Fred F. Sears

Pat Garrett arrives in Abilene where he catches five of Butch Cassidy's gang. He calls in Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson and they learn there is a half million dollar shipment of money arriving by train and Cassidy is amassing enough men to take it.

A ragtag group of survivors escape a Filipino sugar plantation overrun by Japanese soldiers during World War II, finding a small boat along the way.

Airplane passengers prepare for a crash landing in the ocean.

Two high-school students keep their marriage a secret from their family and friends, but they're forced to confess when the teenage wife learns she's pregnant.

A sea captain stands trial for manslaughter after 162 people are killed in a fire aboard his cruise ship. Director Fred F. Sears' 1958 drama stars Edmond O'Brien, Robert McQueeney, Paul Birch, Mona Freeman and Karin Booth.

A jukebox operator helps promote a calypso craze.

Desmond plays convict Mike Gilbert, who goes on the lam with fellow prisoners Gruber and Graham when he finds out his wife is divorcing him and feels he has nothing to lose. Gruber intends to get his robbery loot, which his father, Curly, has successfully hidden from the law. After commandeering a plane, they double-cross Graham, who assembles his gang to get revenge - and Gruber's loot. Meanwhile, Gilbert falls in love with Robbie, his ex-wife’s sister. Through Robbie’s influence, Gilbert decides to go straight, but his cohorts aren’t quite so willing to reform.

With his assistant, Laura Hutchinson, Dr. David Conway develops a device to advance the fledgling science of earthquake prediction. After forecasting a large trembleor that will rock California within twenty-four hours, Conway cannot persuade the Governor to act. When the prediction proves true and further tests indicate that there are more quakes to come, Conway and Laura seek to perfect their device. Subsequent tests deep within Carlsbad Caverns discover an unknown element—E-112—that is responsible for the earthquakes and threatens to destroy the globe if it ever reaches the surface. The team determines that with only four weeks until Armageddon, the race is on to neutralize the killer element before it takes a devastating toll.

Global panic ensues when it is revealed that a mysterious UFO is actually a giant turkey-like bird that flies at supersonic speed and has no regard for life or architecture.

Western about Calhoun helping to overcome land-grabbing outlaws.

Rock-and-roller Arnie Haynes returns to his hometown as a hero to the teenagers. However, the mayor and other concerned adults have banned him from performing in his hometown because they consider him and his music a negative influence on the youth. But with the help of disc jockey/publicist Alan Freed and fellow artists (including Bill Haley and the Comets and Little Richard), they hope to convince everyone that rock and roll is not as dangerous as the adults think.

A Brooklyn-born 17-year-old's loyalty is torn between his parents' old-fashion values and a local gangster's flashy lifestyle.

A programmer with a Latin American beat.

A police detective baits killer gamblers with a mob witness (Patricia Medina) in the Everglades.

Test space rockets exploding at liftoff and increased reporting of UFO sightings culminate in a direct attempt by alien survivors of a dead, extra-galactic civilization to invade Earth from impervious flying saucers, using ray-weapons of mass destruction.

The arrival in a small mountain town of a dissheveled stranger launches a series of murders committed by some sort of animal. As the town doctor and his daughter attempt to help the stranger, the sheriff investigates the murders; and they uncover a sinister experiment involving two rogue scientists, a car accident victim, his wife and children, and a serum that causes a man to turn into a ravaging werewolf.

The arrival in a small mountain town of a dissheveled stranger launches a series of murders committed by some sort of animal. As the town doctor and his daughter attempt to help the stranger, the sheriff investigates the murders; and they uncover a sinister experiment involving two rogue scientists, a car accident victim, his wife and children, and a serum that causes a man to turn into a ravaging werewolf.

A frustrated big-band promoter runs in to rock-and-rollers Bill Haley and the Comets at a small-town dance. He quickly becomes their manager and, with the help of Alan Freed, hopes to bring the new sound to the entire country. But will a conniving booking agent, with a personal ax to grind with the manager, conspire to keep the band from making the big time?

An outlaw terrorizes the citizens of Gunsight Pass while he searches for stolen bank money that mysteriously disappeared after a robbery.

Gus Linden, former racketeer head of a Detroit local of the United Automobile Workers of America, A.F.L, attempts to destroy his successor, Blair Vicker, so he can put his old rackets back into the auto factories. Vickers fights him off, ultimately winning help from Linden's attractive daughter Barbara and from Joni Calvin, Vickers' moll.

A delinquent girl involves an innocent friend in an armed robbery followed by a jail-break and hostage-taking with her equally delinquent boyfriend.

Two former enemies find themselves together on a cattle drive and fighting marauding Apaches and Mexican bandits.

An ex-military accountant is recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the mob in Chicago in an attempt to break open the rackets. To complicate his job, two women stand in his way, each with their own agenda.

A Death Row inmate uses his prison law studies to fight for his life. Based on a true story.

A railroad investigator discovers that there's more than meets the eye to a series of reported Indian attacks against the railroad.

A young boy and a veterinarian in a red convertible help thwart a gang of horse thieves. Director Fred F. Sears' 1954 outdoor drama stars Billy Gray, Phil Carey, Roy Roberts, Dorothy Patrick, Gordon Jones, Trevor Bardette and Morris Ankrum.

Fed up with the raising crime in Miami, the police chief and the leading members of the city council hire a former Miami gangster, gone straight, to help eliminate the biggest crime syndicate in the city.

A band of renegade Apaches attempts to steal a shipment of rifles being transported to Fort Collins.

Brady Sutton returns from three years in prison and tries to go straight. One a member of the Butch Cassidy gang, he is still suspected of being cahoots with them. When Cassidy and his men rob the bank, he is blamed. Escaping from the townspeople, he once again joins up with Cassidy to wait for a chance to help bring him in.

A small group of men and a tank stave off a German attack in a Bedouin desert during World War II.

War looms on the horizon when an Army officer's American Indian aide is accused of murdering a tribal elder.

Colonel Ed Wyatt is regarded by pilots under his command as being a ruthless disciplinarian. His co-pilot, Lt. Hobson Lee, and Jo McWethy, a war correspondent assigned to the squadron become more friendly than meets Wyatt's approval. When Wyatt's plane is forced down behind enemy lines, he orders his crew to proceed to the American lines with the vital film they have shot, while he remains behind to hold off the enemy.

A rookie pilot in the Korean War wants to avenge his brother's death.

A British captain and a French official's daughter save the East India Company.

Two federal agents do not believe an atomic-bomb threat is just another war game.

Hodiak, Brian, Derek and Teal have just been released from prison. They return to Tomahawk Gap, now a ghost town, to retrieve the money that they stole and was buried by a partner somewhere in the town. While hunting, the Indians attack, and a life and death battle ensues.

Yankee soldiers-of-fortune smash a spy plot aimed at seizing Hong Kong.

Charles Starrett makes his final appearance as The Durango Kid, this time as Steve Reynolds, a postal inspector who has gone underground to catch the bad guys. His longtime sidekick, Smiley Burnette appears as an itinerant optometrist who is hardly in the plot line of the film. Jock Mahoney plays Jack Mahoney, an eastern educated dude who has come back home. The Durango Kid teaches Jack how to draw and fire a six-gun, and the two ultimately work together to bring the outlaws to justice.

An American diplomat risks his life to save an Indian prince from an assassination plot designed to ignite a war.

Based on a successful comic book that began in 1941, the Blackhawks were seven flyers who banded together during WW II to fight the Nazis. After the war, they continued to fight evil where ever they find it. In this movie, they are battling a group of spies and saboteurs bent on destroying democracy. The Blackhawks foil a succession of plots, with a cliff hanger ending in each episode.

Charles Starrett returns as the Durango Kid in Columbia's Rough, Tough, West. For most of the film, however, Starrett is known as "Steve Holden," a former Texas Ranger who comes to a wide-open mining town to visit an old friend (Jack -- later Jock -- Mahoney). Alas, said friend has turned bad, and is busy arranging a major land grab when Steve arrives on the scene. With deep regret, our hero dons his Durango disguise to thwart his ex-friend's criminal activities.

Markham and his men have found gold on the Indian reservation and are trying to get rid of them by starting an Indian war. Dressed as Indians they are attacking the soldiers. Steve Holden is the Indian agent sent to prevent a war. After finding proof that white men posing as Indians were responsible, he is able to locate the gang's hideout but quickly becomes a prisoner slated to be killed. - Written by Maurice VanAuken

Steve Martin is sent to Wild River to recover stolen gold and finds the town is being terrorized by The Hawk and his outlaw gang. The Hawk attempts to murder Sheriff Jack Mahoney and is captured and jailed. Steve helps the Hawk break jail and thus makes contact with the bandit gang. He sends a bungling photographer, Smiley Burnette, to warn the sheriff that the gang plan to rob the express office.

Mahoney is a sheep man who's framed for the murder of a rancher. It's all part of a scheme by a dishonest cattleman who hopes to extenuate a range war for his own profit. The Durango Kid helps clear Mahoney's name.

Steve is a Government Agent looking for the gang that stole the U.S. Mail. He goes undercover...

Charles "Durango" Starrett and his pal Smiley Burnette go after smugglers. Our heroes travel incognito across the Mexican border to beard the leader of the gang in his den.

When his son accidentally kills someone, a lawyer must defend the man wrongly charged with the murder.

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.

Using marked bills, Steve is looking for the supposedly dead Henry Hardison. Coming to Bonanza Town he gets a job with the town boss Crag Bozeman and gets paid with marked bills. He suspects Hardison is Boseman's boss and he is right as Hardison and his men are now planning to get rid of both him and the Durango kid.

Using marked bills, Steve is looking for the supposedly dead Henry Hardison. Coming to Bonanza Town he gets a job with the town boss Crag Bozeman and gets paid with marked bills. He suspects Hardison is Boseman's boss and he is right as Hardison and his men are now planning to get rid of both him and the Durango kid.

Starrett tries to prevent a range war between settlers and the Native Americans. Blue and his fellow scoundrels think they can profit from the bloodshed,but the Durango Kid along with a couple of precocious youngsters put an end to Blue's terrorism.

Fort Savage Raiders is another entry in Charles Starrett's "Durango Kid" western series. Starrett once again does double duty as a peacekeeper named Steve (this time his last name is Drake) and as masked avenger Durango. The heavy of the piece is escaped military prisoner Craydon (John Dehner) who, with several other fugitives from justice, forms an army of terrorists.

Ann Martin (Helen Walker) is serving time as a jewel thief. She is paroled and determined to stay clean. She quickly finds out that she was paroled by an old, vicious boss that has picked her for a job. It is dangerous for her to say yes or no.

Charles Starrett plays lawman Steve Forsythe in Ridin' the Outlaw Trail. Somewhere along the line, of course, Steve is obliged to don the mask of The Durango Kid, mysterious righter of wrongs. The "wrongs" in this instance include the theft of $20,000 in gold, and the "kidnapping" of a blacksmith's forge! Jim Bannon, who only a few months earlier had played the heroic Red Ryder, provides the villainy in this fast-paced "Durango Kid" entry

In Prairie Roundup, Fred F. Sears' direction brings a welcome jolt of vitality to Columbia's aging "Durango Kid" western series. Once again, Charles Starrett stars as Steve Carson, a lawman who is forced to assume the identity of masked do-gooder Durango. Framed for murder, Carson escapes to locate the real killer. It turns out that he was set up by cattle baron Buck Prescott (Frank Fenton), who eliminates competition by stealing livestock from other ranchers.

A young man tries to get rich by opening a diner. Comedy based on the popular comic strip.

Federal agent Steve Lawton works undercover with his assistant, Smiley Burnette, to track down an outlaw gang that is raiding government gold shipments bound for Fort Navajo.

The stooges are carpenters who are re-staining some furniture they've delivered to a boarding house. The plot gets complicated when the boys confront some crooks who are hiding out there. They defeat the bad guys with the help of the varnished furniture which sticks the head crook to a chair.

The Durango Kid rides again in Lightning Guns. As ever, the masked Durango (alias Steve Brandon) is played by Charles Starrett, who this time around is on the trail of a gang of cold-blooded killers. Rancher Dan Saunders (Edgar Dearing) is held responsible for the killings because of his opposition to a politically expedient dam project. Durango believes that Saunders is innocent, and he intends to prove it.

Charles Starrett, aka "The Durango Kid", is back in Raiders of Tomahawk Creek. Starrett plays Steve Blake, a novice Indian agent, sent out to investigate a series of mysterious murders.

Charles Starrett once more hits the trail as "The Durango Kid" in Columbia's Across the Badlands. By now, the formula was a well-oiled machine: Starrett becomes a lawman, is challenged by the local criminal element, and ultimately goes beyond the law as the masked Durango.

After committing a robbery, a man is inspired to confess by a lovely native girl he meets on a small island.

A prison warden fights to prove one of his inmates was wrongly convicted.

A Counterspy in the US military is killed under suspicious circumstances. His friend, Jerry Baldwin, a Navy Commander, is assigned to replace him and stop a saboteur in a torpedo factory.

Charles Starrett plays The Durango Kid in the 1950 Columbia western Texas Dynamo. As a novelty, Starrett not only plays Durango and his "alter ego" Steve Drake, but also takes on a third identity, that of a hired gun in the employ of the film's bad guys. As one critic noted, this may be the only western in which the hero is obliged to chase himself. Jock O'Mahoney -- later known as Jock Mahoney -- plays a secondary role, and also doubles for Starrett during the riskier stunt sequences.

The plot finds Steve/Durango attempting to capture ex-Civil War guerilla fighter Miller who may be the man who's been going around knocking down telegraph wires.

When Robin Grant inherits a valuable range, certain evil interests try their best to kill off Robin and claim the land for themselves. US Marshall Steve Saunders comes to the boy's rescue.

An American returns to Tokyo to try to pick up threads of his pre-World War II life there but finds himself squeezed between criminals and the authorities.

Wanted outlaws have mysteriously disappeared. Ranger Captain Henley and Steve have a plan to find them. Steve becomes a wanted man by faking the killing of Henley. Not only is he now in trouble as both the Rangers and the Mexican Rurales are after him, but Smiley knows him and may expose his masquerade to the bad guys.

When Steve Downey arrives to reopen his brother-in-law's gold mine, he finds a war between the ranchers and the miners. Ashton has had the water poisoned killing cattle. When Ashton's men find Steve's hat, they kill Tom Tavish and frame Steve for the murder. Escaping jail the Durango Kid goes into action.

A French soldier in the Napoleonic Wars plots his escape after he's captured and imprisoned in a castle fortress in Edinburgh, Scotland. Director Philip Rosen's 1949 film, adapted from a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, stars Richard Ney, Vanessa Brown, Henry Daniell, John Dehner, Douglas Walton, Aubrey Mather, Jean Del Val, Luis Van Rooten, Maurice Marsac and Billy Bevan.

Old Mike Brady built Brady Town and was a leader, but a bullet from an unknown assailant has ended his life. When the will is read, it leaves the bulk of the property to Kirk, the gambling son of Mike. This upsets Sam, the hard working son, but not gambler Full House who always beats Kirk at cards. But even the Sheriff is suspicious of the will, but he needs proof and the Durango Kid will find the proof.

Treasury Department officials recruit a florist (Raft) to lead them to a wanted criminal (Macready); but once he gets too close, he finds he's the hunted.

A major Indian uprising is expected and Wyoming military posts are alerted. Colonel Dennison is meeting with Chief Eagle and his son Running Wolf when Chief Eagle is mysteriously shot. Steve Holden, an agent for the government peace commission, with the aid of a wandering shoemaker, Smiley, discover the troubles and the Chief's murder have been instigated by Cronin, the regimental scout, for personal gain for he and his gang of outlaws.

Posing as unemployed musicians, Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys, are being helped by Ted Gibson owner of the Harmony Inn in San Antonio, Texas. Gibson is impoverished because he keeps buying his kleptomaniac Uncle Zeke out of trouble, supports his Ma, and Grandpa. He wants to marry Jean Wallace, and doesn't know that Acuff and his musicians are traveling incognito for the radio show "Who Am I Helping?" If he guesses their identity, he wins $100,000.

Silver is being smuggled across the border and the secret passage goes through Betty Long's basement. When Steve arrives he gets tangled up with the rustlers who are now going to have the Durango Kid to contend with.

A film director, in bad standing with his studio, tries to turn a local carnival dancer into a "French" movie star and pass her off as his big new discovery

Jenny Marsh is a hard-luck dame who's just finished five years in the slammer for killing a man. Jenny's not exactly the murdering type -- she did the deed while defending her jailbird lover, Harry, which is probably one reason she's attracted the attention of her parole officer, Griff Marat. In fact, Griff is so taken with Jenny that he gets her a job caring for his ailing mother, but although Jenny tries to fly right, she's not yet over Harry.

Country-western favorite Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys star in the Columbia musical western Smoky Mountain Melody. Not much happens plotwise: Acuff, playing "himself," is a tenderfoot who somehow manages to come out on top when he heads westward. The villains (who aren't all that villainous) try to promote a phony stock deal, but Roy and his pals foils their plans. The comedy honors go to Guinn "Big Boy" Williams as a blowhard sheriff. Smoky Mountain Melody was scripted by Barry Shipman, the son of pioneering female filmmaker Nell Shipman.

Danny Mitchell and his canine pal Rusty befriend blind girl Penny Moffatt. Feeling cheated by life, Penny resists all efforts to cope with her handicap. But with Rusty's help, the girl gains a new lease on life and agrees to adopt a seeing-eye dog.

In order to help neighboring Indians irrigate their farms, the Hotshots plan to put on a fair for tourists. But first they need $2000 for an advertising campaign, and the only way they can get it is to borrow it from a wealthy local woman, who has made it clear that she won't give them the money until Hezzie marries her.

It's 1873 and the disbanded Texas Rangers have been replaced by the corrupt Texas State Police. Steve Lanning arrives posing as a wanted outlaw to get in with them in his attempt to have them replaced. His inside work helps the Durango Kid break up the State Police raids but he is in trouble when his secret identity as Durango becomes known to them.

Author Robert Louis Stevenson takes a trip to Napa Valley, California, in 1880 and gets involved in the exploits of a stagecoach driver who captures a hooded highwayman called The Monk. Supposedly inspired by a true incident, this offbeat Western based on Stevenson's The Silverado Squatters is a dandy, high-spirited adventure yarn.

Blondie (Penny Singleton) finds a valuable watch that has been hidden by hubby Dagwood (Arthur Lake). She assumes that it's a surprise wedding gift, but the truth is that Dagwood has been guarding the watch on behalf of a client who bought the gift for his own wife. The snowballing comedy of errors eventually involves criminals who hope to snatch the watch for themselves. Blondie's Anniversary was the 22nd in Columbia's Blondie series.

Blondie #21: Blondie opens a bakery in her home to help fill the family cookie jar in this entry in the long-running domestic comedy series based on the popular comic strip. Her tasty cookies become so popular that a cookie magnate makes her an offer that is difficult to refuse. Unfortunately, this creates all kinds of problems for the Bumsteads.

Rival reporters (George Brent, Joan Blondell) investigate a Hollywood star (Adele Jergens) and the box she receives with a dead man inside.

Freight wagons are being stolen and ransomed back to their owners. Government agent Steve Langtry (and his alter ego the Durango Kid) is sent break up the Hood Gang that's behind the robberies.

Dagwood gets a raise due to a new contract with a bank manager. Blondie misunderstanding the amount of the raise pledges more than they can afford to Dagwood's high school reunion organizer who was also Dagwood's high school sweetheart. To make matters worse Dagwood becomes involved with a gang running a gambling establishment.

An errant mother tries to teach her daughter to avoid the same errors she made by choosing a different lifestyle.

Dagwood Bumstead (Arthur Lake) poses as his boss Mr. Dithers (Jonathan Hale) so that a big business deal can be consummated while Dithers avoids nearsighted process server Jim Gray (Shemp Howard). The upshot of all this is that Dagwood ends up in a lunatic asylum, forcing Blondie (Penny Singleton) to come to the rescue. Number 18 in the long running Blondie series. Blondie Knows Best was writer/director Edward Bernds' first entry in the long-running "Blondie" series, and arguably his funniest. Bernds was a big fan of comedian Shemp Howard (whom he'd directed in several Columbia 2-reelers) and accordingly he gives Shemp free reign in his scenes, resulting in some hystericially funny moments. Blondie Knows Best represented Jonathan Hale's farewell to the series; in the next entry, Blondie's Big Moment, he would be replaced by Jerome Cowan as Mr. Radcliffe