Two old films to identify from sketchy memories please

[Spaceport]

I have very early memories of two unrelated old films that I've never seen since and have always wondered what they were. The films must have been made in the 1950s or 60s and were shown on television around 1970.

The first is some kind of modern-day western where a man (cowboy/Mexican?) has to make a long journey on a horse but just as he's about to get there he's hit and killed by a car while crossing a road.

The other film is very vague but might be a World War 2 film. A man is camped in the jungle with a group of others but when he wakes up one morning they've all left and he is alone.

Any ideas on these?

[Moor Larkin]

The first one sounds like that one starring Kirk Douglas. He's a sort of cowboy out of his time, trying to come to terms with the world, and just as you think he might, he gets hit by a truck....... google tells me it was called "Lonely are the Brave".

[Spaceport]

I've just looked at the wikipedia entry for this film and I think you might be right. Thanks.

[woody123]

i'm sure it is Lonely Are The Brave.It's been shown twice by BBC2 over the last year or so.Also starring Walter Matthau as the sheriff chasing Kirk(in a jeep not on horseback).Well worth watching when it pops up again when there's no horse racing/rowing/darts or whatever to inflict on us on a Saturday afternoon.

[Spaceport]

A jeep? My memory must have got distorted. I seem to have missed this film when its been on over the years.

[woody123]

Yep,Matthau is chauffered around in pursuit of Douglas in a WW2 vintage jeep.The film is set in the late 50's/early 60's.Carroll O'Connor is the truck driver who eventually runs down Kirk and his horse.I have the film on dvd-r and don't know of another which has a plot and ending similar.

The second film may be Ambush Bay with Mickey Rooney which was made in the early 60's.Rooney is one of a squad of US soldiers/marines .I believe he is left/stays behind alone to hold off the advancing Japanese so that his comrades can escape.I saw this as a supporting program at the cinema many years ago and as far as I know it hasn't been on tv.

[wadsy]

Another suggestion for the second film is "No Man is an Island" 1962 where Jeffrey Hunter plays George Tweed who

was the only American GI left on Guam who hadn't been captured by the Japanese.

[filmman79th]

It's the clash of horse and jeep that makes "Lonely are the Brave" so interesting. Douglas is a man who can't fit into contemporary times and does things the old-fashioned way. It's quite a good film.

[Big Figure]

Another suggestion for number two is Papillon.

[cassidy]

I wonder if the second one is "The Purple Plain" with Gregory Peck ?.

[Spaceport]

Thanks for these ideas. All new films to me apart from Papillon. I've had a look at the outlines of them. Hard to say as my little memory is so sketchy and might have taken a scene out of context, but Purple Plain or No Man is an Island look the most liklely.

[awinson]

That's the one.