Sam Gilman Movies

Originally divided into four segments and now cut to three, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies is a story about a man who is determined to get in touch with himself and sends his wife away so she can do the same thing. The next tale features a female business magnate who wreaks appropriate revenge on her arrogant male colleagues, and the last vignette has a virtuously pure policeman (Robby Benson) becoming as cynical as his partner (Richard Widmark). Each skit makes internal references to other movies, movie directors, or classic movie characters, which may enhance the viewing for movie buffs but does not change the generally dull and unfunny material. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Kojak moved from its traditonal Sunday-night timeslot to a new Saturday evening berth for this concluding episode of a two-part story. Though suspended from the force, Kojak is determined to track down a serial murderer known as The Clothesline Killer. It's a personal crusade for the troubled detective: Back in 1969, he allegedly shot the Clothesline Killer to death--and now there is every possibility that he gunned down the wrong man. Diane Baker appears in flashback as the detective's former love Irene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this "B" movie that falls between the cracks of mainstream vs. cult production (not rich enough for the former or sick enough for the latter), Claudia Jennings stars as Desirée, a tough Cajun huntress looking out for her younger brother and sister when three men and two of their sons come hunting for her, believing she killed the son of one of them. In the process of avoiding capture, Desirée's sister is victimized by the hunters, and the Cajun woman vows revenge -- first by luring them ever deeper into the swamp, and then by exacting her own deadly justice when the opportunity arises. In an era in which women had very few leading action roles in films, Jennings was setting a pattern for the future wave of female action stars. She was already a cult figure before her 1979 death at the age of 29 in a car crash. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A rancher, a rustler, and a regulator face off in Arthur Penn's eccentric western. As a cover for their horse thievery, a gang of Montana rustlers, led by the laid-back Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), buys a small farm adjacent to the ranch of their latest target/nemesis, Braxton (John McLiam). When the gang leaves Tom on the farm and heads to Canada for another score, Tom takes a shine both to farming and Braxton's rebellious, strong-willed daughter, Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). The slightly loco Braxton, however, hires the psychopathic regulator Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando) to root out the rustlers. With a series of unorthodox methods (and costumes), Clayton hunts down Logan and his gang one by one, even after Braxton fires him, but Logan isn't about to let Clayton (or Braxton) make him obsolete. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Two guys looking for a good time find more than they bargained for in this low-budget action story laced with comedy. Chris Dixon (Alan Vint) and his brother Wayne (Jesse Vint) are originally from Chicago, but when the two are scheduled to go into the Army together, they decide to spend their last two weeks before reporting for boot camp drifting through the South, chasing girls, drinking beer and raising a little hell. After picking up a pretty hitch-hiker, Jenny Scott (Cheryl Waters), who has tired of small-town life and has eyes for Chris, a busted fuel pump strands the brothers in Macon, Georgia, where Sheriff Reed Morgan (Max Baer, Jr.) makes it clear they're not welcome to spend the night. Meanwhile, a pair of ex-cons on a crime spree have arrived in Macon, and they ransack Morgan's house and murder his wife while the sheriff is picking up his son Luke (Lief Garrett) from military school. When their car breaks down again, Chris, Wayne and Jenny spend the night in a nearby barn; what they don't know is they've ended up on the sheriff's property, and when he comes home and discovers his house is a crime scene, he assumes the worst after he finds Chris and Wayne. Max Baer, Jr., who plays Sheriff Morgan, also produced Macon County Line and co-wrote the screenplay; the movie was a major box-office success on its original release in 1974 and sparked a new career behind the camera for the former Beverly Hillbillies star. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

If you want to know what The Wild Bunch would have looked like with Blake Edwards rather than Sam Peckinpah in the director's chair, we submit for your approval Wild Rovers. William Holden and Ryan O'Neal play a couple of shiftless ranch hands who impulsively decide to rob a bank. They manage to make off with the money, but also incur the wrath of their former boss Karl Malden, who sends his two sons Tom Skerritt and Joe Don Baker out to bring back Holden and O'Neal, preferably dead. The film's climax is surprisingly melancholy for an Edwards film, but one can't deny that the ending grows logically from the events leading up to it. Severely edited by its distributor Warner Bros, Wild Rovers doesn't make a lot of sense in its release version; the director's cut, incorporated 30 minutes' worth of extra footage, is fortunately available on video. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adopting the alias "Tom Barrett", for the second time this season, Kimble journeys to the small Mexican town of Puerta Banales. Here he is blackmailed into acting as assistant for Dr Frederick Howell (Arthur Hill), who with his loyal secretary Reina (Carol Lawrence) is battling an outbreak of meningitis. Meanwhile, local police sergeant Rodriguez (Carlos Romero), certain that he's seen Kimble somewhere before, places Howell's clinic under surveillance. What Rodriguez doesn't realize--but Kimble does, eventually--is that the real villain of the piece is the "humanitarian" Howell, presently conducting an unholy experiment to test out a new serum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This WW II adventure chronicles the real-life courage of President John F. Kennedy when he was a Navy lieutenant in charge of the illustrious PT 109. Among the adventures they had was the courageous rescue of Marines stranded upon the isle of Choiseul. As they flee, their little boat is split in half by a Japanese destroyer. The survivors then make a long, dangerous swim to an island. One of them is too badly injured to do it, so Kennedy helps him. Later, the future leader braves many dangers to get to another island to radio for help. This video also contains a newsreel chronicling the President's assassination and a cartoon short featuring Foghorn Leghorn. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Western bandit Kid Rio (Marlon Brando) is betrayed by his partner, Dad Longworth (Karl Malden). Escaping from prison, Rio learns that Longworth has become a wealthy and influential lawman. Rio thirsts for revenge, but bides his time, waiting for the right moment to strike. In the meantime, Rio spitefully seduces Longworth's adopted daughter, Louisa (Pina Pellicer). After killing a man in self-defense, Rio is publicly whipped by the powerful Longworth. When Rio's old gang accidentally kills a child during another holdup, Longworth has the perfect excuse to eliminate the troublesome Rio once and for all by hanging him. But that's not what happens at all. Stripped to its fundamentals, One-Eyed Jacks is a workable Western, worthy of perhaps 90 minutes' running time. But when Marlon Brando succeeded Stanley Kubrick in the director's chair, he allowed the film's 60-day shooting schedule to stretch into six months, and delivered a finished product running in excess of four hours. The current 141-minute version of One-Eyed Jacks isn't as ponderous as some critics have claimed, but it's still too much of a good thing. While Brando the director isn't precisely in the Kubrick class, Brando the actor delivers one of his finest and most focused performances (though he is upstaged throughout by Karl Malden). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A newspaper headline prompts Clete Vine (John Craven) to recall an incident in his childhood, 35 years ago. Growing up in a gang-infested neighborhood, young Clete (played by Glenn Walken, the brother of Christopher Walken) idolizes local mob boss Mr. Rose (Dennis Patrick), while Clete's best friend, Iggy (Barry Gordon), reserves his idolatry for his own father (Biff Elliot). When both boys witness Rose in the act of killing a man, Clete is intimidated into silence, but Iggy immediately heads to the police -- thereby setting off a four-decade marathon of duplicity, disillusionment, and death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Capone's second-in-command Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) steps up his heretofore unsuccessful efforts to eliminate Anton Cermak (Robert Middleton), the incorruptable mayor of Chicago. Scheduled to appear at a public event in Miami with president-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Cermak would seem to be a sitting duck for Nitti's torpedoes, but Elliot Ness and the Untouchables aren't about to let that happen. Meanwhile, a deranged anarchist named Giuseppe Zangara (Joe Mantell) may well succeed where Nitti has failed--assuming that Cermak is Zangara's intended target. Though historically inaccurate in many respects, this episode paints a vibrant picture of the euphoria surrounding the election of the first anti-Prohibition president in 14 years. Parts One and Two of "The Unhired Assassin" were later combined and released theatrically as the feature film Guns of Zangara. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While still playing Chester on the marathon TV Western Gunsmoke, Dennis Weaver found the time to accept an entirely different role in this Hitchcock episode. Weaver is cast as Charles Cavender, who has suffered from chronic insomnia ever since his wife was killed in a fire. Making matters worse, his late wife's brother Jack (Jack Ragin) holds Charles responsible for her death. Visiting a psychiatrist (James Millhollin), Charles is advised to resolve his guilt feeling with a heart-to-heart talk with Jack. Alas, the ensuing conversation proves to be one heart short -- resulting in murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A recent plague has decimated virtually all the crops in a farming community. The only rancher whose crops were spared is Max Bruckner (Morris Ankrum), a wealthy, peace-loving Mennonite. When Bruckner is threatened by ill-tempered merchant Milo Culligan (Karl Swenson), he turns to Paladin (Richard Boone) for help--on condition that Paladin use no violence to defend Bruckner's family. This task proves doubly difficult when it is revealed that Culligan's top gun Polk (Brad Dexter) harbors a deep-set grudge against Paladin. Appearaing as Bruckner's mother is Adeline deWalt Reynolds, who at age 96 was the oldest working actress in Hollywood at the time this episode was filmed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide