Robert Fortier Movies

In what can only be described as a dramatic change of pace, Robert Altman directed this raunchy teen comedy based on the antics of two characters featured in a series of stories published in the National Lampoon. Oliver Cromwell Ogilvie (Daniel Jenkins), aka O.C., and his buddy Mark Stiggs (Neil Barry), are a pair of misfit teenagers whose greatest joy in life is making those around them miserable. O.C.'s ancient grandfather (Ray Walston) has just had his insurance cancelled, and when he discovers that suburbanite salesman Randall Schwabb (Paul Dooley) is responsible, O.C. and Stiggs swing into a summer-long campaign to get revenge on Schwabb and his family. While it received some of the most brutally negative reviews of Altman's career, O.C. and Stiggs is worth a quick look for its cast, which includes fellow outcast auteurs Dennis Hopper and Melvin Van Peebles, comics Louis Nye and Jane Curtain, the one-time glamour girl of the Clifford Irving scandal Nina Van Pallandt, and Thomas Hal Phillips, reprising his role as Hal Phillip Walker from Nashville. World music superstars King Sunny Ade and his African Beats appear and provide the musical score. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Ken Carter is a Canadian daredevil driver who spent five years preparing a rocket-powered car so he could launch the car from a ramp and literally soar across a mile-wide section of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Due to the undeniably off-beat nature of Carter's fixation, director Robert Fortier found financial backing to spend five years documenting Carter's preparation -- a bit unusual in itself. As the engines finally gun, the rockets light, and the car takes off, Fortier may have the additional problem of making a documentary about a wash-out. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Robert Altman, the director responsible for M*A*S*H, came up with another acronymic title for his 1979 comedy H.E.A.L.T.H The letter stand for Happiness, Energy And Longevity Through Health--the name given a health-food convention at a Florida luxury hotel. In the tradition of his earlier Nashville and A Wedding, Altman utilizes the hotel as a gathering place for numerous interrelated, interconnecting plot threads. The unifying theme is a satire of corrupt politics, a la Watergate. Playing the unflappable hotel manager, Alfre Woodard stands out in a stellar cast including Carol Burnett, Glenda Jackson, James Garner, Lauren Bacall, Henry Gibson, Dick Cavett, and Paul Dooley (who cowrote the screenplay with Altman and Frank Barhydt). By rights, H.E.A.L.T.H should have been a real crowd pleaser, but the film's preview went so poorly that its release was held up for nearly a year. Virtually thrown away by 20th Century-Fox, H.E.A.L.T.H has appeared recently on The Fox Movie Channel, but never received a commercial video release, which hasn't helped it it attain a following. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Opting for light entertainment after the critical satire of Shampoo (1975), producer-director-writer-star Warren Beatty remade the 1941 comic fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Dimly amiable L.A. Rams quarterback Joe Pendleton (Beatty) is prematurely called to Heaven by an over-eager escort (Buck Henry, who co-directed) after a traffic accident. When archangel Mr. Jordan (James Mason) discovers the error, he offers to return Joe to his body, only to find that it has been cremated. On the verge of playing in the Super Bowl, Joe demands a fit body rather than the old about-to-be-murdered industrialist Farnsworth he has been offered, but he reconsiders when he sees environmentalist Betty Logan (Julie Christie) in Farnsworth's house. Assuming Farnsworth's body while keeping his sweet self, Joe hires his beloved coach Max Corkle (Jack Warden) to get him in shape (after convincing Max who he really is), sets Farnsworth's business on an eco-friendly path, and romances Betty. Farnsworth's homicidal wife (Dyan Cannon) and secretary (Charles Grodin), however, are still determined to succeed in their plan to kill him. When Mr. Jordan finally finds the Super Bowl body Joe wanted, Joe has to trade his old self for the new life -- but will he remember his love for Betty? Heaven Can Wait offered contemporary yet old-fashioned escapism and tapped into the late-1970s vogue for nostalgic fun, becoming one of 1978's most popular summer movies after Grease. Updating the original while following its blueprint, Beatty and co-writer Elaine May switched Joe's sport and turned Joe into a man of his '70s moment, adoring Betty for her convictions and favoring "green" policies over corporate greed. Gently breathing life into a classic form, Heaven Can Wait found romantic innocence in a jaded time, and it went on to receive nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Telecast April 17, 1974, Nakia was the pilot film for the shortlived ABC drama series of the same name. In the tradition of Billy Jack, Native American deputy sheriff Nakia Parker (Robert Fortier) tries to protect his people from the machinations of villainous whites. In this instance, Nakia stands up against an insensitive city council which plans to sell a historic mission to an evil land developer (is there any other kind on TV?) Nakia was filmed on location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as was the weekly series itself, which ran from September 21 to December 28, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Charles Bronson delivers an impressively sensitive performance as Corporal Velasquez, a demolitions expert with a genius-level understanding of geology. While accompanying Velasquez on a mission to blow up a German observation post surrounded by rock, Saunders (Vic Morrow) can't help but notice that the Corporal is showing signs of hesitance and uncertainty. It seems that in addition to his other talents, Velasquez is a lover of fine art--and he is extremely reluctant to destroy the priceless paintings, statues and religious artifacts stashed within the targeted building. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

While Pvt. Steve Kovac (Chad Everett) is out on patrol, Lt. Hanley receives word that Kovac's wife is dying. Though he intends to give the man emergency leave, Hanley decides to withhold the tragic information until the patrol has returned. Meanwhile, Kovac is trapped in a basement with the rest of the squad--and all that is keeping him from succumbing to panic and despair is the "certainty" that his wife will be waiting for him when he comes home. This is the final episode of Combat's third season. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The reactor at the Broadridge experimental nuclear station runs out of control when two unstable elements accidentally come into contact. As Dr. Marshall (George Macready), the station director, struggles to understand what is happening, deadly radiation pours out of the reactor furnace, killing the men trying to control it and replacing them inside their anti-radiation suits with creatures made of pure electromagnetic energy. Marshall is the sole survivor among the scientists and seems incapable of coping with the danger, overwhelmed by his fear of radiation and the seemingly inevitable chain reaction boiling up in the furnace. With help from his wife, Laurel (Signe Hasso), he finds the courage that he needs and deduces what is happening -- the combination of heavy elements bombarded with cosmic radiation has ripped open an inter-dimensional hole, through which these "particle creatures" are entering, and they are trying to widen the opening. The only chance to stop them is to initiate a fusion reaction that could seal the inter-dimensional hole and cut the creatures off from their energy source, destroying them. But does Marshall have the time or strength, in the minutes left to them, to prepare a jury-rigged hydrogen bomb? ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

To show up his teasing brothers, Joe Cartwright accepts the position of sheriff in the little town of Rubicon. Little does Joe know that the men behind his nomination, gunslinger Ab Brock (Vic Morrow) and crooked Mayor Goshen (John Litel), intend to use the youngest Cartwright boy as the fall guy for an elaborate robbery-murder scheme. The supporting cast includes Karen Steele as Sylvia Ann, Robert Fortier as Higgler, David Manley as Virgil, and Bill Catching as the Banker. First telecast December 17, 1961, "The Tin Badge" was written by Don Ingalls. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this drama, a Korean war veteran, a victim of brainwashing while he was a POW, finally goes back to his home in Washington, DC, where he resumes his job at a public relations-opinion research firm. He soon discovers that his company is being run by communists after his partner mysteriously died. Now pro-communist propaganda seems to be their primary business. To stop them, the vet begins cooperating in a full-scale Senate investigation. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

MGM's new musical screen team of Esther Williams and Howard Keel were given plenty to do in the pleasant if unambitious songfest Texas Carnival. Williams plays Debbie Telford, one-half of a carnival performing team. The other half is Corny Quinnell (Red Skelton), who breaks up the act when he is mistaken for Texas millionaire Dan Sabinas (Keenan Wynn). Living high on the hog in Sabinas' absence, Corny manages to smooth the romantic path for Debbie and ranch foreman Slim Shelby (Keel), while he dallies with the luscious Sunshine Jackson (Ann Miller). Red Skelton is given more opportunity to shine than usual, especially during a riotous poker game (this scene was a particular favorite of screenwriter Dorothy Kingsley, who felt it could have been even funnier had director Charles Walters "punched it up" cinematically). Esther Williams' particular highlight is a swimming sequence in a waterless hotel room, a bit of special-effects wizardry that only the MGM tech staff could have dreamed up. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi