Michael Cole Movies
Lead actor Michael Cole first appeared on screen in the '60s. ~ All Movie Guide- 1973
Rule of thumb: if David Lowell Rich directed it, it's probably a TV movie. Beg, Borrow or Steal stars Mike Connors, Michael Cole and Kent McCord as three ex-cops, disabled while on duty. Having trouble finding regular work, the three men team up to steal a valuable statue from a museum. Connors has no legs, Cole no hands, and McCord is blind: but when they're working together, they're a lean mean stealing machine. Beg, Borrow or Steal is as tasteless as it sounds, but at least it has the novelty of three popular TV detective-show stars pooling their resources on the opposite side of the law. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mike Connors, Kent McCord, (more)
The title character (Rod Taylor) is a drifting gunslinger, who enters a Southwestern fort and immediately becomes embroiled with its commander (John Mills). In the end, the wanderer helps the fort guard against attacks from Indians. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rod Taylor, Ernest Borgnine, (more)
- 1993
Michael Winner directs a curious amalgam of his own Death Wish and Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45, in this intense, post-feminist serial-killer movie, based on the bestseller by Helen Zahavi. After an explosive love affair crashes and burns, Bella (Lia Williams) leaves London for Brighton, where she begins to receive a series of obscene telephone calls from her deranged neighbor. Soon her neighbor also begins to stalk her. When the local police refuse to help her, Bella determines to take the matter into her own hands. Finally, at the urging of a loony Asian clairvoyant (Ian Richardson), Bella sneaks into the stalker's apartment in the dead of night and beats him to death with a claw-hammer. And to Bella's surprise, she finds that she likes it. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lia Williams, David McCallum, (more)
- 1977
- PG
In this car-chase filled actioner, two highway patrolmen moonlight as auto-repossessors only to discover that they have been duped into stealing cars. High-speed mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Vacek, Ed Abrams, (more)
- 1978
A piece of made-for-television hack work that suddenly became sort of topical 23 years later, with the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Evening in Byzantium was a two-part made-for-TV feature based very loosely on Irwin Shaw's best-seller. The book involved intrigue and romance at the Cannes Film Festival, but the television producers evidently thought that this did not justify a two-night prime time movie event, so they added a story about Middle Eastern terrorists using the Cannes Film Festival as part of a larger plot to attack the West. Glenn Ford plays Jesse Craig, a down-on-his-luck producer with a film project in mind involving terrorists, who goes to Cannes to raise money and finds himself dealing with his ex-wife (Shirley Jones) and romancing Erin Gray. But before too long, he uncovers a plot by real terrorists to replace commercial airliners in flight (blowing them out of the sky and taking over their authorized flight paths) with specially converted airliners and bomb targets in the United States. Also on hand is Vince Edwards, playing an actor with a radical political agenda, who is alarmed that Ford's proposed film parallels his own terrorist plans; Michael Cole as Ford's associate; Eddie Albert and Gloria De Haven as a couple with ties to the movie business; Harry Guardino as a skeptical American security officer; and Marcel Hillaire as the French police inspector trying to unravel the terrorists plans. It's all very silly, though played very sincerely by most of the cast, and none of the plot described is less plausible than the notion that Glenn Ford and Erin Gray could ignore the 36-year difference in their ages. Evening in Byzantium was originally shown in August of 1978 as part of the syndicated Operation Prime Time programming series, intended to compete with the three networks. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- 1961
A cooperative effort that took four years to complete, this moving docudrama is the only film ever directed by TV film editor Robert L. Kimble. During the first half-hour or so, a drama unfolds that centers on a young boy (played by blind actor Michael Cole) who loses his sight in an accident and cannot adjust to life without sight. He struggles until he is taken in by the Foundation for the Junior Blind, a Los Angeles organization that then turns the young boy's life around. The second half-hour then goes into the functions and nature of this charitable foundation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Cole
- 2008
All hell breaks loose when a street savvy criminal is placed in a small southern town under the witness protection program, and the mobsters seeking to silence him arrive to discover that this particular town suffers from a gruesome, century-old curse. Passing through, one would assume that Lynchburg, Georgia is just a typical rural town. But the citizens of Lynchburg have been condemned to a diet of human flesh, and in order to feed they lure in unsuspecting travelers. When the mafia arrives intending to ice a key witness in a case against them, the fight is on to get out of Lynchburg and avoid becoming the main course at the next town gathering. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Darrow, John J. Cornetta, (more)
- 1987
In the final episode of Murder, She Wrote's third season, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) shows up at a studio to record one of her "Mystery Books for the Blind." Halfway through her recording session, the electricity fails and the studio is plunged into a blackout. When the lights come up again, it is revealed that the studio's co-owner has been murdered. Naturally, the "wrong person" is accused of the crime, obliging Jessica to set things right by exposing the real culprit--and this being a recording studio, rest assured that the most important clue will be aural rather than visual. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
25 year ago, a fatal stabbing occurred during a broadcast of the popular TV comedy-variety series "The Barry Barnes Show." Now Barnes (Donald O'Connor) and his cast and crew have gathered together at the murder scene to stage a reunion special. Soon thereafter, a mysterious woman dressed in black shows up to accuse Barnes of committing the murder. When a second tragedy strikes, it is up to Jessica (Angela Lansbury) to find out just what the heck is going on now, and what really went on back in 1965. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Teen-aged waitress Heather Langekamp is impregnated by college student Patrick Cassidy. Heather's kindly "loser" boss Michael Cole provides aid and comfort for the lonely, confused girl. Her father Ed Lauter wants to finance an abortion, but Cole insists upon taking responsibility. He marries Langenkamp, even though she hasn't expressed any overt love for him. The reasons are slightly vicarious: Cole had once been the suitor of Heather's mother. A novel by John Gardner was the source for the take-its-time Nickel Mountain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Cole, Heather Langenkamp, (more)
This sci-fi outing was originally released in 3-Dimensional "Spacevision" and tells the tale of a young couple who go for a fun day of flying and end up forced into a gigantic plastic bubble during a sudden violent storm. Inside the inverted bowl is an apparently empty ghost town, that on further inspection proves to be filled with old movie props and strange "residents" who seem to suffer from a bizarre form of echolalia. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Cole, Deborah Walley, (more)
- 1971
Back before he was producing Charlie's Angels, Aaron Spelling was a major supplier of made-for-television feature films, particularly to ABC, on which this movie premiered in 1971. The Last Child takes place in America in 1994, a time in which a massive, chronic overpopulation crisis has resulted in the passage of Draconian laws, declaring that no couple can have more than one child, and that nobody over the age of 65 can receive any but the most superficial medical treatment. Michael Cole and Janet Margolin play a young married couple whose first child died; she is pregnant again, and they now find themselves hounded by the authorities when she refuses to submit to a legally mandated abortion. Chased across country by Population Control agent Edward Asner (a sinister figure in his pre-Mary Tyler Moore period), they plan to escape to Canada but find the border closed. They receive unexpected help from Van Heflin, in his final screen performance, portraying retired U.S. Senator Quincy George, who opposed the Population Control Laws. He shelters Cole and Margolin at great risk to himself, using what political clout and respect he still commands in his own state to block Asner's pursuit. They must find a means of escaping the country, however, as the authorities close in even on this momentarily safe haven. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Meet Pete, Linc and Julie: The Mod Squad. This trio consisted of rich, long-haired Pete Cochran, Lincoln "Linc" Hayes from the tough streets of inner city Los Angeles, and beautiful flower child Julie Barnes, a runaway from San Francisco. They're recruited by police captain Adam Greer (Tiger Andrews) for a covert unit that will help bridge the generation gap. Each week these three cops with love beads wrestled with criminals - and their own consciences. They may have been the "fuzz," but they were determined to never compromise their values. They were The Mod Squad!
- Starring:
- Michael Cole, Clarence Williams III, (more)
- 1979
In this crime drama, based on the old TV series, the three terminally hip undercover cops reunite after a seven year absence to find out the identity of the person who is threatening their boss's life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A righteous police officer investigating the disappearance of a young girl comes into conflict with the unusual residents of a secluded Scottish isle in this unsettling, intelligent chiller. Brought to the island of Summerisle by an anonymous letter, Edward Woodward's constable is surprised to discover that the island's population suspiciously denies the missing girl's very existence. Even more shocking, at least to the traditionally pious law office, the island is ruled by a libertarian society organized around pagan rituals. Repelled by the open acceptance of sexuality, nature worship, and even witchcraft, the officer takes an antagonistic attitude towards the people and their leader, an eccentric but charming English lord (Christopher Lee). The officer's unease intensifies as he continues his investigation, slowly coming to fear that the girl's disappearance may be linked in a particularly horrifying manner to an upcoming public festival. Anthony Shaffer's meticulously crafted screenplay creates a thoroughly convincing alternative society, building tension through slow discovery and indirect suggestion and making the terrifying climax all the more effective. Performances are also perfectly tuned, with Woodward suitably priggish as the investigator and horror icon Lee delivering one of his most accomplished performances as Lord Summerisle. Little noticed during its original theatrical run due to studio edits and a limited release, the film's intelligence and uncanny tone has since attracted a devoted cult following. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, (more)
- 1992
A golden Buddha and two kickboxing con men provide the basis of this lively martial-arts actioner that opens during the Vietnam war as three lost commandos make their way though the jungle and find themselves in a cave containing a fabulous golden Buddha. The story jumps ahead twenty years as two con artists Dave and James run a successful scam that bilks gamblers out of their money during phony kickboxing matches. One of the three veterans tells the grifters about the treasure and enlists their aide in getting it. He then draws them a map just before he is executed by the villain McMann's henchmen. Shortly thereafter, James, Dave, and Dave's girl friend, Julie, head for Cambodia. They are pursued by McMann and his deadly gang. The question then becomes, who will get to the treasure first? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
