Carleton Young Movies

Bill's current girlfriend Nancy Mason (Julie Parrish), an expert on pre-Columbian art, gives Bill (Brian Keith) a priceless, centuries-old artifact. Not knowing the item's value, the twins take it to school for show-and-tell--and of course immediately break it. In desperation, the youngsters fashion a duplicate of the artifact out of clay...and it is this "forgery" which ends up being displayed at the Wyndham Gallery and hailed by one and all as an authentic masterpiece! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood icon Myrna Loy guest stars as Adele, a once wealthy matron forced by circumstance to work as a maid. Out of the goodness of his heart, Mr. Nigel French (John Williams) helpfully covers up Adele's ineptitude, an act of largesse that backfires when Adele makes a shambles of a society party--and holds French responsible. At the same time, Bill (Brian Keith) gets into trouble for extending his own helping hand and taking over the twins' school science project. All this intrigue leads to the conclusion by the adults in the Davis household that they will never, ever "get involved" again--but it's up to 15-year-old Cissy (Kathy Garver) to resolve the situation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bruce Gordon makes his final series appearance as Frank Nitti in this episode. Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) would like to find out how Nitti was able to smuggle a drug shipment from the Orient without arousing any suspicion whatsoever. Likewise interested in Nitti's "magic trick" is one of his disloyal lieutenants, who wants to get his hands on the narcotics and peddle them himself--even if it means double-crossing his best friend. Prominent among the supporting players is Barry Morse, who appeared in this episode just before signing on as the relentless Lt. Girard in the original TV-series version of The Fugitive. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Everybody knows the "punchline" of this classic Twilight Zone episode, but that doesn't make this entry any less entertaining. Told in flashback (a last-minute decision, judging by the original script), this is the story of the Kanamints, a race of giant space aliens who arrive on Earth, ostensibly on a mission of goodwill. The Kanamints offer all manner of scientific advancements; all they ask in exchange is that the earthlings trust them without question. Meanwhile, a team of scientists, headed by Dr. Chambers (Lloyd Bochner), work day and night to translate a Kanamint book, the title of which is, of course, "To Serve Man." Richard Kiel, the 7-foot-plus actor who gained fame as "Jaws" in the James Bond series, appears as the Kanamint leader (though his voice is dubbed by Marvin Miller. Scripted by Rod Serling from a short story by Damon Knight, "To Serve Man" was originally telecast March 2, 1962. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In December of 1944, while the Battle of the Bulge rages in the Ardennes, the American 7th Army settles in to what most of its officers and men figure to be a routine and peaceful occupation of the Vosges-Alsace area. The region is mountainous and treacherous, and there are still German forces nearby, but everyone from division intelligence on down figures those forces to have been stripped to support the Ardennes offensive -- everyone except Col. Mark Devlin (Howard Keel), who keeps reminding everyone that the Germans would never leave their forces stretched that thin so near their own border; but his warnings fall on deaf ears. Meanwhile, at the front lines, an infantry platoon finds a woman wounded in the snow. Alexandra Bastegar (Tina Louise) is an Alsatian and speaks all the local languages and dialects, which is more than the American interpreters can do, and she's only too happy to help the people who rescued her -- except that she was shot as a cover and is working on behalf of the Germans. Can Devlin find the proof he needs of a German offensive-in-the-making before Alexandra completes her mission? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The "music box" of the title of this low-budget, routine gangster film is a submachine gun, and its owner Larry Shaw (Ronald Foster) is the focus of attention. Larry has as little concern for morality or human life as an exterminator does for cockroaches, and so he is able to climb up the ladder of organized crime with little difficulty. The setting is New York in the 1920s, when mobsters become both rich and famous and eventually dead because of Prohibition. For inexplicable reasons, Larry is married to a decent woman (Luana Patten) who one day has had enough of her husband's activities and rebels in a most significant way. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The "mutual admiration society" consisting of actor James Cagney and actor/director Robert Montgomery culminated in the 1960 film The Gallant Hours. Cagney stars as war hero Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey. On the verge of retirement, Halsey recalls his most fateful wartime experience: his five-week showdown between himself and Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (James T. Goto) in 1942. In command of the American naval forces in the Pacific, Halsey scores a crucial, tide-turning victory at Guadalcanal. In concentrating on the participants rather than the battle itself, The Gallant Hours is a character study of a remarkable American. The a cappella "score" performed by Ken Darby and the King's Men Quartet is a matter of taste. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The creation and testing of jet planes is the focus of this action film. The story centers on a boozy hero from the Korean War who is hired as a test pilot by an aircraft executive on the condition that he sober up for good. It is a long road for the alcoholic aviator, and at one point he almost suffers a breakdown during a simulated flight, but he manages to dry out and begin flying experimental planes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Spencer Tracy stars in John Ford's sentimental adaptation of Edwin O'Connor's novel about the final campaign of a big city mayor, loosely based upon the life of Boston politician James Curley. Tracy is Frank Skeffington, the political boss of an Eastern city dominated by Irish-Americans. Skeffington tries to assist the people of the city and avoids cutting political deals with the power elite. But despite his concern for the people, Skeffington has no friends, just flunkies. The Mayor is greatly admired by his idealistic nephew Adam Caulfield (Jeffrey Hunter), who writes for an opposition newspaper run by Amos Force (John Carradine). When Skeffington needs money for a loan, he asks the powerful banker Norman Cass (Basil Rathbone), but Cass steadfastly refuses. In retaliation, Skeffington appoints Cass's retarded son as an interim fire commissioner. To prevent his son from disgracing the family, Cass agrees to the bank loan. But Cass uses his deep pockets to finance the opposition's candidate for mayor. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Charles Brent (Grant Withers), owner of the building where Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) keeps his offices, is being blackmailed by Arthur Binney (Richard Erdman), who threatens to expose the sordid past of Brent's young wife Anne (Mari Aldon). When Binney turns up dead, Brent takes the rap, believing that Anne is the guilty party. Complicating the situation for Brent's attorney Perry is the fact that Brent's secretary Enid (Barbara Baxley) had earlier attempted suicide when Anne married her boss. This episode is based on a 1956 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this frothy romantic comedy, a hard-working female Army shrink (Janet Leigh) devises the "perfect furlough" for battle weary men and convinces the brass to let her try it on selected men stationed at her base. According to her plan, selected men would be given three weeks, tailor made to fit their deepest desires. Her first test-case is a handsome ladies' man (Tony Curtis) who chooses to go to Paris with his favorite movie star. Naturally the psychologist chaperones. Romantic mayhem ensues and eventually the furloughed soldier and the shrink fall in love. The story is also titled Strictly for Pleasure. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide