Harve Bennett Movies

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) concludes the story arc begun with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and continued in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), but on a wholly new, different, and upbeat note. As the movie opens, months have elapsed since the events in Star Trek III; Admiral Kirk (William Shatner), McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Scott (James Doohan), Sulu (George Takei), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), and Chekhov (Walter Koenig) are marooned in self-imposed exile on Vulcan, along with the resurrected and regenerated Spock (Leonard Nimoy, who also directed). While Spock tries to sort out the Vulcan and human halves of his resurrected psyche, the others prepare to return to Earth to face a brace of charges by the Klingon Empire and Star Fleet over events on Genesis. Taking off in their commandeered, jerry-rigged Klingon ship, they head to Earth, not knowing that a new crisis could destroy their home world -- a huge, immensely powerful alien probe has entered the galaxy and established a position near Earth, disabling every vehicle and installation in its path with its energy and communication output, and has ionized the entire atmosphere and started vaporizing the oceans, leaving the planet only hours to survive.

Spock determines that the probe is sending out signals to another intelligent terrestrial life form, humpbacked whales, which no longer exist. Using the gravity slingshot time-warp effect (established early in the original series) to travel back into Earth's 20th century, Kirk and company land in 1980s San Francisco to try and bring humpbacked whales to the 23rd century, to respond to the probe. Thus starts a surprisingly breezy, light-hearted, yet serious odyssey through the past (comparable to the best work of the original series), as the crew learns to deal with exact-change buses, angry drivers, punk-rock enthusiasts and other elements of '80s life, and Kirk tries to persuade a scientist (Catherine Hicks) of his good intentions for two whales in captivity. The screenplay, co-authored by Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Nicholas Meyer, and Harve Bennett (from a story by Nimoy and Bennett), is the cleverest and most sophisticated of all the Star Trek movie screenplays, recalling some of the elements of Meyer's earlier time-travel movie Time After Time and also anticipating the feel and tone of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation (which would be on the air not quite a year later). Nimoy's direction offers a combination of brisk pacing and a deep love of the characters and the actors, as well as a serious appreciation of the humorous aspects of the script, and Shatner gives his best performance of any of the movies. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

When last we left the crew of the star ship Enterprise, they were heading home following a skirmish with the despotic Khan. The unpleasant incident had cost the life of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy)--or so it seemed. Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) is informed by Spock's father Sarek (Mark Lenard) that his son is being kept alive in the thoughts of one of the crew members. It now becomes necessary to search for Spock's body, so that flesh and soul can be rejoined on Vulcan. It turns out that Spock's spirit is residing within the mind of the Vulcan's longtime shipmate, "Bones" McCoy (DeForrest Kelley). Finding the body is another matter, since the Enterprise has been consigned to the trash heap and thus is out of Kirk's jurisdiction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this feature-length TV series pilot, Andy Griffith stars as maverick junk dealer Harry Broderick (evidently a pun on Harry Brock, the junk-king villain of Garson Kanin's play Born Yesterday. Figuring that NASA has left millions of dollars' worth of discarded equipment on the moon, Harry hits upon a scheme to retrieve the paraphernalia and turn over a huge profit. Together with his youthful assistants Skip (Joel Higgins) and Melanie (Trish Stewart), Harry assembles his own ramshackle space ship and blasts off to the moon. Though the takeoff, landing, and Lunar scavenger hunt prove to be successful, getting back to Earth may not exactly be a bowl of cherries--or even scrap iron. Salvage made its ABC network bow on January 20, 1979, one week before the official premiere of the weekly series (renamed Salvage 1). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Karen Valentine, who's probably starred in more unsold pilots than McLean Stevenson and Don Meredith combined, stars in this made-for-TV comedy western. Playing a "Nellie Bly" type reporter, Karen heads thattaway, hoping to interview Billy the Kid (Richard Jaeckel). This might prove difficult in that Billy has supposedly been dead for years. Valentine is joined in her quest by Billy's sister (Sandra Will), a cavalry officer's widow who likewise doesn't swallow the official story of Billy's final, fatal showdown. "They've Taken Off Their Petticoats and Strapped On Their Guns!" read the TV Guide ad copy for Go West, Young Girl. No one watched anyway. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This TV-movie update of the old H.G. Wells fantasy novel stars David McCallum as brilliant scientist Daniel Weston. He's so brilliant that he develops an invisibility serum, which he applies to himself. Two inconveniences: Weston must wear a special mask so that his wife (Kathleen Fee) can see him; and enemy agents, headed by traitorous scientist Alex Henteloff, would give their eye teeth for the serum. Much was made in the press releases of the "blue screen" process that created the illusion of invisibility; would that as much time have been expended on the ho-hum script. Despite its flaws, Invisible Man resulted in a weekly TV series, which ran from September 1975 to January 1976; its format was later refashioned for two more short-lived series, Gemini Man and The Man From Atlantis. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ben Murphy and Bonnie Bedelia star in the made-for-TV suspenser Heat Wave. Murphy plays a young clerk, and Bedelia portrays his young and pregnant wife. During a record-breaking hot spell, the power in their mountain community goes out, and the water supply is dirty and stagnant. The balance of the film concerns the couple's attempt to escape the heat by descending the surrounding hills. Heat Wave would probably have melted in the ratings had it been scheduled in the summer; thus, it was sagaciously slated for a mid-January debut in 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The flammable money of the title is of the counterfeit variety. Enterprising prison inmate E. G. Marshall devises a scheme to churn out phony moola in his jerry-built printing machine. Conspiring with his wife Mildred Natwick, Marshall intends to smuggle the funny money out of jail, then swap it with the genuine article. The "switch" is to occur in the US Treasury itself! Never taking itself seriously, the made-for-TV Money to Burn proved a pleasant diversion when it debuted October 27, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The family in "flight" is played by Rod Taylor, Dina Merrill and Kristoffer Tabori. While taking an airborne vacation to Mexico, the family crash-lands somewhere in the Baja peninsula. Having taken the vacation as a means to patch up a variety of differences, the family is forced to pull together to survive. At times, however, it looks like no one will return to tell the tale. Made for television, Family Flight debuted October 25, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Some prisoners pin their hopes for freedom on a homemade aircraft in this made-for-television thriller. Based on a true World War Two story, Doug McClure stars as Harry Cook, an Allied soldier who tries to escape a Nazi prison camp with a scientist in tow, using a glider built by their fellow inmates. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi