Richard Devon Movies

The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force concerns itself with a vigilante group that has targeted notorious scofflaws for extermination. When a prominent gang boss or drug-runner is set free by the airheaded liberal courts, a covert group of "avengers" is soon on hand to blow the miscreant to bits. While detective Dirty Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is no great friend of civil liberties, he is dead set against wholesale murder as a solution to legal loopholes. Discovering that all the killings have been committed by the same weapon, Callahan reaches the conclusion that his on-the-edge partner, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), is responsible. But the answer is less transparent than that, as Harry learns almost at the cost of his own life. Co-scripted by John Milius and Michael Cimino, Magnum Force was followed by three additional Dirty Harry installments: The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Once again, the IMF agents must break the bank of a popular casino to bring down a master criminal. In this case, the villain is Syndicate chieftan Orin Kerr (Orin Kerr), who controls not only the casino but the entire resort town where it is located. The IMF's mission is twofold: Hit both the casino's gaming tables and its vault simultaneously. Originally broadcast on February 19, 1972, "Casino" was written by Walter Brough and Howard Berk. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three Guns For Texas is a routine western. Taken from the television series "Laredo," three 30-minute episodes are strung together. The only continuity seems to be the plot of Texas Rangers fighting a renegade band of Indians led by Linda Little Trees (Shelley Morrison). Neville Brand, Peter Brown, William Smith, and Martin Milner also star. The viewer would have to be familiar with the television series, as no character development is given, assuming the public has seen the actors before and is well-versed in the plot. This plodding oater closely resembles the old Republic westerns. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The F.B.I. begins its third season as Federal Inspector Lew Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) enters a poker game where the stakes are literally life and death. Working undercover, Erskine is playing with several high-ranking Mafia officers. His purpose: to prevent the assassination of mob chieftan Paul Nichols (Larry Gates)--and also to keep the unknown assassin from killing everyone else in the game! With this episode, William Reynolds becomes a regular as Special Agent Tom Colby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Columbia Pictures tried to create a tongue-in-cheek American James Bond with this, the first of five motion pictures based on the character of Matt Helm, a spy created in a series of novels by Donald Hamilton. Dean Martin stars as Helm, a boozing, womanizing cad of a spy coaxed out of retirement by ex-girlfriend Tina Batori (Daliah Lavi). His mission: stop the evil Big O organization, whose leader, Tung-Tze (Victor Buono), schemes to sabotage an atomic missile and thus spark World War III. Producer Irving Allen had once been partners with Albert R. Broccoli in the British film production company Warwick Films, their alliance ironically disintegrating over the merits of creating a Bond series. When Broccoli's instincts proved correct, Allen attempted to create his own spy franchise with the Helm character. The sequels to The Silencers (1966) were Murderers' Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), and The Wrecking Crew (1968). Allen unsuccessfully tried to resurrect the character as a TV movie, Matt Helm (1975). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Elaine Bayler (Mala Powers), the wife of small-town big shot Richard Bayler (Lloyd Gough), is being blackmailed by an unknown party who threatens to expose Elaine's romance with her protegee, musician Donald Hobart (Will Hutchins), unless she ponies up $10,000. While making the "drop", Elaine is murdered, whereupon Donald's girlfriend Cynthia Perkins (Luana Patten) is charged with the crime. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is forced to relinquish a long-awaited fishing excursion to defend Cynthia in court. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hudson Bradshaw (Bartlett Robinson) is willing to use any means, fair or foul, to claim the rights to a revolutionary new antibiotic developed by ex-employee Randolph James (Lee Farr). When all else fails, Bradshaw persuades James' wife Natalie (Marian Collier]) to sell her controlling interest in her husband's chemical company--which would seem to be ample motive for murder when Natalie turns up dead. The only way that Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) will be able to free James is to prove that his client was on a fishing trip at the time of the murder...but alas, the witnesses to this trip are either missing or highly unreliable! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Kennedy guest-stars as Waldo Watson, a born loser who has decided to end it all. Feeling pity for Waldo, Hoss Cartwright hires him as a Ponderosa ranch hand. Alas, not only is Waldo a clumsy and inept worker, but he also puts the Cartwrights' lives in danger, courtesy of a gang of trigger-happy Eastern gamblers who want to collect a long-standing debt from the hapless Waldo. Others in the cast include Sandra Warner as Nancy Collings and Richard Devon as Weaver. Written by Rod Peterson, "The Scapegoat" originally aired October 25, 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Taylor closed out his MGM contract with the 1963 western Cattle King. Taylor plays a Wyoming rancher at odds with cattle baron Robert Middleton, who is dead set against barbed wire being erected on "his" land. Just so we know the film isn't kidding around, leading lady Joan Caulfield is shot full of holes some thirty minutes before the fade-out. Taylor finally vanquishes the evil Middleton, but not without help from Caulfield's previously spineless brother William Windom-not to mention the legal support of President Chester A. Arthur (Larry Gates). Cattle King was released in England as Guns of Wyoming. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This musical boxing drama finds Walter (Elvis Presley) as a recently discharged soldier looking forwork in New York's Catskill Mountains. He happens across Grogan's Gym, a boxing emporium that helps perfect the "gentle art." Proprioter Willie Grogan (Gig Young) and trainer Lew (Charles Bronson) run the camp for aspiring pugilists. Walter saves Grogan's long suffering girlfriend Rose (Joan Blackman) from an assault by a gangster when he knocks out the goon. He earns the nickname "Kid Galahad" and a chance to show off his talents in the boxing ring. While Walter trains for the big fight, Lew is approached by unsavory gamblers, who want Lew to be lax in repairing any cuts Walter sustains in the ring for a slice of the economic pie. Lew refuses and has his hands broken by the gambling goons. Although Walter knows the fix is on, he battles his way to victory against overwhelming odds and an intimidating opponent. Walter exacts revenge on the men who broke Lew's hands, which may be the first and only time in cinematic history that Charles Bronson needs any outside help. Presley delivers seven songs, the most memorable being "I Got Lucky." United Artists got lucky with the release of Kid Galahad, which drew legions of loyal Presley fans at the box office. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Michael Curtiz's The Comancheros was a deceptively complex movie -- so enjoyable, that it masked some of the best character development seen in a John Wayne vehicle that was not directed by John Ford or Howard Hawks, and so well made that it got by with some of the most violent action seen in a major studio release of the era. It also bridged the gap between Ford's The Searchers and the upbeat buddy movies of the late '60s and '70s (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc.). It's 1843 in the Republic of Texas, and Jake Cutter (John Wayne) is a two-fisted Texas Ranger who runs across a gang of white renegades, called the Comancheros, who are trading guns and other contraband with marauding Comanches from a secret hideout in Mexico. Substituting for a repentant gun-runner, he goes undercover as a partner with Crow (Lee Marvin), a vicious half-breed who is a contact man with the Comancheros and knows the whereabouts of their hideout in Mexico. But Crow manages to get himself killed, and Cutter is forced to throw in with Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman), a bystander who also happens to be an itinerant gambler wanted for killing a man in a duel in New Orleans, to complete his mission. It turns out that Regret is a more decent man than most, and he and Cutter, despite some different outlooks on right and wrong, take a liking to each other. Their quest eventually takes them south of the border, where they find the Comancheros and their leader, Graile (Nehemiah Persoff), a bitter, brilliant cripple -- think of The Sea Wolf's Wolf Larsen in a wheelchair -- who has established a landlocked pirate society, and his daughter Pilar (Ina Balin). The only thing that keeps Cutter and Regret alive when they enter the camp is that Pilar and Regret have a history, and she still has feelings for him, enough so that she won't tell what she knows about Cutter and who he is. The two men must play on Graile's greed and Pilar's love in the explosive surroundings of the Comancheros' camp, while figuring out a way to stay alive long enough to get word to the rangers about where they are -- and to survive the attack that must inevitably follow.

Director Michael Curtiz was ill for part of the shoot, and Wayne took up the slack, but The Comancheros displays some of the same freewheeling charm and deep passions that informed classic films of his such as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. Wayne and Whitman between them manage to evoke some of the rambunctiousness of Errol Flynn, and when Balin (one of the sexiest leading ladies ever to grace a John Wayne movie) arrives onscreen, the testosterone level shoots up even higher and the sexual sparks fly. The film's 105 minutes go by very fast, and this is a movie whose ending comes almost too soon. Curtiz's final film is one that leaves audiences with a smile, but also wanting more, which was a pretty good way to go out. John Wayne's daughter, Aissa Wayne (who subsequently went into a law career) appears in a small role. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Short on action and slow in developing, this drama is set during World War II on a small island in the Pacific. Two GI's are holed up inside a cave, the only survivors of a failed offensive on the island. One day they witness a mass suicide among the Japanese soldiers who control the area, and so they realize that the war has ended. As they open up to each other, one of them loses his temper unexpectedly and bursts forth with an anti-Semitic tirade against his supposed buddy. That unexplained outburst mortifies him as much or more than it does his companion, and he takes a shocking punitive action against himself. Meanwhile, the two men need to be rescued soon because the island is scheduled for an atomic bomb test. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide