Disturbed by the separation of his friends Mary Smith and Arthur Saxon, who really love each other, William "Red" Saunders resolves to reconcile the couple. Discovering that Belknap, a missionary with political aspirations, exercises a destructive hypnotic influence over Mary, Red schemes to eliminate Belknap.
For Nita Valyez, who is half-Spanish and half-Irish, Carlos represents potential violence and danger, two things to which she is both attracted and repelled. In contrast, she has only a passing interest in Big Jim, the town's honest, good-hearted sheriff. Then, after Carlos kills a faro dealer, he forces Nita to make an escape with him.
Bradley and sidekick Sharpe are sent west to investigate the murders of pony express riders who are being killed to prevent the Spanish Land Grant papers going to Washington for registration.
John Oakhurst, a gentleman gambler, befriends Sandy Morton, who has dissipated his birthright through gambling and excessive drinking and dropped from his father's sight. Although Oakhurst soon takes Sandy's place in the affections of his father, he boards a train heading West and meets Pritchard, an alcoholic, and his wife, the Duchess. Pritchard is wanted by the law and Oakhurst helps him to escape detectives who are on his trail.
Ibrahim Shaddad’s graduation film Jagdpartie (1964), which he shot at the Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst Potsdam-Babelsberg (now: Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF), is a treatise on racism. Shot in a forest in Brandenburg, it uses a Western look to portray the hunt for a Black man.
Private Frank Austin, imprisoned for striking Colonel Kincaid, who was abusing a lame newsboy, escapes to Colorado. Meanwhile, Latin professor Thomas Doyle, his wife Mary and sister Kitty also move to Colorado because of Mrs. Doyle's health and are persuaded by Kincaid to buy a ranch that is worthless because it has no irrigation. While Mrs. Doyle gets well and Doyle's funds run out, Austin, on land bordering Doyle's, strikes gold and is blackmailed by Kincaid to let him have a controlling interest.
Harley Hennage, a gambler, loves Marie but remains silent when he realizes that she is in love with Oliver Corblay, a prospector. After Corblay and Marie marry, Harley moves to the distant town of San Pasqual and does not see his old sweetheart until her husband is killed while staking a claim in the desert.
Arizona range rider Lon Gilchrist helps stagecoach passengers fight off attacking Apaches. After rescuing a baby and binding her bleeding forehead with his handkerchief, Lon receives a reward that allows him to buy a ranch. Many years later, the rescued child, Lizzie Mayberry, is a waitress in a cheap restaurant, where she meets Lon, who, now wealthy, courts and marries her. Because he is so busy, Lon has his friend Del Beasley look after her. After a misunderstanding, Lizzie has Del take her to the railway station. Thinking that they left together, Lon pursues them.
Setting West was made using original printing materials from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as wood type, borders and stereotypes of “Cowboys and Indians”, trains and bison. These words and images were printed directly onto 35mm clear film stock at eminent letterpress studios in North America: the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, the Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago, the Hatch Show Print in Nashville and the Musée de l’imprimerie du Québec & Lovell Litho in Montréal. Judith Poirier printed 1,643 feet of film to produce her abstract western and her technique of printing onto celluloid creates a unique texture on screen, as well as generating an original soundtrack. Setting West reinterprets a classic cinematic genre while exploring a formative period in the history of typography and printing.
Lassiter quits the Texas Rangers and spends his life in pursuit of a group of Mormons who kidnapped his married sister. In a town on the Utah border, he meets the Withersteens and falls in love with their daughter, Jane. He also befriends Venters, and helps him track down some bandits who have been rustling the Withersteens' cattle.
Cheyenne Jones comes to the Blue River Ranch and asks for a job as a cowpuncher. Actually, Jones's real name is Buck McCloud and he's the new owner of the spread, having inherited it when his uncle died a year earlier. He's roaming the range incognito while trying to identify who's behind the cattle rustling that is afflicting his new business.
When a little girl's family is assassinated in the unforgiving Orient City, the broken down, opium-addicted Ronin charged with protecting her sets out to exact brutal revenge on those responsible.
After Daisy (Cierra Ramirez) gets kicked out of a cult for exposing the leader's corruption, she teams up with a vagabond named Ace (Jeff Wittek) to seek revenge.
Witless bounty hunters Stokely and Carmichael try to win a horse so they might actually catch some criminals - but the old west is a wild and wistful place. Perfect for a couple of goofballs.