Thom Conroy Movies
Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) is a listless Manhattan businessman who lives with his wife in the New York suburbs. One day, he runs into an old friend (Murray Hamilton) whom he thought had died. The friend leads him to The Company, a secretive operation run by The Old Man (Will Geer). The Company is a high-tech service which, for a price, provides older men with plastic surgery, a beefed-up body, and a fresh start in life. To cover the "disappearance," a middle-aged male cadaver is "killed" in a hotel fire. Hamilton submits to the operation that will turn him into a "Second," and when the bandages are removed, he's shed twenty years, renamed Tony Wilson and portrayed by Rock Hudson. The Company creates a new identity for Hamilton, relocating him in a hedonistic California beach community with an identity as a painter. Celebrating during a local wine festival, Hamilton has his revelry cut short when he learns that all his new young friends are Seconds like himself and suddenly feels trapped in these surroundings. Unfortunately, finding a way out isn't nearly as easy as it was to find a way in. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, (more)
- 1963
At the end of 1963, The Best of Cinerama was released -- marking the end of the pioneering three-projector widescreen system when single-system Panavision was rapidly becoming the industry norm. A greatest hits package, this lengthy film features the finest moments from the Cinerama travelogues -- the ballet of Navy jets and the stomach-turning rollercoaster ride from This Is Cinerama; the excursion in St. Moritz from Cinerama Holiday; the Oriental vistas from Seven Wonders of the World, and the death-defying leaps of the island natives from an elevated platform from South Sea Cinerama. Lowell Thomas is still the host as he guides the audience through Cinerama's finest (and past) moments. But with the release of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in the single camera Ultra Panavision 70 process under Cinerama's auspices that same year, this compilation film also services as an epitaph to the unique widescreen process that was Cinerama. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lowell Thomas, Thom Conroy, (more)
- 1961
The Young Savages is what used to be called a "thinking man's picture" about a potentially lurid subject: urban juvenile delinquency. A blind Puerto Rican boy is knifed to death in Spanish Harlem, and three teenage gang members are accused of the crime. Politically ambitious assistant DA Burt Lancaster initially presses for the conviction of all three boys. But as he gets deeper into the case, he realizes that what appears cut-and-dried on the surface is tortuously complex: for starters, the murder victim was hardly the paragon of virtue that the prosecution claims. Despite pressure from his superiors and from members of the accused boys' gang (who at one point threaten Lancaster's wife Dina Merrill with a switchblade,) Lancaster nonetheless sees to it that justice is properly administered. The defendants are portrayed with varying degrees of Brando/Dean "method" by John Davis Chandler, Neil Nephew and Stanley Kristien; more believable, less affected performances are rendered by Shelley Winters, Pilar Seurat and Telly Savalas. Filmed on location in New York, The Young Savages was based on the Evan Hunter novel A Matter of Conviction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Dina Merrill, (more)
- 1959
Not long after trying to strike a deal with political "fixer" Wilfred Borden (George Neise), building contractor George Andrews (John Anderson) is in a car accident. When Borden is murdered and Andrews arrested for the crime, Perry (Raymond Burr) hinges his defense on locating swimsuit model Dawn Manning (Dolores Donlon), the girl who was with Andrews at the time of the accident--and that, folks, is why Mr. Mason is posing as a professional photographer. This episode is based on a 1958 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The Man with the Gun in this well-paced western is played by Robert Mitchum. A notorious gunslinger, Mitchum has been hired by a group of concerned citizens to restore law and order to the wide-open town of Sheridan City. Before long, however, Mitchum holds the community in a grip of terror, behaving like a Law Unto Himself. So: Is the star of the film actually the villain of the piece? A last-reel plot twist effectively answers that question. Though Robert Mitchum dominates the proceedings, Man With the Gun also includes some good supporting work by Jan Sterling as Mitchum's saloon-gal wife, Henry Hull as an ageing marshal, John Lupton as an honest young farmer, and Emile Meyer as the town's leading citizen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Jan Sterling, (more)
- 1951
For his initial effort from his own Norma Productions, Burt Lancaster picked a winner in Ten Tall Men. Lancaster stars as "Sergeant Mike," a two-fisted Foreign Legionnaire presiding over a lovable band of mercenaries, sneak thieves and cutthroats. While sitting in the stockade for the umpteenth time, Mike learns of a Riff plan to attack his fort. He and his men break jail and embark on their own attack of the Riffian encampment. Part of their strategy (much of which is improvised on the spot) is to kidnap Mahia (Jody Lawrence), the toothsome daughter of the Riffian sheik. Understandably, Mahia despises her captors until she realizes that the film's real villain is the covetous Caid Hussan (Gerald Mohr). This one's got everything, from a campy reenactment of a key scene in Beau Geste to the old reliable threat of a red-hot iron upon female flesh. Mari Blanchard, fully clothed for a change, shows up early in the film as a coquettish French mademoiselle who foments an all-out donnybrook among Mike and his fellow legionnaires. With the exceptions of Jody Lawrence and Gerald Mohr, no one in Ten Tall Men takes the proceedings too seriously; the film has some of the cheeky insouciance of Lancaster's subsequent swashbuckler The Crimson Pirate. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Jody Lawrance, (more)
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