Bruce Gordon Movies

Considered one of the great box-office turkeys of its decade, Ishtar was an attempt by writer/director Elaine May and stars Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty to do a modern-day road picture in the style of the much-loved Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedy classics. Beatty is Lyle Rogers, a dimwitted songwriter who befriends and partners with Chuck Clarke (Hoffman), who is only slightly more intelligent but every bit as untalented. Together the duo dreams of becoming a big-time lounge act, but their songs, with titles like "That a Lawnmower Can Do All That," are unintentionally hilarious. Chuck becomes suicidal, but just when it seems they'll never strike it rich, the boys are offered a shady gig at a North African hotel, entertaining U.S. troops stationed in the tiny nation of Ishtar. On their way to accept the job, Lyle, Chuck, and their blind camel are sidetracked by a mysterious woman (Isabelle Adjani) and a scheming CIA agent (Charles Grodin), who are involved in a rebellion against the country's emir. The memorable songs crafted by Chuck and Lyle were written by actor and composer Paul Williams. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

The sophomore effort for director Joe Dante, a future protégé of Steven Spielberg, this low-budget, high-camp horror spoof of Jaws (1977) features several chiller stars of yesteryear. Insurance investigator Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) is dispatched to find two missing teenage hikers near Lost River Lake. She hires surly backwoods drunkard Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) to serve as her guide. Searching the area, they find an abandoned military facility. The only resident is Dr. Robert Hoak (Kevin McCarthy), former head of a top-secret project to breed piranha for use in the Vietnam War. The project was closed down years ago, but Hoak has continued raising a deadly strain of the flesh-eating fish. When Hoak is knocked unconscious, Maggie and Paul accidentally release the piranha into a local river, which leads to the lake where a children's summer camp and a newly opened tourist resort will provide plenty of fish food for the hungry predators. Maggie and Paul race to warn the locals, but their pleas fall on skeptical ears, such as those of resort owner Buck Gardner (Dick Miller) -- until the piranha reach the swimmers. Piranha (1978) was co-written by John Sayles, making his motion picture debut. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Fast paced and violent, this Mexico-set western chronicles the bloody struggle over a stolen gold cross. The murderous Harris gang started the trouble by stealing the icon from a Tecate church in a terrifying raid that left many townsfolk dead or brutalized. The head Federale assigned to bring the gang in realizes he is dealing with monsters and that to catch them he must fight fire with fire by enlisting the aid of the most notorious crook in prison with the promise of a pardon if the outlaw and his men are successful. When the two ruthless gangs finally clash, amidst considerable furor and treachery, unparalleled bloodshed and chaos ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Originally telecast September 20, 1970, "A Matter of Faith" served to introduce new Bonanza regular Mitch Vogel in the role of Jamie Hunter. The son of an itinerant rainmaker, Jamie is unofficially adopted after his dad's death by Ponderosa hand Dusty Rhodes (Lou Frizzell. Despite the skepticism and outright hostility of the townspeople, Jamie is determined to fulfill his father's promise to bring rain to drought-stricken Virginia City. "A Matter of Faith" was written by Jack B. Sowards, John Hawkins, and former Star Trek scrivener D.C. Fontana. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Baseball star Clint Atkins (Gary Collins) is being plagued with hate mail, extortion notes, death threats and even a mysterious barrage of gas pellets. Curiously, Atkins insists that the police stay out of the matter, and that he will handle the problem all by himself. Naturally, Ironside (Raymond Burr) isn't about to let that happen. Featured in the cast are several authentic major league umpires, as well as guest star Gary Collins' real-life wife Mary Ann Mobley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This episode is a wild and wacky spoof of the old TV series The Untouchables, which like The Lucy Show was a Desilu production (what a coincidence!). Struck by Lucy's resemblance to notorious gun moll Rusty Martin, Eliot Ness-like federal agent Briggs (who else but Robert Stack?) persuades Lucy (Lucille Ball) to pose as the moll in order to track down the money stolen by recently paroled gangster Big Nick (played by Bruce Gordon, who'd portrayed Frank Nitti on The Untouchables). The episode's nostalgia appeal is greatly enhanced by the rat-tat-tat narration of Walter Winchell -- and as a bonus, Lucy (as Rusty) performs a con brio rendition of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." At the end of the show, Lucy breaks character and invites Robert Stack and Bruce Gordon to take a bow, thereby acknowledging her studio audience for the first and only time onscreen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Slim and svelte Dianne Adler (Mary Ann Mobley), a hometown girlfriend of Della Street (Barbara Hale), has launched a career as a model. Harrison Boring (Paul Gilbert) hands Dianne the most unusual assignment of her career: For 200 dollars per week, she is to gain a great deal of weight! It seems that Boring is promoting a line of clothes for full-figured women, and he needs a hefty model with "name" value. What Della can't understand is why Dianne would have signed a contract which forfeits 50% of everything she makes over her regular salary to the enterprising Boring. It's a good thing that Della brings this to the attention of her boss Perry Mason (Raymond Burr)--who ends up defending Dianne on a murder charge when Boring is killed. This episode is based on a 1962 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

No one could accuse this episode of The Untouchables of defaming the Italians--certainly not with the young, aggressively WASP-ish Robert Redford as the villain of the week. Redford is cast as Ivy League bootlegger Jack Parker, who who is deliberately distributing a dangerous form of methyl alcohol known as "Ginger Jake" to college campuses. Even mob boss Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) is queasy about selling a product that could permanently blind anyone who drinks it, but Parker wins Nitti over by explaining his reason for pushing the cheap hooch: it will whet the students' appetite for the "good stuff", for which Parker has formulated a diabolically brilliant distribution scheme. This episode boasts one of the most grimly powerful finales in all Untouchables history--and as a bonus, Star Trek fans are treated to a glimpse of an uncredited Walter Koenig as one of the students. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this western a trio of prospectors bury their booty to keep the Apaches away. As one of the three rides away, another of them shoots him in the back. The killer allows only the hero to live as he is the only one who really knows where the gold is located. Later the Apaches attack and force the men to leave their horses. When the dead man's horse gallops by, the killer shoots the hero and rides away on his horse. Unbeknownst to him, he did not kill this man, who is later found and healed by a Chinese woman who hopes that when he is healed, he will take her to San Francisco. Meanwhile the killer has conned a bounty hunter into believing the hero killed the second partner. These two agree to split the reward and take off after the third man. The bounty hunter finds him with the girl while the killer rides off to get the gold. The hero man then gets locked in jail and the young woman must take the other to the burial site. Fortunately, the hero escapes and takes off to save her. At the burial site, the bounty hunter accidentally detonates some dynamite and blows the gold to smithereens causing the killer to truly lose his mind and attack the girl. Fortunately he is shot down by the hero who arrives at the crucial moment and then rides away with the girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) hopes to expand his bootlegging empire across the US-Canadian border, setting up headquarters in the small Canadian fishing town of St. Brenden's. Meanwhile, Nitti's rival Joe Palakopoulos (Simon Oakland) has already gained a foothold in St. Brenden's, setting himself up as the town's "benefactor", not only pouring money into the impoverished community and even purchasing an organ for the local church. It is up to Elliot Ness (Robert Stack), with some preliminary assistance by an undercover agent, to persuade the town's spiritual leader Father Francis Gregory (played by Canadian actor Arthur Hill) that Palakopoulos is up to no good. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

To improve the taste of his beer, Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) brings several expert German "braumeisters" into the country. This doesn't rest well with Nitti's rival Joe Kulak (Oscar Beregi), whose own revenue from bootleg beer takes a big hit. Caught in the crossfire are the hapless brewers, several of whom end up at the wrong end of a tommy-gun. To end the bloodshed, Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) is forced into an uneasy alliance with mob widow Mady (Dolores Dorn), who has been renting her country home to the German "visitors"--and whose loyalties are, to say the least, somewhat in doubt. Warren Kemmerling takes over from both Lawrence Dobkin and Robert J. Wilke as Dutch Schultz in this final episode of The Untouchables' third season. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

23-year-old Victor Buono appears in one of his first starring assignments as Melanthos Moon, a brilliant counterfeiter who uses a Chinatown curio shop as a front. In order to flood the country with $100,000,000 in "funny money", Mr. Moon arranges to steal an enormous supply of government currency paper, then engineers the escape of imprisoned forger Hans Dreiser (Karl Swenson). Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) is unable to get a line on Mr. Moon until the careless Mr. Dreiser allows his fondness for classical music to cloud his better judgment--leading to a literally explosive finale. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Broke again, Bart (Jack Kelly) accepts a job from rancher Cal Powers (Andrew Duggan), hauling ice from the nearby mountains. While on the job, Bart comes upon a corpse, frozen beneath the surface of an icy river. This discovery will prove to have dire consequence for our hero, thanks largely to villainous machinous of political boss Rath Lawson, played by Bruce Gordon in the same manner as the actor's interpretation of mobster Frank Nitti on The Untouchables. The heroine of the occasion is Shirley Knight, who went on to a stellar stage, film and TV career, including such memorable roles as the mother of Helen Hunt in the 1997 Jack Nicholson theatrical feature As Good as It Gets. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi