Frederic Steinkamp Movies

A disgruntled British secret service officer and an aspiring author turn to crime when they are again passed over for prominent career advancements. John Pedley (Fred Astaire) is the agent who has been passed over for knighthood one too many times for his liking. He proposes a plan to university professor Mike Warden (Richard Crenna), who has been fired for taking part in a peace demonstration. With the help of Sylvia Giroux (Anne Heywood), they recruit a retired SS officer and a former Italian fascist as they attempt to hijack a fortune in gold bricks from the British crown. Pedley deals with double-crossing opportunists who covet the gold for themselves. Sir Ralph Richardson, Roddy McDowell and Cesar Romero also star in this engaging crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In 1961, Cliff Robertson starred in The Two Worlds of Charley Gordon, a TV adaptation of Daniel Keyes' story Flowers for Algernon. Determined not to lose out on the film version of this play as he'd done with Days of Wine and Roses, Robertson bought up the movie rights to Keyes' story so that he and he alone would star. This determination paid off in the form of the Best Actor Academy Award for Robertson in 1968. The star plays Charly, a 30-year-old mentally retarded bakery worker. Neurosurgeon Dr. Richard Nemur (Leon Janney) and psychiatrist Dr. Anna Straus (Lilia Skala) approach Charly and ask him to participate in an experiment. Previously, Dr. Nemur was able to accelerate the intelligence of a mouse named Algernon by performing a radical new form of brain surgery; could not such a procedure work on a human being? As a result, Charly not only achieves normal intelligence, but also becomes a genius. Emboldened by his new mental status, Charly proposes marriage to his very receptive special-ed teacher (Claire Bloom). Alas, Charly notices that Algernon has begun to regress, and he reasons that he also will return to his old developmentally challenged state. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Garner plays a man who awakens in Central Park with no memories at all. This drama chronicles his search for his identity. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Once a thief, always a thief. This is the sorry lot of Eddie (Alain Delon), an ex-convict who tries his best to go straight. He marries Kristine (Ann-Margret), who bears him a child. Seeking out a new start in San Francisco, Eddie is dogged by vengeful cop Vito (Van Heflin), who thinks that the ex-con shot him years earlier. Eddie is arrested by Vito for a crime committed by someone else. Though he is set free, he is unable to find work after the truth about his past is revealed. Kristine is forced to take a job in a strip joint (her costumes are frustratingly modest) to make ends meet, a fact that sends Eddie spiralling into a depression-and, ultimately one last caper, engineered by his brother (Jack Palance). The grim proceedings in Once a Thief were originally put down on paper by novelist Zekial Marko, who plays a small role in the screen version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Meredith Willson's second Broadway hit (the first and biggest was The Music Man) proved a lucrative vehicle for the equally unsinkable Debbie Reynolds. Based on a true story, the film casts Debbie as hoydenish Molly Brown, who wangles her way into Denver High Society when she marries "overnight millionaire" Johnny Brown (Harve Presnell). When the local social arbiters give Molly the brush-off, she pulls off a coup by bringing a representative of European royalty, Prince Louis de Laniere (Vassili Lambrinos) into the Colorado community. Her admiration for the prince causes a rift in her marriage; it takes the sinking of the Titanic--wherein Molly heroically commandeers one of the lifeboats and is responsible for rescuing several of the passengers--to bring Molly and Johnny together again. While the energetic performances of such songs as I Ain't Down Yet and Belly Up to the Bar Boys are to be cherished, the real highlight of The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a society ball which ends up in a pie fight between the Denver "elite" and Molly's rambunctious mining-town cronies. Treated condescendingly by the critics, the film struck a responsive chord with audiences to the tune of a $7.5 million gross. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Playwright Norman Krasna adapted his hit Broadway sex farce for the screen under the direction of Peter Tewksbury. Adam Tyler (Cliff Robertson) is an airline pilot who rents a pricey Manhattan apartment and has the weekend off. His prim sister Eileen (Jane Fonda), shows up to visit, complaining that her fiancée Russ (Robert Culp), is pressuring her to have premarital sex, threatening to break up their engagement if she doesn't comply. Adam tells his sister that she is right to resist, that men want to marry women who are virgins, then he leaves with plans to meet his lover, Mona Harris (Jo Morrow), in another city. Left alone, Eileen finds women's lingerie in her brother's closet and realizes that he has a double standard. She leaves, upset. While on a bus, she meets a man named Mike (Rod Taylor). They spend the day sightseeing, fall in love, and return to the apartment after a rainstorm drenches their clothes. Russ and Adam later arrive at the apartment at different intervals. Russ mistakenly believes that Eileen has cheated on him, so he storms out, leaving Eileen with her new love and Adam with plans to marry Jo. Jim Backus has a minor role as a flight dispatcher. Musician Peter Nero, who scored the film, appears in a cameo. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Released in Great Britain as The Spinster, this romantic drama is based on a novel by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Shirley MacLaine plays Anna Vorontosov, a Pennsylvania-born schoolteacher who has taken a job in rural New Zealand. The permissive habits of the Maori families whose children she teaches continually shock her. Though she is emotionally repressed, Anna is a remarkable teacher who brings innovative classroom methods to her job. Her racially mixed classes are thriving. W.W.J. Abercrombie (Jack Hawkins) is a school administrator who is won over by her methods. Paul Lathrope (Laurence Harvey) is a teacher who longs to be a singer but is lonely and irresponsible. The icy Anna, frightened of men, rebuffs their advances. Her chief aide, Whareparita (Nobu McCarthy), a 15-year-old Maori, becomes pregnant. The Maoris accept this as a natural development. But her baby dies during childbirth. Soon after, Paul crashes his motorcycle and dies. When Anna learns that Paul was the baby's father, she wonders whether the crash was an accident or a suicide, and she blames her rejection of Paul for the pregnancy. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Yvette Mimeux, Paula Prentiss, Connie Francis, and Dolores Hart star in this frothy teen romance-drama as attractive co-eds who take off from Midwest colleges on the annual spring break to land in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida -- where the boys are. There are plenty of parties, booze, and sex to keep minds off calculus for awhile. Merritt Andrews (Hart) and Ryder Smith (George Hamilton) manage to get together, Tuggle Carpenter (Paula Prentiss) manages to let her comedic talents shine, Angie (Connie Francis) sings the hit title song, but Melanie (Yvette Mimeux) becomes a casualty of too many good times. She will recover, and all the leads will go on to good, even great careers in some cases. Dolores Hart was the only featured player here to leave Hollywood behind -- she became a Benedictine nun in 1963. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide