A new blog post by Jerry England — longtime Iverson researcher and an expert on all things cowboy — spotlights one my favorite B-movie cowboy stars, Allan "Rocky" Lane, seen above with Black Jack.
Check out Jerry's tribute to Rocky here — Jerry has posted a bunch of great movie stills showing the actor in his element at Iverson. Also check out any Rocky Lane movies you might happen to find — he was easily one of the most natural and believable of the cowboy heroes. It helped that Rocky was a big guy, so when he beat people up, it seemed real. It was an advantage that Roy Rogers and Gene Autry never had — although that didn't keep them from beating up everyone too.
Rocky Lane spent the bulk of his movie career shooting at Iverson. I guess that sucks for him — I've always heard that everyone hated to shoot there, due to the intense heat in the summer and the cold, windy conditions in winter. But for better or worse, Rocky, who died in 1973, left behind a legacy of strong Iverson movies. The crew assembled by Republic Pictures for the Lane series raised the studio's game in just about every facet, with strong scripts, solid acting and terrific action.
Late in his career, Rocky Lane had a long-running role that made him a familiar presence while keeping him anonymous at the same time — as the voice of Mr. Ed in the TV show about everyone's favorite talking horse. Oh Wilbur!
Click here to check out Linda Alexander's great book on Rocky Lane, "I Am Mister Ed ... Allan 'Rocky' Lane Revealed," and see the comments below for some discussion of the book.
3 comments:
A new book is out on Allan "Rocky" Lane on July 4, 2014. "I Am Mister Ed ... Allan 'Rocky' Lane Revealed" gives his birth-to-death biography. Link here to publisher website: http://www.bearmanormedia.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=775
I read Linda's book and it's very good. I think that Rocky was the best of the B-western stars: he looked great, was physically imposing and had a great speaking voice. He could also act, a number of the other western stars couldn't. He probably performed more of his own action than a lot of the others. Anytime you saw Rocky on his horse Blackjack it was almost always him, not a stunt man. He could really throw a punch and looked better than his double, Tom Steele in the fight scenes. His Republic films are terrific: no singing, no mush and no lame humor. Eddy Waller was very good as his "kind of" sidekick. Give Rocky a shot , a number of his movies are on youtube.
Thanks, Gerry, for your comment — and a belated thank-you to Linda J. Alexander for her terrific book on Rocky Lane and for calling our attention to it back in 2014. I've added a link to the book at the end of the post, above. I'm glad to know others also recognize how good Rocky was, and what a big part he played in the Iverson Movie Ranch story.
You can find a slightly more detailed post about Rocky Lane by copying this url:
https://iversonmovieranch.blogspot.com/2014/06/i-am-mister-ed-no-not-me-movie-cowboy.html
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