Clu Gulager Movies

The fourth season of Streets of San Francisco finds veteran police detective Mike Stone (Karl Malden) and his youthful (but increasingly experienced) partner Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) still operating out of the SFPD's homicide squad. The focus in this episode, however, is on a pair of romantically involved narcotics agents, George (Clu Gulager and Amy Ninette Bravo). When she is killed by an addict, he goes on a bitter rampage, determined to avenge her death--and seriously hampering Stone and Keller's investigation of the murder in the process. This episode is highligted by a wild car-chase finale, as well as a significant pre-Star Wars appearance by Mark Hamill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Predating the Oscar-nominated theatrical feature Apollo 13 by over two decades, the made-for-TV Houston, We've Got a Problem dramatized the same real-life crisis in space from a different point of view. It was back in 1970 when an explosion on board Apollo 13 forced Mission Control to scuttle the vessel's intended moon landing. Unfortunately, the astronauts and the NASA control team faced an even bigger dilemma -- the very real possibility that the Apollo 13 capsule would remain hovering in space forever, with no possible hope for a return to the earth. Unlike the film version of Apollo 13, in which the men on board the ill-fated craft were spotlighted, the TV movie focused exclusively on the NASA engineers in Houston, and the families and friends of the endangered space travelers. In fact, Jim Lovell and his crew weren't even shown onscreen, save for a random TV news clip. Houston, We've Got a Problem debuted March 2, 1974, on ABC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An American gangster of Swedish origins returns to his homeland to set up shop as a morality crusader, much in the manner of the later phenomenon of televangelists. While indulging in behind-the-scene shenanigans including rape and murder, the gangster (played by American Clu Gulagher) preaches to large audiences, using mass hypnotism and show-biz razzmatazz to get his message across. The film also features a brief performance by Per Oscarsson, following his highly publicized "retirement" from screen acting. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When a blind English professor falls in love with a young model, his is the heart in hiding. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In this drama a cop masquerades as a visiting bishop in a monastery. His goal is to unmask a skyjacker impersonating a monk. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The authorities are certain that a teenager found with a bullet through his head was a suicide victim. It so happens that the victim's mother is a friend of policewoman Fran Belding (Elizabeth Baur), who can't bring herself to believe that the boy took his own life. Fran's boss Ironside has his doubts as well, and begins his own investigation--a daunting task, in that virtually each new clue contradicts the previous one. This is one of several Ironside episodes to feature an original song by Marty and David Paich, in this case "Your Time is Coming", performed by Carol Carmichael. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The beautiful black stallion given by Ben Cartwright as a birthday present to his son, Joe, is stolen. Searching for the horse, Joe comes across a family of drifters, and is soon embroiled in a potentially deadly rivalry between Bill Brenner (Clu Gulager) and his son, Tommy (Vincent Van Patten). Mitzi Hoag appears as Bill's wife, Alice. Written by Jack B. Sowards, Mort Zarcoff, and Juanita Bartlett, this episode is highlighted by a climactic "race for life" between a horse and a train; by the lush location photography, filmed in the Sierra Foothills near Sonora; and by the musical score of David Rose, which would later serve as the main theme music for the subsequent Michael Landon-starring series Little House on the Prairie. Alas, by the time "Stallion" was originally broadcast on November 14, 1972, NBC had already cancelled Bonanza, which had never recovered ratings-wise from the loss of Dan Blocker or its move from Sunday to Tuesday evening. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A group of new prisoners, including a political science professor, Jonathan Paige (Alan Alda), and a student, Allan Campbell (Kristoffer Tabori), arrive at a state prison, along with a new guard, Brian Courtland (Clu Gulager). Paige is a serving a year for manslaughter -- he accidentally killed a driver who had run down and injured his wife -- but his education doesn't prepare him for what he finds in prison. Nor does Courtland understand everything he sees in his new job, where he hopes to do some good. The warden (Dean Jagger) is spoken of as being on "short time," as though he were serving a sentence; the guard captain, Pagonis (G. Wood), is totally cynical about his work and his job; and one veteran guard, Brown (Roy Jenson), seems to be serving some of the prisoners -- and that small group of inmates have more to do with the running of the prison than does the administration. First among them is Hugo Slocum (Vic Morrow), a lifer who controls the flow of drugs and other contraband to the cons, wielding money and power without challenge until Paige gets assigned by the warden to the prison pharmacy, and -- thanks to his own sense of righteousness -- blocks Slocum's pipeline, a move that could get the professor killed. Meanwhile, Paige is trying to understand Lennox (Billy Dee Williams), the lifer he works with in the pharmacy, and discovers in him a true political visionary and leader, who lives the stuff that Paige has only ever lectured about. Lennox is black and proud, and a killer, and also (incidentally) smarter than Paige; he is also respected as a leader by the other blacks in the prison and feared just enough by the whites, including Slocum, to stay alive. Paige should only learn from him, but the professor is too set in his ways and too arrogant in his assumptions to do that. Complicating things further, Slocum has taken a decidedly physical liking to Paige's cellmate, Allan, a college student who is in on a marijuana charge and too naïve to recognize why the tough con is being so good to him until he rejects Slocum's advances. In retaliation, Allan is gang-raped on Slocum's orders, and later kills himself. Nor has Slocum forgotten about Paige or the pharmacy -- when Paige tries to reach out to another inmate, Sinclair (Edward Bell), who shows promise as a writer, Slocum destroys Sinclair's work and targets him, as well. Before he's killed, however, Sinclair reveals to Paige that, as Slocum's sometime bagman and former bookkeeper, he's recorded every transaction for the past eight years -- including every hit ordered by Slocum and how it was paid off, including the bribes to guards to look the other way -- and he passes the book with that record to the professor. It comes down to a do or die situation for Paige and Slocum, as each now has the power and the need to destroy the other to stay alive; the only question is whether Paige will figure out in time that he may have to back up his good intentions with lethal force. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) has managed to capture one of the three men involved in a daring $1,800,000 amusement park robbery. Though Erskine knows where to find the other two criminals, Curtis Breer (Bradford Dillman), the criminal genius who masterminded the heist, remains out of reach. But it looks like Breer's luck is running out: this time around, he has double-crossed one partner too many. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced by Hollywood iconoclast BBS Productions, film critic-turned-director Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film pays homage to Hollywood's classical age as it chronicles generational rites of passage in Anarene, a fictional one-horse Texas town. In 1951, high school seniors Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) play football, go to the movies at the Royal Theater, hang out at the pool hall owned by local elder statesman Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), and lust after rich tease Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd in her film debut). As the year passes, Sonny learns about the pitfalls and compromises of adulthood through an affair with his coach's wife Ruth (Cloris Leachman) and a thwarted elopement with Jacy after she dumps Duane. Following two tragic deaths, and with Duane gone to Korea and Jacy packed off to college in Dallas, Sonny is left behind in Anarene, wise enough to absorb the life lessons of Sam the Lion and Jacy's mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn). He is determined to honor Sam's legacy as the town's conscience, despite a telling sign of incipient communal disintegration: the closing of the Royal Theater after a final showing of Howard Hawks's Red River. Paying tribute to classical Hollywood directors like Hawks and John Ford, Bogdanovich used old-time cinematographer Robert Surtees and shot The Last Picture Show in crisp black-and-white, with a restrained style devoid of the kind of "new wave" techniques (jump cuts, zooms, and jittery hand-held camerawork) used by such contemporaries as Arthur Penn, Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, and Martin Scorsese. As in such Ford films as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Bogdanovich relies on careful visual composition in deep focus to help communicate the regret over the passing of an era. Hailed as one of the best films by a young director since Citizen Kane (1941), The Last Picture Show premiered at the New York Film Festival and went on to become a hit. It was also nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Larry McMurtry's and Bogdanovich's adaptation of McMurtry's novel. John Ford stalwart Johnson won Supporting Actor and Leachman won Supporting Actress, beating out their cohorts Bridges and Burstyn. For an audience steeped in movie history and caught up in the chaotic 1971 present, The Last Picture Show presented a nostalgic look backward that was not so much an escape from the present as a coming to terms with what the present had lost. Its 1990 sequel Texasville, in which Bridges and Shepherd played later incarnations of their original characters, was not as successful. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

San Francisco International is a multiplotted drama set at the titular air transport center. Several storylines intersect at various junctures: A $3,000,000 cargo plane robbery, a teenaged boy commandeering an aircraft, and a violent confrontation between a nasty businessman and a an airheaded hippie. Presiding over these major and minor crises is airport manager Pernell Roberts. When San Francisco International became the TV series San Francisco International Airport, Lloyd Bridges stepped into the Van Johnson role. The series, which ran from 1970 to 1971, was part of NBC's Four in One umbrella weekly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ironside (Raymond Burr) heads to San Francisco's Skid Row to solve the murder of a street person. In the course of events, the Chief tries to rehabilitate Rafe (Ralph Meeker), a fiercely proud ex-cop who has become a shabby derelict. Meanwhile, another down-and-outer named Jack (Clu Gulager) confounds the authorities with a trail of forged checks. It soom becomes clear to Ironside that either Rafe or Jack is the murderer...and is more than willing to murder again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide