Oliver Drake
Writing
Biography
Oliver Drake was an American screenwriter and director, primarily known for his contributions to the Western genre. Over his career, he wrote and directed numerous low-budget Westerns, including Today I Hang (1942). Drake's work was instrumental in shaping the B-Western film landscape during the 1930s and 1940s.
Known For

Cheyenne Bodie was a big man, a former army scout who went west after the American Civil War and drifted from job to job, here a cowboy, there a lawman, and always a larger-than-life hero. CHEYENNE is an American western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season. It was also the first series to be made by a major Hollywood film studio which did not derive from its established film properties, and the first of a long chain of Warner Brothers original series produced by William T. Orr.
Cheyenne

Western von gestern is a German television series.
Western von gestern

Curly Blake, nephew and heir of wealthy Red Rock rancher Jed Gordon, persuades his uncle not to invest in a crooked land scheme promoted by former judge Harmon Steele and his secretary Lem Martin.
Lawless Code

Oh, Susanna! is a 1936 American Western musical film directed by Joseph Kane and starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, and Frances Grant. Written by Oliver Drake, the film is about a cowboy who is robbed and then thrown from a train by an escaped murderer who then takes on the cowboy's identity.
Oh, Susanna

A federal agent infiltrates an outlaw band that's taken over a western town.
Arizona Legion

A cowboy on the run from the law gets mixed up with a crooked horse race scheme.
The Texan

Two ex-cons plan to kill the range rider marshal who sent them to prison and, when their plan fails, join forces with their former boss, a crooked saloon owner who has the same idea.
Forbidden Trails

Doris Rogers, half owner of a dude ranch, as Jimmy Wakely, "Lasses" White and Dusty Smith to help run it. U.S. Marshal Tom Logan, posing as a stage driver, is killed during a mock holdup of new arrivals to the ranch. Brenda Amers and Horatio Pennypacker, eastern jewel thieves, bring their loot to Roy Williams, who owns the other half of the ranch as a blind for his gang which resells stolen jewels. Vaughn, the desk clerk, re-cuts the jewels in a secret room in the ice house. Fearing he will be caught, Brenda refuses Williams her stolen diamonds and hides them in a bar of soap.
Saddle Serenade

A cattleman's association hires a range detective to track down and capture a notorious rustler known as El Lobo.
Lawless Valley

After being buried in quicksand for the past 25 years, Kharis is set free to roam the rural bayous of Louisiana, as is the soul of his beloved Princess Ananka, still housed in the body of Amina Mansouri, who seeks help and protection at a swamp draining project.
The Mummy's Curse

A cavalry officer, the sole survivor of an Indian attack, and a wagon load of prisoners travel through hostile Indian country.
Dragoon Wells Massacre

Ted Hayden impersonates a wanted man and joins Gentry's gang only to learn later that Gentry was the one who killed his father.
West of the Divide

In this western, two cowboys go to buy fresh horses for the cavalry and end up taking on two badguys and a female vigilante.
Oklahoma Raiders

Believing they can make a ton of money, a gang of opportunists uses the country's racial and ethnic tensions to start a Ku Klux Klan-type organization.
Nation Aflame

A cowboy drifting around the border gets mixed up with Mexican revolutionary gun smuggling when he becomes friends and rivals with the chief smuggler.
Border Guns

A shy horticulturist becomes involved with a local criminal in the old west.
Shut My Big Mouth

U. S. Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie and Sandy Hopkins come upon an overturned stagecoach with the driver and the passenger dead. They learn that the passenger, Hinkley, an archaeologist, has discovered an old Indian site that contains gold relics, and a gang has robbed him of the relics he was carrying. Jane Condon, daughter of Hinkley's partner who was also murdered, tells Nevada that an old Indian guide, Shag, is the only one who knows where the site is. The outlaws find Shag first, and kill him after forcing the information from him. Hinkley's son, Joel, arrives and knows where the site is and leads Nevada and Sandy there ahead of the outlaws.
Gun Smoke

All the passengers on an airplane headed for San Francisco are drugged, and when they wake up, it is discovered that a quarter-million dollars is missing. Charlie Chan--and, of course, his #1 son--must discover the identity of the person who doped the passengers and stole the money.
Sky Dragon

The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.
Riders of Death Valley

Gene and Frog arrive with a herd of horses for Gene'e brother, a diamond prospector whose work has attracted the interest of a bunch of badguys.