Jack Elam

Interviews and film clips re-create the glorious history of the American western.

After a rogue band of Pinkerton detectives led by ruthless Charley Siringo bushwhacks reformed outlaw Frank James, he seeks sanctuary on the Ponderosa with the next generation of Cartwrights and his former Civil War compatriots. Will Frank's comrades come to his aid or turn their backs on him? Richard Roundtree also stars in this made-for-TV sequel to the popular Western series.

A man with a grudge against the late Little Joe seeks revenge on the Cartwrights and attempts to take over the Ponderosa.

A fortune in gold lures 8 misfits to an Indian burial ground, resulting in murder.

Policemen by Day - Assassins at Night. A story all too familiar yet amazing to see. Follow the daily lives of corrupt policemen as they make a fortune as assassins.

Shep Ramsey is an interstellar hero, righting wrongs, etc. His ship is damaged after a fight with an interstellar nasty and he must hide out on Earth until it can recharge. He leaves his power suit at home, but still finds himself unable to allow wrongs to go unrighted and so mixes it up with bad drivers, offensive paperboys, muggers and the like.

A mountain man is falsely accused of the murder of his parents.

Jimmy Dean's popular 1950 song is translated into a feature length movie about a young couple who elopes to escape the girl's evil stepfather.

A pair of thieves are pursued by the U.S. Army, the Mexican federales and Apaches in this made-for-TV Western.

Captain Hayes of the mighty law enforcement squad named the Texas Rangers reached the pinnacle of his career when he captured the notorious John Henry, an outlaw cowboy, and put him behind bars. Twenty years later, upon his release, Henry is older but unrepentant. Within six hours after leaving his jail cell, he evens the score with Hayes by holding up the Bank of Texas for $20,000 in gold. Hayes, in his fury, gets himself out of retirement to take up the chase once more.

This film is a fascinating look at some people afflicted with congenital deformities of an extreme nature. Their ability to live with their aberrations while remaining socially involved and upbeat is truly inspirational. While their predecessors were often seen in so called "freak shows" that were part of various exhibitions from Coney Island to traveling circuses, these performers were actually the more fortunate ones in an era of little tolerance for those who were different from the accepted norm. Many became famous and extremely wealthy, such as Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton), who worked for many years with P.T. Barnum.

Hawken is a rugged drifter and loner who meets and comes to rescue a young Shawnee woman, named Spirit in 1840s Tennessee, whom he leaves after saving her from a rouge group of Shawnee Indians. After taking up residence with an old fur trapper and old friend named Jeb Kline, Hawken later meets Spirit again whom runs away from a local fur trader named Tackett, whom she is sold to. Soon, Hawken is up against Tackett and a posse of hired killers, as well as a greedy and racist land owner, named Hickman, who's long abused son Noel whom narrates the entire story, comes to his and Spirit's aid to help them survive.

Two young survivors of a wagon-train massacre battle horse thieves as they take a prize stallion through Utah.

In 1897, residents of a small Texas town are visited by a benevolent extraterrestrial being whose presence divides the community.

Scrooge is visited by a girl with a snow globe—which shows him people like Mike Love and Three Dog Night singing Christmas carols—to teach the crotchety old skinflint the True Spirit of Christmas.

When a wealthy sheikh puts up $1 million in prize money for a cross-country car race, there is one person crazy enough to hit the road hard with wheels spinning fast. Legendary driver J.J. McClure enters the competition along with his friend Victor and together they set off across the American landscape in a madcap action-adventure destined to test their wits and automobile skills.

A little girl gets lost in the wilds of Utah.

SACRED GROUND tells the fact-based story of a mountain man and his Indian wife who happen upon a partially built cabin and finish it for their own home, not realizing that they occupy a sacred burial ground. A Paiute burial party clashes with the couple and in the ensuing skirmish, the wife is critically wounded while in the middle of childbirth. Bitter over her loss and needing a wetnurse for his baby, he steals one of the Paiute woman who had just lost a baby. In this modern version of Helen of Troy, the battle is on, as he takes on the whole band in a desperate attempt to survive. Written by Dale Roloff

Harold, a professional gambler, and his girlfriend Bonita, a lounge singer, follow Willie, a young blackjack dealer, around the western U.S. Harold has a jinx on Willie and can't lose with him. Bonita and Willie meet and fall for each other and plot to do away with Harold and collect on his life insurance.

In this sequel to "Skyward" and pilot to a prospective series, Julie attempts a secret flight to bring her grandfather home for a Christmas reunion.

In a small Southern town, the local sheriff tries to keep everything peaceful and under control.

A cross-country road race is based on an actual event, the Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, organized by Brock Yates to protest the 55 mph speed limit then in effect in the U.S. The Cannonball was named for Erwin G. "Cannonball" Baker, who in the roaring 20's rode his motorcycle across the country. Many of the characters are based on ruses developed by real Cannonball racers over the several years that the event was run.

In this sequel to "The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything," down-on-his-luck Kirby Winter inherits a floundering business, and the magical gold watch which can stop time. But his wedding plans with Bonnie Lee Beaumont are interrupted when her mother phones them to help her save her family farm from a nasty land developer - using the gold watch's powers.

Handsome Stranger has agreed to escort Charming Jones to collect her inheritance from her father. But Avery Simpson wants the money and hires notorious outlaw Cactus Jack to ambush Charming. However, Cactus Jack is not very good at robbing people.

Amos and Theodore, the two bumbling outlaw wannabes from The Apple Dumpling Gang, are back and trying to make it on their own. This time, the crazy duo gets involved in an army supply theft case -- and, of course, gets in lots of comic trouble along the way!

An 11th-century Viking prince sails to America to find his father, who on a previous voyage had been captured by Indians.

Twin brothers -- one rough and tough, the other a city-bred milquetoast -- compete for their father's fortune.

This lighthearted Western was an unsuccessful series pilot in which two sisters -- a gun-toting tomboy and a beauty with an engaging smile -- team up to track down a pair of train robbers, suspects in the shooting of their father.

Huckleberry Finn, a rambuctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River. Accompanying him is Jim, a slave running away from being sold. Together the two strike a bond of friendship that takes them through harrowing events and thrilling adventures.

A young Cheyenne warrior, who goes by the name Grayeagle, kidnaps the daughter of a grizzled frontier man John Colter who goes on an epic search for his daughter Beth, aided by a friendly native...

A young Texas Man who saw his father get killed by a group of bandits, decides years later to go to work for the Pony Express. But he is not just working around the country to deliver mail, he is actually finding the bandits who murdered his father.

In 1884, an eleven-year-old Quaker boy sets out on his own to seek revenge against a gang of outlaws who senselessly murdered his family.

Three young women who posed as the daughters of an elderly homesteader find out that he has been falsely accused of murder, convicted, and sentenced to hang. They hatch a plot to smuggle him out of prison.

In old-west Texas, the cavalry's horses can't take the heat. So the military sends them camels instead, and assigns one man to convince the unit that the camels are a good idea.

When the word gets out of a mysterious Bigfoot-type creature, two researchers come to a small town to study and hopefully discover the true nature of the beast. With some help from the locals, the two men to learn that the creature may be a very angry and murderous missing link.

A mutilating knife-killer haunts the small Southwest-desert town of Mescal. Though most victims have been prostitutes, the first was none other than Travis Mescal, the only son of the town's first family. When the Sheriff proves unable to solve the case, the town leaders invite Investigator Burns to unravel the mystery.

Travelling through the West right after the Civil War, two con men hatch a scheme to try to collect the fifteen thousand dollar bounty offered for the capture of an outlaw.

A small-town banker is forced to protect his town against a vicious gang of bank robbers determined to get the $200,000 stored in his bank.

Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid.

A young farmboy who can't seem to communicate with his father develops an attachment to a young red pony.

Due to a home-steading law, a fur trapper schemes to keep his land by hiring a hooker, a pickpocket and a thief to pose as his family.

In the modern day, a young traveler stops at a remote New Mexico gas station and strikes up a conversation with an older local man. The old man begins to recount the gritty, historical legend of Billy the Kid (Steve Railsback) and his final, deadly showdown with Sheriff Pat Garrett (Jack Elam). As the elder speaks, the film shifts entirely into a flashback, dramatizing the outlaw's infamous final escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse.

After she's raped by the outlaw trio who murdered her husband, a frontierswoman hires a bounty hunter to instruct her in the ways of a gun in order to exact her revenge.

Set in 1865 in southwest Missouri, at the close of the Civil War the film follows the adventures of two Confederate men and a black man who they rescue from a lynching.

A pretty ranch owner hires a drunken gunslinger and his two companions to protect her ranch from outlaws and build a school for local children.

A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.

Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons, Virgil and Andy, journey to the wild country of 1890s Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face-to-face with tornadoes, bears and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing – including murder – to drive them out.

George Plimpton got a job playing one of the bad guys in the Howard Hawks-directed John Wayne Western "Rio Lobo." In this special we see him talking to Hawks about whether he'll be killed off or not, to Wayne about how to cultivate a special walk to make oneself a star in movies and to himself as he attempts to rehearse his tiny part and while doing so is caught in the frame of a setup for another scene and chastised by Wayne. Wayne calls Plimpton "Pimpleton" throughout this special.

Ass-breaker Dingus Magee is looking for a gold train when he comes upon old acquaintance Hoke Birdsill on stage to San Francisco, and robs him of his money. Hoke goes to the nearby town of Yerkey's Hole, where Belle Knops is both mayor and bordello-mistress. She appoints Hoke Town Sheriff and tries to get him to stir up the Indians so the soldiers at the nearby fort (the main customers) won't go to Little Big Horn. Dingus tries to stir up more trouble and get involved with the pale, baby-talking Indian, Anna. The film is a send-up of the oft-repeated phrase "the Code of the West" and exaggerates it and what it stands for into the ridiculousness that it is.

A simple-minded blacksmith named Charley, well loved by the townsfolk, saves for a year to send off for a mail-order bride.

After the Civil War, a former Union colonel searches for the two traitors whose perfidy led to the loss of a close friend.

A retired Texas Ranger and three aged pals help to clean up a town run by a crooked mayor, a drunken judge and a trigger-happy sheriff.

In the old west, a man becomes a Sheriff just for the pay, figuring he can decamp if things get tough.

Fifteen-year-old Cav Rand purchases a racehorse and trains him into a winner, but a con artist is plotting to get the stallion away from the innocent Cav.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

Jorge Martin is relentlessly stalking a gang of outlaws led by the ruthless Slim who raped and murdered his bride.

When practicing for a role, actor Jack is mistaken for the killer Ace. He doesn't realize this until it's too late and is carried off to gangster boss Leo Smooth, who wants Ace to do a job for him. Fearing for his life, Jack plays his role, but always searching for a way out of the well-guarded house.

A peace-loving, part-time sheriff in the small town of Firecreek must take a stand when a gang of vicious outlaws takes over his town.

An upstart outlaw baits a legendary gunslinger, now a marshal in love with a saloon keeper.

In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.

Marshall "Big Jim" Cole turns in his badge and heads to Wyoming with his family in order to settle on some land left him by a relative. He faces opposition both from a neighbor who wants that land for his own sons, and from a grizzly bear nicknamed "Satan" who keeps killing Cole's livestock.

When her husband dies en route to America, Martha Price and her daughter Hilary are left to carry out his dream: the introduction of Hereford cattle into the American West. They enlist Sam "Bulldog" Burnett in their efforts to transport their lone bull, a Hereford named Vindicator, to a breeder in Texas, but the trail is fraught with danger and even Burnett doubts the survival potential of this "rare breed" of cattle.

In the 1870s, two rival businessmen, Zack Thomas and Joe Jarrett, on a stagecoach heading to Galveston, Texas, must pull together to protect $100,000 from an outlaw named Matson. Once in Galveston, however, their rivalry continues, as Thomas joins up with Elya Carlson and Jarret with Maxine Richter. But Matson is still on the loose, and a scheming banker threatens both Thomas and Jarrett.

A New York gangster and his girlfriend attempt to turn street beggar Apple Annie into a society lady when the peddler learns her daughter is marrying royalty.

Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.

At a Mexican ranch, fugitive O'Malley and pursuing Sheriff Stribling agree to help rancher Breckenridge drive his herd into Texas where Stribling could legally arrest O'Malley, but Breckenridge's wife complicates things.

Two drifters contend with love and murder in a small town.

The town of Primrose, Arizona is beset by outlaws, so the towns people hire Fletcher Bissell III (A.K.A. The Silver Dollar Kid) as their new sheriff. Fletcher is so cowardly the townsfolk are sure that the local outlaws will be too proud to gun him down. This proves to be the case, and the outlaws hire their own cowardly gunfighter, Chicken Finsterwald, to go up against The Silver Dollar Kid.

Helped by socialite Janice Kendon and barkeeper Scott O'Brien, Arizona deputy sheriff Les Martin works to solve three brutal murders in and around the Grand Canyon. His efforts leads to the killer fleeing with Janice as a hostage and a chase by car and helicopter lead to a climax on a miner's bucket on cables a mile above the canyon floor.

Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances.

Famed Depression-era gangster “Baby Face Nelson” robs and kills while accompanied by his beautiful moll.

A cavalry officer, the sole survivor of an Indian attack, and a wagon load of prisoners travel through hostile Indian country.

Grant MacLaine, a former railroad troubleshooter, lost his job after letting his outlaw, the Utica Kid, escape. After spending five years wandering the west and earning his living playing the accordion, he is given a second chance by his former boss.

Lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Doc Holliday form an unlikely alliance which culminates in their participation in the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Simon Lute ekes out a modest living chartering his skiff to tourists and guiding them through the labyrinthine bayou.

Ervin Plummer-played by the estimable George Macready, who like his good friend Vincent Price was a man of culture and erudition who specialised in bad guy roles-is a grasping avaricious businessman with a hunger for gold.

Rich momma's boy Wade Kingsley Jr. an Eastern dude, tries to follow in his murdered father's footsteps by returning to the West to partner up with Slim Moseley Jr.,the son of his father's former partner. Wade overcomes Slim's initial reluctance to accept him by using his fortune to buy a prize cow and new car to help Slim in his job as foreman on the Kingsley family ranch, currently under siege by a gang of outlaws called "masked raiders." Wade generously tries to pay off the ranch's mortgage with $15,000 of his own money, but unfortunately neither "pardner" realizes that respected banker Dan Hollis, the son of their fathers' murderer, is the leader of the gang.

Jubal Troop is a cowboy who is found in a weakened condition, without a horse. He is given shelter at Shep Horgan's large ranch, where he quickly makes an enemy in foreman Pinky, a cattleman who accuses Jubal of carrying the smell of sheep.

A struggling painter begins taking inspiration from the dreams of his friend and roommate, a comic book fan who narrates an adventure story while he sleeps, but unbeknownst to the latter, the artist of his favorite comic book lives in the same building as they do with the model for her drawings.

A silver-tongued poet and self-proclaimed "King of the Beggars" searches old Baghdad for a rich bachelor to marry his dreamy daughter, Marsinah. Along the way, he poses as the renowned sorcerer Hajj and gets in and out of scrapes with an elderly thief, a dim-witted wazir, and his wife. Meanwhile, his daughter develops feelings for a handsome caliph.

Will Lockhart arrives in Coronado, an isolated town in New Mexico, in search of someone who sells rifles to the Apache tribe, finding himself unwillingly drawn into the convoluted life of a local ranching family whose members seem to have a lot to hide.

Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter makes him a perfect candidate for Marshal, but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.

Set in the eighteenth century, Moonfleet is about John Mohune, a young orphan who is sent to the Dorset village of Moonfleet to stay with an old friend of his mother's, Jeremy Fox. Fox is a morally ambiguous character, an elegant gentleman involved with smugglers and pirates.

One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that "something big" is behind it all, decides to pursue the case.

A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.

Hunters trespass into Sukulu country, where animals are sacred, posing as photographers.

After the American Civil War, mercenaries travel to Mexico to fight in their revolution for money. The former soldier and gentleman Benjamin Trane meets the gunman and killer Joe Erin and his men, and together they are hired by the Emperor Maximillian and the Marquis Henri de Labordere to escort the Countess Marie Duvarre to the harbor of Vera Cruz.

Sierra Nevada Jones must fight a villainous rancher to regain the land that is rightfully hers.

Shalimar, an Egyptian princess, striving to rid her country of its Bedouin conquerors, forms an alliance with Prince Haidi, son of the Caliph of Bagdad. She practices her intrigues both at the court and, disguised as a dancing girl, in the market place.

A wild-west trader and his New York wife head out for the California by wagon train. The trader is killed enroute, and his wife finds herself with child. She continues on hoping to find a man and a home.

During the Klondike Gold Rush, a misanthropic cattle driver and his talkative elderly partner run afoul of the law in Alaska and are forced to work for a saloon owner to take her supplies into a newly booming but lawless Canadian town.

A young railroad surveyor returns to his hometown to find the man who murdered his father and brother.

On a tramp steamer off Central America are Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard, five prisoners en route to a Nicaraguan prison, and Corbett, an American carrying money for a Honduran counter-revolution. Denied permission to land in Honduras, Corbett releases the prisoners and with their aid hijacks the ship. They land, taking the wealthy Sheppards as hostages, and start the arduous trip upriver to Corbett's rendezvous, meeting jungle hazards

Wes Anderson is caught cattle rustling and promptly jailed. The public is outraged, but, since Wes always worked at night, they don't know what he looks like. Still, they break into the prison and lynch a hobo they think is Wes, while the actual culprit sneaks off to see his old flame, Rela, who has recently taken up with his straitlaced brother, Tom (William Ching). But Tom is envious of his outlaw brother, and he decides to join Wes in a life of crime.

Gunfighter Billy Ringo decides to hang up his guns, buy a ranch and marry Arlene Reach. His brother Matt, father of Chip, the nephew Ringo is trying to keep on the straight and narrow, with three other outlaws, Dixon, Hollaway and Hoke, frame Ringo into pulling a bank robbery with them. Pretending to side with them, after accidentally killing Matt, Ringo informs Marshal Wyatt Earp of their plan to rob a Wells Fargo express wagon. A gunfight ensues at the robbery and the three outlaws are killed and Ike Clinton, the ringleader, is turned over to Marshal Earp by Ringo. Written by Les Adams

Two Mexican outlaws, Rio and Esqueda, raised as stepbrothers, have a showdown over the issue of whether to evict new settlers from their Texas border territory.

A lawyer defends a migrant worker in a sensational murder trial.

An ex-convict sets out to uncover who framed him for an armored car robbery.

A young Mexican/American learns about life both inside and out of the ring when he takes up boxing.

In California, a Mexican-American laborer is falsely accused of shooting the racist farmer he was working for after the farmer stiffed him with a bad check.

A young girl and her father, who is unjustly accused of murder, seek refuge in a Georgia swamp until they are befriended by a trapper who penetrates the swamp in search of his dog.

Will Kane, the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico, learns a notorious outlaw he put in jail has been freed, and will be arriving on the noon train. Knowing the outlaw and his gang are coming to kill him, Kane is determined to stand his ground, so he attempts to gather a posse from among the local townspeople.

John Malvin , prospecting the Montana territory during the gold rush, sees bandits kill a miner and his son. He eludes the outlaws by hiding near a stagecoach relay station run by "Possum" Enoch and his daughter Clair, with whom John Falls in love with. Sheriff Henry Plummer, secret head of the outlaws, learns John witnessed the killings and sends him as his deputy on a dangerous mission with a planned ambush.

Major Jim Colton is a sympathetic leader who has a working relationship with Apache leader Cochise. Colton is undermined by corrupt and politically ambitious Indian agent Neil Baylor who sets up a false attack, and the abduction of a local farmer's son. While Colton is away investigating the matter, Baylor convinces Lieutenant Bascom that Cochise's band is to blame, and incites him to lead an expedition against the Apache band to return the boy.

A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.

A curious toddler creates trouble when he finds bank robbers' loot

Confederate veteran Jeff Waring arrives in Independence, Missouri shortly after the Civil War, intending never again to use a gun. He finds that rancher Artemus Taylor and his henchmen are forcing out the settlers in order to claim their land for the incoming railroad.

At a desolate relay station in the west, a stagecoach attendant and a stranded woman traveller are held captive by a band of escaped convicts.

Andre Laurence accompanies his college roommate, Tenga, back to Tenga's Polynesian island home. There, Andre becomes attracted to the native life and his friend's sister, Kalua.

American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion form guerrilla bands to fight back. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2001.

When a sudden spurt of murders occurs in the Big Bend country, suspicion immediately falls on a young drifter who just moved to the area.

A cowboy is hired by a stagecoach boss to stop the railroad reaching his territory and putting him out of business. He uses everything from Indians to dancehall girls to try to thwart the plan. But the railroad workers, led by a female sharpshooter and an ambitious salesman, prove tough customers.

After stealing a gangster's money and his girlfriend, a doctor heads for a small village in Mexico to hide out.

At a mayors convention in San Francisco, ex-longshoreman Steve Fisk meets Clarissa Standish from New England. Fisk is mayor of "Puget City" and is proud of his rough and tumble background. Standish is mayor of "Winona, Maine", and is equally proud of her education and dedication to the people who elected her. Thrown together, the two opposites attract and their escapades during the convention get each of them in hot water back home. Written by Ron Kerrigan

Brother is pitted against brother in this tale of fueding ranchers in the old west.

A chorus girl's career is ruined and her brother is driven to suicide when she starts smoking marijuana.