Richard Angarola Movies

A John Carpenter story served as the launching pad for Black Moon Rising. Veteran thief Quint (Tommy Lee Jones) is hired by the FBI to steal some politically volatile computer tapes. The owners of the tapes are displeased, and begin chasing Quint all over the countryside. Just when he's about to surrender his booty, Quint's car -- wherein the tapes are stored -- is stolen by Nina (Linda Hamilton). She delivers the car to her corporate-villain boyfriend Ryland (Robert Vaughn), who runs a hot auto ring. Nina then has second thoughts and decides to throw in with Quint...and round and round we go. The "Black Moon" of the title is the name Quint's high-tech, low-slung vehicle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

We'll confess not to having seen The Amazing Captain Nemo, principally because we can't find it anywhere. It's our loss, because it certainly sounds fascinating. Jose Ferrer stars as Nemo, the demented but essentially well-meaning technological genius created by Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In what seems to have been a one-time-only occasion, Ferrer costars with his namesake Mel Ferrer. Also in the star-heavy cast is Burgess Meredith as an eccentric professor and Lynda Day George as the all-around heroine. The film was largely photographed by Lamar Boren, the undersea expert responsible for the soggy cinematography of Creature from the Black Lagoon and Flipper. Given the cast and the director (Alex March), we suspect that The Amazing Captain Nemo was filmed for television, then deflected to theaters to make back its cost. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In Tandem was the pilot film for the TV series Movin' On, and has since borne that title in syndication. Created by Barry Weitz and Philip D'Antoni, the concept was an update of the obscure U.S./Canadian TV weekly Cannonball, with a bit of Route 66 and The Streets of San Francisco thrown in. Claude Akins stars as hard-bitten, self-made gypsy driver Sonny Pruett, who enters into a business partnership with a much-younger trucker, law school graduate Will Chandler (Frank Converse). Despite their ideological differences, Sonny and Will work together as one to ship a consignment of oranges past a group of hostile citrus growers. In Tandem first aired May 8, 1974, on NBC; the Movin' On series proper was seen over the same network from September 12, 1974, through September 14, 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The autobiography of Henri Charriere, one of the few people to successfully escape from the notorious French penal colony of Devil's Island, served as the basis for Papillon. Steve McQueen plays the pugnacious Charriere (known as "Papillon," or "butterfly," because of a prominent tatoo), incarcerated--wrongly, he claims--for murdering a pimp. He saves the life of fellow convict Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), a counterfeiter who will later show his gratitude by helping Charriere in his many escape attempts, and by smuggling food to Charriere when the latter is put in solitary confinement. One breakout, which takes Charriere and Dega to a leper colony and then to a native encampment, is almost successful, but Charriere is betrayed (allegedly because he stopped for an act of kindness) and back the prisoners go to French Guiana. Years later, Dega is made a trustee and is content with his lot, but the ageing, white-haired Charriere cannot be held back. A tribute to the unquenchability of the human spirit, Papillon brought in an impressive $22 million at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Russ Meyer followed-up his delirious Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with this surprisingly straighforward drama, which offered little of Meyer's traditional tongue-in-cheek humor or remarkably proportioned women in favor of a serious message about the evils of censorship. A bookstore sells a copy of a notorious erotic novel, entitled The Seven Minutes, to a teenager who is later arrested for rape. A prosecutor on a crusade against pornography seizes upon this as an opportunity to have the book declared obscene, and the trial sparks a heated debate about the issue of pornography vs. free speech, as well as revealing a startling revelation about the novel's true author. Adapted from a novel by Irving Wallace, The Seven Minutes featured one of Meyer's more interesting casts, including veteran character actors John Carradine and Alexander D'Arcy, a post-Munsters Yvonne de Carlo, a pre-Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck, lounge comic Jackie Gayle, and Wolfman Jack as himself. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

With no pressing assignments at hand, Phelps and Barney head to the Caribbean for a long-overdue vacation. Falling in love with gorgeous artist Alma Ross (Cicely Tyson), Barney finds himself framed for the murder of Alma's ex-boyfriend. The instigator of the frame-up is crooked police chief Manuel Corba (Pernell Roberts), the head of a private death squad that has already claimed some 70 victims. Summoning the rest of the IMF team to come to Barney's rescue, Phelps intends to put the sadistic Corba out of business for keeps. The impressive supporting cast includes such familiar faces as Leon Askin and John Schuck. Written by Laurence Heath, "Death Squad" was originally broadcast on March 15, 1970. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) are duly impressed when a young civilian, Lauro Perez (A Martinez), performs an act of heroism by rescuing a man from a warehouse fire. Curiously, however, Lauro balks at being awarded with a police citation; indeed, he seems reluctant to even show his face after the rescue. Can it be that Lauro has something to hide--and if so, what? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Shirley MacLaine plays Charity Hope Valentine who, despite her job at a seedy dime-a-dance joint, is an incurable optimist. Charity never stops looking for true love and never seems to look for it in the right places. We first see her in the company of Charlie (Dante DiPaolo), a slimeball who steals her purse and pushes her into the Central Park pond. Next she stumbles into a one-night stand with Vittorio Vidal (Ricardo Montalban), an egotistical movie star; this comes to nothing when Vittorio's contrite girlfriend Ursula (Barbara Bouchet) comes calling, forcing Charity to spend the night hiding in the closet. Desperate to escape the dance hall, Charity heads to an employment agency, where a bureaucratic clerk (Alan Hewitt) informs her that she has no qualifications. Unhappily, Charity heads for the elevator, where she becomes trapped with the very shy -- and very claustrophobic -- Oscar Lindquist (John McMartin). Once they've gotten out of the stalled elevator, Charity begins dating Oscar, never telling him of her checkered past or her sordid dance-hall job. Oscar eventually finds out but assures her that it doesn't matter. However, at the engagement party held at the dance hall, Oscar's puritanical streak emerges. He walks out on Charity, leaving her alone and heartbroken once more. With the help of a group of flower children (among them Bud Cort and Kristoffer Tabori), Charity is able to pick herself up and start living "Hopefully Ever After." Sweet Charity was adapted from the 1965 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the 1957 Fellini flick Nights of Cabiria. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this pseudo-biography of the legendary Cuban revolutionary -- played by Omar Sharif -- Che Guevara takes up the cause as a rebel fighter under the direction of Fidel Castro, played by Jack Palance. Guevara, a young Argentine doctor, proves his worth under the heat of guerilla warfare and, gaining the respect of his men, becomes the leader of a patrol. Castro is impressed by Guevara's tactics and strict discipline and makes him his chief advisor. When Castro defeats the Cuban dictator Batista after two years of fighting, Guevara, under Castro's nod, directs a series of massive reprisals -- but Guevara dreams of fermenting a worldwide revolution. After Castro backs down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Guevara accuses Castro of being a Soviet dupe and leaves Cuba. Under disguise, Guevara lands in Bolivia, where he attempts to begin his dream of a worldwide peasant revolution, but the Bolivian poor will not follow his lead, and his band find themselves starving in the Bolivian jungle and pursued by the Bolivian army. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

This comedy finds American writer Lawrence Colby (Robert Wagner) augmenting his scribing income by smuggling Swiss watch parts into France. Martine (Mary Tyler Moore) enlists his help to find her friend Sabine (Glynis Johns), an author of erotic novels. Sabine is vacationing in Greece, but crooks kidnap her beautiful ghost writer (Barbara Rhoades) by mistake. Sabine's nervous agent Merriman Dudley (Harvey Korman) feels the pressure from the book publishers for the deadline on the new book, still unfinished. Martine and Lawrence help the ghost writer escape, but she is accused of murdering a notorious gangster. The thug conveniently appears and is promptly arrested, as the writers all try to get back to work. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Ruth Roman guest-stars as Riva Sentel, the Evita-like widow of a popular Latin American leader. Santel plans to make a television broadcast that will enable her to abolish democracy in her nations and set herself up as dictator. Banking on Sentel's notorious vanity, the IMF hopes to ruin her scheme by means of a "miraculous" eternal-youth formula. Written by Robert E. Thompson, "The Elixir" first aired on November 24, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ex-lawman turned rancher Jed Cooper (Clint Eastwood) is moving a small herd of cattle when a group of nine men on horseback, led by Captain Wilson (Ed Begley Sr.), ride up and accuse him of having stolen the cattle and killed their owner. Refusing to believe his account, they string him up by the neck and leave him for dead, but they don't do the job right. Cooper is dangling there, barely alive, a few minutes later when Deputy U.S. Marshal Bliss (Ben Johnson) spots him and cuts him down. He survives the next few days in Bliss' tumbleweed wagon with the other prisoners, and is later cleared of any wrongdoing and released by Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle), just in time to witness the hanging of the man who really murdered the owner of the cattle and took Cooper's money. Cooper still wants revenge on the nine men who tried to hang him, but Fenton insists that he leave the bringing of them to justice to his deputy marshals. As it happens, Fenton is in desperate need of deputy marshals for the territory that he oversees, and he also knows that Cooper was a good lawman. Cooper, in turn, is now broke and in need of a job, and does want to see justice done. They strike an uneasy bargain, Cooper agreeing to wear a badge and bring in the men he's looking for -- alive -- for trial. The latter proves easier said than done, however, when the first of them that he spots tries to draw on him when he makes the arrest. One of the hanging party, Jenkins (Bob Steele), soon turns himself in and provides the names of the others. Cooper takes Stone (Alan Hale Jr.) alive, but the hapless blacksmith is later shot by the local sheriff (Charles McGraw) while trying to escape. The other men, led by Wilson, have no intention of dying, or even being brought to trial, without a fight. Two of them go on the run out of the territory, while Wilson and two of the others decide to take the law into their own hands once again. Meanwhile, Cooper becomes a hero when he single-handedly brings back a trio of rustlers who are also guilty of murder. This leads to Cooper's first confrontation with Judge Fenton, who, in a gripping scene, explains why it is essential that he be as seemingly quick to hang a man as he is. Unless the people are convinced that the law will do its job -- including hanging men who deserve it -- they will keep taking the law into their own hands and there will be more lynch mobs like the one that tried to kill Cooper. In the course of his quest for justice, Cooper also makes the acquaintance of Rachel (Inger Stevens), a young woman with her own search for justice, haunted by her own ghosts, and the two of them are drawn together, no more so than when Wilson and two of the others try to gun Cooper down in cold blood. The final confrontation between Cooper and Wilson escalates in violence to its savage, irony-laced conclusion. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Lloyd Bridges guest-stars as Anasta Poltroni, heads of an international drug ring. Under the alias of Ted Carson, Poltroni has avoided prosecution by finding sanctuary in a country that has no extradition treaty with United States. To lure Poltroni out of hiding, the IMF concocts a characteristically elaborate scheme which requires Cinammon and Briggs to pose as a married couple. Watch for the Lincoln convertible that is destroyed in the course of the episode: the car belonged to Lucille Ball, head of the Desilu studio where Mission: Impossible was filmed. First broadcast on December 3 1966, "Fakeout" was written by Leigh Chapman. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi