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Ray 'Crash' Corrigan might never have been an actor who did make it
quite to the top of the B-movie (and serial) echelon, being easily
outranked by the likes of Larry 'Buster' Crabbe or Ralph Byrd, to randomly
pick out but 2 he actually appeared on screen together with, he is however
fondly remembered by science fiction fans (for his roles Undersea
Kingdom and It! The Terror from Beyond Space)
and B-Western fans (for his participation in the Three
Mesquiteers- as well as the Range
Busters-series) alike, but actually his contributions to the
realm of B-movies was much greater as these contributions combined, even
if in many of his on-screen appearances he was unrecognizable or was
simply providing the out-door sets ... because being a leading man of the
B's, he carved himself out a name as one of the leading gorilla actors of
the 1930's, 1940's and beginning 1950's, and he was the owner of a piece
of land he had self-consciously christened Corriganville, on which
(allegedly) more than a 1.000 movies were shot ... But first
things first: Crash Corrigan was born Raymond Benitz in Milwaukie,
Wisconsin in 1902. He changed his name to Ray Benard sometime in the
1920's, when he ran a radio equipment shop, and later a reducing machne
shop, in Los Angeles. At the same time, he, a musclebound man, began
modelling. This eventually led to a contract with MGM,
and his first job was a stand-in for (the equally muscular) Johnny
Weissmuller [Johnny
Weissmuller-bio - click here] in Tarzan
the Ape Man (directed by W.S.Van Dyke) in 1932. In the sequel to Tarzan
the Ape Man, Tarzan
and his Mate (1934, Cedric Gibbons, Jack Conway), can not only be seen as Weissmuller's
stand-in, but also as an ape ... obviously Corrigan must have smelled an
opportunity, as it was around this time that he had himself tailored a
gorilla suit according to his own specificatins, one that would not only
perfectly fit his body but also allow the ape to move his mouth ... From
today's jaded point of view, the suit does look a bit ridiculous (though
still way more convincing than many CGI-ape renditions), but in the
mid-1930's the costume was pretty amazing. The next years
Corrigan spent accepting supporting roles that needed either musclebound
men (like the role of Apollo in Night Life of the Gods [1935,
Lowell Sherman]) or
gorillas (Murder in the Private Car [1934, Harry Beaumont]), and
sometimes he
was actually needed to be both, like in Darkest Africa (1936,
B.Reeves Eason, Joseph Kane), Republic's
very first serial [Republic
history - click here], where he played both a batman guard and Bonga, the
gorilla sidekick of hero Clyde Beatty's kid sidekick Manuel King.
While
that might not sound amazingly spectacular in itself, it did lead to
bigger and better things: In Undersea
Kingdom (1936, B.Reeves Eason, Joseph Kane), Republic's
second serial which wildly (and enhjoyably) blends tales of old Atlantis
with science fiction clichés and fast-moving action, athletic Crash
Corrigan was chosen for the lead (and it was actually then and there
that he was rechristened Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, in his previous filmwork,
if he was credited at all, he was still Ray Benard).
How did that name
come into being?
Rumours differ wildly, but the most believable story
might be that it was created by the Republic
publicity office because it sounded like action and adventure, and more important, it sounded a bit like
Flash Gordon, a then
popular comic strip by Alex Raymond, which was at the same time turned into a serial
over at Universal
(click here),
starring Larry 'Buster' Crabbe [Buster
Crabbe bio - click here] and directed by Frederick Sephani. Interestingly, Crash Corrigan played
another (horned) gorilla in that one whom Flash defeats in a cage fight.
Undersea
Kingdom soon led to more serial work at Republic
[Republic history - click
here],
like a supporting role in The Vigilantes are Coming (1936, Ray Taylor, Mack V.Wright) starring Bob
Livingston, and The
Painted Stallion (1937, Ray Taylor, Alan James, William Witney [William
Witney bio - click here]), where Corrigan was supported by silent cowboy star Hoot
Gibson, in the following year, but he really hit gold when
in 1936 he accepted the role of Tucson Smith in The Three Mesquiteers (Ray Taylor),
the Western that is widely regarded as the birth of the cowboy trios. In
this one, Corrigan plays the second lead to Bob Livingston while Syd
Saylor does the comic relief.
The Three Mesquiteers would
eventually be turned into a series running for 51
films (quite an accomplishment for a B-Western series) from 1936 until
1943. Crash Corrigan would stay on for the first 24 of them, siding first Bob
Livingston, then for one film Ralph Byrd (The Trigger Trio [1937, William Witney]), then John
Wayne (just before his
breakthrough with Stagecoach [1939, John Ford]) [John
Wayne in the 1930's - click here], while comic relief would be handled by Max
Terhune from film 2 (Ghost Town Gold [1936, Joseph Kane]) onwards, until he would be
replaced by Raymond Hatton, with whom Corrigan and Wayne made 2 films (Wyoming
Outlaw, Frontier
Horizon [both 1939, George Sherman]). At this point, both Wayne and
Corrigan left the
series, Wayne because he thought with the success of Stagecoach he was
predestined for bigger things (and right he was), in Corrigan's case,
various reasons are cited, but the most believable seem to be that on one
hand Republic
refused to give him the pay raise he demanded, on the other hand Bob
Livingston did re-take his role from John Wayne, and Corrigan and Livingston just didn't get along. Eventually, Corrigan would leave Republic
altogether and Duncan Renaldo (of later Cisco Kid
fame) would take over his role as Tucson
Smith (though Tucson would be rechristened Rico Rinaldo) ...
Now
one entry into the Three Mesquiteers-series
deserves special mention in regards to Crash Corrigan's career, Three
Texas Steers (1937, George Sherman), as Corrigan can't only be seen as his
regular role of Tucson Smith, but also doubles as a circus gorilla, and
even though the latter character is kind of under-used for anything other
than some throwaway jokes, the episode as a whole is mighty entertaining. Crash
Corrigan's next stop after the Three Mesquiteers
was at the newly re-formed second-generation Monogram,
who needed a cowboy trio to compete with the Three Mesquiteers,
and who better to hire than 2 former Mesquiteers, Max Terhune and ...
Crash Corrigan. But more on that later ... Around 1937, Crash
Corrigan invested which what could be considered as amazing foresight
(especially for a man who spent part of his life in a gorilla suit) into a
stretch of land in Simi Valley, California, where and when land was
still cheap (it is rumoured he payed around 10.000 Dollars for it), with
the intention of renting it out as a film-location ... and in the next
30 years or so, the stretch of land (which Corrigan christened
Corriganville for rather obvious reasons) would be the locatin for over
1.000 films and TV-series, among them literally hundreds of B-Westerns
(including films starring Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, and several of the
Three Mesquiteers-Westerns),
even a few A-films (like Fort Apache [1948, John Ford]), and the
Jungle Jim
series starring Johnny Weissmuller, among many others.
... and of course, Monogram's cowboy trio series starring Crash Corrigan
and Max Terhune was filmed there, a series that became eventually known
as Range
Busters. The third lead was played by John 'Dusty' King, later
Dennis Moore. In 4 of the 24 Range
Busters-films, Corrigan was replaced by Dave Sharpe,
presumably due to disputes over salary. The Range
Busters were the brainchild of Crash Corrigan and producer
George W. Weeks, and even though they were financed and produced
by Monogram,
the studio wasn't directly involved into production. Instead, productin
was handled by a seperate unit, in which Corrigan somehow had his hands,
which would secure Corrigan (as the lead, sort-of-producer and provider
of the location) a big share of the films' profits (he once claimed he got
50 percent ... which is doubtful at best). Most of the films were
directed by veteran Western director S. Roy Luby, and would usually look
quite accomplished considering their low budgets (even if they would never
have the polish or production values of Republic's
Three Mesquiteers).
The
Range
Busters-series ran from 1940 to 1943 (first film The Range
Busters [1940, S. Roy Luby], last Bullets and Saddles [1943, Anthony Marshall])
and was reasonably
successful, but after that Corrigan - who by the way was not in all of the
Range
Busters-films - got tired from Westerns and left
this genre more or less behind, rather dedicating his attention to
flourishing Corriganville.
Corrigan would however continue to accept
work as a gorilla, in films like The Strange Case of Dr. RX (1942, William Nigh), Captive White Woman (1943, Edward Dmytryk) , She's for
Me (1943, Reginald Le Borg), Nabonga
and The Monster Maker
(both 1944, Sam Newfield), White
Pongo (1945, Sam Newfield)
or the serial The Monster and the Ape (1945, Howard Bretherton) throughout the
remainder of the 1940's, not only wearing his (traditional) black gorilla
suit but also in his white (!) gorilla suit (and you would be surprised
about the length some scriptwriters go to throw white gorillas into their
films).
The funniest of Corrigan's gorilla films though has to
be White Gorilla (1945, Harry L.Fraser),
in which Corrigan plays not only the titular beast but also the (human)
hero. Because of this, Corrigan the man and Corrigan the gorilla can
never been shown in the same frame together, even if the 2 occasionally
have to interact. (Several sources claim that Corrigan did not play the
white gorilla but a supporting black gorilla in this film, but that
wouldn't explain the length to which the director has to go to not show
the white gorilla and the hero in the same frame.) But if you thought
that alone would give the film a somewhat schizophrenic feeling, there's
more: To add some productin value to his (very) low budget film, producer
Louis Weiss dusted off a silent serial in his possession, Perils of the
Jungle from 1927 - a chapterplay full of junglegirls, jungleboys
riding on elephant's trunks, of course the customary wild beasts, and a
bit of fantasy thrown in for good measure - and tried to pass off the
silent footage as part of White
Gorilla's story ... and of course, Corrigan can't interact with
that footage either ... Should you ever happen to come across that film,
watch it, this is a forgotten trash gem if there ever was one.
With
the 1950's, records about Crash Corrigan's ape appearances get a little
hazy, some sources claim he has sold all his apesuits with the beginning
of the 1950's and quit the trade, while other sources do feature quite
some 1950's gorilla credits like Bela
Lugosi meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952, William Beaudine) and the Ed wood-scripted Bride
and the Beast (1958, Adrian Weiss) [Ed
Wood bio - click here] ... but it just might be that in these, someone has
just identified Corrigan via his gorilla costume (which might have been
worn by someone completely else), and maybe the full truth about in what
films he has appeared will never be found
out.
However, besides his appearances as an ape, he played an array of
other monsters as well, in films like Unknown Island (1945, Jack
Bernhard) or Zombies
of Mora Tau (1957, Edward L. Cahn), and his last monster appearance, in a suit
designed by Paul Blaisdell, was in 1958's
It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958, Edward
L. Cahn),
playing of course It.
Corriganville has meanwhile flourished and grown from a mere Western setting with just a few houses on it into a
multi purpose setting with its own Western town, a Corsican Village
(built for the Howard Hughes production Vendetta [Mal Ferrer,
Stuart Heisler, Max Ophüls, Preston Sturges, Paul Weatherwax], released in 1950, but begun in 1946), some locations
perfect for Robin
Hood's Sherwood Forest (and used in
Robin Hood-films like Bandit of Sherwood Forest [1946,
Henry Levin, George Sherman]) and mock jungle settings (used in the Jungle Jim
series). In
1949, Crash Corrigan opened his ranch to the public as a theme park where
stunt shows, shoot-outs and the like would be performed in the Western
town. As this was before Disneyland or the Universal Studios Themepark,
Corriganville became a booming success.
Around this time,
Corrigan also hosted his own TV-show, Crash Corrigan's Ranch
(1950), and after years of absence he made another appearance in a B-Western,
Trail of Robin Hood
(1950, William Witney [William Witney
bio - click here]), starring Roy Rogers [Roy
Rogers bio - click here] and featuring an all-star cast of
range heroes from the 1940's (and earlier), probably both to promote his
new themepark. Corrigan also planned to launch another series of trio
Westerns, The Buckskin Rangers, starring himself, Max
Terhune and Bill Hale, but the time for trio Westerns was long gone by, and
the series never came into being. Reportedly, one film with the trio
was shot though, that is now in the hands of Corrigan's son Tommy, who
occasionally shows it to Western fans at private screenings, but hasn't
yet made it available to the public. It is not known if the film is
actually a finished piece of work, a rough cut, or just some material
pieced together. In 1965, Corrigan sold Corriganville
(reportedly for several million Dollars) to Bob Hope, who rechristened the
place Hopetown ... but closed down the amusement park only one year later. Crash
Corrigan died in 1976, and despite he never made it
to the top as an actor, he died a rich man. and however corny you
think some of his performances were, his contribution to
B-movies, especially Westerns and gorilla cinema, cannot be overrated.
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