Howard Wright Movies

A quick-shot rifleman with a tragic past seeks refuge in a God-fearing Arizona town, only to discover that there's no running from the way of the gun in directors Hagen Smith andRichard Robinson's bullet-riddled Western. It was self-defense when Frank Woods killed three drunken hoodlums in a moment of desperation, but he knows as well as anyone else that he'll be heading for the hangman's noose if the law catches on to him. Though the citizens of the small religious town to which Frank has relocated welcome the even-handed newcomer and his commendable quest to clean the town of corruption, the criminal element doesn't take kindly to his presence and soon sets out to bring Frank down once and for all. Once again backed into a corner from which the only escape is to start shooting and pray that luck is still on his side, Frank fights for his life the only way he knows how -- with plenty of gunpowder and a fistful of bullets. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Pop singers Sonny and Cher are featured in this fluffy film that chronicles the popular duo's ideas for the film in which they are to make their cinematic debut. Much of the story centers around Sonny's movie fantasies as he tries to convince the studio head to use a more interesting script than the one he wants to present. Songs include: "I Got You Babe," "It's The Little Things," "Good Times," "Trust Me," "Don't Talk To Strangers," "I'm Gonna Love You" and "Just A Name." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

All hell breaks loose in a Texas town when an escaped convict heads home in Arthur Penn's Southern gothic melodrama. Appointed by local kingpin Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall), benevolent Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) manages to keep the peace in Tarl, but the situation starts to fester one Saturday when news filters in that wild child Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) has jumped prison. Bubber's impending arrival arouses hostility among Tarl's citizens, such as Edwin Stewart (Robert Duvall), who believes that Bubber will come after him to settle an old score, and Damon Puller (Richard Bradford), who, between grope sessions with Edwin's wife Emily (Janice Rule), uses Bubber as an excuse to terrorize black residents. As the atmosphere heats up, Calder wants to keep Bubber alive, and he convinces Bubber's wife Anna (Jane Fonda) and her lover, Val's son Jake (James Fox), to find Bubber and coax him into surrender. Val's fear that Bubber will kill his son, however, sparks a long confrontation that leaves rational law and order pummeled into the ground by the town's ignorant cruelty. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Pernell Roberts plays a dual role in this February 14, 1965 installment of Bonanza. Adam Cartwright discovers that his exact double, a man named Tom Burns, is posing as Adam to raise money under false pretense. With the help of a saloon girl named Ann (Lola Albright), Adam attempts to track down his lookalike-only to be threatened by Tom's apparent murderer. "The Search" was written by series "regular" Frank Cleaver. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comic episode, Adam and Hoss Cartwright want to enter their newly purchased thoroughbred in the Virginia City Sweepstakes. Alas, Hoss loses the horse in a card game, and now must move heaven and earth to win the nag back. Complication piles upon complication, culminating in a wild racetrack finish wherein Little Joe is pressed into service as a jockey. The supporting cast is filled to overflowing with such familiar character actors as William Demarest, Ellen Corby, and Percy Helton. Written by Alex Sharp, "The Hayburner" was originally telecast on February 17, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Dunn guest-stars as Danny Lynch, an elderly Ponderosa ranch hand. Upon learning that his mother Nellie (Cheerio Meredith) has left Ireland to pay him a visit, Danny goes into a panic: For lo these many years, he has been lying to his mother that he is in charge of the Ponderosa. To make the old woman happy, the Cartwrights put on an elaborate charade, wherein Danny is lord and master of their ranch, and they are merely his hired hands. Naturally, this little deception snowballs into a major crisis. Written by Charles Lang, "The Auld Sod" first aired February 4, 1962. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Charles Beaumont from his own short story, this episode stars John Dehner as Alan Richard, an American hydroelectric engineer, who has recently returned from a project in Africa. Having had a voodoo curse put on his head by the local witch doctors, Richard laughs off such silly superstitions, though his wife Doris (Emily McLaughlin) is terrified -- quite rightly, as it turns out. The second half of this nerve-wracking Twilight Zone episode is virtually without dialogue, as Alan Richard agonizingly tries to make his way back to his midtown home amidst an ever-escalating cacophony of hideous jungle noises. "The Jungle" originally aired December 1, 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Johnny Cabot (Johnny Cash) is a bloodthirsty New Jersey gangster who is forced to hide out in a small California suburb after killing a cop during a job gone wrong. He's given a chance to get back in the game by Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback), a crook with a novel plan for a foolproof bank heist. Dorella has been studying the daily habits of the Harper Federal Trust vice president Ken Wilson (Donald Woods). He learns that Wilson and his wife Nancy (Cay Forester) are on a strict schedule every morning and Dorella plans to use their dull routine against them. After Wilson goes to work, Johnny tricks his way into the house with Nancy by pretending to be a door-to-door guitar salesman, and then holds her hostage. At the same time, Dorella visits Wilson at the bank and demands 70,000 dollars in cash. If he doesn't get the loot and contact Johnny by phone at a specified time, Nancy will be killed. What Dorella hasn't counted on is that the Wilson home is not a happy one, and Ken is planning on running away with his mistress that very evening. Meanwhile, the leering, sadistic Johnny taunts Nancy about being "the perfect wife." He does all he can to humiliate her, forcing her to put on makeup and a flimsy negligee, slapping her around and singing menacing songs. When the Wilsons' son Bobby (Ron Howard) comes home from school for lunch, a terrifying showdown with the police leads to tragedy. Guitar legend Merle Travis has a small role as a cowardly bowling alley owner in this crime drama, which was re-released in 1966 under the title Door-to-Door Maniac. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Eddie (Ken Osmond) is on cloud nine when gorgeous Caroline Schuster (Reba Waters) agrees to go steady with him. What Eddie doesn't know -- but Wally (Tony Dow) does know -- is that Caroline is merely using Eddie -- her real boyfriend has been grounded. Finally Wally informs Eddie, who refuses to believe that he's been a dupe and loudly accuses Wally of being jealous. Somewhat surprisingly, it is up to Beaver (Jerry Mathers) to straighten out this situation! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man driving along a lonely back road at night is suddenly startled by what he sees, and is promptly killed by something that crashes through his windshield. The next day, in the nearby town of River Falls, teenagers Carol Flynn (June Kenney) and Mike Simpson (Gene Persson) decide to go looking for her father, who didn't get home last night. They find his wrecked truck and enter a nearby cave to begin searching for him. There they find his blood-covered hat and other signs of human remains and, as they go deeper inside, suddenly get trapped in a huge web -- then they spot its maker, a spider the size of a small house. They manage to escape and alert the county sheriff (Gene Roth), who doesn't take them seriously but does heed the warning of Mr. Kingman (Ed Kemmer), the science teacher at the local high school, to bring a pest-control crew along with his deputies, and a tanker loaded with DDT. They encounter the creature, and, after losing one of their men, dispatch it with the insecticide. Kingman persuades the sheriff to bring the carcass into town so that he can arrange to have it studied, leaving it in storage at the high school recreation room, for lack of anywhere bigger to keep it. As it turns out, the creature isn't dead, just stunned. As the local rock & roll band rehearses, the giant spider comes to bloodthirsty consciousness, breaking out of the building and ravaging the town. Bullets won't hurt it -- as Kingman says, you could punch holes in it all day without hitting a vital spot -- and the town is soon cut off when the telephone lines are knocked down. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Dorothy Provine gives her all to the title role in The Bonnie Parker Story. Billed in the picture's ad campaign as "the cigar-smoking she-devil of the thirties", the tommy-gun wielding Bonnie cuts quite a swath across the South after her husband (Richard Bakalyan) is sent to jail for life . Teaming up with a young bucko named Guy--not Clyde!--Barrow (Jack Hogan), Bonnie robs banks, kills people, and broods about the pointlessness of her existence. Put as charitably as possible, this isn't Bonnie and Clyde, not by a long shot. The Bonnie Parker Story was originally released on a double bill with Machine Gun Kelly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The ineluctable Sam Katzman pounced upon the "cha-cha" craze with the musical quickie Cha-Cha-Cha-Boom! Recording stars Perez Prado, Helen Grayco, Luis Arcaraz, Manny Lopez and the Mary Kaye Trio play themselves in this hurriedly assembled melange. The wafer-thin plot concerns the efforts of talent scout Bill Haven (Steve Dunne) to scare up some genuine Latino talent for his own recording company. To make a long story short, he coerces bandleader Perez Prado out of his native Cuba, whereupon Prado rallies his cha-cha'ing cohorts to assemble en masse in Haven's studio. The film is stolen by lissome dancer Sylvia Lewis, who later appeared on such TVers as The Dick Van Dyke Show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cell 2455 Death Row is based on the autobiography of condemned prisoner and "jailhouse lawyer" Caryl Chessman. William Campbell plays the Chessman counterpart, here renamed Whit. A seriously disturbed misfit, Whit begins a life of crime, culminating in sexual assault as the "Lover's Lane Bandit." Condemned to the gas chamber at San Quentin, Whit spends six years fighting his sentence, gradually winning the support and sometimes the respect of various legal experts. The film ends in 1955 (the year of its production), some five years before Caryl Chessman's ultimate execution; accordingly, the film's "open-ended" finale has been removed from many TV prints. A more thorough and incisive study of the Chessman case was offered in the made-for-TV movie Kill Me If You Can, which starred Alan Alda. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide