Wallace MacDonald Movies

In this run-of-the-mill western, one of the few films directed by producer Wallace MacDonald, a rancher has been falsely accused of murdering his wife and escapes from prison to seek revenge. Robert Knapp is the rancher Gil Reardon who knows that the saloon owner Ben (Walter Coy) and his cohorts are responsible for his wife's violent death. After he escapes from a New Mexico jail, Gil is helped by a Native American woman (Jana Davi) to cross the desert and arrive back home in Laredo, though that does not happen without incident. All that remains is the final showdown. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this action melodrama, the troubled lives of three young robbers are presented. One of these is a college dropout and draft dodger who plans to rob a supermarket so he can purchase a boat and escape his problems. He enlists the aid of two others: one is an indebted man who is responsible for the high medical bills of a con woman who hurt herself while on a date with him, the other is a pathological liar who cannot cope with his failed marriage and writing career. During the robbery, the dropout gets too wired and kills the manager. They flee, but his cohorts are captured by the cops while he steals a truck and heads screaming down the road for Mexico. A great chase ensues until the truck's brakes fail and he suffers a fatal, fiery crash. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Extensive stock footage from 1949's Lust for Gold is used to flesh out the Columbia potboiler Secret of Treasure Mountain. The producers went so far as to hire one of the actors of the earlier film, William Prince, in order to match the old footage with the new. The plot is set in motion some 200 years ago, when a Spanish soldier buries a fortune in gold somewhere in Apache country. Angered at this invasion of their sacred land, the Indians place a curse upon the gold -- and, by extension, upon all those who will come into contact with the precious mineral in the future. The story proper begins in The Present, as a group of adventurers, many of them on the shady side (none shadier than villain Raymond Burr), embark upon a search for the gold. Sure enough, these modern-day prospectors fall victim to the curse one by one, usually as a result of their own greed or lust -- yes, lust, since shapely Valerie French and Susan Cummings are among the gold-seekers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fury at Gunsight Pass is a brief, to-the-point "budget" western, well cast and excitingly staged. David Brian stars as bank robber Whitey Turner, whose outlaw gang takes over a small town. Beating gang leader Dirk Hogan (Neville Brand) to the punch by robbing the town bank ahead of schedule, Turner winds up empty-handed when crooked undertaker Boggs (Percy Helton) swipes the loot. Boggs is killed, whereupon his widow (Katherine Warren) gathers together the money and makes plans to skip town while the Law pursues Turner and Hogan. This is one of those stories in which no one emerges smelling like a rose; the suspense lies not in who will "get it", but how long will it be before someone halfway honest appears on screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Longtime B-western favorites Tex Ritter and Ray "Crash" Corrigan are among the supporting players of the Columbia oater Apache Ambush. Star of the proceedings is Bill Williams, cast as Indian scout James Kingston. In the last days of the Civil War, President Lincoln (James Griffith) selects Kingston and two other men -- cattle driver O'Roarke (Ray Teal) and "reconstructed" Confederate major McGuire (Don C. Harvey) -- to help speed along a major cattle shipment from Texas to the Northern states. One of the obstacles facing the three men is Mexican fanatic Joaquin Jironza (Alex Montoya), who wants to get his hands on the Henry Repeating Rifles which Kingston and his confreres carry with them. Undermining the good guys is embittered ex-rebel Lee Parker (Richard Jaeckel), who is in cahoots with Jironza. So much happens in the first five reels that the titular Indian ambush is almost anticlimactic (a warning to more sensitive viewers: neither the Apaches nor the Mexicans are shown in a particularly sympathetic light). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location in Utah, The Outlaw Stallion top-bills Phil Carey and Dorothy Patrick, but the star of the proceedings is young Billy Gray. Living on a ranch with his widowed mother (Patrick), Billy makes friends with the white stallion who leads the herd of wild horses living under the ranch's protection. Villain Roy Roberts intends to flout the law by corralling the stallion's herd, then shipping the horses across the border. To accomplish this, Roberts uses a fierce black stallion to lead the herd astray. After a hoof-to-hoof fight between the "good" and "bad" stallions, Roberts resorts to kidnapping Gray and his mother to bring the white horse out in the open--and that's where hero Carey justifies his presence in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Action star Phil Carey once more dons Cavalry Blue in Columbia's Massacre Canyon. This time, Carey plays the unsavory role of an alcoholic Cavalry lieutenent who fancies himself an expert on Indians. In truth, only his sergeant, Douglas Kennedy, possesses enough knowhow for the task at hand: To transport a wagon train full of weapons into Indian territory without arousing suspicion. Thanks to a stupid blunder, Native American chief Steve Ritch discovers that the army is trying to ship guns through his land, and the chase is on. Evidently as a means to enhance the film's box office, Massacre Canyon costars two attractive but totally unnecessary leading ladies, Audrey Totter and Miss Jeff Donnell (as she was often billed). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in 3D, Man in the Dark stars Edmond O'Brien as Steve Rawley, a man with a past. Thing of it is, Rawley knows nothing about that past: a former gangster, he underwent an operation that not only altered his appearance, but also wiped out all criminal tendencies--not to mention all memory of his past misdeeds. Rawley is kidnapped by his former mob cohorts, who demand that he cough up the $130,000 that he salted away during his gangster days. Audrey Totter co-stars as Peg Benedict, who loves Rawley for what he is, not what he was. Man in the Dark is a remake of the 1936 Ralph Bellamy vehicle The Man who Lived Twice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Virile leading man Phil Carey heads the cast of the 3D western The Nebraskan. Carey plays U.S. Army scout Wade Harper, assigned to keep his Native American aide Wingfoot (Maurice Jara) in protective custody. Accused of killing an Indian chief, Wingfoot is dearly coveted by the dead man's tribe, who'd like to exact their own brand of justice. Stirring up trouble among the whites is the scurrilous Reno (Lee Van Cleef), who gives psychos a bad name. The film's tiny budget is able to accommodate a few gratuitous "comin' at ya" 3D effects, which do little to enhance the overall quality of the film. More fascinating is the presence of Richard Webb, TV's stalwart "Captain Midnight", as a craven coward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Columbia quickie stars Richard Denning as an American soldier of fortune who wanders into Hong Kong. He is hired by interested parties, both business and military, to prevent the tiny British-owned island from falling into the hands of the Communist. Had the film's "head Red" Ben Astar been willing to wait until 1997, he would have had Hong Kong free and clear when its ownership reverted to the Chinese. But he wasn't willing, thus Denning and his pals kick the Commies out, and also rout a few Chinese river pirates while they're at it. This is not what one could call a slice of life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wayne Morris and Preston S. Foster go through their patented he-man paces in Columbia's The Big Gusher. Cast as oil-field workers Kenny Blake and Hank Mason, our heroes try their luck as wildcatters. Against their better judgment, they rely upon grizzled Cappy Groves (Paul E. Burns) to locate hidden oil with a divining rod. On the brink of success, the boys fall for the trickery of Betsy Abbott (Dorothy Patrick), who is in cahoots with crooked oil-supply dealer Jim Tolman (Emmett Vogan). It takes a while before the titular gusher solves everyone's problems. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Flame of Stamboul concerns dirty work at the Suez Canal, orchestrated by a master spy (George Zucco) known only as "The Voice." U.S. intelligence agent Larry Wilson (Richard Denning) is dispatched to Egypt to prevent the theft of top-secret defense papers. Here he is detained by exotic dancer Lynette Garay (Lisa Ferraday), who is the unwitting pawn of The Voice and his henchmen. Director Ray Nazarro, borrowed from Columbia's "B"-western unit, does a competent job with the derring-do at hand. One of the many sinister-looking characters in Flame of Stamboul is played by Norman Lloyd, who later co-starred on TV's St. Elsewhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In On the Isle of Samoa, beefcake star Jon Hall plays Kenneth Crandall, an unsavory gambler who absconds with his partner's money in a stolen plane. He crashes on an unchartered island, where he comes across a tribe of English-speaking natives, benevolently overseen by selfless missionary Peter Appleton (Raymond Greenleaf). The hard-bitten Crandall comes around to Appleton's way of thinking after a near-cataclysmic volcanic eruption, realizing at long last that money isn't everything. It helps, of course, that native girl Moana (Susan Cabot) has fallen in love with Crandall in the meantime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide