Dennis Dengate 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, All Movie Guide

Though it isn't obvious at first glance, Three Sailors and a Girl is the fourth screen version of the George S. Kaufman stage comedy The Butter and Egg Man. The titular gobs are Jones, Twitch, and Parky, played respectively by Gordon MacRae, Gene Nelson, and Jack E. Leonard. On leave in New York with their pockets full of money, our trio of heroes are convinced by wheeler-dealer Joe Woods (Sam Levene) to invest their money in a musical show. It soon becomes obvious that the boys have backed a turkey, but with the help of pert leading-lady Penny (Jane Powell), a potential disaster is converted into a smashing success. The Sammy Cahn-Sammy Fain musical score is tuneful if forgettable, while LeRoy Prinz' choreography is first-rate. A cute celebrity cameo appearance caps this happy little film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sword in the Desert is set in Palestine during World War II. Dana Andrews plays an American seaman engaged in smuggling European Jewish refugees into the Holy Land, despite the restrictions levied by the British occupation troops. Fifth-billed Jeff Chandler makes his movie debut as an Israeli rebel leader; his performance garnered so much fan mail that Chandler was given a seven-year contract at Universal. Few of those letters came from Britain, where Sword in the Desert ran into distribution difficulties due to its blatant anti-British slant--especially as manifested in the underground radio broadcasts of leading lady Marta Toren. The principal complaint was that the British seemed to be the sole villains in the script, which virtually ignored the Arab resistance to the formation of Israel. Sword in the Desert represents a low-key warm-up to the blood-and-thunder excesses of Otto Preminger's 1960 Exodus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide