Russell S. Hughes Movies

Diane Brewster makes her first appearance as Samantha Crawford, a larcenous lass who proves to be quite a handful for Bret Maverick (James Garner). Claiming to be the daughter of George Cross (Tol Avery), who once lost a great deal of money to Bret, Samantha charms our hero into player poker with her--and handily beats him at his own game. Hoping to recoup his losses, Bret goes into partnership with Samantha as the owners of a gambling hall, ostensibly for the purpose of driving crooked gambler Joe Riggs (Ted DeCorsia) out of business. Little does Bret realize that he's been set up for yet another double-cross. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bret (James Garner) is among the participants when the lovely but larcenous Samantha Crawford (Diane Brewster) organizes a big, no-limit poker game. Before long, Bret is being accused of cheating, and of masterminded a robbery in which the players are cleaned out. Naturally, Samantha has vanished, forcing Bret to venture into Indian territory to bring her back and clear his name. One of the minor pleasures of this episode is the verbal give-and-take between Bret and Samantha, including several pointed comments about marriage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bret and Bart Maverick (James Garner, Jack Kelly) bid on the salvage rights to a derelict cargo ship, the Apolonia. It turns out that someone is willing to commit murder to steal those rights away--which naturally arouses the curiosity of the Mavericks. In their efforts to determine why the sunken cargo is so valuable, our heroes find themselves up against a gang of drug smugglers. This episode is adapted from The Wrecker, a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jubal could just as easily have been titled Othello Out West, even though it was officially based on a novel by Paul I. Wellman. The Othello counterpart is likable (and extremely gullible) ranch owner Shep Horgan (Ernest Borgnine). Horgan hires handsome drifter Cassioer, Jubal Troop (Glenn Ford) as a cowhand, much to the delight of the film's "Desdemona", Horgan's hedonistic wife Mae (Valerie French). The "Iago" of the proceedings is psychotic ranch hand Pinky (Rod Steiger), who, envious of Jubal and hoping to enjoy Mae's sexual favors, sows the seeds of suspicion in Horgan's mind by falsely accusing Jubal of messing around with Horgan's wife. Amidst all this nastiness, there is at least one wholly virtuous character, pretty Naomi Hoktor (Felicia Farr), so guess who Jubal eventually winds up with? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lex Barker trades his Tarzan loincloth for buckskins in the Universal western Yellow Mountain. Barker stars as gold prospector Andy Martin, who has a serious falling out with his partner Pete Menlo (Howard Duff) over the affections of pretty Nevada Wray (Mala Powers). But Andy and Pete patch up their differences to rescue Nevada's father (William Demarest) from the evil machinations of land baron Bannon (John McIntire). William Fawcett, who looks like he was born during the original Gold Rush, once more goes through his "grizzled old prospector" routine. Yellow Mountain was one of a group of Universal oaters designed as double-feature fodder in larger markets, and main-feature status in smaller movie houses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A little girl is found wandering in the desert, in a state of complete shock. When she finally revives, she can scream out only one word: "Them!" Any aficionado of 1950s horror films can readily tell you that "Them" are giant ants, a byproduct of the radiation attending the atomic bomb tests of the era. Extremely well organized, these deadly eight-to-twenty-foot mutations converge on the storm drains of Los Angeles in the finale. Forming a united front against the oncoming ant battalions are New Mexico police sergeant James Whitmore, FBI representative James Arness, and father-and-daughter entomologists Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon. Since the details of Them are fairly common knowledge today, the mystery-thriller structure of the film's first half tends to drag a bit. Things liven up considerably during the search-and-destroy final reels, as the audience is barraged with convincing special effects and miniature work-not to mention that eerie ant-induced sound effect, so often imitated by subsequent lesser films. Fess Parker appears in a starmaking cameo as a pilot driven to the booby hatch after witnessing the ants in action, while an uncredited Leonard Nimoy is seen pulling info out of IBM machine. Definitely the high point in the careers of director Gordon Douglas and scenarists Ted Sherdeman and George Worthing Yates, Them is also one of the handful of vintage science-fiction thrillers that holds up as well today as it did when first released. (Sidebar: Though filmed in black-and-white, Them is alleged to have been released with a Technicolor opening title, the word THEM! hurtling towards the audience in a vibrant red). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Randolph Scott stars as a former Confederate Army officer known only as "Sugarfoot." Hoping to start life anew in Arizona, Sugarfoot manages to incur the wrath of territorial bigwigs Jacob Stint (Raymond Massey) and Asa Goodhue (Hugh Sanders), who've carried a grudge against him since the Civil War. Fortunately he also gets on the good side of saloon-hall singer Reva Cairn (Adele Jergens), which if nothing else affords him comfort during the plot's darker moments. Somewhere along the way, Sugarfoot loses Reva's affections, and nearly loses his life to Stint and Goodhue's hired guns. The aggressively mittel-European S.Z. Sakall is featured in the cast as a local merchant named Don Miguel. Based on a novel by Clarence Buddington Kelland, Sugarfoot was renamed Swirl of Glory when released to television, to avoid confusion with the TV series Sugarfoot--which, in turn, was based on the 1954 feature Boy From Oklahoma. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Side of the Law stars Kent Smith as David Cummins, a man caught up in an epic subterfuge. At the behest of attorney Philip Cagle (Robert Douglas), Cummins poses as a man who has been missing for seven years and is presumed dead. Cagle insists that this deception is necessary to protect a huge estate from avaricious relatives. Cummins finds himself heir to a far-from-loving wife, a resentful brother and a seductive sister-in-law. That's right: there's much more to this than meets the eye. Top-billed Viveca Lindfors brings a bit of texture to the otherwise two-dimensional character of Cummins' "wife." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide