George Kennedy Movies
Born into a show business family, George Kennedy made his stage debut at the age of two in a touring company of Bringing up Father. By the time he was seven, he was spinning records on a New York radio station. Kennedy' showbusiness inclinations were put aside when he developed a taste for the rigors of military life during World War II, and he wound up spending 16 years in the army. His military career ended and his acting career began when a back injury in the late 1950s inspired him to seek out another line of work.Appropriately enough, given his background, Kennedy first made his name with a role as a military advisor on the Sergeant Bilko TV series. In films from 1961, the burly, 6'4" actor usually played heavies, both figuratively and literally; quite often, as in Charade (1963) and Straitjacket (1964), his unsavory screen characters were bumped off sometime during the fourth reel. One of his friendlier roles was as a compassionate Union officer in Shenandoah (1965), an assignment he was to treasure because it gave him a chance to work with the one of his idols, Jimmy Stewart.
Kennedy moved up to the big leagues with his Academy Award win for his portrayal of Dragline in Cool Hand Luke (1967). An above-the-title star from then on, Kennedy has been associated with many a box-office hit, notably all four Airport films. Unlike many major actors, he has displayed a willingness to spoof his established screen image, as demonstrated by his portrayal of Ed Hocken in the popular Naked Gun series. On TV, Kennedy has starred in the weekly series Sarge (1971) and The Blue Knight (1978), and was seen as President Warren G. Harding in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House. During the mid '90s, he became known as a persuasive commercial spokesman in a series of breath-freshener advertisements. In 1997, he provided the voice for L.B. Mammoth in the animated musical Cats Don't Dance, and the following year again displayed his vocal talents as one of the titular toys-gone-bad in Small Soldiers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Gilbert Wright's novel Madman's Chain had already been adapted to television by Alcoa/Goodyear Theatre by the time that Cry in the Wilderness premiered March 26, 1974. While the first version, titled Chain and the River, was a moderately suspenseful half hour, Cry in the Wilderness manages to keep viewers on the very edges of their seats for a full 74 minutes. George Kennedy stars as a farmer who is bitten by a rabid skunk. To protect his family from the madness that he is sure will overtake him, Kennedy has his wife Joanna Pettet chain him to a post in their barn. Left alone, Kennedy discovers that the dam has burst, and that his farm will soon be consumed by flood. The climactic deluge was largely (and superbly) created in the lab by special effects maestro Albert Whitlock. Cry in the Wilderness premiered March 26, 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
The Great American Tragedy is a melodrama about an aerospace engineer and his family who struggle to survive after he suddenly loses his job. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1981
- PG
As in the real-life story which spawned it, Rare Breed deals with the kidnapping of a racehorse and the quest of its loving owner to retrieve it. Tracy Vaccaro plays the cute young girl who wants her horse back so she can continue on her European circuit-winning ways. This film is directed by the elder Nelson boy, David, from the Ozzie and Harriet series. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Kennedy, Forrest Tucker, (more)
Airport had enough plot and enough star power in its cast for three feature films, and it only encompassed about half of the complexity or characters found in Arthur Hailey's best-selling potboiler. Essentially built around 12 harrowing hours at a major Midwestern airport, the film had everything an audience of the period could have wanted -- suspense, romance, drama, and comedy -- all spread across a vast canvas. Mel Bakersfeld (Burt Lancaster) is the manager of Lincoln Airport, facing a night beset by the worst blizzard in a decade, a wife (Dana Wynter) who announces she wants a divorce, a primary runway blocked by an airliner stuck in a snowdrift, and a governing board ready to fire him. Bakersfeld's cynical, smooth-talking brother-in-law, Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin), won't let up on his criticism of the management at Lincoln, but he has his own problems as well, mostly in the form of a young stewardess, Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset), who is pregnant by him and whom he finds he genuinely loves. Add to that the presence of an old lady stowaway (Helen Hayes) and a mentally disturbed passenger (Van Heflin) carrying a bomb, and there's more than enough plot to keep viewers engrossed for two hours plus. Airport became one of the top-grossing movies of its era, racking up seven-digit box-office numbers and spawning an entire film genre -- the disaster movie. With Jean Seberg, George Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Barry Nelson, and Maureen Stapleton filling out the rest of the leading roles, there was something for almost everyone in this film. The movie still has a lot to offer if only as a prime example of Hollywood at its most successfully glitzy, but, if possible, viewers should try and see the letterboxed version of Airport on DVD (released May 2001). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, (more)
Stretching the Airport concept as far as it will go, this third film in the series sticks a jet full of old actors 50 feet underwater in the Bermuda Triangle. Oxygen (and credibility) grows short, and Jimmy Stewart plays an art collector targeted for a heist. Jack Lemmon is the unfortunate pilot, and Christopher Lee shows up along with Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, and Olivia de Havilland. Jerry Jameson, auteur of The Bat People, was selected to helm this entry featuring that film's star, Michael Pataki. George Kennedy, the only man to appear in all four Airport films, is along for the ride as well. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, (more)
- 1979
The fourth Airport film may be the silliest of them all, as George Kennedy returns, this time co-piloting with Alain Delon. The plane is on its way to the Moscow Olympics, has a bomb on board, and gets fired upon with missiles that necessitate flying upside-down. A look at the cast list resembles a bad episode of Fantasy Island, but it's always fun to see shameless touches like casting Mercedes McCambridge (Johnny Guitar) as the coach of the Soviet team. If you don't understand the significance of that choice, you may find this film more tedious than laughable, but fans of bad movies will have a field day, as Jimmie Walker, Charo, and -- oddly enough -- Bibi Andersson rub shoulders with high-altitude disaster. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, (more)
In the wake of the 45-million-dollar gross of the original Airport (1970), Universal was all but required by an act of Congress to produce Airport '75. Charlton Heston heads the all-star cast as Alan Murdock, the former test pilot who must keep a disabled 747 from crashing in flames. The crisis begins when a businessman (Dana Andrews), flying his small private plane, suffers a fatal heart attack and the plane smashes into the cockpit of the 747. Following Murdock's radioed instructions, stewardess Nancy Pryor (Karen Black) takes over the controls. The special-guest passenger lineup includes Helen Reddy as a singing nun (a character wickedly satirized in the 1980 parody Airplane!), Myrna Loy as an alcoholic, and Sid Caesar as a garrulous passenger. While Airport '75 yielded only 25 million dollars at the box office, the franchise continued, spawning Airport '77 a few years later and Airport '79 two years after that. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlton Heston, Karen Black, (more)
Based on the best-selling memoirs of Lillian Rogers Parks, the NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House traces over five decades of American political history as witnessed from the vantage point of the servants' quarters. Played by Tania Johnson as a teenager and by Leslie Uggams as an adult, Lillian Rogers Parks served for 52 years as a maidservant at the White House. Though crippled early on with polio, Lillian diligently and loyally stuck to her duties -- and her own rock-solid set of principles and ideals -- through eight highly different Presidential administrations, often (and occasionally reluctantly) acting as friend and confidante to the First Lady of the moment. The large and stellar cast included a number of top-rank film and TV actors, obviously having the time of their lives impersonating such presidents as William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and their respective wives. Also in the cast were several African-American veterans from the landmark TV miniseries Roots. Earning 11 Emmy Award nominations, the nine-hour Backstairs at the White House was seen in five installments from January 29 to February 19, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Uggams, Olivia Cole, (more)
James Stewart and Dean Martin are atypically cast as outlaws in Bandolero! The film begins as Dee Bishop (Martin) and his gang are about to be hanged. The Scripture-spouting executioner turns out to be Dee's brother Mace (Stewart), who helps the desperadoes escape. They are pursued by a sheriff (George Kennedy), whose lady friend (Raquel Welch) has the hots for Dee. The brothers try to go straight, but before they can make up their mind they find themselves surrounded by Mexican bandidos and are forced to team up with the sheriff to fight them off. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Dean Martin, (more)
In a semi-erotic film almost universally lamented, Bo Derek, last wife of the late John Derek (who wrote, directed, and photographed Bolero), plays Ayre, a virginal young woman who, on graduating from an exclusive British boarding school, is determined to find the right man for her first sexual encounter wherever he might be in the world. Rich enough not to venture forth alone, she brings along her friend Catalina (Ana Obregon) and the family chauffeur (George Kennedy). Ayre first travels to an Arab country where she meets an ideal lover, a sheik (Greg Bensen) who offers to deflower her but falls asleep almost immediately (he was, after all, reciting lines from this script). Giving up on the sheik, Ayre goes on to Spain, where she meets the toreador Angel (Andrea Occhipinti) who is even better than the sheik because he manages to stay awake. Unfortunately, after she has succeeded in her quest, the perils of Angel's profession are brought home when he is gored in a sensitive location -- the arena, of course. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bo Derek, George Kennedy, (more)
- 1961
"The Infernal Machine" is a horseless carriage, invented by Hoss Cartwright's friend Daniel Pettibone (Eddie Ryder). Attempting to obtain financing for Dan's creation, Hoss is turned down by everyone except a city slicker named Throckmorton (Willard Waterman). Once this glib stranger agrees to invest money in the carriage, everyone else in town follows suit. Alas, Throckmorton skips town with the cash, leaving Dan and Hoss holding the bag. Also appearing are June Kenney as Robin and Nora Hayden as Big Red. Written by Ward Hawkins and directed by Republic Studios stalwart William Witney, "The Infernal Machine" first aired April 22, 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, (more)
- 1964
George Kennedy guest-stars as Waldo Watson, a born loser who has decided to end it all. Feeling pity for Waldo, Hoss Cartwright hires him as a Ponderosa ranch hand. Alas, not only is Waldo a clumsy and inept worker, but he also puts the Cartwrights' lives in danger, courtesy of a gang of trigger-happy Eastern gamblers who want to collect a long-standing debt from the hapless Waldo. Others in the cast include Sandra Warner as Nancy Collings and Richard Devon as Weaver. Written by Rod Peterson, "The Scapegoat" originally aired October 25, 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, (more)
- 1988
- R
This cliché-ridden car-racing feature doesn't even get off the blocks. The unshaven villains have greasy hair and black T-shirts, while the clean-shaven good guys are blonde and sport light-colored action wear. Andrea (Marla Heasley) invents a revolutionary new car engine and goes to the Charlotte Motor Speedway to try it out. She meets driver Al Pagura (Joseph Bottoms), and the two fall in and out of love. George Kennedy plays the heavy, and somewhere an underdeveloped plot about racetrack corruption appears. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Bottoms, Marc Singer, (more)
Brain Dead was based on a script by Charles Beaumont, leading some obtuse fans to hail the "return" of that frequent Twilight Zone contributor. Actually Beaumont has been dead since 1967, so this cookie spent a long time in the oven. Stalwart supporting actor Bill Pullman is given star billing as a brilliant brain surgeon who agrees to perform an operation on a psychotic mathematician. This surgery, ostensibly, is to "adjust" the patient's attitude--and, incidentally, to unlock the corporate secrets secreted within the patient's brain. But as Pullman probes about, he begins experiencing first-hand the psycho's fevered, paranoic dreams. Pullman drifts farther and farther from reality, and the audience is implicitly invited to do the same. Bill Paxton also stars in this Roger Corman-style thriller, produced by Corman's daughter Julie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, (more)
- 1978
- R
What if General George S. Patton didn't die in a car accident, as history tells us, but at the hands of a paid assassin? That's the premise of Brass Target, another in a series of espionage thrillers, like The Eagle Has Landed, that speculates on the fates of real-life figures from World War II. Robert Vaughn, Ed Bishop, and Edward Herrmann are three Allied officers in occupied Germany who steal Nazi gold with the help of OSS officer Patrick McGoohan. Patton (George Kennedy) personally supervises the investigation of the theft, assisted by Major Joe DeLuca (John Cassavetes). Soon, however, a professional assassin (Max Von Sydow) is on their trail, Patton is killed on the orders of his own staff, and only DeLuca and his lover (Sophia Loren), who is also involved with the assassin, are left alive for the finale. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophia Loren, John Cassavetes, (more)
John Wayne plays a lawman who has to deal with the problems of fatherhood in a big way in Cahill: United States Marshall. Wayne is J.D. Cahill, whose singular desire to track down law breakers strains his relationship with his two teenage sons --17-year-old Danny (Gary Grimes) and 12-year-old Billy Joe (Clay O'Brien). The film begins as Cahill is hot on the trail of a gang of outlaws. After the big showdown, he returns to town to discover that the local bank has been robbed. The sheriff and the deputy have been killed, and four bank robbers are imprisoned in the jail. He is stunned when he finds out that one of the robbers in jail is Cahill's son Danny. It seems that during Cahill's absence from home, his two sons have been enticed into a criminal life by nefarious outlaw Abe Fraser (George Kennedy). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Gary Grimes, (more)
This animated comedy for the family, which gently parodies the movie musicals of the '30s and '40s, follows Danny (voice of Scott Bakula), a cat from Kokomo, Indiana, who loves to sing and dance and longs to be in show business. One day, Danny decides to do something about his ambitions instead of just wishing, so he heads for Hollywood, convinced that he can become a star in a week. However, Danny quickly becomes aware of the species barrier in Tinseltown; the studios don't much care for animals, even ones with star quality, and the best Danny's agent can get for him is a tiny role in a movie with adorable child star Darla Dimple (voice of Ashley Peldon), who turns out to be a mean-spirited brat who loathes animals as soon as the camera is turned off. Danny soon makes the acquaintance of several other animal performers stuck in the same bind as himself, including Sawyer (voice of Jasmine Guy), a pretty but cynical cat; Woolie (voice of John Rhys-Davies), a piano-playing elephant; Tillie (voice of Kathy Najimy), a singing hippo; and Pudge (voice of Mathew Herried), a performing penguin. Together, the critters struggle for acceptance and a chance to show the world what they can do. Sawyer's singing voice for the musical numbers was provided by Natalie Cole; Randy Newman wrote several original songs for the film, and Gene Kelly was a consultant for the character's choreography. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, (more)
Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn star in this stylish comedy-thriller directed by Stanley Donen, very much in a Hitchcock vein. Grant plays Peter Joshua, who meets Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) in Paris and later offers to help her when she discovers that her husband has been murdered. After the funeral, Reggie is summoned to the embassy and warned by agent/friend Bartholemew (Walter Matthau) that her late husband helped steal 250,000 dollars during the war and that the rest of the gang is after the money as well. When three of the men who attended her husband's funeral begin to harass her, Reggie goes to Joshua for help, at which time Joshua confesses that his name is actually Alexander Dyle, the brother of a fourth accomplice in the gold theft. The three men from the funeral are revealed to be the three other accomplices in the crime, and though she knows next to nothing of the heist, Reggie is caught in a ring of suspense as she is followed by the shadowy trio, all after the money. Apparently, the only person she can trust is Joshua/Dyle -- until Bartholomew tells Reggie that the fourth accomplice had no brother, and Joshua/Dyle reveals that he is, in fact, a crook named Adam Canfield. Now Reggie doesn't know where to turn. The musical score by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini was nominated for an Academy Award. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, (more)
- 1984
- PG
The owner of a professional football team must restore the titular train and run it from Tennessee to NYC in 24 hours if he is to inherit $1 million in this comedy. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
Paul Newman was nominated for an Oscar and George Kennedy received one for his work in this allegorical prison drama. Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he's arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. While the avowed ambition of the captain (Strother Martin) is for each prisoner to "get their mind right," it soon becomes obvious that Luke is not about to kowtow to anybody. When challenged to a fistfight by fellow inmate Dragline (George Kennedy), Luke simply refuses to give up, even though he's brutally beaten. Luke knows how to win at poker, even with bad cards, by using his smarts and playing it cool. Luke also figures out a way for the men to get their work done in half the usual time, giving them the afternoon off. Finally, when Luke finds out his mother has died, he plots his escape; when he's caught, he simply escapes again. Soon, Luke becomes a symbol of hope and resilience to the other men in the prison camp -- and a symbol of rebelliousness that must be stamped out to the guards and the captain. Along with stellar performances by Newman, Kennedy, and Martin, Cool Hand Luke features a superb supporting cast, including Ralph Waite, Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Wayne Rogers, and Joe Don Baker as members of the chain gang. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, George Kennedy, (more)
- 1987
- R
In this actioner, a crack unit of elite mercenaries must protect a recently deposed Middle Eastern leader and his family from assassination. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This less-satisfying sequel to the 1982 George A. Romero/Stephen King anthology presents a new trio of King stories, framed in a similar EC Comics-style format -- this time featuring some rather lackluster animated segments involving horror-host "The Creep," who introduces each chapter with pun-heavy gallows humor. The stories vary widely in quality: first there's "Old Chief Wood'nhead," involving a cigar-store Indian who quite literally guards the entrance to an old general store and comes to life to avenge the murders of the elderly couple (George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour) who owned it. The middle segment, "The Raft," features a group of obnoxious teenagers stranded on a raft in the middle of a lake at the mercy of a murderous oil slick which looks like a bunch of plastic garbage bags stitched together. Both of these suffer in comparison to the closing segment, "The Hitchhiker," in which a bored, promiscuous socialite (Lois Chiles) mows down a hitchhiker who refuses to stay dead, returning again and again to torment her at every turn, rasping "Thanks for the ride, lady!" Despite its strengths -- a livelier pace, some creatively gory set pieces -- this is a much cheaper-looking effort than its predecessor, with the deft guidance of Romero conspicuously absent (long-time collaborator Michael Gornick took up the directorial reins); as a result, King's gross-out sensibilities don't come off as well. Makeup maestro Tom Savini appears in heavy makeup as a live-action version of The Creep, and King pops in for a bit part as a redneck trucker. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lois Chiles, George Kennedy, (more)
- 1998
In this sudsy made-for-TV installment of the Ewing saga, wily J.R. (Larry Hagman) finds himself discontent merely managing an oil conglomerate and decides to try to regain control of his father's company from Bobby (Patrick Duffy) and Sue Ellen (Linda Gray). But first he needs money. Opportunity knocks when he discovers that Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly) has a large untapped supply of oil upon his land. Best of all, Krebbs is ignorant of this fact. Unfortunately, J.R.'s long-time rival Carter McKay (George Kennedy) also knows about the oil and is not about to let J.R. get it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy, (more)
