Peggy Ann Garner Movies

Robert Altman's over-frenetic satire on American marriage rituals and hypocrisy concerns the upper-crust marriage between Dino Corelli (Desi Arnaz Jr.) and Muffin Brenner (Amy Stryker). As the film begins, a senile bishop forgets the lines to the wedding ceremony and Nettie Sloan (the groom's grandmother) drops dead in an upstairs bedroom. Nettie's death is not disclosed to the two families who converge at the wedding reception. As the two sets of in-laws slam into each other, the bride and groom disappear in the ensuing whirlwind of chaos as both extended families vie for sexual favors and try to keep hidden never-discussed family secrets. Regina Corelli (Nina Van Pallandt) is revealed to be a drug addict, while Luigi, is endeavoring unsuccessfully to keep his Mafia connections under wraps. Meanwhile, the bride's family, although more down to earth, are revealed to be no better. Tulip Brenner (Carol Burnett) begins to flirt with one of the wedding guests, Mackenzie Goddard (Pat McCormick), while Snooks Brenner (Paul Dooley) acts like a lout and drinks heavily. And flying around the edges of the action like Tinkerbell is Buffy Brenner, the Brenners' youngest daughter, who is pregnant by the groom. As other characters bang into each other -- sexual degenerates, hard-nosed radicals, raw-boned emotional wrecks -- the wedding reception heads for its inevitable nuclear explosion. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Toby Dwayne Redlin is an 8-year-old boy whose parents don't believe him when he says he has seen a wildcat. Punished for his overactive imagination, the boy takes off with the animal who is being cared for by the lovable oldster Bill Krim George "Shug" Fisher. Toby sees a rustler kill a ranger, and the boy and the cat are tracked for two days by the murderer before the big cat pounces on the killer to save his young friend in this low-budget adventure aimed at the moppet audience. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The latest quarry of Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) is Ed "The Duke" Monte (Torin Thatcher), who has broken out of a Federal penitentiary to bump off the stoolie who turned him over to the Feds. Monte suspects that he might have been betrayed by his own son-in-law Lou Sultan (Paul Richards), but he doesn't want to run the risk of alienating his daughter Barbara (Peggy Ann Garner) by killing Lou himself--especially now that he is slowly dying from a bullet wound. Thus, Monte dispatches his henchman Janos (Karl Lucas) to determine if Lou is guilty--and if so, to turn Barbara against her husband. But Barbara claims to be loyal to her husband and renounces Janos' story...until an unexpected incident transforms her from innocent bystander to "giant killer". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When he is unexpectedly reunited with his wife Amelia (Peggy Ann Garner), an Army nurse, Cpl. Andy March (Jeremy Slate) begs Saunders (Vic Morrow) to give him a 48-hour pass. Unfortunately, military bureaucracy prohibits Andy from his long-awaited conjugal visit. But that isn't the worst of it: Amelia is secretly carrying on a torrid affair with Army doctor Lew Anders (William Windom). The drama intensifies when, while replacing the temporarily incapacitated Pvt. Kirby (Jack Hogan), March is seriously wounded--and Dr. Anders must perform an emergency operation. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Having suffering a crippling injury while on his honeymoon, Joe Drake (Paul Comi) is none too pleased when he is visited by Ralph Morrow (John Lupton), former boyfriend of Joe's wife, Madeline (Peggy Ann Garner). Convinced that Ralph has set his sights for Madeline again, Joe gets carried away by his paranoia and concludes that Ralph is also responsible for three recent murders in his neighborhood, in which all the victims were young women. Ultimately, however, both Joe and Ralph launch desperate searches for Madeline when she fails to come home on time -- and it is at this point that the murderer's true identity is revealed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Despite irrefutable evidence which places Jim Applegate (Charles Aidman) at the scene of a lynching, Hoss Cartwright doesn't reveal this information to Sheriff Coffee. It is not friendship or loyalty which motivates Hoss' silence: Both he and Jim are in love with Cameo Johnson (Peggy Ann Garner), and Hoss does not want to be accused of falsely besmirching his romantic rival. Featured in the cast are Robert McQueeney as Gideon and Joe De Santis as Morehouse. Written by Anthony Lawrence and first telecast on April 15, 1961, "The Rival" was one of several Bonanza episodes directed by Robert Altman. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This presentation of The DuPont Show of the Month represented the first time that a novel by A.J. Cronin had been adapted for American television. In the early part of the 20th century, Canadian youth Paul Burgess (Farley Granger) discovers that his father, long believed dead, is languishing in a British prison, serving a life sentence for murder. Heading to England to get the full story, Paul is disheartened when everybody whom he meets assures him that his father was convicted fairly and squarely. On the verge of returning home, Paul comes into possession of an unexpected piece of evidence, sending him off to a new direction, with the hopeful end result of clearing his dad's name--much to the dismay of the other people involved in the case. "Beyond This Place" was originally telecast live. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The eight witnesses of a murder of a scientist can only help so much as they are all blind. ~ Rovi

Her dead gangster husband a bullet-strewn victim of his own criminal lifestyle, a grieving widow finds her recovery process complicated by the appearance of the malevolent new crime boss. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

This long-forgotten situation comedy ran for around ten months (January through October of 1951) on ABC, though not in prime time - it aired on Saturdays at noon. Starlet Peggy Ann Garner (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) headlined the program as Babs Smith, a young woman who moved from Omaha to New York City, while nurturing aspirations of establishing herself as a successful fashion model. She decided to share an apartment with her cousin Fran Smith (Peggy French), who dreamed of becoming an artist-cum-fashion designer. As episodes rolled on, series creators gave Babs a boyfriend, played by Garner's then-newlywed husband, singer Richard Hayes. Joseph Buloff co-starred as Mr. Basmany, a deeply philosophical poet and the girls' neighbor. Episodes depicted the girls' day-to-day adventures in the big city. Two Girls succeeded at connecting with an audience, but in the fall of 1951, Garner opted to leave the show, and producers replaced her with Marcia Henderson. A month after that casting change, ABC cancelled the series. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Inspired by the adventure-book series by Roy Rockwood, Monogram's Bomba the Jungle Boy was the first of a series of twelve "Bomba" pictures. Johnny Sheffield, formerly "Boy" in the Tarzan pictures, stars as Bomba. Another former child performer, Peggy Ann Garner, co-stars as Pat Harland, who with her father George (Onslow Stevens) has arrived in Africa on a photographic expedition. Bomba ends up rescuing Pat from a wide variety of jungle villains. Much of the film is built around stock footage from a 1930 documentary, Africa Speaks. Economically produced, Bomba the Jungle Boy proved a profitable beginning for one of Monogram's most successful series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A frequent cable-TV attraction since lapsing into public domain in 1976, The Big Cat is an excellent outdoor drama, beautifully lensed in Technicolor (though most current prints are printed in a washed-out 2-color process). Set in Utah in the darkest days of the Depression, the film stars Lon McCallister as Danny, the citified nephew of rancher Gil Hawks (Forrest Tucker). Danny is pretty useless as a ranch hand, but he proves his mettle when Hawks' life is endangered by a marauding cougar. Preston S. Foster delivers the film's best performance as a hirsute, stingy backwoodsman who spends most of his time tracking down the "Big Cat." Former juvenile performers Peggy Ann Garner, Skip Homeier and Gene Reynolds also register well in comparatively mature roles. The no-nonsense direction is by Phil Karlson, later a favorite of the auteur theorists. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi