Bert Williams
Officer Carey Mahoney and his cohorts have finally graduated from the Police Academy and are about to hit the streets on their first assignment. Question is, are they ready to do battle with a band of graffiti-tagging terrorists? Time will tell, but don't sell short this cheerful band of doltish boys in blue.
Townsfolk discover a warped secret while clearing out the house of a recently deceased, aristocratic spinster.
Based on the real-life Richard Speck murders. After his bizarre behavior results in rejection from countless women, Warren Stacy begins murdering women, always while he is naked, which minimizes any physical evidence left behind. Detective Leo Kessler is convinced of Stacy’s guilt and, over the objections of his partner, plants evidence to get him behind bars. When Stacy is released on a technicality, he threatens to go after Kessler and his family, leaving Kessler to defend himself with little help from the police.
A renowned former army scout is hired by ranchers to hunt down rustlers but finds himself on trial for the murder of a boy when he carries out his job too well. Tom Horn finds that the simple skills he knows are of no help in dealing with the ambitions of ranchers and corrupt officials as progress marches over him and the old west.
In the American Southwest of the 1950s, middle-aged vagabond Beaudray Demerille survives as a cardsharp who moves from town to town. But his latest victory brings him unwanted spoils in the form of Wanda Nevada, a fiery 13-year-old. At first Beaudray does everything he can to ditch Wanda -- until the girl chances upon a treasure map. But Wanda and Beaudray aren't the only ones after the loot, and they must contend with a ruthless pair of crooks.
In this strange western version of JAWS, Wild Bill Hickok hunts a white buffalo he has seen in a dream. Hickok moves through a variety of uniquely authentic western locations - dim, filthy, makeshift taverns; freezing, slaughterhouse-like frontier towns and beautifully desolate high country - before improbably teaming up with a young Crazy Horse to pursue the creature.
Bank robber Graham Dorsey spends a few hours with beautiful widow Amanda Starbuck, in which time his gang takes part in a disastrous holdup. Learning of his comrades' demise, Dorsey goes on the lam. Believing her short-term lover was killed by the law, Amanda decides to make the most of having had a liaison with the supposedly deceased desperado by writing a book about him. Much to his confusion, the still-living Dorsey watches as his name becomes legendary.
The ultimate disaster film parody. A nuclear-powered bus is making its maiden non-stop trip from New York to Denver. The journey is plagued by disasters due to the machinations of a mysterious group allied with the oil lobby. Will the down-on-his-luck driver, with a reputation for eating his passengers, be able to complete the journey?
Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience.
Johnson, an agent for the Liquor Control Department, comes across the remote Cuckoo Bird Inn after escaping from a band of cut-throat moonshiners and a mysterious killer. He realizes there that he must discover the identity of the killer before it, or the inn's demented occupants turn him into another display in the grotesque Chapel of the Dead.
A lovable scoundrel is busted for gambling and thrown into jail, where he dreams of playing poker - but even in his dreams, he loses.
In an unprecedented move for its day in 1915, Biograph Company executives hired actor Bert Williams to star, produce, direct, and write his own films, having full control, the first time a Black-American ever had such control given by a mainstream movie company. The two films made for Biograph were A Natural Born Gambler (1916) and Fish (1916). Bert lives in a rustic-looking cottage with his parents and two much younger brothers. The three sons have been ordered to chop wood, but Bert would rather shirk his chores and go fishing. When his father orders him to take kindling to the stove, Bert sighs and wearily totes a couple of tiny sticks while his kid brothers carry large stumps. As soon as he can manage to escape Bert does so, and happily fishes at a nearby stream. Almost immediately he catches a large fish, and decides to head for a more affluent neighborhood to sell his catch to anyone willing to buy it.
Modeled after a popular collection of stories known as "Brother Gardener's Lime Kiln Club," the plot features three suitors vying to win the hand of the local beauty. Filmed in 1913, but after considerable footage was shot, the film was abandoned. One hundred years later, the seven reels of untitled and unassembled footage were discovered in the film vaults of the Museum of Modern Art, and are now believed to constitute the earliest surviving feature film starring black actors.
