Brett Halsey Movies

Actor Brett Halsey came into this world as Charles Oliver Hand, the son of a San Francisco contractor. Formerly a page at the CBS studios in Hollywood, the 20-year-old Halsey was signed to a Universal contract in 1953. His earliest film efforts include The Glass Web (1953) and Ma and Pa Kettle at Home (1954), in which he played one of the myriad of Kettle offspring. He went on to play leads in bottom-budget juvenile delinquent films, including the immortal 1958 howler Speed Crazy. Under contract to 20th Century-Fox in the late 1950s-early 1960s, Halsey starred in Return of the Fly (1959) and was seen on a weekly basis as swinging journalist Paul Templin in the TV series Follow the Sun (1961). He then packed his bags and headed to Italy, where he played leads in swashbucklers and spy actioners. His experiences as a journeyman actor in Europe were encapsulated in his novel Magnificent Strangers. Halsey returned to the U.S. in the early 1970s, where he showed up in such TV daytime dramas as Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Search for Tomorrow and, General Hospital. More recently, he was cast to good advantage in Francis Ford Coppolas' Godfather III (1990). Brett Halsey was at one time married to actress Luciana Paluzzi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
1970  
 
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Genre specialist Mario Bava takes a rare trip out to the plains in this rousing comedy-Western that turns the work of iconic spaghetti Western specialist Sergio Leone on its head. When Roy Colt (Brett Halsey) and Winchester Jack (Charles Southwood) fail to make a living at living dishonestly, Roy resolves to dissolve the partnership and earn an honest dollar in Carson City. Unexpectedly greeted upon arrival at Carson City with a badge and a gun, newfound sheriff Roy gets that old familiar feeling when the nervous citizens entrust him with a replica of a stolen treasure map that is said to lead to a bounty of buried gold. Unfortunately for Roy, the mysterious Reverend Teodoro Corra, a dynamite-toting Russian outlaw; his old partner Jack; a Jewish desperado named Berenstein (Mauro Bosco); and a wanted Native American seductress (Marilù Tolo) are also gunning for the gold. By the time Roy reaches the Indian burial ground where the gold is said to be buried, it's anyone's guess as to who will get the gold first. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Brett HalseyCharles Southwood, (more)
1969  
R  
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Filmed in English, this Italian mystery thriller/melodrama explores the murder of a doctor's wife. The doctor himself (Jean Morel) has long since taken up with a mistress. His wife begged out of engagements as an asthmatic, all the while actually entertaining herself with her part-time job as a stripper. Did the doctor kill her? After all, he took out a large life-insurance policy on his wife. One highlight of this film is the effective use of its San Francisco setting. Another is its gas-chamber sequence, filmed in San Quentin's actual gas chamber. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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1968  
 
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After a rancher serves his prison sentence for a crime he did not commit, he contracts a gang of killers to hunt down the man who framed him. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

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1967  
 
1967  
 
Yet another entry in a long series of 1960s Italian sex comedies, this one has some clever moments in its study of four beautiful women (Ursula Andress, Marisa Mell, Virna Lisi, and Claudine Auger) who cheat on their husbands to relieve their marital discontent. Jean-Pierre Cassel also stars in this typical anthology written by Ruggero Maccari and Ettore Scola. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Ursula AndressVirna Lisi, (more)
1966  
 
In this espionage drama, a leading American spy has a miniature camera surgically implanted in his eye, unbeknownst to him, and with it photographs secrets for the Russians, helping them gather information about a newly created death ray. The scientist who created it knew the secret could fall into enemy hands and so placed his secret plans into the skull of his unknowing daughter before he died. Meanwhile another spy begins following her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Brett HalseyAnna Maria Pier Angeli, (more)
1966  
 
Originally L'Heure de la Verte, the French Hour of Truth Stars Brett Halsey, Corinne Marchand and Karl Boehm. At the end of World War 2, a Nazi escapes arrest by assuming the identity of concentration camp victim. 20 years later, he is threatened with exposure. The only way out would seem to be murder. Hour of Truth was lensed largely on location in Israel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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1966  
 
In this mystery, a gang of drug smugglers kidnap the ex-girlfriend of a journalist. The journalist begins looking for her. When the woman is found dead, the journalist gets some help and eventually justice prevails. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1965  
 
This uninhibited Italian comedy was originally titled Il Magnifico Cornuto. Ugo Tognazzi plays a philandering businessman, inordinately proud of his hyperactive libido. Claudia Cardinale is his sexy wife, which makes one wonder why Tognazzi would ever want to stray. Be that as it may, Cardinale decides to take revenge on her roving hubby by launching an affair of her own. The beauty part is that she's almost able to get away with her hanky-panky without her self-absorbed husband ever catching on. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Claudia CardinaleUgo Tognazzi, (more)
1965  
 
A male and a female spy track down the murderers of a scientist, developer of an electronic vibration reduction formula. ~ All Movie Guide

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1964  
 
Senta Berger plays retail clerk Jenny who falls for painter Jack (Brett Halsey). Between their quarrels and reconciliations, however, Jenny marries a wealthy businessman but eventually divorces him when the two go their own ways. It isn't until after a second marriage to a divorced playboy, that Jenny realizes her deep love for Jack. This unsuccessful comedy from director Victor Vicas was based on the novel Early to Bed by Anne Piper. Russian-American Vicas directed several features in Germany during the early '60s, though only a couple decades before, he had escaped from a German POW camp. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Brett HalseySenta Berger, (more)
1963  
 
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This three part horror story is taken from the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Vincent Price stars in all three tales starting with Dr. Heidegger's Experiment". Heidegger (Sebastian Cabot) attempts to restore the youth of four elderly friends. In a ghastly and ghoulish scene, a bride in her wedding gown returns to life after being dead for forty years. Although her spirit is alive, her body is ravaged by forty years of grave rot. "Rappaccini's Daughter" finds Price as a demented, overprotective father inoculating his daughter with poison so she may never leave her garden of poisonous plants. Part three, "The House of the Seven Gables" has Beverly Garland, Richard Denning, and Jacqueline de Wit accompanying Price, who retains his horror hero status that alternates between villain and victim. The characters portrayed by Price are a natural continuation of the Edgar Allen Poe stories produced by Roger Cormam. Sidney Sallow directed this feature in which the cinematic apple falls far from the literary tree. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Vincent PriceSebastian Cabot, (more)
1962  
 
In this costume adventure, a dashing swordsman helps protect Philip III of Spain from the traitors trying to overthrow him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1961  
 
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If anything, this star-studded sequel is even sillier than the original, adding to its problems by completely recasting all the roles, combining several of them into existing characters. Carol Lynley is the heroine this time, and she leaves Peyton Place for New York to write a book about the hypocrisy of her hometown. The book causes lots of trouble back home, getting Mike (Robert Sterling) fired as principal, angering Lynley's mother (Eleanor Parker), and stirring such horrible memories in Selena (Tuesday Weld) that she brains her new boyfriend with a fireplace poker, thinking he is her dead rapist stepfather. The film really belongs to Mary Astor, in a hilarious turn as a smotheringly possessive mother. She tries to come between her son and his new bride (Luciana Paluzzi) in some unintentionally hilarious scenes, causing Paluzzi to fling herself down a ski slope in an attempt at a self-induced miscarriage. Overwrought and overblown, the film is still a treat for fans of campy "suburban sin" melodramas. Look for Bob Crane as an unctuous talk show sidekick. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Carol LynleyJeff Chandler, (more)
1960  
 
Raymond Burr was already three years into Perry Mason when he decided to return to his movie-villain roots with Desire in the Dust. Burr, playing the patriarch of a Southern family, befriends the ex-convict (Ken Scott) who'd supposedly killed Burr's son in an auto accident. Actually the accident was caused by Burr's daughter (Martha Hyer), who hopes that she can buy the accused man's silence and thus secure her daddy's political future. The ex-con goes along with the deception, having fallen in love with the daughter, but soon learns that Burr plans to double-cross him. Based on a novel by Harry Whittington. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Raymond BurrMartha Hyer, (more)
1960  
 
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TV star Brett Halsey is the lead in The Girl in Lover's Lane. While drifting through a small town, Bix (Halsey) becomes involved with local tease Carrie (Joyce Meadows). Shortly afterward, Carrie is murdered, and Bix is held responsible. The actual killer is feeble-minded Jesse (Jack Elam), but the villagers aren't as quick on the uptake as the movie audience. Only the intervention of runaway youngster Danny (Lowell Brown) saves Bix from a lynch mob. Girl in Lover's Lane was directed by another TV habitue, Charles R. Rondeau. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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1960  
 
This historical war drama follows the command of 16th-century artist Benvenuto Cellini as he and his troops defend Rome against the attack of Charles V and his armies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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1959  
 
Set in a small Arizona town in the 1870s, Four Fast Guns is a subpar Western about Sabin (James Craig), a man who takes on an unlikely tyrant in an effort to restore normal life to the townspeople. Sabin himself has been falsely accused of murder, though misconduct runs in the family -- his brother Johnny (Brett Halsey) is an outlaw. An invalid runs the local saloon and has parleyed his physical infirmity into an excuse to get away with a brutal hold over the town. Sabin challenges his authority, so the saloon-keeper sends one hired gun after another to kill him off. No one succeeds, but then the fourth gunman shows up -- Sabin's outlaw brother -- and the two siblings are forced into a fatal confrontation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
James CraigMartha Vickers, (more)
1959  
 
Seasoned serial director Spencer Gordon Bennett helmed this story of a one-eyed, octopoidal space alien, wreaking havoc upon atomic subs at the North Pole. The monster is determined to take over the world, though it seems ill equipped for that purpose. Heroes Arthur Franz, Dick Foran, and Brett Halsey head underwater to neutralize the alien's submerged flying saucer. The cast is peopled with such veterans as Tom Conway, Bob Steele, Victor Varconi, Selmer Jackson, and Jack Mulhall. Movie buffs may wish to take note of the exterior scenes in Atomic Submarine; several of them are played out in front of the easily recognizable studios of Allied Artists, formerly Monogram and later the home of LA's PBS channel 28. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Arthur FranzDick Foran, (more)
1959  
 
This sequel to Kurt Neumann's The Fly (1958) is peculiar, to say the least. Producer/director Neumann had passed away during the summer of 1958, and the studio needed a sequel. The resulting film, Return of the Fly, was directed by Edward L. Bernds, a filmmaker (and former sound man at Columbia Pictures) most closely associated with the Three Stooges, but who had lately moved successfully into popular science fiction, with movies such as World Without End, Space Master X-7, and Queen of Outer Space to his credit -- not that this last, in particular, seemed to qualify him for anything but tongue-in-cheek satire. Curse of the Fly was shot in CinemaScope but in black-and-white, an unusual combination that is usually associated with artier movies, as a compromise for discriminating directors who can't avoid the widescreen format but want to present something serious; in this particular case, however, it was purely a budgetary decision. Vincent Price is the nominal star as Francois Delambre, the brother of Andre Delambre, who died as a result of his experiments with a matter transmitting device in The Fly. It is now a dozen years later, and Andre's son, Philippe (Brett Halsey), has just laid his mother to rest, having witnessed the final years of her life blighted by the memory of the horror of Andre's death. He convinces Francois to tell him what happened and of the device that destroyed his parents' happy life together. Philippe vows to perfect the matter transmitter, so that all of the heartache and sacrifice by his parents will not have been in vain. He employs as his assistant a scientist friend, Alan Hinds (David Frankham), who, unbeknownst to him, has shady business connections and a dark secret in his own past. Alan conspires to steal the secret of the matter transmitter, but first he must dispose of a detective who has come to arrest him for an earlier crime, and then eliminate Philippe, who doesn't know what Alan has done, only that he's hiding something. Thus, the same disaster that befell Philippe's father now occurs again, to him -- his body parts are transposed with those of a house-fly. The human-sized fly, even nastier looking than the monster in the original film, goes on a rampage, trying to catch Alan and get revenge for what has happened to him, using what faculties he has. Meanwhile, Francois gets help from the surviving detective on his brother's case, who knows the truth, and the two try to trap the monster alive and also find the fly-sized creature with Philippe's head and features, so they can try and unscramble the atoms of both. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
Vincent PriceBrett Halsey, (more)
1959  
 
In this wartime adventure, four courageous Seabees infiltrate a Japanese-controlled island to find a place to build an air-strip. A beautiful jungle lass helps them navigate the dense forest and blow up an enemy transmitter. The flight back to their boat is not without casualties. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
John LuptonJames Edwards, (more)
1959  
 
In this WW II actioner, the crew of the Seahawk nearly mutinies when they discover that their new commander is a tactical instructor who has very little experience as a leader. They are quite angry because he refuses to allow them to sink the Japanese warships that are so close to them. Later they change their opinion after learning that he was only following orders. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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Starring:
John BentleyBrett Halsey, (more)

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