Lee J. Cobb

When a dying Apache chief gives him a map to a valley of gold, Marshal Sam Mackenna is forced to guide a gang of bandits across the Arizona deserts to the treasure.

There's a disruption in the life of Deputy sheriff Walt Coogan (Clint Eastwood) as a crack tracker and ladies' man when he is ordered as punishment for his inability to follow orders to travel from his home state Arizona to bring back bail jumper Ringerman (Don Stroud) from jail in New York City. When Coogan arrives in New York he is met by bureaucratic red tape because Ringerman is in the hospital recovering from a dose of LSD and not cleared to travel. Furthermore Coogan can get no cooperation from overworked Police Detective and department supervisor Lt. McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) who tells Coogan to wait for the autocratic machinery to function. Coogan takes matters into his own hands and breaks Ringerman out of the Bellevue prison hospital. Ringerman's girlfriend is at the hospital and takes a message to Ringerman's friend Pushie. Coogan is waylaid at the heliport when he answers a page. He is struck in the head from behind by Pushie who is accompanied by the lovely and elusive Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling). Pushie, in bright green corduroys and a red sweater, is seen by Coogan before the second blow knocks him out. Linty then steals his gun and gives it to Ringerman and they escape after Linny urges Ringerman to shoot Coogan but Pushie advises they beat it. Lt. McElroy orders Coogan to leave town and his boss sends him a telegram taking him off the case. Coogan refuses to give up and is confident he can track Ringerman down. He earlier met lovely parole officer Julie (Susan Clark), a naive case worker who is taken by Coogan's persuasive charms. Coogan asks and finds that Linny is one of Julie's patients and manages to access her file and track down the young girl. Coogan convinces the exotic Linny to take him to Ringerman. She instead leads him to Pushie at his pool hall and the group of toughs in the pool hall engage in a brawl with Coogan. Several get badly injured and the rest escape when they hear the police sirens. Coogan Is confronted by Pushie and although Coogan has been badly beaten he gets up and thrashes Pushie before leaving the pool hall. McElroy arrives, notices Pushie's clothing and finds Coogan's hat laying in the midst of the chaos. Coogan goes back to Linny's and kicks the door down and knocks her around until she leads him to Ringerman. Ringerman empties Coogan's pistol in hysterical shooting and then jumps on his motorcycle to escape. He runs into another motorcycle and the two riders are knocked to the ground while he restarts his bike and leaves. Coogan appropriates the second motor cycle and gives chase throughout the park, up and sown trails and staircases. Eventually Coogan rides into Ringerman and they crash on the lawn. Ringerman runs away but at the edge of the park he encounters a patrol car and turns and runs back into the park where he is tackled and arrested by Coogan. Lt. McElroy arrives and Coogan agrees to go through the required administrative process to get Ringerman's release into his custody. Coogan bids farewell to McElroy and then Julie on the heliport and flies off with Ringerman. Coogan then shares a cigarette with his prisoner showing some compassion that he did not display for a captured prisoner at the start of the movie.

In a remote Californian desert town, a lawyer arranges for a wanted mobster to skip the country via a small airstrip but the local sheriff and his deputy could pose a problem. Lawyer Ralph Anderson arrives in Tula, an amazingly remote town in the desert, as a reluctant emissary of mob chief Victor Massonetti, who wants the airstrip clear for his unofficial exit from the country. Ralph's arrival has a profound effect on his estranged father, the Sheriff; his brother Tip, an alcoholic Deputy; and his ex-sweetheart Linda, now married to Tip. Tension builds as a small army of gangsters takes over the town. Then the situation abruptly changes. —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Without a new play and money, a 55-year-old Broadway producer retires, but only then does his 22-year-old secretary tell him that she loves him. He decides to make that a scene in a new play and get her to write it, then play the role. After 30 years of producing Broadway plays, Russ Ward is ready to quit. On being given notice, his 22-year-old secretary, Ellie Brown, tells him that she loves him. Russ proceeds to romance Ellie in a May/December affair and turn this into a hit play. —Bob Lipton <lipton@dorsai.org>

Link Jones (Gary Cooper rides into the small town of Crosscut, Texas. He sees a beautiful woman (Julie London) leaving the local saloon; they are taking down the sign advertising her as a singer. He gets a meal, and then hires someone to take care of his horse for a few days. He says he's Link Jones from Good Hope, which is five days' ride west. Then he drops his money bag, and we see he is wary about the money. Then he washes up and changes his clothes, and after thinking it over, puts his money bag and his holster and pistol in his satchel. Link heads to the train station and buys a ticket to Fort Worth. There he sees that Billie Ellis (London) is also boarding the train, and he meets Sam Beasley (Arthur O'Connell), a loquacious gambler. The local sheriff seems to recognize Link and asks his name. Link gives a different name, Henry Wright, and says his home town is Sawmill. The sheriff asks if he knows Dock Tobin, but Link denies knowing the name. On the train, Beasley is friendly and talkative, and gets Link to tell him that he is traveling to Fort Worth to hire a schoolteacher. Talking loudly, Beasley observes that you would have to pay someone a year's salary in advance in order to get them to travel so far to such a remote place. Link replies that yes, he has the townspeople's money. A shady character Alcutt hears it all. The train stops to load wood and all able-bodied men are asked to help. The train guard assures that Link he'll watch his bag. But it's an ambush; four men lay in wait for the train, and the shady character is part of the gang. Separated from his gun, Link gets knocked out, and Alcutt takes his satchel off the train. The train guard manages to fight off the bandits, wounding Alcutt, and the train takes off. When Link comes to, he realizes he's been left behind, and soon he finds that Miss Ellis and Mr. Beasley are in the same predicament. They begin to walk with Link telling them the nearest town is about a hundred miles away. Link leads the trio to a farmhouse, and says he lived there once long ago. He sends his companions to wait in the barn while he cautiously approaches the house. But the would-be train robbers are waiting in the dark, guns drawn, and Link is caught. The situation is tense, when from the back room comes an old man (Lee J. Cobb) who introduces himself as Link's uncle Dock Tobin. Dock reminisces about what a great gang he had when Link was his right hand, and how enraged he was when Link left him all while Link is at gunpoint. He says he wants to rejoin Dock, but guns remain pointed at him. Meanwhile, the wounded Alcutt is dying. Dock insists one of his men put him out of his misery, and at last Coaley shoots him. With the tension still high, they agree that Link will stay, and Link brings in his friends from the barn. Immediately, Beasely is put to work digging a grave. Dock asks if Billie is Link's woman and to protect her, he says yes. Then Link is sent to take out the body. While outside he hears Billie Ellis begin screaming. Link runs back to find that Coaley has her at gunpoint, demanding she undress for the pleasure of them all. When Link tries to intervene, Coaley holds a knife to his throat, drawing blood. Billie removes her shoes, stockings, blouse, skirt, and undershirt, and is wearing only her undergarments when Dock ends the show and allows Link to take Billie to sleep in the barn. In the barn, Link helps Billie get into bed, where she sobs while he tries to comfort her. It is here that Billie begins to fall for Link, who is distraught because he has lost all the townspeople's money. He says he has a wife and two children (ages 8 and 10) at home and he speaks of them with deep affection. Billie says his wife is a very lucky woman. In the morning, Claude (John Dehner) arrives. Coaley and Claude are brothers and Link's first cousins. Dock wants to rob a bank in Lassoo, a bank he says is loaded with money. Now that Link is with them again, he's sure that they can pull off the job. They ride off in three wagons with two on horseback towards Lassoo. When they stop for a break, a "friendly" bit of wrestling turns into a murderous fight between Coaley and Link. Coaley fights dirty in every possible way, but Link gets the upper hand. He can't bring himself to kill, but Link strips Coaley in the same order he forced Billie to strip and leaves him humiliated. Coaley draws his gun and ignores Dock's order to stop. Beasely leaps jumps in front of Link to save him and is shot by Coaley, who is then shot by Dock. Link tells Billie that the folks in Good Hope know all about his murderous past, and he's "broken his back" working to establish himself with them as a decent man. Now, among this gang, he feels he wants to kill them, but he knows if he does, then he's no different from them. Dock's plan is to send one man into Lassoo to case the bank. If the man feels that they can take the bank, then he will wait in town; otherwise, he will ride back. The rest of the gang is to wait four hours, and if the man doesn't ride back, they will ride into Lassoo to meet him, find out how many guns await them, get the layout from their scout, and proceed to get rich. Link convinces Dock that he's the only man who can be the scout: Claude and Dock are known on sight in these parts, Trout (Royal Dano) is mute, and Ponch (Robert J. Wilke) is too stupid. Dock reluctantly agrees but sends Trout along with him. When they arrive, they find that Lassoo is a ghost town, and a scared Mexican woman lives in the former bank. She holds a gun on the two men, terrified, but while Link tries to reassure her, Trout shoots and kills her. Enraged, Link kills Trout with the dead woman's gun. She has no ammunition, so Link gets Trout's guns and gun belt and waits. He also searches Trout, but doesn't find his money. Claude and Ponch ride into Lasso. A tense, exciting battle follows; Link kills both men and is wounded in the left arm. Again, he searches fruitlessly for the money. As he is leaving, a Mexican man rides up; Link just says "I'm sorry." As Link rides off, we hear the husband's grief as he finds his beloved Juanita dead. Back at camp, Link finds Billie stripped and weeping. It appears that she has been molested despite Dock's promise to keep her safe. Link goes after Dock, wanting to take him in alive, but he is forced to return Dock's fire and kills him. His search over, Link gratefully pockets the money from the townspeople of Good Hope. As they drive away together from the awful scene, Billie thinks that Link will be treated as a hero. She says that she regrets nothing because she's never loved before, and although she knows that Link cannot return her love, to have the feeling is worth it.

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A cynical American expatriate gets involved in smuggling and gun-running for the rebels during the 1925 Syrian insurgency against French occupation. In 1925 Damascus Harry Smith runs guns to the rebels under Emir Hassan. Harry meets and develops a relationship with Feroud's, a French intelligence officer's mistress. The French arrest him along with others and to save himself he agrees to arrange a meeting between Feroud and Hassan. —Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu> In 1925, in Damascus, the patriotic rebels of Syria are fighting against the invading French forces. The weapons smuggler Harry Smith is an amoral businessman taking advantage of the situation. He meets Violette, the mistress of the idealistic French Col. Feroud in a restaurant. Feroud is trying to make a deal with the rebel leader Emir Hassan, and under threat of execution for weapons smuggling he forces Harry to be his liaison and arrange a meeting with Hassan. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil