Sprawling epic which follows the Prescotts, an emigrant family through four generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830’s to their settled home in the West a half a century later. On the way they encounter river pirates, and escape with the help of fur trapper Linus Rawlings, who subsequently marries one of their daughters, Eve. The parents are drowned on a foundering raft, and the other daughter Lilith becomes a riverboat singer and catches the eye of a genteel adventurer Cleve Van Valen. They cross the plains together in a wagon train and make and lose a fortune in California; meanwhile Linus has turned farmer and, comes the Civil War, joins the Union Army and is killed at the Battle of Shiloh. One of his sons Zeb also joins the army and stays after the war as a cavalry officer and is sent to Colorado to help guard the pioneering railroad against the Indians, whose land they are crossing. By this time Lilith is the elderly lady of the family, having survived long enough to see the …
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Western
The Comancheros (1961) Michael Curtiz, John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, Ina Balin, Action, Western, Adventure, Romance
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.
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High Noon (1952) Fred Zinnemann, Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Western
On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, lawman Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller’s gang, who are waiting for him at the station…
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Big Jake (1971) George Sherman, John Wayne, Richard Boone, Maureen O’Hara, Action, Crime, Drama, Western
The McCandles ranch is run over by a gang of cutthroats led by the evil John Fain. They kidnap little Jacob McCandles and hold him for a million dollar ransom. There is only one man who is brave enough and smart enough to bring him back and that man is Big Jake.
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Devil’s Canyon (1953) Alfred L. Werker, Virginia Mayo, Dale Robertson, Stephen McNally, Action, Crime, Drama, Romance, Western
Ex-marshal Billy Reynolds, sent to state prison for killing two men in self defense, learns that killer Jessie Gorman, brother of the two men Billy shot, is in the same prison and vows revenge. Complicating matters further is the incarceration of Gorman’s girlfriend Abby who helps Gorman plan an escape while at the same time is unsuccessful hiding her feelings for Reynolds.
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The Return of Frank James (1940) Fritz Lang, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Jackie Cooper
Frank James, the brother of Jesse James, has been laying low, living as a farmer and taking care of Clem Read More »
Frenchie (1950) Louis King, Joel McCrea, Shelley Winters, Paul Kelly, Romance, Western
Frenchie Fontaine sells her successful business in New Orleans to come West. Her reason? Find the men who killed her father, Frank Dawson. But she only knows one of the two who did and she’s determined to find out the other.
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Un uomo, un cavallo, una pistola / The Stranger Returns (1967) Luigi Vanzi, Tony Anthony, Daniele Vargas, Ettore Manni, Western
Taking the identity of a dead postal inspector found on the trail, a stranger rides into a small western town and finds himself in the middle of a stagecoach robbery perpetrated by a gang of twenty ruthless desperados. Finding out the object of the heist was not a strongbox as it seemed but a solid gold stagecoach, he enlists the aid of a down-and-out old preacher and tracks down the dangerous gang and their unsuspected ally.
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The Rainmaker (1956) Joseph Anthony, Burt Lancaster, Katharine Hepburn, Wendell Corey, Romance, Western
Lizzie Curry is on the verge of becoming a hopeless old maid. Her wit and intelligence and skills as a homemaker can’t make up for the fact that she’s just plain plain! Even the town sheriff, File, for whom she harbors a secrect yen, won’t take a chance –- until the town suffers a drought and into the lives of Lizzie and her brothers and father comes one Bill Starbuck … profession: Rainmaker!
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Pecos River (1951) Fred F. Sears, Charles Starrett, Jock Mahoney, Anne James, Western
Steve is a Government Agent looking for the gang that stole the U.S. Mail. When Old Henry kills an outlaw trying to rob the stage, the outlaws gun down Henry at his home. His son Jack, just back from the East, is taught to shoot by the Durango Kid. Steve appears to join the gang in order to catch them.
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Many Rivers to Cross (1955) Roy Rowland, Robert Taylor, Eleanor Parker, Victor McLaglen, Comedy, Romance, Western
During 1798,Bushrod Gentry is a Kentucky trapper who travels from place to place,sometimes staying with settler families for a night or two before moving on.Being a handsome man he often breaks the hearts of the unmarried young daughters of his hosts and it always leads to proposals of marriage from the girls’ part.This causes Bushrod to quickly pack his gear, give the smitten girl his standard speech about why he cannot marry or settle down and depart in a hurry, leaving the girl in tears.But one day,after being saved from an Indian attack by young Scotish woman, Mary Stuart Cherne, he takes shelter with her family until his broken arm can heal.Invariably,the girl falls for his charm and asks him to marry her.Bushrod gives her his standard speech and thinks he’s off the hook but stubborn Mary Stuart is not so easily dissuaded.This leads to lies, insinuations, evasive actions, hilarity, fist fights with her brothers, a shooting contest, broken promises and a shotgun wedding.
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One Silver Dollar / Un dollaro bucato (1965) Giorgio Ferroni, Giuliano Gemma, Ida Galli, Pierre Cressoy, Action, Romance, Western
Giuliano Gemma plays a confederate soldier who returns from the war to fight one at home. Unbeknownst to him, his brother has become the infamous gunfighter “Black Jack” to defeat the local bullies. Gemma agrees to ambush and kill Black Jack, only to discover too late who the outlaw really is. With vengeance in his heart he turns on his employers, who then shoot him.
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Showdown at Abilene (1956) Charles F. Haas, Jock Mahoney, Martha Hyer, Lyle Bettger, Western
Jim Trask, former sheriff of Abilene, returns to the town after fighting for the Confederacy to find everyone thought he was dead. His old friend Dave Mosely is now engaged to Trask’s former sweetheart and is one of the cattlemen increasingly feuding with the original farmers. Trask is persuaded to take up as sheriff again but there is something about the death of Mosely’s brother in the Civil War that is haunting him.
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The Rawhide Years (1955) Rudolph Maté, Tony Curtis, Colleen Miller, Arthur Kennedy, Western
Ben Matthews gives up the flashy life of a riverboat gambler, hoping to settle down in Galena with his girlfriend, luscious entertainer Zoe. But Galena’s leading citizen is murdered on the boat; Ben, on arrival, finds a lynch mob after his neck, and flees. Three years of wandering later, Zoe’s letters stop coming and Ben returns to find her and attempt the hopeless task of clearing himself.
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The Outrage (1964) Martin Ritt, Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Drama, Western, Crime
Three disparate travelers, a disillusioned preacher, an unsuccessful prospector, and a larcenous, cynical con man, meet at a decrepit railroad station in the 1870s Southwest. The prospector and the preacher were witnesses at the singularly memorable rape and murder trial of the notorious Mexican outlaw Carasco. The bandit duped an aristocratic Southerner into believing he knew the location of a lost Aztec treasure. The greedy “gentleman” allows himself to be tied up while Carasco deflowers his wife. These events lead to the stabbing of the husband and are related by the three eyewitnesses to the atrocity: the infamous bandit, the newlywed wife, and the dead man through an Indian shaman. Whose version of the events is true? Possibly there was a fourth witness, but can his version be trusted?
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