Action & Adventure Classics Movies

The wolves of the Arctic Circle and its environs, the stunning beauty of a Northern winter, a biologist who braves it all to record the lives of the wolves, and Inuits who save the biologist's hide and share their own wisdom openly are all winners in this film that is a tribute to the skills of writer and director Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion). Based on Farley Mowat's autobiographical novel of the same name, Tyler (Charles Martin Smith) is a normal biologist until he gets up into the Arctic winter in order to prove that the caribou herds are not being decimated by wolves; then he becomes a semi-klutz, unable to instinctively adapt to the deep freeze around him. After he sets up his first stake-out, a native Inuit named Oolek (Zachary Ittimangnaq) comes along to help him out and gets him better established in an isolated hut, where Tyler is left to fend for himself again. That he does, but not because he can see in advance what his needs or problems are going to be -- he just comes up against the worst when it happens and works from there. At the same time, Tyler gets to carefully and closely observe a wolf family he has already dubbed as George, Angeline, and the three pups, and he has several comic interactions with his distant "pets." Oolek and his friend Mike (Samson Jorah) drop by to keep Tyler company for awhile, sharing their observations on nature and life in an easy-going, non-committal manner. With Tyler's perseverance and the knowledge gained from experience and through these conversations, the real culprit in the decimation of the caribou turns out not to have four legs at all. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Filmed nearly two years after production shut down on The Adventures of Superman's first season, the series' second season of 26 episodes was completed in mid-1953, and aired in most TV markets in the fall of that year. Because the series' owner, National Periodicals, was not pleased with the high violence quotient in Season One, producer Robert Maxwell was replaced by Whitney Ellsworth, who considerably toned down the mayhem. Also, whereas the villains in the Maxwell-produced episodes ranged from vicious to downright insane, the bad guys in the Ellsworth-produced installments tend to be Runyonesque buffoons--especially those played by the ubiquitious Ben Welden and Herb Vigran. As a result, the series lost a lot of its adult appeal during its second season, though it picked up a much larger audience of children and teenagers. While many Superman fans bemoaned this perceived "dumbing down" of the concept, the fact is that The Adventures of Superman would grow more and more popular the younger its target audience became. Beyond these cosmetic changes, Season Two also marks a significant cast change. While George Reeves was still in harness in the dual role of Superman and Clark Kent, as were John Hamilton as Perry White, Jack Larson as Jimmy Olsen and Robert Shayne as Inspector Henderson, Phyllis Coates had vacated the role of intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane to pursue other film and TV work. Her replacement is Noel Neill, who'd previously played Lois in a brace of 1ate-1940s Superman theatrical serials starring Kirk Alyn in the title. Compared with Coates' brittle, aggressive portrayal of Lois, Neill came off as more fragile and vulnerable. Though there are some who prefer Phyllis Coates' more self-reliant interpretation of Lois, Noel Neill is the actress who first comes to mind when the character's name is mentioned today; she would remain with the series until its final episode in 1957. Moving production from RKO Pathe to an independent rental outfit called California Studios, The Adventures of Superman was obliged to tighten its budget throughout its second season, meaning fewer location shoots and more interior scenes, recycling furniture, sets and props as often as possible. Credit must go to special-effects wizard Thol "Si" Simonson for doing so much with so little, especially in those scenes wherein Superman was obliged to show off his "powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men." Arguably the season's best episode is "The Face and the Voice", in which George Reeves is seen in three separate characterizations: Clark Kent, Superman, and a doltish Superman lookalike named Boulder. Not actually a part of Season Two, though utilizing the same cast and personnel, is Stamp Day for Superman, a 12-minute public service short subject filmed on behalf of the United States Treasury Department. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This series is the first in the mammoth library of series, movies, and OVAs known as "Macross." In Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, otherwise known as SDF-1 Macross, the people of Earth, living for the first time under one government for all humanity, have spent the past ten years rebuilding the city-sized alien spaceship that crashed on South Atalia Island. Finally ready to celebrate the ship's first launch, the inexperienced pilots of the ship are met with an attack from an alien race called the Zentradi. The Zentradi are fierce enemies of the race that originally piloted the ship that crashed to Earth, and seeing it now, begin to fire. Earth has unwittingly entered into a war with an alien race, thus changing the history of the universe for all time. SDF-1 Macross was edited, dubbed, and combined with the series Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada to create the American series Robotech: Macross Saga. Robotech is sometimes mistakenly described as simply the English dub of SDF-1 Macross, but this is not the case. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

The third installment in the widely beloved Spielberg/Lucas Indiana Jones saga begins with an introduction to a younger Indy (played by the late River Phoenix), who, through a fast-paced prologue, gives the audience insight into the roots of his taste for adventure, fear of snakes, and dogged determination to take historical artifacts out of the hands of bad guys and into the museums in which they belong. A grown-up Indy (Harrison Ford) reveals himself shortly afterward in a familiar classroom scene, teaching archeology to a disproportionate number of starry-eyed female college students in 1938. Once again, however, Mr. Jones is drawn away from his day job after an art collector (Julian Glover) approaches him with a proposition to find the much sought after Holy Grail. Circumstances reveal that there was another avid archeologist in search of the famed cup -- Indiana Jones' father, Dr. Henry Jones (Sean Connery) -- who had recently disappeared during his efforts. The junior and senior members of the Jones family find themselves in a series of tough situations in locales ranging from Venice to the most treacherous spots in the Middle East. Complicating the situation further is the presence of Elsa (Alison Doody), a beautiful and intelligent woman with one fatal flaw: she's an undercover Nazi agent. The search for the grail is a dangerous quest, and its discovery may prove fatal to those who seek it for personal gain. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade earned a then record-breaking $50 million in its first week of release. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

A skyscraper and an all-star cast go up in flames in Irwin Allen's classic disaster movie. To celebrate the construction of the Glass Tower, the world's tallest building, architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and builder James Duncan (William Holden) hold a gala bash on the highest floors. Trouble is, Duncan's son-in-law and electrical subcontractor Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) installed faulty wiring throughout the 138-story behemoth to save money. While the guests -- including Doug's lady friend (Faye Dunaway), a rich widow (Jennifer Jones), a con man (Fred Astaire), and a politico (Robert Vaughn) -- enjoy the party, and a security guard (O.J. Simpson) wonders why his equipment is on the fritz, a burnt-out circuit breaker ignites some garbage on the 85th floor, swiftly turning the high-rise into, well, a towering inferno. With the guests trapped on the 135th floor, it's up to Roberts and Fire Chief O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) to find a way to stop the blaze. Though not the first all-star '70s disaster movie (1970's Airport and 1972's The Poseidon Adventure preceded it), The Towering Inferno was the most popular and the most spectacular. In a move that would become more common in late-'90s blockbuster Hollywood, The Towering Inferno's mammoth production was mounted by two studios; screenwriter Stirling Silliphant combined the two novels owned by the studios into one saga. 1970s "shake 'n bake" maestro Allen, with co-director John Guillermin (Allen did the action sequences), tapped into deep fears about the fragility of modern life in the face of extreme natural phenomena, as well as into the envies and insecurities of middle-aged professional men. The Towering Inferno packed theaters and earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture; it won for Cinematography, Editing, and Song. While its heroic, no-nonsense men provided some traditional comfort, The Towering Inferno still might provoke second thoughts about going into a skyscraper. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

The final animated feature produced under the supervision of Walt Disney is a lively neo-swing musical, loosely based upon the tales of Rudyard Kipling. The story takes place in a tropical jungle where people are conspicuously absent. But one day Bagheera the Panther (voice of Sebastian Cabot) discovers a baby in the wreck of a boat. Feeling pity on the child, Bagheera takes him to be raised with the wolves. Ten years later, the child has grown into Mowgli (voice of Bruce Reitherman). Mowgli discovers that his life is in danger because of the return to the area of Shere Khan the Tiger (voice of George Sanders), whose hatred of humans is such that Mowgli faces certain death if discovered. Bagheera agrees to transport Mowgli to the human village, where he will be safe from Shere Khan. Along the way to the village, night falls and Mowgli and Bagheera almost succumb to the man-eating snake Kaa (voice of Sterling Holloway). Escaping Kaa's coils, they run into the lock-step military elephant band of Colonel Hathi (voice of J. Pat O'Malley). Afterwards, Mowgli, who doesn't want to be sent to the human village, runs away from Bagheera and meets up with the fun-loving Baloo the Bear (voice of Phil Harrris). With both Bagheera and Baloo to protect him, Mowgli is saved from several more life-threatening situations -- including a barber-shop quartet of vultures, the crazed King Louie of the Apes (voice of Louis Prima), and Shere Khan himself -- before making it to the village of humans. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Rhodes Reason is the requisite Hollywood "name" actor in the Japanese-produced King Kong Escapes. While hacking through the jungle, expedition leader Nelson (Reason) and his companions are attacked by a dinosaur. They are rescued by King Kong, who since his traumatic experiences in New York has evidently changed his spots and become a lovable old Joe. Susan (Linda Miller), the prettiest member of Nelson's expedition, takes quite a liking to the big ape (Kong, not Nelson), and the feeling is reciprocated. The emphasis then shifts to dome-headed mad scientist Dr. Who (Eisei Amamoto), whose plans to take over the world include building a huge "Mechni-Kong," a robot designed to put the real Kong out of commission (if Amamoto sounds familiar to you, that's because his voice is dubbed by the ubiquitous Paul Frees). The climactic battle between the two Kongs is staged on a tinker-toy replica of Tokyo Tower -- hardly as imposing a structure as the Empire State Building, but consider what they're working with here. The Rhodes Reason/Linda Miller scenes were directed in Canada by Arthur Rankin Jr., the man responsible for the King Kong animated TV series of the late 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman), who then prepares to kill our hero. In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he's a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical-minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy's old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a "history" with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action-packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark. A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride. Costing 22 million dollars (nearly three times the original estimate), Raiders of the Lost Ark reaped 200 million dollars during its first run. It was followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as well as a short-lived TV-series "prequel." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"Gotcha!" is a puerile but popular campus game at UCLA in which students stalk one another armed with paint-spewing pellet guns. Veterinary student Anthony Edwards may not be any great shakes in the classroom, but he's a whiz at Gotcha. His skills come in handy when Edwards, on vacation in Paris, becomes acquainted with the mysterious Linda Fiorentino. She gets him mixed up in international espionage; fortunately, the well-armed spies aren't quite as adept at "Gotcha" as Edwards is. Most of the film was lensed in Paris and Berlin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on Elleston Trevor's novel, The Flight of the Phoenix opens with a well-staged plane crash in the middle of the Sahara desert. The pilot (James Stewart) and the navigator (Richard Attenborough) do their best to maintain order among the survivors, a group of oil men not well-suited for survival in the desert wastes. Some of those who appear to be the most resourceful reveal themselves to be inept or cowardly, while other less prepossessing types -- notably bespectacled Standish (Dan Duryea) -- demonstrate surprising inner reserves of strength. The ultimate fate of the survivors rests in the hands of Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger), who uses the wreckage of the old plane to design a new one. The Flight of the Phoenix was dedicated to the memory of veteran stunt pilot Paul Mantz, who was killed while filming the take-off scene of the new plane. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this first sequel to 1989's Batman, the Caped Crusader (Michael Keaton) is up against the Penguin (Danny DeVito), the hideously deformed scion of a wealthy Gotham City family. The Penguin plots with evil businessman Max Schreck (Christopher Walken) to become mayor and then turn Gotham into a cathedral of crime. Upon overhearing these plans, Schreck's mousy secretary Selena Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) is tossed from a high-rise window by her boss. Rescued by a covey of kittens, Selena transforms into the leather-clad Catwoman. In this guise, she teams with the Penguin and Schreck to divvy up their ill-gotten gains and help discredit Batman-but she also has her own scores to settle. Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens, Vincent Schiavelli and Jan Hooks play significant bits, while Pat Hingle and Michael Gough make returns as, respectively, Commissioner Gordon and Alfred the Butler. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Child star Kevin "Moochie" Cocoran shares his top billing with a chimp, Mr. Stubbs, in this story about a forlorn lad who runs away from his foster parents believing he is unloved. Little Toby and his pet chimp leave home and end up at the circus as an oily yet comic Harry Tupper (Bob Sweeney), in charge of a concessions stand, takes them under his wing. Between the circus acts and friendly performers, as well as the antics of Mr. Stubbs and Harry himself, there is plenty to amuse viewers of any age. Sure enough, Toby manages to come to the rescue of the circus when it most needs help, and because this is a Disney film, those foster parents are certain to discover his whereabouts. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little John (Alan Hale Sr., who played this part three times in his long career) and the "piggy-back" episode between Robin and Friar Tuck (Eugene Pallette). The film ties together the various ancient anecdotes with a storyline bounded by the capture in Austria of Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter) on one end and Richard's triumphant return to England on the other. Robin Hood is already an outlaw at the outset of the film, while Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland) is initially part of the enemy camp, as one of Prince John's (Claude Rains) entourage. Marian warms up to Robin's fight against injustice (and to Robin himself), eventually becoming a trusted ally. James Cagney was originally announced for the role of Robin Hood, just before Cagney left Warner Bros. in a salary dispute. William Keighley was the original director, but he worked too slowly to suit the tight production schedule and was replaced by Michael Curtiz (both men receive screen credit). A lengthy opening jousting sequence was shot but removed from the final print; portions of this sequence show up as stock footage in the 1957 Warners film The Story of Mankind. The chestnut-colored Palomino horse ridden by de Havilland in the Sherwood Forest scenes later gained screen stardom as Roy Rogers' Trigger. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi