Merle Travis

Merle Travis took the experiences of his early years growing up in Muhlenberg County, Ky., to the national stage and rode the rising tide of country music’s popularity in the years following World War II. His considerable talents as a singer, songwriter, bandleader, and guitar-picking pioneer still reverberate in the heartbeat of American music today, more than three decades after his passing.

This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.

A singer determined to make it in country-western music lets nothing stand in his way, including stealing. The girl who loves him and a female preacher try to straighten him out and help him make it legitimately.

Originally a pilot for a series called "Gallaway House" that was never picked up. The patrons of a late-19th Century America theater flock to see the latest production, a Western tale of redemption. Johnny Laredo, a middle-aged gunfighter fleeing his many enemies by traveling at night, stops briefly at the campfire of Tim Dawson's team of cattle drivers for a cup of coffee and a bit of human companionship. Dawson offers Laredo a job, but Laredo is afraid to return to Wyoming where he killed a number of men. Stopping in a small Texas town for supplies before heading across the Mexican border, the gunfighter is forced to fight a inexperienced youngster trying to make a reputation and kills him. Even though he is acquitted, the gunfighter has had enough and returns to Dawson, accepts the job, and hopefully, the opportunity for redemption.

A guitar playing killer terrorizes a housewife while his partner robs the bank where her husband works.

In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.

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.

The Bronco Busters perform "Old Chisholm Trail."

The Bronco Busters perform "Silver Spurs."

Returning G.I. Curt Norton (Ken Curtis), owner of a radio station, finds his father Amos (Guy Kibbee) has allowed the station to run down and has squandered Curt's money in bad investments in war-surplus material. Eddie Jackson (Robert Kellard), who owns the rival station, is also attracted to Curt's sweetheart Jean White (Joan Barton). When Curt and the Hoosier Hotshots successfully stage an auction to raise money, Eddie hires Mimi Carston (Claudia Drake) to claim that Curt married her in France.

The cattle herds of some Arizona ranchers are being stampeded and stolen, so the Arizona Stockmen's Syndicate sends ace investigator Steve Reynolds in to find out who is responsible. Steve poses as a vicious gunslinger named Buck McCloud to work his way into the gang, and then becomes the Durango Kid to disrupt the activities he learns about. Jud Temple is the loyal fiancée of town banker Grat Hanlon who turns out to be the brain-trust behind the gang.

When Sheriff Jeff Connor of Powder River cannot stop the crime wave, his young son, Larry, writes to the Durango Kid for aid. Taggart, the saloon owner, is the secret head of the outlaws, while Connor's brother Bill is in cahoots with him. Steve Randall, the Durango Kid, and his pal, Smiley Butterbean, arrive in time to stop a stagecoach holdup, and Steve is made a deputy sheriff. Taggart has one of his men, Slade, pose as the Durango Kid and while he is speaking to the townspeople, the rest of the outlaw gang pillages the town, and this somewhat damages the Durango Kid in the eyes of Larry and his sister Doris. Steve suggests that Sheriff Connor visit the government about a railroad project, and Taggart instructs Slade and the gang leader to kill Connor on his trip back.

1945 Soundies musical short starring Merle Travis

A musical short.