Chuck Connors Movies
Chuck Connors attended Seton Hall University before embarking on a career in professional sports. He first played basketball with the Boston Celtics, then baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. Hardly a spectacular player -- while with the Cubbies, he hit .233 in 70 games -- Connors was eventually shipped off to Chicago's Pacific Coast League farm team, the L.A. Angels. Here his reputation rested more on his cut-up antics than his ball-playing prowess. While going through his usual routine of performing cartwheels while rounding the bases, Connors was spotted by a Hollywood director, who arranged for Connors to play a one-line bit as a highway patrolman in the 1952 Tracy-Hepburn vehicle Pat and Mike. Finding acting an agreeable and comparatively less strenuous way to make a living, Connors gave up baseball for films and television. One of his first roles of consequence was as a comic hillbilly on the memorable Superman TV episode "Flight to the North." In films, Connors played a variety of heavies, including raspy-voiced gangster Johnny O in Designing Woman (1957) and swaggering bully Buck Hannassy in The Big Country (1958). He switched to the Good Guys in 1958, when he was cast as frontiersman-family man Lucas McCain on the popular TV Western series The Rifleman. During the series' five-year run, he managed to make several worthwhile starring appearances in films: he was seen in the title role of Geronimo (1962), which also featured his second wife, Kamala Devi, and originated the role of Porter Ricks in the 1963 film version of Flipper. After Rifleman folded, Connors co-starred with Ben Gazzara in the one-season dramatic series Arrest and Trial (1963), a 90-minute precursor to Law and Order. He enjoyed a longer run as Jason McCord, an ex-Army officer falsely accused of cowardice on the weekly Branded (1965-1966). His next TV project, Cowboy in Africa, never got past 13 episodes. In 1972, Connors acted as host/narrator of Thrill Seekers, a 52-week syndicated TV documentary. Then followed a great many TV guest-star roles and B-pictures of the Tourist Trap (1980) variety. He was never more delightfully over the top than as the curiously accented 2,000-year-old lycanthrope Janos Skorzeny in the Fox Network's Werewolf (1987). Shortly before his death from lung cancer at age 71, Chuck Connors revived his Rifleman character Lucas McCain for the star-studded made-for-TV Western The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1993). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1991
In this action thriller, Reb Brown plays a DEA operative sent to South America to rescue a kidnapped drug czar and bring him back to the U.S. to face justice. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1991
- Add The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw to QueueAdd The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw to top of Queue
The fourth of Kenny Rogers' Gambler TV movies, 1991's The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw is regarded by many Western diehards as the best. This time, gambler Brady Hawkes is en route to a high-stakes poker game in San Francisco. His travelling companions are a trouble-prone frontier Romeo (Rick Rossovich) and a feisty ex-saloon gal (Reba McEntire). Never mind that: The real attraction of Luck of the Draw is its enormous guest-star lineup of famous TV cowboy heroes of yore: Gene "Bat Masterson" Barry, Hugh "Wyatt Earp" O'Brien, Brian "The Westerner" Keith, Chuck "The Rifleman" Connors, Jack "Maverick" Kelly, Clint "Cheyenne" Walker, David "Kung Fu" Carradine, and "Virginian" co-stars James Drury and Doug McClure. The first portion of this two-part movie concentrates on setting up the plot; Part two is the card game itself, preceded by a boxing match refereed by Bat Masterson (Gene Barry). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenny Rogers, Reba McEntire, (more)
- 1990
Featuring eye-popping skiing footage, this downhill drama centers on three friends who head to Utah for their annual ski trip. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
The made-for-cable sci-fi thriller High Desert Kill is about three hunters and a cowboy (Chuck Connors) who become the prey of a group of predatory aliens while they are on a trip to New Mexico. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1988
The made-for-TV Once Upon a Texas Train offers us the once-in-a-lifetime teaming of Richard Widmark, Willie Nelson and Angie Dickinson. Nelson plays a veteran outlaw who robs a bank less than 6 hours after being paroled from jail. He uses the money to reunite his old gang, then sets about to repeat the train robbery that had gotten him arrested 20 years earlier. This time, however, Nelson is himself targetted for theft by a young, hungrier band of desperadoes. Widmark plays the lawman who caught Nelson before and intends to do so again. Written and directed by the reliable Burt Kennedy, Once Upon a Texas Train premiered January 3, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
The Bastards (led by Fred Williamson) venture into the jungles of Vietnam with the intent of killing as many Vietcong as possible. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miles O'Keeffe, Fred Williamson, (more)
- 1988
A pre-Will and Grace Megan Mullally guest stars in this episode as Molly Connors, the feisty daughter of West Virginia coal miner Eben Connors (Denver Pyle). When Eben dies in a suspicious mining accident, Molly sweeps into town to accuse the mine's owner of being responsible for her dad's death. Shortly thereafter, the owner is found murdered--and the murder weapon, a rifle, is located in Molly's car. All that is preventing Molly from being torn to pieces by the hostile local citizens is the presence of the girl's former creative-writing teacher Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), who as usual suspects that someone else has perpetrated the foul deed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1987
Police Chief Rawlings (Chuck Conners) defends the town of Kokomo, Indiana from an invasion of Libyan terrorists in this grade "B" action feature. The villains attack a nuclear power plant and hold a high-school class hostage. Rawlings' negotiations are comically taken from Dog Day Afternoon as he tries to diffuse the volatile situation, and he trains the high-school students in guerilla warfare to battle the invaders. A thrilling car chase is one of the highlights of the film. Conners, the former pro baseball player-turned-actor, once again dons his Brooklyn Dodger jacket for this picture. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Connors, Brodie Greer, (more)
- 1987
Werewolf was the pilot film for the Fox network TV series of the same name. John J. York plays Eric, a handsome young man who is bitten by a werewolf. He must find the source of the lycanthropic bloodline if he's to save himself from a lifetime of requiring sudden shaves and baying at the moon. Offering to help Eric is sea captain Chuck Connors, who turns out to be the centuries-old wolfman whom York seeks. Adding to our hero's travails is a bounty hunter by the name of Alamo Joe (Lance Le Gault). We're tipped to the fact that we shouldn't take Werewolf all that seriously by the character name given Chuck Connors: Janos Skorzeny, the same name as the vampire portrayed by Barry Atwater in the classic 1971 TV movie The Night Stalker. Werewolf premiered on July 11, 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Chuck Connors stars in this routine martial arts feature as the Colonel. He sends agents Sonny (Mike Kelly) and Dennis (George Nichols) to Taiwan in search of microfilm containing experiments on genetic engineering. The agents soon find themselves up against Japanese killers known as the Sakura who plan to sell United States secrets to the Soviet Union. Sonny and Dennis train with a martial arts master in order to fight the enemy and obtain the coveted microfilm. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Connors, Mike Kelly, (more)
- 1985
Based on a series of suspense novels by Robert B. Parker, the weekly, hour-long Spenser: For Hire starred Robert Urich as the title character. The TV series was filmed on location in Boston, the home-based of private investigator Spenser (no other name), who in addition to being wily and resourceful was also highly principled and scrupulously honest: In other words, he had no qualms about turning the legal tables on his own clients if he found out they were actually guilty or lying to him. No matter what the situation, Spenser meant what he said and said what he meant, even if he framed his responses in the form of philosophical quotations. Backing Spenser's words was his tactiturn African American street contact and "enforcer", the likewise single-named Hawk (Avery Brooks), who though he always carried a giant Magnum gun seldom needed weaponry to cow the villains into submission (this character was later spun off into his own series, A Man Called Hawk). In the series' first and third seasons, Spenser's lady friend was guidance counselor Susan Silverman, played by Barbara Stock; during Susan's absence in Season Two, Spenser kept time with a former enemy turned friend, assistant district attorney Rita Fiori (Carolyn McCormick). Our hero's contacts at the police department were hard-nosed Lt. Martin Quirk (Richard Jaeckel), who liked Spenser, and slovenly Sgt. Frank Belson (Ron McLarty), who didn't. The 66-episode Spenser: For Hire was broadcast by ABC from September 20, 1985 through September 3, 1988, followed by four made-for-TV "Spenser" movies, filmed between 1993 and 1995. A sixth such film was scheduled for 2000,but was cancelled upon the death of star Robert Urich. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Urich, Avery Brooks, (more)
- 1985
Over the protests of several local residents, shady tycoon Henderson Wheatley (John Ericson) intends to build a high-rise hotel in Cabot Cove. During excavation, a set of bones comes to surface, supposedly belonging to Revolutionary war hero Joshua Peabody. Almost immediately, those who oppose the hotel insist that the land be consecrated as a national monument, while others insist that those aren't Peabody's bones at all. Whatever the case, it soon develops that the centuries-old remains are those of a murder victim--and before long, Wheatley himself is murdered. William Windom makes his first series appearance as Dr. Seth Hazlitt, an old friend of heroine Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury)...and a likely suspect in the killing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1982
A wilderness-loving man must clear himself of a wrongful murder charge and rescue his daughter who may be sent to an orphanage in this made-for-TV movie. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dan Haggerty, Chuck Connors, (more)
- 1982
In this well-acted but very standard action thriller, Spanish police chief O'Donnell Max von Sydow) hires the tough mercenary David (Jorge Rivero) with the code name "Eagle" to infiltrate an international drug cartel. Carmen (Maud Adams), a policewoman, is to be David's contact. The plot thickens as the drug smugglers, headed by McFadden (George Peppard), also plan on selling nuclear materials to countries like Libya. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jorge Rivero, Maud Adams, (more)
- 1982
This is a soap opera about a rich, suave, but self-aggrandizing villain and the women who either love or hate him. The melodrama sudses up with Ernie Stoddard's (Tony Curtis) determination to bring legal gambling to an island off the California coast and a local councilman's equally strong determination to stop him. The catch is Stoddard's ex-wife Erin (Carol Lynley) is now married to the councilman, but her heart still skips a beat when Stoddard walks into the room. The councilman is her third husband; her first, Stoddard's partner, was apparently killed by parties unknown. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Carol Lynley, (more)
- 1981
Treasure hunters from around the world race to Mexico after a Middle Eastern luxury yacht explodes, sending a fortune in gold to the bottom of the ocean. An agent (Chuck Connors) must stop the ruthless fortune hunters. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1980
An Arizona ranch set on top of a copper deposit is the focus of mercenary neighbors who plot to get rid of the resident family. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1978
Made for television, Standing Tall guest-stars Chuck Connors as one Major Roland Hartline. A proud, ruthless Depression-era cattle baron, Major Hartline carries on a range war with half-breed rancher Luke Shasta (Robert Forster). This isn't The Rifleman, so Chuck Connors is the bad guy. On Luke Shasta's side is full-blooded Native American Lonnie Moon (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's Will Sampson) and Luke's ex-schoolmarm wife (Linda Evans). Standing Tall first stood on its own two feet on January 21, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
In this drama, five beauty aspiring beauty queens are abducted in a hijacked airplane. Also upon the plane is a strain of deadly virus. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Also known as Banjo Hackett: Roamin' Free, this TV pilot film stars Don Meredith in the title role. Banjo Hackett is a western horsetrader, circa 1885, who travels in the company of his orphaned nephew (Ike Eisenmann). While searching for a rare Arabian mare stolen from the nephew's late mother, Hackett occasionally pays a visit to Mollie (Jennifer Warren), a ranch owner whom Banjo would marry if he'd only admit he loved the woman. Millionaire Dan O'Herlihy and untrustworthy bounty hunter Chuck Connors are also after the stolen horse. The film's storyline is as rambling as Banjo Hackett himself, which was both its charm and curse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Meredith, Ike Eisenmann, (more)
- 1973
Originally networkcast on March 20, 1973, Police Story was the 2-hour pilot for the long running anthology weekly which officially debuted seven months later. Created by novelist (and ex-police officer) Joseph Wambaugh, Police Story was set in Los Angeles, and each week detailed a different aspect of law enforcement work. In the pilot, Vic Morrow stars as a hard-nosed cop assigned to a unit devoted to stopping felonies in progress. Morrow's principal reason for being is to bring to justice an elusive veteran criminal named "Slow Boy," portrayed by Chuck Connors. This initial Police Story entry was rerun September 26, 1973, one week before the premiere of the series proper. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
It took several years and several TV movies like Night of Terror for Donna Mills to outgrow her "woman in jeopardy" period. Here she is pursued by a syndicate hit man. Mills doesn't know why, but she does know that her stalker has already killed two people in order to get to her. The lynchpin of the mystery is a earlier traumatic experience which Mills has blocked from her memory. The hit man knows that Mills has witnessed a murder...and he wants to keep her memory clouded on a permanent basis. Former police detective Eddie Egan, the role model for The French Connection's Popeye Doyle, has a supporting role in Night of Terror. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
In this drama a newspaper publisher begins to doubt the guilt of a hero convicted of murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
