Frank P. Rosenberg Movies

When the nuclear submarine he captains is rammed by a freighter while surfacing in Atlantic waters just off the coast of Rhode Island, Navy Captain Paul Blanchard (Charlton Heston) is able to radio for help. However, his sub's condition calls for urgent attention. Downed in extremely deep water near an even deeper ocean trench, the sub is perched precariously in waters too deep for conventional rescue efforts and is in danger of plummeting into the ocean trench. When the sub's escape hatch is blocked by debris from an undersea earthquake, the situation becomes even grimmer. Despite assurances that all will be fine, Captain Bennet (Stacy Keach), who is coordinating the official Navy rescue effort, has already warned Blanchard's wife to expect the worst. However, another Navy captain (David Carradine), who is working on an experimental deep-sea exploratory vessel for the Navy, hears of the incident and volunteers his help. This story is based on the novel Event 1000 by David Lavalle. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, Harold Weiss (Richard Benjamin) is a professor at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when a nuclear holocaust seemed imminent. Rather than sit around waiting to die, he decides to drive from Long Island to Los Angeles, taking in such sights as Las Vegas along the way. As he travels, he assumes different momentary identities which he uses--to humorous effect--in his interactions with the people he meets. This story is captured in a number of short sketch-like episodes, as the professor acts out his fantasies with increasing abandon. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

It's a seemingly peaceful spring morning in New York City -- graduation day at the Police Academy -- and Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell (Henry Fonda) is looking forward to giving a speech to the new officers. But all isn't well: Russell's been given apparently incontrovertible evidence that his oldest friend, Chief Inspector Charles Kane (James Whitmore), is shaking down a bar owner, and a black minister (Raymond St. Jacques) is claiming that his son was brutalized when he was picked up for questioning in a rape/assault case. Then Russell gets a call informing him that two first-grade detectives, Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino), allowed small-time hood Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat) to get the drop on them, steal their guns, and escape while they were trying to pick him up for questioning at the request of Brooklyn detectives -- and Benesch is now a suspect in that earlier murder in Brooklyn. Madigan has other problems, including the fact that the commissioner -- his ex-captain -- doesn't trust him, always believing him to be a loose cannon who has taken advantage of the badge in accepting favors and cutting corners where peoples' rights were concerned. Madigan also has a beautiful, upwardly mobile wife (Inger Stevens) who loves him but can't abide all the time his job takes him away from her or crimps her socializing; and he has never fully gotten over Jonesy (Sheree North), a saloon singer he knew before he was married. Madigan and Bonaro are given 72 hours to bring in Benesch and begin beating the bushes for leads. They get help from "Midget" Castiglione (Michael Dunn), a bookmaker and an old enemy of Benesch's, and a nervous, long-haired punk named Hughie (Don Stroud). While the clock ticks away on Madigan's and Bonaro's careers, the commissioner must decide how to deal with Kane, whose father -- also a police officer -- was like his own, and he must also fathom how a four-star chief could be involved with anything as tawdry as pressuring a tavern owner. Russell genuinely believes that there must be "one standard, one rule" for any member of the department, but in the course of this one weekend, he finds this notion shattered by what he discovers about Madigan, King, and himself. Meanwhile, Benesch is still on the loose, acting like a complete psycho and a threat to anyone who crosses his path. Russell's and Madigan's paths finally cross personally, as the detective proves -- and the commissioner discovers -- just how good a cop he is. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Western bandit Kid Rio (Marlon Brando) is betrayed by his partner, Dad Longworth (Karl Malden). Escaping from prison, Rio learns that Longworth has become a wealthy and influential lawman. Rio thirsts for revenge, but bides his time, waiting for the right moment to strike. In the meantime, Rio spitefully seduces Longworth's adopted daughter, Louisa (Pina Pellicer). After killing a man in self-defense, Rio is publicly whipped by the powerful Longworth. When Rio's old gang accidentally kills a child during another holdup, Longworth has the perfect excuse to eliminate the troublesome Rio once and for all by hanging him. But that's not what happens at all. Stripped to its fundamentals, One-Eyed Jacks is a workable Western, worthy of perhaps 90 minutes' running time. But when Marlon Brando succeeded Stanley Kubrick in the director's chair, he allowed the film's 60-day shooting schedule to stretch into six months, and delivered a finished product running in excess of four hours. The current 141-minute version of One-Eyed Jacks isn't as ponderous as some critics have claimed, but it's still too much of a good thing. While Brando the director isn't precisely in the Kubrick class, Brando the actor delivers one of his finest and most focused performances (though he is upstaged throughout by Karl Malden). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The peacetime draft is given the teen-idol treatment in The Girl He Left Behind. Hollywood hunk Tab Hunter is starred as a spoiled young man who is whipped into shape--and humility--by his two years of compulsory military service. Natalie Wood plays the girl who...well, look at the title. Director David Butler would have preferred to cast a minor actor who was making his film debut in the leading role, but Butler was committed to Warners contractee Tab Hunter. Thus it was that young James Garner would have to wait his turn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Farmer Takes a Wife is a musicalized remake of the 1935 film of the same name. Betty Grable and Dale Robertson star in the roles originally essayed by Janet Gaynor and Henry Fonda. Set in the early 19th century, the plot details the trials and tribulations of those hardy souls who settled along the Erie Canal. Grable plays Molly Larkin, the girlfriend of rough-and-tumble canal-boat captain Jotham Klore (John Carroll). Much to Klore's dismay, she hires mild-mannered farmer Daniel Harrow (Robertson) to work on the boat. Molly and Daniel fall in love and marry, but there's many a heartbreak and letdown before a happy ending can be reached. Though not in any way a "typical" Betty Grable musical, Farmer Takes a Wife was misleadingly advertised as such: one promotional still showed a grinning Grable anachronistically garbed in tight jeans and a bare-midriff blouse! Both versions of The Farmer Takes a Wife were adapted from the stage play by Frank B. Elser and Marc Connelly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dale Robertson stars as Sam Crockett, a widowed rancher trying to make a go of his small spread with his father (Walter Brennan) and his two small sons. Financially strapped, Crockett is forced to go to work for nasty neighboring rancher Rod (Richard Boone). When Rod's sister-in-law Ann (Joanne Dru) falls in love with him, Crockett retreats, believing that no woman could ever measure up to his late wife. As the story progresses, however, it is Ann's love, coupled with the faith of his two supportive sons, which help Crockett persevere despite all roadblocks. Based on a novel by Fred (Old Yeller) Gipson, Return of the Texan is a western only in its setting; the film works better as a mood piece and character study. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dana Andrews is brutal metropolitan police detective Dixon, who despises all criminals because his father had been one. When the cops pick up two-bit gambler Ken Paine (Craig Stevens) as a murder suspect, Dixon subjects Paine to the third degree -- and accidentally kills him. In disposing of the body, Dixon inadvertently places the blame for the killing on cab driver Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully). Having fallen in love with Jigg's daughter, Morgan (Gene Tierney), Dixon tries to clear the cabbie without implicating himself, but ultimately he becomes trapped in a web of his own making; luckily Morgan promises to stand by him. Where the Sidewalk Ends was adapted from a novel by William L. Stuart; its director was Otto Preminger, who'd previously put Andrews and Tierney through their paces in Laura (1944). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide