Bob Wilke Movies

Television newsman Harry Walsh (Leslie Nielsen) holds fast to the maxim "seeing is believing" in this political/medical thriller, with science-fiction overtones. Harry saw a well-known U.S. Senator (Bradford Dillman) have a car accident, and took video coverage on the scene. When he arrives at the hospital to follow up on the story, he is told that no such person is, or ever was there. Since the senator is a presidential hopeful, this is a very important story, and Harry keeps at it. His TV station, which ran a report on the accident, retracts the story with an apology when the senator's office calls with the story that the senator is on a fishing trip. Harry doesn't believe it. In a parallel story, the senator wakes up in a hospital with all sorts of transplanted organs, etc., when he should simply be dead. He discovers that his survival is part of a worldwide medical blackmail scheme involving world political leaders. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Gary Morton, the real-life husband of Lucille Ball, makes a rare Lucy Show appearance as Gary Stewart, the current boyfriend of Lucy Carmichael (Ball, of course). It seems that Gary loves to play golf, but Lucy doesn't know one club from another. Of course, she intends to learn the game in a hurry--and thus the stage is set for a zany session on the links involving genuine pro golfers Jimmy Demaret and Bo Winninger. This episode is a reworking of the I Love Lucy installment "The Golf Game", which also featured Jimmy Demaret. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Allied Artists' Gun Hawk puts Rory Calhoun through his usual paces as an aging gunman. Calhoun has pretty much retired from shoot outs, and now runs a small town populated by outlaws. He befriends hotheaded fast gun Rod Lauren, who behaves as impulsively as Calhoun had in his earlier days. When the outlaws turn on Calhoun and shoot him down, the mortally wounded gunslinger tries to goad Lauren into a fight so that he can die with a modicum of dignity. Producer Richard Bernstein co-wrote the screenplay of Gun Hawk from his own story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hot Summer Night is an out-of-the-ordinary crime yarn from the TV/radio production team of Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Unemployed journalist William Joel Pertain (Leslie Nielsen) hopes to reestablish himself by capitalizing on a recent wave of bank robberies. Pertain has a "lead" to the gang's leader Tom Ellis (Robert Wilke), and intends to parlay this into a hot news story. Instead, he places the lives of himself and his wife Irene (Colleen Miller) in dire peril. Of interest is the fact that the villain is portrayed with a modicum of sympathy, while the reporter comes off as a bit of a jerk. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dale Robertson stars as the Son of Sinbad in this tongue-in-cheek Arabian Nights romp. Hoping to rescue Bagdad from the forces of the dreaded Tamerlaine, Sinbad Jr. enlists the aid of the Khalif (Leon Askin) by promising to deliver the secret of "Greek Fire". To expedite this, he enlists the aid of the lovely Kristina (Mari Blanchard), who has memorized said secret. When the bad guys threaten the safety of hero and heroine, slave girl Ameer (Sally Forrest), who heads the all-female descendants of the original Forty Thieves, come galloping to the rescue. Personally produced by Howard Hughes, Son of Sinbad seems to be a clearing house for all of Hughes' voyeuristic fetishes; at one point, stripteaser Lili St. Cyr performs an exotic (and erotic) dance wearing the equivalent of a postage stamp, earning a Condemned rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency. The overabundance of feminie pulchritude gets a little wearing after a while, and it is up to Vincent Price to steal the show as Omar the Tentmaker, improvising passages of his unpublished "Rubiyat" (with a few anachronistic Shakespearean quotes thrown in) as he tries to keep apace with the hero. Also on hand is an uncredited (and fully clothed) Kim Novak as a handmaiden. More silly than sexy when seen today, Son of Sinbad is acceptable nonthink entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed around the same time as Gunfight at the OK Corral, Wichita is a more modest--and to some, more entertaining--slant on the Wyatt Earp legend. Joel McCrea does his usual smooth, underplayed job as Earp, who aims to bring law and order to the wide-open cow town of Wichita. His least popular move is to take away the guns of everyone in town, no matter how important. Only when town banker McCoy (Walter Coy) is hit with a personal tragedy does Earp's no-guns edict begin to make sense. Linking the episodic storyline is an offscreen ballad, sung High Noon style by Tex Ritter. Interestingly, Joel McCrea would later star in the 1959 TV western Wichita Town--though not, of course, as Wyatt Earp (Hugh O'Brien was busy with that character on another network!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the last of his four western programmers for Allied Artists, Wayne Morris plays frontiersman Jim Bisby. Mistaken for a notorious gunslinger, Jim is appointed deputy sheriff of a wide-open cattle town. Playing along, our hero gets down to business -- and by the time his true identity is revealed, it hardly matters, since most of the bad guys are pushing up daisies on boot hill. Beverly Garland turns in another exceptional performance as the heroine, while Morris Ankrum, Roy Barcroft and I. Stanford Jolley fulfill their usual responsibilities. Two Guns and a Badge is of historical interest as the very last "B"-grade "series" western ever produced in Hollywood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from a novel by W.R. Burnett (which hadn't yet been published when the film was released), Arrowhead is a tough, uncompromising western dealing with the delicate issue of White-Indian relations. Charlton Heston is at his most truculent as Indian agent Ed Bannon, who though raised by Apaches has a very low opinion of the tribe's trustworthiness. Bannon's warnings about Indian treachery would seem to be borne out by a series of bloody raids upon the cavalry, but the officers in charge refuse to believe him. It turns out that the man behind the Apache attacks is Toriano (Jack Palance), the chief's college-educated son, who has rejected the ways of the White Man and intends to reclaim his birthright. The film boils down to a mano y mano battle between Bannon and Toriano, personal enemies from way back. Hardly politically correct, Arrowhead is worth seeing if only for the multitextured performance by Jack Palance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This western stars Sterling Hayden as a man who innocently tends to the needs of a mysterious stranger. When it turns out that the stranger was part of a notorious gang of mercenaries, Hayden is condemned as a conspirator and sent to Hellgate Prison in New Mexico. He earns a pardon thanks to his courage and medical expertise during an epidemic. Hellgate was one of a handful of ambitious 1950s projects from the otherwise cost-conscious Lippert Studios. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charles Starrett is back as The Durango Kid in Laramie Mountains. The villains this time are a group of white outlaws who disguise themselves as Indians to stage raids on various U.S. army posts. Their plan is to foment an all-out war for their own profit. Government agent Steve Holden (Starrett) intends to put a stop to the criminal's activities; when all else fails, he adopts the disguise of the Durango Kid to operate outside the Law. Jack (later Jock) Mahoney, who'd been playing supporting roles and performing stunts in previous Durango Kid outings, contributes a strong characterization in Laramie Mountains as Swift Eagle, a white man adopted by Indians. One of the heavies is played by Fred Sears, taking time out from his directorial duties on the Starrett series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tim Holt rides again in RKO's Gunplay. This time, Holt and saddle pal Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) try to solve a murder. The victim is the father of 11-year-old Chip Martin ([Harper Carter]) (best known for his portrayal of Clifton Webb's son in Titanic). At stake is a huge inheritance, which young Chip may lose to the head villain (who, of course, masterminded the murder). RKO's Tim Holt series was beginning to show its age, as indicated by the comparatively small box-office take of Gunplay. Nevertheless, the studio continued grinding out low-budget westerns until 1952. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tim Holt comes to the aid of a young telegrapher wrongly accused of murder in this average western from RKO. The telegrapher, Dave Collins Ross Elliott, is released on parole and on his way west when hi-jacked by the same gang that caused his imprisonment in the first place. Gang leader Turk Thorne (John Dehner) needs Dave's help in an upcoming train heist but before he can "persuade" the youngster to go along with the scheme, Dave is rescued by cowpokes Tim Holt and Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin). But Thorne does not give up that easily and soon Dave is accused of killing the local telegrapher (Paul E. Burns), a crime actually committed by Thorne himself. Tim believes in Dave's innocence, however, and agrees to help him by setting a trap for Thorne and his henchmen. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide