Jay Lawrence Movies

In Kingdom of the Spiders a swarm of huge tarantulas, enraged by the misuse of pesticides, try to take over their part of the world. Dr. Robert Hansen (William Shatner), a local Arizona veterinarian joins forces with entomologist Diane Ashley (Tiffany Bolling) to keep the spider population under control. Woody Strode and Altovise Davis also appear as the owners of a neighboring ranch. Unstylishly directed by John Cardos and produced with a sense of humor by "Arachnid Productions," -- and despite bad dialogue, wooden acting and poor special effects -- Kingdom of the Spiders has become a cult classic and favorite of several generations of giant insect horror film buffs. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

In this follow-up to the 1972 animated hit Fritz the Cat (the first animated feature to receive an X rating), Fritz (voice of Skip Hinnant) is married, out of work, on welfare, and not at all happy. Desperate to blot out the misery of living with his nagging wife (voice of Reva Rose), Fritz smokes as much marijuana as he can afford and finds himself fantasizing about how his life could have been. His Walter Mitty-like adventures find him travelling in outer space, working at the White House, assisting Adolph Hitler, and becoming involved with African-American radicals. Unlike its raunchier predecessor, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat only merited an R rating upon initial release. Neither Robert Crumb (the comic artist who created the character) nor Ralph Bakshi (director of the first film) were involved in its production. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A fashionable neighborhood has been targetted by a gang of burglars, who specialize in lifting valuable furs and jewels. Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) determine that all of the robbery victims had been seen at popular LA night spots just before they were burglarized. The case is solved with the "assistance" of a toothsome young lady who has a habit of hanging around with known criminals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season Four of The Adventures of Superman opens with a sentimental story about a racing filly named Joey. Formerly owned by a girl named Alice (Janine Perreau) and purchased by "The Daily Planet", Joey has the potential to be a winner, but refuses to race unless Alice is around. As this story plays itself out, Clark Kent (George Reeves)--otherwise known as Superman--goes after a band of criminals who've been spreading their corruptive influence at the racetrack. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Investigating a missing-persons report, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) are handed a clue when a ring worth $1500 shows up in a pawn shop. At this point, the missing man, Garfield Hunt (James Stone) resurfaces. It turns out that Hunt had been fleeced by a pair of clever con artists, and had hocked the ring so his wife would not find out he had lost all his money. Ultimately, the detectives catch up with the crooks--or do they? Peggy Webber, a charter member of the "Jack Webb Stock Company", shows up as a lachrymose drunk. Based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of February 8, 1955, this episode is currently available in several public-domain VHS and DVD collections. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A young police officer tries his best to assuage the fears of his pregnant wife by refusing dangerous new jobs. But despite his caution, he has a job to do and he ends up chasing a dangerous thief all the way to Mexico in a helicopter. This actioner chronicles his death-defying adventures. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The scene is a German POW camp, sometime during the mid-1940s. Stalag 17, exclusively populated by American sergeants, is overseen by sadistic commandant Oberst Von Schernbach (Otto Preminger) and the deceptively avuncular sergeant Schultz (Sig Ruman). The inmates spend their waking hours circumventing the boredom of prison life; at night, they attempt to arrange escapes. When two of the escapees, Johnson and Manfredi, are shot down like dogs by the Nazi guards, Stalag 17's resident wiseguy Sefton (William Holden) callously collects the bets he'd placed concerning the fugitives' success. No doubt about it: there's a security leak in the barracks, and everybody suspects the enterprising Sefton -- who manages to obtain all the creature comforts he wants -- of being a Nazi infiltrator. Things get particularly dicey when Lt. Dunbar (Don Taylor), temporarily billetted in Stalag 17 before being transferred to an officer's camp, tells his new bunkmates that he was responsible for the destruction of a German ammunition train. Sure enough, this information is leaked to the Commandant, and Dunbar is subjected to a brutal interrogation. Certain by now that Sefton is the "mole", the other inmates beat him to a pulp. But Sefton soon learns who the real spy is, and reveals that information on the night of Dunbar's planned escape. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Stalag 17 is as much comedy as wartime melodrama, with most of the laughs provided by Robert Strauss as the Betty Grable-obsessed "Animal" and Harvey Lembeck as Stosh's best buddy Harry. Other standouts in the all-male cast include Richard Erdman as prisoner spokesman Hoffy, Neville Brand as the scruffy Duke, Peter Graves as blonde-haired, blue-eyed "all American boy" Price, Gil Stratton as Sefton's sidekick Cookie (who also narrates the film) and Robinson Stone as the catatonic, shell-shocked Joey. Writer/producer/director Billy Wilder and coscenarist Edmund Blum remained faithful to the plot and mood the Donald Bevan/Edmund Trzcinski stage play Stalag 17, while changing virtually every line of dialogue-all to the better, as it turned out (Trzcinski, who like Bevan based the play on his own experiences as a POW, appears in the film as the ingenuous prisoner who "really believes" his wife's story about the baby abandoned on her doorstep). William Holden won an Academy Award for his hard-bitten portrayal of Sefton, which despite a hokey "I'm really a swell guy after all" gesture near the end of the film still retains its bite today. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the third of his four Wild Bill Saunders Westerns, Bill Elliott, "the Peaceable Man," is assigned by Governor Dawson (Don Beddoe) to put a stop to the reign of terror, including cold-blooded murder, perpetrated by Powder Kilgore (Raphael Bennett). When the state legislature refuses to fund a legitimate rangers organization, Wild Bill instead enlists a group of tough convicts, whom he promises freedom if they help capture Kilgore and his chief lieutenant, Lightning Barlow (Francis Walker). Unfortunately, one of the convicts, Shifty (Ernie Adams), lives up to his name by betraying his comrades in arms to Kilgore but after a furious gun battle at the gang's shootout, Wild Bill manages to bring peace to the area. Nevertheless, when asked to captain the newly founded rangers organization, the hero instead promotes his new friend, former convict Honest John (Al Hill), and heads off to new adventures. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide