John M. PickardFilmography

Act of Vengeance

Actors: Ninette Bravo

Synopsis: This sleazy exploitation feature from director Robert Kelljan (Count Yorga, Vampire) is more noteworthy for its cast than its content. The plot concerns a group of five women who learn martial arts and team up to avenge their violations by a rapist (Peter Brown) who forced them to sing Jingle Read More

Kojak: Requiem for a Cop

Synopsis: No one is more grief-stricken than Kojak (Telly Savalas) when his old friend, a veteran detective, is found murdered with $10,000 in cash on his body. It appears that the victim was on the take, and as such has been slated for what the NYPD calls "burial with dishonor." Kojak has only 48 hours to Read More

Mission: Impossible: Crack-Up

Actors: Peter Graves, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Alex Cord, Peter Breck

Synopsis: With Mission:Impossible regular Lynda Day George still on maternity leave, Marlyn Mason makes a guest appearance as IMF agent Sandy in "Crack-Up." For her first assignment with the team, Sandy plays a major role in a scheme to determine the identity of the Syndicate higher-up who hired Read More

Mission: Impossible: The Missile

Actors: Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Lesley Ann Warren, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus

Synopsis: Enemy agent James Reed (David Sheiner) intends to steal the plans for a new missile guidance system. The IMF is assigned to hoodwink Reed into pilfering a set of bonus plans. Endangering the mission is escaped mental patient Hecker (John Beck), who believes that IMF agent Dana is his former Read More

Bonanza: Winter Kill

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Mitch Vogel, Glenn Corbett

Synopsis: The Virginia City Bank refuses to lend money to a group of Sierra Nevade ranchers who lost most of their stock during a particularly brutal winter. Ben Cartwright tries to come to the aid of the imperiled ranchers by bringing in a new breed of cattle from Montana, a breed capable of surviving the Read More

Chisum

Actors: John Wayne, Forrest Tucker, Christopher George, Ben Johnson, Glenn Corbett

Synopsis: John Wayne toplines this biography of the cattle owner John Simpson Chisum, a controversial figure who was the most powerful man in New Mexico during the Wild West era. A founder and prominent citizen in the town of Lincoln, Chisum is slow to act when ruthless land baron Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker Read More

Bonanza: Company of Forgotten Men

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, David Canary, James Gregory

Synopsis: The Cartwrights give food and shelter to a bedraggled, impoverish company of army veterans, who have been denied their pensions for various and sundry reasons. What the Cartwrights don't know is that the ex-soldiers intend to get even with the government by robbing the Carson City mint. Read More

True Grit

Actors: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Jeremy Slate, Robert Duvall

Synopsis: In fine Hollywood tradition, John Wayne had to play a "one-eyed fat man" before the Motion Picture Academy considered him worthy of an Oscar. In True Grit, Wayne plays grumpy, pot-bellied U.S. marshal "Rooster" Cogburn, hired by 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) to find Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) Read More

Charro!

Actors: Elvis Presley, Ina Balin, Victor French, Lynn Kellogg, Barbara Werle

Synopsis: This western saga finds Jess Wade (Elvis Presley) as a reformed gunfighter who is stalked and captured by his former band of outlaws. Vince (Victor French) is the heavy who orders Jess' cheek to be branded with a hot iron. The gang terrorizes a small town by threatening to use a gold-plated and Read More

Ironside: Barbara Who

Synopsis: The title character in this episode is a female amnesia victim, played by the versatile Vera Miles. While searching for "Barbara"'s true identity, Ironside (Raymond Burr) discovers that somebody is trying to kill the woman. He also realizes that he is falling in love with "Barbara"--and that Read More

Ironside: The Macabre Mr. Micawber

Synopsis: It is altogether fitting that Burgess Meredith, who'd played The Penguin on Batman, should guest-star in this episode, which likewise boasts an "avian" theme. A wealthy man has been murdered, and his faithful manservant (Meredith) has been charged with the crime. To get to the truth of the matter Read More

Panic in the City

Actors: Howard Duff, Linda Cristal, Stephen McNally, Nehemiah Persoff

Synopsis: A murder investigation uncovers a plot that could destroy the world as we know it in this thriller. When a scientist doing research on nuclear weapons is murdered during a hospital stay, federal investigator Dave Pomeroy (Howard Duff) is called in to find out who killed him and why. With the help Read More

Branded: Call to Glory, Part 2

Synopsis: In the second episode of a three-part story, Presidential emissary Jason McCord (Chuck Connors) has managed to disuade his former West Point comrade General Custer (Robert Lansing) from sparking an Indian war to further his own political ambitions. Shortly thereafter, Chief Crazy Horse (Michael Read More

Branded: Call to Glory, Part 3

Synopsis: In the concluding episode of a three-part story, sinister forces have conspired against both General Custer (Robert Lansing) and Indian chief Crazy Horse (Michael Pate), making a final bloody confrontation at the Little Big Horn all but inevitable. Acting on behalf of President Grant, Jason McCord Read More

Country Boy

Synopsis: In this tuneful country-western comedy, a talent scout discovers a potential star when he overhears a gas pump jockey singing in a rural filling station. The young attendant is eager to go to Nashville, but unfortunately, he is petrified on stage. Later an agent signs him on and decides to help Read More

Branded: Salute the Soldier Briefly

Synopsis: Michael Rennie guest stars as Charles Briswell, an accused murderer whom Jason McCord (Chuck Connors) rescues from a miner's kangaroo court. Jason's motives aren't entirely humanitarian: Briswell claims to have been a witness at the battle of Bitter Creek, and thus is in a position to clear McCord Read More

Branded: The First Kill

Synopsis: Arriving in a small town to pay his respects to the family of Adam Manning, the first man he killed in battle during the Civil War, Jason (Chuck Connors) is astonished when he comes face to face with Adam's exact double. He soon realizes that he has met the man's younger brother Tad (both roles Read More

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Actors: Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Robert Loggia, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, Charlton Heston

Synopsis: Filmmaker George Stevens chose Monument Valley, Utah for his exterior sequences in The Greatest Story Ever Told, this ($20 million) adaptation of Fulton Oursler's best-selling book. The "Greatest Story" is, of course, the life of Jesus Christ, played herein by Max Von Sydow. The large supporting Read More

Branded: The Vindicator

Synopsis: New York newspaperman Ned Travis (Claude Akins) tracks down Jason McCord (Chuck Connors) in hopes of getting the "real story" of what happened at Bitter Creek. Under normal circumstances, McCord would like nothing better than to reveal the truth and clear himself of the charge of cowardice. But Read More

The Twilight Zone: Ninety Years Without Slumbering

Actors: Ed Wynn, Carolyn Kearney, James Callahan, William Sargent

Synopsis: Bernard Herrmann composed his final Twilight Zone musical score for the December 20, 1963 episode "Ninety Years Without Slumbering." Ed Wynn stars as septuagenarian Sam Forstmann, who resists his family's efforts to sell his precious grandfather clock. It seems that the clock began running on the Read More

A Gathering of Eagles

Actors: Rock Hudson, Rod Taylor, Mary Peach, Barry Sullivan, Kevin McCarthy

Synopsis: A Gathering of Eagles stars Rock Hudson as a colonel in the peacetime Strategic Air Command. His devotion to his duty as a wing commander takes a toll on his men, his marriage, and his own well-being. It is to Hudson's credit that he was willing to put his image on the line with this essentially Read More

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: To Catch a Butterfly

Actors: Bradford Dillman, Diana Hyland, Ed Asner, June Dayton, Mickey Sholdar

Synopsis: Moving into a new house, Bill and Janet Nelson (Bradford Dillman, Diana Hyland) try to make friends with their neighbors the Standers, only to be put off by the taciturn attitude of Jack Stander (Edward Asner) -- and especially the bizarre behavior of Jack's young son, Eddie (Mickey Sholdar). It Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Bouncing Boomerang

Synopsis: Eula Johnson (Diana Millay), the bored young bride of rancher Grover Johnson (Rod Cameron), begs her husband to sell his bleak desert spread, but he refuses. Enter wealthy Texas Nelson Barclift (a pre-Gilligan's Island Alan Hale Jr), who offers to pay Johnson four times what his property is worth. Read More

Dangerous Charter

Actors: Chris Warfield, Sally Fraser, Richard Foote, Peter Forster, Chick Chandler

Synopsis: This routine crime drama about a mysterious, abandoned yacht is directed by Robert Gottschalk who also wrote the original story. The action begins when three impoverished fishermen working along the California coast come across a yacht with no crew. The only thing they do find on the boat is a Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Capricious Corpse

Synopsis: Philanthropist Carleton Gage (Everett Glass) hires Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) to alter his will so that the orphanage he supports will remain open. Unfortunately, Gage lapses into a coma just before the will can be finalized. As Gage's life ebbs away, two of his beneficiaries, his cousin George Read More

Gun Street

Actors: James Brown, Jean Willes, John Clarke, Med Flory, John M. Pickard

Synopsis: This routine, often disappointing, "B"-grade, low-budget western is directed by Edward L. Cahn and was the penultimate film of his career. (He died the year after Gun Street was released.) The story is mainly one long chase, as the Sheriff (Jame Brown) goes after an outlaw. One obstacle after Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Bashful Burro

Synopsis: The "rodeo week" festivities in the town of Placer City apparently include a barroom brawl, which is broken up by none other than Perry Mason (Raymond Burr), in town to deliver a subpoena to elusive prospector Amos Catledge (George Mitchell). Perry becomes more deeply involved in the situation Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Sunbather's Diary

Synopsis: Perry (Raymond Burr) receives a phone call from Arlene Dowling (Susan Morrow), who claims that she was robbed of all her belongings (including her clothes!) while sunbathing. Among the missing items is Arlene's trailer, in which was hidden a diary. Shortly thereafter, Perry finds himself defending Read More

Ride a Violent Mile

Actors: John Agar, Penny Edwards, Richard Shannon

Synopsis: Ride a Violent Mile is an economically produced western with a Civil War background. Penny Edwards stars as Susan, a Union spy who poses as a dance-hall girl in a Confederate-friendly frontier town. Susan hopes to prevent the Mexican government from casting its lot with the South, and to do that Read More

The Night Runner

Actors: Ray Danton, Colleen Miller, Merry Anders, Willis B. Bouchey, Harry Jackson

Synopsis: In this dark drama, a schizophrenic is forced out of his hospital due to overcrowding, and his doctors tell him to avoid stressful situations. He goes to a beachside motel and likes both the area and the owner's daughter. Her father discovers that he is a mental patient and threatens to have him Read More

Copper Sky

Actors: Jeff Morrow, Coleen Gray, Paul Brinegar, William Hamel, Jack Lomas

Synopsis: Copper Sky was directed by Charles Marquis Warren, one of the prime movers of TV's Gunsmoke. The scene is a small western town that has been decimated by an Apache raid. The only survivor is drifter Jeff Morrow, who was locked up in jail at the time of the massacre. Before long, Boston schoolmarm Coleen Gray Read More

War Drums

Actors: Lex Barker, Joan Taylor, Ben Johnson, Larry Chance, Richard H. Cutting

Synopsis: War Drums manages to be pro-Indian, pro-Mexican, pro-tolerance and pro-feminist without ever resorting to speechmaking or sacrificing its entertainment value. Former Tarzan Lex Barker stars as an Apache chief who is almost ostracized by his tribe when he marries Mexican girl Joan Taylor. Read More

Outlaw's Son

Actors: Dane Clark, Ben Cooper, Lori Nelson, Ellen Drew, Charles Watts

Synopsis: This unusual western drama stars Ben Cooper as Jeff Blaine ,a twelve-year-old boy growing up sans a mother or a father in the small town of Plainsville. Jeff's mom died during his infancy, and his dad Nate (Dane Clark) left not long after and became an outlaw. With both of the parents Read More

Badlands of Montana

Actors: Rex Reason, Margia Dean, Beverly Garland, Keith Larsen, Emile G. Meyer

Synopsis: A mayoral candidate is booted out of town after he is gulled into a gunfight and kills his rival. This western chronicles his adventures as an outlaw. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Crime Against Joe

Actors: John Bromfield, Julie London, Henry Calvin, Patricia Blake, Joel Ashley

Synopsis: Down-and-out artist Joe Manning (John Bromfield) wakes up from a night of drunken revelry in a jail cell, where he's being held on suspicion for the murder of a nightclub singer. It so happens that the dead woman was clutching a "class of 1945" high school pin in her hand, and it was on the basis Read More

The Lone Ranger

Actors: Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels, Lyle Bettger, Bonita Granville, Perry Lopez

Synopsis: The Lone Ranger was the first of two Technicolor theatrical features based on the popular TV series of the same name. Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, stars of the video version, essay the roles of the Masked Rider of the Plains and his faithful Indian companion Tonto. This time around, our Read More

Dragnet: The Big Rush

Synopsis: It's a personal matter for Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) when an off-duty police officer is killed by two stickup men in a downtown bar. The criminal pair has been terrorizing taverns throughout the LA area, but now it looks as though their days of freedom are numbered, thanks to a Read More

Friendly Persuasion

Actors: Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins, Marjorie Main, Robert Middleton, Richard Eyer

Synopsis: Adapted from the best-selling novel by Jessamyn West, Friendly Persuasion is set in Southern Indiana in the early days of the Civil War. Gary Cooper plays Jess Birdwell, patriarch of a Quaker family which does not believe in warfare. Birdwell's son Josh (Anthony Perkins) wishes to adhere to his Read More

The Black Whip

Actors: Hugh Marlowe, Coleen Gray, Richard Gilden, Angie Dickinson, Strother Martin

Synopsis: After closing down his film studio, producer Robert L. Lippert took charge of Regal Films, a subsidiary of 20th Century-Fox designed to turn out low-budget, non-CinemaScope productions. One of the first of these films was the modest western The Black Whip. Colleen Gray, Angie Dickinson, Adele Mara Read More

The Broken Star

Actors: Howard Duff, Lita Baron, Henry Calvin, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: Director Lesley Selander, a western specialist with humble ambitions whose work has fostered a minor cult, was the man behind the megaphone in Broken Star. Bill Williams stars as a deputy sheriff who encounters stiff resistance when he investigates the murder of a Mexican. Only dance hall girl Lita Baron Read More

The Oklahoman

Actors: Joel McCrea, Barbara Hale, Brad Dexter, Gloria Talbott, Verna Felton

Synopsis: Joel McCrea stars in this leisurely paced Western from Allied Artists (formerly Monogram) originally released in Cinemascope. Having lost his wife in childbirth en route to California, Dr. John Brighton (McCrea) builds a new home for himself and his baby daughter in an Oklahoma backwater town Read More

Flame of the Islands

Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, Howard Duff, Zachary Scott, Kurt Kasznar, Barbara O'Neil

Synopsis: Yvonne de Carlo is at her most smokily exotic in the Republic "special" Flame of the Islands. Filmed on location in the Bahamas, the story focuses on Rosalind Dee (Ms. DeCarlo), a cabaret singer who aspires to enter High Society. To this end, she comes into possession of a great deal of money Read More

Seminole Uprising

Actors: George Montgomery, Karin [Katharine] Booth, William Fawcett, Steven Ritch, John M. Pickard

Synopsis: There's a surprising lack of action in the Sam Katzman-produced western Seminole Uprising. George Montgomery heads the cast as Army lieutenant Cam Elliot, who is assigned to round up a group of renegade Seminoles who've left their Florida reservation and have escaped to Texas. Along the way Read More

To Hell and Back

Actors: Audie Murphy, Marshall Thompson, Susan Kohner, Charles Drake, Jack Kelly, Gregg Palmer

Synopsis: The highly variable Audie Murphy delivers his best screen performance as "himself" in Universal's To Hell and Back. Based on the star's autobiography, this is the story of how Murphy became America's most-decorated soldier during WW II. After dwelling a bit on Murphy's hard-scrabble Texas Read More

Seven Angry Men

Actors: Raymond Massey, Debra Paget, Dennis Weaver, Jeffrey Hunter, Larry Pennell, Leo Gordon

Synopsis: In Seven Angry Men, Raymond Massey stars as controversial 19th-century abolitionist John Brown, a role he'd previously essayed in 1940's Santa Fe Trail. Without glossing over Brown's murderous fanaticism and cold-bloodedness, the film manages to invoke a degree of sympathy for the man, whose Read More

Shotgun

Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, Sterling Hayden, Zachary Scott, Guy Prescott

Synopsis: While John Ford and Howard Hawks received all the critical plaudits, Lesley Selander quietly went about his business directing some of the best westerns of the 1950s. In Selander's Shotgun, deputy sheriff Clay (Sterling Hayden) embarks upon a long, vengeful journey to track down Thompson (Guy Read More

Kentucky Rifle

Synopsis: In order to pass through Comanche territory, the stranded passengers of a West-bound wagon train must sell the Indians their rifles in this western from Carl Hittleman. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The McConnell Story

Actors: Alan Ladd, June Allyson, James Whitmore, Frank Faylen, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Alan Ladd plays real-life air force hero Captain Joseph McConnell Jr. in this inspirational biopic, while June Allyson does her usual as McConnell's anxious, waiting-nervously-at-home wife. Assigned to the medical corps during WWII, McConnell takes private flying lessons so that he'll qualify for Read More

At Gunpoint

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Dorothy Malone, Walter Brennan, Tommy Rettig, Skip Homeier

Synopsis: One of the best of the High Noon derivations, At Gunpoint is the story of reluctant hero Fred MacMurray. When a band of gunmen invade a small frontier town, storekeeper MacMurray fires off a lucky shot and kills the leader. Hailed as a hero, MacMurray realizes deep down that he's a coward. When Read More

I Died a Thousand Times

Actors: Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lori Nelson, Lee Marvin

Synopsis: I Died a Thousand Times is a scene-by-scene remake of the 1941 crime-drama classic High Sierra. Jack Palance steps into the old Humphrey Bogart role as Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, the ageing bank robber who intends to pull off one last heist before retiring. Sprung from prison by likeable crime boss Big Read More

Two Guns and a Badge

Actors: Wayne Morris, Morris Ankrum, Beverly Garland, Roy Barcroft, William Phipps

Synopsis: In the last of his four western programmers for Allied Artists, Wayne Morris plays frontiersman Jim Bisby. Mistaken for a notorious gunslinger, Jim is appointed deputy sheriff of a wide-open cattle town. Playing along, our hero gets down to business -- and by the time his true identity is Read More

Return from the Sea

Actors: Jan Sterling, Neville Brand, John Doucette, Paul Langton, John M. Pickard

Synopsis: Neville Brand plays one of his earliest good-guy roles in Return from the Sea. Brand plays a sailor named Maclish, who is a boisterous, love 'em and leave 'em type--until he meets a lonely waitress named Frieda (Jan Sterling). Through her example, Maclish realizes that he too has been lonesome all Read More

Arrow in the Dust

Actors: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Keith Larsen, Tom Tully, Jimmy Wakely

Synopsis: Arrow in the Dust is an intelligently assembled story of regeneration. Deserting cavalry trooper Bart Laish (Sterling Hayden) is forced by a series of circumstances to assume the identity of his dead commanding officer. In this guise, Laish is put in charge of a wagon train heading through Indian Read More

Rose Marie

Actors: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas, Bert Lahr, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: 1954's Rose Marie is the third film version of the 1924 Otto Harbach-Oscar Hammerstein-Rudolph Frinl operetta of the same name. Though not a completely faithful adaptation, this version is closer to the original than the (admittedly enjoyable) Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald version of 1936. Ann Blyth Read More

Human Desire

Actors: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Case

Synopsis: Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) needs the intervention of his beautiful wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to keep his job, so Vicki meets with Carl's boss Owens (Grandon Rhodes), and Carl's job is secure. Insanely jealous, Carl finds Vicki with Owens on board a train and kills Owens. Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford Read More

Massacre Canyon

Actors: Philip Carey, Audrey Totter, Douglas Kennedy, Jeff Donnell, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: Action star Phil Carey once more dons Cavalry Blue in Columbia's Massacre Canyon. This time, Carey plays the unsavory role of an alcoholic Cavalry lieutenent who fancies himself an expert on Indians. In truth, only his sergeant, Douglas Kennedy, possesses enough knowhow for the task at hand: To Read More

Black Horse Canyon

Actors: Joel McCrea, Mari Blanchard, Race Gentry, Murvyn Vye, Irving Bacon

Synopsis: Black Horse Canyon was adapted from The Wild Horse, a novel by Lee Savage Jr. Joel McCrea stars as novice rancher Del Rockwell, who takes it upon himself to capture a magnificent wild black stallion who has been spiriting mares away from other ranchers. Rockwell hopes to use the stallion for stud Read More

Bitter Creek

Actors: William "Wild Bill" Elliott, Carleton Young, Beverly Garland, Claude Akins, Jim Hayward

Synopsis: Neither a B nor an A picture, Bitter Creek is a solid western programmer, offering an excellent, unglamorized performance by Wild Bill Elliot. Though officially prohibited to do so by the Production Code, the film is motivated by revenge. Elliot arrives in Bitter Creek seeking retribution for the Read More

Arrowhead

Actors: Charlton Heston, Jack Palance, Katy Jurado, Brian Keith, Mary Sinclair

Synopsis: Adapted from a novel by W.R. Burnett (which hadn't yet been published when the film was released), Arrowhead is a tough, uncompromising western dealing with the delicate issue of White-Indian relations. Charlton Heston is at his most truculent as Indian agent Ed Bannon, who though raised by Read More

The Fighting Lawman

Actors: Wayne Morris, Virginia Grey

Synopsis: In this western, a brave cowgirl tries to steal the ill-gotten gains of an outlaw gang. The sheriff is hot on her heels. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Bandits of Corsica

Actors: Richard Greene, Paula Raymond, Raymond Burr, Dona Drake, Raymond Greenleaf

Synopsis: Bandits of Corsica was also released as The Return of the Corsican Brothers. Bearing only the faintest resemblance to the Alexandre Dumas original, the film stars Richard Greene in the dual role of good brother Mario and his evil twin Lucien. Mario leads his fellow Corsicans in a revolt against Read More

Flight to Tangier

Actors: Joan Fontaine, Jack Palance, Corinne Calvet, Robert Douglas, Marcel Dalio

Synopsis: In this suspense drama, a group of strangers becomes acquainted as they wait for a plane to arrive at an airport in Tangier. Among those awaiting the flight are Susan (Joan Fontaine), an American who is dating the pilot; Gil Walker (Jack Palance), an expatriate who received the Congressional Medal Read More

The Story of Three Loves

Actors: Anna Maria Pier Angeli, Ethel Barrymore, Leslie Caron, Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Farley Granger

Synopsis: This anthology film tells three stories of love involving the passengers of an ocean liner at sea. In the first, "The Jealous Lover," James Mason plays Charles Coudray, a well-known ballet director. When someone asks Coudray why he staged his masterpiece, "Astarte," only once, he tells the story Read More

Hellgate

Actors: Sterling Hayden, Joan Leslie, Ward Bond, James Arness, Marshall Bradford

Synopsis: This western stars Sterling Hayden as a man who innocently tends to the needs of a mysterious stranger. When it turns out that the stranger was part of a notorious gang of mercenaries, Hayden is condemned as a conspirator and sent to Hellgate Prison in New Mexico. He earns a pardon thanks to his Read More

Bugles in the Afternoon

Actors: Ray Milland, Helena Carter, Hugh Marlowe, Forrest Tucker, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: During the Civil War, Colonel Kern Shafter (played by Ray Milland) and Captain Edward Garnett (played by Hugh Marlowe) become embroiled in a conflict, the cause of which is somewhat cloudy. As a result, Shafter leaves the Eastern Cavlary and moves West, where he is able to re-enlist. Ten years Read More

Hoodlum Empire

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Claire Trevor, Forrest Tucker, Vera Ralston, Luther Adler

Synopsis: The Kefauver Committee's ongoing investigation of organized crime spawned several "Torn from Today's Headlines!" films in the early 1950s. Republic's Hoodlum Empire concerns the efforts by gangster Joe Gray (John Russell) to get out of the rackets after WW II. Part of Gray's "reclamation" is to Read More

Above and Beyond

Actors: Robert Taylor, Eleanor Parker, James Whitmore, Larry Keating, Larry Gates

Synopsis: Above and Beyond is the story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as told from the perspective of the man who flew the mission. Robert Taylor stars as Col. Paul Tibbetts, commander of the Enola Gay. Once selected for this extremely dangerous mission, Tibbetts must hand-pick a crew worthy of the Read More

Red Ball Express

Actors: Jeff Chandler, Alex Nicol, Charles Drake, Judith Braun, Hugh O'Brian

Synopsis: Red Ball Express deals with the little-known activities of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps during WW II. It so happened that many of the Corps' most courageous drivers were black men, who otherwise would have been denied an opportunity for combat duty. Sidney Poitier plays Corporal Andrew Read More

The Sniper

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, Gerald Mohr, Marie Windsor, Frank Faylen

Synopsis: The "regeneration" of blacklisted director Edward Dmytryk was expedited when he was hired by producer Stanley Kramer to helm the location-filmed melodrama The Sniper. In the interests of political expediency, Dmytrk was required to direct Adolphe Menjou, one of the most virulent Red-baiters of the Read More

Operation Secret

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Steve Cochran, Phyllis Thaxter, Karl Malden, Paul Picerni

Synopsis: Loosely based on the true story of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Ortiz, this mystery centers on an American WW II veteran who heroically served as both an officer and a member of the French Foreign Legionnaire. During the war he had been instrumental in assisting in the French Resistance. With such a Read More

Trail Guide

Actors: Tim Holt, Linda Douglas, Frank Wilcox, Robert Sherwood, John M. Pickard

Synopsis: Tim Holt's first western release for 1952 was Trail Guide. Tim (Holt) and his perennial saddle pal Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) are hired to shepherd a wagon train to Arizona. Our Heroes end up protecting the travellers from a vicious ban of land-usurpers. Halfway through the proceedings, Tim Read More

Snake River Desperadoes

Actors: Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Don Kay Reynolds, Tommy Ivo, Monte Blue

Synopsis: Snake River Desperadoes affords Charles Starrett another opportunity to don the mask of the do-gooding Durango Kid. In this one, Steve Reynolds (Starrett) runs up against criminal mastermind Jim Haverly (Monte Blue), who for financial reasons hopes to foment a war between the Apaches and the Read More

Little Big Horn

Actors: Lloyd Bridges, John Ireland, Marie Windsor, Reed Hadley, Jim Davis

Synopsis: Ninety per cent of Little Big Horn takes place before Custer's Last Stand; thus, the emphasis is on character and suspense rather than spectacle (just as well, since spectacle was well out of the range of parsimonious Lippert Studios). Lloyd Bridges heads a small band of cavalrymen who desperately Read More

Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion [Serial]

Synopsis: Walter Reed, who also starred in Flying Disc Man from Mars that year, played a government agent looking into a series of truck hijackings in this Republic Pictures action serial. The hijackers are after critical Government material and are led by "The Voice," one of those mystery men so popular in Read More

Oh! Susanna

Actors: Rod Cameron, Adrian Booth, Forrest Tucker, Chill Wills, William Ching

Synopsis: Oh! Susanna is a "big" western by Republic standards, decked out with lavish production values and an extended running time (90 minutes, as compared to the usual "B"-picture length of 60 or 70 minutes). Rod Cameron stars as Captain Calhoun, a cavalry officer dedicated to protecting the rights of Read More

David Harding, Counterspy

Actors: Willard Parker, Audrey Long, Howard St. John, Raymond Greenleaf, Harlan Warde

Synopsis: No sooner had Columbia called it quits with the "Blondie" series than the studio launched a new group of "B"-pictures, based on the popular radio series David Harding, Counterspy. Third-billed Howard St. John plays Harding, with actor/director Fred Sears co-starring as Harding's assistant Peters. Read More

The Gunfighter

Actors: Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Cliff Clark, Angela Clarke, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, David Clarke, Ellen Corby, Karl Malden

Synopsis: In this classic noir-influenced Western, Gregory Peck stars as an aging gunslinger, sick of killing but haunted by punks wanting to make a name for themselves by slaying a legend. After being warned by his old friend the Sheriff, Peck decides to return East to see his estranged wife and the child Read More

California Passage

Actors: Forrest Tucker, Adele Mara, Estelita Rodriguez, Jim Davis, Gerald Perreau-Saissine

Synopsis: Beautiful Adele Mara, who Republic Pictures took for granted for far too long, finally gets a chance to shine in this fine Western produced and directed by the dependent Joseph Kane. Mara plays Beth Martin, an Easterner traveling west to be reunited with her brother, Bob (Bill Williams). But Bob Read More

Bright Leaf

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Jack Carson, Patricia Neal, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Bright Leaf, a sprawling saga of the tobacco industry in North Carolina, began as a novel by Foster Fitzsimmons, a native Carolinian who for many years taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's theatre department. The film version of Bright Leaf has been simplified and reshaped to Read More

Stage to Tucson

Actors: Rod Cameron, Wayne Morris, Kay Buckley, Carl Benton Reid, Roy Roberts

Synopsis: Rod Cameron and Wayne Morris star as Civil War officers who become federal agents. The duo is sent west to investigate a series of stage hijackings. The criminals tend to bypass gold and valuables, and are seemingly interested only in the weapons carried on these coaches. It turns out that the Read More

Once More, My Darling

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Ann Blyth, Jane Cowl, Lillian Randolph, Steven Geray

Synopsis: After the film-noir melodramatics of Lady in the Lake and Ride the Pink Horse, actor/director Robert Montgomery turned to comedy in Once More, My Darling. Montgomery plays a former movie idol hired by the government to woo a young heiress (Ann Blyth). Someone had previously given the girl some Read More

White Heat

Actors: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Steve Cochran, Margaret Wycherly

Synopsis: In later years, James Cagney regarded White Heat with a combination of pride and regret; while satisfied with his own performance, he tended to dismiss the picture as a "cheap melodrama." Seen today, White Heat stands as one of the classic crime films of the 1940s, containing perhaps Cagney's best Read More

Wake of the Red Witch

Actors: John Wayne, Gail Russell, Gig Young, Luther Adler, Adele Mara

Synopsis: This unusual, dreamlike John Wayne vehicle is set in the East Indies. The focus of the film is the deadly rivalry between two men of the sea. Ship's captain Rails (John Wayne) nurses a long-standing grudge against shipping magnate Van Schreeven (Luther Adler). The reason for the animosity: Van Read More

City Across the River

Actors: Stephen McNally, Thelma Ritter, Luis Van Rooten, Jeff Corey, Sharon McManus, Tony Curtis

Synopsis: This slightly bowdlerized version of Irving Shulman's The Amboy Dukes was used by Universal-International to showcase several of its new male contractees. Set in the slums of Brooklyn, the film follows the exploits of the Amboy Dukes, a teenaged street gang. Foremost among the Dukes is Frank Read More