A Texan traveling across the wild West bringing the news of the world to local townspeople, agrees to help rescue a young girl who was kidnapped.
Around the film hang fascinating questions about border politics, which I’ll touch on in an introduction before the screening. One of Eugene Buck’s motivations for making the film may have been his rough cross-examination during his kidnappers’ first trials, in October 1913, when defense attorneys cast him as a confused and unreliable witness against idealistic freedom fighters. On film he could reproduce the pursuit, the shootouts, his kidnapping, and his friend’s murder just as he had testified. Reenacting the crime on film may have been the best revenge—and a way to honor the sacrifice of Deputy Ortiz, a twenty-year police veteran and, for the era, a rare Mexican American lawman.
The film follows the life story of Johann Augustus Suter, the owner of Sutter's Mill, famous as the birthplace of the great California Gold Rush of 1848.
"Bowie" Blake is a gambler in a mining camp. One day, an artist, Van Dyke Tarleton comes to town with his wife, Naomi. He sees Bowie and decides he is perfect as a model for Lucifer in his latest painting. At first he refuses to pose, but Naomi talks him into it. Tarleton sees that Bowie is attracted to his wife, and purposely insults her just to get the right evil look in his eyes. But finally Bowie, whose feelings have become too much for him, quits.
The Lion of the Hills is a Western film.
Cowhand Steve Ransom discovers that German spies are operating along Mexican border, relaying their radio messages into Mexico and thus on to Germany. The spies learn that Steve is a fugitive from American justice.
In this re-edited, re-titled version of 'Conversion of Frosty Blake, The (1915)', some character names are changed but the story, of a New England pastor who goes out west for his health and encounters a gun-toting dance-hall owner and a beautiful dancer, remains fairly intact.
A father-and-son fishing duo find a briefcase of criminal money in a river and are chased by both the police and the criminals.
Pinto Ben is a pink-nosed cow-pony. A hundred head of cattle are rounded up for beef to be shipped alive to Chicago. Ben and his master, with Segundo Jim, are put in charge. In the Chicago stockyards, men who don't know range-bred cattle from a herd of mountain goats, calmly inform Jim and Ben's master that the steers are to be driven into the big pen. At the same instant two or three stock hands run behind the herd and begin shouting and waving their arms to start the cattle. The beasts, a thousand strong, with horns and hoofs beating the air, bellowing their rage, glaring with bloodshot eyes, thunder into the chute. The two men in front prepare for their death ride. Suddenly Pinto Ben flattens himself before a high, iron-bound gate, and leaps. The pony cleans the gate. The great wave of scorching breath falls back on the other side. Ben's master finds himself sitting on the ground, the head of his dying horse in his lap.
Broncho Billy and the Outlaw's Mother
Broncho Billy is made sheriff.
A poor man, the father of a young child, wants his offspring to have a Christmas such as every child is deserving of. He is penniless. For the love of his child he commits burglary.
Old Harry Todd and his daughter, Marguerite, are in the west prospecting for gold. They meet Broncho Billy, who takes dinner with them and later continues on his way. As he is riding across the plains thinking of Marguerite, he happens to see an Indian at the top of a hill, looking down upon the prospector and his daughter. Broncho Billy warns Todd and his daughter.
Broncho Billy and his brother are both in love with the same girl, but she decides to marry Broncho's brother. One Sunday morning an outlaw creates a panic in the church by "shooting up" the place. The sheriff, who is the girl's father, is shot when he attempts to arrest the outlaw. Broncho's brother is offered the sheriff's star, but is afraid to take it.
Billy Haven, a young rancher, accidentally discovers that clay found on his ranch will, when mixed with water, become the most beautifying mud-pack cosmetic that any young girl, or old woman, could desire. Then the land-grabbers, clay-speculators, cosmetic companies and a show girl or two show up to get a piece of the action.
Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico, known as The Three Mesquiteers, return to Oklahoma at the close of the Spanish-American War, and are concerned that some of their wounded buddies have no prospects for a satisfactory future. When the government offers preferred homesteads in the newly-opened Oklahoma territory to war veterans, they send word for their pals to join them there. Once there, the veterans meet a hostile reception as the cattlemen resent the influx of "nesters" and are determined to drive them out. Mace Liscomb and his brother Orv plan not only to drive out the homesteaders, but to also double cross the cattlemen and gain exclusive titles to the range lands for themselves. Stony and his pals eventually show the honest cattlemen that there is room for the settlers and that both are fighting a common enemy. Written by Les Adams
This is a low budget western about six undesired women who are taken out of a western town and transported to prison. Their adventures along the way are the basis for the film. The head man, Charley, is in charge of making sure the women stay in line. One night, Dolores, a Mexican girl, tries to escape. Charley catches her and has her tied to a tree, hanging by her wrists, for punishment. He strips her to the waist and lays a bull whip on her back.