Steve Cochran Movies
The son of a California lumberman, actor Steve Cohran spent his youth in Laramie, Wyoming, where he graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1939. After learning his craft at the Barter Theatre and the Carmel (California) Shakespeare Festival, he went on to work at Detroit's Federal Theatre, and was co-starred in the touring companies of Without Love and My Sister Eileen before his Broadway debut in the eight-performance flop Hickory Stick. During the war, Cochran directed Army camp shows. From 1945 through 1948, he was under contract to Sam Goldwyn, mostly playing secondary roles as gangsters. He left Hollywood to co-star with Mae West in Catherine Was Great and Diamond Lil; perhaps as a reward for not being acted off the stage by the formidable West, Cochran was signed by Warner Bros., where from 1949 through 1952 he was seen in rugged leading roles. In 1953, Cochran formed his own production company, Robert Alexander Productions, but he would not be seen in another film until 1956's Come Next Spring, which he produced for Republic Studios. He then headed for Europe, where he was given a starring assignment in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Outcry. In 1965, after several years of unimpressive movie and TV appearances, Cochran revived his production company and headed for Central and South America to scout locations. He hired three women, ages 14 through 25, to work as assistants, then headed for Costa Rica aboard his forty-foot yacht. On June 25, 1965, the yacht drifted into Port Champerico, Guatemala; on board were the three very distraught women--and the body of Steve Cochran, who had died some ten days earlier of a lung affection. Steve Cochran's last film project, Tell Me in the Sunlight (which he had produced, directed, written, scored and starred in back in 1964), was reedited and released posthumously. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A sailor and a stripper fall in love on the beaches of Nassau in this romance. Unfortunately, the exotic dancer already has a lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Shary Marshall, (more)
- 1966
An unemployed, cynical Yankee pilot begins working for a strange colonel flying between Lisbon and Mozambique. He is in one of the wealthy officer's clubs when he meets a promising young singer. From there he finds himself entangled in murder, narcotics smuggling and the white slave trade. The film was shot on location in Mozambique and at Victoria Falls. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1965
When her husband Booth (Steve Cochran) is murdered, Hallie Shannon (Joan Freeman) is convinced that her former sweetheart Joe Cartwright committed the dirty deed so that Joe and Hallie could be together again. Unfortunately, Booth's twin brother Buck (also Steve Cochran) is of the same opinion-and Buck has a notoriously itchy trigger finger. Joe's troubles are compounded when Hallie herself turns up dead. This episode posted the series' highest ratings of the season when it originally aired on March 28, 1965. "The Trap" was written by Ken Pettus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, (more)
- 1963
Boiling over with sexual shenanigans and general sleaziness the Mexico-set tale centers on a confused socialite who falls in love with an American engineer who was hired by her half- brother to oversee his mining outfit. At first the attraction between the girl and the Yank is purely sexual, but soon it turns to love. This causes the half-brother great torment, for he has fallen in love with his sister. Obsessed with jealousy, the conniving brother tries to bust things up by bringing in the girl's ex-lover. He is a cad and after trying unsuccessfully to seduce her, the creep results to rape. The next day, the despondent woman tries to kill herself, but the American shows up and reassures her that his love is true. This was the first film actress Merle Oberon had worked on in seven years and was filmed in her spectacular Mexican home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Merle Oberon, Steve Cochran, (more)
- 1961
Mob boss Nate Kestor (Steve Cochran) adds to the profits accrued by his popular burlesque house with sales of "imported" French brandy--which he manufactures himself in Chicago. Nate pulls off this deception with the help of the Marquise De Bouverais (Joanna Barnes), the wife of a famous and highly respected French cognac manufacturer (Steven Geray). If the Marquise refuses to play along, Nate will reveal to the world that she is really a former hootchy-kootchy dancer named Marcie McKuen--and if that isn't persuasive enough, Nate promises to kill both Marcie and De Bouverais if they try to escape his clutches. How will Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) manage to topple Kestor without putting Marcie's life in danger? This is the final episode of The Untouchables' second season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
Even their fellow hoodlums are in mortal terror of the Purple Gang, a Detroit-based operation led by Eddie Fletcher (Steve Cochran). Now the Gang has come up with racket that surpasses all their previous achievements: namely, kidnapping other mobsters and holding them for ransom, knowing full well that their victims can't go to the police. But Fletcher sets the stage for his own inevitable downfall when his boys snatch Jan Tornek (played by a pre-Hogan's Heroes) Werner Klemperer), a minor functionary of the Capone gang who is presently under surveillance by Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) and the Untouchables. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Sam Peckinpah's first feature as director is this modest Western, taking place in the late 1860s. Yellowleg (Brian Keith), a former sergeant in the Union army, is obsessed with tracking down Turk (Chill Wills), a Rebel army deserter who, during the War Between the States, tried to scalp him as he lay wounded on a battlefield. Yellowleg finds Turk and his sidekick Billy (Steve Cochran) in a cantina and convinces them to help him rob a bank. They journey to Gila City, where the bank is located, and find that another group of bank robbers are also in Gila City to rob the same bank. During a shoot-out with the other bank robbers, Yellowleg accidentally kills the nine-year-old son of dance-hall hostess Kit Tilden (Maureen O'Hara). Remorseful at having caused the death of Kit's son, Yellowleg forces Turk and Billy to accompany him through Apache territory to bury Kit's son at the gravesite of her husband in the ghost town of Siringo. When Billy attacks Kit, Yellowleg throws him out of their camp. Then Turk deserts. As Kit and Yellowleg finally reach Siringo, Yellowleg realizes that he is in love with her. But then, Billy and Turk reappear, having robbed the bank in Gila City, leading to a final confrontation between Yellowleg and Turk. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, (more)
- 1959
Set within the popular bohemian coffee houses of the late '50s where beatniks gathered to recite poetry and perform, this sensationalistic detective drama centers upon the attempts of an insensitive police detective to catch an arrogant serial rapist, a rich young man who believes himself mentally superior and therefore beyond the law. His favorite victims are married women. When he learns that the detective is after him, the rapist targets the cop's wife. Later the poor wife discovers she's pregnant and cannot be sure who fathered her child. The film is alternatively titled This Rebel Age. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Mamie van Doren, (more)
- 1959
Mickey Rooney plays labor racketeer Little Joe Braun in this fast-paced and surprisingly violent drama about one man's determination to clean up his union. Bill Gibson (Steve Cochran) is Little Joe's nemesis and is one of the men who can testify that he saw the labor boss in an incriminating conversation with a known criminal -- something that Little Joe denied under oath. Knowing that Cochran and one other witness can bring him down, the crooked labor boss starts on a campaign of terror. One of Bill's friends is set on fire, someone else is thrown into a cement mixer (in the opening scenes), and finally, Little Joe kidnaps Bill's son Timmy (Jay North). The odds at this point, seem very much in the labor boss' favor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, Steve Cochran, (more)
- 1959
Appropriately telecast December 25, 1959, this Twilight Zone episode focuses on a most unusual Santa Claus, in the form of shabby sidewalk peddler Pedott (Ernest Truex). Entering a shabby corner bar, Pedott provides the customer with trivial items which turn out to be exactly what they need to improve their lives. Impressed by this, hoodlum Fred Renard Steve Cochran purchases a pair of scissors which later, amazingly, save his life. Becoming greedy, Fred browbeats Pedott into giving him even more beneficial items -- with disastrous results for one of the two men. "What You Need" was scripted by Rod Serling from a short story by Lewis Padgett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Ernest Truex, (more)
By 1958, director Roger Corman had switched from making low-budgeters like Apache Woman to movies like the gangster flic I, Mobster that might be found outside of the drive-in setting. The ungrammatical title refers to Joe Sante (Steve Cochran) and his career of climbing the ladder in the hierarchy of organized crime. Now at the top rung, Sante is taking the Fifth Amendment before a Senate subcommittee on racketeering and as he does so, his life is recalled in flashbacks. His first job was working for a bookie, next he becomes involved in a drug ring, and then he expands into intimidating striking workers. Since the last rung of the ladder is open game for any ambitious gangster, Sante would do well to also recall how homicide got him where he now stands. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Lita Milan, (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)
The grim, drab life of a man who labors in a Po Valley sugar refinery in northern Italy provides the center of this black-and-white drama from Michelangelo Antonioni. The worker lives with a married woman and their young daughter. One day, the woman learns that her legal spouse died. The refinery worker immediately proposes, but she spurns him in favor of another. Deeply depressed, the laborer begins to drift aimlessly across the northern wasteland with his daughter in tow. Along the way, he meets many people, including a woman from his past. Despite his many low-key adventures, he is unable to forget his daughter's mother and so returns to find that she lives in a new home with a new child. The story comes to its climax during a demonstration protesting the building of a U.S. airfield where the refinery stands. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, (more)
- 1957
The Weapon is a loose grouping of elements first seen in the 1951 British melodrama The Yellow Balloon. Jon Whitely plays a young London boy who finds a loaded gun in a blitzed-out building. He fires, accidentally shooting a playmate. Believing he's killed his friend, the boy runs away--leading to a relentlessly suspenseful climax. Though filmed in England, The Weapon was geared from the start for primarily American audiences; its producer was Hollywood's own Hal E. Chester, and its adult stars included Steve Cochran and Lizabeth Scott. The script was written by Fred Freiberger, best known to sci-fi followers as the producer of the original Star Trek's third and final season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Lizabeth Scott, (more)
- 1956
In this upbeat drama, a reformed father returns to the Arkansas farm of his estranged family after having spent too many years living in the fast lane. Included in the family are his mute daughter and his baby son, whom he'd never seen. The father is determined to set things right and immediately begins fixing up the run-down farm. The film's climax occurs when the father, hearing screams, saves his heretofore mute daughter who has fallen into a mine shaft. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sheridan, Steve Cochran, (more)
- 1956
Anyone who thinks that tabloid journalism is an aberration of the 1980s should take a look at the 1956 release Slander. The film stars Van Johnson as a happily married, well respected TV kiddie show host who becomes the subject of an expose' from a Confidential style magazine. The publisher (Steve Cochran) has no qualms about ruining lives so long as it boosts circulation; nor is he concerned about libel suits, since everything he prints is a matter of record. The exposure of Johnson's minor-league criminal past leads indirectly to the death of his young son. But it isn't Johnson who metes out retribution to the publisher; instead, the avenging angel is the publisher's mother (Marjorie Rambeau), who kills her son rather than allow him to ruin more lives. Sincerely motivated, Slander is nonetheless as cheap and tawdry as the magazines it attacks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Van Johnson, Ann Blyth, (more)
Lensed in Germany, Carnival Story stars Anne Baxter as a wayward Teutonic lass who joins a travelling carnival troupe. She falls in love with carny spieler Steve Cochran, and out-and-out louse who treats Baxter like dirt and makes her like it. Eventually, she rises to star status through the auspices of high-diver Lyle Bettger, but she can never get over her passion for Cochran. Inevitably, this romantic triangle degenerates into violence, leaving magazine photographer George Nader to pick up the pieces. Carnival Story was filmed simultaneously with a German-language version, Rummelplatz der Liebe, which starred Eva Bartok, Curt Jurgens and Bernhard Wicki. Produced by the King Brothers and released by RKO, Carnival Story has since lapsed into public domain, and as such has become a ubiquitous presence on cable television. There's even a version that has been outfitted with a narration for the benefit of sight-impaired film fans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Baxter, Steve Cochran, (more)
- 1954
Private Hell 36 was one of the last feature-length efforts by Filmmakers, a company created by producer Collier Young and his then-wife Ida Lupino. Young and Lupino also wrote the script for this grim crime melodrama, wherein two detectives Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran) and Jack Farnham (Howard Duff Lupino's future husband) are assigned to track down $300,000 stolen in a bloody hold-up. The two cops manage to locate $80,000 of the booty, whereupon Bruner, not the most ethical of men, suggests that he and Farnham split the money 50-50 and keep their mouths shut. Also involved in this conspiracy is a nightclub singer (Ida Lupino), whose motivations are a tad on the mysterious side. When Farnham decides to turn honest and hand the money over to his superiors, Bruner responds with the business end of his revolver. The very small cast is rounded out by Dean Jagger as the detectives' boss and Dorothy Malone as Duff's understandably worried wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, (more)
- 1953
Virginia Mayo stars in this unofficial follow-up to her 1952 musical hit She's Working Her Way Through College. Mayo plays movie star Catherine Terris, who after three box-office flops in a row, returns to the Broadway stage whence she came. Her co-star in this endeavor is Rich Sommers (Steve Cochran), who still harbors a grudge against Catherine because of her walkout during her last Broadway appearance. Predictably, Rich and Catherine bury the hatchet by midfilm, and when fadeout time rolls around they're in each other's arms. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virginia Mayo, Gene Nelson, (more)
- 1953
Nobody has an easy time of it in the costume actioner Shark River. Wanted for murder, Clay Webley (Warren Stevens) and his wounded cellmate Curtis Parker (Robert Cunningham) hack their way through the Florida swampland. With the help of Clay's brother Dan (Steve Cochran), Clay is able to elude the authorities, but Parker dies of a snakebite. Subsisting on alligator meat, Dan and Clay make their way to the tiny cabin inhabited by widowed Jane Daughterty (Carole Mathews), her mother-in-law, and her son Johnny (Spencer Fox). The brothers rest here awhile, formulating plans to cross the Gulf of Mexico and head for Cuba. An Indian attack scotches these plans, and also ties up several loose plot ends and eliminates any and all extraneous characters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Carole Mathews, (more)
- 1953
The Desert Song is the third film version of the famous Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein Jr. stage operetta. Gordon MacRae plays the wimpish American tutor of lovely Kathryn Grayson, the daughter of a military officer stationed in Arabia. Under cover of night, MacRae assumes the identity of the Red Shadow, head of the Riffs, who fights against the oppression of a cruel local potentate (Raymond Massey). Circumstances force MacRae to kidnap Grayson and spirit her away to his desert headquarters, where she eventually sees the wisdom of his mission and falls in love with him. With Grayson's help, the Red Shadow thwarts Massey's plans to massacre all "foreigners" living in his domain. The story was old-fashioned even when Desert Song was first produced in the 1920s, but the songs, including One Alone, The Riff Song and the title tune, still retain their audience appeal. The only serious detriment to the 1953 Desert Song is the comedy relief of Dick Wesson as a wisecracking American reporter, a wearisome carryover from the stage original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kathryn Grayson, Gordon MacRae, (more)
- 1953
The oft-filmed James Oliver Curwood yarn Back to God's Country is given the Technicolor treatment in this 1953 cinemadaptation. Set in the Great White North, the story concerns a romantic triangle consisting of sea captain Peter Keith (Rock Hudson), his wife Dolores (Marcia Henderson), and his jealous rival Paul Blake (Steve Cochran). Things come to a head during a treacherous trek through the snow, to seek medical aid for the injured Keith. Despite the crooked chicanery of Blake and dishonest guide Frank Hudson (Hugh O'Brien), the day is saved by Keith's faithful Great Dane. Back to God's Country overcomes its old-fashioned plotting with spirited performances and excellent cinematography. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rock Hudson, Marcia Henderson, (more)
- 1952
The Lion and the Horse is one of the best efforts to come out of Bryan Foy's "B"-picture unit at Warner Bros. Steve Cochran stars as Ben Kirby, an easygoing cowboy who is dead set on owning a magnificent wild stallion. After Kirby and his partners capture the horse, the animal is purchased outright by nasty rodeo operator Dave Tracy (Ray Teal). Cruelly exploiting the horse as a bronco-busting attraction, Tracy refuses all entreaties to sell back the steed to Kirby, whereupon the latter "appropriates" the horse and heads for the high country. Taking refuge on the ranch owned by Cas Bagley (Harry Antrim), Kirby begins to train the horse himself. When Tracy catches up with Kirby, the horse panics and kills the villainous rodeo owner. Slated for destruction, the horse redeems itself in a manner that explains the film's title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Ray Teal, (more)
- 1952
Loosely based on the true story of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Ortiz, this mystery centers on an American WW II veteran who heroically served as both an officer and a member of the French Foreign Legionnaire. During the war he had been instrumental in assisting in the French Resistance. With such a sterling war record--his exploits are revealed via flashback-- it is therefore a great shock when he is charged with the murder of a Resistance leader. It does not help that the accused lieutenant is thought dead following a key mission and is not around to clear his sullied name. During the trial, several dubious witnesses tell their version of the tale. A former communist spy presents the most conclusive "proof" that the lieutenant killed the Resistance leader. Fortunately, the lieutenant is not dead and bursts in at the crucial moment to clear his name and point out which of the witnesses is the real killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cornel Wilde, Steve Cochran, (more)
