Two Guys from Texas ( 1948 )

Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson were great pals off-screen and they had the good fortune to play together on-screen in 11 films released throughout the 1940s. Most of these were simple comedies in the vein of the popular Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road pictures that Paramount was issuing. In 1946, Morgan and Carson made a film called Two Guys from Milwaukee which turned out to be a hit for the fellows and so, two years later, they banked on its success and came back with Two Guys from Texas, even though none of the characters are the same. 

In this fun outing, they play Steve Carroll and Danny Foster, two song and dance men. Their act bombed in the East so they are heading West to try their luck in California. Their car breaks down in the Texan desert en route and they take refuge at a dude ranch run by Joan Winston ( Dorothy Malone ) who, in exchange for room and board, employs them to entertain her guests. This they willingly do and they also bring a little romance to the ranch with Steve falling for Joan and Danny being pursued by Maggie ( Penny Edwards ). 

Two Guys from Texas is rather slim on plot but packed with entertainment. Morgan and Carson were a great duo and their characters were known for constantly ribbing each other. They had some excellent banter in It's A Great Feeling ( their last pairing ) and they have some funny quips in Two Guys as well. 

There is a good running subplot about Danny's ( Jack Carson ) terrible fear of animals ( even a squirrel sends him into a fit ) and another about a bank robbery in town which the boys are accused of. The grand finale takes place at the annual rodeo where Danny and Steve attempt to capture the real crooks in order to clear their names and win back their gals. This finale was later used again in Here Come the Nelsons ( 1952 ) with Ozzie Nelson riding a wild bronco while his boys set out to foil bank robbers at the rodeo. 

Two Guys from Texas was filmed in vibrant Technicolor and was directed by David Butler who always did fine work. It features some great musical numbers penned by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn ( notably Everyday I Love You Just a Little Bit More and I Want to be a Cowboy in the Movies ) and it also boasts a great supporting cast of characters including Fred Clark, Forrest Tucker as an inept Texan sheriff, Monte Blue, John Alvin, Gerard Mohr and even an appearance by Bugs Bunny! 

If you are looking for light-hearted good-natured fluff for entertainment, what more can you ask for? 

The Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie Game

After Indiana Jones retired, he manned the switches. That is....it looks like the old explorer but what can he be doing? If you've seen the film this screenshot is from, you may be able to recognize it right away - or you may not! Give it a try anyway and drop your guess in the comment box below. 

As always, if you are not familiar with the rules of the game or the prize, simply click here.

GAME OVER. 

Congratulations to Elizabeth for identifying this screenshot from The Band Wagon ( 1953 ). This adventurous looking man was operating the lights during the performance of Jeffrey Cordova's Oedipus Rex. 

Charlton Heston - Mister Epic

His close friends call him "Chuck". But to filmgoers all over the world he is known as Charlton Heston, a six-foot two-inch giant of a man and the star of such mighty epics as The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and El-Cid. 

Heston was recently asked why it was that he always appeared in big-budget films. "It's a matter of faces," he smiled. "I guess I just have to face the fact that I have a thousand-year-old face. I seldom get the chance to wear a modern-day suit. I spend most of my life in a toga.

"But I am worming my way back into the 20th century. I made a movie in Italy early this year titled The Pigeon That Took Rome. I'm playing the part of a U.S. Navy spy sent to the Eternal City in advance of its liberation by Allied Forces during the last war. Then after this, I really came up to the present day with a part in Diamond Head which we made in Hawaii. Then it was back to Madrid to start work on 55 Days at Peking with Ava Gardner and David Niven. It's the story of the Boxer Uprising in 1900, guess I'm heading back to those biblical days again," he laughed. 

Does he enjoy working on large-scale pictures?

"Yes, I do very much," he said. "But believe me they're hard work. I sweated out nine months working on Ben-Hur. It was a tough assignment. One of the most exacting roles I've ever played. I had to be 100% fit all the time. But I feel we came up with a worthwhile picture. It was all worth it."

Charlton is an actor who believes in almost living with the character he portrays. 

"I often take the character home with me after I've finished a day's shooting, " he says. I'm moody when I get home. But if my family are with me, they understand what has brought on the mood. It takes me a couple of hours to become Charlton Heston again. Any actor worth his salt tries to believe in the events which he is trying to portray. In fact, while I was working on The Ten Commandments in the part of Moses, I actually felt at times that I had become Moses. Before I started work on the picture I read through twenty-two volumes on the life of Mose. It was a fascinating experience. I always believe in conducting thorough research on the characters I'm asked to play. I like to get underneath their skins, discover what kind of person they really are."

Heston himself is a man of many controversial opinions. He speaks his mind whenever he wants to. Once he criticized a number of leading feminine Hollywood stars. "Some of them," he said "are very unprofessional in their attitude. They don't care very much about what they're doing. They're too disenchanted by the movie star bit and tend to regard it as a social engagement. The industry has created its own monsters and they're all feminine."

In Charlton Heston, Hollywood has created an actor of great talent, an actor who is admired and respected throughout the entire industry. 

This article originally appeared in the 1962 edition of Film Show Annual. Movie Magazine Articles, another one of our ongoing series, feature articles like this reprinted for our reader's entertainment. Click here to find more posts in this series!

From the Archives: Four Wives ( 1939 )

 

Now here's a good-looking foursome...Rosemary Lane ( or is that Lola Lane? ) is standing with Jeffrey Lynn while Eddie Albert and Priscilla Lane have a seat on the bench. In this sequel to Four Daughters ( 1938 ), Priscilla was still grieving the death of her lover ( John Garfield ) but was happy to have an old beau - Jeffrey Lynn - come back into her life. 

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures