Howard Duff Movies

In this suspenseful drama, a Chicago policewoman remains haunted by the memory of the man who raped her two decades before and decides to return to her hometown to find him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Magnum, P.I. wraps up its eight-year run with a two-part final episode (originally telecast in a single two-hour timeslot). In Part One, Magnum returns to his home town for a family reunion, where his paternal grandfather (Howard Duff) offers to reinstate him as a Naval officer. But before Magnum can say "yes" or "no", he is summoned back to Hawaii by former girlfriend Linda Lee Ellison (Patrice Martinez), who insists that someone is stalking her. Upon his return, Magnum receives some startling information about his daughter Lily, whom he had presumed to be dead. Meanwhile, Rick (Larry Manetti) nervously prepares to marry the estimable Cleo Mitchell (Phyllis Davis). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-TV drama, an attorney aids her wrongly-convicted client in his escape from prison, then joins him on the lam. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

In this detective drama set in Hollywood, a private investigator uses logic to solve the murder of a famous mystery writer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 1955 film version of John Steinbeck's East of Eden will always be popular because of the presence in the cast of James Dean. Even so, the film covered only a small portion of the original novel. For those Steinbeck completists who prefer a more thorough treatment, we submit for your approval the TV miniseries adaptation of East of Eden, which first aired February 8, 9 and 11, 1981. This eight-hour dramatization begins in the years following the Civil War. Braggadocio union officer Cyrus Trask (Warren Oates) is the father of gentle, loyal Adam (Timothy Bottoms) and hellraiser Charles (Bruce Boxleitner). Enter the bewitching, mean-spirited Cathy Ames (Jane Seymour), who leads both brothers on and causes an irreparable rift between them. Eventually, Adam marries Cathy, taking her and their twin sons to a 900-acre farm in California's Salinas Valley. Cathy rebels against this cloistered existence and runs off to work in a house of ill repute. In Part Three, we finally meet the "James Dean" character: Cal Trask (played by Timothy Bottoms' brother Sam), who can never hope to come up to the standards of his "good" twin brother Aron (Hart Bochner) in the eyes of his father. Cal's "bad" reputation obscures his good intentions, but by film's end he is compelled to reveal to brother Aron that their mother had not died as father Adam has claimed, but in fact has become a hard-bitten bordello "madam". Adapted for television by Richard Shapiro, East of Eden was part of ABC's informal "Novels for Television" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Old-time Hollywood director Vincent Sherman brings a glossy studio-bound look to The Dream Merchants, a two-part, four-hour adaptation of Harold Robbins' novel. The story follows the career of a pioneer filmmaker (Mark Harmon), who comes to Hollywood in the early 20th century with a pocketful of dreams and helps build the sleepy California orange-grove community into the world's entertainment capital. Typical of the Harold Robbins ouevre, most of the characters are based on real-life movie personalities: Robert Goulet's vainglorious matinee idol is a combination of John Barrymore and Douglas Fairbanks, while Vincent Gardenia's vitriolic mogul can be taken as a low-budget Louis B. Mayer. The film is rife with historical inaccuracies (Goulet is informed that the closeup has "just been invented by D. W. Griffith" as a means to convince him to sign a long-term contract assuring him plenty of closeups!), while the haircuts and speech patterns are firmly locked into the 1980s. All the same, The Dream Merchants was a profitable entry in the syndicated "Operation Prime Time" series of TV specials. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV Valentine Magic on Love Island was accurately dismissed by one reviewer as a "bubble headed brew of I Dream of Jeannie and a Club Med Vacation." Janis Paige stars as Madge, a benign sorceress who runs a lavish tropical resort with the help of her nephew Jimmy (Christopher Knight) and niece Cheryl (Dominique Dunne). Through mystical, magical means of her own (manifested in a bouquet of enchanted roses), Madge sets about to transform eight of her unattached hotel guests into four loving couples. Naturally, the supporting cast is top-heavy with celebrity guest stars, among them Adrienne Barbeau, who was seen in one of the two Fantasy Island pre-series specials, and Bill Daily, an alumnus of the aforementioned I Dream of Jeannie. The pilot for an unsold weekly series, Valentine Magic on Love Island first aired February 15, 1980, on NBC; in syndication, it was retitled simply Magic on Love Island, apparently to avoid the "holiday special" onus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Battered concentrates upon three female victims of spousal abuse. Chip Fields is the new wife of struggling young Levar Burton. Joan Blondell is the alcoholic middle-aged spouse of the equally bibilous Howard Duff. And Karen Grassle (who cowrote the screenplay) is married to Ivy leaguer Mike Farrell. While a bit too cut-and-dried, Battered handles the issues at hand with intelligence and an avoidance of sensationalism. Made for television, the film debuted September 26, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the Glitter Palace was the first made-for-TV movie in which lesbianism was a crucial plot factor. Chad Everett stars as a defense lawyer and erstwhile detective, whose gay client is Barbara Hershey. She is on trial for murdering her slimy blackmailer (played by that master of sliminess, Anthony Zerbe). Among Hershey's lesbian friends are Salome Jens and Diana Scarwid, who may know more than what they're telling Everett. Just because In the Glitter Palace was a groundbreaker in regards to its subject matter doesn't make it a better movie; strip away the "relevance," and you've got just another by-rote whodunit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With this episode, Richard Hatch "officially" becomes a series regular in the role of Dan Robbins, the brash new partner of veteran SFPD homicide detective Mike Stone (Karl Malden). The case at hand involves Larry Dobbs (Howard Duff), the wealthy father of a girl who has been raped and murdered. Placing no faith in the authorities, Dobbs posts a million-dollar reward for the capture of suspected rapist Don Wilton (Maxwell Gail), dead or alive. This action transforms virtually the entire Bay Area population into a mob of greedy vigilantes--and it is up to Stone and Keller to stop the resulting wave of violence, which gets even worse when the desperate Wilton begins striking back at his pursuers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this theatrically released episode from the TV series based on the popular feature film, Shaft, the tough New York detective must use all of his experience to solve the case and bring the crooks to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

13-year-old Robert Mueller (Mark Gruner) is obsessed with guns and has a morbid fascination with death. He is also deeply resentful over the fact that his widowed mother Elaine (Diane Baker) has married Paul Hamilton (Ed Nelson). Despite all this, Elaine could never believe that her darling boy was in any way responsible for a recent campaign of terror waged against Paul, even when an unsolved homicide enters the picture. But Paul knows full well that he is next on little Robert's hit list--a fact that Robert does not even bother to keep a secret. Adapted from a novel by Fielden Farrington, the made-for-TV A Little Game made its ABC bow on October 30, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Murder One was the pilot film for the Jack Webb-produced TV series The D.A. Howard Duff plays the title role, with Robert Conrad his able-bodied deputy. The indictment they must prepare for the Grand Jury is that of nurse Diane Baker. Several of Baker's husbands and relatives have met untimely deaths, and it appears that the good nurse has been dispatching the victims with overdoses of insulin. While Murder One was first telecast on December 8, 1969, the D.A. series itself wouldn't premiere until nearly two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide