Joe Haworth Movies

After two and a half seasons in its familiar Saturday-evening network berth, Mission:Impossible moved to Fridays on December 22, 1972, with the episode titled "The Puppet." Roddy McDowall guest stars as Leo Ostro, the acting Syndicate boss during the convalescence of his injured brother Paul. To prove his own mettle, the egotistical Leo plans a $100,000,000 crime--but refuses to divulge any further details. It is up to the IMF to learn the nature and location of the crime and to put both Ostros out of business. Directed by veteran Hollywood hand Lewis Allen, "The Puppet" was written by Leigh Vance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Flight that Disappeared sugars its Vital Message with a sci-fi/fantasy coating. Three nuclear scientists prepare to deliver their report on the potentials of atomic weaponry to the President. En route to Washington, the scientists' plane disappears from view. They awaken to find themselves in the presence of benign aliens, possibly residents of the Afterworld. Before the scientists are permitted to leave, they have been persuaded that their nuclear report will need a healthy dose of anti-bomb rhetoric. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a brief production hiatus, the Twilight Zone staff resumed the series' first season with this episode, scripted by Rod Serling from a story by George Clayton Johnson. The story begins in 1880, as western outlaw Joe Caswell (Albert Caswell) is about to be hanged. Before the startled eyes of his executioners, Joe suddnely disappears from view. He rematerializes in 1960, in the laboratory of experimental scientist George Manion (Russell Johnson). Joe's sudden "invasion" of the 20th century has disastrous results on several people, including a modern-day murderer named Johnson (Than Wyenn). "Execution" first aired April 1, 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although a mood of melancholy or worse pervades this excellent western, it remains an honest and hard-hitting look at the realistic adventures of Martin Brady (Robert Mitchum -- who produced). Brady fled to Mexico while still quite young in order to avoid prison in the U.S. -- he had killed his father's murderer. After years spent working as a gunman for a wealthy "padron," he hates white Americans but has to go north to get weapons. Once on the wrong side of the border, he gets into trouble with U.S. Army for not helping them hunt down Apaches. But the people he meets in a small town, one a European immigrant, begin to change his black-and-white view of the world. Meanwhile, he and Ellen Colton (Julie London), the unhappy wife of an army major, begin to fall in love. Several more adventures and a tragedy or two affect the unlikely couple's future -- ultimately for the better. Baseball hero "Satchel" Paige shows up in a cameo role, leading an Afro-American unit of the U.S. army. Mexican star Pedro Armendariz is Brady's boss, Governor Castro. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In his first western since 1939's The Oklahoma Kid, James Cagney is a pillar of integrity in the Pine-Thomas production Run for Cover. Cagney plays Matt Dow, who at the beginning of the film has been released from prison after serving six years for a crime he didn't commit. Heading westward, Matt befriends young Davey Bishop (John Derek), whom he begins to regard as the son (or brother) he never had. When Davey is injured during a train holdup, Matt brings him to the farm of Mr. Swenson (Jean Hersholt) to convalesce. Here Matt falls in love with Swenson's daughter Helga (Viveca Lindfors). When word of Matt's prowess with a gun reaches the local townsfolk, he is offered the job of sheriff. Matt accepts, but on one condition: that the crippled Davey be appointed deputy. Matt's faith in Davey proves to be misplaced when the embittered boy throws in with the dreaded Gentry gang, but an 11th hour regeneration caps this "psychological western." The curiously Freudian relationship between Matt and Davey was par for the course for Nicholas Ray, who directed Run for Cover betwixt and between his more famous endeavors Johnny Guitar and Rebel without a Cause. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Technically a "B" western, Gun Belt is a notch or two above the norm. George Montgomery stars as former outlaw Billy Ringo, whose bank-robbing brother Matt (John Dehner) implicates him in a recent holdup. When Matt is killed in a shootout, Matt's son Chip (Tab Hunter) holds Billy responsible. When not trying to clear his name and patch up his family problems, Billy finds time to romance requisite leading lady Helen Westcott. The most tangible asset of Gun Belt is the superb Technicolor photography, courtesy of William Howard Greene. The film was one of several budget-conscious 1950s productions turned out by producer Edward Small for United Artists release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This last of several movie adaptations of Bret Harte's The Outcasts of Poker Flat stars Cameron Mitchell as a murderous western outlaw, Anne Baxter as his wife, Dale Robertson as a disgraced gambler and Miriam Hopkins as a faded dance hall floozie. All these characters (with a few other socially undesirable types) are trapped in a snowbound mountain cabin. As the chances for rescue fade, the true natures of the cabin's occupants rise to the surface. It is the gambler, outwardly the most cowardly of the bunch, who takes on the outlaw when he threatens the survival of the others. Outcasts of Poker Flat is less downbeat than earlier versions of the story...and, accordingly, less memorable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Delilah and Jeff (Betty Grable and MacDonald Carey) are a successful show-business team, but less successful as husband and wife. Finding that her producer hubby is unfaithful, musical-comedy star Delilah walks out on him, heading for Miami, where she got her start. In the process, Delilah feigns amnesia, then inaugurates a romance with a Miami playboy (Rory Calhoun). His jealousy aroused, Jeff heads to Miami to reclaim his wife, but she leads him on quite a merry chase until she finally allows herself to get caught. One of several 20th Century-Fox musicals produced by comedian George Jessel, Meet Me After the Show is a standard-issue Betty Grable vehicle, highlighted by several sprightly musical numbers, including a captivating routine with Grable and an uncredited Jack Cole and Gwen Verdon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Howard Hawks directed this classic farce about how love attempts to triumph over military red tape after the close of World War II. Capt. Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) is a French officer who is assigned to put a stop to a black market operation in occupied Germany with the help of Lt. Catherine Gates (Ann Sheridan), an American WAC. While their initial meetings are hardly harmonious, in time Rochard and Gates find that opposites really do attract, and they fall in love. The two decide to get married, which seems simple enough, but the moment Gates receives orders to return to the United States and Rochard wants to join her, they soon discover just how complicated the U.S. Army can make things. While the Army has a strict protocol for dealing with "war brides," there is no similar routine for men who marry female Army personnel, so in order to follow his new wife into the States, Rochard has to disguise himself as a WAC. From this moment on, nearly everything that happens to Rochard is an affront to his dignity and/or his patience, from his inability to share a bunk with his new bride to his discovery that Army regulations prevent him from driving a motorcycle (Gates has to take the handlebars, while her husband is forced to ride in a sidecar). As more than one writer has pointed out, while Grant gives a deft comic performance, it's a bit of a stretch to imagine that he's French (but probably no more than to imagine that anyone would really believe that he's a woman). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

First came 20th Century-Fox's Mother Was a Freshman; then, a few months later, the same studio's Father Was a Fullback. Fred MacMurray stars as college football coach George Cooper, whose team can't win a game to save its life. George finds some comfort in the arms of his wife Elizabeth (Maureen O'Hara), but his young daughters Connie (Betty Lynn) and Ellen (Natalie Wood) are too concerned with boys to pay their dad any attention. Connie causes no end of trouble for George by printing a highly imaginative article about her various romances. On the verge of losing his job, George is saved by the arrival of football champ Joe Burch (Richard Tyler). Rudy Vallee virtually repeats his stuffy-suitor characterization from Mother is a Freshman in Father Was a Fullback. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

FBI operative Mark Stevens is dispatched by his boss Lloyd Nolan to infiltrate a criminal gang. Stevens ingratiates himself with Richard Widmark, the gang's leader, then helps concoct a robbery that will deliver the criminals into the hands of the authorities. But there's an informant in the police department, who gets word back to Widmark. Aware that there's a stoolie in his gang, Widmark automatically assumes that his wife Barbara Lawrence is the guilty party, and beats her senseless. Eventually determining that Stevens is the "mole," Widmark methodically plans to kill Stevens during a holdup; by this time, however, the FBI is a step or so ahead of him. Remade in 1955 by Samuel Fuller as House of Bamboo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Slave Girl is the sort of fare that the Universal higher-ups used to dismiss as "tits and sand;" nonetheless, this kind of entertainment (along with the equally lowbrow Abbott and Costello and Ma and Pa Kettle pictures) paid the bills for the studio's more ponderous projects. The slave girl of the title is Yvonne DeCarlo, one of many in servitude to a 19th century Tripoli potentate (Albert Dekker). Two-fisted American diplomat George Brent, accompanied by brawling sailors Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine, has been sent by his government to negotiate the release of hostages captured by the potentate. When negotiations break down, DeCarlo agrees to help Brent free the prisoners through more direct means, provided he takes her away with him. If Slave Girl was supposed to have been taken with a straight face, Universal would never have included brief cutaways to a wisecracking camel (!), whose name is "Humpy" and whose voice is provided by Buddy Hackett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide