CAST
Tom Selleck (Monte Walsh)
Isabella Rossellini (Martine)
Keith Carradine (Chet Rollins)
George Eads (Shorty Austin)
Robert Carradine (Sunfish Perkins)
Barry Corbin (Alderson)
James Gammon (Fightin' Joe Hooker)
Rex Linn (Hat Henderson)
John Michael Higgins (Robert Slocumb)
William Sanderson (Skimpy Eagens)
Wallace Shawn (Colonel Wilson)
Marshall Teague (Dally Johnson)
Rick Ravanello (Sugar Wyman)
Joanna Miles (Sairy Brennan)
Lori Hallier (Mary Wilder)
Matt Cooke (Rufus Brady)
Ken Pogue (Old Doctor)
Zack Ward (Powder Kent)
William Devane (Cal Brennan)

Related Reading

Monte Walsh
novel by Jack Schaefer

Hot Biscuits:
Eighteen Stories from Women and Men of the Ranching West.

edited by Max Evans (The Rounders, Hi-Lo Country) and Candy Moulton

"...Hot Biscuits, a serious book with a funny (but significant) title, is every bit as revolutionary and literary as [Owen] Wister's [The Virginian].  It is the first fresh approach to the Western in memory."Dale Walker, Former director of the Texas Western University Press and author of numerous books on the West, including the recent Pacific Destiny.

Book Description:
For more than twenty years Max Evans has been trying to assemble a book of stories by working cowboysmen who were ranch hands with at least five years of paid experience and women who had either been raised on ranches or joined their husbands on a double hire-out for five years or more. With the expert help of Candy Moulton he has succeeded in collecting eighteen stories set in the Ranching West after 1920 that meet his inflexible requirements: experience plus imagination plus innate writing ability.

As Evans notes in his introduction, subdivisions, condos, and ranchettes are shrinking the Ranching West every day: "Some of those who once lived it, and those few who are so agonizingly still working it with bloodied souls, must put it down on paper. . . . If we fail to act with immediacy the truth will continue to dissipate. . . with frightening rapidity."

Contributing authors:
Taylor Fogarty, J.P.S. Brown, Willard Holopeter, Elaine Long, Sinclair Browning, Slim Randles, Lori Van Pelt, Grem Lee, Dick Hyson, Sally C. Bates, Virginia Bennett, Curt Brummett, Jimbo Brewer, Paula Paul, Helen C. Avery, Gwen Peterson, and the editors.

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NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD Buy now

Made from our very own RanchCam images! Check out these UNIQUE collections of Shirts, caps, mugs, totes & mousepads for Working Cowboys & Ranchers, or for Cowboys & Cowgirls at heart!

CROSSFIRE TRAIL Read our 2001 Tom Selleck/Crossfire Trail Interview

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SELLECK HAS THE GOLDEN TOUCH
Back in January 23, 2001, TNT issued this press release in regard to the television premier of another Selleck western,  CROSSFIRE TRAIL:

"Turner Network Television's (TNT) premier of its newest Original motion picture, CROSSFIRE TRAIL, on Sunday, Jan. 21, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT) posted a stellar 9.6 rating/13.2 share (7,736,000 households), making it the highest-rated and most watched movie original or theatrical in the history of basic cable television.

"CROSSFIRE TRAIL's premier performance convincingly surpassed the previous highest rated movie of all time, The China Lake Murders (8.4 rating, USA Network, Jan. 30, 1990, 8 p.m.). The Premier of the Louis L'Amour western, starring Tom Selleck, also overwhelmingly delivered key adult demographic
categories, attracting 4.7 million adults 18-49 and nearly 6 million adults 25-54, more than double the second-ranked program."

 

Tom Selleck has found his ultimate cowboy role in the character of Monte Walsh, a creation of novelist Jack Schaefer (Shane). In this TNT Original directed by Simon Wincer (Lonesome Dove, Quigley Down Under) Selleck plays an aging bronc buster coming to grips with changing times. Hes every bit the part, from the crown of his hat, to the weathered lines on his face, down to his McChesney spurs, and perhaps even furtherdeep down to Sellecks heart and soul.

I had always wanted to do a movie about the end of the cowboy era, Selleck admits, and to do it through the eyes of a character like Monte who refuses to indulge in self pity or feel sorry for himself is really a neat way to tell that story.

The story is also based in part on the 1970s screen version starring Lee Marvin and Jack Palance, but this film shouldn't be looked upon as a remake.

I dont think its accurate to call it a remake, says Selleck, I just couldnt base my performance on Lee Marvins because hes irreplaceable.

We went out and got the rights to the screenplay, and then we went out and got the rights to the book. The book, which is what the first screenplay was based on, is much more elaborate, much more extensive than the 70s movie. It captures the spirit of this guy, and that was the key for me. So what we ended up doing is combining the original screenplay with parts of the book and coming up with our own movie. When you combine a book and a screenplay it isnt just a cut and paste job, you have to really integrate it.

Although this hard-riding western (set in Wyoming but filmed in Canada) is described by TNT as a bittersweet saga, dont expect a wholly depressing story. Bittersweet in this case seems to apply mostly to the struggles and losses that humans experience when coming face to face with the end of one century, while grappling with the uncertainty and challenges of the new century. In that regard the films premier is appropriate to the present, its appeal is universal, and its theme is timeless.

Most of the movies in the early 70s, like this one, wouldve been classified as real downers. You know, they had this theme that said Why bother being born, you're gonna die anyway. Tom chuckles. So I was very interested in it. The movie had always touched me, but I thought there was something missing, and I think thats the perfect kind of movie to tackle again. I think its a celebration of the cowboy lifestyle. That it has both humor and tragedy makes it three dimensional.

An important ingredient in the overall quality of this film is the unmistakable influence that director Simon Wincer lends to the screen, which gives the piece a wonderfully gritty yet stunning Lonesome Dove feel to it. The sharp wit found throughout the dialog is credited to the teaming of Michael Brandman (Crossfire Trail) and pal Robert B. Parker (author and creator of the ever-witty private-eye of the Spenser novels and the Spenser for Hire television series, which starred the beloved Robert Urich).

When it comes to the more critical element of the cast itself, that too is flawlessly accomplished in what looks to be shaping up as Sellecks own stock company of veteran western actorsJames Gammon, Marshall Teague, William Devane, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine and Barry Corbin, as well as Shane Pollitt, Rex Linn, Rick Ravanello and George Eads. The obvious camaraderie this group shares off screen smoothly translates on-screen as they are transformed by props and wardrobe into the capable cowboys of the Slash Y. Whether working, laughing, engaging in bunkhouse brawls or pulling pranks on one another as their very lifestyle is being threatened into extinction by progressironically, just as it is still in todays ranching Westit is evident the cast mustve somehow sensed they were working on something pretty darn special. It shows.

I just really want people to see this [movie] and I hope they like it, Selleck earnestly adds, because to me this movie probably reflects my sensibilities more than any other one Ive done in the Western genre. Im really proud of it and I think it may be the best role I've ever had.

Coming from someone who over the last several years has practically been carrying the Western genre into the new millennium, thats saying a lot. A whole heck of a lot. Nearly all on his lonesome the Big Guy, along with his pards Brandman and Wincer, has cowboyed up to a Western tradition from which others have drifted away.

In fact, the real life events leading up to this point leaves one with the impression that this Monte Walsh project was simply meant to happen. All it needed to come to fruition was that rare and magical alignment of circumstances, which in this case was the recent turning of a century and the passing of a millennium, not to mention all the special cowboying skills Selleck has picked up, worked at and honed on his own over the years.

Still, studios dont commit to financially backing a project simply because of the worlds entrance into a new millennium. And surely it wouldve take far more than ones proven ability to sit a horse or throw a loop to convince studio execs of greenlighting a western these days. So obviously something else first needed to take place before the stage was fully set.

Then, the year 2001 rolled in and revealed exactly what that something else was: Crossfire Trail.

Selleck relates what went on behind the scenes at TNT the Monday after the premier airing of Crossfire. When the rating figures came in at TNT, Selleck was notified and was told they wanted to wait a day before issuing a press release on the numbers: Somethings wrong.

At first Selleck wasnt certain how to take that news, but he was assured the ratings were good almost too good, Selleck recalls. They came back the next day and said, It is!

Crossfire Trail blazed a unique trail by making cable television history with a 9.6 rating, the highest ever. Apparently this took TNT by surprise.

They never heard of ratings like that, says Selleck, so I was in a real good position.

According to Selleck those ratings figures were recently worked up and converted into what-if box office dollars, which resulted in an even greater revelation: If Crossfire Trail had been a movie opening [in theatres] over the weekend, explains Selleck, we wouldve [had] an eighty million dollar opening weekend.

Eighty million. Even in Hollywood that ain't chump change.

To put this all into perspective, remember the 2001 Academy Award-winning film Gladiator?  That films weekend opening brought in $34.8 million. Or, we could take it a step further by assuming had Crossfire been a feature film that had gone into wide release (800+ theaters) that same year, then it could have landed the #2 position, giving Warner Brothers Harry Potter & The Sorcerers Stone a run for its money, which brought in $90.2 million its first weekend. ...Or what about the big winners in the weekend box office take for 2002?  Foxs Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones opened at $80 million, so its certainly possible Crossfire could have at least tied with thatand at that same time it certainly wouldve crushed the $62 million opening weekend that New Line Cinema enjoyed with its film Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. And Im talking without any product or toy tie-ins. (Hey, Tom! Remember the old Johnny West series of cowboy dolls by Marx?  Just a thought.)  ...Seriously though, after all the numbers are crunched, ya gotta wonder why so many people are walking around still claiming the Western is dead. Go figure.

Delighted with the ratings, Turner network execs readily approached Tom and asked him what was next. Selleck already had Monte Walsh in mind. However, because the story is a character driven piece, he knew it would require a time slot longer than the usual two-hour allotment, which without commercials is only about 92 minutes of actual air time.

Thats whats wrong with a lot of TV movies, says Selleck. They get a little glib and they have to speak this kind of MTV, quick-cut language because theres no time.

But there was no way Selleck was going to stand by and let Monte Walsh get the MTV treatment.

You need to keep plenty of energy in your movie, but the pace of the movie ought to really reflect the times these cowboys lived in. So because we had a lot of cards to play from the last [movie], we got a two-and-a-half hour time slot [for this one], which I think is just right for telling a real character driven piece like this where youve got to get to know the people and the life.

Selleck gives insight into how he approached his role:

Normally you have to do a lot of homework for a role. In some ways Ive been doing homework for this all through the script development. It was probably two years before we got to filming, so I had the [time] to think about [Monte]. I worked with writers on the script and I started saying things like Monte wouldn't do that. So I kind of knew who he was.

He chuckles and adds, That being said, on your first day of filming youre scared to death, and you open your mouth [and speak the lines] and you think, Who was that talking?  So you've got to get used to [the character] all over again.

So the Big Guy actually gets the first day jitters?

Always, Selleck confirms. If you dont get scared when you start something like this, you probably took the wrong project. Theres so many lines in this movieso many good onesthat I was intimidated just thinking about doing them.

Selleck suddenly turns the tables and enthusiastically shoots out a question of his own:
So how `bout Isabella, huh?

Isabella Rossellini plays Martine, Sellecks love interest in the film, and the on-screen chemistry between the two is refreshing. Itd be a grand understatement to simply report she is brilliantly cast in this role, but I sense Selleck already seems to know that.

Well, you know, my wife did that! Sounding very proud, he graciously gives Jillie the full credit she deserves for her casting genius. (Way to go, Jillie! )

Selleck explains how it all came about. I had finally finished a draft of the script where I finally thought we were really in the ballpark and I showed it to Jillie and said, Who are we going to get for Martine? And she said, Theres only one person you can get Isabella Rossellini.

Excited by that possibility, Selleck says he and co-producer Michael Brandman immediately sent the script to Rossellini with our fingers crossed. Within a couple of days, they had a solid commitment of interest from her.

In fact Selleck and Brandman were able to seal deals with all their first cast choices for this movie, as well as their preferred picks when it came to putting together the films seasoned, cream of the crop crew.

Selleck still seems awed by how smoothly the project had developed up to that point. People just responded to it and said, I want to be in. What do I have to do? And we said, Well, first you probably gotta cut your salary. Selleck laughs. But Isabella wanted to be in it, and God, she cared about it so deeply.

Selleck describes the on-screen relationship between their two characters:

Its a lovely relationship. You know, Montes just kind of a simple man in the best sense. He lives day to day, and I dont think hes ever articulated, even at the start of the movie, that he loves her. He just needs to see her, and he likes it.

And hes certainly never figured out that hes monogamous now, so he must love her. He just doesnt think that way until the times and the changes that come about force him to. He confronts a lot of stuff in this movie that hes never really thought about.

Perhaps from Montes perspective, it was an end of an era, but not so for Selleck. Over the years his relationship has gradually developed at TNT to the point where great things are happening. 

Im now in the enviable position for me to always have [a western] in development, says Selleck. Like I say, I wont just do westerns at TNT, I wont just do westerns out in the whole marketplace. But I think in the near future, until my stock runs out, Im going to always have one in development at TNT.

Always. Ahhh, what an inspiring word to hear in times like these. Lets all keep an eye to the western horizon and smile. As long as Tom Selleck is around you can bet well always have plenty to smile about.

And then some.

Looking ahead Selleck is excited by the prospect of his next western role. He mentions how much he is looking forward to playing a gunman for a change. Ive never really quite played just a gunman, you know. I mean, this guy is really a guy who cleans up towns, and thatll be interesting.

Copyright ©2003 Taylor Sophia Fogarty.
American Western Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction not permitted.

The public showers Tom Selleck with praise in our guestbook:
(January 19th)  "Tom, Many thanks for a great Show!!!! Monte Walsh is worth watching over and over. You brought back the spirit of the west. Which is the real spirit of our country. Please keep them coming." A True Fan; Mike Ellis, Millstadt, IL
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