Jack Elam
Colorful American character actor equally adept at vicious killers or grizzled sidekicks. As a child he worked in the cotton fields. He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant and, at one time, manager of the Bel Air Hotel. Elam... Read full bio →
Featured Characters
Roles you can spot in Whatthemovie snapshots
Rawhide
1951
Suburban Commando
Shep Ramsey is an interstellar hero, righting wrongs, etc. His ship is damaged after a fight with an interstellar nasty and he must hide out on Earth until it can recharge. He leaves his power suit at home, but still finds himself unable to allow wrongs to go unrighted and so mixes it up with bad drivers, offensive paperboys, muggers and the like.
The Giant of Thunder Mountain
A mountain man is falsely accused of the murder of his parents.
Once Upon a Texas Train
An outlaw and a Texas Ranger Captain have a life-long personal feud, but twenty years later, with old-age settling in, they must put their differences aside in order to face the latest Texas problem, the youngest generation of outlaws.
Hawken's Breed
Hawken is a rugged drifter and loner who meets and comes to rescue a young Shawnee woman, named Spirit in 1840s Tennessee, whom he leaves after saving her from a rouge group of Shawnee Indians.
Cannonball Run II
The original characters from the first Cannonball Run movie complete in an illegal race across the country once more in various cars and trucks.
The Cannonball Run
A wide variety of eccentric competitors participate in a wild and illegal cross-country car race.
The Villain
The cowboy Handsome Stranger will escort miss Charming Jones to get a large sum of money from her father, Parody Jones. But the rich Avery Jones wants to lay his hands on the money and hires and old cowboy, Cactus Jack, to rob them when they ride back from her father. However, Cactus Jack is not very good at robbing people.
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again
Amos and Theodore, the two bumbling outlaw wannabes from The Apple Dumpling Gang, are back and trying to make it on their own. This time, the crazy duo gets involved in an army supply theft case -- and, of course, gets in lots of comic trouble along the way!
Hot Lead and Cold Feet
This saga of the old west involves twin brothers who compete for possession of a rickety cow town founded by their father while a crooked Mayor tries to put an end to the competitors so he can inherit the town himself.
Creature from Black Lake
When the word gets out of a mysterious Bigfoot-type creature, two researchers come to a small town to study and hopefully discover the true nature of the beast. With some help from the locals, the two men to learn that the creature may be a very angry and murderous missing link.
A Knife for the Ladies
A mutilating knife-killer haunts the small Southwest-desert town of Mescal. Though most victims have been prostitutes, the first was none other than Travis Mescal, the only son of the town's first family. When the Sheriff proves unable to solve the case, the town leaders invite Investigator Burns to unravel the mystery.
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
An aging Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons--his sole purpose being to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid.
Support Your Local Gunfighter
A con artist arrives in a mining town controlled by two competing companies. Both companies think he's a famous gunfighter and try to hire him to drive the other out of town.
Hannie Caulder
After she's raped by the outlaw trio who murdered her husband, a frontierswoman hires a bounty hunter to instruct her in the ways of a gun in order to exact her revenge.
The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County
When the town's sole blacksmith vows to leave because he was stood up by his mail-order bride from the East, the panicked townsfolk scramble to find him a surrogate wife.
Rio Lobo
After the Civil War, Cord McNally searches for the traitor whose perfidy caused the defeat of McNally's unit and the loss of a close friend.
Dirty Dingus Magee
Dirty Dingus Magee and his old rival Hoke Birdsill take turns at being either lawman or outlaw and being rivals or partners in crime, depending of the circumstances.
Support Your Local Sheriff!
In the old west, a man becomes a Sheriff just for the pay, figuring he can decamp if things get tough.
Never a Dull Moment
When practicing for a role, actor Jack is mistaken for the killer Ace. He doesn't realize this until it's too late and is carried off to gangster boss Leo Smooth, who wants Ace to do a job for him. Fearing for his life, Jack plays his role, but always searching for a way out of the well-guarded house.
Firecreek
A peace-loving, part-time sheriff in the small town of Firecreek must take a stand when a gang of vicious outlaws takes over his town.
C'era una volta il West
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.
The Way West
In 1843, a former U.S. Senator leads a wagon train of settlers to Oregon, but his megalomania leads to growing dissatisfaction with his leadership.
The Rare Breed
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.
The Night of the Grizzly
Marshall "Big Jim" Cole turns in his badge and heads to Wyoming with his family in order to settle on some land left him by a relative. He faces opposition both from a neighbor who wants that land for his own sons, and from a grizzly bear nicknamed "Satan" who keeps killing Cole's livestock.
4 for Texas
Frank Sinatra plays a tough guy who hooks up with fellow rat packer Dean Martin to open a casino in this western.
The Last Sunset
At a Mexican ranch, fugitive O'Malley and pursuing Sheriff Stribling agree to help rancher Breckenridge drive his herd into Texas where Stribling could legally arrest O'Malley, but Breckenridge's wife complicates things.
The Comancheros
Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.
Pocketful of Miracles
How can a drunken beggar in just one night become a High-Society woman? This type of thing only happens in fairytales. Or maybe in Hollywood.
Edge of Eternity
Helped by socialite Janice Kendon and barkeeper Scott O'Brien, Arizona deputy sheriff Les Martin works to solve three brutal murders in and around the Grand Canyon. His efforts leads to the killer fleeing with Janice as a hostage and a chase by car and helicopter lead to a climax on a miner's bucket on cables a mile above the canyon floor.
Night Passage
Grant MacLaine, a former railroad troubleshooter, lost his job after letting his outlaw brother, the Utica Kid, escape. After spending five years wandering the west and earning his living playing the accordion, he is given a second chance by his former boss.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Doc Holliday form an unlikely alliance which culminates in their participation in the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Baby Face Nelson
Famed Depression-era gangster “Baby Face Nelson” robs and kills while accompanied by his beautiful moll.
Pardners
Rich momma's boy Wade Kingsley Jr. an Eastern dude, tries to follow in his murdered father's footsteps by returning to the West to partner up with Slim Moseley Jr.,the son of his father's former partner.
Jubal
A new foreman rejects the sexual advances of a frustrated rancher's wife, which leads to conflicts that could get him killed.
Wichita
In 1874, after noticing the total lawlessness in Wichita, Wyatt Earp reluctantly accepts the Marshal's job and runs into the worst local troublemakers.
The Man from Laramie
Newcomer Will Lockhart defies the local cattle baron and his sadistic son by working for one of his oldest rivals.
Tarzan's Hidden Jungle
Hunters trespass into Sukulu country, where animals are sacred, posing as photographers.
Moonfleet
set in the eighteenth century, the film is about John Mohune, a young orphan, played by Jon Whiteley, who is sent to the Dorset village of Moonfleet to stay with an old friend of his mother's, Jeremy Fox. Fox, played by Stewart Granger, is a morally ambiguous character, an elegant gentleman involved with smugglers and pirates.
Man Without a Star
Man Without a Star is a 1955 western film starring Kirk Douglas as a wanderer who gets dragged into a range war. It was based on the novel of the same name by Dee Linford.
Kiss Me Deadly
One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies.
Artists and Models
Rick Todd uses the dreams of his roommate Eugene as the basis for a successful comic book.
Vera Cruz
After the American Civil War, mercenaries travel to Mexico to fight in their revolution for money.
The Far Country
A self-minded adventurer (Jeff Webster) locks horns with a crooked lawman (Mr. Gannon) while driving cattle to Dawson.
Ride Clear of Diablo
A young railroad surveyor returns to his hometown to find the man who murdered his father and brother. Director Jesse Hibbs' 1954 western stars Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, Susan Cabot, Paul Birch, Denver Pyle, Jack Elam, William Pullen, Russell Johnson, Abbe Lane, James Griffith and Hank Patterson.
Cattle Queen of Montana
Sierra Nevada Jones must fight a villainous rancher to regain the land that is rightfully hers.
Gun Belt
Outlaw Matt Ringo escapes prison and wants to co-opt his former outlaw brother Billy into robbing a Wells Fargo money shipment, but Billy has gone straight, the town Marshal is Wyatt Earp, and the Clinton gang wants in on the deal.
Appointment in Honduras
A wealthy American couple are hostages on an arduous jungle journey.
The Battle at Apache Pass
When Cochise bands together with Geronimo and other Indian tribes, Major Colton abandons his fort, heading towards Fort Sheridan, through Apache Pass. The only thing in his way are the Indians he used to call his friends.
Rancho Notorious
A cowboy infiltrates a bandit hideout in search of his girlfriend''s killer.
Kansas City Confidential
An ex-convict sets out to uncover who framed him for an armored car robbery.
High Noon
High Noon is about a recently freed leader of a gang of bandits in the desert who is looking to get revenge on the Sheriff who put him in jail. A legendary western film from the Austrian director Fred Zinnemann.
Rawhide
A stagecoach stop employee and a stranded woman traveller find themselves at the mercy of four desperate outlaws intent on robbing the next day's gold shipment.
Bird of Paradise
An island Princess falls for a visiting Frenchman, but her people are against it.
One Way Street
After stealing a gangster's money and his girlfriend, a doctor heads for a small village in Mexico to hide out.
A Ticket to Tomahawk
In 1876 Colorado, the Tomahawk and Western Railroad is expanding through the Rockies but some stagecoach operators, fearing a loss of revenue, plan to sabotage the railroad.
Wild Weed
A chorus girl's career is ruined and her brother is driven to suicide when she starts smoking marijuana.