Every now and again, I see a name of a person that dies that just really shakes me. This past week we saw three greats pass away… Billy Wilder, Dudley Moore and Milton Berle. Now they were all very well known. Very well respected. There wasn’t a newspaper or an entertainment news source around that wasn’t going to pay their respects.
While I was in Los Angeles doing my Book Signing, I found out that someone absolutely mind-bogglingly important to ME had passed away. His name was William Witney.
Sadly I don’t believe many of you know who he was. Perhaps you happened to read that fantastic article about his film work that Quentin Tarantino wrote for the New York Times back in 2000, but probably not.
When I passed through the gateway to Fandom in the early Seventies there were really just a couple of rabid areas of interest in fandom. STAR TREK had hold of people. BRUCE LEE had people. The Classic Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy films from the German Expressionists through the work of Hammer Films. Then there was the fandom with the oldest fans. The fans with grey hair, before fans supposedly existed. These guys loved the serials. The chapter plays. Those thrilling flashes of excitement that teased and tantalized each matinee at the bijou.
In every area of film I have my favorite auteur. In Suspense, it is Alfred Hitchcock. In the Western it is John Ford. In the Musical, it is Busby Berkeley. In Animation, it is Max Fleischer. In B-films it is Roger Corman. Well, in the Serials it is William Witney.
The Serials have a reputation as being cheap cheesy subpar productions. The people that laugh or scoff at the Serial, never saw a William Witney serial.
Watch ZORRO’S FIGHTING LEGION… The action is impeccable. The thrills tangible. Thoroughly more enjoyable than the Banderas ZORRO film, the horse stunts… the work with the whip. Fantastic.
With MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN, Witney created one of the greatest serials ever produced. Sure it has the pot-boiler robots… What the hell is wrong with that, they’re great designs. The hero, the Copperhead was cool as all hell. As a young boy watching PBS as a kid, I used to rush to the television each Sunday morning to watch THE ELECTRIC COMPANY followed by SISKEL AND EBERT followed by MATINEE AT THE BIJOU… and as part of MATINEE AT THE BIJOU, they ran one chapter from this serial for a period of 15 weeks. I couldn’t wait for the next chapter. I was hooked. Speculating on how the hero would survive. I remember those 15 weeks where I was trapped in the story of the MYSTERIOUS DR. SATAN. I was raving about it… the same time period when Indiana Jones entered my life… Witney had me with this.
I literally have every William Witney serial on video tape. From THE PAINTED STALLION to THE FIGHTING DEVIL DOGS to DRUMS OF FU MANCHU to ADVENTURES OF RED RYDER to THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL and KING OF THE TEXAS RANGERS on up to THE CRIMSON GHOST. However, his masterpiece… The one that I hold a full mile above everything else. The sheerest greatest most splendorifficly perfect serial ever made was SPY SMASHER.
SPY SMASHER
A thousand years of action innovation may come to pass. Wire work, digital stuntmen and every new fangled trick in the illusion factory’s bag of tricks may come and go, but for my money… The best action we’ll ever see is in SPY SMASHER (and George Miller’s THE ROAD WARRIOR).
SPY SMASHER is a 12 chapter serial to define the genre. Right in the middle of World War 2 a comic book character was invented called SPY SMASHER… a domestic man of mystery, who took on undercover Axis organizations to keep America safe at home. Witney took that comic, cast Kane Richmond as Jack and Alan Armstrong aka Spy Smasher… and made the most breathless, huffing and puffing 215 minutes of action storytelling ever put to film.
The music was concussive and stirring. The action cut to a sharp edge. Throughout the serial… no matter how many times I see it, I find it brutal and cheer-inducing. There’s no tricks here… These stuntmen are killing each other with punches where they throw their whole bodies into it, and you would swear they were connecting. I can't watch Witney's serial work and not think about RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK because the pacing and the use of music was all so heavily influenced by Witney's innovations of pacing and thrills to this genre which was so obviously caught in the spirit of Spielberg and Lucas' tribute film to the Chapter Plays of old.
After Witney’s run on the serials, his reputation for thrilling action was established and he became the man behind Roy Rogers, Rex Allen and the other B-western stars of yesteryear. Last year you may remember that I wrote a piece during the 5th Annual Tarantino Film Fest here in Austin about a transcendent film experience I had with a movie called THE GOLDEN STALLION, which was just… bliss on film. As perfect as a film could be. Beautiful in the glory of Tru-Color.
Now that movie is about as perfect a movie as there can ever be. But after I raved about that, Paul Dini wrote to tell me to check out TRAIL OF ROBIN HOOD, another William Witney flick with Roy Rogers which could very well be one of the coolest cross-over films ever.
The DESTROY ALL MONSTERS of B-Western Movies! This film only runs about 67 minutes, but hell… It has not only Roy Rogers… but Rex Allen, Allan Lane, Monte Hale, William Farnum, Tom Tyler, Ray Corrigan, Kermit Maynard, Tom Keene and The Riders of the Purple Sage! Now those are all good guy western stars and they all come to help sell Christmas Trees at cost so every family can have a Tree for Christmas… but an evil Commercial Tree Company is out to stop them. Near the end of the film, long time bad guy…. In about 300 or so films, George Chesebro comes in… and joins in to lend a hand, because even the old time bad guys celebrate Christmas too.
A wonderful film. Thoroughly entertaining and a work of total and complete bliss!
Then there was films like THE BONNIE PARKER STORY and THE COOL AND THE CRAZY… These were exploitation teen flicks, when teen flicks had sweaty balls that were exposed to all. I’m talking bold and hardcore brutal films. Watching Dorothy Provine in THE BONNIE PARKER STORY is still one of the great moments in Tarantino’s Film Festival history.
William Witney is one of the great directors, just because he never made a film for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences to put in some dust free vault… Just because highbrow film prigs never discovered him. Just because his movies are not out on DVD… DOESN’T MEAN HE ISN’T GREAT. It just means he did something fantastic, that not enough people knew about.
Most of the serials are available on VHS. Many of the Roy Rogers films are too. His other work gets obscure and hard to find, but I just saw a copy of THE BONNIE PARKER STORY on Ebay, and folks… It’s one for the ol film library. It is my favorite telling of the BONNIE & CLYDE story… Love it to death.
I met William Witney back in the Seventies… I was in diapers at the time… It was pre-memory stage for me. Much like my memories of meeting George Pal. My whole life I’ve been enjoying and thrilling to Witney’s work, always being told, "Yeah, he held you in his arms when you were three years old!" It’s one of those stories that I’ve heard 80 times if I’ve heard it once. Hell, at my booksigning in Los Angeles I was reminded of it by an attendee that remember Witney and Dave Sharpe (noted stuntman from the Republic era) holding me as a small boy.
The oddest part about all of this was that on the day Witney died, I was on the old Republic Studio’s lot filming my guest spot on THE OTHER HALF. Life is strange sometimes. I hope you enjoy boning up on William Witney. You should, his work is great fun!
"In a Door, into a Fight, Out a Door Into A Chase" -- The Book about William Witney's years as the thrillingest director around, written by William Witney himself! Click here to buy!
A Brief Goodbye from Father Geek
I was out in Hollywood with Harry when William Witney died, away from my keyboard. Four days later when I returned to Austin my work station was down and it would be several days before I was on line again, soooo I choose to my regret not to write an obit for one of the absolutely greatest action directors ever... WILLIAM WITNEY.
Last nite about midnight Harry and I limped in from a Trailer-thon at the Alamo and I found on my E-mail a note from Harry's 20 year old sister... Sister Satan. "Sad News! William Witney has died!" Of course we knew this it had happened almost 2 weeks ago, but the main stream press had ignored it. I thought about writing something but was tired, finished checking my mail and went to bed. I got up this morning determined to write a belated farewell, but Harry had beat me to it.
I heard about his passing at Harry's LA Booksigning from a guy I hadn't seen in years. I was at the back of the room talking with Quint and Joe Hallenbeck when an older individual approached calling my name. "Will you sign my book?" he asked. Joe, Quint and I complied. Then he said, " you know the last time I saw you, you were talking with William Witney and He, Tom Steele and Dave Sharpe were taking turns holding Harry who was still in diapers." I replied "Yeah that was when Jock Mahoney, being interviewed by local TV grabbed Harry, held him over his head and let out with a roaring TARZAN yell." He then told me of Witney's death.
Harry's really said it all in his story above, but I feel I must add a little. William Witney was a great man, friendly, knowledgable, accessable to all. I met him 3 times during my years on the show circit. He was always there with a circle of old stuntmen and serial stars, Buster Crabbe, Clayton Moore, Don Red Barry, Kirk Alyn, Roy Rogers, and the ever present Dave Sharpe, the best rough and tumble man ever. They're all dead now. But my life is richer for knowing them, and my children's lifes are richer too.
Harry didn't mention Witney's TV work. That is probably where most of you have seen his hand. He directed on Wagon Train, Zorro, Sky King, The High Chaparral and of course BONANZA among others, not every episode, just ones with the best action.
He also did great work on the Dick Tracy and Capt. Marvel serials. Buuuuut one of my favorite flicks as a kid growing up in San Antonio was THE LAST COMMAND, an Alamo film and WILLIAM WITNEY was the action director for yhat film. He was fantastic at what he did, and I love him for it, always will. Thanks for the memories, Bill!
Father Geek out...
