George Kennedy Movies

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

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

First telecast September 14, 1971, "The Priest Killer" was originally identified as the two-hour opening episode of Ironside's fifth season. In truth, it is the second pilot film for the TV cop series Sarge, starring George Kennedy as cop-turned-priest Father Samuel "Sarge" Kavanaugh. Though based in San Diego, Sarge teams with wheelchair-bound San Francisco detective Robert Ironside (Raymond Burr) to track down an unknown serial killer who has murdered two priests. Though the motive for the murders is at first unknown, given the presence of Anthony Zerbe in the supporting cast it isn't difficult to ascertain the identity of the killer. The weekly, hour-long series version of Sarge would premiere one week after "The Priest Killer", on September 21, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Car repossession is the focus of this comedy which examines the illegal aspects of this organization. ~ All Movie Guide

False Witness is the British title of the American thriller Zigzag, which in turn was partially inspired by the 1950 film D.O.A. George Kennedy plays an insurance investigator who learns that he is dying from a brain tumor. Hoping to provide for his family, Kennedy confesses to a murder he didn't commit, thereby collecting the reward money. During his murder trial, Kennedy collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Subjected to laser surgery, he emerges from the hospital completely cured--and now he must unravel the airtight case he's contrived against himself in court. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

Chris (George Kennedy) is the lone survivor of the original seven gunmen who is recruited to help in a peasant struggle in Mexico. Colonel Diego (Michael Ansara)is the ruthless military commandant of a Mexican prison holding the leader of the revolt. With knife expert Levi Morgon (James Whitmore) and firearms experts Keno (Monte Markham), P.J. (Scott Thomas) and Slater (Joe Don Baker), they enlist the help of the giant black man Cassie (Bernie Casey) and two others to rescue the leader of the proposed revolt. The evil Diego employs his torturous and inhuman practices on both sides of the prison walls in a effort to stop the heroes from rescuing the prisoner in this action packed western saga. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this comic western, Flagg (Robert Mitchum) is a veteran marshal forced to retire by the pompous Mayor Wilker (Martin Balsam). McKay (George Kennedy) is a wily gunslinger. The two combine forces to stop a young band of outlaws from robbing the train when it pulls into the station. Flagg warns the mayor of the upcoming attempt but is not taken seriously by the town politician. McKay and Flagg ride out to warn the train of the impending crime, which finds McKay facing members of his own gang in a traditional western showdown. David and John Carradine appear in this feature along with Tina Louise and Lois Nettleton. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

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

Film star Lylah Clare is dead, but her legend lives on. Movie-producer Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) hires Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak), the living image of the late Lylah, to star in a film based on Ms. Clare's life. Barney hires director Lewis Zarkan (Peter Finch), Lylah's former husband, to transform the talentless Elsa into a facsimile of the deceased screen queen. Elsa not only learns to imitate Lylah but, at crucial junctures, becomes the dead woman. While restaging the accident that killed Lylah, the obsessed Zarkan deliberately drives Elsa to her doom -- and in so doing reveals his complicity in the death of his wife. The film ends with Lylah's onetime housekeeper (Rosella Falk), gun in hand, lying in wait for Zarkan to return home while her TV blasts forth a grotesque (and possibly symbolic) dog-food commercial. A trash masterpiece, Legend of Lylah Claire works so hard at vilifying the Old Hollywood (there's even a vicious Hedda Hopper caricature) that it's a wonder the actors could keep a straight face. The film was based on a 1962 Dupont Show of the Week TV drama co-written by Wild in the Streets creator Robert Thom. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

Otto Preminger directed this star-studded adaptation of K.B. Gliden's novel about racial prejudice and emotional unrest in the Deep South. Henry Warren (Michael Caine) is a land owner obsessed with buying up all available land in a Georgia farming town. However, two parcels of land have escaped his reach, and he's determined to get them. The Scotts, an African-American family, own one of the lots that Henry is after; the matriarch of the family, Rose (Beah Richards), used to work as a servant for the family of Henry's wife, Julie Ann (Jane Fonda), so Henry sends Julie Ann to talk with her. However, not only doesn't Rose agree to sell, she gets so upset that she dies of a heart attack, and soon her headstrong son Reeve (Robert Hooks) is the owner of the land. Reeve refuses all of Henry's offers to sell out, and he even stands up to a racist lynch mob that tries to ransack his farm; when Henry attempts to prove that Reeve holds no legal deed to the property, Vivian Thurlow (Diahann Carroll), the town's black schoolmarm, is able to provide the documentation that the Scotts do indeed own their land. Meanwhile, Henry is also trying to buy some property farmed by Rod McDowell (John Phillip Law) and his wife Lou (Faye Dunnaway), a poor white couple who are Henry's cousins. The McDowell farm adjoins that owned by the Scotts, so Reeve and Rod agree to join forces against Henry, which leads to violent reprisals against them. While set in Georgia, Hurry Sundown was actually shot on location in Louisiana; it was the first film shot in the South with an integrated cast and crew, leading the producers to demand protection from State Troopers after members of the company received death threats. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In Harm's Way, based on James Bassett's novel Harm's Way, has enough plot in it for four movies or a good miniseries (when it was shown on network television in prime time, it was broken into two very full nights). On the morning of December 7, 1941, a heavy cruiser, commanded by Captain Rockwell Torrey (John Wayne), and the destroyer Cassidy, under acting commander Lieutenant (jg) William McConnell (Thomas Tryon), are two of a handful of ships that escape the destruction of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Under Torrey's command, the tiny fleet of a dozen ships carries out its orders to seek out and engage the enemy fleet. But lack of fuel and a daring maneuver (but tragic miscalculation) by Torrey causes his ship to be seriously damaged. He's relieved of command and assigned to a desk job routing convoys in the shakeup following the attack, and his exec and oldest friend, Commander Paul Eddington (Kirk Douglas), is reassigned after a brawl, the result of his anger after identifying the body of his wife (Barbara Bouchet) who was killed during the attack while cavorting with an Marine Corps officer.

Torrey's shore assignment leads him to reestablish contact on a very hostile level with his estranged son, Ensign Jere Torrey (Brandon de Wilde), from his long-ended marriage; he establishes a romantic relationship with Lt. Maggie Haynes (Patricia Neal), a navy nurse; and he also befriends Commander Egan Powell (Burgess Meredith), a special-intelligence officer. Partly as a result of his contact with Powell, Torrey is chosen by the commander of the Pacific Fleet (Henry Fonda) to salvage an essential operation called Sky Hook, which has become bogged down through the indecisiveness of its area commander, Vice Admiral Broderick (Dana Andrews). Promoted to rear admiral, with Eddington -- who'd been rotting away on a shore assignment, drunk most of the time -- assigned as his chief of staff, Torrey gets Sky Hook rolling and finally finds his purpose in this war, gaining the belated admiration of his son in the process. Eddington is similarly motivated but is still haunted by the violent, ultimately self-destructive demons that blighted his marriage and his life -- he is particularly attracted to a young nurse, Annalee Dohrn (Jill Haworth), not knowing that she is already involved romantically with Jere Torrey. Meanwhile, McConnell survives the sinking of his ship and is ordered to join Torrey's staff. Matters all come to a head when the Japanese begin a counter-offensive to Torrey's planned troop landing. And just at the time Torrey needs his men at their best, Eddington's violence and rage boil to the surface in a way that will destroy him and blight both men's lives. In a final attempt at redemption, Eddington provides Torrey with the information he needs to set up a battle that he has at least a chance of winning, pitting his small task group of destroyers and cruisers against the Japanese task force led by the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide