James J. Griffith
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James J. Griffith
James Jeffrey Griffith (February 13, 1916 – September 17, 1993) was an American character actor, musician and screenwriter. Education Griffith attended Santa Monica High School, where he was a classmate with Glenn Ford. Both were active in school drama productions. He later graduated from UCLA with a degree in music. Career Born in Los Angeles, Griffith aspired to be a musician rather than an actor. Instead after graduating from University of California, Los Angeles, he managed to find work in little theatres around Los Angeles, where the budding musician eased into a dual career of acting. He found success in the production ''They Can't Get You Down'' in 1939, but put his career on hold during World War II to serve with the United States Marine Corps. Following the war, Griffith switched from the stage to films when he appeared in the 1948 film noir picture ''Blonde Ice''. From then on, he enjoyed a lengthy career of supporting and bit roles (sometimes uncredited) in weste ...
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The Amazing Transparent Man
''The Amazing Transparent Man'' is a 1960 American science fiction thriller B-movie starring Marguerite Chapman in her final feature film. The plot follows an insane ex–U.S. Army major who uses an escaped criminal to steal materials to improve the invisibility machine his scientist prisoner made. It was one of two sci-fi films shot back-to-back in Dallas, Texas by director Edgar G. Ulmer (the other was ''Beyond the Time Barrier'', also released that same year). The combined filming schedule for both films was only two weeks. The film was later featured in an episode of ''Mystery Science Theater 3000''. Plot Former U.S. Army major Paul Krenner plans to conquer the world with an army of invisible soldiers and will do anything to achieve that goal. With the help of his hired muscle Julian, Krenner forces Dr. Peter Ulof to perfect the invisibility machine that Ulof invented. He imprisons Ulof's daughter Maria to keep Ulof in line. The nuclear materials that Ulof needs to improve ...
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Western (genre)
The Western is a genre Setting (narrative), set in the American frontier and commonly associated with Americana (culture), folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West" and depicted in Western media as a hostile, sparsely populated frontier in a state of near-total lawlessness patrolled by outlaws, sheriffs, and numerous other Stock character, stock "gunslinger" characters. Western narratives often concern the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, Manifest Destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. History The first films that belong to the Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 by Edison Studios at their Edison's Black Maria, Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. These featured vet ...
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Sheriff Of Cochise
''The Sheriff of Cochise'' is an American police crime drama television series of 79 black-and-white episodes broadcast from 1956 to 1958. The show has two seasons of 39 episodes, and there is an additional standalone episode. Each episode runs for 30 minutes. The series features John Bromfield as Frank Morgan, the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona. The series is succeeded by ''U.S. Marshal'', in which Morgan was promoted to be the United States marshal for Arizona. Plot Frank Morgan is the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, and his duties force him to go after people breaking the law in his home county. These include robbers, thugs, con artists, killers, and other lawbreakers. The series is based on Westerns, though with a contemporary twist as in the neo-Western sub-genre. Morgan drives a Chrysler station wagon, rarely fights personally, and uses radios and fingerprints to aid in his investigations. Cast Main cast * John Bromfield as Frank Morgan, the sheriff of Coch ...
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Television Syndication
Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where broadcast programming is scheduled by television networks with local independent Network affiliate, affiliates. Syndication is less widespread in the rest of the world, as most countries have centralized networks or television stations without local affiliates. Shows can be syndicated internationally, although this is less common. Three common types of syndication are: ''first-run'' syndication, which is programming that is broadcast for the first time as a syndicated show and is made specifically to sell directly into syndication; ''off-network'' syndication (colloquially called a "rerun"), which is the licensing of a program whose first airing was on network TV or in some cases, first-run syndication;Campbell, Richard, Christopher R. Ma ...
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Trackdown (TV Series)
''Trackdown'' is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. The series was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. ''Trackdown'' was a spin-off of Powell's anthology series, ''Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre''. Overview ''Trackdown'' stars Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. It is set in the 1870s after the American Civil War. In early episodes, stories focused on Gilman going to different Texas towns in pursuit of wanted fugitives. At midseason, the series became set in the town of Porter, Texas. Episodes touched on multiple Western themes and topics, so it was known as "the thinking man's Western". Gilman is the'' de facto'' sheriff in Porter. His friends in the town include Henrietta Porter, portrayed by Ellen Corby (who later played Esther Walton on CBS's ''The Waltons''). She is the widow of the town's founder and owns ''The Porter Enterprise'' newspaper. Occasiona ...
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Clint Eastwood
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "''Dollars Trilogy''" of Spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five ''Dirty Harry'' films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. An Academy Award nominee for Best Actor, Eastwood won Best Director and Best Picture for his Western film ''Unforgiven'' (1992) and his sports drama '' Million Dollar Baby'' (2004). His greatest commercial successes are the adventure comedy ''Every Which Way but Loose'' (1978) and its action comedy sequel ''Any Which Way You Can'' (1980). Other popular Eastwood films include the Westerns ''Hang 'Em H ...
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James Garner
James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including '' The Great Escape'' (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's ''The Americanization of Emily'' (1964) with Julie Andrews; ''Cash McCall'' (1960) with Natalie Wood; ''The Wheeler Dealers'' (1963) with Lee Remick; ''Darby's Rangers'' (1958) with Stuart Whitman; Roald Dahl's '' 36 Hours'' (1965) with Eva Marie Saint; Raymond Chandler's ''Marlowe'' (1969) with Bruce Lee; ''Support Your Local Sheriff!'' (1969) with Walter Brennan; Blake Edwards's ''Victor/Victoria'' (1982) with Julie Andrews; and ''Murphy's Romance'' (1985) with Sally Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He also starred in several television series, including popular roles such as Bret Maverick in the ABC 1950s Western series ''Maverick'' and as Jim Rockford in the NBC 1970s private detective show, ''The Rockford Files'' ...
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Duel At Sundown (Maverick)
"Duel at Sundown" is a 1959 episode of the Western comedy television series ''Maverick'' starring 31-year-old James Garner and 29-year-old Clint Eastwood. A mean fortune hunting bully (Eastwood) becomes jealous when Bret Maverick (Garner) begins spending time with his girlfriend Carrie (Abby Dalton), the daughter of Bret's old friend (Edgar Buchanan), who desperately wants Bret to marry her before Eastwood's evil character does so. An epic fistfight between Garner and Eastwood segues into a surprising showdown between Bret and gunslinger John Wesley Hardin in which Maverick fans his pistol. "Hardin" turns out to be Bret's brother Bart ( Jack Kelly), who'd been recruited to help frighten Eastwood's character who literally flees the town. Carrie realizes that she made a mistake in trying to love Hardigan and thanks Bret. As Bret and Bart depart the town on horseback at the episode's conclusion, they run into the ''real'' John Wesley Hardin, already angrily riding in to hunt down an ...
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Maverick (TV Series)
''Maverick'' is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins and originally starring James Garner as an adroitly articulate poker player plying his trade on riverboats and in saloons while traveling incessantly through the 19th-century American frontier. The show ran for five seasons from September 22, 1957, to July 8, 1962 on ABC. Overview ''Maverick'' initially starred James Garner as poker player Bret Maverick. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart Maverick, and for the remainder of the first three seasons, Garner and Kelly alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode. The Maverick brothers were both poker players from Texas who traveled the American Old West by horseback and stagecoach, and on Mississippi riverboats, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or ...
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John Wesley Hardin
John Wesley Hardin (May 26, 1853 – August 19, 1895) was an American Old West outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk icon. Hardin often got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at the age of 15, claiming he did so in self-defense. Pursued by lawmen for most of his life, in 1877 at the age of 23, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for murder. At the time of sentencing, Hardin claimed to have killed 42 men, while contemporary newspaper accounts attributed 27 deaths to him. While in prison, Hardin studied law and wrote an autobiography. He was well known for exaggerating or fabricating stories about his life and claimed credit for many killings that cannot be corroborated. Within a year of his 1894 release from prison, Hardin was killed by John Selman in an El Paso saloon. Early life Hardin was born in 1853 near Bonham, Texas, to James "Gip" Hardin, a Methodist preacher and circuit rider, and Mary Elizabeth Dixson. He was named afte ...
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Gunsmoke
''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centers on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television. When aired in the United Kingdom, the television series was initially titled ''Gun Law'', later reverting to ''Gunsmoke''. The radio series ran from 1952 to 1961. John Dunning wrote that among radio drama enthusiasts, "''Gunsmoke'' is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." The television series ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975, and lasted for 635 episodes. At the end of its run in 1975, ''Los Angeles Times'' columnist Cecil Smith wrote: "''Gunsmoke'' was the dramatization of the American epic legend of the west. Our own ''Iliad'' and ''Odyssey'', created from standard elements of the dime novel and the pulp West ...
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The First Texan
''The First Texan'' is a 1956 American Western film in CinemaScope and Technicolor directed by Byron Haskin. It stars Joel McCrea and Felicia Farr.''The First Texan (1956)''
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Plot

, a lawyer and former governor of Tennessee, travels to San Antonio, Texas to begin a new life. He encounters , who is determined to free the territory from Mexico's rule. Bowie is tried for treason. Houston represents him in court and successfully argues that the charge against Bowie must be dismissed because Mexico was not under