Jack Elam Movies

This fun film is based upon the classic O. Henry tale about a bratty kid who kidnappers find to be more than they can handle, so they're happy to de-kidnap him. ~ All Movie Guide

In this Disney western, Jim Dale plays Eli Bloodshy, and his twin sons Wild Billy and Jasper. The older man has founded the town of Bloodshy, and now that he has apparently died, his sons must battle for control of his legacy in a wild train race. One of them is a city-slicker, a mild-mannered, bible-spouting fellow; the other is a gun-fighting, drunken, hot-tempered lad, more at home with outlaws than with law-abiding citizens. When they settle with each other, they still have to battle venal Mayor Ragsdale (Darren McGavin) for real control. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Grayeagle is a barely disguised reworking of John Ford's The Searchers, with Ford stock company alumnus Ben Johnson essaying the John Wayne role, and Lana Wood playing a character not unlike the one portrayed by her sister Natalie in the earlier film. The major difference is that Grayeagle is told largely from the Indians' point of view. Johnson plays John Colter, who devotes his life to tracking down Cheyenne brave Grayeagle (Alex Cord), the kidnapper of his daughter Beth (Lana Wood). One of the new plot wrinkles is the revelation that Cheyenne Chief Running Wolf (Paul Fix), and not Colter, is Beth's real father, so who's rescuing whom from what? Other veteran performers participating in Grayeagle are Jack Elam and Iron Eyes Cody, while producer-director-writer Charles Pierce also shows up in a small role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joe Camp, the writer and director of Benji, tried his hand with another breed of animal in this comedy. A U.S. Cavalry unit in Texas is having a hard time dealing with horses who aren't acclimated to the hot, dry weather, so it becomes the subject of an experiment -- instead of horses, the cavalry men will be issued camels, with hapless Howard Clemmons (James Hampton) put in charge of training the soldiers to handle their new mounts. While no one is happy with the arrangement at first, in time the soldiers become quite fond of their camels, so they're quite upset when the experiment is declared a failure and they're ordered to let the camels go free. Hawmps! also starred Western stalwarts Slim Pickens, Denver Pyle, and Jack Elam; well-known animal trainer Frank Inn has a bit part as a cook. Hawmps! was originally released at 126 minutes, though it was soon trimmed to 113 minutes; the shorter version is the only one in circulation at this time.


~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When Bigfoot is sighted near a Louisiana lake, two college students (Dennis Fimple, John David Carson) camp out to confirm the legendary monster's identity. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

It's still the same old story...but what a story. This umpteenth filmization of the classic Mark Twain novel stars Ron Howard as Huck and Donny Most as Tom Sawyer. After faking his own murder to escape his brutish Pap (played by Howard's real-life father Rance), Huck and fugitive slave Jim (Antonio Fargas) fashion a raft and head off down the Mississippi. The darker elements and sociological commentary of the Twain original are carefully excised from this version, the better to allow more time for the antics of those "royal" rapscallions, the King (Jack Elam) and the Duke (Merle Haggard). Mark Twain himself makes a guest appearance, in the person of Royal Dano. Filmed along the Sacramento River in California (a frequent movie "stand-in" for the Mississippi), Huckleberry Finn was first broadcast March 25, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV Shootout in a One-Dog Town is a rare foray into straight-faced adventure by "comedy western" specialist Burt Kennedy. Richard Crenna stars as a banker in a heat-parched Southwestern town. Richard Egan and his gang mosey into town with the barely concealed intention of relieving the bank of $200,000. With everyone else in town shaking in their cracked boots, Crenna decides to thwart the robbery on his own. Filmed in Durango, Mexico, Shootout in a One-Dog Town was written by Larry Cohen, better known for such horror exercises as It's Alive and Q. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Red Pony is a 1973 TV-movie adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, previously filmed for theatrical release in 1949. Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara star as a turn-of-century farming couple. Clint Howard plays their 10-year-old son, a rebellious lad constantly at odds with his taciturn father. The catalyst for the ultimate reconciliation of father and son is the magnificent (but foredoomed) red pony whom the boy raises. Farm hand Billy Buck, the colorful character portrayed by Robert Mitchum in the 1949 version of The Red Pony, is missing from this otherwise faithful adaptation, which premiered on March 18, 1973 as a Bell System Family Theatre special. The film would later be honored with a Peabody Award for "Outstanding Dramatic Special." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A former friend betrays a legendary outlaw in Sam Peckinpah's final Western. Holed up in Fort Sumner with his gang between cattle rustlings, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) ignores the advice of comrade-turned-lawman Pat Garrett (James Coburn) to escape to Mexico, and he winds up in jail in Lincoln, New Mexico. After Billy theatrically escapes, inspiring enigmatic Lincoln resident Alias (Bob Dylan) to join him, the governor (Jason Robards Jr.) and cattle baron Chisum (Barry Sullivan) requisition Garrett to form a posse and hunt him down. Rather than flee to Mexico when he can, Billy heads back to Fort Sumner, meeting his final destiny at the hands of his friend Pat, who, two decades later, is forced to face the consequences of his own Faustian pact with progress. With a script by Rudolph Wurlitzer, Peckinpah uses the historical basis of Billy's death to eulogize the West dreamily yet violently as it is desecrated by corrupt capitalists. Both Pat and Billy know that their time is passing, as surely as Garrett's posse knows that they are participating in a legend. Using familiar Western players like Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado, Peckinpah underscores the West's existence as a media myth, and he even appears himself as a coffin maker. Just as the bloodletting of Peckinpah's earlier The Wild Bunch (1969) invoked the Vietnam War, the casting of Kristofferson and Dylan alluded to the chaotic late '60s/early '70s present; the counterculture has little place in a corporate future. Also like The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett was truncated by its studio; the cuts did nothing to help its box office. Key scenes, particularly the framing story of Garrett's fate, have since been restored to the home-video version. In this director's cut, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid stands as one of Peckinpah's most beautiful and complex films, killing the Western myth even as he salutes it. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

This Western action/comedy is told in the same tongue-in-cheek manner as its predecessor, Support Your Local Sheriff. Goldie (Marie Windsor), a madam, is a formidable woman, and Latigo Smith (James Garner) knows perfectly well that his disreputable ways will be trimmed considerably should she succeed in marrying him. Instead, he escapes from her and winds up in the town of Purgatory. The town's inhabitants have been expecting the arrival of Swifty Morgan (Chuck Connors), the famous gunfighter. All things being equal, Latigo is happy to be mistaken for Morgan's sidekick, while Jug May (Jack Elam) impersonates Morgan himself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Fires and tornados add to the difficulties of the Tanners, a Pittsburgh family of three which has pulled up stakes and moved to what they thought would be a fully functional ranch in Wyoming. Instead they find a broken down ruin. In addition to having to rebuild and battle the elements, they have a fight on their hands. Their cattleman neighbor controls the water, and he hates farmers. As the mother (Vera Miles) gets the household in order, the father and son (Steve Forrestand Ron Howard) struggle the get the ranch in working order; they are aided by a mountain man, Thompson (Jack Elam), and Two Dog, a Native American (Frank de Kova). When the showdown over water rights comes, these two new friends are at their side. This Technicolor western, set in the 1880's, is loosely based on the book "Little Britches," by Ralph Moody. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

John Wayne, in the last of his Civil War characterizations, portrays Cord McNally, a Union Army colonel who loses a gold shipment in a Confederate raid, during which a devoted young officer is also killed. After the end of the war, McNally bears no ill-will toward the leaders of the raid, Pierre Cordona (Jorge Rivero) and Tuscarora Phillips (Christopher Mitchum), who were acting as soldiers, but he still wants the two unknown men on the Union side who they say sold them the information about the gold shipments. A year later, McNally crosses paths with one of the men, now a deputy from Rio Lobo, who is about to take Shasta Delaney (Jennifer O'Neill), a seemingly innocent young woman, out of a neighboring town at gunpoint. A shootout ensues, in which McNally's man and three other Rio Lobo deputies are killed, with help from Cordona -- this makes McNally very interested in what's going on in Rio Lobo, and he decides to go there with Cordona and Shasta. They find a whole community under siege from their own sheriff, a sadistic ex-outlaw named Hendricks (Mike Henry). What follows is a series of confrontations and revelations that are alternately suspenseful, sadistic -- with maimings worthy of a spaghetti western and characters even getting blown to bits -- and even occasionally comical. But the pieces all tie together very neatly, despite a convoluted plot that's sort of Rio Bravo (made 11 years earlier, also starring Wayne and directed by Hawks, and scripted by Leigh Brackett) turned sideways and readjusted to a more cynical era. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide