Dodge City is a 1939 American Western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Ann Sheridan. Based on a story by Robert Buckner, the film is about a Texas cattle agent who witnesses the brutal lawlessness of Dodge City, Kansas and takes the job of sheriff to clean the town up. Filmed in Technicolor, Dodge City was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. This was the 5th of 8 movies that de Havilland and Flynn appeared in together.
Laredo is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and seat of Webb County, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Founded in 1755, Laredo grew from a village to the capital of the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande to the largest inland port on the Mexican border. Laredo's economy is primarily based on international trade with Mexico, and as a major hub for three areas of transportation: land, rail, and air cargo. The city is on the southern end of I-35, which connects manufacturers in northern Mexico through Interstate 35 as a major route for trade throughout the U.S. It has four international bridges and one railway bridge.
William Franklin Holden was an American actor and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film Stalag 17 (1953) and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the television miniseries The Blue Knight (1973).
Edward Macdonald Carey was an American actor, best known for his role as the patriarch Dr. Tom Horton on NBC's soap opera Days of Our Lives. For almost three decades, he was the show's central cast member.
Denver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor and director. He was well known for a number of TV roles from the 1960s through the 1980s, including his portrayal of Briscoe Darling in several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, as Jesse Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard from 1979 to 1985, as Mad Jack in the NBC television series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, and as the titular character's father, Buck Webb, in CBS's The Doris Day Show. In many of his roles, he portrayed either authority figures, or gruff, demanding father figures, often as comic relief. Perhaps his most memorable film role was that of Texas Ranger Frank Hamer in the movie Bonnie and Clyde (1967), as the lawman who relentlessly chased down and finally killed the notorious duo in an ambush.
Jim Davis was an American actor, best known for his roles in television Westerns. In his later career, he became famous as Jock Ewing in the CBS primetime soap opera Dallas, a role he continued until he was too ill from multiple myeloma to perform.
Battle Cry is a 1955 Warnercolor film, starring Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Nancy Olson, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone, Raymond Massey, and Mona Freeman in CinemaScope. The film is based on the 1953 novel by former Marine Leon Uris, who also wrote the screenplay, and was produced and directed by Raoul Walsh. The film was shot at Camp Pendleton, California, and featured a large amount of cooperation from the United States Marine Corps.
Big Jake is a 1971 American Technicolor Western film starring John Wayne, Richard Boone and Maureen O'Hara. The picture was the final film for George Sherman in a directing career of more than 30 years, and Maureen O'Hara's last film with John Wayne and her last before her twenty-year retirement. The supporting cast features Patrick Wayne, Christopher Mitchum, Glenn Corbett, Jim Davis, John Agar, Harry Carey Jr. and Hank Worden.
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad were an American adventure comic strip that ran under various titles from November 23, 1936 to December 26, 2004. Originally Big Chief Wahoo, the focus and title character of the strip changed over time to Chief Wahoo (1940-1945), Chief Wahoo and Steve Roper (1945-1946), Steve Roper and Wahoo (1946-1948), Steve Roper (1948-1969) and finally Steve Roper and Mike Nomad (1969-2004).
99 River Street is a 1953 film noir directed by Phil Karlson and starring John Payne and Evelyn Keyes. It also features Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, and Peggie Castle. The screenplay is by Robert Smith, based on a short story by George Zuckerman. The film was produced by Edward Small, with cinematography by Franz Planer.
Hank Worden was an American cowboy-turned-character actor who appeared in many Westerns, including many John Ford films such as The Searchers and the TV series The Lone Ranger.
John Joseph Francis Mulhall was an American film actor beginning in the silent film era who successfully transitioned to sound films, appearing in over 430 films in a career spanning 50 years.
Variety Girl is a 1947 American musical comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Mary Hatcher, Olga San Juan, DeForest Kelley, Frank Ferguson, Glenn Tryon, Nella Walker, Torben Meyer, Jack Norton, and William Demarest. It was produced by Paramount Pictures. Numerous Paramount contract players and directors make cameos or perform songs, with particularly large amounts of screen time featuring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Among many others, the studio contract players include Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd, Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Robert Preston, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Barbara Stanwyck and Paula Raymond.
William Nuelsen Witney was an American film and television director. He is best remembered for the action films he made for Republic Pictures, particularly serials: Dick Tracy Returns, G-Men vs. the Black Dragon, Daredevils of the Red Circle, Zorro's Fighting Legion, and Drums of Fu Manchu. Prolific and pugnacious, Witney began directing while still in his 20s, and continued working until 1982.
El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico, is a historic hotel built by R.E. “Griff” Griffith, the brother of film director D.W. Griffith. The pair encouraged early film production in the surrounding area. It is located on old U.S. Route 66 and became the temporary home for many Hollywood movie stars.The rambling, three-story hotel building has a large portico with a central balcony reminiscent of the Southern Plantation style. The National Park Service describes it as having a “rusticated fantasy appearance.” Materials include brick, random ashlar stone, and roughewn wood with a wood shake roof and brick and stone chimneys. The lobby features a spectacular walk-in fireplace made of brick and random ashlar stone surrounded by twin stairways made of split logs that lead to the second floor guest rooms. The slogan “Charm of Yesterday, Convenience of Tomorrow” is rendered in neon above the main entrance.
Laredo is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1965–67, starring Neville Brand, William Smith, Peter Brown, and Philip Carey as Texas Rangers. It is set on the Mexican border around Laredo in Webb County in South Texas. The program presented 56 episodes in color. It was produced by Universal Television. The series has a comedic element, but like another NBC series that premiered in 1965, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, it was an hour in length, had no laugh track, and characters were not infrequently killed in it, thus going against three unofficial rules for sitcoms at the time.
The Forest Rangers is a 1942 American adventure film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by George Marshall, written by Harold Shumate based on a story by Thelma Strabel, and starring Fred MacMurray, Paulette Goddard, and Susan Hayward. The film was notable for introducing the song "Jingle Jangle Jingle" which became a huge hit for Kay Kyser.
The Texas Rangers is a 1936 American Western film directed by King Vidor and starring Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie. The picture was nominated for Best Sound Recording at the 1936 Oscars. The film was inspired by incidents from Walter Prescott Webb's 1935 history book The Texas Rangers, A Century Of Frontier Defense but filmed in New Mexico.
Louis Stevens was an American screenwriter of the silent and sound film eras. Born on Christmas Day 1896 in Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire, Stevens entered the film industry in 1920 when he co-wrote the silent film A World of Folly, with Jane Grogan. In his over 30-year career he worked on over 40 screenplays, as well as several film shorts and two television series. Among his more notable films were: contributing to the script of the 1931 version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi; co-writing the story for What Price Hollywood? (1932); the screenplay for the 1940 western, Colorado, directed by Joseph Kane, and starring Roy Rogers; the story for Streets of Laredo (1949), starring William Holden, Macdonald Carey and William Bendix; 1951's The Cimarron Kid, starring Audie Murphy; and Horizons West (1952), starring Robert Ryan, Julie Adams, and Rock Hudson. Stevens' final screenplay was for Flaming Frontier in 1958, although he did some work on additional dialogue for the 1959 film, Desert Desperadoes. Stevens also wrote several television episodes, one for Cheyenne, and two for Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, all in 1957.
Guy Owen Wilkerson was an American actor, known primarily for his roles in Western B movies. With his tall, lanky frame, he often played sidekick or comedy relief parts.
