Steve Conte Movies

The New York Dolls were a rock band who titled their second studio album Too Much Too Soon, and it summed up the band's career all too well. Playing hard, swaggering rock & roll that anticipated the aural chaos of punk five years before the Sex Pistols became a cause célèbre, and boasting an androgynous fashion statement that made David Bowie look timid, the Dolls made headlines and earned a loyal cult following between 1971 and 1976, but their look and sound were too extreme for the mass audience at the time, and the fact that several members of the band had serious drug and alcohol problems hardly helped matters. After the New York Dolls finally fell apart in 1977, singer David Johansen went on to a successful solo career (scoring hit records under the alter ego Buster Poindexter), lead guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan kept the band's sound alive in the Heartbreakers, and guitarist Syl Sylvain cut a few solo albums and occasionally worked with Johansen. But bassist Arthur Kane struggled for years to get his musical career back on track while battling alcoholism, with little success on either front. In 1989, after a stay in the hospital, a clean and sober Kane embraced the Mormon faith, and through his contacts in the church he got a job working in a Mormon genealogy library in Los Angeles. Despite his quiet new life, Kane's greatest dream was to someday play a reunion show with the New York Dolls, and in 2004 his wish unexpectedly became a reality when British pop icon Morrissey invited the surviving members of the band to appear at a prestigious music festival he was curating. Filmmaker Greg Whiteley knew Kane as a fellow Mormon, and New York Doll is a documentary about the ups and downs of Kane's life in music, how his faith came into his life, and his unexpected return to the rock & roll stage at the age of 55. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This action movie chronicles the exciting exploits of a crack crime fighting force. They are notorious for their unusual tactics when dealing with criminals. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this marital drama, a divorcee moves in with a younger man and finds herself embroiled in a custody battle with her jealous ex-husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Hot on the heels of his Welcome Back Kotter success, Gabe Kaplan starred in this hastily assembled theatrical feature. Kaplan plays David Greene, the coach of a Nevada collegiate basketball team. Inasmuch as the local talent is pretty pathetic, Greene convinces a group of jive-talking New York street kids into playing for the college. Culture-clash jokes abound, with the black cast members usually coming out on top. In keeping with sports-comedy tradition, one of Greene's team members is a girl, and a very attractive one. Though it hasn't an original bone in its body, Fast Break is breezy entertainment, with a particularly thrilling climax. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Officer Jim Reed (Kent McCord) suffers torture beyond endurance when he goes on his rounds while suffering from a severe sunburn. Though wracked with pain, Jim joins his partner Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) in breaking up a drug ring and rescuing a couple of kids from drowning in a lake. A pre-stardom Pamela Hensley appears as a nurse, while popular LA deejay Dick Whittinghill also essays an acting role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After pulling duty at LA Harbor, Officers Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Jim Reed (Kent McCord) are back on their familiar Rampart Division stamping grounds. Their case log on this occasion contains a preponderance of incidents involving elderly people. Examples: two pensioners engaged in a violent fistfight; a septugenarian car thief; and a feisty old lady who's out for blood after her purse is stolen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the fourth episode of a seven-part story arc, Samantha and Darrin are vacationing in Italy when Sam discovers that Esmerelda was the one who caused the tower of Pisa to lean way back in the 15th century. In endeavoring to make up for her past blunders, Esmerelda succeeds only in ruining the Pisa tourist trade. Everything is resolved by yet another "blast into the past," courtesy of Sam. Originally seen on October 6, 1971, "Samantha's Not So Leaning Tower of Pisa" was written by Ed Jurist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

American "B"-movie mogul Jerry Warren can always be counted on to turn a cheap but fun horror import into a boring, unwatchable mess -- as proven by this tedious effort, originally produced in Mexico as The Aztec Mummy and later padded out with deadly-dull exposition. The original film is silly enough; the first of a popular Mexican series, it involves the awakening of the mummy Popoca to avenge the desecration of his tomb by infidels. As a cost-saving measure, instead of re-dubbing the Spanish dialogue, Warren added new scenes with American actors, who drone on about reincarnation and past-life regression and bring the action to a screeching halt. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

This routine crime drama about a mysterious, abandoned yacht is directed by Robert Gottschalk who also wrote the original story. The action begins when three impoverished fishermen working along the California coast come across a yacht with no crew. The only thing they do find on the boat is a corpse, someone who had died of the mumps. The fishermen contact the right authorities and actually end up using the yacht themselves as a charter vessel. The American Coast Guard figures that if they let the men put the yacht to their own use, the real owners will show up sooner or later. They were right. The owners turn out to be some shady characters who carry guns, deal in drugs, and make the fishermen an offer they had better not refuse. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A deranged female scientist conducting weird experiments on a remote island kidnaps teens and injects them with a formula that transforms them into zombies. ~ All Movie Guide

Also known as Wiretapper and The Jim Vaus Story, this low-budget production begins as a crime melodrama, then bumpily segues into a religious tract. Bill Williams stars as the real-life Jim Vaus, who for many years was a minor functionary in two major crime syndicates. The wastrel son of a minister, Vaus was "born again"late in life, and as a result he agreed to gather evidence against his mob bosses--including the notorious Mickey Cohen. The Rev. Billy Graham appears as "himself", whom the real Jim Vaus credited for his latter-day conversion to Christ. Wiretapper was adapted from Vaus' autobiography, Why I Quit Syndicated Crime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this Gene Autry opus is almost as long as the film itself. This time, Autry plays a circuit judge who presides over a murder case in a mining town. The accused, Ed Wheeler (Kirk Riley), has confessed to the killing, and is undeniably guilty, but Autry considers this to be a case of justifiable homicide. The catch: How can Autry exonerate Wheeler without violating his own vow to uphold the law at all costs? The answer is a technicality, so cleverly handled that it can't be repeated here without giving the whole game away. On hand, as ever, are Autry's comic sidekick Smiley Burnette and favorite leading lady Gail ("Annie Oakley") Davis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide