Angie Dickinson Movies
Born in Kulm, North Dakota and educated at Glendale College and Immaculate Heart College, Angeline Brown acquired her professional name Angie Dickinson when she married college football star Gene Dickinson. A beauty contest winner, Dickinson entered films with an unbilled bit in the 1954 Warner Bros. musical Lucky Me. Her earliest films consisted mostly of "B" Westerns (at one point, she dubbed in actress Sarita Montiel's voice in 1957's Run of the Arrow) and television (Dickinson was rather nastily murdered in very first episode of Mike Hammer). She moved to the A-list when selected by Howard Hawks to play the female lead in Rio Bravo (1958). The film gave Dickinson ample opportunity to display her celebrated legs, which, for publicity purposes, were reportedly insured by Lloyd's of London.
She went on to star in films both famous and forgettable: one of the roles for which she is best remembered is as the mistress of gangster Ronald Reagan (!) in The Killers (1964). In 1974, Dickinson jump-started her flagging career as the star of the TV cop drama Police Woman, which lasted four seasons and represented a tremendous step up in popularity for Dickinson. On that program, the actress played Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson, an undercover agent with the LAPD's criminal conspiracy division, whose assignments nearly always included donning a crafty and sexy guise in order to nab an underworld criminal.
At about the same time, Dickinson also moved into motion pictures and (after years of consciously avoiding nude scenes), went au naturel for exploitation king Roger Corman in that producer's depression-era romp Big Bad Mama, which unsurprisingly became a cult favorite. (Years later, in 1987, she teamed up with Z-grade shlockmeister Jim Wynorski for New World's Big Bad Mama II). Brian DePalma's Psycho-influenced thriller Dressed to Kill (1980) brought the actress greater visibility, and like the Corman assignments, required Angie to do erotic nudity (though in this case, the below-the-waist shower shots were reportedly performed by a body double).
In later years, Dickinson leaned more heavily on starring and supporting turns in made-for-television productions, including a telemovie follow-up to Police Woman, Police Woman: The Freeway Killings (1987); the Oliver Stone miniseries Wild Palms (1993); the direct-to-video thriller The Maddening (1995) (opposite longtime friend and colleague Burt Reynolds); and the prime-time soaper Danielle Steele's Rememberance (1996). The next decade found the septuagenarian actress unexpectedly returning to A-list Hollywood features, albeit in small supporting roles; these included Duets (2000), Pay it Forward (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001) (in a cameo as herself, nodding to her involvement in the original).
Angie Dickinson was married to composer Burt Bacharach from 1965 to 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
In this routine political drama by Vincent Sherman, a murder trial is converted into one piece in the complex interaction between three candidates for governor. Judge Hoffman (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) is a solid, anchoring presence in his courtroom, qualities which should stand him in good stead when election day arrives. Senator Simon (Don Ameche) has all the scruples of a hungry ferret and tries to bribe the judge to take on a position in the federal judicial system in lieu of his candidacy. The District Attorney, Dan Callahan also has an ethics-free approach to politics and is not likely to change. Complicating matters is the fact that the Senator's wife Cathy (Angie Dickinson) was once in love with Judge Hoffman. By the time these protagonists get through dealing with the race for governor and each other's scruples -- or lack of them -- circumstances have drastically changed the picture. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Angie Dickinson, (more)
- 1977
We are told time and again in this 1977 TV movie that star David Janssen is the "sensitive, passionate man" of the title. But when Janssen, playing an aerospace engineer who loses his job, crawls into the booze bottle, there's little evidence that he's anything more than aloof and self-pitying. Angie Dickinson all but dons a wing and halo as Janssen's incredibly forgiving and understanding wife. The only people we truly care about in this film are the couple's children, played with a pleasing lack of affectation by Todd Lookinland and Justin Randi. As superficial as its title, A Sensitive, Passionate Man seems to argue that no matter how much emotional damage you incur, it's all OK if your family adores you. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
In this drama, a lady lawyer's campaign to become state attorney general is jeopardized by a scandal involving a gigolo, extortion and even murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1965
This one-hour TV comedy stars Cliff Robertson as a New York author fed up with the pressures of urban living. He quits his job and moves with his pregnant wife Angie Dickinson to a small California town. Here he accepts an editor's position at a tiny weekly newspaper, inspiring both praise and wrath by using the publication as a pulpit for his crusading. Hal Kanter wrote, produced and directed this pilot for a potential series. And Baby Makes Five originally aired as a 1966 installment of The Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Actor Arliss Howard made his debut as a director with this emotional drama adapted from a handful of short stories by Larry Brown. Barlow (Arliss Howard) is a deeply troubled Vietnam veteran who has been chasing a career as a writer, with little success; when he isn't struggling with his typewriter, he's usually drinking, and his wild mood swings and alcoholic fits of rage have driven away his wife Marilyn (Debra Winger), who has taken their son Alan (Zach Moody) and daughter Alisha (Olivia Kersey) with her. Barlow would like to see his children, but Marilyn refuses to allow it until he catches up on his alimony and child support payments; one of Barlow's few loyal friends, Monroe (Paul LeMat), a buddy from his Army days, is able to get him work as a house painter. With steady paychecks, Barlow is finally able to clear his debts to Marilyn, but she refuses to acknowledge that he's made much progress in turning his life around, and he doesn't get much more emotional support from his ailing mother (Angie Dickinson) or his friend Velma (Rosanna Arquette). Big Bad Love marked the second screen pairing for husband-and-wife Arliss Howard and Debra Winger; it was also Winger's first screen appearance in six years. Acclaimed songwriter Tom Waits composed the film's original score. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arliss Howard, Debra Winger, (more)
Angie Dickinson essays the title role in Big Bad Mama. This Depression-era crime caper casts the future star of Police Woman as sexy Ma Barker type Wilma McClatchie, who forces her nubile daughters (Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee) into participating in a robbery/kidnapping/murder spree. Wilma seems to be as motivated by the erotic thrill of lawbreaking as she is by the financial gains. She evens hops in the sack with her daughters, as does her common-law husband, played by William Shatner. A sequel appeared in 1987. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, (more)
- 1987
Angie Dickinson returns as a sexy Depression-era mother who joins forces with her equally attractive daughters for a crime spree through the South as they seek to avenge the death of her husband. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angie Dickinson, Robert Culp, (more)
As originally screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, at the Cannes Film Festival, and on Turner Classic Movies, the mammoth, epic-length documentary Brando chronicles in encyclopedic detail (and with a consistently reverent overtone) the life and career of the man widely regarded as the most formidable American actor of the 20th century - famous for not only reshaping, but reinventing the craft of film acting and teaching audiences how to view a motion picture performance. Divided into chronological, thematically-unified segments, the film first treats Marlon Brando's dysfunctional upbringing - his alcoholic mother, his abusive father, his stint at a military academy - before charting his acting tutelage at the behest of Stella Adler and his early cinematic and theatrical roles, including work for Elia Kazan, who famously made many aggressive (and unsuccessful) attempts to discipline the headstrong actor onscreen. Throughout this segment, many Hollywood A-list actors appear - among them, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp and Robert Duvall - expostulating at length on Brando's influence over their approaches to performance, and attempting with great effort to define the elusive style known as "method acting" that Brando helped to create. The second half of the documentary moves into Brando's career during the '70s, '80s and '90s, covering the production of The Godfather, the actor's noteworthy political activism, and his tumultuous personal life. Francis Ford Coppola, who of course teamed with Brando for the first Godfather installment and for Apocalypse Now, is noticeably absent from the proceedings. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, (more)
- 1957
One of the more diverting byproducts of the short-lived Calypso craze was this quickie Allied Artists musical. What plot their is concerns a lover's quarrel between TV personality Ed Kemmer and stewardess Angie Dickinson. When Dickinson runs off to South America, Kemmer follows. As they try to patch up their differences, the viewer is regaled by a vast array of topnotch musical performers. Among the special guest stars spotlighted herein are Herb Jeffries (who in the 1930s was Hollywood's only black singing cowboy), the Easy Riders, Duke of Iron, Lord Flea and his Calypsonians and the Lester Horden Dancers. Conspicuous by his absence is the real Calypso Joe, a Hawaii-based entertainer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Herb Jeffries, Angie Dickinson, (more)
- 1963
Gregory Peck plays a benevolent God-like figure in a white smock as Captain Josiah Newman, the head of a psych-unit at a Southwestern army base during the waning days of World War II. Newman is a patriarchal protector to his patients, preferring to keep him in his ward, rather than return them to certain death on the battlefield. The matriarchal figure of the ward is Lieutenant Grace Blodgett (Jane Withers), but Newman is more interested in his assistant Lieutenant Francie Corum (Angie Dickinson), with whom he is having an affair. Further help is provided by human nature expert, Corp. Jackson Laibowitz (Tony Curtis), the orderly. And Newman needs all the help he can get. Particularly with three patients: Colonel Bliss (Eddie Albert) is suffering from a guilt complex from all the men he has sent to death; Corporal Tompkins (Bobby Darin, in an Academy Award-nominated performance), although decorated for bravery in combat, calls himself a coward for failing to save his pal from a burning plane; and Captain Winston (Robert Duvall) is guilt-ridden and has lapsed into catatonia because he had hidden for over a year in the basement of a building in Germany. Although Newman wants to cure these men of their psychological problems, he doesn't want to see them returned to the war to be killed. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, (more)
Cast a Giant Shadow is a big-budget, glossy action/adventure story set at the time that Israel became a nation. American Army officer Colonel David Marcus is recruited by the yet-to-exist Israel to help form an army. Marcus is conflicted because of his sudden appreciation for his Jewish heritage. Realizing that each of Israel's Arab nations has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country once the partition has been made, Marcus is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins. The all-star cast includes Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger and Angie Dickinson. Aldo Tonti provides the beautiful photography by Aldo Tonti, and Melville Shavelson directs. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger, (more)
In this loose adaptation of the 1942 horror classic of the same name, a 2001-style opening montage establishes some sort of sacrificial, mystical union between panthers and an ancient tribe of humans. Flash forward to 1980's New Orleans, where waifish Irina (Natassja Kinski) meets her older brother, Paul (Malcolm McDowell), a minister, for the first time since their animal trainer parents died and she was sent to a series of foster homes. Paul's Creole housekeeper, Female (Ruby Dee), helps Irina settle into her brother's home, but Paul himself disappears. Cut to a fleabag motel where a blasé prostitute finds an angry panther instead of a client; after mauling her, the cat is captured by police and a team of zoologists: Oliver (John Heard), Alice (Annette O'Toole), and Joe (Ed Begley Jr.). The next day Irina finds herself in the zoo where these scientists work; drawn to the newly captured panther, she befriends Oliver and takes a job in the gift shop. Shortly after the panther's violence turns deadly, it escapes, and soon Paul turns up spouting an unbelievable story about his family's were-cat heritage and his inevitable sexual union with little Irina. On the run from her dangerous brother, Irina takes refuge in a sexually frustrated romance with Oliver, afraid of what might happen if she consummates their passion. Astute viewers will notice that the zoologist characters refer to the film's panthers as leopards; "panther" is actually a generic term for any large cat, especially a black one, but Cat People's panthers are in fact leopards whose black color comes from a recessive trait known as melanism. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, (more)
- 1980
- R
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Peter Ustinov plays the talented detective in San Francisco who attempts, with help/hindrance from his clumsy grandson (Richard Hatch), to solve a murder case in this mystery/comedy. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Ustinov, Lee Grant, (more)
- 1957
Writer-director Samuel Fuller applies his kino-fist to this raw-boned war drama -- one of the first American films to deal with Vietnam. The film concerns the battle between the Vietnamese and the Chinese, through the efforts of a small band of soldiers to locate and destroy a hidden communist arms depot. Gene Barry stars as Sgt. Johnny Brock, the cynical leader of the patrol, who is an American Korean War veteran. Leading the expedition to find the munitions dump is the half-Asian Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson), Brock's ex-wife. One of Brock's less-endearing qualities is his rabid racism -- he can't accept the fact that their five-year-old son is completely Oriental in appearance. The other members of the patrol are also haunted by past memories -- Goldie (Nat "King" Cole) is a veteran of Korea and World war II who hates war and wants to see peace at all costs; Corporal Pigalle (George Givot) is an ex-French gendarme who doesn't like taking orders; and Private Andreades (Gerald Milton), is a hard-nosed Greek expatriate. When the patrol arrives at the compound, they are greeted by Major Cham (Lee Van Cleef), the communist commander who immediately falls in love with Lucky Legs -- complicating the situation immensely. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Barry, Angie Dickinson, (more)
- 1958
- NR
On a perfectly ordinary day, the management of an airline receives a note demanding a half-million dollars from someone who claims to have put a bomb aboard one of their planes. When the device, a tiny but dead electronically-triggered explosive, is found, they're told that there's another -- the FBI and the news media are all present as it is retrieved. One of those who sees the drama unfold on the news is Paul Molnar (James Mason), an electronics expert, who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a nightmare along with the rest of his family-- he and his wife (Inger Stevens) and their young daughter are kidnapped by Paul Hoplin (Rod Steiger), a former army buddy of Paul's, who duped him into designing the devices, and now wants Molnar's wife to act a courier for the money. With her husband and daughter in the hands of two of the gang (Angie Dickinson, Jack Klugman), she is made to pick up the money and make her way across New York while a clock is ticking on their lives -- and she must survive being left guarded by Steve (Neville Brand), an ex-con, murderer, and sexual predator, and the least-tightly-wrapped of all Hoplin's gang. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Mason, Rod Steiger, (more)
In this heart-tugging romantic drama, a European woman endures much tragedy after she marries into a family of powerful American politicians. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eva La Rue, Angie Dickinson, (more)
Set in the '30s, Mountie Millen (Lee Marvin) is assigned to track down accused murderer Johnson (Charles Bronson), who has escaped in the high passes of the Canadian Rockies. Johnson, a trapper, has extensive knowledge of wilderness living, but Millen has the resources of the Canadian police at his beck and call. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, (more)
- 1996
Country-western singer JoAnne Chadway (Molly Gross) is distraught when her mother Renee (Angie Dickinson)--and even more so since the disappearance occurred amidst bitter domestic strife with JoAnne's powerful attorney father Clay Chadway (Richard Crenna). When Clay inevitably becomes a suspect in Renee's possible murder, JoAnne embarks upon her own private investigation to ferret out the truth. What she discovers is horrifying--not so much because of what she now knows, but because of what she never knew before about her parents. "Inspired by actual events", the made-for-TV Deep Dark Secrets was first unveiled by CBS on April 15, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1981
This second film version of Frederick Knott's suspense play stars Christopher Plummer as a wealthy Londoner, who works out a meticulous scheme to murder his wife (Angie Dickinson) and escape undetected. The plan goes awry when the wife fights off the man hired to commit the murder, killing her attacker with a pair of scissors. Thinking quickly, Plummer manages to convince the police that his wife is guilty of premeditated murder. The woman is sentenced to hang for her "crime", but a diligent police inspector (Anthony Quayle) has second thoughts about her guilt. A serviceable made-for-TV job, the 1981 Dial 'M' for Murder suffers only when compared to Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 filmization of the same play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
One of Brian De Palma's most divisive films, Dressed to Kill is a spine-chilling Alfred Hitchcock update for the late 1970s. Sexually frustrated wife and mother Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) visits her New York psychiatrist, Dr. Elliott (Michael Caine), to complain about her unfulfilling erotic life. When she then goes to meet her husband at a museum, she meets an anonymous man whom she follows out to a cab. After an afternoon of satisfying sex, Kate discovers that the man has a venereal disease, but that information becomes a moot point when a razor-wielding blonde woman slashes Kate to ribbons in the elevator of the man's building. Blonde prostitute Liz (Nancy Allen), who caught a glimpse of the murderer, becomes both the prime suspect and the killer's next target. With the police less than willing to believe her story, Liz joins forces with Kate's son Peter (Keith Gordon) to get the psychopath themselves. Steamy material cut to get an R-rating was restored on the unrated laser disc version. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, (more)
Director Bruce Paltrow teams with his Oscar-winning daughter Gwyneth Paltrow for this road comedy with music. Paltrow plays Liv, a struggling professional singer whose meets her father, Ricky Dean (Huey Lewis), for the first time at the funeral of her mother. As it turns out, both Liv and Ricky supplement the income from few-and-far-between gigs by singing in karaoke contests, and soon father and daughter are competing on the same circuit. Meanwhile, Todd Woods (Paul Giamatti), a salesman who has grown disenchanted with his job, his family, and his life, picks up a hitch-hiker named Reggie Kane (Andre Braugher), and during a stop at a tavern, they discover they make a good duet team while belting out a version of "Try A Little Tenderness." And waitress Suzi Loomis (Maria Bello) sweet talks Billy (Scott Speedman), a cabbie, into driving her to Omaha, where the national karaoke finals will determine who does the best job of singing along with the records, as the lives of these six characters begin to intersect. Duets also features Angie Dickinson as Blair, Liv's grandmother who was once a showgirl in Frank Sinatra's Las Vegas floorshow; Brad Pitt was originally cast in Speedman's role but withdrew after he and Paltrow announced the end of their off-camera relationship. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Bello, Andre Braugher, (more)
Writer/director Gus Van Sant's early bid for big-time commercial success -- a success he didn't manage to achieve until Good Will Hunting -- is based on Tom Robbins' 1976 feminist bestseller. Uma Thurman plays Sissy Hankshaw, a woman born with very large thumbs. After her parents (Grace Zabriskie and Ken Kesey) take her to a doctor (Buck Henry), who offers her parents no remedy for their daughter's condition, the film races ahead to the 1970s. Sissy is now a popular feminine hygiene spray model for a product called Yoni Yum, the product of a company owned by The Countess (John Hurt in drag). Sissy travels to the Rubber Rose beauty ranch, also owned by The Countess, to shoot a Yoni Yum commercial. At the ranch, she makes the acquaintance of the inscrutable Chink (Pat Morita) and Bonanza Jellybean (Rain Phoenix). But under the nose of The Countess, the cowgirls on the ranch are talking mutiny, with the women trying to liberate the Rubber Rose Ranch from the chains of patriarchal oppression. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Uma Thurman, John Hurt, (more)
- 1989
The terrible crash of Delta Airlines Flight 191 provides the basis of this made-for-TV drama-in-real life. The disaster occurred at Dallas in 1985 and during that fateful night many of the ordinary passengers, crew, and rescue workers became true heroes as they worked together to save lives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Haid, Angie Dickinson, (more)
- 1971
A large city mayor slowly begins to recognize the depth of the syndicate's involvement in highway and housing construction projects in this crime drama. ~ All Movie Guide
