Charles Herbert Movies

After rescuing several children from a burning school bus, a seriously injured Kimble (David Janssen)--alias "George Porter"--is brought into the home of Al Springer (Frank Overton), sheriff of Northoak. Unaware of Kimble's true identity, Al and his wife Wilma (Nancy Wickmire) take a strong liking to the recuperating stranger, as does everyone else in town. Will this surfeit of goodwill save Kimble from being taken into custody by Lt. Gerard (Barry Morse), or will Al place duty above friendship and turn the fugitive in? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Quickie-flick entrepreneur Bert I. Gordon makes a bid for the kiddie trade in The Boy and the Pirates. Charles Herbert, the juvenile star of 13 Ghosts, plays a contemporary kid who finds a bottle on the beach. The bottle contains genie Joseph Turkel (a loyal member of Stanley Kubrick's "stock company"), who whisks Herbert back in time and on board the pirate ship captained by Bluebeard (Murvyn Vye, whose performance is as shamelessly over-the-top as anything concocted by Robert Newton). Reams of stock footage later, Herbert escapes Bluebeard's clutches, together with his new friend Susan Gordon (Bert I. Gordon's daughter). Veteran Hollywood scrivener Lillie Hayward brings some much-needed class and polish to the low-budget proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While being transported to his execution, murderer Calvin Gannis (Frank Overton) escapes his captors, and after narrowly avoiding a fatal car accident he hides out in ghost town. The only other residents in this Godforsaken spot are widow Sally Dolan (Sallie Brophy) and her son Joey (Charles Herbert). As the hours creep by, the three lost souls are baffled by a series of strange and inexplicable occurrences--including a long-dead oak tree which suddenly returns to life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As his wife Helen (Julie Adams) and son Steve (Charles Herbert) are off exploring an abandoned mine, recovering alcoholic Carl Archer (Charles Aidman) remains in his room, struggling desperately to stay on the wagon. Suddenly, he has a vision of a strange, disheveled woman, who warns him that his wife and son are in grave danger. Can it be that this is merely a drunkard's hallucination--or are Helen and Steve about to meet with tragedy? This episode features several sci-fi/fantasy movie veterans, including Julie Adams (Creature from the Black Lagoon), Charles Herbert (13 Ghost) and William Schallert (The Man from Planet X). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cary Grant scored still another box-office smash with his 1958 vehicle Houseboat. Grant plays a widowed father who packs himself and his spoiled kiddies off to a ramshackle houseboat. Enter Sophia Loren, who is attempting to break loose from her tyrannical father's (Eduardo Cianelli) iron grip. She hires on as Grant's housekeeper and his children's governess. Though Grant struggles valiantly to maintain a "hands off" policy, he and Loren are billing and cooing by fadeout time--but not before plenty of reversals, recriminations and sitcom-style mishaps. As a bonus, the kids end up behaving like little angels (not surprising, since Loren has threatened from time to time to turn them into genuine angels if they don't toe the line). According to most sources, the on-screen romance between Cary Grant and Sophia Loren in Houseboat spilled over into their private lives as well, though Sophia put an end to this dalliance when she married Italian movie mogul Carlo Ponti. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wealthy Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) is discovered late at night in the factory owned by her husband Andre (David Hedison). Helene stands beside a huge metal press, which has crushed the head and arm of her husband. Held for murder, the near-catatonic Helene refuses to tell anyone--not even Andre's brother Francois (Vincent Price)--why she did it. Francois cannot help but notice that Helene reacts in mortal terror when a tiny flies zips through the room. Nor can he disregard the statement made by Helene's son Philippe (Charles Herbert) that the fly has a curious white head and leg. When Francois pretends that he's captured the fly, Helene relaxes enough to tell her story. It seems that Andre, a scientist, had been working on a matter transmitter, which he claimed could disintegrate matter, then reintegrate it elsewhere. After a few experiments, Andre tried the transmitter himself. Just as he stepped into the disintegration chamber, a fly also flew into the chamber. We aren't immediately shown the results of this, save for the fact that Andre afterward insists upon keeping his head and arm covered. Alone with her husband, Helene abruptly removes the covering, revealing that Andre now bears the head of a fly! His atoms have become mixed up with the fly, and now he is unable to reverse the procedure. Deciding that his transmitter will be a bogy rather than a blessing to mankind, Andre smashes the apparatus and burns his notes. He then instructs Helene, via body language, to crush his fly-like head and arm in the press. Neither Francois nor inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall) believe the story...until, while staring intently at a spider's web in the garden, they see a tiny entrapped fly with Andre's head and arm, tinnily screaming "Help me! Help me!" as the slavering spider approaches (If you're wondering why Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall do not look one another in the eye during this scene, it is because they couldn't deliver their dialogue without dissolving into laughter). Infinitely subtler than the admittedly excellent 1986 remake, the 1958 The Fly is one of the definitive big-budget horror films of its decade. Best bit: the prismatic "fly's eye view" of the screaming Patricia Owens. The Fly was adapted from George Langelaan's short story by James (Shogun) Clavell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Of the many filmed versions of the October 26, 1881, O.K. Corral shootout in Tombstone, Arizona, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was one of the most elaborate and star-studded. Burt Lancaster plays Wyatt Earp, the renowned lawman, while Kirk Douglas is consumptive gambler (and gunfighter) Doc Holliday -- the two meet in difficult circumstances, as Earp discovers that Holiday, for whom he initially feels little but loathing, is being held on a trumped up murder charge and being set up for a lynching, and intercedes on his behalf. The action shifts to Dodge City, Kansas, where Earp is marshal and Holiday, hardly grateful for the good turn, shows up right in the middle of all kinds of trouble, this time mostly on Earp's side of the ledger. And, finally, the two turn up in Tombstone, Arizona, where Wyatt's brother Virgil is city marshal, and where Wyatt finally gets to confront the Clanton/McLowery outlaw gang (led by Lyle Bettger as Ike Clanton). Since the time-span of the actual gunfight was at most 90 seconds, the bulk of the film concerns the tensions across many months leading up to the famous battle. As scripted by Leon Uris (from a magazine story by George Scullin), the story involves two unrelated but parallel plot-lines -- a long-standing vendetta against Holliday and the efforts of Earp to bring the Clanton/McLowery gang to justice -- that are eventually drawn together on the streets of Tombstone. Woven into these proceedings are Earp's and Holliday's romantic dalliances with lady gambler Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming) and Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet), whose switch in affections from Holiday to outlaw fast-gun Johnny Ringo (John Ireland) only rachets up gambler's rage and the reasons behind the bloody climax. There are plenty of bribery attempts, terse dialogue exchanges and "Mexican standoffs" before the inevitable gunfight takes place. Director John Sturges takes some dramatic license with this confrontation, as well, stretching things out to nearly six minutes, but this is after all an "A" production, and a minute-and-a-half of gunfire just wouldn't cut it. The huge cast of western veterans includes Earl Holliman as Charles Bassett, Dennis Hopper as Billy Clanton, Kenneth Tobey as Bat Masterson, Lee Van Cleef as Ed Bailey, Jack Elam as Tom McLowery, and John Hudson, DeForest Kelley and Martin Milner as Virgil, Morgan, and James Earp, respectively. And there's that Dimitri Tiomkin score, pushing the movie's momentum as relentlessly as the two driven heroes, complete with a song (sung by Frankie Laine) underscoring the major transitions of scenes that's impossible to forget, once heard. Sturges himself would produce and direct a more fact-based and realistic version of the story -- focusing mostly on its aftermath -- a decade later, entitled Hour of the Gun, starring James Garner, Jason Robards, Jr., and Robert Ryan, which wasn't nearly as attractive or successful. But after Gunfight At The OK Corral, there would not be so impressive a lineup of talent at the OK Corral again until the twin Earp biopics of 1994, Wyatt Earp and Tombstone.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jeff Chandler plays big-city lawyer James Gordon Blane, who heads to a small Nevada town to defend a playboy (Phillip Reed) accused of murder. Blane wins the case, but is then himself charged with accepting bribes. The man behind this accusation is vindictive town sheriff Nick Hoak (Jack Carson), who controls all illegal activities in the area. When Blane's legman Billy Giles ends up dead, the lawyer deduces that Hoak was also behind the killing for which the playboy was blamed. Blane struggles to defend his reputation in court while his wife (Jeanne Crain) attempts to mount evidence against Sheriff Hoak. Despite its stellar cast and slick direction (by Jack Arnold), The Tattered Dress comes across as cheap and tawdry -- befitting its seedy subject matter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though based on a true story, the principal inspiration for The Night Holds Terror was the success of Paramount's The Desperate Hours. Jack Kelly plays well-to-do businessman Gene Courtier, who makes the mistake of his life when he picks up hitchhiker Victor Gosset (Vincent Edwards). Soon afterward, Gosset and his criminal confederates (John Cassavetes, David Cross) are holding Courtier and his family hostage. Upon learning that Courtier has a lot of money in the bank, the trio kidnap the businessman and hold him for ransom. Working in concert with Courtier's wife Doris (Hildy Parks), the FBI manages to keep apace with the criminals via the telephone system. Only occasionally resorting to family-held-captive cliches, The Night Holds Terror is an effective suspenser. Leading lady Hildy Parks later became an influential TV and theatrical producer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

At the height of their TV fame, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were contracted by MGM to make two theatrical films. The first of these, The Long, Long Trailer, stars Lucy and Desi as an upwardly mobile couple who decide to buy a trailer so they can live together while his job takes him around the country. Thanks to their naivete in such matters, they end up with a huge, bulky RV that costs five times what they planned. Their "seeing America" trip turns out to be a slapstick disaster, topped by Lucy's foolish decision to hide a heavy rock collection in the trailer; as Desi tries to maneuver a treacherous mountain road, the weighted-down home-on-wheels nearly loses its balance and almost tumbles off a cliff. The story is told in flashback, as Desi 'splains the breakup of his marriage to a motel court manager. Happily, Lucy shows up, goes "Waaaaah" a little, and all is forgiven. Despite the fact that audiences were getting Ball and Arnaz for free each week on television, The Long, Long Trailer was a big hit at the box-office. The film was adapted by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich from a novel by Clinton Twiss, with uncredited assistance from the I Love Lucy writing staff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide