The best David Brian’s movies

The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.

Boozy, brassy Apple Annie, a beggar with a basket of apples, is as much a part of downtown New York as old Broadway itself. Bootlegger Dave the Dude is a sucker for her apples -- he thinks they bring him luck. But Dave and girlfriend Queenie Martin need a lot more than luck when it turns out that Annie is in a jam and only they can help: Annie's daughter Louise, who has lived all her life in a Spanish convent, is coming to America with a Count and his son. The count's son wants to marry Louise, who thinks her mother is part of New York society. It's up to Dave and Queenie and their cronies to turn Annie into a lady and convince the Count and his son that they are hobnobbing with New York's elite.

When her husband dies en route to America, Martha Price and her daughter Hilary are left to carry out his dream: the introduction of Hereford cattle into the American West. They enlist Sam "Bulldog" Burnett in their efforts to transport their lone bull, a Hereford named Vindicator, to a breeder in Texas, but the trail is fraught with danger and even Burnett doubts the survival potential of this "rare breed" of cattle.

A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.

Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return.

Ex-gunfighter Ned Britt returns to Fort Worth after the civil war to help run a newspaper which is against ambitious men and their schemes for control.

Major Lex Kearney, dishonourably discharged from the army for cowardice in battle, volunteers to go undercover to try to prevent raids against shipments of horses desperately needed for the Union war effort. Falling in with the gang of jayhawkers and Confederate soldiers who have been conducting the raids, he gradually gains their trust and is put in a position where he can discover who has been giving them secret information revealing the routes of the horse shipments.

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

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.

Rosa, the self-serving wife of a small-town doctor, gets a better offer when a wealthy big-city man insists she get a divorce and marry him instead. Soon she demonstrates she is capable of rather deplorable acts -- including murder.

Brett Wade, gambler, gunslinger, and classical pianist, is wounded in a gunfight with the Ferris clan; the doctor finds signs of tuberculosis. En route to Colorado for his health, Brett stops in Socorro, New Mexico along with Ferris gunfighter Jimmy Rapp. Sheriff Couthen fears another shootout, but what Brett has in mind is saving waif-with-a-past Rannah Hayes from a life as one of Dick Braden's saloon girls.

Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.

A crime gang leader is losing her sight, so while her lover go into hiding, she checks in to the hospital for extensive surgery to recover her eyesight. There she is treated by a handsome young doctor, Ben Hellack. As expected not only the doctor successfully open her eyes, he also opened her heart for him.

A warden and his assistant clash over prison reform, triggering a violent riot.

After overcoming polio, Annette Kellerman achieves fame and creates a scandal when her one-piece bathing suit is considered indecent.

Director Peter Godfrey's 1950 drama, inspired by true events, dramatizes the crime spree of the notorious jewel thief known as "The Hollywood Raffles", whose famous robbery victims included such real-life celebrities as Joan Crawford, Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith and Dennis Morgan. David Brian stars in the title role, and he's supported by John Archer, Marjorie Reynolds, Jacqueline de Wit, Alix Talton, Ned Glass, Perdita Chandler and columnist Sheilah Graham, playing herself.

A young man seeks his father's killers among lumberjacks, and discovers that they are actually timber barons who also seek to control lumber mills. Based on the novel of the same name.

A ship of women embarks on a voyage to California. Director R. G. Springsteen's 1953 adventure drama stars Vera Ralston, David Brian, Virginia Grey, Charles Winninger, Veda Ann Borg and Hope Emerson.