John Derek

During the 11th century, Persian poet Omar Khayyam's lover marries the Shah but the Shah, whose life is threatened by a sect of assassins, appoints Omar royal advisor. Omar Khayyam was among the greatest of Persian poets. He was also a brilliant mathematician. Though his quatrains were written in the 11th century, they are still popular the world over. The details of his life are unknown, so this movie invents a biography for him and includes in it his real achievements - the invention of a new calendar and the penning of those epigrammatic poems. This film has him losing the love of his life to his ruler, and foiling an assassin sect's plot to kill that ruler, the empire's shah. —Anonymous

The movie follows the life of Moses, from being found by the pharoah`s daughter as an infant to his long struggle to free the Hebrews from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians.

Mistaken for train robbers, Matt Dow and Davey Bishop are shot at by the sheriff and his posse but they are cleared and hired as lawmen. Odd little Western that gets off to a snappy start when a man (Matt Dow) is mistaken as a train robber. After the town's sheriff shoots the kid he's riding with, Dow clears his name and ends up as the new sheriff. He romances a Swedish woman and settles in to a peaceful life only to find that the boy has a few secrets of his own.

After a disgruntled rancher and his sons rob at gun-point a rival rancher, the town forms a posse to go after the culprits but the ensuing events are muddled by unclear facts, false testimony, old scores, secrets, murder and stolen money. When the anxiously awaited posse returns with neither prisoners nor the stolen money, we learn in flashback what happened. Having been cheated by Sampson Drune, a rancher, his brother and his son have robbed him and fled. A posse led by Drune took off after them and although unwanted, the town's drunken Sheriff joins them. The Sheriff's influence on Jed, the adopted son of Drune, was the key to Jed later revealing who actually killed Drune, the robbers, and what happened to the money. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net> Complicated by flash-backs and flash-forwards, a posse of basically honest citizens track down a trio of outlaws responsible for robbing a wealthy New Mexico cattle baron, and decide to keep the recovered money for themselves. Honest Sheriff John Frazier (Broderick Crawford), an alcoholic, joins the posse and is mortally wounded during the foray and is unaware the cash has not been returned. He is expected to die at any moment and, as far as the greedy men in his posse are concerned, the sooner the better. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

The rise and fall of a grass-roots rural politician who eventually becomes mired in the sort of political corruption he vehemently railed against on his way to the governor's mansion. Jack Burden is a newspaper reporter who first hears of Willie Stark when his editor sends him to Kanoma County to cover the man. What's special about this nobody running for county treasurer? He's supposedly an honest man. Burden discovers this to be true when he sees Stark delivering a speech and having his son pass out handbills, while the local politicians do their best to intimidate him. Willie Stark is honest and brave. He's also a know-nothing hick whose schoolteacher wife has given him what little education he has. Stark loses the race for treasurer, but later makes his way through law school to become an idealistic attorney who fights for what is good. Someone in the governor's employ remembers Stark when the governor needs a patsy to run against him and split the vote of his rival. The fat cats underestimate Stark, but Jack Burden, Stark's biggest supporter, overestimates the man's idealism. To get where he wants to go, Willie Stark is willing to crack a few eggs--including his tough-talking assistant Sadie Burke, Jack's poised and elegant fiancée Anne Stanton, and even Jack Burden himself. —J. Spurlin The story of Willie Stark, an unassuming, unsophisticated idealistic farmer who becomes Governor of his state, and Jack Burden, reporter and Stark ally. Stark fights his way up from lowly beginnings, initially failing at politics but then succeeding. However, once in office, his ideals slip, his standards fall, and power leads to corruption. Burden should be his conscience, but he finds himself going along for the ride. —grantss The evolution of Willie Stark from self-professed uneducated country bumpkin to politician. Initially he runs for a county treasury seat believing that the political machine is corrupt and needs an honest man like himself to bring back integrity in his outward goal of getting the truth to the people. He poses no real threat to the establishment, but the establishment does whatever it can to quash Willie's political voice, especially through intimidation--until it believes it can use him to their advantage. In turn, Willie discovers an opportunity to use the machine to his advantage instead in espousing a populist agenda. Getting a taste of power may give Willie a different view of politics than his initial outward view. Also presented are a number of people around Willie who get out of him what they need for their own lives, as he only keeps around people who can serve his interests: Lucy Stark, his former-schoolteacher wife, has acted more as a mother to him than a wife; reporter Jack Burden, who grew up in privilege in an isolated enclave of the state called Burden's Landing, is trying to find his place in life without the connections of his childhood and believed he found that in writing articles on Willie for his newspaper; Jack's childhood friend and current girlfriend Anne Stanton, the daughter of a former respected governor, who wants her husband, be he Jack or anyone else, to be a Somebody; and Sadie Burke, who has always surrounded herself with whoever can pay her the most for her brains, might see Willie as more than just a paycheck. —Huggo "All The King's Men" is the story of the rise of politician Willie Stark from a rural county seat to the spotlight. Along the way, he loses his initial innocence, and becomes just as corrupt as those he previously assaulted for this very characteristic. Also included is the romance between one of his "right-hand women" and the up-and-coming journalist who brings Stark to prominence. —Neal Scoones <verty@ritz.mordor.com>