Peter Hobbs Movies

Escaping from her childhood life of poverty and abuse on the farm, in the 1930s, Polly Franklin (Pamela Sue Martin) sets her sights on Hollywood as the promised land and leaves home. However, she doesn't get that far - she lands in Chicago instead. Taking the low-paying jobs which are available to her, she quickly finds herself in a situation which is as oppressive as anything she knew at home. Despite her best efforts to keep her head above water, she soon winds up in prison. The best situation in her life comes afterwards, when she becomes a prostitute in a whorehouse run by Anna Sage (Louise Fletcher). However, even this doesn't last, as the police close down the house during a "decency crusade." Back on the streets once again, she meets a wonderful man (Robert Conrad) who claims to be working for the Board of Trade. She tells Anna (who is still her friend) about this new love in her life, and Anna realizes that he must be America's Most Wanted Man, the bank robber John Dillinger. Anna, in danger of being deported, arranges for the police to corner Dillinger and kill him while in Anna and Polly's company. In the ensuing publicity, everyone makes it look as though Polly was Dillinger's betrayer, and her life becomes even more miserable than it was before. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Having solved many a crime in the past, Quincy finds himself in the uneviable position of being accused of criminal behavior. The family of 21-year-old kidney donor Jack Murphy insist that Quincy declared the man dead prematurely in order to harvest his organs. In his efforts to clear his name, Quincy butts heads with sleazy, ambulance-chasing malpractice attorney Raymond Morrison (Granville Van Dusen), who will go to any lengths to win a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the entire LA Coroner's Office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Shortly after placing a phone call to his childhood pal Jim Rockford (James Garner), reporter Eddie Hellinger (Frank McCarthy) is murdered. Within the next few days, Jim receives a lot of packages in the mail, presumably from the late Mr. Hellinger. As a result, a couple of hoodlums kidnap Jim and beat him senseless in a meat locker--and that's only for starters. At the bottom of all this skullduggery is a case of widespread union corruption, and a very ripe piece of cheese. Soap-opera diva Constance Towers appears as Sally, a journalist with some rather fascinating credentials. This episode marks the final series appearance of Noah Beery Jr. as Jim's dad Rocky. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Comic actor Bob Dishyappears in this episode as a pharmacist who has made it his mission in life to protest against artificial food additives. The pharmacist takes his crusade to Mel's diner--where he announces his intention to dramatize his stand by committing suicide! The curious changes in the décor of Mel's Diner which are unique to this episode suggest that it was taped very early in Season Two, but held back for several months. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this animated futuristic tale, a pair of twins must fight for domination of what is left of the world, the good man using the powers of magic in an attempt to save the Earth, and the evil twin taking advantage of the horrors of technology that again threaten to destroy everything. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Attack on Terror: The FBI Versus the Ku Klux Klan is a fact-based, two-part TV movie. The film is a dramatization of the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. The FBI, personified herein by southern operative Wayne Rogers, is brought in to investigate the trio's disappearance. Upon the discovery of the bodies on August 2, 1964, the feds follow a trail of (admittedly skimpy) evidence which leads to the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, headed by the virulent Glen Tuttle (Rip Torn). The first part of Attack on Terror was originally telecast February 20, 1975. The film was based on the book by Don Whitehead. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this follow-up to the 1972 animated hit Fritz the Cat (the first animated feature to receive an X rating), Fritz (voice of Skip Hinnant) is married, out of work, on welfare, and not at all happy. Desperate to blot out the misery of living with his nagging wife (voice of Reva Rose), Fritz smokes as much marijuana as he can afford and finds himself fantasizing about how his life could have been. His Walter Mitty-like adventures find him travelling in outer space, working at the White House, assisting Adolph Hitler, and becoming involved with African-American radicals. Unlike its raunchier predecessor, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat only merited an R rating upon initial release. Neither Robert Crumb (the comic artist who created the character) nor Ralph Bakshi (director of the first film) were involved in its production. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Heavy Traffic represents a follow-up to animator Ralph Bakshi's first feature film, Fritz the Cat (1972). The central character is Michael, the ingenuous son of an Italian father and Jewish mother. An aspiring cartoonist, Michael leaves home in a huff and outrages his family by conducting an affair with an African-American woman. Heavy Traffic was originally intended to be a cartoon adaptation of Hubert Selby's notorious novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, but negotiations fell through, and Bakshi was obliged to cook up a similar but not identical "mean streets" plotline. (Last Exit to Brooklyn was made as a live-action film in 1989.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Carl Betz) guest stars as Jeff Williams, a respected college professor who is being shaken down by a seedy blackmailer. During the payoff, tempers flare and the blackmailer shoots Williams in the shoulder. Terrified that an investigation will cause him to lose a much-needed promotion--to say nothing of his job--Williams not only refuses to cooperate with the police, but puts his own life in peril by concealing his bullet wound. Geraldine Brooks costars as Williams' beleagured wife Alice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The focus in "A Lonely Man" is on Victor Sen Yung as Ponderosa houseboy Hop Sing; indeed, Sen Yung is the only series regular to appear in this episode. Having fallen in love with a white woman (Kelly Jean Peters, Hop Sing runs afoul of a racist judge (Peter Hobbs), who eagerly digs up an old and obscure anti-miscegenation law. Commendably, there is no pat or predictable ending: even in its thirteenth season, Bonanza was unafraid to take a harsh and uncompromising look at the face of bigotry. Written by John Hawkins, "A Lonely Man" originally aired on January 2, 1972. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"Mom" is Connie Stevens, who stars in this made-for-TV comedy. Stevens plays a small-town waitress who is appointed the housemother for a rambunctious fraternity house on the local college campus. The frat boys assume that freewheeling Stevens will allow them to party to their hearts' content, but "Mom" takes her job quite seriously and compels the students to behave themselves. She also becomes involved in a campus feminist movement that threatens to topple the college's male power structure (headed by dean Van Johnson). Call Her Mom was the pilot for a Connie Stevens TV series that found neither a sponsor nor a network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jerry Paris's Star Spangled Girl (1971), based on Neil Simon's play (a notorious Broadway flop), never made much of an impression in theaters, which is understandable with a cheap, overlit television look to most of it and Davy Jones singing the song "Girl" over the main titles (which got a lot more visibility from its use in the Brady Bunch episode in which Marsha has to get the singer to appear at her school), it looked too much like a small-screen production blown up; it was dated from the first frame of its opening credits. Tony Roberts and Todd Susman play Andy Hobart and Norman Cornell, a pair of self-styled political radicals living in California, beating the system by stealing as much as they can from neighborhood shops and conning the rest out of anyone around, all for the greater goal of keeping their underground newspaper alive and kicking. Their lifestyle is a cross between the ideas in Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book and Max Bialystock's dalliances in The Producers. Into their midst moves a transplant from rural Florida, Amy Cooper (Sandy Duncan) (who was called Sophie Rauschmeyer in the play), a perky aspiring Olympic swimmer and old-fashioned, patriotic Southern girl, and as corn-fed a hick as you found in movies in 1971 without a cynical bone in her body. Norman, a hopelessly neurotic and sexually dysfunctional writer, falls in love with her almost instantly upon encountering her; not, mind you, based on her personality or even her looks, but her smell. Andy is, at first, oblivious to her charms and content to maintain his relationship with their libidinous landlady (Elizabeth Allen, totally wasted here), paying their rent with all-night barhopping and trysts involving skydiving. At some point, however, Amy decides she has to have Andy (based on his smell...), and he feels the same way. Andy and Norman end up -- Odd Couple-style -- in conflict over their differing approaches to life; the Odd Couple allusions are further amplified by Roberts' remarkable resemblance to Walter Matthau in his manner and delivery of dialogue. The story is resolved as unconvincingly as it's played. It's also a sign of just how unfunny the play was in that the funniest moment in the movie is new to the screenplay and comes just a minute after the opening credits with a gag referring to a certain John Schlesinger movie from 1969. It's not much of a gag, but it's funnier than anything in the main body of the movie, which otherwise plays like a terminally extended version of a Love American Style episode. The original Broadway production, incidentally, starred Richard Benjamin, Anthony Perkins, and Connie Stevens. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This made-for-TV movie stars Herschel Bernardi as a middle-aged widower, contentedly resigned to his bachelorhood. Bernardi's well-meaning friends and relatives are tireless in their efforts to hitch him up with a new bride. All the candidates are played by prominent actresses (Shirley Jones, Tina Louise, June Lockhart et. al.); few of them are compatible with poor Mr. Bernardi. The bemused bachelor is determined to remain unmarried until he meets a lovely widow who is similarly indisposed to matrimony. Under the directorial guidance of Jerry Paris, But I Don't Want to Get Married rolls along with TV-sitcom efficiency. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide