Allan Hunt Movies
- 1982
The opening episode of Quincy, M.E.'s eighth season finds medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman in the middle of another sociological dilemma. 14-year-old Ethan Kellough (DeVoreaux White, former member of a vicious street gang called the "Ravnes", is the prime suspect in the drive-by shooting of a child. The powers-that-be demanding Ethan's arrest have also targeted a halfway house for troubled children, run by inner-city activist Rick Dorado (Gregory Sierra), where Ethan is undergoing a rehab program. It is up to Quincy to determine Ethan's guilt or innocence--and, hopefully, to save Dorado's program from being closed down. Anita Gillette, who had appeared in an earlier Quincy episode as the hero's late wife Helen, joins the series' regular cast in the role of psychiatrist Emily Hanover. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The longest (26-1/2 hours), most expensive ($25 million) and most complicated (four directors, five producers, five cinematographers, almost 100 speaking parts, several hundred extras) project made for television up to that time, Centennial was shown in two- and three-hour installments over a period of four months. An adaptation of James Michener's best-selling novel, it told the story of the settling of the American West by looking at the founding of the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, from the settling of the area in the late 18th century to the present. Emmy-nominated for film editing and art direction, it boasts of sterling performances from Richard Chamberlain as frontiersman Alexander McKeag, Robert Conrad as the French-Canadian trapper Pasquinel, and a surprisingly powerful performance from former football star Alex Karras as compassionate but iron-willed immigrant farmer Hans Brumbaugh. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- 1968
What would a late-1960s detective series be without the obligatory "flower child" episode? After Detective Ed Brown (Don Galloway) busts a Haight-Ashbury drug house, he is accused of beating a hippie to death. To clear Ed's name, Ironside (Raymond Burr) follows a trail of clues to a group of outwardly clean-cut students in a private school--and runs up against a vast and sinister conspiracy of silence, involving not only "the kids" but also a few grownups. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1965
Eddie (Butch Patrick) hopes to enter his beloved bat Igor in a school pet contest, but Igor flaps away in anger after being insulted by Herman (Fred Gwynne). Resourcefully, Grandpa (Al Lewis) changes himself into a bat and takes Igor's place. Unfortunately, Grandpa neglects to inform Eddie about this metamorphosis--and soon regrets this lapse in judgement when Eddie trades his "new" bat for a squirrel! Alvy Moore, best remembered by TV fans as self-contradictory agriculture agent Hank Kimball on Green Acres, appears as Dr. Grant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1965
The Seaview takes on a joint mission with a pair of Russian scientists to salvage the remains of a wrecked Soviet undersea lab, which was destroyed by huge schools of migrating whales. When one of the team is killed in an accidental collision with a whale, the surviving scientist, Dr. Katya Markhova (Gia Scala), insists on making a last-ditch effort to examine the wreckage. Admiral Nelson (Richard Basehart) won't risk another man, and decides to accompany her himself on the dive. But the dive is interrupted by the arrival of a huge sperm whale, which swallows the entire bell. Captain Crane (David Hedison) manages to get the whale sedated sufficiently so that it comes to a temporary rest on an undersea plateau. He has hope that the admiral and Dr. Markhova could be alive if the bell is intact, and decides mount a rescue mission -- inside the whale. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- 1964
This is one of a handful of episodes in which Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) appears only fleetingly, with the bulk of the drama handled by a "special guest attorney." While Perry is in Europe on business, fellow attorney Joe Kelly (Mike Connors) agrees to help Bill Jaris (Robert Harland), the owner of a bowling alley in the town of Tesoro. The town is controlled by Bill's monstrous mother-in-law Bonnie Mae Wilmot, aka "The Duchess", who conspires with Dr. Max Taylor (Milton Selzer) to have the bowling alley closed down for health reasons. When Taylor is murdered and Bill is charged with the crime, Kelly works overtime to defend his client. Reportedly, this episode (which for many years was not included in the series' syndication package and thus considered "lost") was contrived by the producers to test out Mike Connors as a potential replacement for Raymond Burr, who at the time was seriously considering retirement at the end of Perry Mason's eighth season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1963
Scheming Frances Walden (Constance Ford) hopes to use the "gossip grapevine" in the small farming town of Palmetto to break up the marriage of her brother Martin (Robert Bray) and his wife Andrea (Diane Brewster). Frances goes so far as to pay her own nephew Roy (a pre-Lost in Space Mark Goddard), the town's biggest "stud", to compromise Andrea--who may already be amply compromised, if rumors of her affair with former boyfriend Nelson Tarr (Joe Maross) are true. When Martin is murdered, the police arrest Nelson--who, fortunately, happens to be a client of Perry Mason (Raymond Burr). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
