Stephen McNally Movies

Highway menaces terrorize the roadways and travelers in this action adventure. ~ Rovi

In this made-for-TV film later adapted into a TV series, a special detective (Robert Stack) and his unit investigate a series of attacks involving the rape and murder of nuns. ~ John Bush, Rovi

While searching for the missing husband of Janet Carr (Corinne Michaels), Jim (James Garner) finds the man's corpse in a motel room. Though the investigating police officers Furlong (Warren Kemmerling) and Larsen (Mills Watson) insist that all existing evidence points to suicide, Jim has very good reason to believe that the unfortunate Mr. Carr was murdered. As it turns out, both Janet and the police are hiding important information from Jim--and by the time he has figured this out, another murder has taken place. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Extortionist Casey Morton (Stephen McNally) would like his son Junior (Robert Drivas) to follow in his footsteps. Unfortunately, Junior can't seem to do anything right, and after bungling his latest assignment he finds his trail dogged by the FBI. Proving that blood is thicker than water, Morton takes the rap for Junior's misdeeds to throw the Feds off the track--but Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) isn't one to take things at face value. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This violent blaxploitation film stars Jim Brown as the owner of a Los Angeles nightclub. When his brother, a Vietnam veteran, is murdered by gangsters, Brown gathers some of his brother's fellow veterans and an assortment of ex-convicts to get brutal revenge. Martin Landau, Luciana Paluzzi, and Jeannie Bell head the cast, along with genre regulars Bruce Glover, Bernie Casey, and Gary Conway. Director Robert Hartford-Davis is best known for horror films like Incense of the Damned and Corruption, while Brown went on to more successful genre fare in Slaughter and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Vanished earned a niche in video history as the first two-part TV movie. Based on Fletcher Knebel's novel, the story concerns the sudden disappearance of a top Presidential adviser. Grilled by the media, the President's press secretary (James Farentino) reveals very little, simply because he knows very little. But the chief executive himself (Richard Widmark) has more information than he's willing to make public; the FBI has proof that the vanished adviser was homosexual, and subject to blackmail. Based in part on the Lyndon Johnson/Walter Jenkins imbroglio of 1964, Vanished is given an aura of credibility via cameo appearances by Washington newscaster/journalists Chet Huntley, Herbert Kaplow and Martin Agronsky. The film was first telecast on two consecutive evenings: March 8 and 9 of 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A superb throwback to the "films noir" of old, The Lonely Profession puts icing on the cake with a strong dose of 1960s realism--within reasonable TV-movie limits. Harry Guardino plays a businesslike private eye assigned to trail the mistress (Ina Balin) of a Hughes-like reclusive millionaire. When he catches up with her, the two spend an evening in a motel. Guardino wakes up; the woman does not. Now facing a murder rap, Guardino must get to the bottom of the killing and determine why he's been set up as the fall guy. To do this, he opens his own probe of the dead woman's past. Lonely Profession was a special favorite of its director Douglas Heyes, who is best known to TV buffs for his work on Maverick and Twilight Zone. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A murder investigation uncovers a plot that could destroy the world as we know it in this thriller. When a scientist doing research on nuclear weapons is murdered during a hospital stay, federal investigator Dave Pomeroy (Howard Duff) is called in to find out who killed him and why. With the help of Dr. Paula Stevens (Linda Cristal), the late scientist's assistant, Pomeroy learns that the scientist fell victim to a group of communist renegades whose members include two brilliant but unstable weapons experts, August Best (Nehemiah Persoff) and Myra Pryor (Anne Jeffreys). Pomeroy discovers that Best and Pryor have constructed an atomic bomb of their own -- and that they're threatening to use it to start World War III, forcing the detective to take swift action to prevent worldwide devastation. Panic in the City also features Dennis Hopper in the small role of Goff, just a year before Easy Rider would make him a star. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this western, a gunfighter finds himself mistaken for a judge when he journeys to a beleaguered town that is under the oppressive influence of an outlaw and his evil gang. One couple knows the gunslinger's true avocation and they talk him into working as a lawman and putting one of the crooks on trial. Things go well until one of the outlaws recognizes him and tells all during the trial. This leads to a classic showdown in which the gunfighter shoots the gun from the villain's hand. He then discards his own weapon and literally rides off into the sunset to pursue a more peaceful life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Hired as a construction worker at a missile site, Kimble is one of several people trapped in an underground shaft by an explosion. Among the others similarly entombed are Congresswoman Snell (Nan Martin) and construction head Jack Glennon (Stephen McNally), who happen to be longtime enemies. Kimble must somehow patch up the differences between these two and persuade him that he is innocent of murder before the rescue party arrives--a party which includes the fugitive's dogged pursuer Lt. Gerard (Barry Morse). Featured in the cast is Richard Anderson, who would return in the series' final two-part episode as Kimble's brother-in-law Leonard Taft. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Hell Bent for Leather is a standard western that features Audie Murphy in the role of Clay, a cowboy hunted by a posse out for blood. Clay deals and trade in horses in an honest way, and he does not suspect that a crooked U.S. Marshal (Stephen McNally) interested in furthering his career, is determined to nab him as a killer though he knows full well Clay is innocent. When first attacked, Clay grabs a hostage (Felicia Farr) who eventually sides with him and helps him in the long chase that follows. Clay's challenge is not only to get away from the Marshal and his posse but to somehow prove his innocence as well. Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War II was still riding the popularity of his own real-life story in 1955's To Hell and Back when this western was released. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Hell's Five Hours begin ticking away when Nash (Vic Morrow), a disgruntled employee of a rocket-fuel manufacturing plant, goes berserk. Wielding a home-made bomb, Nash threatens to blow himself, his hostages and the plant to smithereens. Nash's supervisor Mike (Stephen McNally) takes it upon himself to talk Nash into surrendering, playing for time while all the fuel is pumped out of the plant's supply tanks and the rockets are removed from the premeses. Mike has only five hours (hence the film's title) to convince Nash to come to his senses. Hell's Five Hours makes up in tension what it lacks in production finesse. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Young schoolboy Johnny Rocco (Richard Eyer) has a stuttering problem. Though this in itself is not unusual, the source of Johnny's nervous impediment is off the beaten track: Johnny's father (Stephen McNally) happens to be a high-ranking mobster. When Lois (Coleen Gray), the boy's teacher, takes a special interest in Johnny's plight, she finds her life in danger. Rival mobsters and police officials alike pursue Johnny and Lois because of privileged "inside" information that the boy carries in his head. The script for Johnny Rocco was based on a story by actor Richard (I Led Three Lives) Carlson. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi