Steve Forrest Movies
The younger brother of actor Dana Andrews, Steve Forrest served in World War II while his brother (17 years Steve's senior) was starring in such films as The Purple Heart (1944) and Laura (1944). Upon his return to America, Steve went to Hollywood to pay a social call on Dana, decided he liked the movie colony, and opted to stick around for a while. Though he'd previously played bits in such films as Crash Dive (using his given name of William Andrews), Forrest never seriously considered acting as a profession until enrolling at UCLA. He tried regional theatre work and scriptwriting then received a brief but showy bit part in MGM's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). This led to further film work in second leads then several years' worth of villainous roles. When asked why he accepted so many bad-guy assignments, Forrest would cite the comment once made to him by Clark Gable: "The hero gets the girl but the heavy gets the attention". By 1969, however, Forrest felt as though he'd worn out his welcome as a heavy, and began regularly turning down roles, holding out for heroic parts. In 1975, he was cast as Lieutenant Dan "Hondo" Harrison on the popular TV action series S.W.A.T., which might have run for years had it not been axed under pressure from the anti-violence brigades. More recently, Steve Forrest lampooned his rugged, rough'n'ready image in the 1987 film comedy Amazon Women of the Moon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Clark Johnson's big-screen adaptation of the 1970s television series S.W.A.T. stars Colin Farrell as Jim Street, a young special weapons and tactics team member who, in the film's opening sequence, is demoted after his hothead partner Jeremy Renner shoots a hostage while trying to kill her captor. In need of good press, the higher-ups call in SWAT expert Hondo Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) to put together an elite team that can bring some luster back to the badge. He chooses Street, veteran T.J. (Josh Charles), and tough single mother Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez). The new team survives a series of tests before hitting the streets. Their first big assignment involves transporting an international criminal (Olivier Martinez) to federal authorities. The criminal had offered a hundred million dollars to anyone who can bust him out. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, (more)
- 1996
Appointed honorary commodore of the World's Cup Regatta, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) bears witness to the intense rivalry between yachtsmen Kyle Kimball (John Getz) and Ned Larkin (Steve Forrest). Sustaining a pre-race injury, Larkin turns the command of his vessel "Free Spirit" over to his daughter Anne (Andrea Parker). Then, two days before the race, Kyle is murdered--and Anne finds herself the number one suspect. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1995
- R
Based on a true story, this psychological study concerns Henry Lesser (Robert Sean Leonard), a prison guard who witnesses the brutal beating of an inmate, Carl Panzram (James Woods), who attempted to escape. Lesser tries to befriend the convict, whom he senses has an intelligence that has gone unrecognized by his jailers; he gives Panzram a notebook and pencils and encourages him to keep a journal. Panzram responds by writing the story of his life of crime -- a shocking litany of violence and brutality in which he takes credit for 21 murders, numerous armed robberies, several acts of arson, and over 1,000 homosexual rapes. Lesser has a difficult time reconciling the intelligent, articulate man he sees in his cell every day with the monster documented in his writings (though as far as anyone can tell, his claims are entirely accurate). Lesser believes that there's a humanity in Panzram that can be brought out, and that he can be redeemed and perhaps rehabilitated. Panzram, however, doesn't seem so convinced; his violent behavior continues behind bars, and attempts by opponents of the death penalty to prevent his execution only inspire his scorn -- as he sees it, society made him a killer, and it's society's responsibility to stop him once and for all. Killer: A Journal of Murder was the first directorial project for screenwriter Tim Metcalfe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Woods, Robert Sean Leonard, (more)
- 1992
Jessica (Angela Lansbury) swings into action when entrepreneur Max Teller (Steve Forrest), who had recently converted a former western mining town into a tourist attraction, is murdered. The killing may have been linked to the legendary lost treasure of a notorious stagecoach robber. Graham Greene of Dances with Wolves fame guest stars as the town's Native American sheriff Sam Keeyani, whom Jessica assists in his investigation of the murder (or is it the other way around?) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Mark Frost, the writer and director best known for his work with David Lynch on the TV series Twin Peaks, made his feature film directorial debut with this convoluted thriller. Cray Fowler (James Spader) is running for congress, partly to satisfy his own political aspirations and partly to resolve certain controversies in his life; he divorced his wife after discovering that she was unfaithful, and his father committed suicide after he became involved in a scandal regarding valuable oil rights. While on the campaign trail, Fowler is persuaded to visit Lee Tran (Charlotte Lewis), a waitress he meets at a fund raiser. Fowler and Lee Tran have sex, which is caught on videotape; as if this isn't strong enough blackmail material, Lee Tran's father turns up dead in the room where Fowler wakes up. But Lee, not Fowler, is charged with the murder, and Fowler, a lawyer, agrees to defend her in court. Fowler wins the case against beautiful District Attorney Natalie Tate (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), Fowler's former girlfriend, but now he needs to find out who is trying to set him up and for what reason; he hopes he can get some help from his uncle, Clifford Fowler (Jason Robards), a political kingmaker of the old school who knows all the family's secrets. The supporting cast includes Piper Laurie, Michael Parks, Chuck McCann, and Woody Strode. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Spader, Joanne Whalley, (more)
- 1992
Peter Falk returns as dishevelled Lieutenant Columbo in this 2-hour TV special. This time, Columbo investigates the murder of football-team owner Steve Forrest. The prime suspect is Forrest's nephew Greg Evigan, meaning of course that he "done it." Naturally, Evigan has an airtight alibi, but when has that ever stopped Columbo? Tyne Daly co-stars. Columbo: A Bird in the Hand originally aired November 22, 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Lois Nettleton guest stars as Ginny Blanchard, who is accused of killing her abusive husband, wealthy business executive and dilettante polo player Clark Blanchard (Chad Everett). When it becomes clear that the long-suffering Ginny is not about to defend in court, her friend Jessica (Angela Lansbury) sets about to prove her innocence. Inasmuch as the late Mr. Blanchard would never have qualified for a "mister nice guy" award, the suspect list is a daunting one, including Blanchard's mistress (Lisa Pelikan) and his stepson (Hank Stratton). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1989
At the recommendation of Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), a young editor heads to Montana, there to organize the unpublished manuscript of the last novel written by a celebrated, recently deceased author. Unable to make heads or tails of the author's notes, the editor concocts a readable volume from his own imagination. Just as he is poised to tell the world that he, and not the late author, penned the novel, the editor is murdered--and from here on in, it's up to Jessica to solve the crime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
James Arness returns to the role of US marshal Matt Dillon after a twelve-year absence in the made-for-TV Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge. Amanda Blake is also back as Miss Kitty, "hostess" of Dodge City's Long Branch saloon. The plot involves Dillon's reunion with Kitty in a Dodge City festooned with bad guys, chief among them a plugugly named Mannon (Steve Forrest), who has sworn to kill Matt. For those who weren't around for the original Gunsmoke TV series (which ran from 1955 through 1975), this film provides us with several clips from the old series, presented as flashbacks. Vincent McEveety, director of many an old Gunsmoke installment, calls the shots on this reunion special. Filmed not in the wilds of Kansas but in Alberta, Canada, Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge premiered on September 26, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Arness, Amanda Blake, (more)
The 1987 portmanteau comedy feature Amazon Women on the Moon lampoons several film genres in general and the 1954 sci-fi cheapie Cat Women of the Moon in particular. Other sketches in Amazon Women include an opening bit with Arsenio Hall; a vignette titled "Son of the Invisible Man" wherein a naked Ed Begley Jr. runs around in full view of the nonplussed supporting cast; the It's Alive parody "Hospital", which offers the spectacle of Michelle Pfeiffer giving birth to Mr. Potato Head; and a Siskel & Ebert takeoff, featuring Arche Hahn as a TV viewer whose entire life is given a "thumbs down." Directed by several hands, including Joe Dante, Carl Gottleib, Peter Horton, John Landis, and Robert K. Weiss, Amazon Women on the Moon also features a satire of the Kroger G. Babb school of "sex hygiene" exploitation cheapies, with syphilis victim Carrie Fisher being counseled by unctuous doctor Paul Bartel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosanna Arquette, Ralph Bellamy, (more)
- 1986
Mildred Natwick plays wealthy widow Carrie McKittrick, who happens to have been the former English teacher of Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury). Much to the dismay of her family, Carrie has decided to bequeath her fortune to flamboyant evangelist Reverend Willie-John Fargo (Steve Forrest). Not long afterward, Carrie dies of cyanide poisoning, in a hospital owned by Reverend Fargo. It looks like murder, and it looks like Fargo is the guilty party--to everyone but Jessica, that is. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Based on the novel by Jackie Collins, the steamy ABC TV minseries Hollywood Wives began its three-evening run on February 17, 1985. Advertised with the teaser "If you think nothing can shock you anymore," part one got things up and running by introducing the central players, among them Elaine Conti (Candice Bergen), the ruthlessly ambitious wife of B-list movie star Ross Conti (Steve Forrest), and the promiscuous Gina Germaine (Suzanne Somers), who hopes to emerge from her famous hubby's shadow by pursuing her own screen career. The most realistic aspect of the series is the fact that the actors playing the male stars and producers are all considerably older than the women portraying their "trophy" wives. In part two of the miniseries, Elaine continues wheeling and dealing to advance the career of her husband, a fading matinee idol. Meanwhile, the craven Gina tries to sleep her way into a major role in the latest epic directed by Neil Gray (Anthony Hopkins). And Karen Lancaster (Mary Crosby), a second-generation celebrity, embarks upon a romantic misadventure that may have consequence for her celebrated father and mother -- not to mention nominal heroine Elaine. In the miniseries' third and final part, Elaine throws a huge Hollywood party to advance the career of her aging movie-star husband Ross. The site of the party is the home of established film favorite George Lancaster (Robert Stack), whose daughter, Karen (Mary Crosby), has made no secret of her intention to steal Elaine's hubby away from her. Frances Bergen, real-life mother of star Candice Bergen, is seen as George Lancaster's missus, Pamela. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Director John Landis helmed this Cold War farce starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase as Austin Millbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume -- two loser misfits who dwell in the lower ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency. Convinced despite much evidence to the contrary that they're prime secret agent material, both men keep taking service exams in an effort to win promotion. Caught cheating on their latest round of tests, Austin and Emmett expect to be fired but are instead made full field agents and ushered into intense training. Little do they know that it's all a ruse and that they're about to be dumped in Pakistan to throw Russian spies off the scent of two real agents with an important clandestine assignment. A spoof of the "road" pictures popularized by Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, the film features a cameo by the latter as his golf-playing self. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, (more)
- 1983
Although it is based on an intriguing premise -- Dale (Brooke Shields), disguised as a man, takes the place of her late father in a 1927 car race through the Sahara -- this film perversely falls flatter than a blow-out, and just as quickly. After starting the race and because of tribal warfare, Dale winds up a prisoner of the thug Rasoul (John Rhys-Davies) but is appropriately rescued by a dashing sheik (Lambert Wilson). Then after she is back in the race, she is captured and thrown into a leopard's cage by another desert villain. The Indy 500, this is not. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brooke Shields, Lambert Wilson, (more)
- 1983
Malibu is a two-part, four-hour adaptation of William Murray's best-selling novel. William Atherton and Susan Dey play a green-as-grass married couple from Milwaukee who take a vacation in Malibu. Amidst the elite and their million-dollar beach houses, Atherton starts up an affair with divorcee Valerie Perrine, while Dey fends off the attentions of TV star Steve Forrest before succumbing to the charms of tennis pro Chad Everett. Other Southern California satyrs and nymphs wandering in and out of Malibu include James Coburn, Eva Marie Saint, Ann Jillian, Kim Novak, Richard Mulligan, and (who else?) George Hamilton. The multiple story lines all come to a head during a climactic tennis match. Malibu is trash, true, but it's trash cultivated from the highest-quality refuse heaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
When her adoptive mother Joan Crawford died in 1977, erstwhile actress/author Christina Crawford and her brother Christopher were left out of Joan Crawford's will, "for reasons which are well known to them." Industryites have suggested that it may have been this posthumous act of rejection rather than an alleged lifetime of parental abuse that inspired Christina Crawford to pen her scathing autobiography Mommie Dearest. The 1981 film version of this tome was evidently meant to be taken seriously, but the operatic direction by Frank Perry and the over-the-top portrayal of Joan Crawford by Faye Dunaway (whose makeup is remarkable) has always seemed to inspire loud laughter whenever and where-ever the film is shown. According to the film (and the book that preceded it), Joan Crawford was a licentious, child-beating behemoth, who stalked and postured through life as though it was one of her own pictures-more Strait-jacket than Mildred Pierce. This is the film with the notorious "wire coat hanger" scene, just in case you need a reminder. Surprisingly, one emerges from Mommie Dearest with more sympathy for the monstrous but intensely vulnerable Crawford than for her whining daughter (played as an adult by Diana Scarwid, and as a child by Mara Hobel). Our favorite scene: Joan Crawford dazedly replacing her ailing daughter in the cast of a daytime TV soap opera. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid, (more)
- 1981
The Manions of America was a three-part miniseries originally telecast September 30, and October 1 and 2, 1981. Set in Ireland and Philadelphia in the late 1840's, Rory O'Manion (Pierce Brosnan in his American TV-movie debut) escapes from the Great Irish Potato Famine to head to America, where he goes into business, opens old wounds with old enemies, and is reunited with his lover from the old country, British blueblood Rachel Clements (Kate Mulgrew). This expensive project was scripted by onetime Upstairs Downstairs staff writer Rosemary Anne Sisson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
One of several syndicated TV miniseries of the 1980s, Roughnecks was part of the same "Golden Circle" project that previously yielded the multipart Wild Times. The title refers to a group of two-fisted oil wildcatters, among them self-made millionaire Paul Marshall (Steve Forrest), his lifelong pal and business partner, Plug Champion (Harry Morgan), and up-and-coming young "roughneck" O'Dell Hartman (Sam Melville). Avoiding the temptation of carbon-copying such previous oil-drilling movies like Boom Town, Flowing Gold, and Tulsa, this two-parter devoted much of its screen time to the hero's efforts to help Marshall's former sweetheart Ida McBride (Vera Miles) save her ranch by bringing in a valuable methane well. In most local markets, Roughnecks was telecast the third week of August (usually the 15th and 16th of that month) in 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
Condominium is a two-part, four-hour TV adaptation of the novel by John D. McDonald. The setting is a hastily constructed Florida high-rise, assembled at the least possible cost by its greedy owners. An oncoming hurricane threatens to topple the structure and its residents into the ocean. Various degrees of greed, lust, terror and concern are displayed by stars Steve Forrest, Dan Haggerty, Ralph Bellamy, Barbara Eden, Stuart Whitman, Jack Jones and Pamela Hensley. Produced for the syndicated "Operation Prime Time" series, Condominium was first made available to local stations on November 20, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
The 2-part TV movie Rumor of War was based on the 1977 memoirs of Vietnam veteran Philip Caputo. Brad Davis stars as Caputo, who during the mid-1960s was a Marine lieutenant. In battle after battle, Caputo performs his duties admirably, even when questioning the wisdom of America's Vietnam involvement. As both the war and the body count escalate, Caputo suffers a nervous breakdown. A Rumor of War bears an inevitable resemblance to the much-earlier antiwar epic All Quiet on the Western Front, right down to the presence of a father-figure combat sergeant (Brian Dennehy). Its few cliches aside, the film is a powerful indictment of the brutalization and depersonalization of America's Vietnam forces. A Rumor of War premiered on September 24 and 25, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In a society in which major league sporting events have replaced Sunday worship as the religion of choice, North Dallas Forty appears like a desecration at the altar. In this film, directed by Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz), the National Football League is revealed to be more about the money than the game. Nick Nolte is North Dallas Bulls pass-catcher Phillip Elliott, whose cynicism and independent spirit is looked upon as troublesome by team coaches Johnson (Charles Durning) and Strothers (G.D. Spradlin) and team owner Conrad Hunter (Steve Forrest). Elliot, at the end of his career and wise to the way players are bought and sold like cattle, goes through the games pumped up on painkillers conveniently provided by the management. His teammates include savvy quarterback Maxwell (Mac Davis) and lunk-headed defensive lineman Jo Bob Priddy (Bo Svenson), who deal with the impersonality and back-biting of the game through off-field diversions. When the Bulls management benches Elliot after manipulating him to help train a fellow teammate, Elliot has to decide whether there is more to life than the game that he loves. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, (more)
- 1979
Television film featuring the Marvel Comics hero doing battle with a mad industrialist who wields a neutron bomb. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- 1979
In this actioner, an episode from the TV series S.W.A.T., the courageous cops must go undercover to catch a group of scuba diving jewel thieves who are suspected of murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1978
The James Fenimore Cooper classic is given an abridged polishing, but still recounts the adventures of Hawkeye (Steve Forrest) and Chingachgook (Ned Romero) while saving a Mohican princess and avenging the death of Chingachgook's son. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
