Robert Emhardt Movies

When an "ancient" mummy goes under the X-Ray machine, it turns out that the wrapped-up corpse has been dead only a few weeks--and that a fortune in jewels has been stashed on the body. U.S. Customs agents Brice (John Karlen) and Niven (Edward Grover) consult medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman), who puts the pieces together and determines that the mummy was being used in a smuggling operation headquartered in Cairo. Before the intrigue plays itself out, several other people have died at the hands of a group of Nazi war criminals. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This TV movie stars Jean Stapleton as the real-life "Aunt" Mary Dobkin, a physically handicapped woman living in the Baltimore of the 1940s. Concerned that juvenile delinquency is destroying her neighborhood, Aunt Mary organizes the "Dobkin Dynamiters", a baseball team comprised of disadvantaged and minority children. As she fights to have her biracial team officially sanctioned by the highly segregated Baltimore power structure, Aunt Mary is further challenged by the amputation of her left leg and right foot. Nonetheless, she perseveres over the next two decades, providing nearly 35,000 disenfranchised boys the opportunity to escape the streets and play ball. Sportscaster Ernie Harwell, who'd once called the shots for the Baltimore Orioles, makes a cameo appearance in this 1979 Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When faced with graduation, four seniors plot to prolong their college experience for fear of steady employment, but they're also loathe to leave behind their accommodating housemate Sylvia (played with mute, topless allure by a pre-Three's Company Priscilla Barnes), who functions as a live-in maid and concubine ("Where else are we going to find a nympho who loves to cook and clean house?"). In between sumptuous meals and bouts in the sack, the boys pester their parents to pay for post-graduate studies, without success. Luckily, a Poindexter science major named Arnold is desperate to lose his virginity to Sylvia, so the guys trade her sexual favors for his complicity in an elaborate scam. He's the only trusted assistant of reclusive genius Professor Heigner (Alan Reed, the voice of Fred Flintstone), a three-time Nobel Prize winner studying the mating habits of mosquitoes. Foundations are eager to fund the professor's work with generous grants, and since Heigner signs anything Arnold hands him without question, the seniors draft their own letter of request for cash and claim to be studying the sexual habits of college-age girls. It works, and with a 50,000-dollar-grant they offer coeds a 20-dollar honorarium to participate in the study by engaging in any kind of sex they like with our four heroes as the only male volunteers. Eventually, exhaustion and avarice lead them to expand the study and allow local businessmen to take part for a 50-dollar fee, which leads to huge profits. Only the intervention of "the establishment" will show the seniors the folly of their ways, when they enter into partnership with a feminine hygiene corporation and find themselves targeted for murder. The female head of the foundation that funds the seniors' project mistakenly believes that Professor Heigner is some sort of sexual dynamo and pursues him endlessly, leading the misanthropic scientist to chase her away by firing a rifle at her, spraying her with sticky white fire extinguisher foam, and setting a blaze beneath her while she frantically climbs up a chimney. Endless lines of co-eds wait breathlessly for the chance to copulate with strangers for a double sawbuck (it's all in the name of science, after all, and why not earn money for something they'd be "giving away" otherwise?). ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi

Alexander Main (Jack Lemmon) is a tired, middle-aged bail bondsman who hears from his former girlfriend Maritza (Genevieve Bujold) for the first time in quite a while. The news isn't good: Maritza is accused of the attempted murder of her abusive lover, and she hopes that Alex can get her out of jail. Alex arranges to have Maritza released into his custody, but while their romance begins to blossom once again, their relationship is still doomed to failure. This downbeat romantic comedy was based on the novel The Bailbondsman by Stanley Elkin. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Zohra Lampert delivers a colorful performance as Marina Sheldon, a Gypsy fortune teller who, while trying to pass some counterfeit money, witnesses a bank robbery. Figuring that there's more profit in thievery than in crystal-gazing, Marina steals a mug shot of the robber from police files, uses the man to organize her own gang, and formulates a scheme to knock over six banks simultaneously--right under the nose of Lt. Kojak (Telly Savalas). Appearing as one of the crooks is a young Lane Smith. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Amanda Price (Edith Atwater) is an aging spinster with suicidal tendencies who keeps herself ensconced in the sprawling house she grew up in. Her brother Edward (Jack Ging) hires a nurse to watch Amanda, choosing Esther (Antoinette Bower), who quit the profession in shame after a scandal involving her marriage to a ninety year old client. He offers to pay Esther $25,000 on top of her salary if she makes sure the next time Amanda attempts suicide is a success. Edward says he wants Amanda out of the way so he can claim the entire family fortune, though it's clear that the Price estate hides more secrets than he's revealing. What exactly were the circumstances of their father's death? Why did favored sister Nell suddenly leave town the day of their father's funeral, and why hasn't anyone heard from her since? Why is Amanda suicidal, and why is she having so many horrible nightmares? The closer Esther gets to the answers, the less she wants to do with Edward's scheme. Meanwhile, the family doctor (Kent Smith) is harboring his own suspicions of the Price legacy, and when he starts investigating, he discovers that jealousy, greed and murder are at the root of the mystery. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi

The John Gardner novel A Complete State of Death became this bloody crime flick that united frequent action genre collaborators Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner. Bronson stars as Detective Lieutenant Lou Torry, a grizzled undercover New York City cop who ruins his career when he is caught going violently overboard while apprehending a ghetto punk. As punishment, Torry is banished all the way to the L.A. Police Department, where he begins investigating a mysterious chain of events involving ex-soldiers that seem to be Mob related. It turns out that Don Alberto Vescari (Martin Balsam), an aging Mafia chieftain, is planning the use of mentally disturbed Vietnam vets as assassins in a campaign of murder. With one broad, gory stroke, Vescari schemes to wipe out his underworld enemies, retaliating for a massacre that wiped out a generation of Sicilian mobsters 40 years earlier. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Earl Holliman plays one of two disreputable insurance agents involved in a deadly scam. A wealthy philatelist has been murdered, an 1850 Guyana stamp worth $300,000 has been stolen, and the crooks are trying to turn a huge profit on a counterfeit of the missing stamp. Also prominent in the proceedings is Jessica Walter, fresh from her bravura villainy in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Pro wrestler H.B. "Hardboiled" Haggerty is but one of many colorful characters appearing in this episode. Summoned to break up a disturbance in a bar, Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) end up trying to subdue a patricularly violent patron (Haggerty, of course)--who happens to be confined to a wheelchair. This incident does not, however, deter the two cops from conducting an ongoing robbery investigation. Also making cameo appearances are such reliable Hollywood character actors as Allen Jenkins, Stubby Kaye, Robert Emhardt and the unforgettable Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales (of whom Groucho Marx once quipped that it was the first time he'd ended up getting third billing after one person). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In Lawman, Burt Lancaster is Jered Maddox, a dedicated marshal with an inflexible adherence to upholding the law at all costs. Riding into a nearby town to pick up a group of local carousers who, during a drunken spree, killed an old man, Maddox meets up with Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb). Bronson is the local town boss, and Maddox discovers that the men he is looking for work for him. Unlike most western heavies, Maddox, although he is powerful and unscrupulous, abhors violence. But violence is something Maddox cultivates. A major confrontation between the reluctant Bronson and the intransigent Maddox builds -- particularly when Maddox enlists the help of weak-willed local sheriff Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan). ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

War Games is the streamlined reissue title for the satirical Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? The story is set in a sleepy Southern town, the site of a tranquil army base. Commanding officer Col. Flanders (Don Ameche), anxious to win the hearts and minds of the locals, invites the populace to an ice-breaking dance. When the festivities degenerate into a fistfight, right-wing militia leader Billy Joe Davis (Tom Ewell) declares war against the Army. The film's romantic subplot is carried by Tony Curtis as a love-'em-and-leave-'em sergeant and Suzanne Pleshette as a smarter-than-she-looks local gal. Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came? was reworked as in 1984 as Tank. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rascal, the Sterling North novel that has been a longtime fixture of Scholastic Magazine book clubs, was given Tiffany treatment by the Disney studios in 1969. Bill Mumy plays young Sterling North, whose Wisconsin childhood is enriched through his friendship with a stray raccoon. Though lacking the emotional depth of the novel, the film is distinguished by the lovingly detailed outdoor photography that has always been a Disney hallmark. Likewise a "regular" in the Disney canon are scenes of animals wreaking comic destruction and wild chase sequences, and Rascal does not flag when offering these. A favorite of the Saturday matinee circuit, Rascal has in recent years become a standard weekend TV offering whenever a sports event is rained out or otherwise delayed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi