Best Western Movies of 1952

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.

Two men with questionable pasts, Glyn McLyntock and his friend Cole, lead a wagon-train load of homesteaders from Missouri to the Oregon territory...

Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt against the wishes of Merritt's wife who fears the dangers of this rough sport.

A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.

Two tough Kentucky mountaineers join a trading expedition from St. Louis up the Missouri River to trade whisky for furs with the Blackfoot Indians. They soon discover that there is much more than the elements to contend with.

A gang of claim jumpers is infesting the territory, gaining ownership of undermanned mining operations through extortion...and leaving no live witnesses. But one victim, quick-drawing gambler Luke Cromwell, escapes. Meanwhille, Marshal Lightnin' Tyrone is also after the gang; recovering from one raid, he meets femme fatale Opal Lacy, who may not be healthy for him to know. When Luke, now calling himself the Silver Kid, joins forces with Marshal Tyrone, the gang had better watch out ...unless something drives a wedge between the new allies.

Peter Potter Jr. returns to claim his father's gold, which is nowhere to be found.

After being released from prison, ex-gunfighter John Wesley Hardin hopes to have his autobiography published in order to rehabilitate his tarnished reputation.

In 1865, a troop of Confederate soldiers led by Major Matt Stewart attack the wagon of gold escorted by Union cavalry and the soldiers are killed. The only wounded survivor tells that the war ended one month ago, and the group decides to take the gold and meet their liaison that knew that the war ended but did not inform the troop. The harsh Rolph Bainter kills the greedy man and the soldiers flee in his wagon driven by Major Stewart. When they meet a posse chasing them, Stewart gives wrong information to misguide the group; however, they have an accident with the wagon and lose the horses. They decide to stop a stagecoach and force the driver to transport them, but the posse returns and they are trapped in the station with the passenger. They realize that the men are not deputies and have no intention to bring them to justice but take the stolen gold.

Major Lex Kearney, dishonourably discharged from the army for cowardice in battle, volunteers to go undercover to try to prevent raids against shipments of horses desperately needed for the Union war effort. Falling in with the gang of jayhawkers and Confederate soldiers who have been conducting the raids, he gradually gains their trust and is put in a position where he can discover who has been giving them secret information revealing the routes of the horse shipments.

Audie Murphy comes into his own as a Western star in this story. Wrongly accused by crooked railroad officials of aiding a train heist by his old friends the Daltons, he joins their gang and becomes an active participant in other robberies. Betrayed by a fellow gang member, Murphy becomes a fugitive in the end. Seeking refuge at the ranch of a reformed gang member, he hopes to flee with the man's daughter to South America, but he's captured in the end and led off to jail. The girl promises to wait.

Mine owner William Sharon keeps having his gold shipments held up by a gang of bandits. Sharon hires banker Charles Crocker, who happens to have connections in the Central Pacific Railroad, to build a spur line from Virginia City to Carson City, so that the gold can be shipped by railroad. Silent Jeff Kincaid is the railroad engineer. However there is opposition to the railroad, chiefly from another mine owner, Big Jack Davis.

In 1900, unscrupulous timber baron Jim Fallon plans to take advantage of a new law and make millions off California redwood. Much of the land he hopes to grab has been homesteaded by a Quaker colony, who try to persuade him to spare the giant sequoias...but these are the very trees he wants most. Expert at manipulating others, Fallon finds that other sharks are at his own heels, and forms an unlikely alliance.

The brother (House Peters Jr.) of rancher Bill Martin (Bill Elliott) is killed in a stampede started by cattleman. Bill returns to the Fargo country to take his brother's place and is welcomed by law-abiding cattleman MacKenzie (Jack Ingram)) and his daughter Kathy (Phyllis Coates). The leader of the ruthless cattle interests are townsman Austin (Arthur Space) and his henchmen Red (Myron Healey), Link (Robert J. Wilke) and Albord (Terry Frost). Bill has the idea of putting up barbed wire to keep the herds from been driven over the land cultivated by the farmers. He, aided by Tad Sloan (Fuzzy Knight), produces the wire by make-shift methods, but it proves effective. The cattleman charge in court that the wire is dangerous to their herds but lose the case. Austin orders his men to seize Bill, bale him in strands of the wire, and throw him on the stage of the town hall during a fall festival. Bill doesn't take kindly to this and it precipitates open war.

Weary Woody Woodpecker is hitchhiking across the desert trying to thumb a ride on a passing stagecoach. He adds artificial limbs and dresses like a girl and has no problem in getting on the next one but is tossed out when his disguise is discovered. After eating a huge meal he decides to get even with the driver and uses a poster of the wanted Buzz Buzzard as a tool. But the real Buzz shows up and, when Woody resorts to his female disguise, the dastardly villain makes a play for him.

A trapper is accused of a crime and is tracked doggedly through the mountains by a lawman.

Johnny Mack Brown substitutes brains for brawn during most of Texas City. Cast once more as a U.S. marshal, Johnny investigates when several government gold shipments are hijacked. Someone has been tipping of the outlaws as to when and where the supposedly secret shipments will take place. The principal suspect is dishonorably discharged cavalry officer Kirby (James Ellison), but Johnny has a gut feeling that Kirby is innocent on all counts.

A man is framed and sent to the toughest prison in the territory.

A young orphan grows into adulthood, all the while searhing for his beloved white horse that disappeared years earlier.

The Denbow family denies access across their land to homesteaders. To evade a murder charge, Glenn Denbow marries Jane, the only witness who's in love with him. But the woman favors the settlers...

A young widower named Sam Crockett returns from Kansas City to his small hometown in rural Texas, bringing with him his feisty grandfather and two young sons, Steve and Yoyo. He tries to make a go of the old family homestead but faces financial problems and pressures from his well-to-do neighbor, Rod Marshall. He also begins an on-again-off-again romance with Rod's sister-in-law, even though she's engaged to wed the town's doctor. Events come to head when Sam's grandfather suffers a stroke.

Director Noel M. Smith's 1952 western stars Dennis Morgan, Philip Carey, Amanda Blake and Rita Moreno.

Major Jim Colton is a sympathetic leader who has a working relationship with Apache leader Cochise. Colton is undermined by corrupt and politically ambitious Indian agent Neil Baylor who sets up a false attack, and the abduction of a local farmer's son. While Colton is away investigating the matter, Baylor convinces Lieutenant Bascom that Cochise's band is to blame, and incites him to lead an expedition against the Apache band to return the boy.

Gene Autry is back in the saddle again as an undercover detective in this action-packed Western complete with a showdown. Gene poses as a jailbird to wangle the truth from a boy (Dick Jones) suspected of stealing an Army payroll. When the youngster escapes from lockup and rejoins his family's medicine show, intrigue is in the wind as Gene tries to solve the mystery of the missing money and to save the lad from a vicious mob. Pat Buttram co-stars.

Duncan MacDonald, a 19th-century Royal Canadian Mountie, has to escort a group of Cree Indians back to their above-the-border reservation. His guide in this endeavor is the not-too-trustworthy half-breed Natayo.

Four undesirables run out of a mining town and become marooned in a deserted mountain cabin during a raging snowstorm.

In 1875 Argentina, after killing a man, a gaucho is sentenced to harsh army duty but he deserts the army and becomes a bandit leader.

It's 1885 in Arizona and an Army Captain has dispersed his troops to keep the whites off of Government land thereby keeping the peace with the Apaches. But there are those in Tucson that want the miners back looking for gold and they put pressure on officials in Washington. Soon a new commander arrives, the troops are recalled, and the miners go after gold. Whites then kill a miner with an arrow so they can attack the Indians hoping the troops wipe them out when they retaliate.

Oklahoma outlaw Belle Starr meets the Dalton gang when rescued from lynching by Bob Dalton, who falls for her. So do gang member Mac and wealthy saloon owner Tom Bradfield, who's enlisted in a bankers' scheme to trap the Daltons. Dissension among the gang and Bradfield's ambivalence complicate the plot, as Belle demonstrates her prowess with shootin' irons, horses, and as a surprisingly racy saloon entertainer. Written by Rod Crawford

A rancher who has staked a claim during the California gold rush goes after the gang of murderous claim-jumpers who have stolen his claim and murdered his wife.

The only white survivor of a Crow Indian raid on a wagon train is a young boy. He is rescued by the Sioux, and the Sioux chief raises him as an Indian in very way. Years later, the white men and the Sioux threaten to go to war and the Indian-raised white man is torn between his racial loyalties and his adopted tribe.

Young David, orphaned en route to California, falls into the hands of medicine-show rascal Baltimore Dan. Years later, now a trained thief, he's adopted by eccentric 'Doc' Brown, retired miner and pharmacist. Doc and David become fast friends in their scenic outdoor rambles. But when they discover a hidden treasure, the idyllic interlude gives way to more troubles and a strange coincidence.

Brothers Dan and Neil Hammond return to Texas after the Civil War. Ambitious Dan turns to rustling and then shady land deals to build an empire. Being held for a murder, he is rescued from a lynch mob by Neil, who is now the Marshal, but there is eventually a falling out between the brothers, good triumphing over evil.

A cowboy seeks fame and fortune in Las Vegas where he meets a girl working in a casino.

After selling it to a cruel rodeo owner, a cowboy attempts to buy back the wild stallion he snared.

Two short films released together under a collective title. The first, "Secret Sharer", directed by John Brahm and starring James Mason, is based on a short story by Joseph Conrad. The second tale, "Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", directed by Bretaigne Windust and starring Robert Preston, is adapted from Stephen Crane's short story.

A mysterious outlaw known as the Sidewinder, phantom leader of renegade Ute Indians, terrorizes the people of the Arizona Territory in the 1870s. When rancher Tex McCloud has his place burned out, he vows to find and kill the Sidewinder.

A female marshal and a newspaper editor help heroic Tim Holt fight an evil land agent. Western.

Rip-roaring big star, big budget semi-historical story about cattle baron Devereaux Burke, who is enlisted by an aging Andrew Jackson to dissuade Sam Houston from establishing Texas as a republic. Burke must fight state senator Thomas Craden, in the process winning the heart of Craden's newspaper-editor girlfriend Martha Ronda.

Pathfinder, a white man raised by the Mohican Indians, joins forces with the British army to avenge himself on the Mingo warriors and the French, who have brought death and pillage to his people. He takes on a mission to retrieve secret plans from within the French fort at St. Vicente.

A old west town run by women. All the town's business is controlled by a woman gambler who tries not to succumb to the allure of a handsome and persistent cowboy.

After five years of being away, Rick Nelson (Joel McCrea) returns to San Francisco to find it filled with corruption - and crooked politicians. It isn't until he meets a beautiful San Franciscan (Yvonne De Carlo), that Nelson decides to get involved with bringing law-and-order to the city by the bay!

In 1852, two friends left the Nevada prospector region to relocate from en route he meets the beautiful Marie who decides to make a trek with two friends, but on the way he is attacked by three Arabs who installs camels, take these Arab adventurers to the Indians.

In pre-Revolutionary America, the efforts of a Colonial officer trying to broker a peace deal between Indian chief Pontiac and British and American settlers are threatened by the commander of a Hessian mercenary unit who embarks on a campaign of extermination against the Indians.

After Celia's father dies, a war erupts over control of his land.

Jim Vesser and his team of railroading men try to build a rail line through a mountain pass, while a group of less scrupulous construction workers sabotages the entire operation in the hopes that they can get their tracks laid first and get the money from the railroad.

Lash Larue seeks to arrest his twin brother, known as the Frontier Phantom

A cowboy (Tim Holt) and his Mexican-Irish sidekick (Richard Martin) lead a wagon train to an unfriendly place.

Plot here has Confederate veteran Jeff Waring arriving in Independence, Missouri shortly after the Civil War, and intending never again to use a gun. He finds that rancher Artemus Taylor, an arthritic despot, and his henchies, Sam Tobin and Cree, are forcing out the settlers in order to claim their land for the incoming railroad. The plot nearly predates "The Great Train Robbery" in age but the gritty execution and well-acted performances take it out of the norm... way out, in a couple of instances. Brassy Myrna Dell is on hand as Taylor's independent daughter, only slightly less meaner than her father, and the always welcome Dorothy Malone is the pretty school marm on the side of good. Needless to say, Ireland's passive outlook on life changes before the end.