Norman Fell Movies

For some reason, the made-for-TV Three's a Crowd was rerun to death in the early 1970s. Perhaps it's because local TV station managers couldn't get ahold of the 1940 theatrical features My Favorite Wife or Too Many Husbands, the plotlines of which are strikingly similar to Three's a Crowd. Larry Hagman plays a pilot who disappears and is presumed dead by his wife. Seven years later, however, Hagman pops up in another city, married to someone else. Jessica Parker and E. J. Peaker costar as the pilot's two brides. The film's title tune was written by Bobby Hart and Tommy Boyce, the same team responsible for several of the Monkees' 1960s hits. Three's a Crowd debuted December 2, 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three teenage runaways leave home for life in the big city. Shelly (Brooke Bundy) runs away from her father (Lloyd Bochner), when communication breaks down between the success-minded dad and his daughter. Dewey (Kevin Coughlin) leaves behind life on the farm when his girlfriend suggests she may be pregnant. Deanie (Patty McCormick) is the sex-starved teen who runs away from her promiscuous mother (Lynn Bari) and her father who doesn't have a clue (Norman Fell). Dick Sargent plays the kind soul who offers the teens temporary refuge in his home. Richard Dreyfuss makes an early film appearance as a lazy, draft-dodging car thief in this youthful exploitation feature. The Gordian Knot delivers two songs as the runaways fall victim to drugs, prostitution and other urban nightmares. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The murder of a rocket manufacturer tips the FBI to an insidious scheme to blackmail executives into giving up classified missile secrets to the Enemy. The villains have already set up their next patsy, a lonely rocket-firm functionary named Ken Haney (Norman Fell). Serving as bait to lure Haney into betraying his country is sexy young blonde Julie (Celeste Yarnell)--as potent a "secret weapon" as has ever been conceived! This is the final episode of The F.B.I's third season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) would rather float in his parents' pool than follow adult advice about his future. But the exhortation of family friend Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) to seize every possible opportunity inspires Ben to accept an offer of sex from icily feline Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The affair and the pool are all well and good until Ben is pushed to go out with the Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotages the relationship and an understandably disgusted Elaine runs back to college. Determined not to let Elaine get away, Ben follows her to school and then disrupts her family-sanctioned wedding. None too happy about her pre-determined destiny, Elaine flees with Ben -- but to what? Directing his second feature film after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols matched the story's satire of suffocating middle-class shallowness with an anti-Hollywood style influenced by the then-voguish French New Wave. Using odd angles, jittery editing, and evocative widescreen photography, Nichols welded a hip New Wave style and a generation-gap theme to a fairly traditional screwball comedy script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel. Adding to the European art film sensibility, the movie offers an unsettling and ambiguous ending with no firm closure. And rather than Robert Redford, Nichols opted for a less glamorous unknown for the pivotal role of Ben, turning Hoffman into a star and opening the door for unconventional leading men throughout the 1970s. With a pop-song score written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel bolstering its contemporary appeal, The Graduate opened to rave reviews in December 1967 and surpassed all commercial expectations. It became the top-grossing film of 1968 and was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress, with Nichols winning Best Director. Together with Bonnie and Clyde, it stands as one of the most influential films of the late '60s, as its mordant dissection of the generation gap helped lead the way to the youth-oriented Hollywood artistic "renaissance" of the early '70s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Two escaped killers, Carter (John Saxon) and Bains (Don Stroud), burst into Ironside's office apartment, holding the Chief (Raymond Burr) and his policewoman assistant Eve (Barbara Anderson). The captives' only hope for survival rests with Ironside, who agrees to help the desperate fugitives formulate a foolproof escape plan. This nailbiting episode takes place entirely within the walls of Ironside's police-building headquarters (hence its title). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Written by James Henerson, this episode gets under way with a quarrel between Samantha and Darrin. Helpful Larry and Louise Tate try to patch up the Stephenses' differences, but only succeed in making things worse. When all else fails, Endora takes a hand in matters by summoning the spirit of Sigmund Freud (Norman Fell). Its title inspired by a popular cigarette commercial of the period, "I'd Rather Twitch Than Fight" originally aired on November 17, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Shatner guest stars as Tony Burrell, a former policeman who runs a boy's athletic club. Posing as "John Evans", Kimble goes to work for Burrell just as the neighborhood is buzzing about the brutal murder of two cops. As the story progresses and another murder occurs, Kimble begins to wonder if the outwardly affable but inwardly troubled Burrell could possibly be a serial killer. The supporting cast includes future Matlock regular Julie Sommars) as Burrell's wife Carole, and Norman Fell, Three's Company's "Mr. Roper", as Lieutenant Green. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Don Siegal directed this made-for-TV remake of the western drama Ride The Pink Horse, in which Robert Culp stars as Harry Pace, who has set out to avenge the violent death of a good friend. Pace's search leads him to New Orleans during the Mardi Gras celebration, where he meets a beautiful woman, Lois Seeger (Vera Miles). Pace's infatuation with Seeger leads him into a dangerous conflict with her husband, Arnie Seeger (Edmund O'Brien), a ruthless political power broker. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an introverted journalist for a prominent magazine is assigned to do a story on "Little America" in Antarctica. Once there he gets in all sorts of trouble with the army, a rival, and the penguin Milton Fox. He also finds himself embroiled in a plot to ship some Kiwi women to the base, and in the attempted defections of a number of Russian scientists. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Paroled from jail, Terry (Chris Robinson), Fred (James Gregory), and Al (Norman Fell) manage to find honest jobs at a garage. Unfortunately, once a thief, always a thief, and before long the trio has broken into a safe in the payroll office next door. Even more unfortunately, they have also unwittingly stolen a radioactive capsule, capable of leveling the entire city once the safe is opened -- which is just what Terry, Fred, and Al are trying to do back in the garage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Untouchables launches its second season with one of the series' most celebrated episodes. Elizabeth Montgomery earned an Emmy nomination for her bravura performance as Rusty Heller, a scheming chorus girl who has a personal vendetta against the mobsters who've done her dirt all her life. Using every feminine wile at her disposal, Rusty hopes to use an upcoming gang war between two bootlegging operations to her own advantage by cozying up to the leaders of both operations. Meanwhile, Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) hopes to appeal to Rusty's last vestige of decency to enlist her aid in bringing the criminals to justice. Paul Picerni joins the regular cast in the role of "Untouchable" Lee Hobson. Fans of Bewitched will particularly enjoy the now-famous scene in which Elizabeth Montgomery makes passionate love to David White, long before the two actors were cast respectively as Samantha Stevens and Larry Tate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Evolution vs. Creationism argument is at the center of the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee Broadway play Inherit the Wind. Lawrence and Lee's inspiration was the 1925 "Monkey Trial," in which Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in violation of state law. Scopes deliberately courted arrest to challenge what he and his supporters saw as an unjust law, and the trial became a national cause when The Baltimore Sun, represented by the famed (and atheistic) journalist H. L. Mencken, hired attorney Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes. The prosecuting attorney was crusading politician William Jennings Bryan, once a serious contender for the Presidency, now a relic of a past era. While Bryan won the case as expected, he and his fundamentalist backers were held up to public ridicule by the cagey Darrow. In both the play and film versions of Inherit the Wind, the names and places are changed, but the basic chronology was retained, along with most of the original court transcripts. John Scopes becomes Bertram Cates (Dick York); Clarence Darrow is Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy); William Jennings Bryan is Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March); and H. L. Mencken is E. K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly). Dayton, Tennessee is transformed into Hillsboro -- or, as the relentlessly cynical Hornbeck characterizes it, "Heavenly Hillsboro." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide