Daniel D. Beauchamp Movies

This routine western finds Gannon (Tony Franciosa) as a lone drifter on the Kansas plains. He never looks for any trouble because trouble always manages to find him. Gannon takes on a young Eastern dude named Jess (Michael Sarrazin) and teaches him the ropes of being a cowboy. The two end up in conflict with the widow Beth (Judy West) when she desires to erect a barbed wire fence to corral the cattle. The widow also wishes to corral Gannon before he is befriended by Mattie (Susan Oliver), the local hooker with a heart of gold. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A young Native American boy saves the day in this competent children's western by director George Sherman. Little twelve-year-old Michael (Danny Bravo) is an orphan whose best friends are young Father Phelan (Richard Basehart) and the curmudgeonly Father Walsh (Arthur Shields). The good fathers would like to raise money for a new shrine but the project seems hopeless -- until Michael steps into the picture. He devotes himself to the care and training of a white quarterhorse with his eye on the big, local race coming up soon. If the horse can win the race, it would be enough to cover the cost of the shrine. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A bizarre western that at times veers dangerously close to outright burlesque, Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend concluded Randolph Scott's long-term contract with Warner Bros. and sat on the shelf for nearly two years before being dumped on the double-bill market in 1957. Scott and two fellow cavalry officers (Gordon Jones and a very young James Garner) have their clothes stolen while skinny-dipping. Offered new apparel by a group of Quakers (or are they Mormons? It is never made quite clear), the threesome go on to prevent James Craig from supplying the territory with faulty guns and ammo. Dani Crayne (the wife of actor David Janssen at the time) seductively warbles {&"Kiss Me Quick") and a young Angie Dickinson lends further femininity to the proceedings. Much of this is strangely watchable, but as a western Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend can never make up its mind whether to play it straight or for comedy. Not too surprisingly, director Richard L. Bare had gotten his start helming the studio's "Joe McDoakes" comedy shorts in the 1940s. A final paradox: There is nary a shoot-out in the entire film. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

After divesting himself of his own studio and distribution firm, producer Robert L. Lippert Jr. put together a group of low-budget films for 20th Century-Fox release. Filmed in Mexico, Lippert's Massacre stars Dane Clark as a mounted police officer, sent out to find a group of gun smugglers. Time is of the essence, since the villains are selling guns to the Yaqui Indian tribe, in preparation for an all-out war against the white settlers. Clark is able to destroy the stolen weapons and capture the smugglers, but the Yaquis manage to surround the officer and his prisoners. The outcome of the film is implicit in its title. ~ 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

Rails into Laramie is one of the more obscure Universal-International western programmers of the 1950s, but this is no reflection on its entertainment value. John Payne stars as "town tamer" Jefferson Harder, who intends to clean up the wide-open community of Laramie. Everyone knows that the outlaw gang headed by Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is responsible for preventing the railroad from building a line into Laramie, but Shanessy always manages to intimidate the all-male juries into releasing him. He and saloon-hall gal Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard) want to keep the rails out of Laramie so that both can pursue their criminal activities unabated. But when Lou switches sides and aligns herself with Harder, it's the beginning of the end for the scurrilous Shanessy. The film's resolution is "borrowed" from the 1941 western The Lady From Cheyenne and works just as well here as it did in the earlier picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another winning collaboration between producer Benedict Bogeaus and director Allan Dwan, Tennessee's Partner is the third film version of the same-named Bret Harte story. The plotline is motivated by the curious friendship between slick gambler Tennessee (John Payne) and gunslinging Cowpoke (Ronald Reagan). Setting up shop in California gold-rush town, Tennessee spends most of his time getting Cowpoke out of trouble--specifically female trouble. The two friends fall out when Tennessee tries to prevent Cowpoke from falling for bewitching gold-digger Goldie (Colleen Gray), but Cowpoke proves to be true-blue when Tennessee is framed on a false murder rap. Rhonda Fleming costars as The Duchess, proprietress of the gambling establishment where Tennessee makes his headquarters. The film's best moment belongs to Colleen Gray, as she deftly switches allegiance from one man to another at fadeout time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the TV and radio series of the same name, Universal-International's Gunsmoke is a Technicolor vehicle for action star (and war hero) Audie Murphy. Murphy plays a wandering hired gun who is commissioned to kill a rancher (Paul Kelly). The film's conflict arises when the gunslinger befriends his would-be victim and comes to reject the attitudes of those who hired him. The fact that the gunman has fallen in love with the rancher's daughter (Susan Cabot) may have something to do with his change of heart. Audie Murphy mends his ways by the time Gunsmoke comes to a close, as if there was any doubt. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A heretofore unexplored chapter in the saga of female western desperado Belle Starr is detailed in this fanciful sagebrusher. Keith Larsen plays the title character, a young man forced into a life of crime because of his mom's reputation and because he's been framed on a holdup charge. Hoping that he can eventually get the goods on the man who set him up, the "Kid" joins up with a corrupt sheriff (Myron Healey). Participating in a gold robbery, the "Kid" absconds with the money, intending to use it to finance the search for his betrayer. By the time he's caught up with the real crook, however, he has himself become a hardened criminal. There's a lesson in all this, somewhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first film version of W.R. Burnett's novel Saint Johnson was filmed as Law and Order in 1932. Essentially an all-names-changed retelling of the Wyatt Earp legend, the film scored on its humanity and restraint. The 1953 remake eschewed the shadings and subtleties of the original in favor of a traditional shoot-em-up, replete with gratuitous violence. Ronald Reagan stars as the Earp counterpart this time, who has sworn to bring criminal Preston S. Foster to justice. The original Law and Order had no love interest at all; the Reagan version pairs up the star with beautiful Dorothy Malone, and offers a second leading lady in the form of Ruth Hampton. The original had a hanging sequence which was treated as business as usual; the remake turns this sequence into a brutal lynching. Common to both films was the final showdown between Reagan and Foster, given added melodrama in the later version by the fact that Reagan had previously sworn to give up his guns for the love of his lady. Like most of Ronald Reagan's 1950s vehicles, Law and Order paid its way and was then forgotten. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lloyd Bacon wrapped up his lengthy directorial career with the innocuous comedy She Couldn't Say No. "She" is a young heiress named Corby (Jean Simmons), who visits the small town of Progress, Arkansas, hoping to repay a good deed. It seems that, when Corby was a child, the villagers had all donated money to pay for her life-saving operation. Now she intends to reward the villagers by anonymously donating all sorts of financial boons and civic improvements. This serves only to stir up resentment against our well-intentioned heroine. Particularly offended is local doctor Robert Mitchum, who rightly sees Corby's beneficence as an invitation for every hustler and con-artist on earth to descend upon Progress. What Doc Mitchum can't foresee (though the audience can) is that he'll fall head over heels in love with Corby before fadeout time. With She Couldn't Say No, Jean Simmons fulfilled her contractual obligations to RKO, freeing her for more prestigious assignments like Desiree and Guys and Dolls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the "Henry Latham" series, set during WW II, an independent young woman takes control of a flying school after the owner is called for military duty. She is assisted by her father, his friend, and the mayor who were all fliers during WW I. They all have a rip-roarin' time until a bank robber hijacks the mayor's plane with the mayor in it. Trouble ensues when the plane runs out of gas and crashes. The police capture the crooks. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the "Henry Latham" comedy series, the parsimonious Henry protests the rising cost of meat and decides to take up hunting for wild game. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide