PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*
Ken Maynard, whose outfit included one of the biggest ten-gallon hats ever seen on a serial cowpoke, acquits him pretty well in a 1932 oater involving a mysterious costumed man, but pretty much loses his way in a 1940 opus where he himself plays the mystery man.
TOMBSTONE CANYON boasts a somewhat tighter script than most B-westerns. Ken (no last character name), an adult orphan who's never known anything of his origins, gets a message that he may find out something about his past if he checks out the "Lazy S" ranch. He promptly gets pot-shotted at in the titular canyon (and he even wonders if his ambush has something to do with the canyon's forbidding name). He's rescued by Jenny, a rifle-toting young woman from the ranch, one of the comparatively rare times when a leading lady in a B-western took up arms against bad guys. Before Ken and the girl depart, they hear a loud banshee-like wail, and Jenny tells Ken that it's the sound of the Phantom Killer, a cloaked murderer who's killed off several people who worked for her ranch. Nothing deterred, Ken goes to work at the Lazy S.
There's a decent mystery-twist that brings together Ken's quest for identity with the revelation of the Phantom's secret. but the film's highlight is the mystery man's creepy, black-clad image. The Phantom Killer even follows the "Clutching Hand" trope of pulling his cape over the lower half of his face: not to keep his ID secret, but because he has a face disfigured by injury. He also proves to be a "perilous psycho," driven "loco" by a near-death trauma, and he has a pretty vivid fight with Ken about halfway through the film.
The previous year director Alan James had coincidentally finished THE PHANTOM, a modern-day "old dark house" picture in which guests were menaced by the cloaked figure of the title. That film wasn't too impressive in a directorial sense, but CANYON is marked by a fluid use of the camera and good closeups of Maynard and leading lady Cecilia Parker. That said, James' most well-renowned works of metaphenomenal cinema would probably be his collaborative work on 1937's DICK TRACY and SOS COAST GUARD.
Ken Maynard, whose outfit included one of the biggest ten-gallon hats ever seen on a serial cowpoke, acquits him pretty well in a 1932 oater involving a mysterious costumed man, but pretty much loses his way in a 1940 opus where he himself plays the mystery man.
TOMBSTONE CANYON boasts a somewhat tighter script than most B-westerns. Ken (no last character name), an adult orphan who's never known anything of his origins, gets a message that he may find out something about his past if he checks out the "Lazy S" ranch. He promptly gets pot-shotted at in the titular canyon (and he even wonders if his ambush has something to do with the canyon's forbidding name). He's rescued by Jenny, a rifle-toting young woman from the ranch, one of the comparatively rare times when a leading lady in a B-western took up arms against bad guys. Before Ken and the girl depart, they hear a loud banshee-like wail, and Jenny tells Ken that it's the sound of the Phantom Killer, a cloaked murderer who's killed off several people who worked for her ranch. Nothing deterred, Ken goes to work at the Lazy S.
There's a decent mystery-twist that brings together Ken's quest for identity with the revelation of the Phantom's secret. but the film's highlight is the mystery man's creepy, black-clad image. The Phantom Killer even follows the "Clutching Hand" trope of pulling his cape over the lower half of his face: not to keep his ID secret, but because he has a face disfigured by injury. He also proves to be a "perilous psycho," driven "loco" by a near-death trauma, and he has a pretty vivid fight with Ken about halfway through the film.
The previous year director Alan James had coincidentally finished THE PHANTOM, a modern-day "old dark house" picture in which guests were menaced by the cloaked figure of the title. That film wasn't too impressive in a directorial sense, but CANYON is marked by a fluid use of the camera and good closeups of Maynard and leading lady Cecilia Parker. That said, James' most well-renowned works of metaphenomenal cinema would probably be his collaborative work on 1937's DICK TRACY and SOS COAST GUARD.
No comments:
Post a Comment