D. Ross Lederman
Total Credits at Criticker: 70 (Director)
Find more information about D. Ross Lederman at The Internet Movie Database
Titles you haven't rated - Director (70)
Pecos Grant rides into a strange town only to find that everyone recognizes him, not as Pecos Grant, but as a presumed-dead man named Rawlings. Even Rawlings' wife thinks her husband has come back. Pecos sets out to solve the mystery. (imdb)
Eleanor and her parents are hunting big game, acompanied by her wimpish fiance. Ben lleu Bey wants to add her to his 100-woman harem. Tarzan wants her too. (imdb)
On the eve of his marriage, a young man's fiancée disappears. He hires a private detective to help him track her down, but soon finds himself entangled in a web of lies, intrigue and murder revolving around his fiancé's dead ex-husband and his wealthy, corrupt family. (imdb)
After Rob Russell steals Tim Clark's ranch, Clark starts prospecting for silver. (imdb)
Clint Turner is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Judy's father, a rival rancher who was an enemy of his own father. (imdb)
Steve Cochran stars as Sergeant Sully, the hard-bitten new leader of an arrogant, fiercely independent tank platoon. Despite protests from his commanding officer and his men, Sully runs the platoon ragged, teaching them the value of humility and teamwork under fire. The sergeant's training methods pay off during the 3rd Armored Division's assault into France in the summer of 1944. (allmovie.com)
Blackie performs in a magic show at a women's prison, which gives an inmate an opportunity to escape. (imdb)
Blackie tricks a blackmailer-murderer into a confession. Story involves sinister séances and ghostly apparitions. (imdb)
In this desert adventure, a cruel commander viciously rules a regiment of foreign legionnaires. They tire of his brutality and rebel, stranding the despot and his few loyal soldiers in the burning sands with a few supplies. The deposed commander vows that he will return to civilization and have his revenge. (allmovie.com)
John Rhodes (Gene Lockhart)hires private detective D. L. Trees (Jerome Cowan)to track down a talking blackbird owned by Fred Molner, who uses the bird as a means of blackmailing Rhodes. Molner has taught the bird to repeat "Don't kill me, Rhodes" in the event he is murdered by a member of a gambling syndicate he has defrauded. Going to Molner's apartment, Trees finds him murdered and his bodyguard, Ray Hickey (John Harmon), unconscious. (imdb)
A croupier is murdered in a Mexico City gambling casino and the Lone Wolf is suspected. Sharon Montgomery, wife of diamond merchant Charles Montgomery, becomes involved in a jewel heist, in which again the Lone Wolf is a suspect. (imdb)
Michael Landyard finds himself accused of stealing a valuable gem, and must find the real thief in order to clear his name. (imdb)
Ex-con Red O'Hara becomes a daring news photographer, but his old ways get him into trouble. (imdb)
Milton Higby, an inventor of gadgets that don't sell finds himself accused of a crime he didn't commit - the killing of a girl he had just met - and takes to the open road with the police in close pursuit.
A gambler comes into town to testify before the grand jury. He is killed by the mob before he can testify. Joe Geary (Kennedy) is fired from the police force for being soft on crime. This is a setup between him and the Police Chief so that Geary can infiltrate the gangsters. Geary then goes to prison when the police chief is killed. Geary escapes from prison and with the governor's help proves he is innocent and cleans up the mob. (imdb)
Bill saves his friend Larry from hanging and then tries to get him to join him in becoming a rancher. But Larry joins up with outlaw Carew and when Bill goes after him he accidentally shoots and kills Larry. Planning to marry Ann, Bill now hangs up his guns. But when Carew comes looking for him he straps on Larry's gun and heads out to meet him. (imdb)
Dale and sidekick 'Swede' break up a stage robbery only to be arrested for the robbery. Escaping to a new town they make an enemy of Moore. When the Sheriff arrives looking for the two, Moore and his men go after them planning to kill them. (imdb)
During the 1933-34 season, Columbia Pictures attempted to place its resident western star Tim McCoy in contemporary roles. Beyond the Law finds McCoy cast as a modern-day railroad detective. When ex-convict Addison Richards is framed for a train robbery, Richards' daughter Shirley Grey plays up to McCoy, hoping to throw him off the track (so to speak). McCoy falls in love with Grey, and sets about to prove her dad's innocence. (allrovi.com)
An actress is murdered in the midst of shooting a dance sequence for her latest picture, with Inspector Steve Trent on the case. (imdb)
Two young lawyers (Forrest Tucker and Lynn Merrick) open an office together. They are hired to defend a utilities magnate (Thurston Hall) who claims he has been framed. He is kidnapped by a gangster (Gerald Mohr), and a battle royal ensues when the lawyers try to rescue him. (imdb)
Before their shootout, Bagley removes the bullets from Madigan's gun. When the wounded Madigan recovers, he heads after Bagley. Finding him among DuSang's cattle rustlers, he goes after the entire gang. (imdb)
Framed by Major Jenkins, Capt. Travers is kicked out of the Army. When Travers, now living with the Indians, is captured by Jenkins, the Indians attack the fort. With his men greatly outnumbered Colonel Burke realizes that Travers is their only chance. (imdb)
Not knowing he has just been pardoned, Tim Benton escapes from prison. Capturing the newly arriving Marshal, he changes clothes with him only to be welcomed as the new Marshal. Taking the job, the two men that earlier had framed him for murder arrive and Tim now plans to clear his name. (imdb)
Ellery Richards, racing magnate, informs Mark MacArthur, head of the State Racing Commission detectives, that a ring of bookmakers and gangsters are in town betting heavily on the Richards' entry, Red Roger, and getting tremendous odds because the horse isn't conceded a chance. Richards also shows Mark that the horse occupying Red Roger's stall is a ringer. After questioning bookmaker Soapy Connor, Mark learns that the boss gambler is Larry Mann. (imdb)
Tom Ferguson, star left wing of the Indians hockey team, is killed during a game in an "accident" with Dick Adams and Bill Drake, two of his own teammates. His brother, Alec Ferguson, is not convinced it was and accident, and goes to New York to uncover the truth. Posing as a fellow townsman named Steve Moreau who is unable to accept an offer to play with the Indians because of an injury, Alec wins a place with the team. (imdb)
The fourth and last of Columbia's "Inspector Trent" mysteries, Girl in Danger once more stars Ralph Bellamy as the super-methodical Trent. The endangered girl is socialite Gloria Gale (Shirley Grey), who on a caprice steals a valuable emerald. Pursued by Inspector Trent, the playful Gloria leads the detective on a merry chase, apparently never realizing that Trent is merely trying to protect her from a murderous gang of jewel thieves. (allrovi.com)
Chester Morris plays a working stiff unable to provide for his family on his meager salary. He arranges a loan with the seemingly benign Leo Carrillo, but soon learns that he can't keep up with the usurious interest payments. Carrillo's loan company is actually a racket in league with the local crime organization; Morris gets in so deep that he can't get out, and before long his wife and daughter are in dire jeopardy. (allrovi.com)
A young man's father is murdered and the man convicted of the crime escapes prison, leaving a note intimating that seven local men know the real killer's true identity. The murdered man's son sets out to locate the seven men and find his father's slayer. (imdb)
Public Defender Gary Franklin, frustrated by being unable to save criminal Dutch Adams from a death sentence by blaming the slums environment as the cause of Dutch's crimes, enlists the aid of Dutch's sister, Marcia Adams, to get the slum dwellers at appeal for public monies to provide recreational places for the slum kids. (imdb)
Bob is the hotshot pilot for Trans America Lines. When he is not flying for the airlines, he can get into trouble doing aerobatics over the field. His main squeeze is Judy Wagner, a stewardess for the airlines. Tom Wagner, her younger brother has just started flying for the line. Tom & Bob are to fly on a secret mission to carry a scientist with a new high explosive mixture to Washington. Unfortunately the secretary to Mr. Lackey is working for a secret foreign power and hears about the flight. (imdb)
Five Allied soldiers in an airplane flying to Egypt crash-land in Iraq. They are taken in by a local sheik, but soon begin to suspect that he may not be quite as friendly as he appears to be. (imdb)
Winchellesque radio commentator Perry Travis (William Gargan) fancies himself a brilliant amateur detective; the cops wish he'd just stick to his microphone and let them do the detecting. This proves impossible when a famed scientist is murdered in Perry's studio, right in the middle of an interview. All the evidence points to Perry as the guilty party, which of course means that he isn't. (allmovie.com)
Dr. Steven Bishop is taken to the hideout of Frank Dillon and his gang to treat the wounded Joe Madison. Joe's nurse sister Nora Madison is also taken. Dillon tells Bishop that if Joe dies, he will be killed, but Bishop knows he will be either way. Joe dies, but Nora and Steve conceal it from Dillon and send a plea for help in a prescription that Bishop writes. (imdb)
A fast-talking Pitchman,Jim Keene, working the con-games on the streets, works himself up into an executive position of a large department store, with the aide of his shill, Mae. But the owner, Elmer Woods, of the department store has a blonde-beauty daughter, Peggy, who goes to work on him. (imdb)
Mrs. Daniels has been framed on a fraud charge and sent to prison. By bundling her son, Dinky, off to military school, she is able to keep her shame a secret from him. Upon learning the truth, our young hero voluntarily pulls out of the school and takes up residence in an orphanage. But now it's his turn to hide the truth from his mother, by pretending via correspondence that he's still a cadet in good standing. (imdb)
Successful small-town attorney William Emory (John Litel) and his wife Ruth (Frieda Inescort) look forward to the return of their son Bill Jr. (Billy Dawson) from military school -- the elder Emory, in particular, hopes that the school's strict disciplinary regimen has curbed some of his son's wilder, more rambunctious tendencies. Instead, Bill Jr. (allmovie.com)
The vice squad takes on escort services in this crime drama. Two services are depicted. One escort agency is legitimate, offering fine upstanding girls with no funny business. The other agency has a more tawdry reputation (though the none of the women there are prostitutes) and makes most of its money by blackmailing clients. The trouble begins when a basically good woman finds herself mixed up with the bad escort service. (allmovie.com)
Commando Captain Craig Killian, carrying important military information, is wounded and taken to a hospital on the South Coast of England, operated by Doctor Joseph Wolf. The hospital is really a blind used by Nazi spies working on wrecking the Home Defense of England. In order to discredit the information that Killian has, Wolf tells am important British official that Killian is suffering from shock and is not responsible for what he says. (imdb)
Buck Jones took a break from his cowboy duties to play a speedway driver in this highly implausible but fast-paced action melodrama from Columbia Pictures. Jones plays Bill Toomey, a mechanic promising a fatally injured driver (Pat O'Malley) to care for his crippled son Buddy (Mickey Rooney). (allmovie.com)
A newspaperman out to get the goods on a crooked politician winds up in jail, framed for a killing he didn't commit. He and another prisoner attempt an escape, but although the newspaperman gets away, his colleague is caught and returned to jail. Years later, the convict gets out of prison and winds up in the same town where his former cell-mate is now a respected citizen, and attempts to blackmail him. (imdb)
A police lieutenant sets out to break up a ring of tire bootleggers--criminals who sell defective tires to customers who can't get new ones because of the rubber shortage brought about by the war. His task is complicated by the fact that his brother is mixed up in the racket and that they are both in love with the same girl. (imdb)
Caught committing robbery, McKenna is kicked out of the Mounties. This lets him join the outlaw gang causing all the trouble. In the gang's next raid when only Pierre and Tom return, Tom is in trouble when Pierre gives a letter to his boss identifying Tom as being on a secret mission to bring in the gang and it's leader. (imdb)
Columbia Pictures attempted to duplicate the success of Monogram's "Bowery Boys" pictures with its 1950 programmer Military Academy with That Tenth Avenue Gang. Four tough-but-lovable juvenile delinquents are sent to military school but a tough-but-kindly judge. It is hoped that the school's regimen will straighten out the boys and send them down the right path in life. It does, but there are plenty of twists on that path along the way. (allmovie.com)
Ace returns to the town where he is suspected of murder. He quickly become involved in the scheme to keep Barbara Roberts from reaching her ranch. To inherit the ranch she must reach it by midnight. Ace agrees to get her there knowing she is the widow of the man he supposedly killed. (imdb)
Residents of a London boarding house come under suspicion during a string of murders.
A radio commentator turns sleuth in a case involving kidnap ransom, murder, and a mysterious five dollar bill. (imdb)
A gangster is drafted into the Army. He soon realizes how wrong his previous life was, and decides to help break up a black market ring he has discovered.
Gun to Gun (1944) - Short Film
Don is a large ranch owner, the guardian of a young American, Steve Randall. Steve has just delivered a large herd of cattle to the ranch, where Don has just found out that he must pay the local tax commissioner, Harkness a fine for unpaid taxes on a herd of over one-thousand cattle. Steve offers to drive the cattle to the commissioners office, even though he fells the fine is unjust. (imdb)
The plot is summed up by the title, as Rinty rescues heroine Audrey Ferris and hero Carroll Nye from all manner of desert dangers, both natural and man-made.
During World War I, Rin-Tin-Tin finds that he must rescue his master, a fighter pilot, from his wrecked aircraft. He also has to help him escape his rival, who has ordered him shot so he can have the girl they're competing for all to himself.
Bill Holmes ( Matty Kemp ) rescues Rinty ( Rin-Tin-Tin ) from a car wreck not realizing that there is a stolen $50,000 diamond necklace hidden in the dog's collar. He discovers this fact when he falls into the hands of a criminal gang. Mary French ( Evelyn Pierce ), a member of the gang but sick of it all, and Rinty help him escape, and with the reward money the young lovers begin their honeymoon.
The Gene Autry Show (1950) - TV Series
The already legendary singing cowboy rode with his comic pal Pat from town to town bringing justice, song and his horse Champion to the old Southwest.
Mining engineer John O'Hara (Victor Jory) is sent to Nevada to investigate why the construction of a tunnel is progressing too slowly. Using his fist to find many of the answers, he quickly becomes unpopular with the agenda-driven members of the construction crew who have been hired to sabotage the project. An investigative female newspaper reporter from Los Angeles, Ann Miller (Sally O'Neil), provides more complications and romance.
Susan Kent, hoping to establish herself as a song-plugger, tries to obtain a second song from a young songwriter, Johnny Crane, after his first song becomes a hit. While pursuing her objective, she falls in love with Johnny, and lands in jail, but she acquires the song, the job, and Johnny.
After getting in a fight in a waterfront café over a girl, Captain Ira "Hell-Ship" Morgan hires Jim Allen and they become good friends. Morgan befriends a desperate girl, Mary Taylor, and, out of gratitude, she agrees to marry him. Morgan gives her the magnificent Callao pearl as a wedding present. But Mary and Jim fall in love and are found together one night by a sailor, and Mary is forced to give him the pearl to keep him quiet. Morgan finds out about it.
Adoption of an orphan boy by a sergeant champion boxer leads to complications but ends happily.
An alcoholic attorney becomes embroiled in blackmail and murder when he continues to aid a falsely accused client.
In prison for a crime he didn't commit, Tim Richards has escaped and is now a cattle inspector. He is after the Wilder brothers who he thinks are rustling cattle. But when the Sheriff frames Tim for murder, Tim receives unexpected help fron the two brothers and now sets out after the Sheriff and his crooked cohorts.
After years of wandering, Tim returns to Sagebrush where he is suspected of murder and the conflict between him and Sheriff Hurley is reignited. After Tim beats Hurley in a wrestling match he goes to the bank to collect. But Hurley and banker Blackton, taking money from the bank, claim Tim robbed the bank.
During one blaze, Firefighters Tim and his partner Dave (Ward Bond) rescue pretty stenographer Judy (Evelyn Knapp). Falling in love with the girl, the boys try to save her from getting mixed up in an embezzlement scheme.
American reporters Helen Warnet and Jed Howard meet on a boat to Shangai unaware that Japan had just invade China and enemy spies are everywhere.
Ranchers and cattlemen take on a packing company and a dubious lawyer.
Set in Hong Kong on the eve of the Japanese invasion and a version of "The Second Floor Mystery (1930)", Jeff Hunter (Douglas Kennedy), a writer of pulp thrillers, tries to woo a reluctant Maria Calhoun (Lucille Fairbanks) by inventing a murder story in which he claims he was implicated.
Newcomer Torrent wins $500 from Olcott and $500 and a wild horse, by riding the horse, from Engle. Then loses the $1000 to Engle in a poker game. Torrent goes to work for Olcott. Torrent fights with Stark and Stark quits and goes to work for Engle. Rustlers are stealing horses. Carson suspects Olcott and Olcott suspects Carson. Sheriff prevents war between them. Torrent stops wild horse stampede. Starks spills beans on Engle. Torrent kills Engle and wins Patsy Olcott.
More a romantic melodrama than a true Western, this Buck Jones vehicle from Columbia starred Jones as Buck Randall, a carefree cowboy whose popularity with the local saloon girls becomes the talk of the town.
