The Resurrection of Broncho Billy
Encyclopedia
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy is a 1970 live action short
Western film
, starring Johnny Crawford
. It won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject
.
) who lives in a big city in present time, but his dreams are of the old west and western film heroes. Scenes of his everyday life take on the style of a western film as he visits with a western old timer Wild Bill Tucker; he crosses a busy boulevard packed with traffic and we hear the sound of a cattle drive; he's late for work at the hardware store; at an intersection crosswalk he has a western street showdown with a businessman as the light changes; he enters a saloon but has no I.D. for a beer; he is accosted in an alleyway; a pretty counter girl (Merry Scanlon) gives him soda but he realizes he has no money to pay for it.
Then he meets a lovely artist (Kristin Nelson
) in a park who draws a sketch of him in an old west setting and he talks to her for a time on a park bench about the old west and western films. The Artist gets up to leave and we hear the sound of hoofbeats as he rides up to her in the old west. The artist gives him back the watch he lost in the alley scuffle, she floats up onto the his horse and they ride off across the prairie as the Broncho Billy theme song is heard over the scene. He's taken her back to the magic old west that he loves, not unlike Lois Lane going flying with Superman.
was attending a USC
Cinema 480 undergraduate production course at USC where he produced The Resurrection of Broncho Billy. The Super Crew was the name given to the group of ilmmakers Longenecker brought together at USC and each of the four filmmakers made contributions to the story. Nick Castle was the cinematographer, John Carpenter was the film editor and wrote the original theme music for the picture, and James Rokos was the film's director.
to release the picture theatrically. It opened on December 25, 1970, in Westwood Village at the Mann Theatres
National for what was intended as a one week Academy Award qualifying run. The theater continued to play the film for fourteen weeks. After winning an Oscar, Universal Studios distributed the short film with their feature movies for the next two years throughout the United States and Canada.
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
Western film
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
, starring Johnny Crawford
Johnny Crawford
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character , in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963...
. It won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject
Academy Award for Live Action Short Film
This name for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film was introduced in 1974. For the three preceding years it was known as "Short Subjects, Live Action Films." The term "Short Subjects, Live Action Subjects" was used from 1957 until 1970. From 1936 until 1956 there were two separate...
.
Plot
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy is the story of a young man (Johnny CrawfordJohnny Crawford
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character , in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963...
) who lives in a big city in present time, but his dreams are of the old west and western film heroes. Scenes of his everyday life take on the style of a western film as he visits with a western old timer Wild Bill Tucker; he crosses a busy boulevard packed with traffic and we hear the sound of a cattle drive; he's late for work at the hardware store; at an intersection crosswalk he has a western street showdown with a businessman as the light changes; he enters a saloon but has no I.D. for a beer; he is accosted in an alleyway; a pretty counter girl (Merry Scanlon) gives him soda but he realizes he has no money to pay for it.
Then he meets a lovely artist (Kristin Nelson
Kristin Nelson
Kristin Nelson, also Kristin Nelson Tinker, is an American primitive painter, actor, and author. She was married to Rick Nelson.-Early life:...
) in a park who draws a sketch of him in an old west setting and he talks to her for a time on a park bench about the old west and western films. The Artist gets up to leave and we hear the sound of hoofbeats as he rides up to her in the old west. The artist gives him back the watch he lost in the alley scuffle, she floats up onto the his horse and they ride off across the prairie as the Broncho Billy theme song is heard over the scene. He's taken her back to the magic old west that he loves, not unlike Lois Lane going flying with Superman.
Production notes
Producer John LongeneckerJohn Longenecker
John Longenecker is an American film producer, Directors Guild of America member, screenwriter and cinematographer who produced the Academy Award winning live action short film, The Resurrection of Broncho Billy .-Biography:...
was attending a USC
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
Cinema 480 undergraduate production course at USC where he produced The Resurrection of Broncho Billy. The Super Crew was the name given to the group of ilmmakers Longenecker brought together at USC and each of the four filmmakers made contributions to the story. Nick Castle was the cinematographer, John Carpenter was the film editor and wrote the original theme music for the picture, and James Rokos was the film's director.
Release
Johnny Crawford and John Longenecker invited executives at Universal StudiosUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
to release the picture theatrically. It opened on December 25, 1970, in Westwood Village at the Mann Theatres
Mann Theatres
Mann Theatres is a movie theatre chain that, as of November 17, 2011, operates in only one location with 8 screens in the city of Westlake. Its motto is "Where Hollywood goes to the movies"....
National for what was intended as a one week Academy Award qualifying run. The theater continued to play the film for fourteen weeks. After winning an Oscar, Universal Studios distributed the short film with their feature movies for the next two years throughout the United States and Canada.