Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 21, 2020 16:01:38 GMT -8
This is yet another movie about: I heard there was some gold lost in the desert. Let’s go find it. The Walking Hills theoretically stars Randolph Scott. But this is an ensemble cast — and probably for the worst because none of the characters if fleshed out very well. Most noteworthy is Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe) who is moving kinda slow in this one as well. But he’s a hoot and brings personality to this flick that is otherwise squeezed dry of it by Randolph Scott. I’ve never warmed to Randolph Scott but he’s done some good b-film stuff. In this one, his personality is lost and ill-formed…as is this entire film after about the two-thirds mark. But up until then it’s a a well-crafted film with depth and interest. I love when they have real musician, Josh White (playing a guy named just “Josh”), sing a couple tunes. It’s great stuff. They do a couple flashback sequences to show how some of these characters got to where they are. And after the interesting build-up this film is pretty much a case study in how to water down a film with too many ill-defined parts and too many people suddenly doing weird or unexpected things just to try to manufacture some conflict. William Bishop plays “Shep” Wilson. Who is he? No one cares. Arthur Kennedy plays the more sober-minded fortune hunter. But the definition of his character is lots in the dunes. John Ireland plays the bad guy (or is he?). And his character comes unraveled as well. Worst of all is the yute, Johnny. He is the designated Dumb Yute who can be counted on to always doing the stupid thing and thus move the plot along. He's a McGuffin machine. I did find Ella Raines interesting and convincing as Chris Jackson. No “Boom Boom” or even “Boom.” I saw her in a thin desert shirt. But she does her best to prop up some kind of interest in a story that becomes as wind-blown as the desert they are madly digging in.  This sounds like low praise indeed. But I do think the first 2/3 of this making it more than worth watching. And then you just have to witness the inability of the filmmakers to know the basics of their craft. It wouldn’t have taken much more than a minor rewrite to make this a classic. But there were some tin ears involved. Okay, maybe one “Boom.”  |
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Post by timothylane on Sept 21, 2020 16:56:27 GMT -8
Treasure buried in Death Valley? That sounds ridiculous from the get-go.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 21, 2020 22:47:40 GMT -8
A wagon train with a million dollars of gold got buried in a sandstorm.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 22, 2020 8:00:36 GMT -8
I remember the ads for 20-mule team borax from when I at least occasionally watched Death Valley Days during the 60s. (The last I knew, Grit carries the reruns today.) It still seems amazing that one could have such a severe sandstorm even in Death Valley. We certainly never saw anything like that when we traversed it in the summer of 1959, though it was hot enough that our car boiled over regularly after short distances. (This was before winter/summer antifreeze formulas.) Fortunately there was always a supply of water handy when that happened.
Would you like to have been the guy who had to fill up those water supplies? People depended on them, even on a major road. But it's hard to imagine building a road where a sandstorm like that could happen.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 22, 2020 9:23:43 GMT -8
Bauxite, the 20 mule train stuff made millions for a great number of people including Howard Hughes father it was one of his side ventures besides the drilling tool business. The city of Phrump NV owes much of its fortune to that same mineral. Now it is just the home of Heidi Fliss. Last I heard she is raising exotic birds.
Best places to visit in Death Valley are Ubahebe crater and Scotties Castle.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 22, 2020 9:51:13 GMT -8
Bauxite is aluminum ore, not a form of borax. The only commercial source in the US is (or maybe was by now) in Arkansas, so Artraveler certainly ought to be familiar with it.
As I mentioned earlier, we passed through Death Valley in the summer of 1959, but didn't visit any sites there. Given the problems with boil-over, all we wanted was to get through as quickly as possible.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 22, 2020 11:12:40 GMT -8
Tim,
of course your correct. I misspelled and then the auto-correct changed it and I did not notice. Mea Copa
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Post by timothylane on Sept 22, 2020 12:50:21 GMT -8
What was it supposed to be, boracite?
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 25, 2020 7:32:27 GMT -8
I'm sure he meant "Na2H4B4O9•nH2O" and not "Na2B4O7•(n+2)H2O" which is a common mistake according to this Wiki article.
Interesting stuff, this Borax:
I've used a lot of this to remove grease and heavy dirt:
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 25, 2020 7:40:54 GMT -8
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Post by timothylane on Sept 25, 2020 7:59:42 GMT -8
I sometimes watched it on Grit TV a while back when we were having problems here in the nursing home with TV access. It was sometimes the only station I actually got. And I think that was one of the episodes I saw.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 25, 2020 8:15:09 GMT -8
Borax, borax, borax
At 73 I do not any longer consider myself among the ten fingered. My typing has fallen from where it used to be to two fingers and requires more concentration on the keys. I make more errors, often I do not catch the errors or autocorrect makes a change I do not catch. So, realistically, I do not know what I typed that caused a minor error. Perhaps Tim should spend a little less time being pedantic.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 25, 2020 8:57:40 GMT -8
One of my favorite teachers in high school (a math teacher) had a reasonable approach to grading. For problems that required many steps, if we showed all our work (wrote it all out), even if we came up with the wrong answer, if we had the right logic (and had merely made a simple addition error somewhere), he would give us partial (sometimes even full, if it was some newfangled and complicated business) credit.
This may sound like the touchy-feely “no answer is wrong” kind of teachers they have today. But he was the opposite of that. He was simply a practical man. He wanted our minds on figuring out the new problem or math technique and not obsessing on the details. He knew the details were important but you’ll never be able to learn to walk if you can’t stumble a time or two.
I’ve never been into being pedantic about small errors. To me they are completely meaningless. I can usually see the idea behind the mere symbology (alphabetic letters, words, grammar, etc. — which are mere means for transmitting an idea). If I can’t, then I’ll ask for clarification. But I could give a tinker’s dam whether it’s bauxite, borax, or Boris Karloff. I understood your original point.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 25, 2020 10:49:55 GMT -8
That 4-to-1 actually seems like a fair amount. Is that an average ore-to-metal ratio? And bauxite is curious looking:    It's almost the novelty-vomit of the mineral world. Some of it doesn't look that far off from an olive loaf:
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Post by timothylane on Sept 25, 2020 11:03:33 GMT -8
I think I read about that 4 to 1 ratio when I was a kid, in an old encyclopedia. (It was old enough that it's short piece on human evolution included Piltdown Man. It had been published a few years before that was exposed as a fraud. I'm assuming it's based on pure bauxite.
Incidentally, Alcoa (which had a monopoly on primary aluminum until the courts broke it up just because it had a nominal monopoly, even though it never did anything harmful with it) was owned by the Mellons. It came up a good bit when I read a biography of Andrew Mellon, one of America's greatest Treasury Secretaries.
Well, yes, after all that time I spent editing FOSFAX, I do tend to think and behave like an editor. I would say, "So sue me," but those are dangerous words in barristocratic America.  |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 25, 2020 17:20:39 GMT -8
Interesting video. I want a set of those gigantic aluminium wind chimes.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 26, 2020 8:08:34 GMT -8
That aluminum extrusion process is very interesting. I assume at 900 degrees that those aluminum slugs have the consistency of putty. Here’s an animation that gives you a bit of an inside look:
Here’s another animation that shows some kind of stretching operation at the end along with the whole production process in the AMS state-of-the-art aluminum extrusion plant.
It’s hard to imagine modern life without metals.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 26, 2020 9:01:23 GMT -8
Aluminum has a relatively low melting point. I checked on wikipedia, and it's just over 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. So by 900 degrees, it likely is beginning to soften.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 26, 2020 20:59:08 GMT -8
That is some pretty amazing technology. And aluminum had to have been invented by the gods. It's such a useful metal.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 27, 2020 18:34:55 GMT -8
Aluminum can be pretty too.
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