Bob Scott Movies

Just outside the small town of Pauley, a Native American woman is attacked by two riders on horseback, raped, and killed. Her husband, Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas), the town marshal, has only two clues to their identity, a fancy saddle with the initials "C.B." that one of the men left behind, and the fact that his wife cut one of the two men deep across the cheek with a buggy whip. Morgan traces the saddle to Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn), an old friend and now a wealthy rancher in the town of Gun Hill, but he knows Belden well enough to know that he couldn't have had anything to do with attacking his wife. Morgan's arrival with Belden's saddle sets off ugly rumblings in Gun Hill, and when he confronts the rancher, he discovers that it was his son Rick (Earl Holliman) who had his horse and the saddle, and rode out with a cowhand friend of his, Lee (Brian G. Hutton) -- but they claim their horses were stolen. Belden tries to convince Morgan, and wants to believe himself that whoever stole the horses must have killed his wife, but when Morgan mentions the cut that one of the killers will have on his face, they both know the truth. He vows to take Rick and Lee back to Pauley to stand trial, while Belden swears he'll do anything it takes to protect his son. Belden is virtually all the law there is in Gun Hill -- the sheriff (Walter Sande) won't help Morgan serve his arrest warrants on the two men, or even let him use the jail to hold them until the last train that night; there's not a working man, a shopkeeper, or even a prostitute in the whole town that will go against the rancher, and Belden's foreman Beero (Brad Dexter) and his men will strongarm anyone who might start feeling brave. Only Linda (Carolyn Jones), a woman who has been both romanced and abused by Belden, will lift a finger on Morgan's behalf. The marshal is nothing if not resourceful, however, and Rick Belden is also too stupid for his own good, and manages to fall into Morgan's hands in short order. Very quickly, a standoff ensues, with Morgan holding Rick in one of Belden's buildings against virtually the entire town, while the deadline -- the last train out of Gun Hill that night -- approaches. People die and a chunk of Belden's holdings are destroyed, but Morgan is about to get Rick onto the train and off to trial when suddenly, one sudden act of violence destroys father and son in a matter of seconds. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Detective Story was praised for its realistic view of an event-filled day in a single police precinct station. The film, directed by meticulous taskmaster William Wyler, manages to retain this realism, even allowing for the star-turn performance of Kirk Douglas. A stickler for the letter of the law, Detective James McLeod (Douglas) is not averse to using strong-arm methods on criminals and witnesses alike in bringing lawbreakers to justice. He is particularly rough on a first-time offender (Craig Hill), on whom the rest of the force is willing to go easy because of the anguish of his girlfriend (Cathy O'Donnell). But McLeod's strongest invective is reserved for shady abortion doctor Karl Schneider (George MacReady); McLeod all but ruins the case against Schneider by beating him up in the patrol wagon. When McLeod discovers that his own wife (Eleanor Parker) had many years earlier lost a baby in one of Schneider's operations, and that the baby's father was gangster Tami Giacoppetti (Gerald Mohr), it is too much for the detective to bear. Punctuating the grim proceedings with brief moments of humor is future Oscar winner Lee Grant, reprising her stage role as a timorous shoplifter; it would be her last Hollywood assignment until the early 1960s, thanks to the iniquities of the blacklist. Despite small concessions to Hollywood censorship, Detective Story largely upheld the power of its theatrical original, and it forms a clear precursor to such latter-day urban police dramas as NYPD Blue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this three-hanky movie, an orphaned newsboy decides to care for a crippled young girl after her alcoholic mother is injured. With a doctor's assistance, he helps the girl understand that her paralysis is hysterical, caused by her reactions to her mother's behavior. Trouble ensues when the boy is arrested for helping her. The girl helps him, by walking; thereby causing the astounded authorities to release him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide