Charles A. Pratt Movies

Bull Meechum (Robert Duvall) loves fighting almost as much as he loves the Marine Corps. Profane, cocky, and arrogant, he's a great fighter pilot -- and he knows it. His boss hates his guts, but knows that if he's going to straighten out his lagging squadron, Meechum is the man to do it. The story and irony of The Great Santini is in Meechum's total intolerance of family life and fatherhood. Meechum has a lovely, supportive wife, Lillian (Blythe Danner), an earnest, likeable son, Ben (Michael O'Keefe), three smaller children, and a good home, but Meechum finds the pastoral nature of peacetime totally incompatible with his gung-ho nature. So he begins to drink. He drills his family unmercifully, like recruits. He hammers his son relentlessly until, in a basketball game, his son fights back, and the family cheers Ben's efforts. Tension builds in the household until, during one drunken night, Meechum breaks down. Based on a best-selling novel by Pat Conroy, The Great Santini earned critical raves but fared poorly at the box office. Duvall's performance as Meechum is generally regarded as one of his greatest. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide

Former TV documentary filmmaker Mel Stuart tries to inject an acceptable degree of verisimilitude in Mean Dog Blues. A victim of circumstance, country and western musician Paul Ramsey (Gregg Henry) finds himself on a Southern chain gang. Captain Omar Kinsman (George Kennedy) snarls a lot as the obligatory sadistic prison guard, but the film's real villains are Victor and Donna Lacey (William Windom and Tina Louise) as the Bonnie-and-Clyde couple who get Henry into trouble. Listed as editor is Housley Stevenson, the son of the late Hollywood character-actor Onslow Stevens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A botched robbery provides the basis of this romantic comedy. The caper was performed by three unemployed Vietnam vets desperate for cash. Unfortunately, two of them are captured during the getaway. The third vet continues to flee and stuffs the loot in a convenient mailbox. A dishonest barkeeper and a crazed artist witness this and try to get the money for themselves. The barman needs it to pay back some Mafiosi. The artists find herself attracted to the veteran and so decides to help him get it back from the bartender. The two succeed and then board an ocean liner, where they bump into the president of the bank the veteran robbed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Max Ehrlich adapted his own novel for the screen in this fitfully amusing paranormal thriller. College professor Michael Sarrazin feels that someone else is inside him, and is led by his dreams to a small town where Margot Kidder (Black Christmas, Superman) has murdered her cheating husband. She senses something odd about Sarrazin too, even more so when he falls for Jennifer O'Neill (Scanners), who may or may not be his and Kidder's daughter. Regardless of its merits, this film will probably best be remembered for its poster art, which depicts an anguished Sarrazin being smashed in the testicles with a boat paddle. That's what happens when actors do things like turn down Midnight Cowboy. Director J. Lee Thompson later went on to direct the even less subtle Happy Birthday to Me. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

A runaway box-office hit to the tune of 17 million dollars, Walking Tall is the unabashedly manipulative story of real-life Tennessee sheriff Buford Pusser. As played by Joe Don Baker, Pusser can either be regarded as a tireless champion of justice or a baseball-bat-wielding hooligan. But with some of the most scurrilous villains this side of a Republic serial as the main targets of Pusser's wrath, the audience cannot help but applaud the sheriff's strongarm methods. When the town baddies seek vengeance by killing Pusser's wife (Elizabeth Hartman), the you-know-what really hits the fan! Never resorting to subtlety, Walking Tall was such a winner that it spawned two sequels, a made-for-television movie, and a weekly TV series -- none of which were enjoyed by the real Buford Pusser, who had long since died under questionable circumstances. At the time of the film's theatrical release, the MPAA rating system was comparatively new, so the studio launched an ad campaign aimed at parents, letting them know that the R-rated Walking Tall contained violence and not sex, and therefore was good family entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though it sometimes looks like a TV "Movie of the Week' deflected to big screen, You'll Like My Mother is all in all a neat little nailbiter with a strong cast. Pregnant army widow Francesca Kinsolving (Patty Duke), conditioned by her late husband to expect a warm welcome, visits her in-laws in snowbound Minnesota. Mother-in-law Rosemary Murphy is not only resentful of Patty's presence, she refuses to acknowledge fact that her son ever married. There are other surprises in store for Francesca, including a homicidal son-in-law Richard Thomas and a mentally-challenged sister-in-law Sian Barbara Allen. In addition, Francesca's mother-in-law harbors a "little" secret: she's not Patty's real mother-in-law at all, but a scheming aunt who wants to inherit family fortune and wants no inconvenient relatives blocking her path. Slowly and deliberately, terror builds upon terror, right up to the bone-chilling finale. Jo Heims adapted the script from a Naomi A. Hintze novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide