Stella Garcia Movies
An ordinary woman is driven to the point of violent revenge in this tense thriller. Karen McCann (Sally Field) is a suburban wife and working mother with two daughters. Karen's life is turned upside down when her 17-year-old daughter is raped and murdered, a crime she overhears on her cellular phone. Sgt. Denillo (Joe Mantegna), a bright and resourceful police detective, soon tracks down the culprit, an especially sleazy criminal named Robert Doob (Kiefer Sutherland). However, due to a minor technicality, Doob escapes conviction, even though he's clearly guilty. Karen's husband Mack (Ed Harris) suppresses his grief and tries to go on with his life, but Karen doesn't find this quite so easy; she joins a support group for parents of murdered children, and she discovers that within the group is an underground society that seeks vigilante justice against killers who've slipped through the net of the judicial system. Karen buys a gun, learns how to use it, and begins training in martial arts. She starts keeping tabs on Doob, and learns that he not only intends to kill again, he's targeting her younger daughter. Beverly D'Angelo co-stars as Karen's best friend Dolly, and Philip Baker Hall plays Sidney Hughes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Field, Kiefer Sutherland, (more)
Elvis Presley stars as Mike Windgren, a former trapeze artist who's suffered from vertigo ever since accidentally dropping his partner during a performance. Working as a lifeguard/entertainer at an Acapulco resort, Mike falls in love with social director Margarita Dauphine (Ursula Andress). With her help, he overcomes his fear of heights in a spectacular high-dive finale. Presley songs featured include "Vino, Dinero y Amor," "Marguerita," "Bossa Nova Baby" and the title tune. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elvis Presley, Ursula Andress, (more)
In John Sturges' Americanized version of Sergio Leone's Man-With-No-Name films, Clint Eastwood is Joe Kidd, a cryptic stranger who arrives in the New Mexican town of Sinola, where Mexican bandito/revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon) has organized a peasant revolt against the local landowners, who are throwing the poor off land that rightfully belongs to them. When a posse -- financed by wealthy landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) -- is formed to capture Luis, Kidd is invited to join but prefers to remain neutral. Harlan keeps badgering Kidd to join up, and Kidd finally relents when he finds that Luis's band has raided his own ranch and one of his ranch hands has been injured. The bloodthirsty posse rounds up five Mexicans hostages and threaten to kill them unless Luis surrenders to them. One of the hostages is the attractive Stella Garcia (Helen Sanchez), and Kidd falls in love with her. Harlan notices this and throws Kidd in jail to prevent him from helping Stella and the Mexicans. Kidd decides the position himself as the voice of reason in this nest of disorder. He escapes and saves the Mexican hostages, determined to capture Luis himself and see that he gets a fair trial. But when Kidd captures Luis and delivers him to Sheriff Mitchell (Gregory Walcott), Harlan is in town waiting for him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, (more)
- 1977
- PG
Based on the book by Cleo Dawson, this film follows the struggle of a female settler as she becomes involved in a political conflict during the Spanish-American War. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1967
Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) launches an investigation into the beating death of drug addict Joseph Spooner. Veteran police detective Frank Harris (Andrew Duggan) was the last to see Spooner alive, and is the chief suspect in his death. Making matters worse is influential news commentator Tom Barrett (Larry Gates), who has publicly accused Harris of police brutality--making it all but impossible for the man to receive a fair trial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) must capture enemy spy Sladek (Charles Korvin) before the man can report to his superiors. Sladek has in his possession a coded list of all the anti-Communist insurgents in his own country, a document that would result in mass executions should it fall into the wrong hands. Complicating Erskine's assignment is the fact that Sladek has fallen in love with Marya Pazmany, a naturalized American citizen who finds her loyalties torn between her adopted country and her treacherous lover. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Heavily in debt to a homicidal gambler named Burton (John Vernon), San Francisco banker Lawrence Reynolds (Bradford Dillman) embezzles two million dollars and heads to Puerto Rico with his Bostonian fiancee Beverly Kingman (Davey Davison), who is unaware of Reynolds' crime and is convinced that she's on a honeymoon trip. Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) must catch up with the fugitive Reynolds before the vengeful Burton beats him to it. This episode has a particularly violent opening sequence involving Reynolds' long-suffering manservant Yoshimura, played by celebrated Japanese character actor Mako. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1965
A group of South American exiles living in Miami assembles a plan to invade and liberate their homeland (the country is not identified, but viewers can draw their own conclusions). Unfortunately, there is a traitor in the would-be liberators' midst. Disguising himself a soldier of fortune, Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) infiltrates the group in hopes of exposing the mole--and convincing the freedom fighters not to embark upon a futile mission that will cost all of them their lives. This episode marks the last appearance of Lynn Loring as Erskine's daughter Barbara. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1967
Adopting the alias "Tom Barrett", for the second time this season, Kimble journeys to the small Mexican town of Puerta Banales. Here he is blackmailed into acting as assistant for Dr Frederick Howell (Arthur Hill), who with his loyal secretary Reina (Carol Lawrence) is battling an outbreak of meningitis. Meanwhile, local police sergeant Rodriguez (Carlos Romero), certain that he's seen Kimble somewhere before, places Howell's clinic under surveillance. What Rodriguez doesn't realize--but Kimble does, eventually--is that the real villain of the piece is the "humanitarian" Howell, presently conducting an unholy experiment to test out a new serum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
With a barrage of cinematic distancing devices at hand (flashbacks and flash-forwards, super-imposed titles, missing frames, projectionist cue-marks placed in the wrong locations in a film reel), Dennis Hopper concocts a hallucinatory acid-trip concerning an American movie company making a western in Peru. In a remote mountain village in Peru, a Hollywood film company wraps up shooting a western and returns to California. Staying behind is a young stunt man, Kansas (Dennis Hopper). In the village, he takes up with the resident whore, Maria (Stella Garcia). At this point, the film flash-forwards to Kansas being crucified by the villagers. Back in the old time frame, the Peruvians decide that they want to make their own movie. Not having the necessary film equipment, but plenty of local raw material, the villagers construct the needed cameras, microphones, and sound recorders out of bamboo, and although the equipment is faked, the villagers substitute real, bloody violence for the make-believe violence of Hollywood. During this eruption of violence in the Peruvian village, the local priest (Tomas Milian) blames Kansas for the carnage. The priest decides that movies are the root of all worldly evil and convinces the villagers to seize Kansas. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Hopper, Stella Garcia, (more)
- 1961
This parody of Genesis caused an uproar before and during its release (the final version was reworked and cut) though its routine or worse cinematic level would not encourage large audiences. The story begins with a busload of men and women with hang-ups in the romance department, all heading for Reno. A sudden rainstorm brings on flooding, and the passengers have to hole up in a church. That setting, apparently, suggests the skewed "dream" of Genesis that follows. The Catholic Legion of Decency gave this film a Condemned rating. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, Mamie van Doren, (more)
