Best Western Movies of 1951

Daffy Duck plays a western hero, but things don't go as he hoped in a one horse town.

New Federal marshal Len Merrick saves Tim Keith from lynching at the hands of the Roden clan, and hopes to get him to Santa Loma for trial. Vindictive Ned Roden, whose son Ed was killed, still wants personal revenge, and Tim would like to escape before Ned catches up with him again. Can the marshal make it across the desert with Tim and his daughter? Even if he makes it, will justice be served?

Not a Rowdy Yates in sight in this western set in a stop over for the California to St Louis mail stagecoach run. The two staff are warned that four dangerous outlaws are in the area, and together with a female stage passenger and her baby they wait patiently for the word to go round that these men have been caught. Can you guess where the outlaws decide to hide out while they plan a large gold robbery? What follows is a film that concentrates on small details (like attempts to slip a warning note to a passing stage, or to reach a hidden gun that the bad guys don't know about) as the captives try anything to get away from the outlaws.

After a group of convicts escapes from prison, they take refuge in the wilderness. While most of the crew are ruthless sociopaths, Jim Canfield is an innocent man who was jailed under false pretenses. When Canfield and his fellow fugitives reach an isolated farming settlement where the men are all away, it creates tension with the local women. Things get direr when rumors of hidden money arise, and Canfield discovers that the man who framed him is part of the community.

Only the Valiant, a classic western adventure, based on a novel by Charles Marquis Warren, the film tells the story of a Cavalry officer who volunteers for a suicidal mission to fight the hostile Apaches in an effort to prove his loyalty to his men and the woman he loves.

After destroying a Seminole fort, American soldiers and their rescued companions must face the dangerous Everglades and hostile Indians in order to reach safety

A small rancher is being harassed by his mighty and powerful neighbor. When the neighbor even hires gunmen to intimidate him he has to defend himself and his property by means of violence.

In the 1830's beaver trapper Flint Mitchell and other white men hunt and trap in the then unnamed territories of Montana and Idaho. Flint marries a Blackfoot woman as a way to gain entrance into her people's rich lands, but finds she means more to him than a ticket to good beaver habitat.

A cattle baron takes in an orphaned boy and raises him, causing his own son to resent the boy. As they get older the resentment festers into hatred, and eventually the real son frames his stepbrother for fathering an illegitimate child that is actually his, seeing it as an opportunity to get his half-brother out of the way so he can have his father's empire all to himself.

A double-crossing cowboy and his gang of henchmen steal cattle, even from friends, in this classic Western.

Two cavalry officers (Lloyd Bridges, John Ireland) lead a patrol to warn Gen. Custer about an ambush.

In 1866, a new gold discovery and an inconclusive conference force the U.S. Army to build a road and fort in territory ceded by previous treaty to the Sioux...to the disgust of frontier scout Jim Bridger, whose Cheyenne wife led him to see the conflict from both sides. The powder-keg situation needs only a spark to bring war, and violent bigots like Lieut. Rob Dancy are all too likely to provide this. Meanwhile, Bridger's chance of preventing catastrophe is dimmed by equally wrenching personal conflicts. Unusually accurate historically.

Ex-gunfighter Ned Britt returns to Fort Worth after the civil war to help run a newspaper which is against ambitious men and their schemes for control.

After the North defeats the South, Union Maj. Jeff Clanton heads to Missouri to provide the Confederacy's Quantrill's Raiders a chance to claim allegiance to the Union, thereby clearing their wanted status. But standing in Clanton's way are the corrupt lawmen Joad and Fowler, who would rather keep the men outlaws to collect the reward on their heads. After Joad and Fowler frame Clanton for murder, he manages to escape, becoming an outlaw himself.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), farmers Jesse and Frank James decided to form an armed gang to face the Union troops using guerrilla warfare.

Having masterminded the hold up of his company office, a mining engineer is barred from the industry. He then sets up shop as an assayer, scheming to acquire a rich silver mine lease from its operators.

The spoilt young son of a wealthy railroad owner manages to get himself lost in the middle of nowhere. He is found by a cowboy on a cattle drive and the lad must start learning the hard lessons of working in a team if he wants to make it to San Diego.

After their service in the Civil War, four brothers go their separate ways, but later find themselves on opposite sides of a final showdown.

In 1863, having escaped from a rock-quarry prison in Salt Lake, six inmates led by convicted murderer Pete Black take over a small wagon train headed by preacher Jacob Karns. Tensions and hardships grow as the travelers continue to trek toward California across dry, desolate country.

A gambler is thrown out of a western town, but returns when the town is suddenly threatened by a band of marauding Apaches.

A cattle inspector runs a rustling ring on the side.

Roy is put in charge of a highway construction project. A rancher tries to stop Roy from putting a highway across his land because he fears that the authorities are going to discover the unscrupulous manner in which he got it.

Landry has Sam Martin killed. When Tim and Chito find Martin and his son, Chip says Matt Potter was responsible. But when Tim and Chito start their search, no ones knows a Matt Potter.

An experimental weather satellite and a missile base are at stake when Roy discovers foreign agents around his ranch.

It's just after the Civil War and Ben Shelby arrives looking for Johnny Tallon whom he plans to kill. Shelby was the only survivor of a battle due to the cowardice of Tallon. Thinking Tallon dead, another man who lost a brother at the same battle arrives to kill Tallon's blind brother. Tallon arrives to find Shelby and his brother fleeing. Then they are attacked by Indians and Shelby and Tallon must now fight together postponing the inevitable showdown.

A drought is about to end the cattle business. The owner of a canning factory wants to buy all the remaining cattle cheap. He plans to ruin the cattlemen's plans to ship water by train and to seed the clouds for rain. Roy is sent by a packing house to investigate.

Towards the end of the American Civil War, a rebel captain flees to Colorado to join a band of Southern mercenaries. He drags an innocent gold prospecting couple into trouble when the husband is accused of a murder he committed.

Set in the old west, the stooges are mistaken for lawmen and manage to capture a gang of crooks. The boys then get the job of guarding some money in an old house reputed to be haunted by the ghost of an Indian Chief. The crooks escape and go after the money disguised as ghosts, but Shemp, disguised as the Indian Chief, manages to knock them out.

A music publishing company tries to swindle a song from a country girl that they inadvertently recorded without her permission.

The Texas Rangers send Dave and Chito into the badlands to see if they can locate a counterfeiting operation. They arrive posing as wanted outlaws and this gets them into the gang. But as soon as they uncover the operation and locate the printing press, one of Chito's girl friends arrives to expose their identity and they find themselves trapped by the entire gang.

Not to be confused with the 1929 film The Overland Telegraph, this Western from director Lesley Selander stars Tim Holt as a cowboy appropriately named Tim Holt. In order to hinder the construction of a new telegraph line for his own financial gain, scheming shopkeeper Paul Manning (George Nader) enlists the assistance of a gang of outlaws led by Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont in one of his many pre-Leave it to Beaver roles). Unfortunately for the bad guys, Holt and his cohort Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) sense that there's foul play afoot and embark on an investigation.

Kirby Frye, a former Confederate officer but now a Union Cavalry scout, is sent into Montana territory to locate and retrieve three Gatling Guns stolen from the U.S. Arsenal by outlaws believed to have taken them west to sell to the Soiux and Cheyenne. The trail leads him to Red Bluff where, aided by Claire Corville, he and the audience discover together and real quick like that Martin Gavin, a supposedly-honest operator of a freight line, has the guns and intends to exchange them to the Indians for furs.

Two old friends find themselves on opposite sides during the Civil War in a desperate battle atop an impregnable mountain.

Pistol Harvest starred RKO's "house cowboys" Tim Holt and Richard Martin. In this one, the two heroes are accused of killing their boss. They are saved from the hangman's noose when two other guys are arrested, but Holt feels as though justice is still not being served. On their own, Holt and Chito set about to track down the genuine killer.

John Vickers has spent eight years hunting for the three men who murdered the woman he loved. He finds one, Woodson, and kills him in a gunfight, but not before learning that the other two men have joined the U.S. Cavalry.

The lawless west had never met a gun-throwing gent like...

Against the background of the Civil War, sixteen-year-old song-and-dance artiste Lotta Crabtree works her way across America, becoming ever more popular.

Two smart marketing people resurrect some old films starring cowboy Smoky Callaway and put them on television. The films are a big hit and the star is in demand. Unfortunately no one can find him. When a lookalike sends in a photo, the marketing team hires him to impersonate Callaway. Things get sticky when the real Callaway eventually shows up.

Raton Pass is a curious western based on the rules of Community Property. Dennis Morgan and Patricia Neal portray a recently married husband and wife, each of whom owns half of a huge cattle ranch. Neal is a tad more ambitious than her husband, and with the help of a little legal chicanery she tries to obtain Morgan's half of the spread. He balks, so she hires a few gunslingers to press the issue. In a 1951 western, the greedy party usually came to a sorry end; Raton Pass adheres strictly to tradition.

A late entry in Columbia's seemingly endless Durango Kid Western series, Cyclone Fury was augmented with a hefty dose of stock footage from an earlier Durango effort, Galloping Thunder (1946), footage that included sidekick Smiley Burnette warbling "Hear the Wind (Singing a Cowboy Song)" accompanied by Merle Travis and his Bronco Busters.

It's 1874 and the Texas Rangers have been reorganized. But Sam Bass has assembled a group of notorious outlaws into a gang the Rangers are unable to cope with. So the Ranger Major releases two men from prison who are familiar with the movements and locations used by Bass and his men and sends them out to find him.

The Three Stooges travel West where they become heroes by nabbing a gang of would-be robbers.

An agent of Mexico poses as a pirate to foil a would-be emperor in 1820s California.

Bank robber serves his time in prison, tries to go straight.

Gil Kyle finds himself caught up in the politics and unrest of the American Civil War and soon gets himself framed for a murder. His only alibi is Candace Bronson, who is aiding the Confederate cause and has left the territory to deliver a vital message about a Yankee gold shipment. So he sets off in pursuit, running into desperados, government agents, and guerrilla fighters, who are more interested in profit than ideals. Written by Alfred Jingle

The cavalry defend a small town from indians.

Unable to keep peace between frontier Indians and the US Cavalry, a heroic Captain risks court-martial to prevent bloodshed.

Having served a prison sentence for robbery, Pete Carver decides to go back for the hidden loot. But someone is on his trail.

Dakota Kid is a young outlaw who joins a gang headed by Ace Crandall. Crandall's aim is to unseat Sheriff Tom White and then use his power to enrich himself at the community's expense. Dakota impersonates a long-lost nephew of the sheriff, and is made a marshal. Through his association with the sheriff's grandson, Red White and his friend Judy, plus falling in love with Mary Lewis, the Kid gradually reforms.