Richard Rust Movies

In this film, a bereaved man wants to exact his revenge from the bank robber who was responsible for his wife's untimely death. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

Also released under the titles El Salvejo, 40 Graves for 40 Guns, Savage Red, and Outlaw White, this western takes place in New Mexico when a group of outlaws are attacked by a force led by a man who is half Native American. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

A hapless outlaw discovers he isn't any better off on the right side of the law in this offbeat western comedy set at the turn of the century. While Bickford Waner (Dennis Hopper) is known to lawmen as notorious bandit Kid Blue, his reputation far outstrips his actual success as a crook, and after a train robbery falls apart moments after it began, Bick decides it's time to go straight. Bick settles in Dime Box, Texas, a shabby little town dominated by a ceramics factory that makes novelty ashtrays, and manages to find a lose a series of odd jobs through his innate clumsiness and his short temper. Bick moves into a rooming house where he's befriended by Reese Ford (Warren Oates), a good natured man fascinated with the ancient Greeks and their ideals of male friendship, and his wife Molly (Lee Purcell), who doesn't believe their relationship need be platonic. Bick also finds a friend in pill-popping Preacher Bob (Peter Boyle) and makes an especially fierce enemy in foul-tempered sheriff "Mean John" Simpson (Ben Johnson). After his personal and professional lives take unexpected turns for the worse, Bick decides he needs to go back to a life of crime, though he hasn't gotten much better at armed robbery than he was before. Also starring Janice Rule, Ralph Waite and Clifton James, Kid Blue was shot in 1971, but not released until 1973, after the box-office failure of Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie sent his career into a tailspin; it would be his last role in an American feature until 1979's Apocalypse Now. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

With a barrage of cinematic distancing devices at hand (flashbacks and flash-forwards, super-imposed titles, missing frames, projectionist cue-marks placed in the wrong locations in a film reel), Dennis Hopper concocts a hallucinatory acid-trip concerning an American movie company making a western in Peru. In a remote mountain village in Peru, a Hollywood film company wraps up shooting a western and returns to California. Staying behind is a young stunt man, Kansas (Dennis Hopper). In the village, he takes up with the resident whore, Maria (Stella Garcia). At this point, the film flash-forwards to Kansas being crucified by the villagers. Back in the old time frame, the Peruvians decide that they want to make their own movie. Not having the necessary film equipment, but plenty of local raw material, the villagers construct the needed cameras, microphones, and sound recorders out of bamboo, and although the equipment is faked, the villagers substitute real, bloody violence for the make-believe violence of Hollywood. During this eruption of violence in the Peruvian village, the local priest (Tomas Milian) blames Kansas for the carnage. The priest decides that movies are the root of all worldly evil and convinces the villagers to seize Kansas. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

In this biker flick, the leader of an LA gang rides out for revenge against the Las Vegas-based Hotdoggers, who beat him senseless, hospitalizing him. He becomes so violent and obsessed that his own gang kicks him out. In the end, they change their minds and readmit him. Then they all roar off to prove that the vicious Hotdoggers are nothing more than big weenies in black leather jackets. The sex and violence herein marks this as an exploitation feature destined to become a big hit with lowbrow scooter trash everywhere. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

At the behest of the family of the missing Alice Bradley (Sheila Bromley), Paul Drake (William Hopper) tracks the woman down to a mental institution, where she is suffering from amnesia--and as such is totally unaware that she is wanted for the murder of her husband. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) manages to clear Alice of that charge, but soon afterward has another client on his hands: Alice's son Charles (Richard Rust), who has been arrested for the murder of his embezzling coworker Henry Clement. The second victim is played by ventriloquist Paul Winchell, in a rare dramatic role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This moody and controversial drama takes place in Depression-era New Orleans. Dove (Laurence Harvey) has traveled by bus from Texas to find his wayward lover Hallie (Capucine). He meets young Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda) as the two get off in the crescent city. Teresina (Anne Baxter) gives him a job at her small cafe. In his free time, Dove searches for Hallie and finds her at work as a prostitute in the Doll's House. Dove implores Hallie to return to him but she refuses. When the lecherous lesbian madame Jo (Barbara Stanwyck) discovers Dove's intentions towards Hallie, she has him beaten to a bloody pulp by her hired goons. He is found by Kitty, now a happy hooker at the Doll House, and is taken back to the cafe where the compassionate Teresina heals his physical and emotional wounds. The film taken from the novel by Nelson Algren is much tamer than the original text. The title track, sung by Brook Benton, was nominated for an Academy Award. The "black-cat stalking" opening and closing sequences (by designer Saul Bass) is a perfect little "film-within-a-film." This footage, with its superb lighting, framing, panning, and editing, should be appreciated by anyone who wants to know more about the art of cinematography. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The word "dysfunctional" hardly begins to describe the condition of the murderous Coombs family. Conducting his own "survival encounter", sadistic patriarch Avery Coombs (Kent Smith) has ordered his son Jayce (Richard Rust) to attempt to track down and kill his other son Tully (Buzz Martin). Managing to escape his family's clutches, Tully asks Paladin (Richard Boone) to help him stay alive. But Avery warns Paladin to mind his own business--or risk being hunted and killed himself. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Juvenile delinquency invades the Wild West in this episode, wherein three young punks named Sim (Richard Rust), Bunk (Martin West) and Burt (Ralph Reed) gleefully terrorize a small town. The local sheriff (Stephen Roberts) refuses to intervene, and Paladin (Richard Boone) wants to find out why. Meanwhile, the three hooligans attempt to goad Paladin into a gunfight, but he is reluctant to kill anyone so young and relies upon barbed insults to keep the trio at bay--a strategy that obvious will not work forever! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paladin (Richard Boone) is one of four travellers who witness a man falling down a ravine and being trapped on a ledge by a landslide. It is highly likely that the man died in the fall, but there is also the likelihood that he is still alive. Paladin is all for making the perilous downward climb to check on the man's fate, but he is unable to do so without the help of his four diverse companions--all of whom, for various reasons, are reluctant to even attempt the climb. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Anne Francis and Christopher Dark guest star as armored-car bandits Doreen Maney and Sheik Humphries in this thinly disguised retelling of the "Bonnie and Clyde" legend. Designed by the newspapers as "The Lovebirds", Doreen and Sheik have masterminded four major heists, the last of which netted the gate receipts from Yankee Stadium. This time, however, blood has been spilled, and Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) is determined to avenge the deaths of the four armored guards mowed down by the Lovebirds' gang. Managing to capture Doreen, Ness hopes that she will reveal Sheik's whereabouts while being extradited to New York, but Doreen says nothing, confident that her boyfriend will help her escape--little imagining that she is being double-crossed not only by Sheik, but also by her own kid sister Maybelle (played by a pre-Mister Ed Connie Hines). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Jo Ann Blanchard (Patricia Hardy) seeks the help of Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) in reclaimed her ranch and her prize stallion, both of which have been claimed in a foreclosure by neighboring rancher John Brant (Trevor Bardette). Subsequently, Brant is killed, and at first it appears as though the horse kicked him to death. But murder will out, and Jo Ann is charged with the crime--whereupon Perry really begins to earn his retainer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi