James Gregory Movies

This soapy melodrama based on the novel by John O'Hara earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design. Suzanne Pleshette stars as Grace Caldwell, a newspaper heiress and nymphomaniac whose numerous dalliances threaten to destroy her wealthy Pennsylvania family's image. Taken on a vacation to the Bahamas by her widowed mother Emily (Carmen Mathews), Grace can't resist a tryst with a waiter, which causes Emily a fatal heart attack. Back home, Grace meets a new beau, Sidney Tate (Bradford Dillman) at a Christmas party. The gentlemanly Sidney wins Grace's heart and she marries him, promising to end her sexually wild ways. A few years later, however, Grace sleeps with a construction worker and the resulting scandal when her lover dies in a drunken car wreck leads Sidney to believe that Grace is also having an affair with an old friend, Jack Hollister (Peter Graves). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Troy Donahue stars in this drive-in quality "B"-Western from the Warner Brothers backlot, directed by veteran director Raoul Walsh. Donahue is U.S. Cavalry Lieutenant Matt Hazard, who arrives at Fort Delivery on the Mexican border of Arizona for a new assignment. Kitty Mainwaring (Suzanne Pleshette), the wife of the commanding officer, greets Hazard upon his arrival. The next day, when he takes some of his men outside of the fort to gather wood, Hazard and his men find themselves attacked by Indians. Hazard survives and later saves Kitty from another Indian attack. A terrible storm forces the two to spend a night in a cave as they make their way back to the fort. Meanwhile, the new commander, General Quait (James Gregory), arrives at the fort and takes command -- his first order of business to launch an all-out war on the Indians. He tries to capture the belligerent Indian Chief War Eagle but fails. When Hazard arrives back at the fort, Quait orders Hazard into Mexico to convince War Eagle to surrender. Hazard has War Eagle agree to return with him on the promise that the Indians can have a safe haven at an Arizona reservation. But, on their way back to the fort, they are met by Major Miller (Lane Bradford), who, instead, orders the Indians to be sent to Florida. Hazard and Quaint end up traveling to Washington to try to convince the United States government to reverse their decision against the Indians. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Accused of murder, Hoss Cartwright puts his life in the hands of celebrated lawyer Whitney Parker (James Gregory). Unforunately, Parker's glory days are behind him: more to the point, he is now the town drunk. The Cartwrights struggle to keep Parker sober long enough to save Hoss from the gallows. Also in the cast are Michel Petit as Jamie, Hal Baylor as Durfee, William Mims as Evans, and Jason Johnson as the Doctor. Written by Mort R. Lewis, "A Man to Admire" first aired on December 6, 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gregory Peck plays a benevolent God-like figure in a white smock as Captain Josiah Newman, the head of a psych-unit at a Southwestern army base during the waning days of World War II. Newman is a patriarchal protector to his patients, preferring to keep him in his ward, rather than return them to certain death on the battlefield. The matriarchal figure of the ward is Lieutenant Grace Blodgett (Jane Withers), but Newman is more interested in his assistant Lieutenant Francie Corum (Angie Dickinson), with whom he is having an affair. Further help is provided by human nature expert, Corp. Jackson Laibowitz (Tony Curtis), the orderly. And Newman needs all the help he can get. Particularly with three patients: Colonel Bliss (Eddie Albert) is suffering from a guilt complex from all the men he has sent to death; Corporal Tompkins (Bobby Darin, in an Academy Award-nominated performance), although decorated for bravery in combat, calls himself a coward for failing to save his pal from a burning plane; and Captain Winston (Robert Duvall) is guilt-ridden and has lapsed into catatonia because he had hidden for over a year in the basement of a building in Germany. Although Newman wants to cure these men of their psychological problems, he doesn't want to see them returned to the war to be killed. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Former TV leading man Richard Chamberlain plays a young lawyer about to take on an important murder case. He is shepherded through this big break by veteran attorney Claude Rains. The client is the disreputable Nick Adams, who seems determined to sabotage his own case. But a last-minute scrap of evidence saves the day and establishes Chamberlain's reputation. Based on a novel by Al Dewlen, Twilight of Honor was released in Britain as The Charge is Murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An unusually tense and intelligent political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate was a film far ahead of its time. Its themes of thought control, political assassination, and multinational conspiracy were hardly common currency in 1962, and while its outlook is sometimes informed by Cold War paranoia, the film seemed nearly as timely when it was reissued in 1987 as it did on its original release. It opens with a group of soldiers whooping it up in a bar in Korea as their commander, Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), arrives to inform them that they're back on duty. These men obviously have no fondness for Shaw, and he feels no empathy for them. While on patrol, Shaw and his platoon are ambushed by Korean troops. Months later, Shaw is receiving a hero's welcome as he returns to the United States to accept the Congressional Medal of Honor, and several of the soldiers who served under Shaw repeatedly refer to him as "the bravest, finest, most lovable man I ever met." It soon becomes evident that after their capture by the Koreans, Shaw and his men were subjected to an intense program of brainwashing prior to their release. While several are troubled by bad dreams and inexplicable behavior, it's Capt. Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) who seems the most haunted by the experience. In time, Marco is able to piece together what happened; it seems Raymond Shaw was programmed by a shadowy cadre of Russian and Chinese agents into a killing machine who will assassinate anyone, even a close friend, when given the proper commands. On the other side of the coin, Shaw is also used for political gain by his harridan mother (Angela Lansbury), who guides the career of her second husband, John Iselin (James Gregory), a bone-headed congressman hoping to win the vice-presidential nomination through a campaign of anti-Communist hysteria.

The Manchurian Candidate features a host of remarkable performances, several from actors cast cleverly against type. Frank Sinatra's edgy, aggressive turn as Marco may be the finest dramatic work of his career; Laurence Harvey's chilly onscreen demeanor was rarely used to s better advantage than as Raymond Shaw; James Gregory is great as the oft-befuddled Senator Iselin; and Angela Lansbury's ultimate bad mom will be a shock to those who know her as the lovable mystery writer from Murder, She Wrote. George Axelrod's screenplay (based on Richard Condon's novel) is by turns compelling, witty, and horrifying in its implications, and John Frankenheimer's direction milks it for all the tension it can muster. While Frankenheimer's career has had its ups and downs, The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds (1966) suggest that he deserves to be recognized as one of the most brilliantly paranoid American filmmakers of the '60s. Entertaining yet unsettling, both films indicate that things in the '60s were not what they seemed, with a resonance that still echoes uncomfortably in the present. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This oddly technical drama about three test pilots for the X-15 devotes a great deal of time to scientific explanations and militarese, leaving slightly less time to examine the personal lives and motivations of the three pilots. The head honcho among the pilots is Lt. Col. Lee Brandon (Charles Bronson in a good performance), and Mary Tyler Moore makes her first feature-length film appearance as one of the Air Force wives who are in the background of their husbands' careers. Narrated by James Stewart, this drama was released just when the X-15 aircraft was breaking flight records. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When The Lawless Years was canceled by NBC in the spring of 1960 after only two short seasons and 27 episodes, the series' fans decried its loss, opining that this saga of organized crime during the Prohibition Era was in many ways superior to the more popular ABC offering The Untouchables. Ironically, it was The Untouchables' success which moved NBC to commission producer Jack Chertok to revive Lawless Years in early 1961, churning out a third and final season of 20 half-hour episodes. Fortunately, Chertok was able to secure the services of the series' original star James Gregory in the role of real-life NYC police detective Barney Ruditsky, upon whose exploits the program was based. This last season focuses not only on the big-time gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s, but also on such flamboyant small-timers as Mad Dog Coll, whose career was the basis of a two-part episode. Also, Season Three of Lawless Years yielded an elaborately produced five-part story arc, "Louy K," chronicling the rise and fall of a Meyer Lansky-like mob boss played by Paul Richards. Reportedly, "Louy K" was slated to be re-edited into a theatrical feature, to be released overseas in the manner of the two-part pilot episode of The Untouchables. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mike Ferris (Earl Holliman) doesn't know where he's been or where he's going, but he has a rough idea of where he is -- in a typical small American town. This is all well and good, except for one detail: the town is utterly devoid of people. The explanation is more "logical" than one might expect from a Twilight Zone episode, but that may be because this was the pilot show, and the producers wanted to "sell" the property to sponsors who might otherwise be skeptical about a weekly sci-fi/fantasy anthology. Scripted by series creator Rod Serling and filmed on the familiar Universal backlot, "Where Is Everybody?" was telecast as the Twilight Zone debut episode on October 3, 1959. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although the Prohibition-era crime drama The Lawless Years hardly set the world afire during its first season, NBC greenlighted an additional eight episodes for the series' second season, mainly so that there would be a total of 27 for syndicated-rerun purposes. Based on the actual exploits of New York City police detective Barney Ruditsky (who served as technical advisor), the series stars James Gregory as Ruditsky and Robert Karnes as Max. The incredible popularity of the like-vintage The Untouchables tended to overshadow The Lawless Years during its second season. Ironically, Untouchables star Robert Stack shows up in one of Lawless Years' best Season Two episodes, "The Billy Boy 'Rockabye' Creel Story". Other prominent names taking part this year are Jack Weston, John Beradino, and Edward C. Platt, the latter best known as "The Chief" on the spy-spoof sitcom Get Smart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rod Steiger is the screen's first "method mobster" in the title role of Al Capone. The film traces Big Al's progress from a torpedo in the hire of Chicago gangster Johnny Torrio (Nehemiah Persoff) to Capone's takeover of the Windy City's bootlegging operations, and his ultimate downfall at the hands of the IRS. Rod Steiger delivers every line with maniacal gusto, as though it will be his last; sometimes he sounds like Frank Gorshin doing a Rod Steiger impression, but for the most part it is a dynamite performance. Featured in the cast are Murvyn Vye as Bugs Moran, Joe De Santis as Big Jim Colosimo, Lewis Charles as Hymie Weiss, Robert Gist as O'Banion, and James Gregory and Martin Balsam as composite characters, respectively based on honest Chicago cop John Siege and duplicitous newspaper reporter Jake Lingle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After the death of her first husband, Judy (Joanna Moore) marries Steve (Steve Forrest), the man who sold her the insurance policy on her late hubby's life. When Judy and Steve quickly run out of money, Judy pins her hopes on a sweepstakes ticket that husband number one purchased just before his death. Unfortunately, the ticket stub is in the pocket of her dead husband's jacket -- the jacket that he was buried in. Based on a story by frequent Hitchcock collaborator Cornell Woolrich, "Post Mortem" had been previously been dramatized on the radio anthology Suspense. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally titled Man of the West (the name of the Philip Yordan novel on which it was based), Gun Glory was rechristened to avoid confusion with a like-vintage Gary Cooper vehicle of the same title. Stewart Granger plays gunslinger/gambler Tom Early, who tries a bit too late to make amends for past misdeeds. Hoping to regain the respect of his community in general and his teenaged son Young Tom (Steve Rowland) in particular, Early vows to hang up his guns and live a respectable life. This proves well nigh impossible when the community is threatened by the incursions of evil cattle baron Grimsell (James Gregory). Rhonda Fleming costars as Jo, the only person in town who truly cares whether Early lives or dies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide