Yellowstone Kelly

Yellowstone Kelly (1959)

Clint's back!...and 'Kookie' is with him!

A fur-trapper named Kelly, who once saved the life of a Sioux chief, is allowed to set his traps in Sioux territory during the late 1870s. Reluctantly he takes on a tenderfoot assistant named Anse and together they give shelter to a runaway Arapaho woman. Tensions develop when Anse falls in love with this woman and when the Sioux chief arrives with his warriors to re-claim her.

Date of release
1959-11-11
TMDB
6.3 / 10 (28)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Adventure, Western
Director
Gordon Douglas

Casting

Interesting facts

Yellowstone Kelly is a 1959 American Western film based upon a novel by Heck Allen with a screenplay by Burt Kennedy starring Clint Walker as Luther Sage "Yellowstone" Kelly, and directed by Gordon Douglas. The film was originally supposed to be directed by John Ford with John Wayne in the Clint Walker role, but Ford and Wayne opted to make The Horse Soldiers, instead.

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures announced the project in August 1956, saying that John Wayne would star. It was based on a novel by Clay Fisher, not published until April 1957. When the novel came out the New York Times said it "rates grade A without question".

D.D. Beauchamp was hired to write a script. Then, Eliot Asinof was reported as working on the script. Jack L. Warner assigned Irving Shermer as producer.

By early 1959, the project had become a vehicle for Clint Walker, the star of Warner Bros.' hit TV show Cheyenne and the final script was done by Burt Kennedy, who was under contract to Warner at the time.

Walker's co-star was Edd Byrnes, who had leapt to fame playing "Kookie" on the Warner Bros. detective show 77 Sunset Strip.

Filming took place in April and June 1959, partly on location south of Flagstaff, Arizona, which is now modern-day Sedona, Arizona. "I felt miserable and lost 10 pounds in one month," said Byrnes. Ray Danton was signed to a long-term contract at Warner Bros. after the film.

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