Gilbert Roland Movies

The made-for-television western The Sacketts combines the plotlines from two seperate Louis L'Amour novels, The Daybreakers and The Sacketts. In this film, the three Tennessee-raised Sackett brothers migrate to the West following the conclusion of the Civil War. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

This Mexican-filmed melodrama was released under a multitude of titles. Running Wild was evidently its working title, but even this apparently changed from day to day. Lloyd Bridges is given top billing, though Dina Merrill carries the plot as a big-city reporter who heads west to cover the activities of a humanitarian movement. Wild horses are being rounded up to be sold to dog-food companies, and a group of pro-animal activists want this practice to be discontinued. Veteran actors Pat Hingle, Morgan Woodward and Gilbert Roland manage to avoid the "take the money and run" attitude that most major names impose upon quickies like Running Wild. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

At the behest of a Latin-American dictator (Thomas Gomez), the Mafia sends one of their most efficient operatives (James Callahan) on a kidnap assignment. The prospective victim is the dictator's most powerful political foe, publisher Emilio Cruz (Gilbert Roland), who is living in exile in the U.S. Offered FBI protection by Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), the headstrong Cruz turns the Inspector down--little realizing that his best friend is in on the kidnap plot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A bunch of anxious men attempt to track down the treasure stolen from a Texan church, and few are left standing. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Posing as "Tony Maxwell", Richard Kimble (David Janssen) hides out in the Barrio of an unnamed city. Taking a job at the cigar-manufacturing business run by Jose Anza (Gilbert Roland), Kimble befriends Jose's grandson Jimmy (Tom Nardini), a troubled youth torn between the demands of his father and the peer pressure exerted by a local street gang. Offering to help Kimble hide from the police, Jimmy soons discovers that the real threat to the fugitive's safety is the boy's own hoodlum "friends". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ruthless Four follows four prospectors who are out to strike a big lode in the Nevada gold rush days. When one of the four hits the riches, he finds the other three are out to partake of the hard-earned find. ~ All Movie Guide

Director Serge Bourguignon coadapted the screenplay for The Reward from a novel by Michael Barrett. Efrem Zimbalist Jr., usually cast on the right side of the law, is here a fugitive from American justice hiding from a murder rap in Mexico. Zimbalist and his girlfriend Yvette Mimieux try to avoid those who'd like to collect the $50,000 dead-or-alive price on his head. Police chief Gilbert Roland captures Zimbalist alive, promising to divvy up the reward with his men. But the police officers greedily turn on each other, leaving the audience to sort out for themselves just who's the real "bad guy" hereabouts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Ford's last western film, Cheyenne Autumn was allegedly produced to compensate for the hundreds of Native Americans who had bitten the dust in Ford's earlier films (that was the director's story, anyway). Set in 1887, the film recounts the defiant migration of 300 Cheyennes from their reservation in Oklahoma territory to their original home in Wyoming. They have done this at the behest of chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalban) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland), peaceful souls who have been driven to desperate measures because the US government has ignored their pleas for food and shelter. Since the Cheyennes' trek is in defiance of their treaty, Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark), who agrees with the Indians in principle, reluctantly leads his troops in pursuit of the tribe. While there was never any intention to shed blood, the white press finds it politically expedient to distort the Cheyennes' action into a declaration of war. Thanks to the cruelties of such chauvinistic whites as Captain Oscar Wessels (Karl Malden), the Cheyennes are forced to defend themselves--and whenever Indians take arms against whites in the 1880s, it's usually misrepresented as a massacre. Only the intervention of US secretary of the interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) prevents the hostilities from erupting into wholesale bloodshed. Based on a novel by Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn is a cinematic elegy--not only for the beleaguered Cheyennes, but for John Ford's fifty years in pictures. It is weakest when arbitrarily throwing in a wearisome romance between Richard Widmark and pacifistic schoolmarm Carroll Baker, who out of sympathy for the Indians has joined them in their 1500-mile westward journey. When the Warner Bros. people decided that the film ran too long, they chopped out the wholly unnecessary but very funny episode involving a poker-obsessed Wyatt Earp (James Stewart). Contrary to popular belief, this episode was included in the earliest non-roadshow prints of Cheyenne Autumn; the scene was excised only when the film went into its second and third runs in 1966 (it has since been restored). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Posing as "Johnny Sherman", Richard Kimble (David Janssen) befriends his fellow worker Gus Priamos (Gilbert Roland), who manages to learn Kimble's true identity as a fugitive from justice. Upon finding out that he has but a short time to live, Gus volunteers to pose as Kimble to throw Lt. Girard (Barry Morse) off the trail. This Gus does not out of friendship, but to make an impression on his much-younger girlfriend Sophie (Madlyn Rhue)--who up till now has proven mighty difficult to impress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this action drama, ranchers and lumberjacks are at loggerheads over the proper usage of the land. When the logging team finds a prime stand, the ranchers beg the loggers not to harvest it because the lack of trees will cause deadly mud slides during the rainy season that will destroy their homes. The battle becomes quite heated as the ranchers and the lumberman begin blowing each other up. In the midst of explosive tempers and fighting, a romance blooms between lovers on each side. Finally the lead forester sees that he is wrong after the head rancher's daughter, the woman he loves, is almost blown to bits. Unfortunately, his partner doesn't and continues to fight until he is shot and killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In the concluding episode of a two-part Zorro adventure, bandit leader El Cuhillo (Gilbert Roland) has been thwarted in his plans to rob Los Angeles' warehouse by dashing masked do-gooder Zorro (Guy Williams). Somewhat playfully, Zorro's alter ego, Don Diego, keeps tabs on the incognito El Cuhillo by looking out for the bandit's coat, upon which Zorro had previously carved a "z" with his sword. But it is no laughing matter when El Cuhillo and Zorro have their final showdown. Originally telecast as part of the Walt Disney Presents anthology, "Adios El Cuhillo" was a one-hour spin-off of Disney's popular weekly series Zorro, which ran from 1957 to 1959. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide