Richard Harris Movies

The original Disney feature film, That Darn Cat, was a feel-good hit in 1965, thanks largely to stars such as Hayley Mills, Roddy McDowall, and William Demarest. This 1996 remake also closely follows the novel Undercover Cat by Mildred Gordon and Gordon Gordon and features Christina Ricci in the Hayley Mills role. In a small Massachusetts town, two bumbling criminals mistakenly kidnap a maid, thinking her to be the wife of a prominent businessman. D.C., short for Darn Cat, is an alley cat who, while looking for his nightly snack, stumbles upon the kidnap victim, bound and gagged in a shed. The kidnap victim scratches a plea for help on the back of her wristwatch and puts it around the cat's neck. Patti (Ricci) finds the watch and links it to the missing maid. Playing amateur detective, she enlists the aid of an FBI agent, Zeke (Doug E. Doug), who has been assigned to the case. Patti and Zeke follow D.C. through tight openings to track down the captive. The cat also leads them to the woman's abductors (Peter Boyle and Rebecca Schull) and to a climactic car chase. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

Stepping Out might be considered a textbook exercise in screenwriting cliche: take Mavis Turner (Liza Minnelli), a woman who "coulda been a contenda" had she pursued her dreams of appearing on Broadway; give her an evening job at a converted church teaching tap; mix in a motley crew of left-footed cardboard-cutouts too rhythmically challenged for her to train; add a charity performance organized by a snooty old ruler-of-the-world-type (Nora Dunn) who thinks they're too klutzy to participate; watch the motley crew turn into a well-oiled dance machine in time to steal the show, prove the snob wrong and overcome their personal problems along the way (not to mention Mavis')...and somehow, in spite of it all, it actually manages to be a rather entertaining film. The entire production is so cheesy and exaggeratedly "Broadway" that it provides more than its share of amusement, intentional or otherwise; the fact that Minnelli turns in an infectiously good-humored performance doesn't hurt, either. ~ Jeremy Beday, Rovi

One of the most violent series on mainstream British television, the weekly, 50-minute cop drama Target made its BBC1 debut on September 9, 1977. Patrick Mower headed the cast as the two-fisted, impeccably dressed Detective Superintendent Hackett, with frequent movie villain Philip Madoc as his immediate superior, Det. Chief Supt. Tate. The program proved to be so bloodthirsty that, bowing to public pressure, the BBC yanked it off the air after only 18 episodes. It has been speculated that Target has not been rerun since 1978 because of the dated quality of its scripts rather than its body-and-bullet count. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Created by Eric Chappell, the British sitcom The Squirrels took place in the Accounts Department of International TV Rentals (under British law, viewers were required to pay a yearly license on their TVs, thus few "tellies" were owned outright). Bernard Hepton starred as Mr. Fletcher, the bloke in charge of Accounts, while a vast array of dependable character comedians did Fletcher's "dirty work" as they attempted to track down delinquent renters. The series debuted over ITV with a one-off pilot episode on July 8, 1974, then ran on a regular basis from July 18, 1975 to February 10, 1977, toting up 28 episodes in all. Later on, Eric Chappell reworked the premise of The Squirrels to come up with Yorkshire Television's Fiddlers Three. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dany (Samantha Eggar) is the ad agency secretary to Caldwell (Oliver Reed) in this psychological crime drama. She is asked to drive him to the airport and park the car in the lot after working at his home the night before. Getting in the wrong lane, she decides to use the car for a weekend getaway and return in time to collect Caldwell upon his return. Soon she is recognized in places she has never been before. She picks up a hippie (John McEnery) and makes love to him only to find he has stolen the car in the morning. Dany finds the car and the hippie, but there is now a dead body in the back seat. She finds where the dead man lived and takes the body to the house. Dany finds erotic nude photos of herself in the strange man's apartment even though the two had never met. She begins to suspect that her boss and his sluttish wife Anita (Stephane Audran) are setting her up to take the fall for the man's murder. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Several seemingly unrelated ex-military men are murdered, each while assembling a jigsaw puzzle. Steed and Tara soon discover that the victims all presided over the court-martial of one of their comrades, now presumed dead. Since Steed himself was also part of the court-martial tribunal, he rightly concludes that he's next on the elimination list, but that doesn't stop him from indulging in a little puzzle-playing himself. Written by Richard Harris, "Game" first aired in England on October 2, 1968, some two weeks after its September 23 American TV debut. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Man in a Suitcase, co-created by writers Richard Harris and Dennis Spooner, was one of the more clever series to come out of Lew Grade's ITC organization, which was also the source for Secret Agent and The Saint. Texas-born actor Richard Bradford played McGill, a former CIA agent forced out of his job by a cloud of suspicion around the defection of a key scientist who was under his protection. McGill's defense was that he was ordered to permit the man to defect, but the agency official who issued the order went missing in a plane crash and turned up dead soon after, leaving McGill with no proof of his story, just an intelligence scandal that the agency wanted buried. Left on his own and unable to return to the United States, McGill lives in London, almost a stateless person, his only possessions: his car, his suitcase, and his gun. He uses the skills he acquired as an agent; even those who suspect him of treason acknowledge that he was one of the best. He lived as a troubleshooter, investigator, and bounty hunter, and handled cases that were too hot or too dirty for any ordinary investigator.

Filmed in London at Pinewood Studios, the series was aimed more at the international audience than specifically at the American market (in those days, the idea of an American agent even suspected of treason would have been a tough sell as a hero in America), and it barely made a dent in the United States. Man in a Suitcase was much more dour and grim than The Saint, but it looked great and Bradford made a convincingly embittered hero with a dark side to his personality and a chip on his shoulder. McGill also looked like he could go 15 rounds with Sean Connery and as if his spit could kill Roger Moore. A total of 30 episodes were filmed, most running an hour each, and the series even managed to develop a cult following in America, where -- even in New York City -- it was usually relegated to secondary syndicated channels and time slots. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In this drama, a former RAF pilot is hired to fly a suspicious package from France to England. Trouble ensues when the pilot decides to keep it for himself without realizing that his employer anticipated his treachery and planted a bomb on the plane. Fortunately, the boss's secretary intervenes and saves the pilot. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

When a private eye cannot convince the police to investigate the murder of his boss, he takes up the case complete with missing bodies, strange papers and safety deposit box. ~ Rovi

An effective, low-budget crime drama about a bank robbery gone wrong, this tale begins when three men get together to plan the bank heist over a long weekend. What they do not count on is the presence of two cleaning women who tragically alter their plans. The thieves end up locking the bank manager and a female teller in the air-tight vault -- thereby dooming them to death by suffocation. After the thieves leave the bank, they agree that one of them should call the police and leave the keys to the vault next to the phone. But that plan is ruined when the lone thief is killed in a traffic accident. Caught between the desire to save the two people in the vault and the need to escape, the remaining two thieves are caught in a serious dilemma. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Originally scheduled as a live telecast on March 18, 1961, this Avengers episode was instead committed to videotape and broadcast on April 8. Steed and Keel put a tail on recently released convict Frank Preston, hoping that he will lead them to the money that he stole. But before Preston can reach his destination, he is waylaid by a gang of crooks, who likewise want to get their hands on the stolen lucre. The episode comes to a nailbiting climax as a wounded Preston forces Keel to help him retrieve the loot, which is secreted in a slimy sewer. "Hunt the Man Down" was written by Richard Harris. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi