In 1825, English peer Lord John Morgan is cast adrift in the American West. Captured by Sioux Indians, Morgan is at first targeted for quick extinction, but the tribesmen sense that he is worthy of survival. He eventually passes the many necessary tests that will permit him to become a member of the tribe.
In 1866, a new gold discovery and an inconclusive conference force the U.S. Army to build a road and fort in territory ceded by previous treaty to the Sioux...to the disgust of frontier scout Jim Bridger, whose Cheyenne wife led him to see the conflict from both sides. The powder-keg situation needs only a spark to bring war, and violent bigots like Lieut. Rob Dancy are all too likely to provide this. Meanwhile, Bridger's chance of preventing catastrophe is dimmed by equally wrenching personal conflicts. Unusually accurate historically.
Lance Caldwell, a cavalry lieutenant, recounts his efforts to make peace with the Seminole Indian tribe, under an evil major.
The U.S. Army takes over a large area of land, over the objection of citizens and corporations who live and work there.
Lord John Morgan has returned to civilized life in England, but finds he has nothing but disdain for that life. Yearning to embrace the simplicity of the American West-and the Yellow Hands Sioux tribe he left behind, Morgan returns to the tribe's land only to discover that they've been decimated by ruthless, government-backed fur traders. Led by Horse, they fight to repossess their land.
Shunka Wakan, formerly Lord John, helps his Dakota son defend their tribe against gold rushers.
Kansas, 1868. A wagon train is attacked by a band of Lakota Sioux led by the young and athletic warrior Tokalah. The attractive, red haired Anna Brewster-Morgan and her friend Sarah White are on this wagon train too. When Tokalah noticed a terrified Anna with a Bible, he thinks this is an omen. Despite killing the other passengers of the wagon train, only Anna and Sarah may continue their voyage. The next day Anna and Sarah are kidnapped by Tokalah. At first terrified of her captors, the unhappily married Anna eventually falls in love with the noble, honorable Tokalah. After a year's captivity, Sarah is returned to her own people. Anna now must choose between her new life with Tokalah and her previous existence as the wife of farmer Daniel Morgan.
The only white survivor of a Crow Indian raid on a wagon train is a young boy. He is rescued by the Sioux, and the Sioux chief raises him as an Indian in very way. Years later, the white men and the Sioux threaten to go to war and the Indian-raised white man is torn between his racial loyalties and his adopted tribe.
Long before Hollywood started painting white men red and dressing them as 'Injuns' Edison's company was using the genuine article! Featuring for what is believed to be the Native Americans first appearance before a motion picture camera 'Buffalo Dance' features genuine members of the Sioux Tribe dressed in full war paint and costume! The dancers are believed to be veteran members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Filmed again at the Black Maria studios by both Dickson and Heise the 'Buffalo Dance' warriors were named as Hair Coat, Parts His Hair and Last Horse. Its quite strange seeing these movies at first they all stand around waiting to begin and as they start some of the dancers look at the camera in an almost sad way at having lost their way of life.
From Edison films catalog: One of the most peculiar customs of the Sioux Tribe is here shown, the dancers being genuine Sioux Indians, in full war paint and war costumes. 40 feet. 7.50. According to Edison film historian C. Musser, this film and others shot on the same day (see also Buffalo dance) featured Native American Indian dancers from Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and represent the American Indian's first appearance before a motion picture camera.
Not long after the Civil War, Texas cattle ranchers realize they have a problem--the Union Pacific railroad is bypassing their state and make it near impossible to get their cattle to market. Many ranchers are being forced to sell their land, and crooked state treasure Marvin Fletcher buys up the land at pennies on the dollar. However, Laguna del Sol Ranch owner Taisie Lockhart and her ranch hands are holding out. Cowboy Dan McMasters returns to the ranch and tries to rekindle his romance with Taisie, but she rejects him because he fought for the North during the war. But what she doesn't know is that Dan is on an undercover mission from the President to investigate Fletcher, and in order to do that he has to pretend to be sympathetic to Fletcher and goes to work for him, angering Taisie even more. Complications ensue.
One-time cavalry officer Rex Allen, between jobs as a star rodeo rider, is asked by his former commanding officer, Colonel Bigelow, to help settle a dispute between the army and local ranchers. The cavalry has commandeered a large parcel of land needed to test their newly-designed tank and prominent rancher Jenson has encited the locals to rebel at this intrusion. It is up to Rex and his sidekick, Slim, to thwart Jenson and convince the residents that these army tests are essential.
Story concerns the efforts of Buffalo Bill to protect the Indian's land from a gang who want to get the gold buried there. The outlaws disguise themselves as Indians and raid and plunder the settlers in order to blame the tribe.
Smoky Gap Railroad president Murray Lemantier is fed up with a bandit gang led by Buck Andrade constantly holding up his train and getting away with it. He hires ace detective David Cassidy to track down and get Buck, dead or alive. However, when Buck goes to see his dying mother she makes him promise to reform, and he does. Cassidy, though, doesn't care about that and tries to arrest him. Buck decides to do something that will once and for all show everyone that he has indeed reformed--especially Faith Lawson, a pretty station agent he's in love with.
In California in 1848, Brunton through his stooge Sheriff is evicting the Mexicans from their ranches. Major John Freeman and his troops arrive to investigate. Keeping his troops hidden and appearing out of uniform, he takes up the fight against Brunton. He helps a rancher who has been evicted before his taxes were due only to find him murdered and this leads to the showdown between Brunton's men and the soldiers.
Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.
A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.
12 American military prisoners in World War II are ordered to infiltrate a well-guarded enemy château and kill the Nazi officers vacationing there. The soldiers, most of whom are facing death sentences for a variety of violent crimes, agree to the mission and the possible commuting of their sentences.
French nuclear tests irradiate an iguana into a giant monster that viciously attacks freighter ships in the Pacific Ocean. A team of experts, including Niko Tatopoulos, conclude that the oversized reptile is the culprit. Before long, the giant lizard is loose in Manhattan as the US military races to destroy the monster before it reproduces and it's spawn takes over the world.
John Rambo is released from prison by the government for a top-secret covert mission to the last place on Earth he'd want to return - the jungles of Vietnam.