Arch Whiting Movies

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

Syndicate chieftan Rudy Keppler (John Vernon) leaves the security of his Caribbean hideway and sneaks back into the States. He plans to kill Nick Thomas (Vic Mohica), the young hood who has murdered Keppler's brother in a Mob power play. Striking while the iron is hot, Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) hopes to persuade Keppler to get even in a nonviolent fashion by testifying against his former colleagues--but Keppler isn't buying. A young Joan Van Ark appears as a duplicitous Syndicate moll. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) must prevent grieving father Robert Hobbs (Ed Nelson) from taking the law in his own hands. Hobbs' son was murdered by Artis Pierce (Kaz Garas), who unfortunately was released on a technicality. Now nothing can stop Hobbs from exacting his own brand of vengeance--and making himself a murderer in the process. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While employed at the winery owned by Pete Crandall (James Gregory), Kimble (David Janssen) happens to be on hand when the leader of a grape picker's strike is murdered by Crandall's treacherous son Carl (Roy Thinnes). As the only witness to the killing, Kimble could easily clear his fellow worker Morales (Carlos Romero), whom Carl has framed for the crime. Unfortunately, Kimble dare not contact the police for fear of being arrested himself, so he enlists the aid of Morale's wife Elena (Pilar Seurat)--while Carl dispatches a team of hired thugs to make certain that no one will ever tell anyone that he pulled the trigger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Upon learning of the death of his father, fugitive Richard Kimble (David Janssen) arranges a secret meeting with his sister Donna (Jacqueline Scott) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. What Donna doesn't know is that her every move is being monitored by Mike Ballinger (James Daly), the prosecutor who presided over Kimble's murder trial. Figuring that something is afoot, Ballinger alerts Lt. Gerard (Barry Morse)--and it looks as if Kimble is finally going to be ensared in an inescapable trap. Lin McCarthy appears in this episode as the latest of several actors cast as Donna's long-suffering husband Len Taft. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea brought numerous changes to the series, most notably the addition of color photography -- and the addition of color photography seemed to herald a greater emphasis on science fiction scripts; however, unlike Lost in Space, producer Irwin Allen's other science fiction series of this period, which became distinctly more juvenile when it switched to color, the overall approach to Voyage didn't change radically. Indeed, it seemed as though Allen was willing to lavish an even bigger budget on the show and keep its reasonably adult orientation. The other major addition to the series was a new device associated with the submarine Seaview, in the form of the Flying Sub. The Seaview had always carried mini-subs, small lightly powered two-man underwater vehicles, which were a carry-over from the 1961 movie Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but the Flying Sub, known officially as FS-1, was a snub-winged vehicle resembling a manta ray that could emerge from its berth below the larger sub's observation deck and not only move just as quickly through the water as the mother ship but also, using its jets, streak into the air and fly at supersonic speeds. This helped to move scripts along at a much faster pace, as key characters could now span the globe when necessary, and it allowed for action to be divided between two or more locales. Although writers quickly fell into the routine plot device of having the Flying Sub become trapped or otherwise disabled with one of the principal characters aboard, when they avoided this plot element its presence worked wonders in speeding the pace of the action along.

The core cast of characters and actors remained the same during the second season, led by Richard Basehart as Admiral Harriman Nelson, designer of the submarine Seaview, and David Hedison as the Seaview's captain, Commander Lee Crane, with two additions. Terry Becker joined the cast as Chief Francis Sharkey, the tough, streetwise, New York-accented top non-commissioned officer on the boat; and Alan Hunt joined as crewman Stu Riley, taking his place alongside Del Monroe's Kowalski and Paul Trinka's Patterson among the recurring members of the crew. Riley was originally supposed to add some youth appeal to the series, depicted as a surfer who joins the Seaview's crew, but the episode that introduced him in this way was never shot.

The series retained its adult orientation for the second season, not yet falling into the trap that Lost in Space subsequently did of aiming its appeal at preteens. Indeed, aside from the occasional "monster of the week" adventures, there were scripts dealing with surprisingly sophisticated stories, of attempts by the military to take control of the government, and espionage tales that borrowed freely from the work of Alfred Hitchcock in some details -- and one story involving an assassin with a particularly nasty needle-weapon. The episode that generated the most press, however, was the season opener, "Jonah and the Whale," in which a diving bell carrying Admiral Nelson and a Russian scientist is swallowed by a gigantic sperm whale, and Crane must mount a rescue mission. The sets and special effects were impressive enough to generate magazine articles, and it also benefited from the presence of a new opening and closing theme, as well as a full score composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The new title theme was apparently intended for permanent use on the series but was only used on this one episode -- Allen apparently regarded it as too dark and mysterious for the show, apart from this one episode. There was also one episode, "The Sky's on Fire," that was essentially a rewrite of the plot from the 1961 feature film, about the Van Allen Radiation Belt bursting into flame; and "The Death Ship" was a retelling of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians with the Seaview as the setting for a string of murders. A few of the episodes were throwaways -- almost generic thrillers, such as "Terror on Dinosaur Island" -- but most were of distinctly superior quality to the seasons that followed. And at least one, "The Cyborg," seemed to overlap in some ways with the plot of the Star Trek episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," involving a plot to replace Admiral Nelson -- and through him the world's leaders -- with cyborg replicas. One odd note concerning this season of the show is that it featured the one extended absence of any of the stars -- due to an illness, Basehart was essentially absent from a handful of late-season shows, including "The Monster's Web" and "The Menfish," and in the latter was basically replaced by veteran movie star Gary Merrill, portraying another scientist/admiral. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide