Rita Conde Movies

After writing, directing, and starring in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, Gene Wilder added the producer's hat to his three-headed beast in The World's Greatest Lover. Wilder plays Rudy Valentine, a Milwaukee baker who enters a talent search in the Hollywood of the 1920s, initiated by movie studio mogul Zitz (Dom DeLuise), to find a new Rudolph Valentino. He travels to Hollywood with his wife Annie (Carol Kane) in hopes of taking a screen test, but Annie falls in love with the real Valentino. Jealous of the Latin Lover, Rudy disguises himself as a sheik in an attempt to look like Valentino. Rudy then invites Annie to a rendezvous at the studio, where he tries to seduce his own wife. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Lee Van Cleef plays a fiercely independent river ferryman in the Old West. Bandit Warren Oates, fresh from decimating a local town, rides up with his gang and demands that Van Cleef transport the crooks and their booty across the river. He refuses, and is taken prisoner. Biding his time, Van Cleef is able to turn the tables on the vicious gang. Heavily influenced by the ultraviolent "spaghetti western" school, Barquero attempts to add a contemporary note to the proceedings by having Warren Oates take an hallucinatory "trip" after smoking an unidentified weed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Teenager Pablo Esteban (David Barton) is "adopted" by a group of businessmen who claim that the boy has the power to heal with the touch of his hands. Assigned to investigate this phenomenon, Ironside (Raymond Burr) forms a strong bond with the likable Pablo. The Chief also quickly figures out that the boy is being exploited by his patrons, who have cooked up an elaborate swindle involving thousands of potential suckers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

For his initial effort from his own Norma Productions, Burt Lancaster picked a winner in Ten Tall Men. Lancaster stars as "Sergeant Mike," a two-fisted Foreign Legionnaire presiding over a lovable band of mercenaries, sneak thieves and cutthroats. While sitting in the stockade for the umpteenth time, Mike learns of a Riff plan to attack his fort. He and his men break jail and embark on their own attack of the Riffian encampment. Part of their strategy (much of which is improvised on the spot) is to kidnap Mahia (Jody Lawrence), the toothsome daughter of the Riffian sheik. Understandably, Mahia despises her captors until she realizes that the film's real villain is the covetous Caid Hussan (Gerald Mohr). This one's got everything, from a campy reenactment of a key scene in Beau Geste to the old reliable threat of a red-hot iron upon female flesh. Mari Blanchard, fully clothed for a change, shows up early in the film as a coquettish French mademoiselle who foments an all-out donnybrook among Mike and his fellow legionnaires. With the exceptions of Jody Lawrence and Gerald Mohr, no one in Ten Tall Men takes the proceedings too seriously; the film has some of the cheeky insouciance of Lancaster's subsequent swashbuckler The Crimson Pirate. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Cary Grant's utter credibility in the role of a brilliant, world-famous brain surgeon Dr. Eugene Norland Ferguson is the single element that keeps Crisis afloat. While vacationing in a politically unstable Latin American country, Ferguson and his wife, Helen (Paula Raymond), find themselves the unwilling house guests of dictator Raoul Farrago (José Ferrer). Suffering from a brain tumor, Farrago insists that Ferguson operate at once. The "crisis" of the title arises when revolutionary leader Gonzales (Gilbert Roland) demands that Farrago be killed on the operating table -- and kidnaps Dr. Ferguson's wife to bind the bargain. Unaware of his wife's plight, Ferguson proceeds with the operation, setting into motion a series of events leading to a grimly ironic denouement. Director Richard Brooks adapted the screenplay of Crisis from a story by George Tabori. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi