Lee Montgomery Movies

As a high-school prank, several high-school students unwittingly release an ancient witch and her demons in this made-for-TV comedy-thriller. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this first full-length, uneven feature by novice, 22-year-old director Michael Farkas, Julie (Toni Hudson), a young computer whiz has just been turned down for a good job at a local bank, and on top of that injury, some of the ideas she presented in her bid for the job were stolen by the bank's resident computer specialist. Angry enough to act on what happened, Julie meets up with equally disenchanted Michael (Lee Montgomery) who has been arguing with the bank to put through a wire transfer in a reasonable amount of time. Between the two of them, they fake some ATM cards, and while in the process of skimming off funds from the bank machine, they discover that some big-time international hackers are working on a plot to sink the Federal Reserve Bank. These thieves waste no time in discovering that Julie and Michael are onto their plot, and chase the duo all the way to Washington D.C. where the pair try to convince the F.B.I. that the impending electronic attack on the Federal Reserve Bank is real. The problem is, even if they succeed in convincing the F.B.I. of the plot, already in motion, how can they stop it? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Happy Endings was the pilot for a TV series conceived by Chris Beaumont and produced by Beaumont and several of his Fame collaborators. The film is based on Beaumont's own teenaged years, a time during which his writer father Charles (Twilight Zone) Beaumont died of "premature senility" at the age of 37. Lee Montgomery plays the Chris Beaumont counterpart, an 18-year-old college dropout who spends several days in court to gain custody of his three younger siblings. Representing the adults in Montgomery's world are Oliver Clark as a friend of the family, and Robin Gammell as a doubting uncle. Halfway down the cast list of Happy Endings appear the names of two celebrities-in-the-making: Laura Dern and John Hancock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sure to generate conversation, this provocative drama tells the story of how a middle-class family is torn apart when their clean-cut high-achieving son, who has the potential of making it on the Olympic gymnast team, suddenly joins a religious cult. The parents become deeply worried and try to get him back. The twist is that, unlike other movie religious cults, the leader of this one is not terribly evil even though he does strongly indoctrinate his followers. The members of his group are good people who do good deeds for others. Unfortunately, the parents don't see it this way and so hire a free-lance deprogrammer to "rescue" their son and force him through a deprogramming process that traumatizes him more than the cult did. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Directed and produced by genre icon Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows, Trilogy of Terror), this trio of terrifying stories from I Am Legend author Richard Matheson features performances by Patrick Macnee, Ed Begley, Jr., and Horst Buchholz. The horror gets underway in "Second Chance," a story about a man (Begley, Jr.) who restores a vintage automobile only to find that this his prized vehicle has the power to transport him back in time. The chills keep on coming when the vampire-fearing mistress of an old mansion (Anjanette Comer) falls prey to a sinister scheme involving her husband (Macnee) and a benevolent family friend (Bucholtz) with a dark secret, and a grieving mother (Joan Hackett) is both terrified and overjoyed to be reunited with her presumed-dead son (Lee. H. Montgomery) in "Bobby." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Dan Curtis, director of TV's Dark Shadows series, directed this eerie haunted-house thriller about a house which draws energy from its inhabitants and selects its own "keeper" from the family of Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed & Karen Black), who rent the strangely-affordable house one fateful summer then find themselves slowly succumbing to its creepy powers. The photography is suitably moody, and many of the standard haunted-house cliches are used to decent effect -- particularly a violent scene in which the surrounding woods form a barrier to prevent the family station wagon from escaping the area -- but the pace is too leisurely overall, climaxing with the type of grim ending employed by nearly every mainstream horror film in the late 70's. Black's spooky looks are used to maximum effect, but are never quite as chilling as the final shot of Curtis's TV movie Trilogy of Terror from the previous year. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Man on the Outside was the pilot film for the weekly ABC TV series Griff. Lorne Greene stars as retired police captain Wade "Griff" Griffin, who is galvanized back into active duty when his police-officer son is murdered before his eyes, and his grandson is kidnapped by a mob functionary. None of the supporting cast of the subsequent series (Ben Murphy, Patricia Stich, Vic Tayback, et al.) was seen in this pilot episode; instead, future Jaws costar Lorraine Gary, cast as Griff's daughter-in-law, acted as his assistant. Curiously, Man on the Outside did not air until June 29, 1975, a full year and a half after the cancellation of Griff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This episode is truly episodic, offering poignant and sometimes tragic vignettes occuring during a single San Francisco weekend. The catalyst for the the story is a .25 caliber pistol, hunting by both the police and the underworld alike. In the course of events, the pistol claims two victims: a syndicate thug and an innocent little boy. It is up to Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) to prevent further bloodshed--hardly an easy task, considered that the pistol has already passed through too many hands. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kojak (Telly Savalas) makes it his personal mission to help little David Hecht (Lee H. Montgomery) find his missing father Simon (Joshua Bryant). What the viewer knows (but Kojak doesn't, at least not at first) is that Simon is being held by a group intending to use him as a decoy to locate a thief who has absconded to Brazil with $25 million--and then kill Simon when his usefulness is at an end. A pre-Magnum P.I. John Hillerman is prominently featured in this final episode of Kojak's first season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adam-12 launches its seventh season with the first episode of a two-part story. When officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) haul in a pint-sized lawbreaker (Lee H. Montgomery, they assume it is the kid's first offense. Soon, however, they learn that the boy is really 14 years old, that he's been using an alias, and that he already has built up a lengthy criminal record. After a confrontation with the boy's overprotective, in-denial mother (June Lockhart), Pete takes it upon himself to straighten the kid out by sending him to a summer camp for troubled teens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Ironside (Raymond Burr) has degenerated from a respected law enforcement officer to a seedy skid-row bum, apparently because 10-year-old murder witness Jerry Abbott (Lee H. Montgomery) was killed while in the Chief's protective custody. What even Ironside's loyal assistants are unaware of is that little Jerry is still alive, and that the Chief is only posing as a derelict to flush out the murderer. The situation reaches the crisis stage when two attempts are made on Ironside's alive--and the Chief can't summon the aid of his associates without blowing his cover. This episode features two original songs by David and Marty Paich: "Street Song", peformed by Carol Carmichael; and "Way Up Here", sung by Marty Paich. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Several familiar faces dot the cast of the made-for-TV Runaway! The scene is a treacherous mountainside, where several skiers have come to...well, ski. The mountain can only be reached by train-and that train is the "runaway" of the title. Just so no one would miss the point, the film was retitled Runway Train when released theatrically abroad. Ben Johnson, Ben Murphy, Ed Nelson, Darlen Carr, Lee H. Mongomery, Martin Milner, Vera Miles, Ray Danton and Bing Russell (Kurt's dad) are among the rescuers and rescuees. Runaway! first aired September 29, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide