Jay C. Flippen

A young schoolteacher turns into an outlaw to avenge her murdered father. Cat(herine) Ballou's family farm is being threatened by the railroad. She sends for Kid Shelleen, finding him to be the drunkest gunfighter in the west. When her father is killed by the railroad magnate's gunman, she vows to fight on. Shelleen manages to ride sideways in several scenes, while minstrels sing the ballad of Cat Ballou in between scenes. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> When hired gun Tim Strawn kills her rancher father, Cat Ballou becomes an outlaw set on vengeance. Enlisting the help of washed-up gunslinger Kid Shelleen as well as the handsome bandit Clay Boone, Cat strikes back at the land development company that employed Strawn and eventually targets the assassin himself. —Jwelch5742 1894. Prim and proper innocent Catherine Ballou has just returned to her hometown of Wolf City, Wyoming, to begin her working life as a schoolteacher. She learns that an unknown someone is conspiring to force her father, Frankie Ballou, off his ranch in the name of development, that person or people having hired "muscle" in the form of vicious, tin-nosed Tim Strawn. Frankie and his sole ranch hand, a mild-mannered Cherokee named Jackson Two-Bears, are ill-equipped to defend the ranch. As such, Cat takes it upon herself to fortify themselves in the form of convicted cattle rustler Clay Boone - who, in his assistance, has the ulterior motive of wanting to get into Cat's bed - and Clay's associate, "Uncle" Jed, who both may be of little help in admitting that they have never fired a gun in their crimes. So into whose basket Cat places most of her eggs is another hired gun she sees advertised on a poster, Kid Shelleen, who, after her $50 payment to him with her merchandise sight unseen, she learns is not all he is advertised to be. Cat's mission changing from protection to retaliation leads her into her own life of crime. What happens in this situation is affected by the Kid's own unspoken history, most specifically with Strawn. —Huggo

Fresh out of prison, a career criminal cooks up an ingenious scheme to rob a racetrack. The Killing is an early film from Stanley Kubrick and yet another masterclass. He takes to the visual trappings of Film Noir and creates one of the most efficiently told and tautly directed heist films ever made.

An officer accused of cowardice volunteers to bring back General Custers's body after Little Big Horn. Returning to Fort Lincoln, Captain Benson learns of Custer's defeat at the Little Big Horn. At the inquiry as Custer's Officers blame Custer for the defeat, Benson tries to defend him. But Benson was suspiciously absent at the time of the battle and is now despised by the troops. So when an order to retrieve the bodies from the battlefield arrives, Benson volunteers for the dangerous mission of returning back into Indian territory. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>

Thinking that his fighting days are over, Robert "Dutch" Holland (James Stewart) had become a successful third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, only to be recalled into the newly-formed Strategic Air Command. Set in 1955, when the Cold War is rapidly heating up, SAC has been formed to provide the ultimate deterrent to World War III. By building up a powerful force of nuclear-armed bombers and keeping them on a war-ready status at all times, SAC's leader, Gen. Hawkes (Frank Lovejoy) hopes to keep the "enemy" from starting another devastating conflict. Unfortunately, he is forced to recall reserve pilots and crew from their private lives in order to fill his needs. Holland, promoted to Lt. Colonel, grudgingly accepts the assignment, along with some other equally unhappy airmen, many of whom are old acquaintances from bomber missions flown over Tokyo in 1945. Holland's wife Sally (June Allyson) is less than pleased with the turn their life has taken, and isn't happy about her husband being sent out on dangerous missions when there isn't even a war going on. Also, she soon discovers that she's pregnant, and though she tries to support her husband's efforts to do his job, Holland is soon torn between his sense of duty to his men and country, and his responsibilities to his wife and family. Holland flies missions in the massive B-36 "Peacemaker" bomber, a plane that can take off from its base in Texas and fly non-stop to Alaska and back while carrying a crew of a dozen men and more destructive power than a thousand WW-2 bombers. Over the next few months, Holland helps form SAC into a tightly run, well oiled machine, but it means long stretches away from Sally; she's come to dread the sound of the phone ringing, fearing it will be terrible news about Dutch. Holland is flying a cold-weather test mission over Greenland at -40 degrees when his plane's fuel tank seals fail, and the fuel sloshing around in the left wing starts a fire. Nothing they can do will extinguish it, and Holland orders the crew to bail out. Realizing he's too low to bail out himself, he rides the big plane down to a belly landing on the snow, and spends days trapped in the plane's wreck before rescue arrives. Meanwhile, Sally has given birth, and is overjoyed to hear that her husband is alive with only a twisted shoulder for an injury. Returning to duty, Holland is shown the newest addition to SAC's inventory: the futuristic B-47 Stratojet, a sleek, swept-wing jet plane that looks like nothing Dutch has ever seen before. Gen. Hawkes wants Col. Holland to head up the new Stratojet bomber force, but Sally has different plans. Wrangling an opportunity from Dutch's old boss with the Cardinals that she knows he will take, he can finally leave the Air Force behind. Joyfully presenting this to Dutch that night, she is dismayed to see that he has been thinking about his duty to SAC, and has decided to stay. He tries to explain his reasons, his belief that he's doing something far more important than he's ever done, his desire to serve his country and protect his family by staving off war, but Sally is heartbroken, and Dutch must leave on yet another mission. Still bothered by his shoulder injury, Holland leads a massive deployment of the entire wing to Japan, a tremendous undertaking designed leave no doubt in an enemy's mind about what SAC can accomplish. It will also stretch SAC to its limits, and push everyone to the breaking point. Sally tries to speak to her husband one last time before he takes off, but she's too late. Flying non-stop to their base in Japan, Dutch keeps track of all his planes and people, and manages to get everyone there safely, but when it's his turn to land the field is socked in with fog, and Dutch can barely move his right arm. With the help of his co-pilot, he manages a hair-raising blind landing, and collapses from exhaustion. Grounded by his shoulder, Gen. Hawkes is finally forced to release Holland from the Air Force. But before he leaves, he tells Dutch just how much good he has done for SAC. The example he set for his men, staying in even when he had every reason to leave, has done more good for the force than he can imagine. Sally is overjoyed that she's got her husband back at last, and Holland leaves, knowing he has done his duty.

Charley Grayson (Jay C. Flippen), an old circus owner, is the the first American carnival to play in Munich, Germany - a few years after the devastation of WW2. Joe Hammond (Steve Cochran), catches a pickpocket, Willi (Anne Baxter), a blonde with a man's name but without the fifty cents entrance fee to the circus, after she spends some of his money to buy a sausage to appease her hunger. Her situation, and her beauty, leads him to offer her to stay with the circus, working as a cook. After the girl takes a shower with bubbly American soap, he kisses her. Frank Colloni (Lyle Bettger) has the more risky job of the troupe, and the one that attracts more crowds: high diving into a pool covered with blazing oil. Willi is also smitten by his athleticism and courage, and when he feels a headache, she offers him a massage. Soon, he breaks her fears, and gets her with him in the act of high diving - training her step by step. Joe is still wooing Willi, whistling outside the ladies' common tent for her to come out and for them to make love in secret. After she had seen him having lunch too close to Peggy (Helene Stanley), the redhead in the Haitian dance group, she hesitates to go. Then she gets up, puts on a dressing gown, and makes for the door. Peggy had also heard him, and quickly stands up in her pajamas, blocking her rival's way. Willi shoves her aside, and the scratching, rolling cat-fight is on, stopped by the other awaken girls. Willi confronts Joe, and complains of their situation - but he is not of the marrying kind. One day, Charley Grayson introduces the pair of high jumpers, to the great acclaim of a large crowd. After their number, Frank proposes to Willi, and she accepts. Immediately after, she informs Joe that their affair is finished, and to her rage, he says that the marriage does not mean they can't be lovers. After the Collonis' marriage feast, Joe figures he can still exercise his sexual hold over Willi; he keeps appearing to Willi when she is by herself, until one day he tries to kiss her by force. Frank finds them together, and the two men fight over her, in such way that they awake the full circus - and make a spectacle of themselves. Joe demands that Charley dismisses Frank - and he does so. Frank is ready to go, and he tells his wife then that he has money enough to buy themselves a farm, and start a new life. Willi is too adventurous to leave the circus. She asks her part of the money but he refuses that. Eventually they make peace - and love. Next evening, the Collonis pose for Life magazine photo reporter, Bill Vines (George Nader) before the show. But there is no show. When Joe is on the last steps of the ladder to the plunging platform, he falls back - and dies. Willi inherits Jo's US$ 5,000 cash by the will he had written the day after their marriage feast. Bill shows her the published photo report, but Willi is too shocked to enjoy it. She finds sympathy in him, and confesses to him how her marriage had not been a happy one due to Joe's harassment. Joe approaches Willi, tells her that he stopped seeing Peggy, and that he is not good for her. As she still loves him, they sleep together again. Next morning, she wakes up to find that all the stuff in the caravan had been rummaged, and the hidden cash is gone. Joe, too, is gone from the circus. She demands Charley more money to keep on with the high diving act alone, which he reluctantly accepts. Next evening, Willi's high dive his successful, but she faints when she hits the water. Her recovery from hospital is helped by Bill's companionship - that is turning into love. She receives a phone call from Charley, but Frank is close to the phone - and despite apparently she shuns him away on the phone call, she returns to the carnival... to be close to him. From all the carnival's people who had greeted her at the marriage ceremony, only the mute giant, Groppo (Adi Berber), comes now by her - offering her a bouquet of wild flowers. Willi returns to her successful act, and Jo returns to her. He promises to give her back the money he took, and in his attempt to win her affection, he confesses he has worked the wood steps so that they would break under Frank's feet causing the accident - to have her just for himself. She screams, and he tries to strangle her. Groppo intervenes, hunts Frank into the Ferris wheel, from where he throws him down to a death similar to that of Frank's. Groppo is about to commit suicide, but Willi talks him into coming down, and letting the police take him. Eventually, Willi ends up with Bill's arm to support her.

When a town boss confiscates homesteaders' supplies after gold is discovered nearby, a tough cowboy risks his life to try and get it to them. Two men with questionable pasts, Glyn McLyntock and his friend Cole, lead a wagon-train load of homesteaders from Missouri to the Oregon territory. They establish a settlement outside of Portland and as winter nears, it is necessary for McLyntock and Cole to rescue and deliver food and supplies being held in Portland by corrupt officials. On the trip back to the settlement, up river and over a mountain, Cole engineers a mutiny to divert the supplies to a gold mining camp for a handsome profit. —Herman Seifer <alagain@aol.com> Glyn McLyntock has taken a job leading settlers west. He is helped by Emerson Cole, a man with a shady past whom McLyntock saves from a lynching. The homesteaders set up home a few days from Portland, but when McLyntock goes to collect their winter supplies he finds a town gone gold crazy. Can he get the food back to the settlers, and can he still count on Cole? —Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

In 1876, cowboy Lin McAdam and his good friend, Frankie "High Spade" Wilson, travel to Dodge City, Kansas to participate in the Centennial Rifle Shoot, which is being held on the Fourth of July. Lin knows that his sharpshooting brother, Dutch Henry Brown, whom he suspects murdered their father, will also be in the contest, as first prize is a rare Winchester '73 rifle. Soon after their mutual arrivals in Dodge City, Lin and Dutch Henry are stopped from killing each other by the town's famous marshal, Wyatt Earp. Later, Lin narrowly defeats his brother in the rifle contest, but Dutch Henry and his friends ambush Lin and steal the Winchester. Two days later, a penniless Dutch Henry loses the rifle in a poker game to Joe Lamont, an Indian trader. Lamont is later killed by Young Bull, an Indian chief whom Lamont had hoped to cheat with defective guns and rifles. Meanwhile, Lin learns from Jack Riker, a saloon keeper, that Dutch Henry is headed for Tascosa to meet up with Waco Johnny Dean, an outlaw. That night on the trail, Lin and High Spade run into a U.S. Cavalry unit, led by Sgt. Wilkes, which has been surrounded by Young Bull's warriors. The Indians attack the next morning, but they are repelled when Lin shoots and kills Young Bull. After Lin and High Spade leave, Wilkes discovers the rare Winchester by the dead Indian chief and gives it to Steve Miller, the cowardly fiance of Lola Manners, a dance hall girl. Steve and Lola then travel to Tascosa, where they accept the hospitality of the Jameson family. Waco Johnny and his men soon arrive at the Jameson home, with a posse in hot pursuit, and the outlaw uses Lola as a hostage when Steve refuses to give him the Winchester. Waco Johnny kills Steve in a gunfight, then escapes from the farmhouse with Lola and the rifle and heads for Dutch Henry's hideout in the nearby mountains. Dutch Henry quickly recognizes the Winchester and demands it back. The outlaws then plan a bank robbery, only to have Lin and High Spade arrive in Tascosa that same day. Lin kills Waco Johnny just as Dutch Henry and his men are leaving the bank, and Lola is shot and wounded in the ensuing gunfight. Lin takes off alone after his brother, who heads back toward his mountain hideout. Though he is trapped below Dutch Henry, Lin torments his brother by calling him by his given name, Matthew McAdam, then manages to sneak behind him as he reloads the Winchester. Lin then shoots and kills Dutch Henry, finally avenging their father's death. Later, Lin returns to Tascosa with the Winchester, where his return is welcomed with open arms by both Lola and High Spade.