Thomas Penick

A man who despises his upwardly mobile lawyer brother reluctantly agrees to be best man at his wedding.

The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.

Three showgirls on their way to Las Vegas have car trouble and are stuck all night out in the desert. The next morning cheerful Andre offers them help in fixing their car. However, Andre is really a maniac with a lot of family problems; his mother ran out on him when he was a child so now he keeps kidnapped women chained up in his barn and trains them to perform circus tricks. Andre's father is still around of course, but because the old homestead is next to a nuclear test site he has been transformed into a raving homicidal mutant that Andre keeps locked up in a shed.

An American Indian deputy sheriff is caught in the middle of a community dispute when the tribe tries to save an historic mission from a housing developer. This TV pilot film was an ABC Movie of the Week and later became a TV series.

A well-meaning but stupid ex-convict is drawn into a get-rich scheme that could result in his imprisonment.

A black man plays Uncle Tom in order to gain access to CIA training, then uses that knowledge to plot a new American Revolution.

It seems that masked men are knocking over the floating crap games of Chalky and Pete. Chalky and Pete hire the cool, loose, elegant Mr. T to fix things. Then, the masked manipulators set up the death of a collector for a rival gang lord. It looks like it's up to T to hold a gang war from breaking out, keep the police off his back, and earn his fee from Chalky and Pete.

An improvised late '60's short-subject student film, and debut movie of Charles Burnett; done in the neo-realist, documentary film style. A day-in-the-life South Central L.A. tale about a rag-tag group of unemployed black male pals.

Filmmaker Thomas Penick explores race, gender and violence in this provocative, disturbing drama set on a hot, summer day in 1969. When a woman accepts a ride from two men at the corner of Western and Adams, the encounter quickly turns ugly, venturing into painful, surreal territory.

Filmmaker Thomas Penick explores race, gender and violence in this provocative, disturbing drama set on a hot, summer day in 1969. When a woman accepts a ride from two men at the corner of Western and Adams, the encounter quickly turns ugly, venturing into painful, surreal territory.

Filmmaker Thomas Penick explores race, gender and violence in this provocative, disturbing drama set on a hot, summer day in 1969. When a woman accepts a ride from two men at the corner of Western and Adams, the encounter quickly turns ugly, venturing into painful, surreal territory.