Bert Holland Movies

No one can drive John (Randolph Mantooth) and Roy (Kevin Tighe) crazier in less time than their fellow parmedic, the insufferably orderly Craig Brice (James G. Richardson). Brice's rigid by-the-book approach to his work proves doubly irritating when he is assigned to a paramedic advisory committee. Elsewhere, the emergency team is called to an accident scene involving a power-pole worker, a tall building where a stunt climber is trapped, and a mountain where two other climbers are stranded. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Applying for a credit card, Officer Jim Reed (Kent McCord) is astonished when he is turned down as a bad risk. It soon develops that this negative assassment is due to a computer error. But in trying to set things right, Reed finds himself a virtual prisoner in the darkest catacombs of police-department bureaucracy. Featured in the supporting cast is former child star Gigi Perreau)...and future child star Willie Aames. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Once again, Lisa (Eva Gabor) has been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. This time around, Lisa inveigles Sam Drucker (Frank Cady) to help her set up a cosmetics business -- with the corner of Sam's general store as their headquarters. Chanin Hale, one of the busiest "dumb blonde" actresses of the late '60s and early '70s, makes another of her several Green Acres guest appearances, this time as one of Lisa's customers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Among the civilians encountered by Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) in this episode is elderly Mr. Saulsberry (Richard Hale) who is determined to leave Los Angeles and walk back to his home town--Deadwood, South Dakota. Elsewhere, the two patrolmen investigate a holdup at a service station, and shoot it out with three desperate criminals. Future Emergency! regular Marco Lopez appears unbilled. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This episode of Bonanza is a showcase for Victor Sen Yung as Hop Sing, the Cartwrights' loyal Chinese manservant. When Hop Sing's pigtail is cut off by town bully Emo Younger (Sam Greene), Joe Cartwright vows to avenge this act of public humiliation-and is subsequently arrested for murder when Younger turns up dead. Working in concert with Hoss, Hop Sing attempts to clear Joe by utilizing the ancient Chinese art of fingerprint detection. Appearing in support of the regulars are Dick Foran as Gittner, Michael Vandver as Davis, Alan Bergmann as Gort, Lou Frissell as Jackson, and Gordon Dilworth as the Judge. First shown on December 15, 1968, "Mark of Guilt" was written by Ward Hawkins and Frank Telford. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Doris Hocksley (Toni Gerry, long-lost daughter of the late Adam Hocksley and sole heir to Hocksley's estate, arrives in Los Angeles and contacts Alan Neil (Warren Stevens), nephew of the estate's executor Elston Carr (Anthony Joachim). Later, Carr is found murdered in his home--and Doris is hiding in on the premises. With her fingerprints all over the murder weapon, Doris would seem to be caught red-handed, but Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) believes in her innocence. Problem is, the only other likely suspect is Alan Neil--and he turns up murdered as well. This episode is based on a 1941 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Perhaps the definitive Douglas Sirk production, Written on the Wind is based on the novel by Robert Wilder. The story revolves around the Hadleys, a wealthy but thoroughly debauched family of Texas oil millionaires. Robert Stack is self-destructive alcoholic Kyle Hadley, while Dorothy Malone won an Oscar for her equally vivid potrayal of Kyle's nymphomaniac sister Marylee. Kyle manages to win beautiful, level-headed advertising executive Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall) away from his best friend, virile Hadley Oil geologist Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson), but Lucy soon comes to regret her decision to marry into the hell-on-earth Hadley family. When Lucy becomes pregnant, Kyle assumes that Mitch is the father, leading to a maelstrom of fever-pitch emotionalism and stark tragedy. Before he quite knows what is happening, Mitch is on trial for murder; the one person who can clear him is the craven Marylee, who demands Mitch's sexual favors as the price for her testimony. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A man with a strangely misshapen face wanders out of the desert near a small town and falls to the ground dead. The county sheriff (Nestor Paiva) tentatively identifies the dead man as Eric Jacobs, a laboratory assistant to Professor Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), a research scientist living a few miles out in the desert. But there's something strange about Jacobs; his facial features and bodily extremities are distorted to a point where he's barely recognizable. The sheriff calls in Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar), the local physician, who makes a diagnosis of acromegalia, a glandular disorder that affects the body's growth. He also tells the sheriff that it can't possibly be acromegalia, because symptoms as pronounced as those he sees in this case take years to develop, and the man was in perfect health just three months earlier. Hastings refuses to believe the professor's account of Jacobs' rapid deterioration, but the sheriff takes the word of the scientist. Back in his laboratory, Deemer continues his work, going over tests of a chemical on various animals, all of which are jumbo-sized, including guinea pigs the size of rabbits, baby mice the size of full-grown rats, and a tarantula three feet long. Suddenly, the professor is attacked by his assistant (Eddie Parker), whose face and hands are distorted in the same manner as Jacobs, and who injects the helpless scientist with the experimental chemical before collapsing dead. A fire starts during the attack and in the confusion, the tarantula's glass cage is broken and it escapes the burning laboratory, wandering out into the desert. Weeks go by, and a new assistant, Stephanie "Steve" Clayton (Mara Corday), arrives to begin work for the professor. When Hastings gives her a ride to Deemer's home, the scientist explains to the doctor that he's been working on a radioactive nutrient, that, if perfected, could feed the entire world's population. He also says that Eric Jacobs made the mistake of testing the chemical on himself and it caused the disease that killed him. Hastings and Steve begin a romance, unaware that wandering around the desert is the tarantula from Deemer's laboratory, now grown to the size of an automobile and getting bigger with each passing day. Soon livestock and then people begin disappearing, and the sheriff is at a loss to explain any of it, or the one clue left behind in each case: large pools of what seems to be some kind of venom next to the stripped skeletons of the victims. Hastings takes some of the material in for a test; meanwhile, Steve notices that Deemer is going through some bizarre changes. His mood has darkened and his features now appear to be changing, as the acromegalia, caused by the injection, manifests itself. Hastings learns that one of the professor's test animals was a tarantula, which was presumed destroyed. When he learns that the pools near the deaths are composed of spider venom -- equivalent to what it would take many thousands of spiders to generate -- he's certain that the tarantula from the laboratory survived. By this time, the title creature is bigger than a house and ravaging the countryside, killing everything in its path and knocking down power lines and telephone poles as it moves. Hastings arrives just in time to rescue Steve from the attacking creature, which destroys Deemer's house and kills the professor. The sheriff and the highway patrol are unable to slow the creature, now the size of a mountain and moving at 45 miles an hour, even with automatic rifle fire, as it follows the road through the desert toward the town. Even an attempt to blow it up with dynamite fails when the monster walking right through the blast. Finally, the creature is poised to attack the town, when jets scrambled from a nearby Air Force base (led by a young Clint Eastwood, barely recognizable behind an oxygen mask) swoop in. When rockets fail to divert the monster from its path, the jets roar in for a second pass and drop enough napalm to incinerate the creature. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) receive a tip that the Plaza Royale, a fancy downtown hotel, is being used as a clearing house for "high grade" merchandise from an Eastern heroin ring. Going undercover, Friday poses as "Joe Edwards", a potential buyer from Phoenix. Though it appears that he has gained the confidence of the dope pushers, Joe discovers that his new "partners" plan to kill him at the first opportunity! Future TV producer Aaron Spelling appears as a squirrely junkie-informant. This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of May 31, 1951. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Working out of Missing Persons, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) investigate when Martha Borg (Irene Tedrow) reports that her husband has disappeared. In the days that follow, the two detectives unearth considerable evidence that Mr. Borg has left on his own accord, fed up by his wife's "high-hat" behavior--not to mention her pet Pekinese! The mystery is solved when a "John Doe" is found wandering the streets, ostensibly suffering from amnesia. This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of June 21, 1953. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Someone has been forging checks and spreading them throughout the city. Once all the evidence is in, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) can't believe that the "perp" is a sweet little old lady, Mary Walker (Myra Marsh). She insists that he intentions were honorable--but when has that sort of excuse ever held water with Sergeant Joe "By the Book" Friday? Based on a Dragnet radio episode first heard on October 19, 1950,this TV version features Dorothy Abbott, soon to be cast as Friday's ersthwhle girlfriend Ann Baker, in a bit role as a model. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Frank Smith (here played by Herb Ellis) arrive at a hospital to investigate the discovery of a dead body in an elevator. The decedent is an unidentified woman in a wheelchair--and at the moment, there is no known cause for her death, nor any suspects. The detectives get their first tangible clue when someone calls the hospital asking about the health of a patient named "Mrs. Cheswick"--for whom there is no record of admission. In the original radio version of this episode (first heard on April 24, 1952), Friday's partner was played by Martin Milner, some two decades before Milner was cast in the Jack Webb-produced cop series Adam-12. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi