Sol (Saul) Gorss Movies

Herman (Fred Gwynne) decides to buy a car for niece Marilyn (Pat Priest). This brings him to the used-car establishment run by Fair Deal Dan (played by impressionist Frank Gorshin), who not unexpectedly belies his name by selling Herman a lemon. Even worse, the car is stolen, and Herman finds himself a fugitive from justice. Featured in the cast is Johnny Silver as a character named Blinky, a full three years before the diminutive Silver donned the costume of "Dr. Blinkey" on Sid and Marty Krofft's H.R. Pufnstuf. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Columbia Pictures tried to create a tongue-in-cheek American James Bond with this, the first of five motion pictures based on the character of Matt Helm, a spy created in a series of novels by Donald Hamilton. Dean Martin stars as Helm, a boozing, womanizing cad of a spy coaxed out of retirement by ex-girlfriend Tina Batori (Daliah Lavi). His mission: stop the evil Big O organization, whose leader, Tung-Tze (Victor Buono), schemes to sabotage an atomic missile and thus spark World War III. Producer Irving Allen had once been partners with Albert R. Broccoli in the British film production company Warwick Films, their alliance ironically disintegrating over the merits of creating a Bond series. When Broccoli's instincts proved correct, Allen attempted to create his own spy franchise with the Helm character. The sequels to The Silencers (1966) were Murderers' Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), and The Wrecking Crew (1968). Allen unsuccessfully tried to resurrect the character as a TV movie, Matt Helm (1975). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Spotting Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Mary Jane (Mary Jane Croft) at the racetrack, Mooney (Gale Gordon) hands Lucy his race tickets while he goes off to talk to an acquaintance. Thanks to a misreported photo finish, Lucy tears up the tickets, only to find out that Mooney's horse has actually won. Desperate to earn enough money to cover Mooney's winnings, Lucy once again dons the phony mustache and macho bravado of her male alter ego, Hollywood stuntman "Iron Man Carmichael" -- despite the wounds and bruises she sustained the last few times she did stunt work. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed in panoramic Cinerama, this star-studded, epic Western adventure is a true cinematic classic. Three legendary directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall) combine their skills to tell the story of three families and their travels from the Erie Canal to California between 1839 and 1889. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, which cost an estimated 15 million dollars to complete. In the first segment, "The Rivers," pioneer Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) sets out to settle in the West with his wife (Agnes Moorehead) and their four children. Along with other settlers and river pirates, they run into mountain man Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who sells animal hides. The Prescotts try to raft down the Ohio River in a raft, but only daughters Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) and Eve (Carroll Baker) survive. Eve and Linus get married, while Lilith continues on. In the second segment, "The Plains," Lilith ends up singing in a saloon in St. Louis, but she really wants to head west in a wagon train led by Roger Morgan (Robert Preston). Along the way, she's accompanied by the roguish gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), who claims he can protect her. After he saves her life during an Indian attack, they get married and move to San Francisco. In the third segment, "The Civil War," Eve and Linus' son, Zeb (George Peppard), fights for the Union. After he's forced to kill his Confederate friend, he returns home and gives the family farm to his brother. In the fourth segment, "The Railroads," Zeb fights with his railroad boss (Richard Widmark), who wants to cut straight through Indian territory. Zeb's co-worker Jethro (Henry Fonda) refuses to cut through the land, so he quits and moves to the mountains. After the railway camp is destroyed, Zeb heads for the mountains to visit him. In the fifth segment, "The Outlaws," Lilith is an old widow traveling from California to Arizona to stay with her nephew Zeb on his ranch. However, he has to fight a gang of desperadoes first. How the West Was Won garnered three Oscars, for screenplay, film editing, and sound production. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Warlock offers us a mean-spirited, mercenary Henry Fonda and an honest, peaceloving Richard Widmark. A Wyatt Earp-like frontier marshal, Fonda agrees to protect the small town of Warlock from an outlaw gang, but only if he's permitted to plunder the town's cash reserve. Widmark, the town deputy, is a reformed outlaw whose willingness to fend off the invading criminals is motivated by his fondness for his new neighbors. Looming large in the proceedings is Anthony Quinn as the glory-grabbing Fonda's sidekick. Adapted by Robert Alan Aurthur from a novel by Oakley Hall, Warlock is a good example of the "thinking man's westerns" prevalent in the late 1950s-early 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When seen today, Bullwhip seems to be a dry run for the 1975 Jack Nicholson-Mary Steenburgen western Goin' South. To save himself from being hanged on a trumped-up murder charge, frontiersman Guy Madison agrees to marry whip-wielding spitfire Rhonda Fleming. Once the ceremony is over, Fleming wants nothing to do with her new husband, but he insists upon insinuating himself in her burgeoning fur-trading business. How long will it be before the heroine succumbs to Madison's rakish charms? When Shakespeare wrote this story, he called it Taming of the Shrew. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

1956's Tea and Sympathy is a diluted filmization of Robert Anderson's Broadway play. The original production was considered quite daring in its attitudes towards homosexuality (both actual and alleged) and marital infidelity; the film softpedals these elements, as much by adding to the text as by subtracting from it. John Kerr plays a sensitive college student who prefers the arts to sports; as such, he is ridiculed as a "sissy" by his classmates and hounded mercilessly by his macho-obsessed father Edward Andrews. Only student Darryl Hickman treats Kerr with any decency, perceiving that being different is not the same as being effeminate. Deborah Kerr, the wife of testosterone-driven housemaster Leif Erickson, likewise does her best to understand rather than condemn John for his "strangeness." Desperate to prove his manhood, John is about to visit town trollop Norma Crane. Though nothing really happens, the girl cries "rape!" Both John's father and Deborah's husband adopt a thick-eared "Boys will be boys" attitude, which only exacerbates John's insecurities. Feeling pity for John and at the same time resenting her own husband's boorishness, Deborah offers her own body to the mixed-up boy. "When you speak of this in future years...and you will...be kind." With this classic closing line, the original stage production of Tea and Sympathy came to an end. Fearing censorship interference, MGM insisted upon a stupid epilogue, indicating that Deborah Kerr deeply regretted her "wrong" behavior. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This fact-based prison drama tells the tale of a band of prisoners living in the innovative 2,600-acre prison at Chino, California. The place takes a humanistic approach to reform and there are no armed guards, no lockups and no uniforms. The underlying philosophy is that if these things are not there, the prisoners will not want to escape, and will instead accept their punishment. A new inmate arrives and soon accustoms himself to the new idea. The story includes the Oscar nominated song Unchained Melody. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Robert Newton exhibits absolutely no shame in his portrayal of the title character in Blackbeard the Pirate. If you thought that Newton's "Arr, matey"s got out of hand in Treasure Island, wait til you see this one. The plot concerns the efforts of the British admirality to bring Blackbeard to justice. To that end, officer Keith Andes allows himself to be abducted by the pirate's minions. Also captured by Blackbeard is luscious Linda Darnell, the adopted daughter of Andes' superior Torin Thatcher. When it turns out that everyone is being double-crossed by the insidious Thatcher, all Technicolor hell breaks loose. William Bendix costars as Blackbeard's chief henchman, appearing to be a model of subtlety when compared to his costar. Future "Beverly Hillbilly" Irene Ryan has some nice moments as Linda Darnell's lady-in-waiting. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Although Marie Windsor plays the title role in Dakota Lil, she is shunted away to third billing, right after male leads George Montgomery and Rod Cameron. Montgomery is cast as a secret service agent Tom Horn, sent West to round up a gang of counterfeiters. He starts by gaining the confidence of dance-hall girl Lil (Windsor), one of the ringleaders. She, in turn, leads Horn to the brains of the operation, Harve Logan
(Cameron). When Lil finds out that Horn is a Fed, she's tempted to fill him full of holes; instead, having fallen in love with him, she tries to help him get the goods on Logan. Dakota Lil was based on a story by Frank Gruber, later one of the leading lights of the TV-western craze. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though Humphrey Bogart is the official star of Knock on Any Door, the film is essentially a showcase for Columbia's newest young male discovery John Derek. The first production of Bogart's Santana company, the film casts Bogart as attorney Andrew Morton. A product of the slums, Morton is persuaded to take the case of underprivileged teenager Nick Romano (Derek), who has been arrested on a murder charge. Through flashbacks, Morton demonstrates that Romano is more a victim of society than a natural-born killer. Though this defense strategy does not have the desired result on the jury thanks to the badgering of DA Kernan (George Macready), Morton does manage to arouse sympathy for the plight of those trapped by birth and circumstance in a dead-end existence. As Nick Romano, John Derek would never be better, nor would ever again play a character who struck so responsive a chord with the audience. Nick's oft-repeated credo--"Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse"--became the clarion call for a generation of disenfranchised youth. Director Nicholas Ray would later expand on themes touched upon in Knock on a Any Door in his juvenile delinquent "chef d'oeuvre" Rebel without a Cause. Viewers are advised to watch for future TV personalities Cara Williams and Si Melton in uncredited minor roles. Knock on Any Door spawned a belated sequel in 1960, Let No Man Write My Epitaph. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A reformed gangster, accustomed to a life of danger, finds himself dealing with a new and different threat in this adventure thriller. Johnny Allegro (George Raft) is a former mobster who has gone over to the other side and now works for the U.S. Treasury Department as an undercover agent. Allegro is asked to help get the goods on Morgan Vallin (George MacReady), a polished counterfeiter who is involved in a right-wing plot to bring down the American government by flooding the U.S. economy with bogus currency. Allegro makes his way to the island that's Vallin's base of operations, with Glenda Chapman (Nina Foch) in tow, and he convinces Vallin that he's a fugitive from American justice. Vallin takes Allegro and Glenda in, but he soon discovers Johnny's true identity, and Allegro learns that Vallin has a bizarre hobby -- he likes to hunt, but he feels that humans are a more interesting quarry than animals. Vallin gives his guests a head start, then sets out to capture them, hoping to fell Johnny and Glenda with silver-tipped arrows, while the two agents hope that their associate Schultzy (Will Geer) will arrive in time to save them. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi