Leonard J. Goldberg Movies

One of the better and more diverting of ABC's first full season of made-for-television movies, The Over-the-Hill Gang was a low-budget Western with a gimmick: Get a bunch of elderly actors, known either for their leading roles in the 1930s, or for playing comic sidekicks (and Walter Brennan was a lot of both categories) through the 1950s, and put them together in a plot. The result was this enjoyable oater about a quartet of retired Texas Rangers (Pat O'Brien, Walter Brennan, Chill Wills, Edgar Buchanan) who take on the corrupt mayor (Edward Andrews) of a small Nevada town where O'Brien's daughter (Kris Nelson) and newspaper editor son-in-law (Rick Nelson) live. Jack Elam represents the bad guys' muscle with his usual threatening aplomb, and Andy Devine gets a lot of mileage out of his role as a corrupt, inept judge. The other surprise in the cast is Gypsy Rose Lee, looking radiant as ever, portraying an admirer of the former rangers, in what was her final screen appearance, and such familiar old faces as Myron Healey, William Benedict, and Elmira Sessions in supporting roles. When O'Brien and company realize that they're no longer fast enough to do the job with guns, they decide to use their wits instead, outsmarting and outflanking the villains. The pacing by director Jean Yarbrough (whose own career went back to the 1920s, and whose last film this was) is a little leisurely, but the script is fairly clever and it's a lot of fun watching the veteran actors chewing up the scenery, with Devine having the most fun of all in an unusual role as a villain. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

According to this cookie-cutter TV movie, every man needs a woman to put down his rampant chauvinism. Ken Berry is a swinging architect (yes, he has long sideburns) who doesn't believe that women should work. Enter Connie Stevens, a highly intelligent young lady whom Berry reluctantly hires as an assistant. There's lots of talk about women's liberation, but note how most of the liberated ladies wear miniskirts and go-go boots. Every Man Needs One is inexorably a product of the early 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In her final acting appearance, Susan Hayward is ironically cast as a research doctor who can no longer face up to the notion of dealing with death on a daily basis. Recently widowed, Dr. Maggie Cole is on the verge of giving up her job and going into seclusion. She is shaken back to reality by crusty but lovable "street doctor" Lou Grazzo (Darren McGavin), who coerces Maggie into accepting a job at a Chicago slum clinic. At first adjusting admirably to her new surroundings, Maggie undergoes a devastating assault to her emotions when she befriends a teenaged leukemia patient. Written by real-life M.D. Sandor Stern and originally telecast by ABC on September 27, 1972, Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole was supposed to have been the pilot for a weekly series, but plans for this project were abandoned after the death of star Susan Hayward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joshua Cabe (Buddy Ebsen) is a trapper in the old west. He hopes to set up his own homestead, but new government laws won't allow him any land unless he has a family. Cabe's own daughters refuse to come west to live with their dad, so Joshua hires three "shady ladies" (Karen Valentine, Lesley Ann Warren and Sandra Dee) to pose as his offspring. A made-for-TV movie, Daughters of Joshua Cabe did well enough in the ratings to encourage producer Aaron Spelling to develop a series based on the property. Unfortunately, neither of the two subsequent pilot films--New Daughters of Joshua Cabe and Daughters of Joshua Cabe Return, each with brand-new casts--aroused network or sponsorial interest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actually, Hijack has nothing to do with the Wild Blue Yonder: instead, the story involves two truckers (David Janssen, Keenan Wynn) hauling a mysterious cargo from LA to Houston. The U.S. government won't tell our heroes what they're carrying in their eight-wheeler, but someone knows what it is, and that someone is well armed and very dangerous. Hijack was first broadcast September 26, 1973, while most of the country was watching a Bob Hope special on a competing network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV movie The Affair (working title: Love Song) marked the return to television of Natalie Wood after an 18-year absence (her last regular small-screen work was on the 1954 sitcom The Pride of the Family). Wood plays a crippled 32-year-old songwriter whose handicap has made her cynical and suspicious of the kindnesses of strangers. Robert Wagner (the real-life husband of Natalie Wood) co-stars as a compassionate lawyer who falls in love with her. By the time she has warmed up to her new beau, she finds that her family opposes the relationship. Written by Barbara Turner, The Affair first aired November 20, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An unsubtle but effective TV-movie satire of the "Miss America" syndrome, Great American Beauty Contest stars Joanna Cameron as a fire-breathing feminist who enters the contest of the title. She plans to win the crown, then utterly destroy the contest by delivering a scathing attack on exploitation and sexism instead of an acceptance speech. A subplot concerns contest judge Louis Jourdan, who uses his position to extract sexual favors from the more desperate contestants. Eleanor Parker, the girls' chaperone, gives Jourdan his comeuppance in the film's most satisfying sequence. We won't spoil the twist ending, but we will note that one of the contestants is played by Farrah Fawcett, whose specialty is an endearingly ridiculous belly dance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The most narratively loose of Robert Altman's '70s films, California Split details the haphazard lives of two compulsive gamblers searching for that ever-elusive big score. Newly single and soon-to-be-unemployed Bill (George Segal) joins live-wire pal Charlie (Elliott Gould), as the pair moves from Fruit Loops with Charlie's hooker roommates Sue (Gwen Welles) and Barbara (Ann Prentiss) to bets on horses, backroom card games, boxing, and basketball. They make it to Reno, but Bill comes to realize that even the big score may not be the answer to the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life. For Charlie, however, that's all there is. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV movie, six persons have won a cruise-ship vacation, but they find that the awards were just a trick to begin a killing game. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

This TV movie opens with a Hefner-like magazine publisher (Richard Long), who's just turned forty, answering his doorbell. Into his bachelor pad pops a young, bikini-clad girl (Karen Valentine) with a bow fastened around her waist; she sings "Happy Birthday", then plants a kiss on the startled Long. The publisher suspects that his buddies have set this up, but in fact Valentine is as much responsible for the surprise. A country gal, she has come to the big city in search of a husband, and she's hoping that by presenting herself to Long, she'll be launched on the road to romantic fulfillment. More whimsical than sexy, The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped was another pre-fab ABC Movie of the Week. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV film, a screenwriter (Robert Wagner) begins writing the biography of the dead movie queen who had a brief affair with his father. After work on the project has commenced, he becomes obsessed with her spirit and gets a response from the other side of the grave. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this WWII-era drama, Jan-Michael Vincent plays Marion Hedgepeth, a young Marine who fails out of a boot camp in 1943 and gets sent home wearing a baby blue suit to symbolize shame and dishonor. In Los Angeles, he runs into a veteran who -- eager to be discharged -- k.o.'s him and switches their uniforms. When Marion regains consciousness, he's clad in a hero's uniform. He begins hitching his way toward his home in St. Louis, dreading the prospect of confessing to his folks, but stops for a time in a small town where he's mistaken for a hero and immediately falls in love with a waitress, Rose (Glynnis O'Connor). Meanwhile, as the truth threatens to emerge and bring disgrace raining down onto his head, several residents of a Japanese internment camp escape. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide