Kim Hunter Movies
Born Janet Cole, American actress Kim Hunter trained at the Actors Studio. At age 17, she debuted onscreen in The Seventh Victim (1943) before appearing in several subpar films. Her popularity was renewed with her appearance in the British fantasy A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and, in 1947, she created the role of Stella Kowalski on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, reprising the role in the 1951 film version, for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. But her career was dealt a terrible blow when her name appeared without cause in Red Channels, a Red-scare pamphlet during the McCarthy Era, and she was blacklisted. Several years later, she was called as the star witness in a court case instigated by another Red Channels victim, and her testimony discredited the publication and made it possible for dozens of other performers to reclaim their careers. She returned to films sporadically after this, and also did much work on stage and television; among her roles was appearing as a female ape in three Planet of the Apes films. She also wrote Loose in the Kitchen, a combination autobiography-cookbook. Hunter was married to writer Robert Emmett from 1951 until her death in 2002. ~ All Movie Guide- 1975
Ellery Queen (also known as Too Many Suspects) was the 78-minute pilot film for a TV series based on the fictional intellectual author/sleuth created by cousins Frederick Dannay and Manfred Lee. Jim Hutton plays Ellery (the tenth actor to do so on screen!), while David Wayne is his police inspector father. The plot, set in 1947 Manhattan, involves the murder of a fashion model. Fifteen minutes before the fade-out, Ellery turns to the audience, presents the clues, and asks us to solve the murder--a cute if unnecessary trick, since Ellery's got the case all worked out and the killer is no surprise to anyone who's watched TV murder mysteries in the last 25 years (the actor in question has said "I did it!" so often that it's a wonder he can walk the streets without being apprehended). Ellery Queen was a pet project of the TV writing team of Richard Levinson and William Link (of Columbo) fame. After the subsequent Queen TV series expired after a single season, Levinson and Link revived the notion of a murder-solving novelist and changed the gender of the protagonist--and the result was Murder She Wrote. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
William Devane stars as John Henry Faulk, a popular radio and TV entertainer of the 1950s. In 1956, Faulk is blacklisted on the basis of an attack from the self-appointed anticommunist group AWARE. Fired by CBS, Faulk decides to sue AWARE for libel. His attorney Louis Nizer (George C. Scott) warns him that such a case will take several years to get to court, thus Faulk reluctantly takes a series of low-paying jobs to sustain himself during his "down period". In 1962, the case is finally brought before a judge, with several witnesses pointing out the idiotic iniquities of the Blacklist mentality (one child actor was prohibited from working because he had a name that sounded like that of an adult blacklistee). Appearing as themselves during the courtroom scenes are actress Kim Hunter, herself a blacklist victim, and producers David Susskind and Mark Goodson. Faulk wins his case, though his original award of $3.5 million in damages is later reduced to $550,000, and he is never able to completely return to his pre-blacklist prominence. Like several other filmic recreations of the "witch-hunt" era, Fear on Trial was first presented in the mid-1970s (October 2, 1975, to be exact), long after the most zealous of the 1950s anti-Red groups had fallen by the wayside. The film earned an Emmy award for screenwriter David Rintels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Devane, George C. Scott, (more)
- 1974
Born Innocent, originally telecast September 9, 1974, concerns the plight of a teenaged reform-school inmate, played by Linda Blair in her first important post-Exorcist role. Committed for being a habitual runaway, Blair is, for all her surface toughness, unworldly and naïve. All this changes in the reformatory, with Blair rapidly becoming as hard, callous, and irredeemable as her fellow detentionees. Even upon her probationary release, she shows no sign of being "cured" by her incarceration. The film's most notorious scene -- Blair's rape by broom-handle -- was all the more horrifying because there was no pre-show warning issued by the network. So disturbing was the sequence that it was removed from all subsequent network telecasts of Born Innocent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Aging socialite Athena Champion (Kim Hunter) desperately seeks out the aid of her friend Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr). Several elderly men have recently been murdered--all of them old boyfriends of Athena who had attended her debutante's ball. Suffering from the early stages of Alzheimers', Athena is worried that she may have killed the victims without knowing it--and she wants Ironside to determine whether she is innocent or guilty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
While still grieving over the murder of her son, Joanna Portman (Kim Hunter) is visited by a young girl (Gretchen Corbett) claiming to her daughter Gail--who for several years has been presumed dead. Though Joanna is delighted by the girl's arrival, Ironside suspects that Gail's sudden reappearance is too good to be true. Sure enough, it turns out that there are sinister forces who are trying to kill off Joanna's entire family...and that the girl calling herself Gail may be at the center of the carnage! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
"Bad" Ronald (Scott Jacoby) has been in hiding in a secret room ever since going off the deep end and killing a teenaged girl who'd made fun of him. Ronald's mother (Kim Hunter) helps her son to remain hidden, even when the house in which he is sequestered is rented by a family. As luck would have it, three of the family members are nubile young girls--perfect targets for the lonely, and looney, Ronald. In the original John Holbrook Vance novel on which this TV-movie is based, Ronald abducts, repeatedly rapes and ultimately kills two women. The video version of Bad Ronald is heavily laundered, but no less terrifying. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Jacoby, Pippa Scott, (more)
- 1974
Joseph Bottoms plays a 17-year-old high school boy who gets his girl friend Kay Lenz pregnant. The girl wants to put the baby up for adoption, but Bottoms decides to take on the parental responsibilities himself. He battles in court to gain custody of the child, even after being apprised of the heavy financial and personal burdens he's about to assume. Made for TV, Unwed Father has a good concept defeated by poor execution. One wonders whether the boy or the girl would have been the "good guy" had this film been made ten years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
This TV movie stars Bill Bixby as a professional magician who is wrongly accused of a crime and sent to prison. Upon his release, Bixby swears to fight criminals and wrongdoers and to champion the underdog, using his prestidigitory skills to accomplish this. The film proudly states in its prologue that all the illusions seen during the story are actual magic tricks, minus special camera effects--though it strains credibility to assume that Bixby carries a prop for every occasion to confound the crooks at a moment's notice. The Magician was transformed into a weekly 60-minute series in the fall of 1973. The series lasted only one season, the victim of executive indecision over whether to play the series straight or with tongue in cheek. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Guest star Kim Hunter is cast as brilliant but superstitious master criminal Hannah O'Connel, who engineers a million-dollar bullion heist with her sons Thomas (Robert Hogan) and Robert (Solomon Sturges. The O'Connels escape to the safety of a remote Caribbean island which has no extradition treaty with the United States. To lure Hannah back to America for prosecution, the IMF rigs up a phony murder and an apparent haunting. Buck Houghton, for many years the producer of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, wrote the story for this episode, and collaborated on the script with another TV notable, Stephen Kandel. "Incarcerate" first aired on January 5, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Graves, Greg Morris, (more)
- 1971
- G
- Add Escape from the Planet of the Apes to QueueAdd Escape from the Planet of the Apes to top of Queue
Escape From the Planet of the Apes is the third in the series of films based upon the Planet of the Apes characters created by novelist Pierre Boulle. At the end of the second film, the centuries-in-the-future world colonized by simians was destroyed, but apes Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) were able to escape in the space vessel left behind by 20th century astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston). Cornelius and Zira pass through another time warp, finding themselves in the Earth of the 1970s. When they reveal their ability to speak, the apes are first treated as curiosities, then as threats when the government, believing the story that the Earth will eventually be inherited by monkeys, tries to prevent the birth of Zira's baby. They are ultimately given shelter by sympathetic circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban). This film was followed by the fourth "Apes" entry, 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1971
- R
One of a number of films that dealt with addiction following the explosion of recreational drug use in the 1960s, Jennifer on My Mind opens as footloose twentysomething Marcus (Michael Brandon) is wandering through Europe. In Venice, he meets a beautiful young woman named Jenny (Tippy Walker); they fall in love, start travelling together, and smoke an awful lot of marijuana. When Jenny decides to return to the United States and heads back to New York, Marcus tags along, but before long (as usually happens in films of this sort), Jenny moves from pot to harder drugs, and Marcus has to deal with the fact the woman he loves has become a heroin addict. Written by Erich Segal, who had earlier gained fame for Love Story, Jennifer on My Mind also features a prescient supporting performance by Robert DeNiro, who plays a taxi driver. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Brandon, Tippy Walker, (more)
The producers of In Search of America never declared outright that the made-for-TV film was intended as a series pilot, but there sure are plenty of loose plot ends. Carl Betz and Vera Miles play the parents of shaggy-haired college dropout Jeff Bridges. At the boy's suggestion, Betz and Miles pack their family--including grandma Ruth McDevitt--into a 1928 Greyhound bus and hit the road, in search of you-know-where. The picaresque plotline brings the family in contact with a variety of colorful characters. Written by Lewis John Carlino, a name that would mean a lot more to filmgoers after The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976), In Search of America was first telecast March 23, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vera Miles, Carl Betz, (more)
- 1970
- G
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Sometime after the events of the first Planet of the Apes, the climax of which is repeated frame for frame at the beginning of this sequel, another set of astronauts arrives on the far-future Earth that is the titular planet. This time it's Brent (James Franciscus) who survives the crash landing and learns that evolved simians have taken over the world, post-apocalypse. After hooking up with Nova (Linda Harrison), the mute, fur bikini-clad beauty who spent the first film being squired by astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston), Brent confers with Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson, giving Roddy McDowall his only break during the five-film series), the ape scientists whose adherence to scientific principles makes them friendly to the possibility of intelligent human life. Something of a military coup has taken place among the apes, who dispatch an army to the desolate "Forbidden Zone" where Taylor has coincidentally disappeared. With the apes and the humans both rooting about in the ruins of 20th century civilization, it's only a matter of time before they all find out what happened to the other survivors of the nuclear holocaust. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1969
Vincent Edwards, four years removed from Ben Casey, enters another branch of the healing profession in the made-for-TV Dial Hot Line. Edwards plays Matt Lincoln, a community psychiatrist who is patched into a "hot line" telephone for those troubled souls unable to afford therapy. This TV movie involves three of Lincoln's call-in patients, including one potential suicide. Also featured was future Laugh-In regular Chelsea Brown as Tag, a member of Lincoln's staff. Dial Hot Line later matriculated into the brief Matt Lincoln TV series, with both Vincent Edwards and Chelsea Brown retained from the pilot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1968
In this drama, a little orphan must work a migrant crop picker to survive. He finally finds a home when he moves to a western sheep ranch. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Originally intended as a project for Blake Edwards, the film version of Pierre Boule's semisatiric sci-fi novel came to the screen in 1968 under the directorial guidance of Franklin J. Schaffner. Charlton Heston is George Taylor, one of several astronauts on a long, long space mission whose spaceship crash-lands on a remote planet, seemingly devoid of intelligent life. Soon the astronaut learns that this planet is ruled by a race of talking, thinking, reasoning apes who hold court over a complex, multilayered civilization. In this topsy-turvy society, the human beings are grunting, inarticulate primates, penned-up like animals. When ape leader Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) discovers that the captive Taylor has the power of speech, he reacts in horror and insists that the astronaut be killed. But sympathetic ape scientists Cornelius (Roddy McDowell) and Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) risk their lives to protect Taylor -- and to discover the secret of their planet's history that Dr. Zaius and his minions guard so jealously. In the end, it is Taylor who stumbles on the truth about the Planet of the Apes: "Damn you! Damn you! Goddamn you all to hell!" Scripted by Rod Serling and Michael Wilson (a former blacklistee who previously adapted another Pierre Boule novel, Bridge on the River Kwai), Planet of the Apes has gone on to be an all-time sci-fi (and/or camp) classic. It won a special Academy Award for John Chambers's convincing (and, from all accounts, excruciatingly uncomfortable) simian makeup. It spawned four successful sequels, as well as two TV series, one live-action and one animated. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, (more)
John Cheever's "misery in suburbia" short stories, brief and to the point, have always proven excellent TV fodder. Director Frank Perry's The Swimmer, adapted for the screen by Perry's wife Eleanor, is a rare, and for the most part successful, attempt at offering a Cheever story in feature-length form. Dressed only in swimming trunks throughout the film, Burt Lancaster plays a wealthy, middle-aged advertising man, embarked on a long and revelatory journey through suburban Connecticut. Lancaster slowly makes his way to his split-level home by travelling from house to house, and from swimming pool to swimming pool. At each stop, Lancaster comes face to face with an incident in his past. Informing Kim Hunter that he once harbored a secret love for her, Lancaster is mildly upset by Hunter's indifference. Elderly Cornelia Otis Skinner is incensed at Lancaster's intrusion in her backyard and orders him to leave. At the next home, Lancaster tries to seduce the nubile Janet Landgard, who'd once baby-sat for his daughters, but she runs away in horror. And so it goes: as each subsequent suburbanite peels off his self-protective veneer, Lancaster grows more and more disillusioned with what he thought was his ideal lifestyle. The more intensely painful episode is the confrontation between Lancaster and ex-mistress Janice Rule (this scene was directed, without credit, by Sydney Pollack). Thoroughly defeated, the all-but-naked Lancaster laboriously makes his way through the Connecticut woods in a blinding rainstorm, desperately seeking out his own home where he fully expects his "loving" wife and daughters to greet him. Not this time. Dismissed as too self-consciously "arty" at the time of its release, The Swimmer's reputation increased over the decades following its release thanks to constant late-night TV exposure. The film represents the first movie work of 22-year-old composer Marvin Hamlisch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, (more)
- 1968
Kim Hunter guest-stars as greedy Ada Halle, who holds a monopoly on all salt deposits in Spanish Wells. Charging exorbitant prices for her precious salt, Ada sparks a war between the haves (the wealthy cattlemen of the territory) and the have-nots (the small ranchers). Making things dicier is the fact that Ada is the fiancee of Ben Cartwright's old friend Cash Talbot (John Doucette). Originally telecast on February 4, 1968, "The Price of Salt" was written by B.W. Sandefur. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, (more)
- 1966
Adapted for television by Robert Hartung from the play by Barrie Stavus, Lamp at Midnight deals with the 16th-century conflict between the Catholic Church and Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. After exhaustive research, Galileo (played by Melvyn Douglas) concludes that the Aristotelean concept of the Universe is incorrect. It is Galileo's contention--like Copernicus before him--that Earth is not the center of the universe, but merely another planet, revolving around the sun. This theory is considered heresy by the Church, and before long Galileo is dragged before Cardinal Bellarmin (George Voskovec), leader of the dreaded Court of the Inquisition. Also in the cast of this impressively mounted production are David Wayne, Kim Hunter, Hurd Hatfield, and, as Pope Urban VIII, Michael Hordern. Originally telecast April 27, 1966, the videotaped Lamp at Midnight was the final presentation of Hallmark Hall of Fame's 15th season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
In the closing months of World War II, phony spiritualist Adelaide Winters (Kim Hunter) has come up with a cruel but successful new racket. Preying upon the grieving parents of deceased servicemen, Adelaide claims to have the power to communicate with the spirits of the dead soldiers. Adelaide's elaborate forays into the next world so impresses one of her clients, wealthy Edward Porter (John Larkin), that he proposes marriage to her. Adelaide accepts, greedily anticipating a life of luxury and ease -- blissfully unaware that Mr. Porter has a morbid "crossover" plan all his own. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kim Hunter, John Larkin, (more)
Vincent Bruce (Warren Beatty) is a Korean War veteran who becomes an occupational therapist in a private mental hospital that cares for wealthy, schizophrenic clientele. He slowly begins to fall for Lilith Arthur (Jean Seberg), a patient who is mentally locked in her own little world. Vincent eventually begins his own psychological disintegration over his feelings for the woman and asks for help. Watch for early career performances from Olympia Dukakis and Gene Hackman in this depressing psychodrama. This was the final film from the gifted director Robert Rossen, who died in 1966. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, (more)
- 1960
Give Us Barabbas! was originally telecast in color on March 26, 1961. The story begins during the trial of Jesus, conducted by Pontius Pilate (Dennis King). Giving the populace a choice between Jesus and the thief Barabbas (James Daly) as to whom will be crucified, the crowd shouts back "Give Us Barabbas!". Following the crucifixion, Barabbas undergoes a transformation; a thief no more, he spends the rest of his life atoning to the martyred Jesus. Written by Henry Denker, the 60-minute, videotaped Give Us Barabbas was the Easter offering of the long-running anthology Hallmark Hall of Fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1958
In this curious blend of Western and detective melodrama, Jock Mahoney plays a frontier gumshoe named Hogan. When an old prospector is murdered, Hogan takes on the assignment of finding the four heirs to the prospector's fortune. Briefly sidetracked by a romance with Mary Kingman (played by Kim Hunter in a rare Western appearance), Hogan not only finds the heirs but also the killers -- and in at least one case, heir and killer are one and the same. Money, Women and Guns was produced by Howie Horwitz, who, like screenwriter Montgomery Pittman, would go on to even bigger things in the TV industry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jock Mahoney, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1957
Adapting a made-for-TV play that he had directed for the screen, John Frankenheimer made his feature film debut with this sensitive father-son drama. Tom Ditmar (James Daly) is a movie studio executive who has a strained relationship with his teenaged son Hal (James MacArthur). Hal is arrested after an incident in a movie theater in which he was provoked into slugging the manager, Grubbs (Whit Bissell). Hal is rude to the police officer, Sergeant Shipley (James Gregory). Tom Ditmar gets the charges dropped but doesn't believe his son's story. Hal goes back to talk to Grubbs to try to get him to tell his father what really happened. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James MacArthur, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1957
Rod Serling wasn't telling whom he based the leading character of his TV play The Comedian upon, but sharp-eyed viewers could detect traces of everyone from Milton Berle to Red Buttons. Mickey Rooney stars as a top-rated television comedian who is all love-and-kisses when before the cameras but a flaming mass of vitriol towards his coworkers. Rooney's beleaguered head writer Edmond O'Brien worries that he's on the verge of being fired, so he steals an old piece of material from a long-dead comic for Rooney's opening monologue. Meanwhile, Rooney's brother Mel Torme, fed up with being the public butt of the comedian's jokes, is goaded into an on-camera revenge. Throwing out his original intention of having the vicious Rooney get his comeuppance, Serling ends The Comedian with Rooney still dispensing nastiness to one and all, and with Torme sobbingly accepting his lot in life; O'Brien, at least, is afforded a happier denouement. Originally telecast live on Playhouse 90 on February 14, 1957, The Comedian won an Emmy as "best single program"; a kinescope of the telecast is currently available on videocassette. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
