FEARMAKERS CINEMA OF DANA ANDREWS

The seventies' Western TAKE A HARD RIDE seemed to have several sub-genres at play, and yet, despite a small yet important role, Dana Andrews is the best representation since it's not a Blaxploitation despite stars Jim Brown (as Dana's friend), Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly, nor a Spaghetti Western with Lee Van Cleef on their trial, but more a modernized version of the kind of classic rough-and-tumble cowboy picture that Dana himself was a veteran of, from CANYON PASSAGE to THREE HOURS TO KILL, and before and beyond, including his last starring roles, TOWN TAMER and JOHNNY RENO.

In 1946, Dana Andrews was almost the son-in-law via Susan Hayward of an open-minded Robert Keith, whose equally open-minded son Brian Keith's Bill Davis from a 1969 FAMILY AFFAIR episode THE SINGS OF AN ANGEL let old friend Dana's Harv Mullen into his home... until the kids and Mr. French thumb their noses at an ex-con living under their fancy roof, while Sissy gives Harv a progressive school interview about prison-life, all ultimately driving Dana's character batty enough to leave, that is, before the 11th hour sit-com lecture resolution... and this right before Dana had his own soap opera BRIGHT FUTURE, which he remained on for an entire year of afternoon melodrama.  

Jim Brown, the football hero turned movie hero, who played the friend of Dana Andrews in the 1970's blaxploitation western TAKE A HARD RIDE, died yesterday, just a few hours ago.

Happy New Years birthday of DANA ANDREWS, here in THE CROWDED SKY from 1960, the first movie after the first time he'd taken a one-year break (from Broadway) from movies, and he was almost on the sober path, leading into a string of roles, most that had him in a new position: that of character actors, and with that distinctive voice, mainly villains...