Toll of the Desert (1935)

In Search of Bass Reeves

By the end of his illustrious career, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves may well have been the preeminent lawman of the Old West. He brought upwards of 3,000 outlaws to justice and served in law enforcement for 32 years during Reconstruction after the Civil War. His story is one of an escape to freedom and the dangers of the West for a former slave who rose to become a legend of the law. Join us as we go in search of Bass Reeves.

Young Buffalo Bill

It's 1860 and the old Spanish land grants are being surveyed. Montez is after part of Don Regas' rancho and gets the surveyor to alter the boundary. But Don Regas still has the original grant written on a bandanna. Montez sends Indians after it but Bill Cody and Gabby fight them off and a wounded Gabby unknowingly ends up with the missing million dollar deed wrapped around his arm for a bandage.

Love Takes Wing

Belinda Simpson is now a doctor in a small Missouri town where an unknown plague is spreading fear and resentment amoung the townspeople. One local resident thinks the illness was spread from the town orphanage and wants to see it shut down. Belinda struggles to make sense of the disease and God's plan for the beleaguered town.

Big Jake

An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson.

Woman Hungry

This film, believed lost, was based on William Vaughn Moody's 1906 play The Great Divide. The story was filmed as a silent film by MGM as The Great Divide (1925) and as an early silent/sound hybrid by First National also called The Great Divide (1929). Judith Temple has come West to Arizona for some excitement. As she says goodbye to her brother and his wife, who are returning to the East, Dr. Neil Cranford, who is in love with her, is called away to tend the broken ribs of a man injured in a barroom brawl.

The Bounty Killer

Willie Duggans, a tenderfoot from the east, arrives in the wild west and soon experiences its violence. Willie discovers the easy money in bounty killing and must choose between that violent lifestyle and the love of a beautiful saloon singer.

Beauty and the Bandit

In Old California, a young Frenchman transporting a chest full of silver travels by stagecoach to San Marino, to complete a complex business deal. The stagecoach is ambushed by a band of men whose leader, a mysterious bandido known as Cisco (Gilbert Roland), claims the silver is money that was extorted over a period of years from the poor people of California. The bandits take the money and escape, but Cisco stays behind with the Frenchman -- who, it turns out, is actually a lovely mademoiselle, Jeanne DuBois (Ramsay Ames). She follows him to the bandit's lair, where Cisco tells her he intends to return the stolen money to the poor people. The two rivals are irresistibly drawn to each other, however, and as a token of love Cisco offers to return the money to Jeanne instead. Now she must decide whether to complete her business deal, or to comply with Cisco's wishes and redistribute the wealth.

The Gay Cavalier

The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) sets out on a double mission of rescuing a girl from forsaking her true love by marrying a supposedly wealthy suitor to save the old family hacienda, and he is also after the outlaws that robbed a stage carrying gold for the Mission. His task is made easier once he learns that the "wealthy" suitor (Tristram Coffin) is also the man behind the gold robbers.

South of Monterey

The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) hears of a land-swindling scheme devised by the police Commandante (Martin Garralaga) and the tax collector (Harry Woods) in a small western town. Cisco's efforts against the plot cause the thieves to fall out, and Cisco is able to return the land to the rightful owners.

Riding the California Trail

Chasing women and staying one step ahead of the law, the Cisco Kid meets Raquel and then Dolores. He sees that Raole is the boy friend of Raquel but engaged to Dolores. Learning that all her money will got to her uncle Don Jose when she marries Raole, Cisco suspects a plot and sets out to unravel it.

Robin Hood of Monterey

Eduardo Belmonte overhears his new step-mother, Maria, and her lover, Don Ricardo Gonzales plotting to take over the Belmonte rancho on the night of the fiesta given by her husband, Don Carlos Belmonte. Eduardo offers Maria money if she will depart the hacienda premises, but she refuses and then accuses Eduardo of making love to her. The old Don doesn't take kindly to his son hitting on his step-mother and attacks him in a rage. The lights go out, the father is killed and Maria blames Eduardo, who escapes from the house, chased by Ricardo's men. The Cisco Kid and Pancho rescue Eduardo, who has been shot, and hide him while they investigate. Cisco discovers that bullets from Maria's gun, a handy little derringer, are the same type that killed Don Carlos. But the Alcalde arrests Cisco and Pancho, and Cisco is "supposedly" executed by a firing squad, but IS NOT shot and escapes by a trick. And now Maria and Ricardo are in real trouble with Cisco on the loose.

Stage to Blue River

Whip Wilson has to stop bandits who are trying to take over a stage line.

My Outlaw Brother

Danny, a greenhorn from New York comes to the Mexican border in search for his older brother whom he has always looked up to. A Texas Ranger charged with bringing in, El Tigre and his gang of bandits, takes Danny under his wing.

My Pal Trigger

Gabby doesn't want to breed his horse the Golden Sovereign with Roy's. When Sovereign and Roy's horse escape, the Sovereign gets shot accidentally by Skoville but Roy is blamed and jailed. A year later Roy returns with Trigger, the son of the Sovereign. When Skoville reveals he was present when the horse was shot, Roy sees an opportunity to clear his name.

Paradise Canyon

John Wyatt is a government agent sent to smash a counterfeiting operation near the Mexican border. Joining Doc Carter's medicine show they arrive in the town where Curly Joe, who once framed Carter, resides.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue

Double-crossed and left without water in the desert, Cable Hogue is saved when he finds a spring. It is in just the right spot for a much needed rest stop on the local stagecoach line, and Hogue uses this to his advantage. He builds a house and makes money off the stagecoach passengers. Hildy, a prostitute from the nearest town, moves in with him. Hogue has everything going his way until the advent of the automobile ends the era of the stagecoach.

Purgatory

An outlaw band flees a posse and rides into Refuge, a small town where no one carries a gun, drinks, or swears. The town is actually Purgatory, and the peaceful inhabitants are all famous dead outlaws and criminals such as Doc Holiday and Wild Bill Hickok who must redeem themselves before gaining admittance to Heaven... or screw up and go to Hell.

Ride, Ranger, Ride

It is the story of Gene's, a Cavalry scout, who manages to quell an Indian uprising.

Riders of Destiny

James Kincaid controls the local water supply and plans to do away with the other ranchers. Government agent Sandy Saunders arrives undercover to investigate Kincaid's land swindle scheme, and win the heart of one of his victims, Fay Denton.

The Red Pony

Peter Miles stars as Tom Tiflin, the little boy at the heart of this John Steinbeck story set in Salinas Valley. With his incompatible parents -- the city-loving Fred and country-happy Alice -- constantly bickering, Tom looks to cowboy Billy Buck for companionship and paternal love.

Night Cries

A psychological thriller about a man's obsession with finding his wife in a post-apocalyptic world.

Juan Pistolas

Picaresque adventures of two small-time crooks, ligging around on the periphery of the Mexican revolution.

Bullets for the Dead

A hardened bounty hunter, a gang of outlaws in his trust and a preacher are forced to work together and battle their way across the old west of the 1870s when the zombie apocalypse begins.

At the End of the Santa Fe Trail

The true story of Sister Blandina Segale, a young and innocent nun sent by the Catholic Church to the western territories in 1872.

Big Jack

Wallace Beery, in his final film, plays a bandit in this period drama set in Colonial America.

The San Francisco Story

After five years of being away, Rick Nelson (Joel McCrea) returns to San Francisco to find it filled with corruption - and crooked politicians. It isn't until he meets a beautiful San Franciscan (Yvonne De Carlo), that Nelson decides to get involved with bringing law-and-order to the city by the bay!

Passage West

In 1863, having escaped from a rock-quarry prison in Salt Lake, six inmates led by convicted murderer Pete Black take over a small wagon train headed by preacher Jacob Karns. Tensions and hardships grow as the travelers continue to trek toward California across dry, desolate country.

Plunderers of Painted Flats

To scare the squatters from the cattle country he claims as his own, rancher Ed Sampson orders the Martin farm house burned. Galt Martin is killed, and his eldest son, Joe, is pistol-whipped. Timmy Martin sees the killer, Cass Becker and points him out when he and Joe are in Painted Flats. Cass forces Joe to put on a gun but Ned East, a retired gunfighter, saves the inexperienced Joe by forcing Cass to draw on him, and Ned is the winner.

Law of the Lawless

A former gunfighter, now a circuit court judge, faces his father's killer in a small post-Civil War Kansas town.

The Badge of Marshal Brennan

Jim Davis is a man on the run. He comes across the body of a dead man wearing the badge of a marshal. He buries the body and takes the badge and rides on. At the next town, he is mistaken for the dead man, a legendary marshal named Brennan. The town sent for Marshal Brennan because they were facing a crisis that includes among other things an epidemic. The Stranger decides to stay as a way of hiding from the men chasing him. What he does not realize is that when he takes on the Badge of Marshal Brennan, he takes on the responsibilities of Marshal Brennan.

Pioneer Woman

A homesteading family in 1867 Wyoming faces a crisis when the husband is killed and the wife must decide whether to remain or take her son and daughter back East.

Frontier Rangers

A pastiche of three episodes from the 1958 TV series Northwest Passage, stitched together as a feature and released theatrically in Europe.

Hannah Lee: An American Primitive

Professional killer Bus Crow is hired by cattlemen to eliminate squatters. When Marshal Sam Rochelle is sent to investigate, saloon owner Hallie has to be a reluctant witness.

The Lion and the Horse

After selling it to a cruel rodeo owner, a cowboy attempts to buy back the wild stallion he snared.

The Four Juanes

Juan Sin Fiedo (Javier Solis), Juan Colorado (Antonio Aguilar), Juan Pistolas (Luis Aguilar) and Juan Charrasqueado join their destinies during the Mexican Revolution.

The Laramie Trail

A cowbody acquires a ranch whose previous owner is believed to be dead.

The Gunman From Bodie

The Rough Riders are after a gang of rustlers. Marshal Roberts is posing as a wanted outlaw, McCall is the Marshal supposedly after him, and Sandy is on hand as a cook. Roberts hopes his joining the gang will help bring them in.

A Sister of Six

A young woman and her five little brothers and sisters are left orphans by the murder of their father over gold found on his ranch. Together the seven offspring fight against their greedy neighbors to keep what is rightfully theirs.

A Son of His Father

'Big Boy' Morgan and his friend, invalid Charlie Grey, must overcome the efforts of the villainous Holdbrook to foreclose on the Los Rosas ranch and make off with the beautiful Nora Shea.

Prairie Pioneers

It is 1853 and settlers are pouring into California which means trouble for the old Spanish landowners. The El Dorado Mine Co. wants the land of Don Ortega for the minerals and is using the settlers and his friend Don Carlos to take the land over. But Tucson is on the side of Roberto and see's that something is not right with all the trouble they have been having. But the situation turns ugly for Don Ortega when Roberto is set up for a murder he did not commit.

Pony Express Rider

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.

The Gun and the Pulpit

In the days of the "Wild West," a gunslinger, with a price on his head, discovers the body of a traveling minister who has been killed in an ambush. Fearing those who are following him, he assumes the dead minister's identity.

Scarlet Angel

After robbing a sea captain in New Orleans, a beautiful saloon girl flees and assumes a dead woman's identity.

The Californian

Native son returns from school in Spain to California in 1855 and finds corrupt politicians stealing land from old California families. He becomes a sort of Robin Hood in order to fight them.

The Challenge of the Law

A Canadian Mountie pursues an outlaw across the border into the America...

My Name Is Nobody

Jack Beauregard, an aging gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe, but a young gunfighter known as "Nobody" who idolizes Beauregard wants him to go out in a blaze of glory. So, he arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.

Django

A coffin-dragging gunslinger and a prostitute become embroiled in a bitter feud between a merciless masked clan and a band of Mexican revolutionaries.

Walk the Proud Land

Indian Agent sent to try new approach to peace with Apaches based on respect for automomy rather than submission to Army. Wins over reservation chiefs and the Indian widow (Bancroft) given to him as housekeeper. Through use of diplomacy and demonstrations of faith in Apache leaders, reservation is put on the road to automomy. Conflicts arise between Apache widow and Eastern wife but latter has a lot to learn.

The Return of Josey Wales

In a small, dusty border town, two long-time best friends of the mysterious gunman Josey Wales are brutally murdered by marauding rurales. The rurales, led by the beastial Commandante Escobar, head back to Mexico with gambler Ten Spot as hostage. Told of his friend's peril, Josey sets out on a trail of bloody vengeance.

Big Bad John

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.

Jesse James Under the Black Flag

Shows James' joining of the Quantrill's raiders, a guerrilla force which fought against union sympathizers during the Civil War. James takes allegiance to the Black Flag, the raiders' banner. After the war he recieves kind treatment from a judge concerning his acts of crime and later meets and falls in love with Zee, with whom he wishes to live a peaceful life.

Jesse James as the Outlaw

Depicts Jesse James' return home to Missouri after the Civil War hoping to live a life of peace, but is falsely accused of robbing a bank. He is forced to take up a life of crime by being branded an outlaw. Crimes are commited and blamed on him, his family is maimed by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, but all the while James is able to perform charitable acts to citizens. James is finally assasinated by Bob Ford. All told in a flashback style by Jesse James Jr. to a eastern baeu asking for his daughters' hand in marrage.

The Silver Bullet

A cowboy heads for the town where his father was murdered to find out who was responsible.

The Last of the Duanes

Buck Duane guns down the man who killed his father and flees from the law. He rescues a girl he once loved from outlaws, but the wife of outlaw chief has her own designs on him.

The Parson and the Outlaw

Billy the Kid fakes his own death at the hands of Pat Garrett, but is forced to come out of hiding to stop a ruthless cattle baron from destroying a small frontier community.

The Quiet Gun

A mild mannered sheriff must fight both a hired gun and local anti-Indian bigotry in a small frontier town.

Murder at Yellowstone City

A former slave who arrives in Yellowstone City, Montana, a desolate former boomtown now on the decline, looking for a place to call home. On that same day, a local prospector discovers gold - and is murdered.

The Untamed Breed

A cowboy sets out to capture an escaped Brahma bull that is terrorizing local ranchers. Based on a story by Eli Colter that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.

He Rides Tall

A rancher is pressured by his cheating wife and a gang leader, into trying to cripple a marshal's gun hand, after that marshal killed his murderous son in self defense.

Sundown in Santa Fe

Sundown in Santa Fe is an adventure film directed by R.G. Springsteen in 60. A dagger has been left in every robbery by Walter Durant, fugitive leader of the President Lincoln murder ring. Rocky is sent to Santa Fe to find Durant and arrest him and the gang of outlaws he controls. Rocky soon finds that the information for every robbery comes from Tom, who is the son of the sheriff. But Rocky has to arrest the whole gang, and he does not know who is part of the gang and where Durant may be hiding.

River of No Return

An itinerant farmer and his young son help a heart-of-gold saloon singer search for her estranged husband.

Giant

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

Santa Fe Trail

As a penalty for fighting fellow classmates days before graduating from West Point, J.E.B. Stuart, George Armstrong Custer and four friends are assigned to the 2nd Cavalry, stationed at Fort Leavenworth. While there they aid in the capture and execution of the abolitionist, John Brown following the Battle of Harper's Ferry.

Heaven with a Gun

Jim Killian arrives in a small Arizona town hoping to establish a peaceful life as the local preacher, but he soon finds himself in the middle of a feud between sheep ranchers and cattlemen. Leloopa, a young Native American woman, pleads for Killian's help after her shepherd father is hung by Coke Beck, the vicious son of the head cattle rancher. Killian must weigh his actions carefully lest he perpetuate the cycle of retribution and revenge.

Viva Zapata!

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

Buffalo Soldiers

They've ridden dusty miles without end and fought fierce battles. Yet when these brave African-American cavalrymen enter a scraggly frontier town, they must walk through it instead of ride. The town dishonors them but the soldiers' Native-American foes do not. Apache leader Victoria and other warriors give the horsemen a name of honor and strength: "Buffalo Soldiers". The troopers' daring hunt for Victorio frames this stirring tribute to the former slaves and other African-Americans of the 9th and 10th U.S. Calvary Regiments. Danny Glover, Mykelti Williamson, Glynn Turman, Carl Lumbly and Michael Warren star in an adventure bringing to light that largely unknown story and the unique moral dilemma the men faced. Atten-hut! "Buffalo Soldiers are riding" through town.

South of Rio

The town of Rio Blanco is the center of a fight over the statehood issue and is a perfect setup for Lon Bryson and Chuck Bowers, who organize a couple of phony protection associations. Opposing them is Henry Waterman, publisher of the Rio Blanco Herald. He and his assistant, Andrew Jackson Weems, send for the help of the Territorial Rangers. One of the dispatched Rangers is Jeff Lanning who, unknown to him, has a brother as a member of the gang under an assumed name of Bob Mitchell. Jeff is so shocked at seeing his brother gun down Waterman that he is unable to act in time to prevent it. Unable to explain the cause of is inaction, he is suspended by the governor. Unable to persuade his brother to quit the gang, Jeff, with the aid of Weems and Waterman's daughter Carol, begins his quest to bring the outlaws to justice.

Juan Armenta, the repatriated

Juan returns home to Mexico after working in the USA for awhile, and gets caught up in cowboy problems among his townsfolk.

Machismo: 40 Graves for 40 Guns

A Mexican bandit and his gang are offered a pardon and a cash reward if he will cross the border into America and bring back a gang of murderous gold thieves who robbed the local church and killed the priest and the Head Federales' wife and children.

The American West of John Ford

A documentary encapsulating the career and Western films of director 'John Ford' , including clips from his work and interviews with his colleagues.