Shirley Falls Movies

Race hatred and drug trafficking threaten to tear apart a California high school in this teen drama. Frank White (Mark Damon) and Don Walters (Doug Hume) are a pair of undercover police officers who are sent to a high school dominated by three gangs. Don, who is white, tries to infiltrate the Anglo gang the Royals, led by Buck (Richard Rust), while Frank, who is of Hispanic and African-American heritage, is to make his way into the school's black gang, the Ebonys, while also keeping his eye on a Mexican-American club, the Caballeros. Frank soon finds he's not welcomed by the Black or Mexican gangs, and when he strikes up a friendship with Lola (Rita Moreno), a pretty Mexican-American girl, he gains a fierce enemy in her brother Manuel (Richard Laurier), one of the leaders of the Caballeros. Meanwhile, Buck and the Royals have started dealing dope as a way to make money, and he's pressuring Manuel and his gang to do the same, something Manuel fiercely opposes. Manuel is also not happy about rumors that Lola is secretly dating one of the Royals, while the Ebonys have it in for Buck when they find out the secret hidden by his sexy girlfriend, Wiggles (Dyan Cannon, then still spelling her first name "Diane"). This Rebel Breed was first released in 1960; five years later, producer William Rowland added some incongruous inserts filled with nudity and re-released the film to grindhouses and drive-ins under the titles Black Rebels, Lola's Mistake, and Three Shades of Love. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Los Angeles is being terrorized by the "rattlesnake bandit", who preys upon young couples, pointlessly beating them up after robbing them (one of his female victims is now permanently blind). Descriptions of the bandit are fragmentary, but Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) have one palpable clue to go on: the criminal is occasionally seen in the company of a blonde female. Though the bandit manages to elude the cops for several nights running, he finally outsmarts himself when he holds up his girlfriend's ex-boss. This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of January 4, 1951. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man driving along a lonely back road at night is suddenly startled by what he sees, and is promptly killed by something that crashes through his windshield. The next day, in the nearby town of River Falls, teenagers Carol Flynn (June Kenney) and Mike Simpson (Gene Persson) decide to go looking for her father, who didn't get home last night. They find his wrecked truck and enter a nearby cave to begin searching for him. There they find his blood-covered hat and other signs of human remains and, as they go deeper inside, suddenly get trapped in a huge web -- then they spot its maker, a spider the size of a small house. They manage to escape and alert the county sheriff (Gene Roth), who doesn't take them seriously but does heed the warning of Mr. Kingman (Ed Kemmer), the science teacher at the local high school, to bring a pest-control crew along with his deputies, and a tanker loaded with DDT. They encounter the creature, and, after losing one of their men, dispatch it with the insecticide. Kingman persuades the sheriff to bring the carcass into town so that he can arrange to have it studied, leaving it in storage at the high school recreation room, for lack of anywhere bigger to keep it. As it turns out, the creature isn't dead, just stunned. As the local rock & roll band rehearses, the giant spider comes to bloodthirsty consciousness, breaking out of the building and ravaging the town. Bullets won't hurt it -- as Kingman says, you could punch holes in it all day without hitting a vital spot -- and the town is soon cut off when the telephone lines are knocked down. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The title tells practically all in the American-International exploitationer Motorcycle Gang. The film's main conflict arises from the rivalry between "good" cyclist Randy (Steve Tyrrell) and his "bad" counterpart Nick (John Ashley). Recently released from a jail term, Nick forces Randy (who received probation for the hit-and-run accident which landed Nick in the slammer) into a clandestine race. Despite the fact that he's a "clean" cycle-hog who likes to keep on the right side of the law, Randy agrees to the race, with near-disastrous results. One of the featured cycle punks is played by Carl Switzer, who despite his raffish appearance still closely resembles the "Alfalfa" character he'd essayed in the Our Gang comedies. Motorcycle Gang was released on a double bill with Sorority Girl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide