William Buchanan Movies
- 1979
Timothy Bottoms stars as the real-life John Baker in the made-for-TV A Shining Season. A champion University of New Mexico track athlete, the 25-year-old Baker is only momentarily halted when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. His efforts to coach a losing girls' track team in his last months proves an inspiration for the sports world in general, and for a similarly doomed child in particular. Adapted by William Harrison from the book by William Buchanan, this film was first telecast the day after Christmas, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
This Disney drama, originally broadcast as a three-part TV episode, tells the story of a vicar's double life. Outwardly, he is the model of upstanding citizenship and loyalty to an oppressive British government. But he is also a notorious smuggler who uses his ill-gotten gains to benefit his impoverished village. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick McGoohan, Geoffrey Keen, (more)
- 1937
Two Minutes to Play is a cheap but energetic Sam Katzman-produced vehicle for Olympic champion Herman Brix. The star plays Martin Granville, an over-aged but undeniably muscular college football hero. Martin finds himself in competition with Jack Gaines (Eddie Nugent) for the affections of cute coed Pat Meredith (Jeanne Martel). In this way, Martin and Jack are emulating their respective fathers, who'd been bitter rivals ever since their own college days. As expected, the story, and its attendant conflicts, are resolved in the climactic Big Game. Herman Brix did rather better for himself when he moved to Columbia and changed his screen name to Bruce Bennett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Nugent, Jeanne Martel, (more)
Notorious Hollywood tightwad Sam Katzman's first serial, Shadow of Chinatown stars Bela Lugosi as Victor Poten, a Eurasian with a destructive hatred of both whites and Asians hired by Sonya Rokoff (Luana Walters) to ruin the tourist trade in San Francisco's Chinatown. But, as Sonya discovers and Poten himself acknowledges, she has inadvertently created a seemingly unstoppable "Frankenstein's monster." The forces of good opposing Poten and Rokoff include Martin Andrews (Herman Brix, aka Bruce Bennett), a novelist specializing in all things Oriental, sob-sister-turned-crime-reporter Joan Whiting (Joan Barclay), and Chinese houseboy Willy Fu (Hawaiian crooner Maurice Liu). Sonya Rokoff, whose allegiance to the madman quickly comes under some strain, is destroyed by a falling chandelier in Chapter 14, but Victor survives to be carted off to jail in the 15th and final chapter, "The Avenging Powers." Shadow of Chinatown was filmed in two weeks in Culver City, CA, and on rental stages at Hollywood's Talisman Studios. A slightly altered feature version in which Lugosi's character is killed off in the final reel was released simultaneously. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1936
In this western, a pugilist heads out west to find the crook who fixed his last fight so he can clear his own name. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
