.

So here's Wilfrid Hyde-White, who played Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady, and he's every bit as much a loveable gentleman here as in that. He's been acting for something like 33 years by the time he's in Mission: Impossible. He manages to be a Nazi but make it nice. He stands for Nazism without the insane genocide.

Cinnamon is set up to remind him of his photographer wife, who was murdered by Hitler in the early thirties. She suits this look very well, and there's a lovely relationship set up between her and Kelmann. He's a complete gentleman with this girl who reminds him of the woman he loved.

I love the graffiti carved into the tree. Someone's been immortalised there.

Meanwhile, Jim has his neck wrapped in enough surgical gauze to protect the 'vital areas.' He doesn't look too happy, though.

Von Frank shows him how to block attacks. He's having to do this right-handed, too.

Suddenly we're treated to Steampunk Jim.

Rarrr!

Post-fight, he's been wounded on his arm, but he didn't step back and spill the brandy that was in glasses behind his heels. Well done, Jim. He's shown himself to have courage.

So he has a little drink, and looks pleasing and ruffled, with a bloody hand.

Oh sweet lord, he looks pretty like that.

I'm sorry. He just looks pretty with the gauze about his throat and his collar open.

All this while Cinnamon and Kelmann have been looking pretty in the park, with that wonderful oblique light. Her dress is torn, so he's giving her a lift home.

Meanwhile, Rollin is studying films of Hitler, because he's going to have to play him later. Landau says, 'I wanted that insanity, so I figured I'd play it in extremis.' (White, Patrick J. The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier. (London: Boxtree, 1996) p. 135) So he does.

Here's a little Nazi rundown. We have fat underling Nazi.

We have scarred, psychotic, paranoid Nazi.

And we have American ceramic-loving Nazi. I'll take this one, please.

For the foot-fetishists among you, here's Cinnamon's feet as she creeps downstairs in the night wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. She's off to take photos of Kelmann's sitting room so that the team can restore it to how it looked when his wife was killed. It's all part of the ruse...

When Jim comes to the house with Von Frank he manages to get Cinnamon's film, and hides it down his trousers. Where else? It's a pleasure to watch him shoving film down his trousers.

I took this not so much because Kelmann is looking so lovely (and very English, but I suppose that's not far from being German) with his cup of tea, but mostly because - just look at the armchair! That's my size of armchair!

Jim just looks nice here. The red of the chairs setting off his eyes and making his suit look more blue too.

Still looking nice, and sowing seeds of suspicion about Cinnamon in Von Frank's head.

So off they go to Cinnamon's rooms and Jim gets to rummage through her underwear.

Let's skip on to the Hitler ruse (let it never be said that this screencapping is coherent.) There's Rollin dressed as Hitler, being utterly insane, while Cinnamon pretends to be Kelmann's wife. Kelmann is drugged, so this is like a kind of dream to him. You get a glimpse of Willy, too. To my shame, I don't think I got Barney in this episode.

Sans grotesque Hitler mask, Rollin looks quite nice in that leather coat.

Meanwhile, Jim is still having fun rummaging through Cinnamon's drawers.

When Von Frank gets to Kelmann's house to accuse Cinnamon, they basically play out the scenario with Hitler that Kelmann has just witnessed. Jim hands Von Frank a gun and he 'shoots' Cinnamon. The first time Kelmann didn't act. This time he realises the monstrous reality of what Von Frank is like, and shoots him dead. You can't help but feel a terribly empathy for Kelmann. He's been forced to watch a play of his first wife's death and as he thinks, the death of Cinnamon, who he cast in his first wife's image. Now he's been manipulated into killing Von Frank, while Cinnamon isn't really dead. What will happen when the authorities get hold of him? Is this gentle, regretful man going to end up on trial for murder?

Wearily, Kelmann goes out to phone the police. You can see the feelings clearly on Jim's face. What has he done to this old man?

This is the reality of his job. Sometimes people get hurt - people who didn't deserve to get hurt - all in the aim of the greater goal.

Kelmann goes upstairs - which seems as telling of his exhaustion and grief as any other action. So Jim and Cinnamon are free to leave the house. And when the police come and find no dead woman, just a delusional old man and a dead man on the floor? Who knows.

MI Fanfiction: The Minister - Ch 7

7.

Fraulein Weismuller looked up as if she had been electrified. Jim licked his lips, suddenly nervous. But he had already presented himself to her as someone who bought and sold women – someone who worked beneath the system, probably who crossed borders by night and thought little of immigration controls. It wasn’t a stretch that he would be able to take a woman from East to West.

But as Jim Phelps, as the team leader of his Impossible Missions force, as the top man in his cell, taking his orders from the Secretary; that was different. Ostensibly it would be even easier for him than for his alias – but in reality things weren’t that simple. It was a promise that would be tough and dangerous to back up – as much for her as for him. It could compromise his whole position in the IMF if he were found out.

‘Why would you take me to the West?’ she asked him bitterly, staring at him with nothing but distrust in her eyes. ‘To sell me to someone who’ll send me back east? What do men like you feel for women? We’re commodities. Nothing more.’

‘You are more,’ Jim said.

He wanted to bite his own tongue out. He was so perilously close to blowing his own cover. He was stupid, stupid, to even be here.

‘You don’t know me,’ she said.

‘No,’ he replied, reaching out a hand to her cheek, touching the drying tears there.

She turned away. Jim bit his lip into his mouth. He ought to turn around now and go. But Liesl walked across the room, filled the kettle and put it on the gas ring.

‘I owe you a cup of coffee, Herr Baum,’ she said with her back to him. Even in that over long jumper there was something about her shoulder blades and the set of her neck that made Jim want to go to her.

‘I’d like that,’ he said, aware that he was suddenly smiling like a schoolboy.

He pushed the expression off his face before she turned around. He had to act like Otto Baum, not Jim Phelps, and certainly not like a lovestruck Jim Phelps. He strode across the room and took a seat at the table without asking her. Perhaps he would be lucky. Perhaps Otto would repulse her, where Jim may not.

‘It must have been tough working for Georg Bauer,’ he remarked. ‘But he’s a lucky guy,’ he added, remembering to think as Otto. ‘He must have been crazy to give you up.’

Her shoulders stiffened.

‘Women are supposed to be protected in this world,’ she said. ‘They are supposed to be shielded. They are not. Women work the hardest of all, for least reward.’

Jim half-smiled. He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

After a time she brought the coffee in two cups, and sat down on one of the old, scratched wooden chairs.

‘Georg Bauer disgusted me,’ she said simply. ‘I would like to go to the police, go to the newspapers, tell the world what that man is. But no one would believe me. Besides, his men will be watching me.’

Jim stiffened, glancing momentarily over at the window, not that there was anything to see through a third-floor window.

‘Why do you think they’ll be watching you?’ he asked, keeping his tone casual.

‘Because he told me so,’ she said simply. ‘He made me aware how lucky I am to have my life.’

Jim clenched a hand under the table. He had known it was stupid to come here. He had known it. Never let personal feelings interfere with a mission. That was one of his first credos.

He got up and went to the window, looking down into the street below. The sky was still like slate and the streets were still covered in dirty snow. There was no one down there but pedestrians hurrying by. Still, it would be best to wait until dark before he left the building, and to leave by another exit.

‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ he said, coming back to the table.

‘Then why did you?’ Liesl asked him, regarding him over the top of her coffee cup.

He shrugged. He could allow some honesty. ‘Because I am a foolish man,’ he said. ‘Because I saw you in the café and I knew I must see more of you. I wanted to see that you were all right.’

Her lips turned upwards in a grim smile. ‘Are you a believer in love at first sight, Herr Baum?’

Jim shook his head. ‘I never have been,’ he told her.

She poured a little whiskey into her coffee, and then some into his.

‘It keeps the cold at bay,’ she said.

Jim took a mouthful from his cup. It wasn’t good coffee and it wasn’t good whiskey, but she was right. It did keep the cold at bay.

He glanced across at the windows of his own apartment, wondering how Barney and Willy were doing, if Cinnamon was safe, if Rollin was in there. As he watched he caught a sudden flash of light on binoculars, and realised that Rollin was there, and that he was reclining in the old armchair near the window, watching Jim. There could be men in any of those windows, watching. An uncomfortable feeling crept up his spine. He got up quickly and drew the curtains closed.

‘It keeps the heat in better,’ he said to Liesl as she shot him an enquiring look. He flicked the electric light on, and sat back down.

Whatever it was that magnetised him to Liesl Weismuller, it seemed to be a reciprocal attraction. There was no reason that she should trust any man, least of all a man she had seen selling a woman to Georg Bauer, but still she sat at the table with her eyes on him, leaning closer to him than she needed to. Jim tried again to tell himself that he was here for professional reasons, that she could tell him many useful things about Bauer and his household – but the only person listening to the lie was himself.

‘You lived in Georg Bauer’s house for a long time, didn’t you?’ he asked her. He could perhaps try to make some truth of his lie.

She nodded. ‘Almost seven months. A short time. A long time. It depends from which side you are looking.’

Jim half smiled. ‘You came straight from Berlin?’

Again she nodded. ‘I had known little of life,’ she said. ‘I only knew I wanted to get to the West, to be with what is left of my family. I had a great fault, Herr Baum. I trusted people.’

‘That’s not always a fault,’ Jim said, reaching his hand out across the table. Against all his expectations, she reached toward him and touched his fingers with her own. In some ways he despised himself. She was perhaps desperate for any kind of affection, and he was taking advantage of that.

******

Rollin lowered his binoculars as soon as Jim closed the curtains. He sat in the tired armchair, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, rubbing a finger against his lip. He was worried about Jim. At least he had had the sense to draw those curtains, though. If Rollin could see in to Fraulein Weismuller’s apartment, then so could anyone else. But he knew Jim. He didn’t fall easily, but when he did, he fell hard.

He got up and wandered over to the counter beside the sink. He had pushed away the effects of the morning’s alcohol with a good deal of coffee, and now he cut himself a few thick slices of bread and ate them covered in butter and honey. He had gleaned from his morning’s work that Bauer would almost certainly be at the club tonight, and would probably bring along his new trophy, Cinnamon. Rollin would welcome the chance to see that she was all right as much as he welcomed the chance to get some dirt on Bauer. He had a lipstick camera identical to Cinnamon’s. All he would have to do at the end of the night was to swap his with hers.

He had his reporter’s clothes laid out over a chair in his bedroom. That would give Bauer distraction enough, at least. Worried people thought that they were more careful. In fact, they were far, far more careless. With the thought of a reporter in his club Bauer’s mind would be far from the safe in the cellar and far from thoughts that his lovely new woman could be a plant. He would be watching Rollin, and nothing else.

He whiled away the afternoon playing solitary card games and occasionally taking a glance at those closed curtains across the street. He was hoping that Jim would return soon, but he didn’t. At around six he saw Willy and Barney returning, looking dirty and tired as they left their van and walked towards the front door of the building. He looked out into the corridor as they came past.

‘Like me to fix dinner for you fellers?’ he asked, acutely conscious of how he had spent the day drinking or relaxing while they had been down underground, digging out half-frozen earth.

‘Be there as soon as we’re clean,’ Barney responded with a grin, holding up mud-smeared hands.

Rollin grinned back, and turned back into the apartment. He didn’t have a lot to cook with, but he could make something with potatoes and sausage and canned tomatoes. It might even taste nice.

******

In the club later he was glad of the solid meal that helped to soak up yet more vodkas and brandies and cocktails. He nursed his drinks, but he didn’t want to look as if he was too obviously waiting around. Besides, it wasn’t such a hardship sitting at one of the round tables and watching the stage show, which was little more than girls in feathers and skimpy costumes performing rote dances to please the patrons. They did please, not so much for any innate talent but because they were some of the prettiest girls Rollin had yet seen in this country.

He tapped his glass quietly on the tabletop. Somewhere down below, outside the perimeters of the clubs walls, Barney and Willie were tunnelling again despite their long day’s work, in an effort to reach the safe as soon as possible. Up here he was still waiting for Cinnamon to appear. If she had snapped anything of note in the house or in the club that evening, he needed to be there to receive the lipstick camera from her and replace it with an identical one.

Rollin glanced towards the door to the back room. It was almost ten now, and Bauer still hadn’t appeared – but as he watched the door half opened and the man himself looked out, casting his eyes over the customers in the bar. Rollin stretched his legs out and lolled back in his chair, smiling. With the sharp suit and the camera around his neck and the notepad under his right hand, he looked every inch the press man.

It was only a few moments later when Bauer came over and sat down at his table.

‘Press,’ Bauer said simply.

Rollin tilted his head once, tapping his fingers on the notepad.

‘Why are you here?’

Rollin smiled. ‘This is one of the best clubs in the city, Herr Bauer. It is a place of interest to the people. I write reviews of places like this. Of course, it helps when the management are friendly.’

Bauer’s eyes narrowed momentarily. ‘Put my name once in your column and your editor will have you immediately fired,’ he said in a level voice. ‘Just a warning.’

‘Well, of course, Herr Bauer,’ Rollin replied smoothly, touching his hat. ‘I want to keep my job just as much as I imagine you want to keep yours.’

‘See that you do,’ Bauer said, and he stood up abruptly and pushed back in through the door to the back room. Rollin was certain that the room acted as a first stop for the business of prostitution, perhaps where patrons were vetted or money exchanged hands. There were enough hardened or abashed or self-conscious looking men slipping through to convince him of that.

Rollin sat back in his chair again and turned his attention back to the dancers, making some notes on his pad for the sake of appearances. He could see through that door. That was Cinnamon’s job.

******

It was almost eleven before Cinnamon appeared. Rollin caught sight of her as she slipped out through the door and walked up to the bar, ordering herself a tall drink. The barman asked for no money. It was obvious that he knew she was Bauer’s woman.

She turned around and leant against the bar, sipping the drink daintily and looking about the room. Her eye was caught for a while by the stage show, but then she put her drink down and began to move about the tables, leaning close to the patrons and speaking to them quietly. Rollin watched her, his hands clenched under the table as a couple of the guys made lewd remarks or reached out to touch her as she turned away. He certainly couldn’t leap to defend her honour, and if he could read Bauer right, he was probably watching and ready to come out himself at any sign of trouble.

Eventually she got to Rollin. She smiled and leant closer and said, ‘Are you having an enjoyable evening, sir?’

Rollin nodded and smiled, but he said in an undertone, ‘Are you all right?’

She nodded. ‘I’m very glad, sir,’ she said aloud.

Then Rollin said in a louder, rather drunk voice, ‘You need to freshen your make up, Fraulein. Too much kissing in the back room, eh?’

‘Oh,’ Cinnamon said, her tone and her smile still gracious. She reached into her small purse and brought out a compact and her lipstick, but she fumbled and dropped the little gold tube on the floor.

‘Let me,’ Rollin said as the tube rolled under the table. He bent down and swiftly shook the lipstick’s twin out of his sleeve, palming Cinnamon’s and straightening up to offer her the new one.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she smiled.

‘There you are. Much better,’ Rollin nodded as she carefully retouched her lips.

He could feel the little metal tube in his sleeve as she walked away. He watched her moving on to the next table, exchanging more pleasantries, acting every inch the hostess. She had spent a considerable time in the back, it seemed, and there must be something of value in the camera for her to risk passing it to him. Later he would set up the bathroom in his apartment as a makeshift darkroom, and he would find out exactly what it was that she had seen.