Stephen Roberts Movies

With Mission:Impossible regular Lynda Day George still on maternity leave, Marlyn Mason makes a guest appearance as IMF agent Sandy in "Crack-Up." For her first assignment with the team, Sandy plays a major role in a scheme to determine the identity of the Syndicate higher-up who hired professional hit man Peter Cordel (Alex Cord). Vital ingredients for the success of this mission include a rigged chess game and a special "black-out" drug. "Crack-Up" was scripted by Arthur Weiss from a story by Weiss, Robert Weiss and Phyllis White. The episode originally aired December 9, 1972, as the last Saturday-night Mission:Impossible offering before the series' move to CBS' Friday-evening lineup. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In Baker City, Ohio, newspaper reporter Barbara Webb (Janice Rule) publishes the photo of a murder suspect (Bill Raisch) whom fugitive Richard Kimble (David Janssen) recognizes as Fred Johnson, the One-Armed Man who killed his wife. As a result, Kimble rushes to Baker City in hopes of collaring the man who has so long eluded. . .while at the same time, Lt. Gerard heads to the same city for the essentially same purpose. The plot takes an unexpected twist when, during a jailbreak, Johnson is seriously injured, and Kimble struggles to keep alive long enough to make a confession--with Barbara as the witness. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Overworked private nurse Stella Crosson (Dana Wynter) is relieved when a new assistant shows up to help her care for wealthy invalid Glendon Baker (John Kerr). Stella's happiness is, however, somewhat mitigated when she hears that a serial killer of nurses has struck in the neighborhood. Things get worse when the power goes out in Baker's house and the rest of the staff is nowhere to be found -- and it appears that someone has already attacked Stella's assistant. This episode originally aired amidst a flurry of publicity wherein the producers allegedly posted a guard on duty at the studio during filming, and the script was delivered to the actors with the last three pages missing, so that no one could reveal the shocking finale (although a casual perusal of the cast list gives the game away for showbiz-trivia buffs). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Prolific director Joseph Pevney is better known for his next venture -- the Star Trek television series -- than this conventional docudrama on mobster "Dutch" Schultz (played by Vic Morrow). Rather than take the focus of 1997's Hoodlum, in which Schultz's attempt to move into Harlem is thwarted, the events leading to the demise of the nearly illiterate, Bronx-born, "king of beer" are stressed. His affair with Iris Murphy (Leslie Parrish) also gets front-and-center treatment when Iris leaves her policeman husband to hook up with Schultz, only to degenerate into alcoholism. To the credit of the director, the repugnant Schultz (whose real name was Arthur Flegenheimer) is not romanticized, even though the legend of his "buried treasure" and the literary non-sequitur of his famous, 1935 deathbed ramblings would tend to lure anyone into digressions. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Juvenile delinquency invades the Wild West in this episode, wherein three young punks named Sim (Richard Rust), Bunk (Martin West) and Burt (Ralph Reed) gleefully terrorize a small town. The local sheriff (Stephen Roberts) refuses to intervene, and Paladin (Richard Boone) wants to find out why. Meanwhile, the three hooligans attempt to goad Paladin into a gunfight, but he is reluctant to kill anyone so young and relies upon barbed insults to keep the trio at bay--a strategy that obvious will not work forever! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

At the end of a cattle drive, the Cartwrights and their cowhands look forward to rest and relaxation in San Francisco, Instead, two of Ben's gullible drovers are shanghaied on a boat bound for Hong Kong. While searching for his missing employees, Ben is himself shanghaied, forcing Hoss and Joe to go to the rescue. Featured in the cast are Murvyn Vye as Cut-Rate Joe, Robert Nichols as Johnny and O.Z. Whitehead. Written by Thomas Thompson, "San Francisco Holiday" (aka "San Francisco") first aired on April 2, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In New Mexico, Paladin (Richard Boone) is hired by former Indian hunter John Dundee (Stephen Roberts) to help track down murderous half-Apache Tom Ordey. For Dundee, the mission is personal: his wife was killed by Indians, and he intends to exact a terrible vengeance upon the fugitive. Paladin begins to wonder if he's on the right side when he discovers that Dundee is holding Tom Ordey's wife (Anne Barton) hostage. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On a ship sailing through the China Seas, First Mate Walter Blake (Don Dubbins) follows directions written on the captain's blackboard and changes course. Angrily, the captain (Robert Ellenstein) confronts Blake, insisting that he had never written such instructions. It turns out that the course was changed at the behest of a mysterious stowaway (Olan Soule)--who is completely unable to explain his actions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Warren Quimby (Richard Basehart) has a problem that he won't admit to: his wife, Claire (Audrey Totter), wants more fun and excitement out of life than the quiet, soft-spoken pharmacist can give her. So she steps out on him regularly, something that Warren refuses to recognize until the day she packs her bags and announces she's moving in with Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough), the flashy, high-living salesman whom she's been seeing on the side. Warren goes to Deager's, to ask her to come back, and gets beaten up by his rival. The worm suddenly turns in his own quiet way of doing things, and Warren decides he's going to get even -- he's going to murder Deager, but to do it and not get caught, he bides his time. He begins building a new identity for himself, changing his appearance (starting with getting rid of his thick glasses in favor of then-newly-invented contact lenses), and establishing his alter ego of "Paul Sothern" at a new address. He then starts making threatening calls to Deager, identifying himself as Sothern, in order to establish a history of enmity between the two. It's all going according to plan -- he will kill Deager and the blame will fall on "Sothern," who, of course, doesn't exist, and will have vanished. But then he meets Mary Chanler (Cyd Charisse), a neighbor at "Sothern"'s apartment building, and the two become attracted to each other. For every step forward that he takes in his plan for murder, he also finds himself with new possibilities in his life, growing out of his relationship with Mary. Finally, the night comes when he breaks into Deager's home and is about to kill him, when it dawns on Warren that he doesn't need to do this....He awakens Deager and tells him what almost happened and that he's leaving, and Deager is welcome to Claire, and leaves. It seems as though he's averted disaster when Claire shows up later that night, pleading for reconciliation and finally, when pressed, telling him that someone has murdered Deager. The man has been shot, and the police, led by lieutenants Bonnabel (Barry Sullivan) and Gonsales (William Conrad), are hunting for Paul Sothern. Now Warren is scared for his life, having done his best to frame himself, and Claire isn't helping by trying to run interference -- he can't tell if she's trying to protect the two of them, implicate Sothern, or protect herself, and he's too scared to say almost anything at all to the detectives. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) returns home after a few years of knocking around the country following his divorce from good-time girl Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). Getting his old job back driving an armored car, and not even convincing himself that he's making a new start, he also wants his old wife back. When he finds Anna, he quickly learns that she is involved with gangster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). Nonetheless, they carry on a clandestine affair, with Steve foolishly believing that Anna will return to him. Even after she marries Slim, Steve, with her encouragement, masochistically clings to this doomed obsession. So when Slim catches them together, Steve ad libs plans for an armored car robbery that includes Slim. The two rivals form an uneasy and untrusting collaboration, but Steve and Anna plan to double cross Slim. However, the title of Robert Siodmak's film noir gem is, not incidentally, Criss Cross. ~ Steve Press, Rovi