Distant drums
starring gary cooper
A MOVIE THAT SHOWED AT THE TABLE ROCK THEATER in 1953
It was a forgettable movie (even a really bad movie) that was two years old by the time it made it to Table Rock. But there's a piece of cinematic history embedded in it! Start watching at about 43:00 to hear "it" at about 45:00!
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Distant Drums played at the Table Rock theater in November 1953. You can also find the full movie on YouTube.
The movie is obviously notable because it starred Gary Cooper. But it is also notable amongst movie afficianados because it includes the first “the Wilhelm scream.” The “Wilhelm scream” is a sound effect, identified as the scream of a man eaten by an alligator. There were actually several bits by the same voice guy but all are known collectively as the Wilhelm Scream. To me, it sounds like a shocked scream that is cut short. It’s very brief. The fellow who made it? Supposedly the same guy who sang the Purple People Eater. The Wilhelm Scream was used in Distant Drums and a few other movies, went into disuse, then was revived by George Lucas in Star Wars, used also in his Indiana Jones movies, and then picked up by many others. It was used in almost all of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. It’s now considered a cliche. But it certainly was not when Table Rock movie goers saw it. |
The movie itself is one of over 100 made by screen legend Gary Cooper. Cooper’s screen career began as a 24-year-old stunt man in western silent movies, in 1925. Perhaps Table Rock theater goers saw him many times in those earlier films without knowing it.
I’ve never heard of the movie, but IMDb, a great source of info about movies, says it is rated 6.6 of 10 with votes of almost 1,000 watchers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043469/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1).
A reviewer on IMDb has this to say: “Captain Quincy Wyatt (Gary Cooper) along with a scout named Monk (Arthur Hunnicutt with his usual raccoon skin hat ) into the Everglades to rout the Seminole Indians who are threatening the early settlers in Florida. After destroying a Seminole fort , people is rescued from Redskin captivity , then the command is forced to get away . The small band of American soldiers and their rescued companions ( Mari Aldon among others )tries to stop and must face the dangerous Everglades and hostile Indians in order to reach safety and battle against risks.
This exciting Western packs thrills , noisy action , spectacular struggles and lots of gutsy adventure . Brawling , sprawling , almost primitive action, teeming across the screen . Impressive images when Wyatt and Seminole Chief Oscala square off in a breathtaking climax . Raoul Walsh demonstrates a special talent for making the densest action sequences seem uncomplicated and uncluttered and his characters , like the scenes distinguished , often have an unfettered , raw power . Gorgeous Mari Aldon as a ballerina from Savannah who bears a dark past , she does an enjoyable and prominent debut though didn't have a notorious career . Good secondary cast with familiar features as Richard Webb, Robert Barrat , Arthur Hunnicutt , Ray Teal and uncredited Darren McGavin as Navy Lt. The picture was photographed by Sidney Hickox in the heart of the Florida everglades , at Silver Sprags and at Castillo of San Marcos in the Southeastern nation , monuments through the courtesy of the United States Department of Interior National Park Service. Thrilling as well as emotive musical score by the classic Alfred Newman
By the way, Gary Cooper’s early life is really interesting. I can’t improve on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Cooper
Frank James Cooper was born on May 7, 1901 at 730 Eleventh Avenue in Helena, Montana[1][Note 1] to English immigrants, Alice (née Brazier, 1873–1967)[4] and Charles Henry Cooper (1865–1946).[5] His father emigrated to Montana from Houghton Regis,Bedfordshire[6] and became a prominent lawyer, rancher, and eventually a state supreme court judge.[7] His mother emigrated fromGillingham, Kent, married Charles in Montana, and became a housewife and devoted mother.[8] In 1906, Charles purchased the six-hundred acre Seven-Bar-Nine[9][10] cattle ranch about fifty miles north of Helena near the town of Craig on the Missouri River,[11] where Frank and his older brother Arthur spent their summers and learned to ride horses, hunt, and fish.[12][13] Cooper attended Central Grade School in Helena.[14]
In the late spring of 1909, Alice, wanting her sons to have an English education, accompanied them to England and enrolled them in Dunstable Grammar School in Bedfordshire, where Cooper was educated from 1910 to 1912.[15][16][Note 2] At Dunstable, Cooper studied Latin and French, and took several courses in English history.[17] While he managed to adapt to the discipline of an English public school and learned the requisite social graces, he never adjusted to the rigid class structure and formal Eton collars he was forced to wear.[18] Cooper's mother accompanied her sons back to the United States in the late summer of 1912, and Cooper resumed his education at Johnson Grammar School in Helena.[14]
At the age of fifteen, Cooper injured his hip in a car accident and returned to the Seven-Bar-Nine ranch to recuperate by horseback riding at the recommendation of his doctor.[19]The misguided therapy left him with his characteristic stiff, off-balanced walk and slightly angled riding style.[20] After attending Helena High School for two years, he left school in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to help raise their five hundred head of cattle and work full-time as a cowboy.[20] In 1919, his father arranged for his son to complete his high school education at Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, Montana.[21][22] His English teacher, Ida Davis, played an important role in encouraging him to focus on academics, join the school's debating team, and become involved in dramatics.[22][23] His parents would later credit her for helping their son complete high school, and Cooper would later confirm, "She was the woman partly responsible for me giving up cowboy-ing and going to college."[23]
In the spring of 1920, while still attending high school, Cooper took three art courses at Montana Agricultural College.[22] His interest in art was inspired years earlier by the western paintings of Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington.[24] Cooper especially admired and studied Russell's Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole (1910), which still hangs in the state capitol building in Helena.[24] In 1922, Cooper enrolled in Grinnell College in Iowa to continue his art education. Cooper did well academically in most of his courses,[25] but was less successful in being accepted in the college's drama club.[19] His drawings and watercolors, however, were exhibited throughout the dormitory, and he was named art editor for the college yearbook.[26] During the summers of 1922 and 1923, Cooper worked at Yellowstone National Park as a tour guide driving the yellow jitney buses.[27][28] Despite a promising first eighteen months at Grinnell, he left college suddenly in February 1924 and returned to Montana, where he managed the family ranch and contributed cartoons to a local newspaper.[29]
In the fall of 1924, Cooper's father left the Montana Supreme Court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles[19][30] to administer the estates of two relatives.[31] At his father's request, Cooper joined his parents in California on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1924.[30] In the coming weeks, after working a series of unpromising jobs, Cooper met two friends from Montana, Jim Galeen and Jim Calloway,[32][33] who were working as film extras and stuntmen in low-budget Western films for the small movie studios on Poverty Rowon Gower Street.[34] With the goal of saving enough money to pay for a professional art course,[30] Cooper decided to try his hand working as a film extra for five dollars a day, and as a stuntman for twice that amount.[34]
I’ve never heard of the movie, but IMDb, a great source of info about movies, says it is rated 6.6 of 10 with votes of almost 1,000 watchers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043469/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1).
A reviewer on IMDb has this to say: “Captain Quincy Wyatt (Gary Cooper) along with a scout named Monk (Arthur Hunnicutt with his usual raccoon skin hat ) into the Everglades to rout the Seminole Indians who are threatening the early settlers in Florida. After destroying a Seminole fort , people is rescued from Redskin captivity , then the command is forced to get away . The small band of American soldiers and their rescued companions ( Mari Aldon among others )tries to stop and must face the dangerous Everglades and hostile Indians in order to reach safety and battle against risks.
This exciting Western packs thrills , noisy action , spectacular struggles and lots of gutsy adventure . Brawling , sprawling , almost primitive action, teeming across the screen . Impressive images when Wyatt and Seminole Chief Oscala square off in a breathtaking climax . Raoul Walsh demonstrates a special talent for making the densest action sequences seem uncomplicated and uncluttered and his characters , like the scenes distinguished , often have an unfettered , raw power . Gorgeous Mari Aldon as a ballerina from Savannah who bears a dark past , she does an enjoyable and prominent debut though didn't have a notorious career . Good secondary cast with familiar features as Richard Webb, Robert Barrat , Arthur Hunnicutt , Ray Teal and uncredited Darren McGavin as Navy Lt. The picture was photographed by Sidney Hickox in the heart of the Florida everglades , at Silver Sprags and at Castillo of San Marcos in the Southeastern nation , monuments through the courtesy of the United States Department of Interior National Park Service. Thrilling as well as emotive musical score by the classic Alfred Newman
By the way, Gary Cooper’s early life is really interesting. I can’t improve on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Cooper
Frank James Cooper was born on May 7, 1901 at 730 Eleventh Avenue in Helena, Montana[1][Note 1] to English immigrants, Alice (née Brazier, 1873–1967)[4] and Charles Henry Cooper (1865–1946).[5] His father emigrated to Montana from Houghton Regis,Bedfordshire[6] and became a prominent lawyer, rancher, and eventually a state supreme court judge.[7] His mother emigrated fromGillingham, Kent, married Charles in Montana, and became a housewife and devoted mother.[8] In 1906, Charles purchased the six-hundred acre Seven-Bar-Nine[9][10] cattle ranch about fifty miles north of Helena near the town of Craig on the Missouri River,[11] where Frank and his older brother Arthur spent their summers and learned to ride horses, hunt, and fish.[12][13] Cooper attended Central Grade School in Helena.[14]
In the late spring of 1909, Alice, wanting her sons to have an English education, accompanied them to England and enrolled them in Dunstable Grammar School in Bedfordshire, where Cooper was educated from 1910 to 1912.[15][16][Note 2] At Dunstable, Cooper studied Latin and French, and took several courses in English history.[17] While he managed to adapt to the discipline of an English public school and learned the requisite social graces, he never adjusted to the rigid class structure and formal Eton collars he was forced to wear.[18] Cooper's mother accompanied her sons back to the United States in the late summer of 1912, and Cooper resumed his education at Johnson Grammar School in Helena.[14]
At the age of fifteen, Cooper injured his hip in a car accident and returned to the Seven-Bar-Nine ranch to recuperate by horseback riding at the recommendation of his doctor.[19]The misguided therapy left him with his characteristic stiff, off-balanced walk and slightly angled riding style.[20] After attending Helena High School for two years, he left school in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to help raise their five hundred head of cattle and work full-time as a cowboy.[20] In 1919, his father arranged for his son to complete his high school education at Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, Montana.[21][22] His English teacher, Ida Davis, played an important role in encouraging him to focus on academics, join the school's debating team, and become involved in dramatics.[22][23] His parents would later credit her for helping their son complete high school, and Cooper would later confirm, "She was the woman partly responsible for me giving up cowboy-ing and going to college."[23]
In the spring of 1920, while still attending high school, Cooper took three art courses at Montana Agricultural College.[22] His interest in art was inspired years earlier by the western paintings of Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington.[24] Cooper especially admired and studied Russell's Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross' Hole (1910), which still hangs in the state capitol building in Helena.[24] In 1922, Cooper enrolled in Grinnell College in Iowa to continue his art education. Cooper did well academically in most of his courses,[25] but was less successful in being accepted in the college's drama club.[19] His drawings and watercolors, however, were exhibited throughout the dormitory, and he was named art editor for the college yearbook.[26] During the summers of 1922 and 1923, Cooper worked at Yellowstone National Park as a tour guide driving the yellow jitney buses.[27][28] Despite a promising first eighteen months at Grinnell, he left college suddenly in February 1924 and returned to Montana, where he managed the family ranch and contributed cartoons to a local newspaper.[29]
In the fall of 1924, Cooper's father left the Montana Supreme Court bench and moved with his wife to Los Angeles[19][30] to administer the estates of two relatives.[31] At his father's request, Cooper joined his parents in California on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1924.[30] In the coming weeks, after working a series of unpromising jobs, Cooper met two friends from Montana, Jim Galeen and Jim Calloway,[32][33] who were working as film extras and stuntmen in low-budget Western films for the small movie studios on Poverty Rowon Gower Street.[34] With the goal of saving enough money to pay for a professional art course,[30] Cooper decided to try his hand working as a film extra for five dollars a day, and as a stuntman for twice that amount.[34]
In 1953, who knew all that? I wonder what they thought of the movie? It looks a bit corny by today's standards.