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ONLY THE VALIANT VHS In this surprisingly astringent frontier tale, the Fordian motif of the stern commander gradually winning the respect of a motley Cavalry troop (boozy Irishman Bond among them) almost elides into the anti-authoritarian dynamic of The Dirty Dozen. When a vital fort guarding a mountain pass is threatened by gathering Indians, Peck's stone-faced captain picks the most disposable bunch of malcontents and psychos to hold out until reinforcements arrive, whereupon various personal animosities bring them closer to killing him than the enemy. The often brutal physical confrontations (even a hint of The Wild Bunch in the bullet-splattered finale) show the kind of edge the prolific Douglas could deliver when he put his mind to it, and a sinewy, unsympathetic Peck impresses. PRICE £5:00+PP

Director Mel Brooks makes three cameos in the film: as the sleazy governor, as a Yiddish-speaking, Jewish-Sioux Indian chief, and as a WWI aviator in the badman lineup. Brooks also wrote the songs and lyrics for three songs in the film: "I'm Tired," "The French Mistake," and "The Ballad of Rock Ridge." Gene Wilder's future wife Gilda Radner appears as a townswoman in the church scene, and Count Basie (as Himself) appears as the band-leader in the desert. [The entire outdoor set was from the film Westworld (1973).]

This was Brooks' second major film - his debut film was The Producers (1968). Gig Young was originally cast in the role as The Waco Kid, and Dan Dailey was once considered. The role of the sheriff was originally designed for Richard Pryor (one of the film's screenwriters), but he was considered too controversial at the time. The offensive, deliberately in-bad-taste film that made fun of racism was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Film Editing, Best Song (music by John Morris with lyrics by Mel Brooks), and Best Supporting Actress (Madeline Kahn) - without any wins. Its most memorable scene, now considered tame when compared to Dumb and Dumber (1994), was the bean-eating scene around the campfire.PRICE £5:00+PP

The Avenger
March 19, 1960
"The Avenger," who witnessed the lynching of his parents, struggles to save Ben and Adam from the same fate.
Written by: Clair Huffaker
Directed by: Christian Nyby
Guest stars: Vic Morrow (Lassiter), Jean Allison (Sally Byrnes)

SAN FRANCISCO (aka SAN FRANCISCO HOLIDAY): On a visit to the Barbary Coast, Ben and a couple of hands get shangaied. Hoss, Joe and Hop Sing come to the rescue. (No Adam in this episode.) Robert Nichols, Kathleen Crowley PRICE £5:00+PP

With a dark sense of humour, Maverick spoofed itself and other Westerns (winning an Emmy award for Best Western Series in 1959). Bret Maverick (the then relatively unknown James Garner) and his brother Bart were much better at cards than gun slinging, and their life was a constant pursuit of money and the easy life.

The Maverick brothers were not heroes in the traditional Western sense. They were devious, cowardly card-sharps who exploited easy situations and quickly vanished when faced with potentially violent ones. PRICE £10:00=PP

HANNIE CAULDER DVD
Long before Unforgiven deconstructed the Western, or Blazing Saddles lampooned it, Cat Ballou poked the genre in the eye. An altogether enjoyable comedy, the film is full of small surprises, big laughs, and wonderful character turns. Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda) is a schoolteacher until a hired thug kills her daddy. To protect what she loves, she collects two petty criminals, a wisecracking hired hand, and a hired killer, Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin). Unfortunately, Shelleen is a raging drunk who is so inebriated and unsteady with a gun he literally misses the broad side of a barn. However, Cat, has, as they used to say in those days, a mind of her own, and she masterminds a spectacular train heist that puts them all on the lam. Marvin won an Academy Award for his role as the derelict Shelleen, and his performances (he actually has two) are still topnotch and on target. The framing device, two wandering minstrels, played by Stubby Kaye and Nat "King" Cole, are the maraschino cherries on the top of this Wild West confection. VERY RARE PRICE £8:00+PP

WALK THE PROUD LAND(AUDIE MURPHY) VHS
Have you seen this video? If not, you really need to see it! It's great!! Honorable Audie Murphy is going to help govern the Apaches on a reservation. He gets to the reservation, and finds the chiefs chained up. He sets them free, sends the Army away, and gains the Indians' respect. And one Indian's love. The love of Teona, an Indian woman, is his for the taking. But he already has a fiance, back home in the east. Who will he choose? And when Geronimo comes to recruit Indians for his raids, will it destroy the whole village? This is a really good movie, with a perfect ending. PRICE £5:00=PP

DRUMS ACROSS THE RIVER(AUDIE MURPHY) VHS Gary Brannon (Audie) and his father run a freight business. Gold is buried in the San Juan Mountains where it is forbidden for the white man to mine. Gary's father is kidnapped and Gary is forced to steal a safe from the stagecoach to make it look like the Indians did it. Gary is accused and is sentenced to hang but Sam, his father along with his captors, rescues Gary. Gary in turn kills the real murderers and assures the Indian Chief that peace will be preserved. PRICE £5:00+PP

This is an innovative and hilarious western starring veteran comedians Jack Benny and Phil Silvers. The town of Primrose, Arizona is filled with outlaws. In desperation, the law-abiding townspeople hire the cowardly Fletcher Bissell III (aka The Silver Dollar Kid, played by Silvers) as their new sheriff. The townsfolk are convinced that law and order will be restored because the local outlaws will be too proud to gun Bissell down. This proves to be the case, because none of the outlaws wants to ruin his reputation by being "the man who gunned down The Silver Dollar Kid." In retaliation, the outlaws hire their own cowardly gunfighter, Chicken Finsterwald (Benny), to go up against The Silver Dollar Kid. Finsterwald's "style" of gunning people down theretofore amounted to knocking out an old lady's cane in a dark alley and shooting her in the back. Despite pressure from the townspeople and outlaws, both Finsterwald and The Kid manage to avoid confrontation until the final, surprising showdown in the street.

Benny and Silvers are at their best in this one, with Silvers' wisecracking and Benny's low-keyed, self-effacing humor and deadpanned looks. Great support work is provided by veteran heavies Ted DeCorsia, Jack Elam, and Lee van Cleef. The dialogue is smooth and never forced, probably due to a combination of such a "veteran" cast and a good script. Nat Hiken wrote and produced this film. TV buffs will recall that he wrote, produced and directed "The Phil Silvers Show" in the 1950s and "Car 54, Where Are You?" in the 1960s.

This is a movie the whole family can enjoy. The movie was made for television I highly recommend it. PHIL SILVERS FANS WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE PRICE £10:00+PP

ALIAS SMITH AND JONES. VHS This 1970 ABC movie was very well received and done in the Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid vein. The Pete Duel/Ben Murphy chemistry was excellent as they built strong scenes together. Their characters, Hannibal Heyes (Duel) and Jed Curry (Murphy) were trying to go crime free. The governor would grant them amnesty if they could do it for one year. The bad deal is they would still be wanted by the law. They could be killed, but could not kill. It was interesting to see how they would talk their way out of numerous situations (some which were very funny). This was so well received that they made it into a series.price £8:00+PP

THE LEFT HANDED GUN VHS Newman as Billy the mixed-up Kid, an ebullient young illiterate who takes to slinging a gun when his substitute father is killed, only to face another, sterner father figure. Endlessly fascinated by his own image, blindly following a death-wish to its logical conclusion, this Billy is very much of the rebel- without-a-cause breed, a hero unable to match up to his legend. Violent, stylised, occasionally top-heavy with symbolism (although the religious parallel is convincingly carried by Hatfield's marvellous performance as Billy's Judas disciple), The Left Handed Gun is a remarkable attempt to communicate an understanding (ours of Billy, his of himself) viscerally, felt through movement and gesture. Penn's first film, it is in many ways a key stage in the development of the Western. PRICE£5:00+PP

Starring: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson

Directed by: John Ford

Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke of the US Cavalry is pursuing a futile campaign against marauding Apache Indians who escape across the Mexican Border for immunity.

The intense pressures on York increase when his son Jeff joins the regiment and his beautiful estranged wife arrives and tries to buy Jeff out of the army. York's patience snaps and he leads an illegal all out attack on the Apaches.

The first pairing of Wayne and Maureen O'Hara is an unforgettable classic – the third film in John Ford's magnificent trilogy about the troopers of the old west. PRICE £5:00+PP

McLINTOCK(JOHN WAYNE) VHS George Washington McLintock (John Wayne) has a saddlebag full of trouble. The owner of the largest ranch in the territory, which also includes a mine and a lumber mill that he built up himself, should be a happy, fulfilled man, but he isn't. His wife Katherine (Maureen O'Hara) walked out on him two years ago without a word of explanation and has been living back east and running in very fancy circles; he's getting older, a fact of which he's constantly reminded as friends around him decline in health. He's being challenged by their sons, eager to make their mark on the territory, and by the homesteaders who are pouring in with the support of the government, hoping to farm on land that's just barely adequate for cattle to graze PRICE £5:00+PP

Gunpoint stars Audie Murphy as a Colorado sheriff -- and never mind that the film was shot in Utah. Sheriff Lucas (Murphy) sets out to bring bad guy Drago (Morgan Woodward) to justice. If the sheriff doesn't succeed, that will be fine and dandy with deputy Hold (Denver Pyle), who's out to get Murphy's job. Edgar Buchanan took a break from Petticoat Junction to play the sort of comic relief he'd been doing in westerns for years. Gunpoint's well-photographed but economical highlights include a wild horse stampede and a shootout with disgruntled Apaches. ~ PRICE £5:00+PP

    ALIAS SMITH AND JONES VHS         alias smith and jonesHannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, two successful and popular outlaw cousins in the old West, decide it´s time to go straight. The problem is that the governor just can´t give them amnesty right away, they have to prove that they deserve it. And in the meantime they will still be wanted. Hunting them is everybody, from sheriffs to bounty hunters, to posses and ordinary people. Hannibal... PRICE £5:00+PP

VHS

THE VIRGINIAN

Featuring 3 episodes of the famous TV series.

Impasse - directed by Maury Geraghty
Echo of Another Day - directed by William Graham
The Mountain of the Sun - directed by Bernhard McEveety
Total running time 216 minutes

Guest stars Eddie Albert, Bradford Dillman and Dolores Hart
Original stars Lee J Cobb, Doug McLure and James Drury PRICE £8:00+PP

The Americano (1955)

Directed by
William Castle VHS

Writing credits
Leslie T. White (story)
Guy Trosper (screenplay)

Glenn Ford stars in this lush and unusual "south-western" as Sam Dent, a rancher who travels to South America to deliver a shipment of bulls to a Brazilian ranch owner. The troubles are many for this brave Yankee as he endeavors to get the bulls to the ranch through the Amazon, only to find the buyer has been murdered. Caesar Romero costars as dashing bandit leader El Gato, and Frank Lovejoy is an unscrupulous land grabber. In addition to the two of them, Dent has to navigate his way clear of a brewing war between ranchers and farmers. He also finds himself caught between the loves of Teresa (Abbe Lane) and Marianna (Ursula Thiess). Other troubles include pirhanas, snakes, and jungle cats. This film might seem rather ironic in light of global warming and the deforestation of Brazil, but it's rousing fun anyway, with a lively pace and Ford in fine form. This was one of director William Castle's final "normal" pictures before going full-time into scary "gimmick" films sucha as THE TINGLER and HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. PRICE £5:00+PP

THE TRAIN ROBBERS JOHN WAYNE

The Train Robbers [VHS] (1972)
John Wayne is a Civil War veteran who, along with buddies Rod Taylor and Ben Johnson, is hired by beautiful widow Ann-Margret to help track down a half million dollars in gold stolen by her husband. As the four of them hatch a plan to travel to Mexico to recover the loot and return it to the bank, they find themselves pursued by a band of outlaws and sinister lone gunman Ricardo Montalban. With Christopher George, Bobby Vinton. 92 min.
Category: Westerns    Director: Burt Kennedy
Cast: Scott Wilson, Christopher George, Ben Johnson, Ricardo Montalban, Rod Taylor, Bobby Vinton, John Wayne PRICE £8:00+PP

Details   VHS

Year made: 1970
Country: United States
Duration: 99 mins. PRICE £5:00+PP

Nevada [VHS] (1944)
Robert Mitchum's first lead role casts him as a gold-seeking cowpoke whose shady past comes into play when he's mistaken for the murderer of a homesteader. Can Mitchum clear his name before he's executed? And can he find the real culprit? This Zane Grey story also stars Anne Jeffreys, Nancy Gates and Craig Reynolds. 62 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital stereo; featurettes.
Category: Westerns    Director: Edward Killy
Cast: Nancy Gates, Anne Jeffreys, Emmett Lynn, Richard Martin, Robert Mitchum, Craig Reynolds

PRICE £5:00+PP

KUNG FU   VHS

DAVID CARRADINNE,JODY FOSTER (FEATURES 2 ORIGINAL FULL LENGH EPISODES)

Episode 10: Alethea

A very young and precocious Jodie Foster co-stars as Alethea, a girl believing she has witnessed Caine, who she had just befriended, kill a stagecoach driver during a robbery. Of course, Caine is innocent but her testimony sends him to the gallows, whereupon she decides to trust his word and "lie" about what she saw in order to spare his life. To prove his innocence to Alethea and thus turn her "lie" into a truth, Caine hunts down the real killers. A flashback story .

"Battle Hymn"
Teleplay By: Herman Miller ( Story By: D. C. Fontana
Directed By:: Barry Crane (also #44)
First Broadcast: February 8, 1975 (Saturday)
Guest Stars: Jose Feliciano, Beverly Garland, Joe Maross, John Bennett Perry, Special Guest Star: Julian "Cannonball" Adderly
Regular Cast: David Carradine, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke, Radames Pera PRICE £6:00+PP

Silverado (1985)   VHS



Directed by
Lawrence Kasdan

Writing credits
Lawrence Kasdan (written by) &
Mark Kasdan ( I'd guess that women would enjoy it also, if for no other reason than the superb male cast. I can't think of a film which has a cast with greater depth. I love the humor woven through the episodes of action and buddyhood, and nearly fell out of my seat laughing when John Cleese first appeared on screen. His first line is an all-time great, right up there with Tommy Lee Jones' "My my, what a mess" in The Fugitive (I won't quote it, in case you haven't seen the film). If you want to be thoroughly entertained for a couple of hours, and don't require powerful social import in your viewing choices, I'd recommend Silverado strongly. Actually, the relationship of Danny Glover to the main protagonists IS socially important, so enjoy that too. PRICE £5:00+PP







Western from Death Wish MICHEAL WINNER.. lawman Lancaster arrives in the town of Sabbath on the trail of seven killers (carousing cowboys who accidentally caused the death of an old man); their protective boss, Cobb, and the town's lily-livered sheriff (Ryan) don't plan on giving him much help; neither do the townspeople. thoughtful Western which ultimately resorts to killing

Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985)

1. Return to Devil's Hole

2. The McCreedy Bust

Smith and Jones become the pawns of two greedy ranchers who have a running feud about the ownership of a Roman bust. PRICE £7:00+PP

Starring: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson

Directed by: John Ford

THE VIRGINIAN

The Americano (1955)

Silverado (1985) VHS

The Trap (episode #23)