Best Western Movies of 1948

Headstrong Thomas Dunson starts a thriving Texas cattle ranch with the help of his faithful trail hand, Groot, and his protégé, Matthew Garth, an orphan Dunson took under his wing when Matt was a boy. In need of money following the Civil War, Dunson and Matt lead a cattle drive to Missouri, where they will get a better price than locally, but the crotchety older man and his willful young partner begin to butt heads on the exhausting journey.

Owen Thursday sees his new posting to the desolate Fort Apache as a chance to claim the military honour which he believes is rightfully his. Arrogant, obsessed with military form and ultimately self-destructive, he attempts to destroy the Apache chief Cochise after luring him across the border from Mexico, against the advice of his subordinates.

Three outlaws on the run discover a dying woman and her baby. They swear to bring the infant to safety across the desert, even at the risk of their own lives.

In 1867, a gang led by James "Stretch" Dawson robs a bank and flees into the desert. Out of water, the outlaws come upon a ghost town called Yellow Sky and its only residents, a hostile young woman named Mike and her grandpa. The story is a Western adaptation of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest".

Mitchum plays drifter cowboy Jim Garry. After receiving a job-offer letter from smooth-talking Tate Riling (Preston), Garry rides into an Indian reservation and finds himself in the middle of a feud between cattle ranchers and homesteaders. What Garry doesn't realize is that Riling, the man he now works for, is crooked.

When power-hungry Faulkner and Leroux want to divide Texas into smaller sections, instead of allowing it to enter the Union as a single state, Gary Conway and the Texas Rangers must step in to thwart their chicanery.

A widowed farmer takes an indentured servant as his new wife, but the arrival of a passing stranger threatens their burgeoning relationship.

Two friends return home after their discharge from the army after the Civil War. However, one of them has had deep-rooted psychological damage due to his experiences during the war, and as his behavior becomes more erratic--and violent--his friend desperately tries to find a way to help him.

Bob Hope stars in this laugh-packed wild west spoof co-starring Jane Russell as a sexy Calamity Jane, Hope is a meek frontier dentist, "Painless" Peter Potter, who finds himself gunslinging alongside the fearless Calamity as she fights off outlaws and Indians.

Smith is an iron-willed railroad detective. When his friend Murray is fired from the railroad and begins helping Rebstock wreck trains, Smith must go after him. He also seems to have an interest in Murray's wife (and vice versa).

When two US cavalrymen transporting a gold shipment get killed, US Army Intelligence investigator John Haven goes undercover to a mining and logging town to find the killers.

Unjustly booted out of the cavalry, Mike McComb strikes out for Nevada, and deciding never to be used again, ruthlessly works his way up to becoming one of the most powerful silver magnates in the west. His empire begins to fall apart as the other mining combines rise against him and his stubbornness loses him the support of his wife and old friends.

In the Western town of Rising Gorge, Bugs faces off against Yosemite Sam, "the roughest, toughest, he-man stuffest hombre who's ever crossed the Rio Grande."

Cole Armin comes to Albuquerque to work for his uncle, John Armin, a despotic and hard-hearted czar who operates an ore-hauling freight line, and whose goal is to eliminate a competing line run by Ted Wallace and his sister Celia. Cole tires of his uncle's heavy-handed tactics and switches over to the Wallace side. Lety Tyler, an agent hired by the uncle, also switches over by warning Cole and Ted of a trap set for them by the uncle and his henchman.

Honest government agent Dave Taylor sets out to find the men responsible for stealing food supplies from an Indian reservation.

Twenty years earlier Farrell killed his mining partner Andrews. Now Andrews daughter arrives to get her father's trust fund. Farrell having rustled Roy's cattle now takes her money from her Lawyer and lets her overhear false information of their next rustling job. With the posse at the wrong location, his men attack the cattle train and Roy on board find himself greatly outnumbered.

A man wrongly accused of murder tracks the true culprit across the desert.

Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses to secede from the state rather than enter the conflict. The county is protected from the Confederacy by an abolitionist and a Native American gentleman. The abolitionist's daughter is courted by a powerful newspaper publisher when her fiance, a confederate officer, elopes with the girl's sister. The daughter at first resists the publisher's attentions, but turns to him for aid when her ex-fiance plans to capture the seceding county on behalf of the South.

A disgraced veteran wanders the West alone until he decides to help a battered woman.

Willis Newcomb and Bart Carroll head a gang engaged in smuggling wanted-American criminals back into the United States from Mexico. Operating from Sharperville, an oil town on the American side of the border, they transport their human cargo in oil drums loaded on trucks. Border Patrolman Tom Sharper intercepts one of the trucks but is overpowered and left for dead. Carroll, having already been paid for the job and not wanting any evidence to walk around, get caught and lead back to him, backs the human-cargo trucks to the edge of a cliff and sends the drums crashing to the boulder far below. Judge Cookie Bullfincher and Border Patrolman Roy Rogers conduct a search for the missing Tom, but the crooks have gone back for him and find him in a state of amnesia. They rob the bank and pin it on Tom. It is now up to Roy to clear his friend and also put an end to Carroll's human-smuggling racket.

US Marshall Vance is assigned to rid the Oklahoma Territory of outlaws.

Lee Garvin has eloped with the daughter of a railroad man who didn't approve of the marriage. Hoppy steps in when the young man is framed for murder.

Cowboy Ross McEwen arrives in town. He asks the banker for a loan of $2000. When the banker asks about securing a loan that large, McEwen shows him his six-gun collateral. The banker hands over the money in exchange for an I.O.U., signed "Jefferson Davis". McEwen rides out of town and catches a train, but not before being bitten by a rattler. On the train, a nurse, Miss Hollister, tends to his wound. A posse searches the train, but McEwen manages to escape notice. However a mysterious Mexican has taken note of the cowboy, and that loudmouthed brat is still nosing around. Who will be the first to claim the reward for the robber's capture?

In the 1850s, in a logging town on the Mississippi River, a conflict between the people of a mill town and the lumberjacks who work downriver. Romance and deceit are catalyzed by the arrival of the gambling river boat, River Lady, owned by the beautiful Sequin. Bauvais, a representative of the local lumber syndicate and Sequin's business partner, is trying to convince H.L. Morrison, the mill owner, to sell his business.

A ranch owner turns his place into a home for boys who have lost their fathers in World War II. His evil female lawyer covets the ranch and works in cahoots with Ford's long-lost nephew and a pack of killer dogs to get it. U.S. Marshal Roy Rogers puts an end to her plans.

The romance of a rancher's niece and a rival rancher's son parallels that of a stallion and a mare.

A man is bent on taking revenge on those responsible for his fiancée's death.

B-western starring Eddie Dean as a singing lawman who comes to the aid of a pretty rancher (June Carlson) who's been targeted for murder by a notorious bandit known as "The Hawk".

While tracking down the three men that killed his father, a notorious bad-ass commits other misdeeds, seemingly based on his desire to wreck as many lives as possible. Doesn't really have anything to do with the historical figure known as Remington, though they used his name for the character here.

Marshals Lash and Fuzzy are sent to get the goods on Duce Rago. To join Rago's gang, Lash decides to pose as an outlaw by wearing the known belt buckle of a notorious outlaw.

Daniel Bone is aiming for success. A Brooklyn gunsmith by trade, he figures the place to be is where the guns are. So off he goes into the West and becomes the foe of the notorious Pecos Kid, the captive of Paiutes, the target in a saloon showdown, and the lone source of the whereabouts of a fabulous gold strike.

Two vaudevillians on the run from crooks try to pass themselves off as cowboys.

An ex-convict on his way to make his fortune in a gold mine in Arizona has his trip interrupted when the residents of a small Mexican village believe him to be a sacred religious figure.

Sintown is just a deserted ghost town until Vanerpool starts looking for silver. Cookie and Roy's partners put $20,000 into the business only to find that the mine is worthless and Vanerpool is bankrupt. Carol comes out to look for silver to save the company, but does not know that their engineer, named Regan, is crooked and wants all the silver for himself. But only Old Ed knows where the mother lode is located.

The Arizona wilderness, 1880. Gen. Fletcher Blackwell sends a message telling Capt. Walsh, who is escorting a wagon-train through Apache territory, heading for the fort at Furnace Creek, that he should cancel the escort and rush to another town. Apache leader "Little Dog" is leading the attack on the wagon-train and massacring everyone at the poorly manned fort. As a result the treaty is broken with the Indians and the white settlers take over the territory with the help of the cavalry, as the Apaches are wiped out and only "Little Dog" remains at large. Gen. Fletcher Blackwell is court-martial-led for treason.

James Craig is torn between his criminal career as the masked bandit named the "El Paso Kid," and the life of a law-abiding citizen with his long-suffering wife Zoe. He repeatedly tells Zoe, "just one more time," but he is unable to stop which angers her greatly. However, he does have brief moments of heroics such as when he helps the Widow Weeks save her farm.

An ex-gunfighter (Rod Cameron) woos two women while avenging his brother, victim of a crooked gambler.

Ben Jason has found a lost gold mine. When Morgan learns this, he and his henchman chase down Jason and kill him. Banning and sidekick Rafferty arrive on the scene only to be arrested and jailed for the murder. They escape from jail and now have to find the real killers to clear their name.

Cheerful outlaw Charlie Boles leaves former partners Lance and Jersey and heads for California, where the Gold Rush is beginning. Soon, a lone gunman in black is robbing Wells Fargo gold shipments. One fateful day, the stage he robs carries old friends Lance and Jersey...and notorious dancer Lola Montez, coming to perform in Sacramento. Black Bart and Lance become rivals for both Lola's favors and Wells Fargo's gold.

The pageantry of Calgary's colorful celebration of its past, culminating with its world famous rodeo, is chronicled.

Hero Rod Cameron kills Sheriff Sam Borden (George Cleveland) at point-blank range and in front of several witnesses in the opening of this Republic Pictures Western, released in the company's patented Trucolor system. The "killing," however, is merely a ruse set up to allow army agent Johnny Drum (Cameron) to infiltrate a gang of highway robbers.

When Roy and Trigger arrive at his ranch he finds Cookie has hired his relatives. Caroline, the only relative that doesn't have a strong resemblance to Cookie, is the horse trainer. Bob Tells Roy a gang of men are hunting range horses. Roy puts a stop to hunting on his land. Pop decides there's money in kidnapping Trigger and demands a $100,000 ransom. McFarland's stepson, Ted, and his dog Tramp, run away and is found hiding in Roy's barn. A trap is set to catch the kidnappers ranch.

Sunset Carson is trying to raise money for a new school and his partner Sam Webster is out to stop him. When Carson plans a benefit prize-fight, Webster plans to make off with the proceeds.

A cowboy sets out to capture an escaped Brahma bull that is terrorizing local ranchers. Based on a story by Eli Colter that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.

This time the Durango Kid confronts an expert gambler.

Loggers Jeff Collins and Boomer Benson compete for a mail-order bride by means of a timber-cutting contest.

A singing cowboy clears a boy accused of murder by finding the real killer.

Ted Daniels, a ranch hand working for a rodeo, captures a magnificent wild horse that he tames and trains. As Ted is recovering from an accident that happened during a rodeo, the rodeo owner cheats him out of his horse. Ted must decide whether to pursue him and try to recover the horse, or whether to settle down with the doctor's daughter who is nursing him back to health. Written by Snow Leopard

Directed by Philip Ford in 1948. When cowboy Monte Hale (Monte Hale) returns home to investigate his uncle's murder, he's mistaken for a fierce outlaw and is hired by the town's corrupt mayor, Lance Dawson (Douglas Evans), as the new sheriff. But Monte secretly works to undermine Dawson's land-grabbing schemes. Monte defends the feisty owner (Lorna Gray) of a gold mine that Dawson covets, although she is suspicious of the cowpoke's loyalties and demands that he prove himself.