Jack Elam Movies

Frank Sinatra stars in this bawdy western satire as Dingus Magee, a would-be outlaw who robs Hoke Birdsill (George Kennedy) while Hoke is en route to Yerkey's Hole, New Mexico. Hoke reports the theft to Belle Knops (Anne Jackson), the mayor of Yerkey's Hole and proprietor of the town's biggest business, a brothel favored by the enlisted men at the nearby Army fort. Belle appoints Hoke as the new deputy, and he tracks down Magee as he's enjoying a roll in the bushes with Anna (Michele Carey), a very friendly Indian maid. Hoke brings in Magee, but Anna then helps him escape; Belle uses Magee's unscheduled release to convince the commanding officers at the Army base that an Indian uprising is imminent, and that their planned relocation to Little Big Horn (where they hope to arrive before Gen. Custer and his troops) might be a bit premature (not to mention bad for her business). Soon Hoke is after Magee for robbing a stage and stealing the strongbox (which, of course, he can't open), the Indians are after Magee for running off with Anna, a sexually repressed schoolmarm named Prudence (Lois Nettleton) is after Magee after he awakens the woman within her, and John Wesley Hardin (Jack Elam) is after Magee, well, just because. "Catch-22" author Joseph Heller co-wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

James Garner is a nothing short of a delight in this western spoof that stands western clichés on their ears. The film takes place in the small western town of Calender, a town that experiences a gold rush when gold is discovered in an open grave by Prudy Perkins (Joan Hackett). As gold prospectors flood in and out of town, the Danby clan, anxious to take advantage of the situation (since their ranch blocks the main road out of town) levies a 20% tribute on every gold shipment that passes through. Three sheriffs have been dispatched by the Danbys, and they control the town. Into this situation, on his way to Australia, rides Jason McCullough (Garner). McCullough is an easy-going sort who just happens to be a crack shot. The town rapidly makes him sheriff. His first line of business is to break up a fight and to arrest Joe Danby (Bruce Dern) for murder. As McCullouch settles down in the Perkins boarding house, Pa Danby (Walter Brennan) plots to spring his son from jail. But when all his mechanizations fail to gain Joe's release, Pa Danby gathers together all the Danbys in the surrounding countryside to head into Calender to get rid of McCullough. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In Sergio Leone's epic Western, shot partly in Monument Valley, a revenge story becomes an epic contemplation of the Western past. To get his hands on prime railroad land in Sweetwater, crippled railroad baron Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) hires killers, led by blue-eyed sadist Frank (Henry Fonda), who wipe out property owner Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his family. McBain's newly arrived bride, Jill (Claudia Cardinale), however, inherits it instead. Both outlaw Cheyenne (Jason Robards) and lethally mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) take it upon themselves to look after Jill and thwart Frank's plans to seize her land. As alliances and betrayals mutate, it soon becomes clear that Harmonica wants to get Frank for another reason -- it has "something to do with death." As in his "Dollars" trilogy, Leone transforms the standard Western plot through the visual impact of widescreen landscapes and the figures therein. At its full length, Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's operatic masterwork, worthy of its legend-making title. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda headline this western in which an old lawman (Stewart) attempts to keep his town safe from a band of recent returnees from the Missouri range wars and their villainous leader (Fonda), who threaten to destroy it with their drunken revelry. The old sheriff usually avoids the town, preferring to live on the outskirts of town with his pregnant wife. He is a bit of a pacifist, and when he sees what the outlaws are doing to the peaceful little village, he decides he must intervene, as no one in town seems to have the grit to fight back. At first the lawman attempts to reason with the outlaws. He fails at this, and even more violence ensues, forcing the sheriff to use a stronger form of persuasion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The rest of the Ponderosa men are astonished when Hoss Cartwright shows up reeking of cologne and dressed to the nines. It is all part of Hoss' scheme to prove that mercenary saloon gal Dolly Bantree (Lola Albright) only loves grungy miner Buford Buckelew (Jack Elam) for his money. Paul Brineger, fresh from his lengthy stint on Rawhide, appears as Rev. Written by Robert V. Barron, "A Bride for Buford" first aired January 15, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Andrew V. McLaglen directs the Western drama The Rare Breed, based on the real-life introduction of English Hereford cattle to the American West in the 1880s. Maureen O'Hara plays Martha Price, an widowed Englishwoman who convinces rancher Alexander Bowen (Brian Keith) to use her new cattle breed. James Stewart stars as ranch hand Sam Burnett, a rambler who agrees to take the rare bull to Texas in order to breed it with the longhorns. He also accepts a bribe along the way from the lawless Taylor (Alan Caillou). The determined Martha and her daughter Hilary (Juliet Mills) demand to go along for the trip, leading to Burnett having to rescue them from several bouts of Western-style danger. Soon Bowen loses faith in the breeding idea, but Burnett has grown to believe in the bull. The bull dies after the harsh winter, but Burnett saves one of its calves. He and Martha decide to start their own cattle ranch. Meanwhile, Hilary begins a romance with Bowen's son Jamie (Don Galloway). Also starring Jack Elam as swindler Deke Simons. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

It looks like curtains for Captain Parmenter (Ken Berry) when he manages to offend the notorious outlaw Sam Urp (played by veteran western heavy Jack Elam). The fastest gun in Kansas, Urp challenges Parmenter to a shoot-out. How will the combined efforts of O'Rourke (Forrest Tucker), Agarn (Larry Storch) and Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson) prevent Parmenter from biting the dust? Series semi-regular Don Diamond, usually seen as Crazy Cat, is here billed merely as "Brave." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Astrologer Samuel H. Keel (Richard Boone) has predicted that someone named Seth Carter is destined to win a $500,000 lottery. In hopes of locating the elusive Carter, Keel hires Paladin (Richard Boone) to help in his search. Unfortunately, the first three people presumed to be linked to Carter are brutally murdered--and if the pattern continues, Paladin may be unable to prevent further bloodshed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Scripted by Dalton Trumbo and directed by Robert Aldrich, this off-beat, almost eclectic film could be hailed as a thinking person's western. It is the dark cat-and-mouse tale of a sherrif's hunt for a philosophy-spouting criminal in the midst of a great cattle drive. The outlaw killed the sherrif's brother-in-law. During his flight, the outlaw pauses long enough to drop by the ranch where his former lover lives with her husband and 16-year-old daughter. While there, the rancher hires him to lead a cattle drive to Texas. The sheriff soon catches up, but he decides to help the killer with the drive before bringing him in. Along the way, the two men gain a grudging respect for one another. Also the sheriff begins to fall in love with the rancher's wife, while the crook finds himself drawn to her lovely daughter. The rancher ends up killed during the trip and this allows the romances to bloom until the widow tells the outlaw an awful secret about the young woman he loves. Grecian-style tragedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) would love to nail mobster Brian O'Malley (David Brian) on tax-evasion and interstate-smuggling charges; unfortunately, O'Malley has an irksome habit of murdering anyone who can testify against him. Worse still, O'Malley obviously has a number of corrupt officials in his pocket, as proven when Federal witness George Davas (Johnny Seven) "accidentally" falls from a heavily guarded hotel room to his death (a tragedy inspired by the similar demise of real-life hoodlum Abe Reles). Understandably, the only surviving witness, Stan Wolinski (Jack Elam) goes into hiding--from both the bad guys and the good guys. Michael Parks (Then Came Bronson) appears unbilled as an elevator operater. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

TV star Brett Halsey is the lead in The Girl in Lover's Lane. While drifting through a small town, Bix (Halsey) becomes involved with local tease Carrie (Joyce Meadows). Shortly afterward, Carrie is murdered, and Bix is held responsible. The actual killer is feeble-minded Jesse (Jack Elam), but the villagers aren't as quick on the uptake as the movie audience. Only the intervention of runaway youngster Danny (Lowell Brown) saves Bix from a lynch mob. Girl in Lover's Lane was directed by another TV habitue, Charles R. Rondeau. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide