Thomas Brown Henry Movies

In this western, set in 1875, an agent for the National Detective Agency is assigned to find the murderous outlaw gang that has been breaking convicts out of prison and helping them to commit more crimes. The resulting crimes cause the bounties upon the fugitives' heads to rise. The outlaws then kill the convicts and reap the generous rewards. Fortunately, the agent succeeds in infiltrating the group and killing the leader. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When scatterbrained millionairess Kiz Bouchet (Kathleen Crowley) insists that somebody is trying to murder her, Beau Maverick (Roger Moore) is convinced that the girl is out of her mind. But he soon comes to believe Kiz's story--and in so doing, he tries to thwart a scheme hatched by the girl's cousin (Peggy McCay) and a crooked doctor (Tristam Coffin) to cheat Kiz out of her inheritance. Devotees of humorist Mark Twain will get a chuckle out of the character name bestowed upon supporting actor Whit Bissell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Missing for two years and presumed dead, hard-hearted businessman Hartley Bassett (Thomas B. Henry) suddenly returns and begins make everyone's life miserable all over again, especially his wife Sybil (Peggy Converse). After he fires his heir apparent Peter Dawson (Philip Ober), Bassett is murdered and Dawson is accused. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is approached by two eyewitnesses, Richard Hart (a young Robert Redford) and his wife Teddi (Cindy Robbins), who can prove that Bassett is innocent. There are only two problems: each witness claims that a different person is the guilty party--and both witnesses abuptly vanish just before the trial! This is the first episode of Perry Mason's fourth season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is the celebrated Maverick spoof of Jack Webb's Dragnet, complete with deadpan narration by protagonist Bret Maverick (James Garner). Travelling by stagecoach to the town of Apocalypse, Bret is in the middle of a blackjack game with a tinhorn gambler (John Vivyan) when the coach is held up an effusively friendly masked bandit, who wears distinctively colorful bandana. Subsequently endeavoring to recover his stolen money, Bret follows the trail of clues to a whiskey-loving cowpoke named Johnny Rain (William Reynolds), who honestly can't remember if he has been robbing stagecoaches while drunk. Dance hall gal Millie Reid (Dolores Donlon) is a key player in the "Just the facts, ma'am" intrigue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Arlene Howell makes her last series appearance as Southern-fried sharpster Cindy Lou Brown in this episode, in which Bret Maverick (James Garner) hires on as guide for a stagecoach line. En route to the far-flung outpost of Fort Doom, Bret discovers that among his passengers is the redoubtable Cindy Lou, who happens to be harboring a secret. Likewise keeping certain vital facts to herself--such as her plan to kill her husband--is another attractive passenger, Mrs. Chapman (Nancy Gates). The plot intrigues begin to breed like rabbits when the stagecoach is attacked by marauders. (Trivia alert: Diane McBain, appearing in this episode as Charlotte, later starred on the Warner Bros. TV cop show Surfside Six, which had been designed as a replacement for the same studio's Bourbon Street Beat...which, in turn, costarred Arlene Howell). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A few days before her wedding, wealthy Lisa Garrick (Pamela Lincoln) insists that her father move the ceremony out of the family's massive ballroom. It seems that, as a child, Lisa had a recurring dream in which, while standing in the middle of the ballroom, she was killed by a falling chandelier. Ultimately, and despite everyone's precautions, Lisa's premonitions come true--but not in the way that she imagined. This episode marks one of the first TV appearances by prolific character actress Julie Payne, daughter of film star John Payne)--as well as a guest spot by movie veteran Thomas B. Henry, perennial "general" in many a 1950s sci-fi/fantasy epic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A pre-superstardom Charles Bronson plays a US marshal in Showdown at Boot Hill. Tracking down a wanted murderer to a small town, Bronson kills him in a shootout. It develops that the dead man, whose criminal past was unknown to his fellow townsfolk, was a popular and highly respected member of the community. The decedent's friends refuse to identify the body, thereby denying Bronson the opportunity of collecting the reward money. At first angered by this, Bronson is gradually won over to the townspeoples' point of view. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mac Hyman's hilarious barracks novel No Time for Sergeants was adapted for TV by Ira Levin in 1955, with newcomer Andy Griffith as bumptious Air Force draftee Will Stockdale. This TV version was soon afterward transformed into a Broadway play, and then a movie, again with Griffith in the lead. Brought to the Air Force base in handcuffs because his farmer father has been hiding his draft notices, good-natured Will becomes the target of ridicule for the other transcripts. Especially nasty is Private Irvin (Murray Hamilton), but Will is able to forgive him because he knows that Irvin is suffering from some mysterious disease called ROTC. Will's best pal is hot-headed private Ben (Nick Adams), who wants to be transferred to the Infantry and convinces Will to try for the same goal. Slowly becoming aware that the trusting, naïve Will may prove to be a troublemaker, career sergeant King (Myron McCormick), who wants nothing more out of life than a little peace and quiet, tries to keep Stockdale out of mischief by appointing him "PLO" -- Permanent Latrine Orderly, a dubious distinction in which Will takes enormous pride. Later on, King tries to pull strings to get Will transferred, succeeding only in losing his sergeant's stripes. The story goes off on a zany tangent when Will and Ben find themselves on a crippled plane in flight. They manage to escape with their lives, but all evidence suggests that they've been killed in the plane's crash. Imagine the dismay of newly reinstated Sergeant King when Will and Ben show up in his office -- just as the entire base is gathered for a memorial service for the two "fallen heroes." Featured in a minor role as a "coordination officer" is Griffth's future TV cohort Don Knotts, while Sammy Jackson, who played Stockdale in a 1964 sitcom version of No Time for Sergeants, shows up in an unbilled bit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This confusingly-titled science-fiction thriller is both an artifact of its time and a surprisingly forward-looking film, in terms of plot. On the one hand, its plot makes it a kind of 1950's B-movie antecedent to The Andromeda Strain -- on the other, it owes a lot to the popular police procedural films and television shows of the decade or so leading up to its production. The title refers to an advanced US satellite sent into orbit, in part to gather and return samples of material from space. The latter includes a microscopic organism believed to be the same existing on the planet Mars which, so one scientist, Dr. Charles Pommer (Paul Frees), believes, is responsible for that world's red coloration. Pommer, who is permitted to take the sample to his home laboratory, is brilliant and single-minded in his work; but his intellect and ambition, coupled with his unstable personality and chaotic personal life, leads to disaster. He discovers that the organism, which he christens "Blood Rust," can multiply incredibly fast in Earth's environment, and attach itself to (and ultimately consume any living host creature, including human beings. The alien organism proves his undoing, and he lives just long enough to warn project security chief John Hand (Bill Williams) of the danger -- but the warning comes too late to prevent Pommer's ex-wife (Lyn Thomas) from becoming an unwitting carrier of the organism. It's up to Hand and his assistant, Radigan (Robert Ellis), to find this woman -- whose identity they don't even know at first -- even as she tries (for purely personal reasons) to elude the authorities, not knowing of the danger she presents to herself and the world. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

One of special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen's pre-Seventh Voyage of Sinbad efforts, 20 Million Miles to Earth borrows a few pages from King Kong. An American spaceship crashlands off the coast of Sicily. The rescue party discovers that the astronauts have inadvertently brought back a curious gelatinous mass from the planet Venus. This lump of goo rapidly evolves into be a living reptilian creature, which scientists label an "Ymir". While being subjected to laboratory experimentation, the Ymir begins growing by leaps and bounds, and before long the gigantic monstrosity has escaped and is wreaking havoc in Rome. After battling a zoo elephant and taking a swim in the Tiber, the gargantuan creature holes up in the Colosseum, where the film's pyrotechnic finale occurs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This American-International horror potboiler was originally issue on a double bill with I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (also directed by Herbert L. Strock). The lovely and graceful Sandra Harrison is quite appealing as Nancy Perkins, an innocent girl who falls under the spell of e-vil chemistry teacher Miss Branding (Louise Lewis). Putting Nancy under hypnosis, Miss Branding converts the poor damsel to vampirism, committing murders and then forgetting all about them. The villainess receives her comeuppance when Nancy refuses to snap out of her spell, transforming into a slavering vampiric beast. To cover all bets, Blood of Dracula includes a soft-rock musical number, performed by one of Nancy's potential male victims. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bret and Bart Maverick (James Garner, Jack Kelly) bid on the salvage rights to a derelict cargo ship, the Apolonia. It turns out that someone is willing to commit murder to steal those rights away--which naturally arouses the curiosity of the Mavericks. In their efforts to determine why the sunken cargo is so valuable, our heroes find themselves up against a gang of drug smugglers. This episode is adapted from The Wrecker, a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Calling Homicide was another of Bill Elliot's "working-man detective" efforts of the 1950s. This time, Elliot plays LA sheriff's department operative Lieutant Doyle. While searching for a cop killer, Doyle discerns a connection between the first murder and the strangling of a pretty model. The villain's modus operandi involves dynamite and nitroglycerine, leading to quite a few hairy suspense sequences. One of the victims is played by Jeanne Cooper, future TV soap opera doyenne and the mother of actor Corbin Bernsen. Calling Homicide benefits from the brisk direction of Edward Bernds. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide