Jeff Cooper Movies

Silent Sentence was originally released as A Knife for the Ladies. Either way, it was no cause for dancing in the streets. The film is set in a western mining town. The generally unseen villain is a serial killer of prostitutes. And you thought that Jack the Ripper was British! Jack Elam and Ruth Roman are among the able actors picking up pocket change in Silent Sentence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This symbol-laden drama explores the inner mythology of martial arts practice and is based on a Bruce Lee story idea. The original screenplay was written by Bruce Lee, with help from actor James Coburn and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. Lee was to take on the four-in-one role of guide in his film, leaving the hero's role to someone else. Following Bruce Lee's tragic death, the film was rewritten. David Carradine stepped in to play the mysterious guides to aspiring martial arts master Cord (Jeff Cooper). Cord lives in a desert-like world where nearly everyone he meets practices or has practised a martial art. He seeks to find the place where the true inner spirit of the martial arts is being taught. In a story which is imbued with Zen maxims and Asian philosophy, when Cord finally arrives, he finds less (and more) than he hoped for. While there are many combat and fight scenes, the general tone of the film is meditative. Cameo appearances by Roddy McDowall, Eli Wallach, and Christopher Lee supply many of the film's highlights. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Lynn (Barbara Benton) is the 19 year old girl who leaves her repressive parent's home in search of a matrimonial prospect. Her first attempt as love proves disappointing, but soon she discovers all men want the same thing from her. Lynn asks for money for sex and hooks up with a blackmailer who scams a disc jockey and a pimp. When she marries an Italian aristocrat, he allows her to continue her career as a joy girl and he continues as a gigolo. Broderick Crawford, Klaus Kinski, and Lionel Stander also appear, and Playboy magazine publisher Hugh Hefner makes a cameo appearance, who at the time of the film was romantically linked with Benton. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The Spanish Thousand and One Nights brings a new slant to an old story. Several Arabian Nights legends are blended together into a single coherent continuity. Evidently certain that this sort of stuff was too hokey to take seriously, the producers handle the material with tongue firmly in cheek. Jeff Cooper plays the ingenuous hero Oman, while the villainy is in the capable hands of Raf Vallone. And, yes, there are plenty of undulating harem girls and veiled princesses; foremost among these is the dazzling Luciana Paluzzi. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Frontier scout Jess Remsberg (James Garner) is crossing the desert when he spots a dead army scout and group of Apaches pursuing someone -- it turns out to be a white woman, Ellen Grange (Bibi Andersson); he gets her away from them and returns her to her home and her husband Willard (Dennis Weaver), who seems much more upset that the horse she was riding when she left is dead than he is glad that she is back. Ellen was kidnapped by the Apaches two years before and rescued a year after that, and had fled a town where her husband and everyone else had treated her as an outcast since her return. Apart from preventing her from being raped by some drunken townsmen, however, Remsberg barely has time to worry over what goes on between them, as he has a mission of his own -- tracking down the men who murdered his wife, a Comanche woman. A key clue is in the hands of the town marshal in Fort Conchos and to get there he has to scout for a cavalry unit bringing horses, ammunition, and fresh recruits to the fort, with Grange and his wife -- and the infant son she had by the Indian chieftain who took her as his squaw -- going along, with ex-buffalo soldier-turned-horse wrangler Toler (Sidney Poitier). Their party ends up under siege by Chata (John Hoyt), the Apache Indian chief and grandfather to Ellen Grange's baby, who has jumped the reservation; he wants his grandson back, and the ammunition the troop was carrying, and also intends on killing Ellen for inadvertently causing the death of his son. They all end up trapped in a box canyon while Remsberg tries to survive to get help from Fort Conchos. If this all sounds complicated, it's not, especially as told by director Nelson, in a straightforward, unpretentious, brisk, and decidedly violent fashion that anticipates his own Soldier Blue, made four years later. Every plot element links up neatly in this script, which quite effectively recalls (and weaves together) elements of the book and the movie Hondo as well as any number of revenge westerns of the 1960's. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

College football star Skip Baxter (Michael Parks) is in danger of expulsion because of his heavy drinking. Hoping to cure Skip of his booze habit, his prankish roommate, Doc Carroll (Joby Baker), cooks up an elaborate hoax. "Borrowing" a female cadaver from a medical classroom, Doc plants the corpse next to the sleeping Skip -- and when Skip awakens with his usual hangover, he is told that he has murdered a local waitress named Ruby (Jennifer West). The trick backfires when a panicky Skip sets about to dispose of the body, an act which not only ruins his life, but also claims another life in the process. This episode was originally slated to air on November 29, 1963, but was pre-empted for a special about the JFK assassination. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi