Kim Charney Movies
- 1963
Aunt Martha (Madge Kennedy) wants to send Beaver (Jerry Mathers) to a prestigious New England prep school that has graduated many another member of her family. Beaver balks at the idea until Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June (Barbara Billingsley) tell him of the school's many exciting extracurricular activities. Ultimately, however, Beaver must make the difficult decision to either please Aunt Martha or follow his own heart all by himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madge Kennedy, Doris Packer, (more)
- 1962
Beaver (Jerry Mathers) is thrilled at the prospect of getting his first football letter at a father and son banquet. However, neither Beaver nor his friends Richard (Richard Correll) and Gilbert (Stephen Talbot) are keen about dressing for the occasion. The boys agree to show up to the event in their street clothes, a decision that meets with a surprising lack of resistance from Beaver's dad, Ward. Comes the night of the banquet, and Beaver confidently walks in sporting casual wear -- and there stand Richard and Gilbert, nattily attired in coats and ties! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Correll, Stephen Talbot, (more)
Filmed in panoramic Cinerama, this star-studded, epic Western adventure is a true cinematic classic. Three legendary directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall) combine their skills to tell the story of three families and their travels from the Erie Canal to California between 1839 and 1889. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, which cost an estimated 15 million dollars to complete. In the first segment, "The Rivers," pioneer Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) sets out to settle in the West with his wife (Agnes Moorehead) and their four children. Along with other settlers and river pirates, they run into mountain man Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who sells animal hides. The Prescotts try to raft down the Ohio River in a raft, but only daughters Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) and Eve (Carroll Baker) survive. Eve and Linus get married, while Lilith continues on. In the second segment, "The Plains," Lilith ends up singing in a saloon in St. Louis, but she really wants to head west in a wagon train led by Roger Morgan (Robert Preston). Along the way, she's accompanied by the roguish gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), who claims he can protect her. After he saves her life during an Indian attack, they get married and move to San Francisco. In the third segment, "The Civil War," Eve and Linus' son, Zeb (George Peppard), fights for the Union. After he's forced to kill his Confederate friend, he returns home and gives the family farm to his brother. In the fourth segment, "The Railroads," Zeb fights with his railroad boss (Richard Widmark), who wants to cut straight through Indian territory. Zeb's co-worker Jethro (Henry Fonda) refuses to cut through the land, so he quits and moves to the mountains. After the railway camp is destroyed, Zeb heads for the mountains to visit him. In the fifth segment, "The Outlaws," Lilith is an old widow traveling from California to Arizona to stay with her nephew Zeb on his ranch. However, he has to fight a gang of desperadoes first. How the West Was Won garnered three Oscars, for screenplay, film editing, and sound production. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Henry Fonda, (more)
- 1962
Beaver (Jerry Mathers) scores the winning touchdown in an important school football game. At first he is blasé about it, but the next day the local paper plays up the TD and even plasters Beaver's picture on the front page. Before long, Beaver's ego has swelled to mammoth proportions, and Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June (Barbara Billingsley), who were first to join the "Hooray for Beaver" bandwagon, worry that they've created a monster -- especially when The Beav decides that he's simply too good to show up for practice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Talbot, Ken Osmond, (more)
- 1959
Meant primarily as TV fare, this standard, song-filled romantic drama stars Louis Prima as himself, and his real-life wife Keely Smith as Dorothy Spencer, a devout woman with a good singing voice. Dorothy is active in her local parish which like all parishes, is constantly thinking of ways to raise funds. One of the needy projects is a boys' camp, so when Dorothy is approached by Louis Prima to sing with his band she agrees only on one condition -- that he perform a concert benefit for the parish church and boys' camp. The interactions between Dorothy and Prima lead toward romance and a happy ending, as well as a popular album with the same title song featured in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Prima, Keely Smith, (more)
- 1958
In this western, a trigger happy sheriff is asked to step down by the townsfolk who want to have a quieter, safer town. He obliges and then travels to Sundown where he and a war buddy team up and drive all the criminals out of the town. When the streets are safe, he then falls in with a saloon girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Montgomery, Randy Stuart, (more)
- 1958
Before there was Airport and its offspring, there was this aerial disaster film that stars Nancy Davis (later Nancy Reagan) as the devoted wife of an iron-willed sky pilot in charge of the doomed passenger plane. The trouble begins when the pilot realizes he must make an emergency landing in the Atlantic. Each of the diverse passengers has his or her own reaction to the impending disaster and many confessions are heard all around. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on what each person confessed) the water landing goes without a hitch and a US Naval ship is right there to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Merrill, Nancy Davis, (more)
- 1958
Republic Studios' B pictures were generally more exciting than their As, as was certainly the case with Girl in the Woods. The eponymous heroine is Bell Cory, played by Maggie Hayes. Bell is the wife of restless lumberman Steve Cory (Forrest Tucker), who'd been in constant trouble with the authorities if his wife weren't around to provide a calming influence. It is also Bell who saves the day when Steve is ostracized by the lumber community for supposedly casting his lot with crooked land baron Whitlock (Murvyn Vye). Perennial "dumb blonde" Joyce Compton makes her final film appearance in Girl in the Woods as Bell's pragmatic Aunt. The film was based on Blood on the Branches, a novel by Oliver Crawford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Forrest Tucker, Maggie Hayes, (more)
- 1958
The oft-told tale of controversial Southern-sympathizing outlaw Quantrill is recounted again in this low-budget western. Leo Gordon, possessor of one of the meanest faces in the movies, plays Quantrill, but top billing is bestowed upon Steve Cochran as Westcott, a Confederate officer assigned to collaborate with the vigilante leader in a raid on an ammunition depot in Lawrence, Kansas. Westcott is forced to move on when the ammo supply is moved, but the vengeance-driven Quantrill insists upon remaining in Lawrence, there to indulge in one of the bloodiest and most sadistic raids in Kansas history. Quantrill's Raiders was directed by Edward Bernds, who'd come a long way since his Three Stooges shorts of the early 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Leo Gordon, (more)
- 1957
In this western, a cavalryman disobeys his officer's command to massacre Indians at Sand Creek, goes AWOL and heads for his home in Texas where he wants to protect the women who will soon bear the brunt of the Indians' revenge. Because he defected from the cavalry, his friends and neighbors consider him a traitor, but the young man disregards them. With his expert advice, the women become crack shots. He trains them at an abandoned mission. One of the women is a real smart aleck and it is she whom he falls in love with. When the angry Indians arrive, the ladies defeat them. Later, the young deserter is found not-guilty during court-martial proceedings. His C.O. is not so lucky and is charged with the Sand Creek slaughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audie Murphy, Kathryn Grant, (more)
- 1956
There's danger ahead for police detectives Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) when a former mental patient barricades himself in his house and holds his children at gunpoint. Distraught because his wife has left him, the man threatens to kill himself and his children--and anyone else in the neighborhood who tries to stop him. This is one of the few black and white Dragnet episodes to be written expressly for television, and not adapted from an earlier radio broadcast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
Two brothers face their personal demons in this crime melodrama. Donald Martin (Van Johnson) is an alcoholic criminal who has escaped from prison and needs help crossing the Mexican border to freedom. Desperate, he arrives at the ranch of his lawyer brother Martin (Joseph Cotten). Martin has little respect for his brother and would prefer his neighbors not know he's housing a fugitive, so he tries to convince people that Donald is actually someone else. Donald is crushed by his brother's shame and rejection, and, after a drinking binge, he decides that he should try to make the journey into Mexico on his own. Martin's wife Nora (Ruth Roman), who has her own issues with Martin, convinces him to put his differences aside and help Donald however he can. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Van Johnson, Joseph Cotten, (more)
- 1956
Columbia's The Werewolf is not nearly as generic as its title would suggest: in fact, it is one of the better films of its kind. Steven Ritch plays Duncan Marsh, who after being seriously injured in a car wreck is used as a guinea pig by a pair of none too scrupulous scientists (S. John Launer and George M. Lynn). Seeking a cure for radiation poisoning, the scientists inject Marsh with wolf serum (what this has to do with radiation poisioning is never fully explained). Before long, Marsh is a full-fledged lycanthrope, wreaking havoc in the Big Bear Lake region. Some truly startling vignettes--including one lulu of a sequence in a jail cell--lift this Sam Katzman production well above the norm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steven Ritch, Don Megowan, (more)
- 1955
This suspense film revolves around the crime of child abduction. The parents of the missing child undertake a feverish search for their son. The police are contacted, and a ransom letter is received. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1955
One of the best of the High Noon derivations, At Gunpoint is the story of reluctant hero Fred MacMurray. When a band of gunmen invade a small frontier town, storekeeper MacMurray fires off a lucky shot and kills the leader. Hailed as a hero, MacMurray realizes deep down that he's a coward. When the surviving gunmen return to town, thirsting for revenge, the townsfolk expect MacMurray to singlehandedly stand up to the villains. When he asks for help, his neighbors turn their backs on him, ordering him to get out of town to avoid further trouble. Only doctor Walter Brennan and MacMurray's wife Dorothy Malone remain loyal. Facing certain death,MacMurray discovers that he's not as yellow as he thought he was-a revelation that brings about a change in the rest of the town. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred MacMurray, Dorothy Malone, (more)
Suddenly is the name of the small town invaded by professional assassin Frank Sinatra and his henchmen. Taking a local family hostage, Sinatra sets up a vigil at the second-story window of the family's home. From here, he intends to kill the President of the United States when the latter makes a whistle-stop visit. The film's tension level is enough to induce goose pimples from first scene to last. Sinatra is outstanding as the disgruntled war vet who hopes to become a "somebody" by killing the president. The parallels between his character and Lee Harvey Oswald's are too close for comfort, so much so that Suddenly was withdrawn from local TV packages for several years after the JFK assassination. Sinatra would claim in later years that he himself engineered the removal of Suddenly from general distribution, though in fact he'd lost whatever rights he'd held on the film when it lapsed into public domain. Be sure and miss the notorious colorized version of this black-and-white thriller, wherein Sinatra is transformed into Ol' Brown Eyes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, (more)
