Gordon Phillips Movies

This film of the wartime exploits of Baron Von Richthoven, who was also known as the "Red Baron," was a relatively lavish Corman-brothers production, and is directed by Roger Corman. The film's airborne dogfight sequences are among its most notable features. Vintage World War I airplanes were used, and accidents during filming resulted in one death and several injuries. The evolution of airborne warfare from being a sporting game between gentlemen to its use as an instrument of total war is integral to the story. Von Richthoven (John Phillip Law), who becomes an air ace and an important German hero, was an early aeronautical rival of Hermann Goering (Barry Primus). So important was he to German morale that he was asked to retire from fighting, so that he could assume a position in the post-war German government. He refused, and was killed by a young Canadian (Don Stroud) in an airborne battle. Spookily enough, even though he died in the air, his plane is reputed to have landed intact. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This interesting low-budget Western was advertized as "A lightning trigger action drama of the glorious west .. packed with thrills and colorful adventure!" If it didn't quite live up to the hyperbole, Desert Justice nevertheless managed to surprise its mostly juvenile audience, especially by killing off one of the comic relief characters, Fred "Snowflake" Toones, in the very first reel. Toones' death during a bank robbery is just one of many surprises in a story that deftly combined the gangster film with traditional Western clichés. Former silent star Jack Perrin played Jack Franklin, a city patrolman who discovers that his kid brother (David Sharpe) has escaped reform school to hook up with a gang of bank robbers. Following the killing of a bank porter, the gang hides out in Jack's desert cabin. Jack arrives just in time to see kid brother Dave being mortally wounded in a gunfight. On his horse Starlight, Jack rides hell for leather to fetch a doctor but he is too late and Dave dies in his arms. With the assistance of a police buddy (Warren Hymer), the police commissioners daughter (Maryan Dowling), and the latter's dog Braveheart, an embittered Jack is finally able to brings his brother's killers to justice. Desert Justice was co-produced by its director, William Berke (who billed himself "Lester Williams" for the occasion) and Perrin himself. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide