Hal Holbrook Movies

Following the phenomenal box-office success of his seminal horror classic Halloween, director John Carpenter teamed up with producer Debra Hill for a second independent horror project, this time in the mode of an old-fashioned ghost story. The end result was The Fog, a spooky romp about a dark secret that returns to haunt the Pacific fishing community of Antonio Bay on the 100th anniversary of the town's charter. Carpenter sets the mood in the film's prologue, which features grizzled old sea salt Mr. Machen (John Houseman) spinning ghost stories for a group of local children. For his final tale, he recounts the legend of the Elizabeth Dane -- a ship which crashed 100 years ago against the very rocks upon which the children are sitting. Meanwhile, as the clock strikes midnight on the fateful anniversary of that disaster, eerie phenomena begin to plague the town as a dense fog bank creeps toward the bay. Seeming to appear from nowhere and emitting a ghostly glow, the fog surrounds a small trawler filled with drunken fishermen, who glimpse the vague outline of a decrepit sailing vessel before being brutally killed by shadowy figures brandishing hooks and swords. That morning, news of their disappearance is relayed to the town by Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau), owner and operator of the local radio station. The news reaches the wife of one of the fishermen, city councilwoman Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh) and local boy Nick Castle (Tom Atkins), who takes a trip out to the abandoned boat to investigate, accompanied by teenage drifter Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis). As the day progresses, a grim series of events paints a decidedly unpleasant picture of Antonio Bay's founders, and foreshadows the ghostly retribution that awaits the town's present-day residents. When Mrs. Williams visits local priest Fr. Malone (Hal Holbrook) about a benediction for that night's centennial ceremony, he relates a ghastly tale discovered in his grandfather's journal, which details the town fathers' decision to murder a group of lepers who had planned to build a commune outside of Antonio Bay. Just as the night's proceedings are haunted by the horrors of the past, the ghosts of the murdered dead have returned to seek symbolic revenge by claiming the lives of six townspeople, arriving amid the ominous fog bank which has completely engulfed Antonio Bay. Carpenter reportedly shot and inserted additional gory scenes after the original 'PG' cut failed to impress preview audiences. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

After Third World terrorists abduct the Commander-in-Chief, it's up to Secret Service head William Shatner to get him back in this thriller based on a novel by Charles Templeton. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The bizarre premise for this often remote and uninvolving drama is that an otherwise apparently normal man can become so alienated from his own feelings and his own wife and children that he plans their murder. Paul Steward (Hal Holbrook) and his wife (Louise Fletcher) are about as interesting as a TV test pattern. Although Paul has realized the American Dream -- that it to say, he has money and is successful in business -- he finds the dream hollow and meaningless. Instead of waking up, he decides that his family is to blame for everything and begins to make elaborate plans for killing them off, talking it over with others and disguising it as a fictional story for his magazine. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Astronauts Charles Brubaker, John Walker, and Peter Willis (James Brolin, O.J. Simpson, and Sam Waterston, respectively) are hailed as heroes when they become the first men to be rocketed to Mars. Actually the space travelers are as phony as their mission controller, Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook); to avert a failure that might cost the space program its funding, the Mars-bound vessel has been sent up without a crew, while the helmeted astronauts sit on a movie soundstage, pretending to be in outer space for the benefit of the TV cameras. Unfortunately the Mars ship crashes on arrival, making the astronaut trio thoroughly expendable. Investigative reporter Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould), who's smelled a rat all along, races against time to prevent NASA from "terminating" the hapless astronauts in order to cover up the conspiracy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by James Lee Barrett and Liam O'Brien from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel trilogy by Conrad Richter, The Awakening Land is the story of 27 years (1790 through 1817) in the life of frontierswoman Sayward Luckett Wheeler, played by Elizabeth Montgomery. Amidst the expected hardships and setbacks, emphasis is placed upon the loves in Sayward's life: love of her family, the poverty-stricken Pennsylvania Lucketts; love of her husband, a poetic Massachussetts lawyer known as "The Solitary" (Hal Holbrook); and love and of her land in the Ohio territory. Actress/choreographer Marge Champion, the ex-wife of Awakening Land director Boris Sagal, added immeasurably to the versimilitude of the drama by instructing the actors in the proper speech patterns and body language of the region in which the story takes place. Emmy Award nominations went to actors Montgomery, Holbrook and Jeanette Nolan. This 7-hour miniseries was originally telecast in three parts, on February 19, 20 and 21, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This videotaped version of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-winning play Our Town stars Hal Holbrook as the Stage Manager. Acting as narrator and assuming several different interlocutory roles throughout the production, Holbrook shows us life in Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, in the first few years of the 20th century. The focus is on the romance and marriage of Emily Webb (Glynnis O'Connor) and George Gibbs (Robby Benson); the play ends at Emily's funeral, with the girl's spirit commenting detachedly on the miracle of life. In keeping with Wilder's stage directions, the play is enacted on a bare stage with minimal props, allowing the audience to fill in the rest with imagination. Also starring Ned Beatty, Sada Thompson, Ronny Cox and Barbara Bel Geddes, this TV adaptation of Our Town originally aired May 30, 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An expensive war epic, Midway emulates The Longest Day and Tora! Tora! Tora! in attempting to re-create a famous World War II battle from both the American and Japanese viewpoints. The 1942 battle of Midway was the turning point of the War in the Pacific; the Japanese invasion fleet was destroyed, and America's string of humiliating defeats was finally broken. Though the battle itself was sufficiently dramatic to fill two films, Midway also has plotline involving the mixed-race relationship between Ensign Garth (Edward Albert), son of Navy Captain Matt Garth (Charlton Heston), and Haruko Sakura (Christina Kokubo), a Hawaiian girl of Japanese descent. The real-life personages depicted herein include American Admirals Nimitz (Henry Fonda), Halsey (Robert Mitchum) and Spruance (Glenn Ford), and Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (Toshiro Mifune, his voice once again dubbed by Paul Frees, whom Mifune personally selected for the job). For its original road show release, Midway was offered in the "Sensurround" process, which electronically shook and vibrated the audience's chairs during the battle sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force concerns itself with a vigilante group that has targeted notorious scofflaws for extermination. When a prominent gang boss or drug-runner is set free by the airheaded liberal courts, a covert group of "avengers" is soon on hand to blow the miscreant to bits. While detective Dirty Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is no great friend of civil liberties, he is dead set against wholesale murder as a solution to legal loopholes. Discovering that all the killings have been committed by the same weapon, Callahan reaches the conclusion that his on-the-edge partner, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), is responsible. But the answer is less transparent than that, as Harry learns almost at the cost of his own life. Co-scripted by John Milius and Michael Cimino, Magnum Force was followed by three additional Dirty Harry installments: The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pueblo is a 2-hour videotaped special, originally telecast March 29, 1973 on ABC Theatre. Hal Holbrook stars as commander Lloyd M. Bucher, who in January of 1968 was forced to surrender the USS Pueblo to North Korea. The drama is staged in an impressionistic manner, with dramatized transcripts from Bucher's subsequent Naval Review Board testimony flashing back to isolated moments of terror and torment during the Pueblo crew's 11-month sojourn in a North Korean prison camp. Despite network restrictions of the era, Pueblo is refreshingly frank, right down to the first-ever TV display of a familiar obscene gesture (which the American prisoners explain away to their captors as a "salute"!) Written by Stanley R. Greenberg, Pueblo was later adapted to a stage play, starring Shepperd Strudwick as Bucher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A small-town California sheriff attempts to uncover facts behind the killing of a pregnant woman by her Doberman pinscher. James Garner stars in this mystery with performances by June Allyson and Ann Rutherford among others. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Though Mia Farrow came to prominence as costar of the TV series Peyton Place, much was made by network publicity flacks of Ms. Farrow's TV-movie debut in Goodbye Raggedy Ann. She plays an aspiring actress whose spectacular lack of good fortune in New York utterly destroys her will to go on. Mia is on the verge of suicide, when writer Hal Holbrook arrives on the scene and tries to talk her out of doing herself in. With Holbrook's guidance, Ms. Farrow realigns her notions of true success and gives life a second chance. Mia Farrow has always been a variable actress, but she's on target for most of Goodbye Raggedy Ann--whenever she isn't undermined by the corniness of Jack Sher's teleplay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although the characters' names were changed, The Great White Hope was a thinly veiled account of the trials and tribulations of boxer Jack Johnson, based on the play by Howard Sackler and directed by Martin Ritt. James Earl Jones stars as boxing great Jack Jefferson, who defeats Frank Bardy Larry Pennell in a Reno, Nevada bout to become the world's first black heavyweight champion. After crossing a state line with his white girlfriend Eleanor (Jane Alexander in her feature debut), however, Jack is arrested and tried under the miscegenation-barring Mann Act. Found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison, Jack escapes and leaves the U.S., but he's dogged by his now bad reputation and can't get honest work as a fighter. Offered his freedom from criminal charges if he'll agree to a fixed fight in Cuba that will restore the title to a white contender, Jack refuses and Eleanor commits suicide, their life on the run overwhelming her. Jack finally accepts the bout in Havana, but he fights his opponent with everything he's got. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide