Wild West(1946)

Boss of Hangtown Mesa(en)

It is now an accepted fact that the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns were directed by the talented Joseph H. Lewis. Boss of Hangtown Mesa may not be in the same league as the Brown-Lewis classic Arizona Cyclone, but it comes awfully close. This time around, hero Steve Collins (Brown) comes to the aid of Betty Wilkins (Helen Deverell), who has taken over the telegraph-line business established by her uncle John (Henry Hall). The latter was murdered by outlaws who don't cotton to having the territory linked up electronically with the rest of the world.

Frontier Agent(en)

Johnny Mack Brown is sent to the badlands to round up an elusive outlaw gang.

Overland Telegraph(en)

Not to be confused with the 1929 film The Overland Telegraph, this Western from director Lesley Selander stars Tim Holt as a cowboy appropriately named Tim Holt. In order to hinder the construction of a new telegraph line for his own financial gain, scheming shopkeeper Paul Manning (George Nader) enlists the assistance of a gang of outlaws led by Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont in one of his many pre-Leave it to Beaver roles). Unfortunately for the bad guys, Holt and his cohort Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) sense that there's foul play afoot and embark on an investigation.

Winds of the Wasteland(en)

The arrival of the telegraph put Pony Express riders like John Blair and his pal Smoky out of work. A race will decide whether they or stageline owner Drake get the government mail contract.

Fuzzy Settles Down(en)

Billy Carson and Fuzzy Jones have just collected a reward and Fuzzy indulges in a dream of getting away from the hectic life he has been leading and wants to settle down. They arrive in Red Rock just as the newspaper is being sold at foreclosure and, despite the attempts by Lafe Barlow to intimidate him from bidding. Fuzzy finds himself the owner of a newspaper. Fuzzy meets Edith Martin, daughter of the former owner, and unthinkingly commits himself to carrying on her father's policy of bringing a telegraph line to Red Rock. For reason of his own, Barlow is against this and has his henchmen wage a campaign of terror against the ranchers and citizens. Before long, Billy who had been lazily indifferent to everything connected to Fuzzy and his newspaper, decides to take a hand on the side of the good guys.

Jesse James, Jr.(en)

Though Don "Red" Barry is the star of Jesse James, Jr., he plays a character named Johnny Barrett. The scene is a small western town, lacking telegraph service. Every time the locals try to set up communications with the Outside World, they are thwarted by an outlaw gang.

Prairie Thunder(en)

To increase profits for his shipping company, Lynch has goaded the Indians to attack both the telegraph line and the new railroad. When Lynch sells rifles to the Indians, Rod Farrell captures Lynch and his gang. But Lynch's Indian friends free him and this time Farrell finds himself the prisoner.

Clear All Wires!(en)

Buckley is an unethical reporter who manipulates the news for his own benefit as much as he reports it. When he is in Paris to get a medal for being rescued from his alleged kidnappers, he finds that his boss, Stevens, at the Chicago Globe is going with his old gal Dolly. When Stevens learns that Dolly is staying with Buckley in Moscow, he fires Buckley. To get his job back, Buckley and Lefty stage a great news story about the shooting of the last Romanoff, but the plan backfires and they are now in line to be shot by the Commissar.

Unrest(de)

In 1877, in a watch factory in a valley in north-western Switzerland, Josephine produces balance spindles, tiny parts that ensure the agitation movement ("unrueh") of the mechanical watches. She soon grows uneasy with the organisation of work and possession in the village and its factory and joins the anarchist worker movement of the local watchmakers. There she meets Piotr Kropotkin, a moony Russian traveller. The two of them meet at a time when new technologies such as time measurement, photography and the telegraph are transforming the social order and anarchist discourse is addressing emerging nationalism. During a walk in the woods, Josephine and Piotr ask themselves whether time, money and the government are not all but fictions.

L' Aventure de la TSF(fr)

Postal Union(en)

A telegraph postal union worker has no luck when asks a pretty co-worker to marry him. She says he'd have to be a magician to get her to say yes. Things are complicated when, as a favor to a stuttering acquaintance, he takes his overweight girlfriend to the movies to propose to her by proxy. Unfortunately the pretty co-worker spots him with her in the theater, so he begins to learn magic tricks.

The Wild Bunch(en)

An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.

Dances with Wolves(en)

Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

Scalplock(en)

This Western is a pilot for the series "The Iron Horse," in which a dapper frontier gambler wins a railroad line in a poker game and has his hands full holding it from the clutches of various conniving bad guys.

Hands Across the Rockies(en)

Wild Bill Hickock and Cannonball help two young people in love and bring the murderer of Cannonball's father to justice.

The Durango Kid(en)

The Durango Kid is a sort of Robin Hood of the West who helps the lovely Walters (who replaced Starrett's usual love-interest, Iris Meredith), the daughter of a homesteader, defeat the evil MacDonald who has been terrorizing the decent citizens with his gang of rustlers.

The Ghost Rider(en)

The first of a long-running series of Monogram-produced westerns starring Johnny Mack Brown and Raymond Hatton that replaced the Rough Riders series following the death of Buck Jones in the Boston night club fire. Though the next three years featured Brown (as Nevada Jack McKenzie) and Hatton (in his Sandy Hopkins role from the Rough Riders series) as undercover marshals in some form or another, this initial entry had Brown as a lone rider seeking vengeance and he and Hatton's characters were unknown to each other through most of the film. Hopkins offer McKenzie a marshal's job at the end of the film, which the Brown character declined and rode off alone on his quest. This quest didn't take long as by the next film in the series Nevada Jack McKenzie was a full-fledged U. S. Marshal.

The Stranger From Pecos(en)

Brown fights a swindler and his pal, Hatton, finds a way to help a robbery victim buy back his property.

Outlaws of Stampede Pass(en)

Tom Evans (Jon Dawson), nephew of U.S. Marshal Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton), has just trailed his cattle to Yucca City, where he intends to sell to Ben Crowley (Harry Woods), owner of practically everything in town.Tom loses his money in a crooked game ran by Crowley. "Nevada Jack" McKenzie (Johnny Mack Brown), a U.S. Marshal working undercover, watches the game and secures one of the "fixed" decks of cards. Later, Tom discovers Crowley's men rustling his cattle and is shot. Nevada finds him severely wounded and hides him with Jeff Lewis (Sam Flint) and his daughter Mary (Ellen Hall). Sandy, posing as a dentist, arrives in town after a wire from Nevada. The latter confronts Crowley with the crooked deck and also with the fact that Tom is still alive, and demands a partnership from Crowley. When Crowley learns that Lewis is hiding Tom, he decides to have both Tom and Nevada killed.

Sky Bandits(en)

Sgt. Renfrew and Constable Kelly go aloft to search for a plane missing with a shipment of gold from the Yukon Mine Company. Inventor Speavy has devised a power ray which disrupts electrical impulses, and Morgan and his gang of crooks has brought in Prof. Lewis to increase the ray's range, telling him he's helping the government develop this new weapon. Speavy spills the beans to Prof. Lewis and his daughter Madeleine,and Morgan threatens to implicate them in his crimes unless they cooperate. Morgan kills Speavy when he tries to warn Renfrew, but when Madeleine stows away on board the doomed plane Renfrew is piloting, will the crooks be able to make Prof. Lewis use the power ray to bring the plane down?