Steve Raines Movies

When two strangers, Sonny (Dick Peabody) and Jesse (Walter Burke), help Ben Cartwright get his wagon out of the mud, Ben invites them to supper at the Ponderosa, then secures them both jobs. Ben's son Hoss immediately bonds with Sonny, who has the strength of Hercules but the mind of a child. A crisis develops when Sonny cannot comprehend the fact that Jesse has been killed-and, according to Sheriff Coffee, Sonny has been known to turn killer himself when he gets confused. The Steinbeckesque teleplay was written by Robert Baron. "Destiny's Child" first aired on January 30, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A brave cowboy/ex-con hits the dusty trail as the leader of a major cattle drive in this western. He is offered the job by the very townspeople his gang terrorized a few years before. They are also the same people who put him in the slammer, and even though he accepts the task, he secretly plots his revenge. He gets it by proving himself courageous and honest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Not to be confused with the popular David Zuckor comedy from the late '80s that starred Leslie Nielson, 1956's Naked Gun chronicles the adventures of a bored insurance salesman who spices up his drab life by heading to the Mexican jungle to search for an ancient Aztec treasure and return it to its rightful heir. Unfortunately, the treasure is cursed and creates all kinds of problems for the fellow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The simple story of a Wyoming range war is elevated to near-mythical status in producer/director George Stevens' Western classic Shane. Alan Ladd plays the title character, a mysterious drifter who rides into a tiny homesteading community and accepts the hospitality of a farming family. Patriarch Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) is impressed by the way Shane handles himself when facing down the hostile minions of land baron Emile Meyer, though he has trouble placing his complete trust in the stranger, as his Marion (Jean Arthur) is attracted to Shane in spite of herself, and his son Joey (Brandon De Wilde) flat-out idolizes Shane. When Meyer is unable to drive off the homesteaders by sheer brute strength, he engages the services of black-clad, wholly evil hired gun Jack Wilson (Jack Palance). The moment that Wilson shows he means business by shooting down hotheaded farmer Frank Torrey (Elisha Cook Jr.) is the film's most memorable scene: after years of becoming accustomed to carefully choreographed movie death scenes, the suddenness with which Torrey's life is snuffed out -- and the force with which he falls to the ground -- are startling. Shane knows that a showdown with Wilson is inevitable; he also knows that, unintentionally, he has become a disruptive element in the Starrett family. The manner in which he handles both these problems segues into the now-legendary "Come back, Shane" finale. Cinematographer Loyal Griggs imbues this no-frills tale with the outer trappings of an epic, forever framing the action in relation to the unspoiled land surrounding it. A.B. Guthrie Jr.'s screenplay, adapted from the Jack Schaefer novel, avoids the standard good guy/bad guy clichés: both homesteaders and cattlemen are shown as three-dimensional human beings, flaws and all, and even ostensible villain Emile Meyer comes off reasonable and logical when elucidating his dislike of the "newcomers" who threaten to divest him of his wide open spaces. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the western Sheriff of Wichita, an unjustly imprisoned Army Lieutenant searches for the actual perpetrators of a robbery he was unfairly accused of five years earlier. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Produced on the cheap by Ron Ormond and his wife, June Carr, this Western was one of ten to star Lash LaRue and Al St. John, formerly of PRC. They are assigned to catch a gang of outlaws working out of Rhyolite, a town run by Duce Rago (Ray Bennett), who is posing as a legitimate businessman. With the help of an elderly widow, Mrs. Owens (Sarah Padden), and a female undercover agent (Peggy Stewart), Lash and Fuzzy manage to infiltrate the gang and bring Rago and his henchman, Brant (former Western star Jim Bannon), to justice. The Ormonds produced a quite unnecessary sequel to this Western, The Black Lash (1952), which contained sequences lifted in their entirety from Frontier Revenge. A former serial queen at Republic Pictures, Peggy Stewart was a fine actress who deserved better than what the Ormonds had to offer. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide