The One About Gallows

Category: weekleez

The One About Gallows
January 07, 2003

hi kids,

yo check it! two in a row! could this be a new year for the weekly? a year full of consecutive weekly rants about stupid things that happen to jaimie? will this be the year that jaimie pulls 52 consecutive essays out of her um, essay hat?

let’s ask our panel of experts what they think:

magic eight ball: my sources say no.

tootsie pop’s Mr. Owl: let’s find out, one…two-hoo!..three *crunch* three.

coca-cola polar bear: hmmmmmmmmm

and finally,

diana ross’s diva hair: get that microphone outta my face, bitch!

and there you have the panel answers. the eight ball with a decisive no. Mr. Owl gives the possiblity of three in a row but commits to no more than that while the coca-cola bear continues to ponder the question. and not surprisingly the diva hair gives a hateful, “no comment”.

on with the weekly.

as we all know i love movies. (i know, i’m laughing too)
ok so i hate movies, but i really like old cheese-bum movies mostly of the old horror and MGM Musical genres. so the other day i was watching the AMC channel, AMC is an acronym for Movies People Talk About But Rarely Watch All the Way Through. yeah, like it’s just me.

so i’m watching a documentary on AMC about the History of the Action Movie (or something about action movies i’m not sure if it was for or against the genre but it was an interesting watch) and when that ended i did not turn the television off but just sat there powerless and started to watch the next thing that came on as i had already been sucked into the TV and had lost all self-control to the boob tube.

<tangent> i realize that i’m a moron when it comes to describing televison shows and movies. i sound like an old lady trying to describe one of those “new fangled Talkies”. kinda like, “oh i saw a movie last night, you know the one…it had that guy in it…what a hottie! and that slutty girl from that other show? you know? you know which one i’m talking about! they get married! no! not to each other! dammit what’s the matter with you i’m telling you about that movie i saw last night! you know what i’m talking about you saw it!” ‘cos old people get mad when you don’t understand their horrible descriptions. yeah, like it’s just me. </tangent>

anyway. so this movie starts and it’s Bandolero! (1968) and i’m immediately excited because there’s an exclamation point in the title! it’s not just Bandolero it’s Bandolero! so then i think, shouldn’t it be iBandolero!? and then i think, dean martin? as a cowboy? really? and jerry lewis isn’t in the flick? it’s a serious cowboy movie? really?


it looks like dean is passing a fat one

right so anyway i’m sure it’s a great movie….because jimmy stewart is in it! and what a cool cowboy he is right? ok so maybe i’m lacking a certain respect to westerns. i dunno it seems like there’s only three westerns out there and all the other westerns are those same three westerns over and over. but what the hell do i know about westerns? my favorite western is Blazing Saddles.

anyway this particular western has one other famous person in it, raquel welch! she plays a mexican lady. she pulled off the accent ok, but the hair…my god the hair. she has this perfect gigantic hair even after riding on horseback for 6 hours with a cowboy hat on. this hair was so big that i think it should count as another cast member. and i’d have to say that for not having any speaking parts her hair did a great job of being gigantically huge hair.

“aaaaand cut! ok ms. welch’s hair may i have a moment? greaaaaat. listen in this next scene i’m gonna need you to be extra big and poofy ok? think you can do that for me hon? i know, and you’re doing great! but this next scene you’re sitting at a campfire between two grizzled cowboys and i really need some femininity here…you know…to represent the how the west really was. you’re doing fabulous babe! aaaaaaand action!”

look, it was ridiculously big hair.

the thing is, and this is the thing, this weekly is not about raquel welch’s brontosaurus-sized hair. it’s about gallows.

see, dean martin’s character is a bad guy and he has a gang and they get caught and oh hell here’s a synopsis from the imdb:

Posing as a hangman, Mace Bishop arrives in town with the intention of freeing a gang of outlaws, including his brother, from the gallows. Mace urges his younger brother to give up crime. The sheriff chases the brothers to Mexico. They join forces, however, against a group of Mexican bandits who mortally wound both brothers.

oh thanks imdb that clears it all up. here let me give you some faces to go with all of that:

Posing as a hangman, Mace Bishop (james “harvey” stewart) arrives in town (typical rowdy westernville) with the intention of freeing a gang of outlaws, including his brother (dean “dino” martin), from the gallows. Mace (james) urges his younger brother (dino) to give up crime (killing people, like raquel welch’s husband, who is killed off in the first 8 minutes of the movie) . The sheriff (george “dragline” kennedy) chases the brothers to Mexico (where raquel welch’s character and hair are supposedly from, i guess in the 60s you could get away with stuff like that). They join forces, however, against a group of Mexican bandits who mortally wound both brothers (not sure about all of that because i put the TV on mute shortly after having a discussion about gallows with my father and then eventually turned it off thus Bandolero! becomes one of those movies i’ve talked about but never actually seen the whole thing, thank you AMC).

so anyway while dean martin and his “gang” are in jail and waiting to get hanged (people are hanged pictures are hung), they can see men with hammers, nails, and saws building gallows right outside their small jail window. thank god, i’ve finally gotten to what the weekly is about!
why is it, that in all these western movies, they have to build gallows? shouldn’t they already have gallows? shouldn’t these westernopolis places already have that capital punishment tool at the ready? i mean, it’s not like they have to build a jail everytime they arrest a cowboy. they don’t build the saloon when a stranger comes riding up from out of the sunset, i mean heck, these towns already have a lynchmobs and posses, i hardly think that the town forgot to build a gallows.

or is it like, after they “hang ’em high” do they immediately disassemble the “unsightly” gallows? only to rebuild them when there’s to be another hanging? my father and i continued to discuss this at length (about 30 hilarious seconds) and decided that apparently there must’ve been a gallows union or something. Gallows Makers of America.

i suppose that not all typical Santa Cowboyvilles were pro death penalty, but when those towns caught a “wanted man” they sent them to the nearest CowboyHangin’ town to be tried, convicted, hanged and left for the buzzards. and what’s the last thing those prisoners get to see outta their jail windows? men with hammers, nails, and saws building gallows.

heh. gallows humour.
derp!

before you guys lynch me here are some tasty links from my last meal:

laura mentioned that this week’s epitomb might not be funny if
A. you’ve never seen Bandolero! or
B. aren’t my father (fahsha!)
so because i know how the AMC people are (they show a movie to death) i looked up their website, which is not www.amc.com but is in fact www.amctv.com and if you’ve never seen the first 20 minutes of Bandolero! you can catch it this month on Wednesday, January 22 at 10:00pm and if you’re an insomniac you get a bonus veiwing on Thursday, January 23 at 2:30am and both times are eastern…which is funny ‘cos it’s a western.

prof.zim.FA sent this which was TOTALLY INTERESTING http://www.starwars-rpg.net/swfa/issue3/wilhelm.html
and a video page that was great http://www.imb.org/core/videoviewer/task/eloise3_high.asp i especially like dthe one about the second coming.

next week’s epitomb: florrie gave me the CORN PUDDING recipe!! perhaps i’ll share.

jaimie “¡bandolero está la mejor película siempre!” pickle

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