Tom Mix Dies With His Boots On
By the United Press.

FLORENCE, Ariz, Oct. 12.—Tom Mix, the rootin'est, tootin'est, shootin'est cowboy there ever was, died today as spectacularly as he lived, in an auto wreck, when his green speedster turned over on an Arizona desert Highway at 80 miles an hour.

He was dead when passersby hauled him from the wreckage near here. His neck was broken.

Mix, who never was as good behind the wheel as he was at the bridle of his horse, Tony, tangled with a bridge construction job. There was a detour sign, but the 60-year-old cowboy—the originator of Hollywood's multi-million-dollar horse opera industry—failed to see it.

He died with his high-heeled boots on and his 10-gallon white sombrero still jammed on his brow.

(Other details on Page 10-A)

It sure sounds like Tom Mix hurt someone's feelings in Atlanta. Here's how the New York Times front page ran the story:

Tom Mix Dies With His Boots On
By the United Press.

FLORENCE, Ariz, Oct. 12.—Tom Mix, 60, cowboy-actor and hero of Western thrillers of the films, was killed eighteen miles south of here today as he was pinned under his overturned automobile on a highway detour.

Mr. Mix, whose colorful career as a circus performer, soldier, law enforcement officer and motion picture star make him the idol of millions the world over, was traveling alone from Tucson, Ariz., to Florence and Phoenix.

Serving as advance agent for a circus scheduled to show soon in Phoenix, he was carrying $6,000 in cash, $1,500 in travelers' checks and several valuable jewels.

Two highway employes [sic] discovered the upset car and called State patrolmen, who extricated the body. Coroner E.O. Devine said that Mr. Mix apparently died instantly after losing control of his car. There will be no inquest. The body was brought here.

The Times story continues for about another thousand words but none of them confirm Constitution's gorier details. So of course I had to go looking for more. The United Press-credited story on the front page of The Arizona Daily Star follows pretty much the same template as the Associated Press story in The Constitution and The Times but adds some additional facts.

Tom Mix Dies in Auto Crash Near Florence

FLORENCE, Ariz, Oct. 12.—(AP)—Tom Mix, 60, cowboy-actor and hero of scores of western thrillers of the silent film era, was killed 18 miles south of here today when he was pinned under his overturned automobile on a highway detour.

Mix, whose colorful career as a circus Performer, soldier, law enforcement officer and motion picture star made him the idol of millions the world over, was traveling alone from Tucson to Florence and Phoenix.

Coroner E. O. Devine said Mix apparently died instantly after losing control of his car. The body was brought here.

Body Is Found

Two highway employes [sic], John Adams of Oracle, Ariz., and E. A. Armenta of Casa Grande, discovered the overturned vehicle.

Martin Younkers, Beloit, Wis., and Anthony Monts, Rockford, Ill., who said Mix had passed them on the highway north of Tucson, helped pull the actor's body from under his racing model car.

Younkers and Monts said a heavy suit case had fallen against Mix's head, burying his face in the soft ground. A physician reported later the blow broke his neck.

Local investigators said Mix, who left Tucson at 1 p.m., was serving as advance agent for a circus scheduled to show in Phoenix shortly. The cowboy star was carrying $6,000 in cash, $1,500 in travelers' checks and several valuable jewels.

One of the things I was taught in high school journalism was to get people's names in the paper to encourage local interest. I wonder how Mr. Younkers and Mr. Monts felt about that tactic.

For the record, The Constitution was wrong about the color. The car was not green. It was a bright yellow 1937 Cord 812 Supercharged Phaeton (with California license plate 6C 90 61). It's since been restored. The same cannot be said for Mr. Mix.

Per WXIA News:

Witnesses who were on the ride were emotional as they described a gruesome scene, saying the man hit the ride several times after he was ejected. One witness told [reporter] Cody Alcorn that the falling man was captured on their souvenir picture taken while on the ride.

How would they even know that? Other reports indicated riders were kept on the train in the station for up to five minutes after the accident. You'd think that'd be plenty of time for the teenage park attendants to block any traumatizing pictures from reaching the already traumatized riders. Six Flags has been treating people badly for years; I can't believe they still don't have a protocol for this sort of thing.

If there's one thing I would hope everyone could agree on in 2026, it's stay as far away as possible from Six Flags parks. Your life may very well depend on it.

As a voter, am I supposed to be mad that someone spends campaign donations on their appearance? Given the cost of everything these days, three thousand for hair/makeup services doesn't strike me as extraordinarily excessive, especially for someone on television running for office. This line of attack seems particularly counterproductive given that it's the Republican party that has fully embraced the much more expensive artificial "Mar-a-Lago Face" (base price: $90,000).

Does the attacking candidate have market research indicating Georgians want their government representatives to look like unkempt trolls? Should we all get our haircuts from Great Clips? (Even they now charge at least $20 per basic monthly trim, tip not included.) I won't deny that a majority of us voted for a sunburnt orange with a bad comb-over, but if we love slobs, just being a candidate with splotchy five o'clock shadow should be enough to win the race without AI recreations to make your opponent look even better than he does in real life.

I assume that if stronger, more substantive attacks could be made, there wouldn't be three commercials with this silly complaint, leaving me with the feeling that all this has to be an old-fashioned attack on his opponent's manhood, as a Real Man would never use a beauty product more exotic than lye soap. Maybe someone should have told that to John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds; those ladies looked particularly good in makeup and wigs.

The particular candidate making these loud dog whistles has a history of employing people with extremely unpopular (some might say "anti-women" or "pro-Nazi") opinions and no qualms about using deep fakes of his opponent despite the current AI backlash, so I already had plenty of reasons to doubt his judgement. But no matter how many times you mention it, I just don't care if my representatives in Congress are spending their money on professional stylists. That's certainly a better use of cash than AI attack ads. At least the stylists are real people.

118/2688. Noah's Ark (1928)

Technically, it's a "part-talkie," defined as films with synchronized sound but limited speaking scenes, the template established by Warner Bros' The Jazz Singer, released February 1928. (Loy has a silent cameo in that as a chorus girl!) The part-talkie format didn't last long; Warner's first "all-talking" picture, Lights of New York, came out in July of the same year. Loy made only five part-talkies, two before this and two after, but this is the only one with a surviving "talkie" soundtrack.

As you would expect from a film titled Noah's Ark, the climax of the film is a spectacular biblical flood. The rest, you might be surprised to hear, is a World War I romance preaching that humanity has learned its lesson about intolerance and will end all wars immediately. Whoops. The two halves don't really go together, and, worse, the dialogue is particularly ham-fistedly awful, like Hollywood had never bothered listening to people having actual conversations before they invented "talking" pictures.

Loy's part in Noah's Ark is not big. She's credited for two roles, but only one is identifiable in the existent film. She comes in at about the 53-minute mark and is on screen for only 39 seconds, emerging from behind the curtain of an improvised cabaret. For future reference, this is her whole part:

Myrna Loy as DANCER:
Why are you always staring at the soldiers? Who are you looking for?

Dolores Costello as MARIE:
Well, if you must know, I'm looking for an American soldier.

DANCER:
That ought to be easy. There are only two million of them over here.

MARIE:
Really? I thought there were more.

DANCER:
Now, tell me the sad story.

MARIE:
I don't think you'd be interested in my story.

Having seen your story, Marie, I can tell you that you're right. On the other hand, I'll be watching Myrna every Monday this month.

105/2675. Chungking Express (1994)
I really didn't know what to expect from this, and I spent most of the film wondering why I was still watching it. Ultimately it's very much like one of Jim Jaramusch stream of consciousness films (Night Train springs to mind) and the influence on Tarantino is obvious. If nothing else, it's a great palate refresher for the typical Hollywood formula.

Production teams: This film has so many Coca-Cola products on screen, you'd think they bankrolled the whole thing.

106/2676. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
This is a ridiculously contrived thriller in which a former newspaper reporter decides to frame himself for a murder because... well, with a setup like that, you can probably guess. The Big Twist Ending makes it all so, so stupid.

Screenwriters: When your detective pumps the strip club bartender for leads, have him order something stiffer than a Coke.

107/2677. Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
A triumph of style over substance! They wanted it so badly, they should have just gone ahead and titled this Lady John Wick. It gets the candy-colored ultra-violence right but rings emotionally hollow. Wick cheated, of course, as a murdered dog guarantees audience buy-in; maybe I just care less about human children.

Set decorators: Coke advertising builds retro vibes, and the red foreshadows bloody violence!

108/2678. Appleseed (1988)
I'd read the manga, but this is the first time I'd seen the anime. As good as Ghost in the Shell is, this is not.

More to come.