Walter Doniger

Cheyenne: The Bounty Killer | The Trap | Land Beyond the Law

Bat Masterson: Double Showdown | Cheyenne Club | River Boat | Promised Land | The Inner Circle

Maverick: The Jail at Junction Flats

Feature films: Safe at Home!

Classic Film and Television Home Page

Walter Doniger

Walter Doniger is an American film and mainly, television director.

Some common features of his work:

Cheyenne: The Bounty Killer

The Bounty Killer (1956) is based on a story by the well-known Western writer Steve Frazee.

Its most unusual feature are the scenes of street protest. These are against a lawman who is considered abusive in doing his job. Such street protests run through Doniger's work. They mark a notable instance of left wing public revolt.

The Bounty Killer resembles Silver Lode (1954), directed by Allan Dwan. In both films:

There are differences between the two films, in the back-story of the prisoner; and in later developments of the plot.

Cheyenne: The Trap

The Trap (1956) is another story, in which ordinary people have to defy corrupt law. Instead of a single bad lawman, as in The Bounty Killer, The Trap has a whole town and prison full of corrupt officials. Does this make it better? I'm not so sure.

In many ways, The Trap is just another lurid prison melodrama. Doniger started his career, with a series of prison films for theaters.

Cheyenne: Land Beyond the Law

Land Beyond the Law (1957) is about one of those hidden valleys run as havens for crooks. This is a common Western subject. As in The Trap, the film concentrates on the empire's ruling elite, their nasty power struggles, and their bizarre romantic entanglements with each other.

Like many such hidden valleys of crime, this one has a secret entrance. In keeping with Doniger traditions, this one is an underground mine tunnel.

The crime empire is lead by a quasi-soldier, the Major. The Major is obsessed with militarism. Perhaps the filmmakers have been watching Dark Command (1939), directed by Raoul Walsh. Both films deal with sinister militias; in both the leader started out life as a schoolteacher; in both the leader has a lavish house, in which he puts his stolen booty on display in a pointed parody of bourgeois conspicuous consumption.

Villain Joe Epic (played by James Griffith) is an unusual character. The film makes him as openly gay as the censor and mores would allow in 1957. Epic is in love with chief villain the Major, and has a jealous hatred of the Major's wife.

Epic is duded up in one of the most bizarre costumes in Western films. Western bad guys frequently wore black, so Joe Epic's all-black costume is within that tradition. But it is also full of kinky features, including a front leather panel.

Bat Masterson: Double Showdown

Double Showdown (1958) is the pilot episode of the Bat Masterson television series.

Double Showdown is most notable for its highly unusual finale. (SPOILERS) It violates story telling norms in two ways:

I have no idea who came up with this finale. It could be the work of series regulars Frank Pittman & Andy White, who created the story for the episode. But one also notes that at roughly the same time, Doniger is doing unusual things with the narrative structure of his Maverick episode The Jail at Junction Flats. It is likely that a pilot like Double Showdown was filmed earlier than a regular series episode like The Jail at Junction Flats, however.

Bat Masterson: Cheyenne Club

Cheyenne Club (1958) is an amusing story about problems at an elite Western club.

(SPOILERS) It is most noteworthy for its finale, which can be read as a political commentary, in favor of non-violent social protest.

Bat Masterson: River Boat

River Boat (1959) deals with a gang that hijacks and loots a river steam ship. The gang is organized as one of Doniger's criminal empires. And after they take over the boat, it becomes one of Doniger's isolated criminal-run worlds.

Once again, there is a colorful but sinister lead crook, here known as The King.

Bat Masterson: Promised Land

Promised Land (1959) deals with another one of Doniger's criminal empires, once again in an isolated location. But here there is a benevolent, comic twist: these are all reformed criminals, trying to go straight. They want to run their town on honest lines. As in Land Beyond the Law, there are elements of parody of bourgeois life.

It is fun to think about what such a town might be like.

Bat Masterson: The Inner Circle

The Inner Circle (1959) is still unusual, both for its feminist and social class themes. This is a fascinating look at the Woman's Suffrage movement. It is told in a sly, comic style, like other of Doniger's works of the era: he amuses, rather than preaches, as he tells politically pointed stories.

The suffragists have a stand, where they collect signatures in the street. This seems related to the street protests in other Doniger films.

The suave, comic, but deadly English villain, recalls Dandy Jim Buckley in The Jail at Junction Flats. The villain is a member of a whole elite criminal conspiracy. This recalls a bit the criminal empires in The Trap and Land Beyond the Law. However, these people do not run a separate small empire somewhere. They instead are the elite capitalists of Wyoming. All of these groups have prominent, and corrupt, female members.

Maverick: The Jail at Junction Flats

The Jail at Junction Flats (1958) is the sole episode of the Maverick television series directed by Doniger.

The Jail at Junction Flats does inventive things with narrative structure. The robbery near the start is narrated as a rollicking adventure, out of an old Western dime novel. It shows comic - and non-naturalistic - events. It also has old fashioned music as an accompaniment, suggesting that the audience take the events as some sort of non-realistic Old West Show. The giant actor Dan Blocker, soon to gain fame as Hoss on Bonanza, has an old-fashioned mustache, and behaves in strikingly non-realistic ways. Blocker had previously appeared in Doniger's Land Beyond the Law.

The title jail is formidably guarded. It recalls in a comic way the prison empire in The Trap.

The Jail at Junction Flats caused controversy in its time, with its finale. There are sly hints that perhaps Maverick is enjoying himself.

Safe at Home!

Safe at Home! (1962) is a children's movie, and one of the few feature films Doniger directed for theaters.

Safe at Home! recalls an independent film made for children, Little Fugitive (Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, Ray Ashley, 1953):

The baseball stadium and camp is a large scale, self-enclosed world. In this it resembles some of the isolated criminal empires that run through Doniger's Westerns. It is also full of men, most of them in uniform, who are more macho and tough than most people outside. However, the baseball training camp is full of honest people, unlike the criminal empires. The baseball camp is an entirely male place, unlike the criminal empires, which tend to have a woman involved.

The kid hero has to try to sneak into both the heavily guarded stadium and hotel. This recalls the well-guarded jail of The Jail at Junction Flats.

Safe at Home! lacks any truly experimental story telling procedures. But it does have two brief fantasy sequences, showing the kid's imaginings on screen.