Paul Harper Movies

In this post-Civil War western, an Union soldier sees opportunity abounding in the ruined South, though it's difficult, as everyone he meets there is angry at him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A recently released mental patient may well wonder who the looney ones are in this drama that chronicles his strange homecoming. He has been gone many years and during that time, his father has married a very young woman. He then discovers that the maid is a full-blown witch, the cat has disappeared and finally the chauffeur is busily chasing after his newest mistress. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, a group of men travel deep into the mountains to create a gold-mining camp. Soon the campers find themselves bedeviled by a band of outlaws who destroy their food supply. When the miners begin pining for women, the leader and two miners go to town in search of prostitutes. They end up at the Fandango Saloon, where the leader is friends with the madam. Trouble ensues when the miners get caught in a gunfight with the outlaws. Shortly after the hookers are safely in camp, the outlaws and the miners tangle again until the feisty madam kills the gang leader and effectively restores the peace. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Donna Stanley stars in the raunchy Mona's Place, but we're not sure whether she plays Mona or "just one of the girls." Most of the action takes place in a brothel, smack-dab in the middle of a rough-and-tumble mining town. It's Saturday night, and the miners are hungry for female companionship. This time, however, they're forced to do battle against a rival mining gang. Mona's Place is pretty raw, though we've seen worse at a few recent bachelor parties. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Bounty Man is Clint Walker, back in the saddle some nine years after the cancellation of his TV series Cheyenne. Walker is hired to bring in his quarry dead or alive, and in the past has had no qualms about choosing the latter option. Now he is in competition with hard-bitten Richard Basehart in tracking down a young murderer (John Ericson)--and now he begins to ask himself questions about the morality of his profession. Though there's no authentication of this opinion, The Bounty Man sure looks like a series pilot. It was originally telecast October 21, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Jim Van Bebber, who earned a reputation as one of the most distinctive and uncompromising artists in underground horror with his low-budget feature Deadbeat at Dawn and a series of powerful short subjects and music videos, directed this disquieting look at some of the most brutal and infamous crimes of the 20th century. Jack Wilson (Carl Day) is a television reporter who in 1996 is working on a documentary about Charles Manson and the 1969 murders he was convicted of helping to mastermind. Manson (Marcelo Games) was a wandering ne'er do well with a long prison record when, in 1967, he was released and made his way to Los Angeles as the "Summer of Love" was getting into full swing. A charismatic aspiring musician, Manson soon attracted a flock of hangers-on who became known as "Charlie's Family." Thanks to Manson's tenuous friendship with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson (Steve Riley) and their resourceful ability to "find" food and clothing, the family was able to keep body and soul together while Manson attempted to make a name for himself in the music business; meanwhile, Charlie's mostly female followers used sex and drugs to get what they needed or wanted from others, and would occasionally dive into dumpsters for food when all else failed. But what began as an exercise in neo-hippie collectivism centered around sex, drugs and good times began to take a sinister turn as Manson exerted a greater hold over the family, and used his leadership toward troubling ends, leading to rape, armed robbery, and gruesome violence. When Bobby (Van Bebber), a member of the family, was arrested for murder, Manson believed his apocalyptic prophesies of race war and worldwide catastrophe were coming true, and he organized a series of murders which he believed would throw the conflict into high gear, using his followers to do his bloody bidding. In production since 1988, The Manson Family was screened in rough cut form as Charlie's Family in 1997, but remained uncompleted until home-video outfit Blue Underground agreed to finance post-production, and the film received its official European premiere at the 2003 London FrightFest Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"If they move, kill 'em!" Beginning and ending with two of the bloodiest battles in screen history, Sam Peckinpah's classic revisionist Western ruthlessly takes apart the myths of the West. Released in the late '60s discord over Vietnam, in the wake of the controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the brutal "spaghetti westerns" of Sergio Leone, The Wild Bunch polarized critics and audiences over its ferocious bloodshed. One side hailed it as a classic appropriately pitched to the violence and nihilism of the times, while the other reviled it as depraved. After a failed payroll robbery, the outlaw Bunch, led by aging Pike Bishop (William Holden) and including Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Angel (Jaime Sanchez), and Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson), heads for Mexico pursued by the gang of Pike's friend-turned-nemesis Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). Ultimately caught between the corruption of railroad fat cat Harrigan (Albert Dekker) and federale general Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), and without a frontier for escape, the Bunch opts for a final Pyrrhic victory, striding purposefully to confront Mapache and avenge their friend Angel. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

In this western, a gunslinger calls on Brodie Hollister to settle an old score. Fortunately the Wildside Chamber of Commerce is there to stop him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide