Leonard Freeman Movies

Ex-lawman turned rancher Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is moving a small herd of cattle when a group of nine men on horseback, led by Captain Wilson (Ed Begley Sr.), ride up and accuse him of having stolen the cattle and killed their owner. Refusing to believe his account, they string him up by the neck and leave him for dead, but they don't do the job right. Cooper is dangling there, barely alive, a few minutes later when Deputy U.S. Marshal Bliss (Ben Johnson) spots him and cuts him down. He survives the next few days in Bliss' tumbleweed wagon with the other prisoners, and is later cleared of any wrongdoing and released by Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle), just in time to witness the hanging of the man who really murdered the owner of the cattle and took Cooper's money. Cooper still wants revenge on the nine men who tried to hang him, but Fenton insists that he leave the bringing of them to justice to his deputy marshals. As it happens, Fenton is in desperate need of deputy marshals for the territory that he oversees, and he also knows that Cooper was a good lawman. Cooper, in turn, is now broke and in need of a job, and does want to see justice done. They strike an uneasy bargain, Cooper agreeing to wear a badge and bring in the men he's looking for -- alive -- for trial. The latter proves easier said than done, however, when the first of them that he spots tries to draw on him when he makes the arrest. One of the hanging party, Jenkins (Bob Steele), soon turns himself in and provides the names of the others. Cooper takes Stone (Alan Hale Jr.) alive, but the hapless blacksmith is later shot by the local sheriff (Charles McGraw) while trying to escape. The other men, led by Wilson, have no intention of dying, or even being brought to trial, without a fight. Two of them go on the run out of the territory, while Wilson and two of the others decide to take the law into their own hands once again. Meanwhile, Cooper becomes a hero when he single-handedly brings back a trio of rustlers who are also guilty of murder. This leads to Cooper's first confrontation with Judge Fenton, who, in a gripping scene, explains why it is essential that he be as seemingly quick to hang a man as he is. Unless the people are convinced that the law will do its job -- including hanging men who deserve it -- they will keep taking the law into their own hands and there will be more lynch mobs like the one that tried to kill Cooper. In the course of his quest for justice, Cooper also makes the acquaintance of Rachel (Inger Stevens), a young woman with her own search for justice, haunted by her own ghosts, and the two of them are drawn together, no more so than when Wilson and two of the others try to gun Cooper down in cold blood. The final confrontation between Cooper and Wilson escalates in violence to its savage, irony-laced conclusion. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In hopes of breathing life into the series' dormant ratings, ABC moved The Untouchables from the Thursday to Tuesday evening, removing the threat of NBC ratings-grabbing Sing Along with Mitch and counterprogramming the now four-year-old crime drama opposite the presumably "soft" competion of The Dick Powell Show and The Jack Benny Program. Alas, both of the competing programs held tightly to their timeslots, and The Untouchables was cancelled. In the months before the inevitable axing, the series' producers tried to hypo the show by encouraging star Robert Stack to lighten up his portrayal of flinty-eyed 1930s treasury agent Elliott Ness and make the character more human and vulnerable. There are also a handful of attempts to generate audience interest by offering potential Untouchables spinoffs. One of these, "Elegy", was planned as the pilot for a series starring Barbara Stanwyck as Lt. Aggie Stewart of the Bureau of Missing Persons. Two others, "Bird in the Hand" and "Jake Dance", were designed as trial balloons for a weekly show featuring Dane Clark as Dr. Victor Garr of the US Public Health Service. And finally, Scott Brady was headlined in "The Floyd Gibbons Story", an effort to transform colorful one-eyed journalist and globetrotter Gibbons into a viable TV-series leading man. More interesting than these failed pilots are the guest appearances by a number of stars in the making during The Untouchables' fourth and final season. The episode "Snowball" featured not only Robert Redford but also Star Trek's future "Chekov" Walter Koenig; Robert Duvall was given ample screen footage in "Blues for a Gone Goose"; and though Lee Marvin is officially the guest star in "A Fist of Five", it was hard to ignore the up-and-coming James Caan in a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Gordon M. Douglas specializes in comedy and action films, and here he puts the two genres together for a generally successful, well-acted chase drama. Two partners, Jim (Clint Walker) and Shawn (Roger Moore) have had the good fortune to find a gold fortune, but just after their strike, they end up in serious trouble. Word of their newfound status gets out to the wrong people, and before they have any time to cash in their chips and retire, they are running like the wind from a variety of money-grubbing marauders whose only goal in life is to return Jim and Shawn to their original impoverished state. As the chase heads toward a climactic moment, everything builds up to a convenient, if unconvincing conclusion. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Steel Town top-bills Ann Sheridan, but the bulk of the story is carried by John Lund. Cast as Steve Kostane, the nephew of a steel-plant proprietor, Lund must prove his value to by learning the business from the ground up as a steelworker. It isn't easy: throughout the film, Kostane is weighed down by personal problems that threaten to overwhelm him -- and to financially ruin the little steel town where he works. Sheridan does her usual competent job as "Red" McNamera, the down-to-earth restaurant cashier who ends up the romantic bone of contention between Kostane and veteran open-hearth worker Jim Denko (Howard Duff). A heart-pounding climax finds Kostane rescuing Red 's father (William Harrigan) from a horrible fate. Steel Town was lensed on location at California's Kaiser-Fontana steel plant. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi