Richard Anderson Movies
Following his screen debut in 1949's Twelve O'Clock High, Richard Anderson was groomed for stardom at MGM. His stature in Hollywood seemed assured when he married the daughter of former MGM luminary Norma Shearer. But Anderson was -- by his own admission -- a less-than-noble figure in his younger days, losing both prestige and several plum film roles through his arrogance, his explosive temper, and his after-hours carousing. A kinder, mellower Richard Anderson resurfaced on television in the 1970s, gaining a modest but loyal fan following thanks to his weekly appearances as Oscar Goldman in The Six Million Dollar Man. Anderson also played Goldman on the spin-off series The Bionic Woman -- the result being that, for several years in the mid-1970s, he was simultaneously co-starring on two different TV series in the same role. Richard Anderson's additional TV-series stints included Mama Rosa (1950), Bus Stop (1961), Dan August (1970), Cover-Up (1984) and Dynasty (1986-87 season). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this crime drama, an honest lawman has to decide where his loyalties lie in a corrupt system. All his life, J.J. (Michael Boatman) has dreamed of being a cop, and after graduating from the Police Academy, he gets his wish, becoming the first African-American policeman based out of Los Angeles' Edgemar station. However, J.J. discovers that his race makes him an outsider among his fellow officers. His presence is not welcomed by his superior, Massey (Richard Anderson), and the only colleague who is truly hospitable to him is Deborah (Lori Petty), the only female cop at Edgemar and the target of as much abuse as J.J. Hoping to somehow fit in, J.J. digs into his work and tries to be "just one of the guys," ignoring the racism and corruption around him. However, one night J.J.'s fellow officer Bono (Don Harvey) pulls over Teddy Woods (Ice Cube), an arrogant and uncommunicative young black man, and in the midst of an illegal search of his car, he finds a gun; even though he knows that Bono acted improperly, J.J. put his loyalty behind the force and lies to support Bono's story. The gun's serial number matches that of a weapon used to murder the wife of Mr. Greenspan (Elliott Gould), a prominent Jewish businessman, and Woods is charged with the killing. However, J.J. discovers that the number of the gun had been altered, and he has to decide what to do when he realizes that Teddy could be sentenced to death without having committed a serious crime. The Glass Shield also features Bernie Casey, Sy Richardson, and M. Emmet Walsh. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, (more)
- 1994
Steve Austin (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) reunite for another go around as the popular 1970s bionic duo. In this two-hour TV-movie, the couple's long overdue wedding is put in jeopardy when Jaime suffers from a virus. Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks reprise their TV-roles as mentor Oscar Goldman and bionic-specialist Dr. Rudy Wells, respectively. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara becomes this sprawling historical epic. As in Shaara's novel, director Ronald Maxwell focuses on a handful of major players to dramatize the events of July 1863, when the armies of the Union and Confederacy clash at the small Pennsylvania town of the title. Among them are Martin Sheen as General Robert E. Lee, who disagrees with his top advisor, General James Longstreet (Tom Berenger) over battle strategy, and Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a college professor whose unorthodox techniques save the day (and possibly the war) for his beleaguered army. Other cast standouts include Richard Jordan in his final film appearance as the ill-fated General Lewis Armistead, and cameo roles for Civil War buff Ken Burns and media mogul producer Ted Turner. Filmed on-location at Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg was shot as a television miniseries for Turner's TNT cable channel, but earned a limited theatrical release. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin Sheen, Jeff Daniels, (more)
Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as Buck Henry, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and Alan Rudolph, who is hawking a Bruce Willis action film described as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, (more)
- 1989
Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors and Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner are reunited for the made-for-TV Bionic Showdown. Also on hand is Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, the government supervisor for both Majors and Wagner on their respective 1970s TV series. Something new has been added, however: Jeff Yagher appears as Goldman's nephew, while Sandra Bullock makes one of her earliest TV appearances as a 1989 model New Bionic Woman. The plot concerns a villainous cyborg, bent on destroying chances for World Peace (we need a cyborg for that?) Bionic Showdown clanked and clattered its way onto the TV screens of America on April 30, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1989
In the conclusion of Murder She Wrote's two-part Season Five finale, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is still contending with her witchy rival mystery writer Eudora McVeigh Shipton (Jean Simmons). Although the duplicitous Eudora confesses that she has stolen the notes for Jessica's latest novel, she denies that she tried to do her rival in with a poisoned apple--and even more emphatically denies murdering the detective who has trailed Eudora all the way to Cabot Cove. The two amateur sleuths decide to briefly bury the hatchet and solve the mystery...provided that Eudora can be trusted any farther than she can be thrown! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1989
In the first episode of Murder She Wrote's two-part Season Five finale, Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) crosses swords with rival mystery writer Eudora McVeigh Shipton (Jean Simmons). Envious that Jessica's star has risen while hers has fallen, Eudora publicly declares that she intends to murder our heroine! But when Eudora shows up in Cabot Cove, she couldn't be more friendly or effusive towards Jessica. In fact, Eudora is even bearing a gift...a basket of big juicy apples.(Check the title of this episode and you'll see where this is going!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
In this drama, a Vietnam vet takes a stand when government agents attempt to take his ranch so they can build a missile base there. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1987
This film takes place in that strange bastion of middle-class living, Stepford, CT. The trouble begins when a former resident returns with his new family and forces them to become as strangely contented as their neighbors. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Eden, Don Murray, (more)
- 1987
This film tells about the controversial association of President JFK and Attorney General Robert Kennedy with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1987
In this movie sequel to the two popular sci-fi adventure TV series, the bionic couple are reunited to stop a group of radicals from using Steve's bionic son to take over the United States. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1986
This drama is based on a true story and chronicles the struggle of a woman who loses her memory in a car crash and attempts to put her old life back together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In the middle of Murdock's regular therapy session, his psychiatrist Dr. Richter (Richard Anderson) is kidnapped. Immediately, Murdock (Dwight Schultz) alerts his A-Team colleagues, who launch a search for Richter in the treacherous jungles of "Curaguay." The rest of the episode is an extended lampoon of Apocalypse Now, replete with a megalomanic rogue army officer named Mack Stoddard (Geoffrey Lewis). And let us not forget the Team's attractive travelling companion (Jeannetta Arnette), a woman named Betty (or is it Sarah?) who claims to be Richter's daughter--as well as several other people. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In the first of a series of made-for-TV films shot two decades after the original Perry Mason television series ended in 1966, Mason (Raymond Burr), now an Appellate Court Judge, must step down from the bench in order to defend his longtime secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) against murder charges. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1984
"She's the world's sexiest photographer! He's fashion's hottest model!" And Cover-Up was one of the most over-hyped TV series of the 1984-85 season. Introduced in this 2-hour pilot film are Jennifer O'Neill as fashion photographer Dani Reynolds, who spends most of her waking hours as an undercover spy, an Jon Erik-Hexum as Mac Harper, the ex-Green Beret posing as Dani's top model. Together, the two agents investigate the murder of Dani's husband, a high-ranking diplomat. Premiering September 22, 1984, Cover-Up ran until July 6, 1985, by which time Jon-Erik Hexum, having died in a freak on-set accident, had been replaced by Antony Hamilton as Jack Striker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1982
- R
This martial arts action film is about Tom, a man conned into joining the CIA and then forced into fighting against it when his ethics lead him to protect those connected with an exposé of the agency. Danny has written the exposé and when he is taken into custody by the CIA, Tom sees his partner kill off an innocent witness -- and decides to join forces with Danny's side. From that moment onward, there are chase scenes and martial arts displays, as Tom and Danny's sister and the accusatory manuscript all fight for survival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max Thayer, Shawn Hoskins, (more)
- 1980
Condominium is a two-part, four-hour TV adaptation of the novel by John D. McDonald. The setting is a hastily constructed Florida high-rise, assembled at the least possible cost by its greedy owners. An oncoming hurricane threatens to topple the structure and its residents into the ocean. Various degrees of greed, lust, terror and concern are displayed by stars Steve Forrest, Dan Haggerty, Ralph Bellamy, Barbara Eden, Stuart Whitman, Jack Jones and Pamela Hensley. Produced for the syndicated "Operation Prime Time" series, Condominium was first made available to local stations on November 20, 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1980
Skyward is a 1980 GE Theatre presentation in the lofty tradition of TV's Golden Age. Bette Davis stars (what an inadequate word!) as a 60-year-old retired barnstorming airplane pilot. Real-life paraplegic Suzy Gilstrap portrays a wheelchair-bound team who is "tired of looking up all the time." It is her dream to become a pilot herself, a goal renounced by her overprotective parents and her self-centered boyfriend. But Davis, after initial heated protestations, agrees to train Gilstrap in the rigors of flying--specifically stunt-flying. Directed by Ron Howard, Skyward was produced and cowritten by Howard's Happy Days costar Anson Williams, while another Happy Days alumnus, Marion Ross, appears as Suzy Gilstrap's mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
TV-mystery mavens Richard Levinson and William Link score another homicidal hit with Murder by Natural Causes. The premise: Hal Holbrook has a weak heart. Holbrook's wife Katharine Ross is carrying on an affair with Barry Bostwick. Ross wants to lose her husband, but she doesn't want to leave herself open for a murder rap. So Ross arranges for her husband to have a fatal heart attack. The complication: Holbrook is a professional mentalist. In layman's terms, he can read minds. Don't turn off Murder by Natural Causes until all three of its possible endings are offered to you. Few people switched the channel when Murder was first telecast February 17, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
Adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant from his own novel, the three-part, six-hour miniseries Pearl inevitably invoked memories of the strikingly similar From Here to Eternity. The focus was on three military couples living in Honolulu in and around the time of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Race, romance, and rank-pulling ran riot in a number of interconnected plot lines, interspersed with stock footage of the attack from the 1970 theatrical feature Tora! Tora! Tora!. Pearl originally aired on ABC during a particularly busy "sweeps week," November 16, 17, and 19, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, Robert Wagner, (more)
- 1978
Based on the best-selling novel by Howard Fast, the two-part, four-hour miniseries The Immigrants is the saga of Dan Lavetta (Stephen Macht). The son of an impoverished Italian immigrant family, Dan manages to emerge from the rubble of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (cunningly re-created via stock footage from such films as, naturally, San Francisco and Earthquake), to become one of the port city's most powerful shipping magnates. Capping his ascent up the social scale by marrying wealthy Nob Hill debutante Jean Seldon (Sharon Gless), Dan risks losing it all when he falls hopelessly in love with Oriental lass May Ling (played by the Caucasian Aimee Eccles). The story concludes with the 1929 Wall Street crash, suggesting that the producers would have thrown in the kitchen sink had they been able to find it. The Immigrants was syndicated to local stations as part of the "Operation Prime Time" series; most markets ran the two-parter on November 20 and 21, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
After two young women are killed on a University campus, Fran (Elizabeth Baur) has a suspicious accident near the murder scene. Investigating, Ironside (Raymond Burr) finds out that both victims had one thing in common: they had been the mistresses of the college's married dean (Richard Anderson), a man with a spotless reputation--up until now, that is. Although three more episodes remained in Ironside's eighth season, "The Faded Image" ended up as the series' network finale when the show was abruptly cancelled on January 16, 1975. The three leftover installments would not be seen until they were syndicated in the fall of that year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
Jamie Somers, the "Bionic Woman" introduced on a 1975 episode of TV's Six Million Dollar Man, launched her own series with a two-part adventure. Part One was telecast as the January 11, 1976 installment of Six Million Dollar Man: in a comatose state, Jamie, the onetime fiancee of "bionic man" Steve Austin (Lee Majors), is rescued by emergency brain surgery. Retaining no memory of her relationship with Austin, Jamie starts a new life as a California schoolteacher. In Part Two, which served as the January 14, 1976 premiere of The Bionic Woman, we learn that Jamie, like Steve has been outfitted with electronic replacements for certain vital appendages: her legs, her right arm, her right ear. Moonlighting as a government agent, Jamie infiltrates the headquarters of evil businessman Dennis Patrick, who hopes to exploit her bionic accoutrements for his own nefarious purposes. In syndication, the two halves of the first Bionic Woman adventure were melded into one 2-hour TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Best known for directing several popular science-fiction films in the 1950s, Jack Arnold turned to blaxploitation with this gritty crime film. Fred Williamson stars as Shep Stone, who becomes a private detective after being suspended from the police department. The usual sleazy setpieces deal with porno producers (one of whom, Bret Morrison, was the voice of The Shadow on radio), drugs, and murder. Teresa Graves (Get Christie Love!) co-stars with Rosemary Forsyth and The $6,000,000 Man's Richard Anderson in this average, but entertaining potboiler. Williamson and Arnold re-teamed for Boss Nigger the same year. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Partners in Crime was the second attempt by Richard Levinson and William Link to create a TV series featuring a female ex-judge and male ex-con: the first was 1971's The Judge and Jake Wyler. This time, Lee Grant is the former jurist turned sleuth, while Lou Antonio is the onetime prisoner turned legman. In this 90-minute pilot film, Judge Grant searches for a stolen $750,000. Partners in Crime was telecast on March 24, 1973, back-to-back with the pilot for the Jack Webb TV series Chase. Chase flew, while Partners never got off the ground. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
