Eddy Waller Movies

In the first episode of Walt Disney's four-part miniseries based on the life of frontiersman Daniel Boone, a fast-talking salesman convinces Daniel (Dewey Martin), a North Carolina farmer, to pull up stakes and move to the "promised land" of Kentucky. Daniel, his wife Rebecca (Mala Powers), and their friends are assured that if they travel along the "Warrior's Path", a secret Indian trail, their journey will be a safe one. Unfortunately, the Indians they encounter along the way aren't of the friendly variety. "The Warrior's Path" originally aired as part of the Walt Disney Presents anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Amidst a sea of late-1950s psychological westerns, The Phantom Stagecoach is almost refreshingly old-fashioned. The plot is motivated by an ongoing war between two rival stagecoach firms. Stagecoach owner Joe Patterson (Frank Ferguson) is as honest as the day is long, which is more than can be said for his competitor, Martin Maroon (Hugh Sanders). Using an armored stagecoach, Maroon sabotages Patterson's operation, never leaving behind any evidence that can be traced back to him. Operating undercover, Wells Fargo agent Glen Hayden (William Bishop) tries to put an end to Maroon's skullduggery, and along the way he falls in love with the villain's innocent niece Fran (Kathleen Crowley). Some amusing moments are provided by those grand old troupers Percy Helton and Maudie Prickett, while Richard Webb, TV's Captain Midnight, is cast against type as a reluctant baddie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another of director Allan Dwan's underrated but well-crafted westerns of the 1950s, The Restless Breed stars Scott Brady as a young gunslinger who lives for revenge. When Brady's father is killed by gun runners, he pursues the villains across the Mexican border. Gang leader Jim Davis, beyond the reach of American law, is confident that his henchman can get rid of Brady in short order, but he's wrong. As his hired guns drop like flies, Davis is forced to accept Brady's challenge to a showdown. Anne Bancroft is intriguingly if incongruously cast as an Indian girl who falls in love with Brady. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this deceptively titled and paced Western, Kirk Douglas shines in the hyper-macho role of Dempsey Rae, a good-natured drifter with a mysterious past up from Texas, a top hand with a gun, a horse, or a herd, who can even play the banjo and sing. He rides into a Wyoming town in a freight car, in the company of much younger drifter Jeff Jimson (William Campbell), who knows even less about the West than he does about life. Dempsey gets Jeff out of a few scrapes with the law, and both get hired by the foreman (Jay C. Flippen) of the Triangle Ranch. With 8,000 head, the Triangle is already the largest spread in the territory, but the new owner from back east, Miss Reed Bowman (Jeanne Crain), arrives with plans to move in another 22,000 head onto the open range, threatening to squeeze out the smaller ranches completely. Meanwhile, the other ranchers plan on saving some of the grass for winter feed and fence it off with barbed wire. When Bowman discovers that she can't hold onto Dempsey as either a man or a foreman, she seduces Jeff -- who's too quick to become a man -- to run interference on him, and hires a crew of gunmen led by Steve Miles (Richard Boone) to tear down the wire. A range war is about to break out, and Dempsey, who wants no part of barbed wire and carries the scars to show why, plans on pulling out. But then Miles and his men overplay their hand, and Dempsey throws in with the smaller ranchers. The body count suddenly starts going against Miles, who digs in for a final fight, and now it's Jeff and Bowman who find themselves caught between two unstoppable forces that they've helped unleash. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

For full appreciation of the culture-clash drama Foxfire, it is crucial that the viewer accept Jeff Chandler as a Native American--not much of a stretch, since he'd previously been thoroughly convincing as Cochise in Broken Arrow. Chandler plays Jonathan Dartland, a half-breed Apache mining engineer working in his native Arizona. On a whim, Eastern socialite Amanda (Jane Russell) marries Jonathan. Disdaining "society", Dartland insists that the flighty Amanda remain in Arizona as a "typical" housewife. The rest of the film deals with the problematic period of adjustment for the seemingly mismatched couple. Foxfire earned a footnote in history as the film which was being screened on the Andrea Doria on the day that the ill-fated luxury liner went down. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Savage Frontier stars Allan "Rocky" Lane in his familiar movie guise as a U.S. marshal. A criminal gang, run by a mysterious "Mister Big," has been knocking off lawmen left and right. Once the audience is introduced to Roy Barcroft as leading citizen William Oakes, the mystery surrounding the identity of the criminal mastermind is over. No matter: the film's action content is worth the admission price, and besides, the story is really about the regeneration of former convict Sam Webb (Bob Steele). At 53 minutes, Savage Frontier makes its points with speed and efficiency. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After his Oscar win for All the King's Men, Broderick Crawford found himself working out his Columbia contract in a string of rapidly deteriorating films. The Last Posse was a middling western, the sort that the studio sent out as bottom-of-bill attractions for their prestige pictures. The posse of the title, headed by sheriff Crawford, is a group of ostensibly honest townsfolk. When they catch up with the desperadoes who robbed a wealthy cattle baron, some of the posse members are overcome by greed and plot to keep the stolen loot for themselves. Once Crawford is wounded in a shootout, avarice prevails. There are no real winners at the end, as the remaining posse members straggle back to town, their heads hung in shame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on William Fay's short story The Disappearance of Dolan, Champ for a Day stars Alex Nicol as young pugilist George Wilson. Upon arriving in a small town for a scheduled bout, George discovers that his manager, Dolan, has vanished from sight. Also caught up in the mystery is Dolan's girlfriend Miss Gormley (Audrey Totter). Before long, George finds out that his missing manager was tied up with gangsters--and that George is expected to lose his next fight. How he extricates himself from this dilemma, and also solves his manager's disappearance, consumes the final four reels of this 90-minute Republic "special." The film's topnotch cast includes Harry Morgan as a trainer, Charles Winninger and Hope Emerson as the owners of a roadside hotel, and Joseph Wiseman as a wacko villain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) is an ex-fighter who came within seconds of winning the world championship. He's now forced to eke out a living driving a cab. A basically decent guy, he has lots of people who care about him, including Linda James (Evelyn Keyes), a slightly ditsy actress friend -- but Ernie also has a short fuse, especially where his wife Pauline (Peggie Castle) is concerned. His rage boils over when he spots her kissing another man, but her unfaithfulness turns out to be the least of his worries. The man she's seeing, Vic Rawlins (Brad Dexter), is a career criminal with both the police and his former partners after him, and he sees Ernie as the perfect fall-guy. The law and Rawlins' criminal associates are soon closing in on Ernie, while he tries desperately -- with Linda's help -- to buy the time he needs to unravel this nightmare. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this western, a US marshal tries to stop a nefarious gang of thieves from harassing the local sheriff and from stealing shipments of gold ore by putting their leader into the jail. The ringleader turns out to be a female newspaper publisher who has been creating all the problems to make sure her brother will be elected sheriff. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, a U.S. marshal rides into Leadville to get a prisoner and ends up staying to help a needy friend who is in trouble with the outlaws attempting to oust him from his ranch. To stop them, the lawman poses as a bandit. He then discovers that the town banker is behind it all as he has learned that there is oil underneath the rancher's land. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Allan "Rocky" Lane and his trusty stallion Black Jack star in Republic's Black Hills Ambush. Lane plays a U.S. marshal who answers a call for help from his old pal Nugget Clark (Eddy Waller). It seems that someone is staging ruinous raids on Nugget's newly established freight line. Realizing that gang leader Bart (Roy Barcroft) is a lost cause, Lane tries to reform gang member Larry Stewart (Michael Hall), thereby forcing the crooks' evil scheme to collapse under its own weight. The highly forgettable leading lady is played by Leslye Banning. Allan "Rocky" Lane continued turning out low-budget westerns for a full decade after Black Hills Ambush was released in 1952 but is probably best-known as the voice of TV-equine Mr. Ed ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide