Don McGowan Movies

Isaac Hayes puts his gun where his groove is in his role as hard-case bounty hunter Mack "Truck" Turner, three years after composing the legendary score for Shaft (1971). Ex-football star turned skip-tracer, Turner specializes in bringing in the criminals police are too scared to chase, and when he's hired to capture sociopathic pimp Gator (Paul Harris), he finds himself confronted by the most vicious killers in the underground scene. Little does Turner know that Gator's woman, Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols), has a deep-running cold streak of vengeance, and has hired ruthless hit man Harvard Blue (Yaphet Kotto), as well as a legion of other like-minded and equally determined assassins, to snuff out Truck's supercharged motor once and for all. It's now up to Truck to keep his cool long enough to get to the source of the seemingly endless stream of bullets that come at increasingly unsettling intervals. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

James Lake (Raymond St. Jacques) is an escaped black convict imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit. Leslie Whitlock (Kevin McCarthy) offers James money to kill his wife, Ellen (Dana Wynter). He declines and tries to look up his old flame Lily (Barbara McNair), but discovers his own brother is now married to the sultry nightclub singer. James returns to Leslie, and the trio travel towards a mountain retreat. James and Ellen escape and try to find the murderer who had framed James years before. He experiences prejudices from police and civilian alike before the trail leads to the dead girl's stepfather. Due to the constant sexual and racial overtones this film is considered an exploitation feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, Deke Gentry (Kirk Douglas) is a lawyer who gets an unusual assignment from Chloe Brasher (Thelma Ritter), a wealthy widow, owner of a successful hotel chain, and one of his most prominent clients. Chloe has three daughters, sensible Kate (Mitzi Gaynor), bohemian Jan (Leslie Parrish), and heath food fanatic Bonnie (Julie Newmar), and she wants Deke to find them husbands. Though Deke protests that matchmaking is outside his traditional area of expertise, Chloe is insistent, and he ends up taking the job. To be sure that he's going through with it, Chloe assigns her security chief Joe (William Bendix) to keep his eye on Deke. Eventually, Deke fixes up Bonnie with Harvey Wofford (Richard Sargent), a meek IRS agent, and pairs Jan with artist Sam Travis (William Windom), but Kate turns out to be the hardest Brasher sister to marry off, until he throws his own hat into the ring. Richard Sargent would later shorten his first name to Dick and find success on the popular television comedy Bewitched. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the wake of a nuclear war that wipes out 92 percent of the world's population, civilization rebuilds itself with the help of robots, which soon become sufficiently advanced to rival -- and then surpass -- the men and women that they are designed to serve. Of particular usefulness (and concern) are the robots series R-21 and above, designed specifically to mimick human form and communication -- the humanoid robots. Despite their distinctive appearance (no hair, blue-tinted skin), they intermingle freely with humans at work, and have been granted some very limited rights under the law. But a backlash has developed among the humans -- the robots are often routinely referred to disparagingly as "clickers," and some of the most militant opponents of the robots have organized The Order Of Flesh And Blood, a paramilitary vigilante group with its own intelligence, scientific, investigative, and surveillance services, all dedicated to limiting the presence, influence, and rights of the robots, in not eradicating them. One of their most active and ambitious members is Craigis (Don McGowan), a captain in the Order and also a top gerontologist in his professional life, who despises the humanoid robots for the threat he sees in their presence -- that with their physical and intellectual superiority, they force man to think less of himself, and to rely on the robots to do many of the tasks that man should do for himself. Craigis is more intelligent than a lot of his fellow Order members, who are little more than bully-boys throwing their weight around, but as such he also sees this struggle in more serious and dire terms than many of his colleagues. One night, while investigating a robot carrying a forged assignment card, he stumbles upon a series of events more ominous and astounding than any he could have anticipated -- a robot violates its First Law of behavior by murdering a man; and the robot committing the murder was designed to look and pass for human. Craigis feels he has stumbled onto something incredibly dangerous, but he is distracted from the implications of these events by news closer to home -- that his sister (Frances McCann) is now living in in an officially sanctioned raport with a "clicker." This sends him tearing off to her home ready to do violence. Craigis is still coping with his sister's choice of a partner, when he meets her friend Maxine (Erica Eliot), and the two discover a strange fascination with each other. As Craigis tries to sort out his feelings about this woman, and keep a perspective on everything he has discovered, he has no inkling of a revelations still to come, about the robots, and their plans, the reason behind them, or how close to home they already are. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Set in the Kansas territory during the middle of the 19th century, this is a visually evocative but conventional western. The story deals with Darcy (Jeff Chandler), a ruthless man, one of the raiders known as "Jayhawkers" who wants more than what life is willing to offer. Starting out as anti-slavery activists, the Jayhawkers' origins are barely mentioned in the story, as Darcy uses them to support his growing power. Opposing his unscrupulous bid for control of the region is Cam (Fess Parker, of Davy Crockett fame on American TV) an ex-convict. Cam knows that Darcy is responsible for the death of his wife while he was in prison and he plans to bring him down. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Snowfire is a family picture in more ways than one. Its producer-directors were brothers Dorrell and Stuart McGowan, the same sibling duo responsible for TV's Death Valley Days; most of the characters are named McGowan; and one of the supporting players is Dorrell McGowan's daughter Melody. The title character is a wild horse who is tamed by young Molly, the daughter of rancher Don Megowan (no relation). The villains try to capture Snowfire for their own nefarious purposes, but Molly manages to outwit the bad guys. Filmed on location at Bryce Canyon, Utah, Snowfire was later re-edited into a 60-minute TV pilot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two years into Gunsmoke, James Arness took time out of his busy schedule to star in the medium-budget western Arizona Mission. Trading in his white hat for a black one, Arness plays a bandit. He and partners Robert J. Wilke and Don Megowan pull off a robbery; the partners then vamoose with the loot, leaving Big Jim empty-handed and seriously wounded. He is also betrayed by his lady friend Angie Dickinson. When Arness finally catches up with his former chums, he decides to "psych" them out rather than fill them full of lead right off the bat. Written by future director Burt Kennedy, who'd penned many a "Mexican standoff" picture for Randolph Scott and Budd Boetticher, Arizona Mission represented the first big-screen directorial effort for Andrew McLaglen. The film was originally released as Gun the Man Down. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, an imprisoned outlaw is allowed to attend the funeral of his brother, who was shot down by lawmen. He overpowers his guards with a gun slipped to him by his girlfriend then goes searching for his former partners, whom he blames for his brother's death. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

Cashing in on the surprise success of his 1954 Davy Crockett TV miniseries (first presented on the weekly anthology Disneyland), Walt Disney assembled the three hour-long "Crockett" episodes into a 93 minute theatrical feature. While the re-editing process has created a few noticeable continuity gaps, the results are by and large satisfying: certainly audiences in 1955 were satisfied, if box office returns are any indication (and, of course, they are). Fess Parker plays Davy Crockett, Tennessee-born frontiersman, while Buddy Ebsen (Disney's original choice for Crockett) co-stars as Davy's sidekick George Russell. The film is divided into three long episodes, each separated by a title card. Part one shows Crockett the Indian fighter (politically correct? Of course not!); part two finds Davy winning a seat in the Nashville legislature, where his heroism is rather cynically exploited by presidential candidate Andrew Jackson (Basil Ruysdael); and part three concludes at the Alamo, with a discreet cutaway just before Davy meets his doom at the hands of Mexican general Santa Anna. Also appearing in this jerry-built film are Hans Conried as Thimblerig and Helene Stanley as Davy's wife Polly. And who could forget "The Ballad of Davy Crockett"--not to mention those neato coonskin caps? Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier was followed in 1956 by a "prequel" (likewise cobbled together from three Disneyland episodes), Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kid From Amarillo was a late-model "Durango Kid" western from Columbia's B mills. Charles "Durango" Starrett and his pal Smiley Burnette go after smugglers. Our heroes travel incognito across the Mexican border to beard the leader of the gang in his den. The film offers plenty of songs from the Cass County Boys, but surprisingly no love interest. As in many of the later "Durango Kid" entries, corner-cutting and stock footage abounds in The Kid From Amarillo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide