Walter Brennan
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed “John Doe,” who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate “Doe.” Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it’s worth, until the made-up “John Doe” philosophy starts a whole political movement.
Mary Rutledge arrives from the east, finds her fiance dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Louis Charnalis’ Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling house in San Francisco in the 1850s. She falls in love with miner Carmichael and takes his gold dust at the wheel. She goes after him, Louis goes after her with intent to harm Carmichael.
The sheriff of a small town in southwest Texas must keep custody of a murderer whose brother, a powerful rancher, is trying to help him escape. After a friend is killed trying to muster support for him, he and his deputies – a disgraced drunk and a cantankerous old cripple – must find a way to hold out against the rancher’s hired guns until the marshal arrives. In the meantime, matters are complicated by the presence of a young gunslinger – and a mysterious beauty who just came in on the last stagecoach.
Alvin York a hillbilly sharpshooter transforms himself from ruffian to religious pacifist. He is then called to serve his country and despite deep religious and moral objections to fighting becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI.
Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil ride into Tombstone and leave brother James in charge of their cattle herd. On their return they find their cattle stolen and James dead. Wyatt takes on the job of town marshal, making his brothers deputies, and vows to stay in Tombstone until James’ killers are found. He soon runs into the brooding, coughing, hard-drinking Doc Holliday as well as the sullen and vicious Clanton clan. Wyatt discovers the owner of a trinket stolen from James’ dead body and the stage is set for the Earps’ long-awaited revenge.
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal “Hangman of Europe”, Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.
A quick-witted drifter wanders into a lawless town in the midst of a gold rush. Shocked by the prices of food and meals he reluctantly takes the job of sheriff by amazing the Mayor with his lightning quick, dead eye pistol accuracy. He makes the town council know that he is really just passing through on his way to Australia and he will pull up and leave anytime he chooses (including at the first sign of real trouble). His first day on the job he takes on the biggest, meanest ranching family and meets his klutzy love interest.
An eccentric millionaire and his grandchildren are embroiled in the plights of some forest gnomes who are searching for the rest of their tribe. While helping them, the millionaire is suspected of being crazy because he’s seeing gnomes! He’s committed, and the niece and nephew and the gnomes have to find him and free him.
Drifter Cole Harden is accused of stealing a horse and faces hanging by self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, but Harden manages to talk his way out of it by claiming to be a friend of stage star Lillie Langtry, with whom the judge is obsessed, even though he has never met her. Tensions rise when Harden comes to the defense of a group of struggling homesteaders who Judge Bean is trying to drive away.
Robert Ryan plays an aging sheriff responsible for law and order in a frontier cattle town. Virginia Mayo plays his fiancee. As if handling wild cattle drovers isn’t enough, a crooked casino operator from Ryan’s past comes to town. An early scuffle in the casino leaves Ryan with vision problems that interfere with his duties. Jeffrey Hunter who came to town with a cattle drive encounters Ryan, who killed Hunter’s father when Hunter was young. Feelings of animosity soon change as Hunter begins to sense Ryan is telling the truth about his father. What follows is a plot that continues to thicken to the inevitable showdown.
In 1871, professional gambler John Devlin elopes with Sandra “Sandy” Poli, daughter of Marko Poli, an immigrant who has risen to railroad tycoon. Sandy, knowing that the railroad is to be extended into Dakota, plans to use their $20,000 nest egg to buy land options to sell to the railroad at a profit. On the stage trip to Ft. Abercrombie, their fellow passengers are Jim Bender and Bigtree Collins, who practically own the town of Fargo and Devlin is aware that they are prepared to protect the little empire… trying to drive out the farmers by burning their property, destroying their wheat, and blaming the devastation on the Indians. Continuing their journey north on the river aboard the “River Bird’, Sandy and John meet Captain Bounce, an irascible old seafarer. Two of Bendender’s henchmen, Slagin and Carp, board the boat and relieve John of his $20,000 at gunpoint. Captain Bounce, chasing the robber’s dinghy..
In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures later, they marry and then abandon comedy to attempt a dancing career together. While they’re performing in Paris, an agent sees them rehearse and starts them on their brilliant career as the world’s foremost ballroom dancers. However, at the height of their fame, World War I begins.
