Hal Taggart Movies

Johnny Cash makes a cameo appearance in the premiere episode of The Partridge Family. Told in flashback, the episode details how an ordinary family from Ohio managed to become a popular singing group performing at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Things begin percolating when attractive widow Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones) discovers that her five kids--Keith (David Cassidy), Laurie (Susan Dey, Danny (Danny Bonaduce), Chris (Jeremy Gelbwaks) and Tracy (Suzanne Crough)--have organized a garage band, with neighborhood youngster Gloria Steinman (Debra Pearce) sitting in as lead vocalist and drummer. When it turns out that Gloria is unable to sing, the Partridge kids get an inspiration: "Waitaminute! Why don't we let Mom sing Gloria's part?" From here on in, all the familiar pieces fall in place, including the acquisition of a "psychedelic" school bus to transport the Partridges from one gig to another, and the entrepreneurial Danny's engagement of kid-hating Reuben Kincaid (Dave Madden) as the family band's manager. Songs in this inaugural episode include "Together", "Let the Good Times In", and the first-season theme tune "When We're Singin'" (which in time would be rewritten as the more familiar "Come On, Get Happy". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Big Day has finally arrived, as Jeannie (Barbara Eden) and Tony (Larry Hagman) prepare to walk down the aisle and be united in matrimony. Naturally, the NASA brass wants to get as much publicity out of the event as possible, so several press photographers are summoned to the wedding. But there's one small hitch: Jeannie is a genie,and genies can't be photographed! This landmark episode affects different people different ways: Some fans regard it as I Dream of Jeannie's "Jump the Shark" moment, after which the series began to go downhill; conversely, star Barbara Eden has cited "The Wedding" as her favorite episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Clampetts again serve a heapin' helpin' of their hospitality -- hillbilly, that is -- to oil executive Brewster (Frank Wilcox) and his lovely new wife (Lisa Seagram). But the Brewsters would just as soon celebrate their marriage quietly, without the "help" of the hillbillies. "The Brewsters Return" was originally scheduled to air on June 2, 1965, but according to contemporary TV Guide listings, the episode was moved up to May 19. In most syndicated packages, however, the episode is catalogued after "Luke's Boy," which was shown on May 26, 1965. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Disgusted by the smarminess of his 1963 vehicle Under the Yum Yum Tree, Jack Lemmon vowed that his next effort would be a wholesome family picture. Good Neighbor Sam is suitable for all ages, to be sure, but that doesn't stop producer-writer-director David Swift from injecting plenty of double-entendre dialogue and harmlessly risque situations. Lemmon plays ad executive Sam Bissell, happily married to all-American blonde Minerva (Dorothy Provine). Anxious to land the Nurdlinger's milk account, Sam is carefully scrutinized by the prudish Simon Nurdlinger (Edward G. Robinson), a staunch advocate of old-fashioned family values.

Meanwhile, Minerva welcomes her old school friend, sexy Janet Langerlof (Romy Schneider) into her home. Janet is in line to inherit a fortune, but only if she's married. Unfortunately, Janet is currently separated from her insanely jealous spouse Howard Ebbets (Michael Connors), so big-hearted Minerva volunteers Sam to pose as Janet's husband. The ensuing comic complications come to a head when Nurdlinger elects Sam and Janet as the nation's ideal "married" couple, and posts their pictures on billboards all over town! Some of the smaller pleasures in this film are provided by Louis Nye as a high-tech private eye, Barbara Nichols as a squeaky-voiced call girl, Robert Q. Lewis as Sam's lascivious neighbor, and an uncredited Gil Lamb as a genial wino. An amusing running gag involved the Hertz "man in the driver's seat" commercials of the 1960s has sometimes been cut from TV prints of Good Neighbor Sam. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The story you are about to see would probably be more at home on a contemporary "procedural" series like CSI or Bones. While playing in the hills just outside LA, two kids stumble upon a human skeleton. When it turns out the bones or those of a man who was killed 25 years earlier, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) try to determine what happened to the poor fellow. Evidently, however, there are only two people in town who care about the outcome of the case: the dead man's former sweetheart--and the person who murdered him. This is one of a handful of black and white Dragnet episodes written especially for television, with no prior radio version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edward Chodorov's stage farce Oh, Men! Oh, Women! is somewhat unnecessarily overburdened by star names in this 1957 film version. Dan Dailey plays psychiatrist Arthur Turner, who is somewhat put out when he discovers that one of his patients is the ex-boyfriend of his supposedly "normal" fiancée, Myra Hagerman (Barbara Rush). Having always prided himself on keeping his professional and personal life separated, Dr. Turner finds that he's just as mixed up as any of his patients in matters of the heart. Nominally, David Niven and Barbara Rush are the stars, but top billing is bestowed upon Dan Dailey and Ginger Rogers as bickering married couple Arthur and Mildred Turner, two secondary characters in the original play. Director Nunnally Johnson's screenplay also fleshes out the roles played by Dailey and Rogers with a lengthy, amusing "fantasy" sequence wherein Ginger offers a highly fanciful version of her marital life. In his motion picture debut, Tony Randall is hilarious as Cobbler, Myra Hagerman's neurosis-ridden former beau. Watch for Franklin Pangborn and Roy Glenn Sr. in unbilled cameo roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Monster That Challenged the World is the misleadingly title for one of the more well-regarded second-echelon horror films of the 1950s. An underwater earthquake in the Sargasso sea yields up the eggs of a long-extinct sea monster. Once hatched, the monster's offspring (which resemble huge snails) sustain themselves by sucking the life forces of various unlucky human land dwellers. Even worse, these horrendous creatures procreate at an incredible rate, laying 3000 eggs per sitting. Eventually, the monsters are neutralized by Modern Science, save for one stray snail that very nearly lunches on a little girl.. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Behind the High Wall is a remake of the 1937 Jackie Cooper-Victor McLaglen film The Big Guy. Tom Tully plays prison warden Frank Carmichael, who is kidnapped during a jail break in which a policeman is killed. In an ensuing car crash, all the escapees are killed except young Johnny Hutchins (John Gavin). Though he knows that Hutchins had nothing to do with the cop's murder, Carmichael refuses to intervene when Johnny is condemned to death. It seems that the escaping convicts had been carrying $100,000 in stolen money with them, which Carmichael has hidden away for his own use. By eliminating Hutchins, the warden is also getting rid of the only potential witness to his own perfidy. Sylvia Sidney is pure venom as Carmichael's crippled, greedy wife, while Betty Lynn (who later played Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show) also registers well as Johnny's agonizing fiancee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two bank robbers get away with 250,000 dollars in unmarked, unrecorded bills, murdering a guard in the process. The police know the leader was Harry Wheeler (Paul E. Richards) and turn their attention to his girlfriend, Leona McLane (Kim Novak), detective Paul Sheridan (Fred MacMurray) arranging to pick her up in a "chance" meeting at a movie and spend some time with her. After one day, he knows what he needs to -- that she's not in touch with Wheeler, but expects to be -- but he keeps things going between them for three more days. By the time the department has a full surveillance team in place, he can't get her off his mind, and when she discovers that he's a cop and raises the notion of letting events take their course with Wheeler (i.e., him ending up dead) and the two of them keeping the money, he's hooked. Sheridan is fast on his feet and a quick thinker and sees how he might pull this off and get the two of them away clean. But he doesn't bargain for the alcoholism of one of the detectives (Allen Nourse) on the surveillance team, the inquisitive nature of his squad commander (E.G. Marshall), or the attachment that his younger associate (Philip Carey) develops for a nurse (Dorothy Malone) living in the building they're observing. Kim Novak had previously appeared in small roles in some films at RKO, but The Pushover marked her formal introduction to audiences as a star, and she more than lives up to the billing and the buildup she received, her acting ability and her physique easily carrying her end of the picture (she's onscreen alone for long minutes under observation, and is convincingly seductive), while MacMurray gives one of the best performances of his career, rivaling his work in Double Indemnity, The Caine Mutiny, and The Apartment. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Hollywood and Vine is set in a drugstore located at the intersection of the title. James Ellison plays a successful screenwriter who likes to do his research first-hand. Assigned to write a film about Hollywood hopefuls, Ellison gets a job as a drugstore soda jerk. Wanda McKay plays Daisy, a small-town girl with dreams of stardom who hangs out at the soda counter in hopes of being discovered. Despite its tiny budget and brief running time, Hollywood and Vine is jam-packed with prominent movie character people, including Franklin Pangborn, Ralph Morgan, Leon Belasco, Robert Grieg, and sometimes "Bowery Boy" Billy Benedict. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide