People who like books and movies generally speaking are folks who like life second hand.
“The reason I like movies,” a fellow once told me, “is because I can look at people without having them look back at me.”
I’m not saying this is true of everyone who likes books and movies.
I love books. I lover movies.
I love the interaction with living people more.
I’m going to tell you a story about this film no one else will tell you.
It happened during my screening of this picture in the early 1970s at Rochdale College in Toronto.
Now Rochdale College in the 1970s was just like the town of Tombstone in this movie.
Rochdale, had like Tombstone, begun fine enough.
It started out as an 18 floor student high rise.
Then it morphed into the boldest experiment in alternate education ever undertaken anywhere before or since.
At Rochdale each Rochdalian was called to be our own teacher.
There were no teachers.
Now here’s the capper.
The government decided to allow within Rochdale the use of hashish, LSD, marijuana, mescaline and peyote.
Wow!
1968. Toronto, Canada.
Outraged is to say the least of the effect this had on many in the city.
Local media ran stories about Rochdale. They called it “FORT DOPE.”
Those stories attracted to Rochdale people only interested in getting high.
Rochdale was 18 floors of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
I served as Director of Cinema Studies.
I ran a legit program covering all aspects of the cinema from its origins on.
Rochdale was where I first saw LAW AND ORDER (1932).
The screening room was packed.
A few fellows walked in clueless.
They made a disturbance.
I had to do something. What should I do?
On the screen Walter Huston as the Marshall had to deal with some rowdies.
He walked up to them, looked them in the eye and said, “It appears to me you boys are looking for trouble.”
“That’s a good line, I’ll use that,” I said to myself.
I did.
On screen the fellows Walter Huston was dealing with said, “Yeah, what are you going to do about it?”
In front of me the fellows said, “Yeah, what are you going to do about it>”
Walter Huston said, “I guess I’m going to do whatever I got to do.”
“That’s a good line,” I said to myself as I delivered it.
On screen the fellows backed down, became polite and got out of town.
In front of me the fellows backed down, became polite and left.
I had to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing.
Life had imitated art.
Or had it?
Years ago I bought a video of LAW AND ORDER (1932).
That scene is not in the movie.
Yesterday I looked at the Kino Lorber Blu-ray.
That scene is not in the Blu-ray.
It was there however when I needed it.
A Tibetan Lama who had travelled with the Dalai Lame on his first journey across Canada said to me, “You are a Crazy-Wisdom-Yogin.”
I said, “I hear crazy often enough. What does the rest of that mean?”
He said, “It is the highest compliment I, as a Buddhist, can pay. If you quote me put a flame after my name to indicate my rank.”
Let’s just say, he’s up there.
So as I watched the picture yesterday I was waiting to see if that scene is in the movie.
It isn’t.
Nonetheless, buy it.
It is one helluva movie.
It is pre-code which means it was made before the churches grabbed Hollywood by the balls.
It is based on Wyatt Earp.
The good folks of Tombstone ask Frame Johnston (Wyatt Earp) to clean up Tombstone.
He does.
Then the good folks learn their economy depends on the bad folk being bad.
It is a parable for our modern world.
The director, Edward L. Cahn may be the most underrated director of the movies. He worked with everybody including THE THREE STOOGES.
It’s the kind of pictures Hollywood does not know how to make any more.
That’s because balls once curt off don’t grow back.
Is Hollywood dead?
Yes.
It is time to put everything out there six feet under on boot hill.
Can this kind of picture be made today?
Yes, but not by anybody who has parked their butt in film school.
When this picture was made Hollywood was as wicked as Tombstone.
Those days are buried in the past.
–Reg Hartt, Crazy-Wisdom-Yogin (look it up on google) 05. 07, 2025.
P.S. There is a big movie, in fact, three big movies, to be made out of THE ROCHDALE STORY.
There is an awful movie about ROCHDALE called DREAMTOWER.
Watch it to learn what not to do.
KINO LORBER once sent me review copies of their titles which was cool.
Then they stopped which wasn’t cool.
Neither Steven Spielberg nor Francis Ford Coppola nor Martin Scorsese ever got a fan letter from Jane Jacobs.
Who’s she? Look her up.
You will learn she has left a more powerful footprint than those three as one.
To get a copy of THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED ROCHDALE drop by The CineForum aka THE PUBLIC ENEMY.
https://kinolorber.com/product/law-and-orderLaw and Order (Blu-ray)
Directed by : Edward L. Cahn
Cast : Walter Huston, Harry Carey, Andy Devine, Raymond Hatton
Available Date : 06/17/2025
Release Year : 1932
Running Time : 72
UPC : 738329270315
Country : U.S.
Language: English
Genre : Western
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DVD $19.92
$19.92 (Blu-ray)
MSRP: $29.95
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4K RESTORATION BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES IN COLLABORATION WITH THE FILM FOUNDATION!
Law and Order is a rip-roaring Western that explores the Wyatt Earp myth, with a screenplay by the legendary John Huston (The Maltese Falcon). It stars John’s father Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) as Frame Johnson, a thinly veiled stand-in for Wyatt Earp, who takes the marshal job in Tombstone, Arizona and soon comes into conflict with the corrupt Northrup gang, leading to one of the earliest and most thrilling depictions of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Brilliantly directed by Edward L. Cahn (It! The Terror From Beyond Space) and co-starring Western icon Harry Carey, Law and Order is a true masterpiece of the genre.
Product Extras :
WITHOUT HONOR – 1932 Western starring Harry Carey (60 minutes, Preserved by Library of Congress)
Audio Commentary for LAW AND ORDER by Max Allan Collins, the Author of Road to Perdition, with Heath Holland, Host of Cereal at Midnight Podcast
Audio Commentary for WITHOUT HONOR by Film Historian Toby Roan
Conversation with Filmmaker/Film Historian Bertrand Tavernier about LAW AND ORDER
Publish Date : 2025-03-31
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