This is the week the teevee broadcast networks announce
their fall schedules at their fabled “Upfront” presentations to advertisers –
well, the first drafts of their fall schedules. Starting with Fox.

Len Wein and Carmine Infantino’s DC series The Human Target has been picked up (it was on network a couple decades ago in a forgettable series staring Rick Springfield and Clarence Clemons); it will occupy the coveted spot after American Idol on Wednesdays. Past Life, a series about a psychic
detective agency, will hold the same spot on Tuesdays. Slotting after Idol means both will be mid-season shows A new sitcom will be added to Fox’s schedule, Sons of Tucson will be plopped in the middle of their Sunday
animation block, replacing King of the Hill. Another sitcome, Brothers, has been given a 13 episode order.

Fox has picked up House, 24, Bones, Fringe, Brothers, ‘Til Death, The Cleveland Show, So You Think You Can Dance and Dollhouse.

In other Upfront news, ABC has approved pilots for a new
drama starring Dean Winters and Sam Neill called Happy Town and a comedy starring Courteney Cox called Cougar Town (bet you can guess what that one’s about). They’ve also picked up a second season of Castle as a mid-season replacement, a new V series, along with The Deep End, Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Forgotten (sort of a Without a Trace, but with amateurs), and Eastwick, an adaptation of the hit movie The Witches of Eastwick. They’ve got a comedy going starring Kelsey Grammer called Hank and another sitcom called The Middle. ABC also renewed a version of Scrubs, although much of the ongoing cast is likely to disappear after the first six episodes. True Beauty and Better Off Ted have also been picked up.

CBS has picked up an NCIS spinoff, a medical drama called Three Rivers and The Good Wife starring Julianna Margulies.

Nikki Finke breaks the rumor:

Chris Hemsworth, a virtual unknown to American audiences, had just been approved to play the lead role in Thor
by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and the film’s director Kenneth
Branagh. Hemsworth can currently be seen as “George Kirk” in J.J.
Abrams’ Star Trek reboot and also just snagged the lead in Red Dawn for United Artists last Thursday. (He’s currently filming Joss Whedon’s horror flick Cabin In The Woods
for UA, and I heard the studio was so hot on him that’s why it cast
Hemsworth in the action pic.) The 25-year-old hunk played “Kim Hyde” on
171 episodes of Home and Away, the successful Oz TV series where Heath Ledger started. Marvel Studios has scheduled Thor
for a May 20, 2011, release. The way Chris Hemsworth got the part of
Thor is one of those great Hollywood stories that happens only once in
a blue moon.

She goes on to explain how he (allegedly) got the part:

[ROAR Management partner William Ward] had
found Chris during one of the manager’s many scouting trips to
Australia. Ward brought him to Los Angeles and really put him out there
to casting directors and production executives. As for the major
agencies, I hear CAA passed on the meeting, Endeavor took it but passed
on repping him, and ICM was interested but dragged their feet. But
Ilene Feldman understood his appeal immediately. 

Chris
had read for the part of Thor but wasn’t given a test because a casting
director had nixed him early on. I’m told Chris’ younger brother Liam
(who’s also a ROAR client) then tested for the role of Thor, but Marvel
Studios President Kevin Feige passed. Then, after a conversation with
Ward (“You’ve got to reconsider Chris, he’s your guy”), Feige decided
to let Chris read again. And once Marvel put him on tape, it was “Oh my
god”. Branagh came to town last week and saw the Chris test and made
the final casting decision today.

What a week for Chris since, on Thursday, UA picked him as the Red Dawn
lead. Brother Liam, who’s only been in Los Angeles for 3 weeks and
doesn’t even have an agent yet, just got cast the male lead in Last Song
opposite Miley Cyrus in the Disney film based on the Nicholas Sparks
novel. Both brothers live in William Ward’s guest house. Unreal!

I thought he was great as George Kirk in Star Trek— short scene, but very powerful.

The Western movie genre is something most of us consider a relic from the 1950s, and yet, two of the better regarded films – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
and El Dorado
– are products of the 1960s, even though they feel older given the changes to American cinema in that decade. Both movies, coming out Tuesday as part of Paramount Home Video’s Centennial Collection, are both solid and entertaining.

The former may be best recalled for line, “This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” It stars James Stewart and John Ford playing entirely different kinds of men of the west. Wayne was a rancher, a fairly decent sort but narrow-minded, prone to jealousy, and believed using a gun was essential to surviving on the frontier. Stewart, a lawyer by training, came west to start his career. Both loved Hallie (Vera Miles) and had no stomach for the cruel bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). The story involved the battle over the unnamed territory becoming a state and climaxed at a nominating convention, where the learned lawyer was named to represent the locality putting him on a path to his becoming a senator and governor.

We learn all this from the framing device, which has the older Stewart and Miles coming back to Shinbone to attend Wayne’s funeral. Stewart is coaxed into telling the local newspaper editor why this man meant so much to the Senator. We then go back to when things were rough and education was a luxury few could afford to devote time to.

John Ford’s black and white production barely moves the camera but his characters are so full of life that you can’t take your eyes off them. He makes certain that everyone who speaks is full of life or quirks, adding a subtle energy to the overall production. The values of the old west are clear although we never do know why Wayne kept calling Stewart, “[[[Pilgrim]]].” Wayne allows his Tom Doniphon to be shaded, and downright unlikeable in some sequences, but fair-minded, especially when it came to treating others, including the African America farmhand played by Woody Strode.

On the other hand, Howard Hawks’[[[El Dorado]]], shot five years later and in full color, is a bigger story, played out on location and feels entirely different. His characters, though, are stoics and barely exhibit much emotion.  When John Wayne accidentally kills Luke McDonald (Johnny Crawford), the McDonald family barely nods in acknowledgement. This story is also about land rights, as the black-hatted Ed Asner hires gunmen to force the McDonalds into giving up their water rights. The Sheriff (Robert Mitchum) has become a drunk over an ill-fated romance and it takes his old friend, mercenary John Wayne, accompanied by the tyro James Caan to help maintain law and order.  The professional rivalry theme plays out between Wayne and Mitchum, both showing their age here, but also between Wayne and Christopher George, the gunhand newly arrived to aid Asner.

This is far more of an ensemble story, similar to [[[Rio Lobo]]] and [[[Rio Bravo]]], considered today a Hawks trilogy, but at least the two female leads play strong characters. The actresses – Michele Carey and Charlene Holt – are both quite good and new to me. Nelson Riddle’s score also gives the film a more contemporary feel.

While a country struggled through the 1960s with social and political upheaval, people flocked to the movies to get away from their troubles, and delighted in seeing America when things were simpler and the issues were pretty clear. Ford and Hawks, both in the twilights of their careers, both rise to the occasion.

Each disc comes with a multi-part documentary on the making of the movie and pay tribute to the directors. El Dorado also has a short archival film, [[[The Artist and the American West]]], along with A.C. Lyles reminiscing about Wayne. Both come with still galleries including the lobby cards and publicity surrounding both features.