One of the most enjoyable things about our Western Night gatherings is watching a film that defeats expectations. Kirk Ellis did just that with THE PROUD REBEL (1958). It’s not about an ex-confederate still fighting the Civil War. Rather, it concerns a confederate who’s accepted the war is over and comes to Illinois trying to find a cure for his mute young son.

This time it was my turn to select the film for our Western Night gathering and I chose OLD HENRY released back in October of this year.

It was Johnny Boggs’s turn to select the film for this Western Night session and he chose a surprising silent released in 1920 called THE DAUGHTER OF DAWN, a film about Native Americans with a cast of all Native Americans, namely Kiowas and Comanches.

For our latest Western Night gathering, Robert Nott brought AMBUSH AT TOMAHAWK GAP (1953), a breakneck-paced B Western, the kind that made Saturday afternoon matinees so much fun. Avarice and determination drive this movie about four prisoners...

For our October gathering David Morrell brought LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL (1959). It’s a tension-filled tale about Marshal Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas) out to arrest the two men who raped and killed a woman.

For our Western Night session this month, Sheila Ellis chose THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO, an astonishing film inspired by a true story of a woman, shunned by her family for having an illegitimate child, who came West and, in order to survive, dressed...