Armand Alzamora Movies
- 1980
Originally made for television, the film concerns three divorces and the effect on the varied economic level present in each family. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Feldon, Greg Mullavey, (more)
- 1975
The Rampart police division swings into action after receiving a long-distance call from Omaha. A frantic woman reports that her husband, currently living in LA, has called her and threatened to commit suicide. As Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) search for the husband, they find an abandoned baby along the away. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG
In this western, an outlaw anxiously awaits the arrival of his betrothed, who is under the false impression that her fiancé is worth a fortune. Unfortunately, the fellow has earned nothing during his stint in the West. Desperate to keep her, he begins plotting the theft of a Mexican bandit's loot. But before he can, he will need a Gatling gun. He knows a man who has one, but the gun owner refuses to part with it unless the outlaw agrees to find him a woman. The outlaw then kidnaps a likely candidate from a stage coach. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that the woman is a colonel's wife. Later as he is hauling his heavy gun, he runs into the colonel who is looking for his missing wife. A shoot out ensues and things look bleak for the outlaw until the colonel's wife intervenes and suggests to her husband that since he is about to retire, he ought to allow the fellow to take the chance and try to pull off the heist. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1970
Lee Van Cleef plays a fiercely independent river ferryman in the Old West. Bandit Warren Oates, fresh from decimating a local town, rides up with his gang and demands that Van Cleef transport the crooks and their booty across the river. He refuses, and is taken prisoner. Biding his time, Van Cleef is able to turn the tables on the vicious gang. Heavily influenced by the ultraviolent "spaghetti western" school, Barquero attempts to add a contemporary note to the proceedings by having Warren Oates take an hallucinatory "trip" after smoking an unidentified weed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Van Cleef, Forrest Tucker, (more)
- 1969
Communist army officer Miguel Torres (Alejandro Rey) hijacks the airliner bearing Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and Maria Sandoval (Pilar Seurat), the political defector whom Erskine is escorting to a congressional hearing. The plane crashes somewhere in New Mexico, leaving the survivors at the mercy of Torres, who is determined that Maria won't live to testify. Will Erskine's aide Colby (William Reynolds) be able to come to the rescue in time? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Frontier scout Jess Remsberg (James Garner) is crossing the desert when he spots a dead army scout and group of Apaches pursuing someone -- it turns out to be a white woman, Ellen Grange (Bibi Andersson); he gets her away from them and returns her to her home and her husband Willard (Dennis Weaver), who seems much more upset that the horse she was riding when she left is dead than he is glad that she is back. Ellen was kidnapped by the Apaches two years before and rescued a year after that, and had fled a town where her husband and everyone else had treated her as an outcast since her return. Apart from preventing her from being raped by some drunken townsmen, however, Remsberg barely has time to worry over what goes on between them, as he has a mission of his own -- tracking down the men who murdered his wife, a Comanche woman. A key clue is in the hands of the town marshal in Fort Conchos and to get there he has to scout for a cavalry unit bringing horses, ammunition, and fresh recruits to the fort, with Grange and his wife -- and the infant son she had by the Indian chieftain who took her as his squaw -- going along, with ex-buffalo soldier-turned-horse wrangler Toler (Sidney Poitier). Their party ends up under siege by Chata (John Hoyt), the Apache Indian chief and grandfather to Ellen Grange's baby, who has jumped the reservation; he wants his grandson back, and the ammunition the troop was carrying, and also intends on killing Ellen for inadvertently causing the death of his son. They all end up trapped in a box canyon while Remsberg tries to survive to get help from Fort Conchos. If this all sounds complicated, it's not, especially as told by director Nelson, in a straightforward, unpretentious, brisk, and decidedly violent fashion that anticipates his own Soldier Blue, made four years later. Every plot element links up neatly in this script, which quite effectively recalls (and weaves together) elements of the book and the movie Hondo as well as any number of revenge westerns of the 1960's. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Garner, Sidney Poitier, (more)
The 1939 adventure classic Gunga Din is transferred from British India to the American West, courtesy of Frank Sinatra's "Clan." Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford play three cavalry officers, always ready for a brawl but willing to die for each other if need be. Sammy Davis Jr. a cavalry bugler who has aspirations of being a combat soldier. The three officers and the bugler take on a Napoleonic Native American chief, who plans to unify all the tribes and kill every white man in sight. Davis does his "Gunga" bit by blowing his bugle and warning the approaching cavalry that they're riding into a trap. About all that isn't pilfered from Gunga Din is the death of the noble bugler; Davis survives being shot up by the Indians with little more than a flesh wound! Sergeants Three also stars another Sinatra crony, Joey Bishop, playing the role originally essayed in Gunga Din by Robert Coote. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, (more)
- 1962
California politics is the clinically dissected yet informative and interesting topic of this feature-length drama by co-directors Bernard Girard and Robert Lewis. Relegating any character development to secondary status, the two directors have opted for a mode more in keeping with a television educational drama (TV is their principle medium) than the dynamic, personal interactions of the larger screen. At issue is the mud-slinging involved in a campaign to stop legislation regulating the practices of collection agencies. A few California lawmen lead the legislation and are determined to succeed in spite of their underhanded detractors. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Myron McCormick, Edward Binns, (more)
- 1960
Bret (James Garner) feels mighty lucky when he thinks he's won some prize cattle in a poker game. Imagine his dismay when discovers that his "prize" is actually a large flock of sheep--and that he is now smack in the middle of a violent range war. While looking for someone willing to buy the sheep, Bret poses as a Federal inspector in order to avoid being shot full of holes by the angry cattlemen. This episode was directed by Arthur Lubin, who was somewhat of an expert in "animal" stories by virtue of his work on the "Francis the Talking Mule" movie series (to say nothing of his later duties on TV's Mister Ed). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
