Ron Kennedy Movies
- 1965
The Beatles are coming! The Beatles are coming! Or so the members of the Alpha Beta sorority who are trying to raise $10,000 during Spring Break to save their sorority house believe. When the Fab Four do not show, the ingenious girls must create a passable imitation by imitating them themselves. The Beach Boys also appear in this film with an especially choice scene of Brian Wilson singing around a campfire. Songs in this musical comedy include: "Leave Me Alone," "It's Gotta Be You," "I Don't Want to Be a Loser" (sung by Lesley Gore), "Lonely Sea, La Bamba" (performed by the Crickets), "Girls On the Beach," and "Little Honda" (sung by the Beach Boys). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martin West, Noreen Corcoran, (more)
- 1965
Starlet Reggie Lansfield (Jean Hale) is hired as a stand-in for Victoria Dawn (Patrice Wymore), a once-popular actress and swimming star who plans to revitalize her career by staging a spectacular publicity stunt. Posing as Victoria, Reggie is to swim the entire length of the Catalina Channel--but the stunt is spoiled when the girl is rescued by boat captain Charlie Shaw (played by Bill Williams, the husband of Perry Mason costar Barbara Hale. Nor is this the end of Reggie's troubles: Victoria turns up murdered, and the hapless "double" is charged with the crime. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) dives into the case to prevent Reggie from going belly-up at San Quentin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1965
Hurriedly assembled to capitalize on the Paramount feature of the same name, Magna Pictures' Harlow was shot in less than two weeks, utilizing a glorified TV-kinescope process called Electronovision. Carol Lynley is physically an excellent choice to play 1930s Hollywood "platinum blonde" Jean Harlow, though she has little of Harlow's casual charisma. Pushed into a movie career by Mama Jean (Ginger Rogers) in order to support her dysfunctional family, Jean rises from 2-reel comedies to big-budget features in the space of a year. Though one of the highest-priced stars at MGM, Jean's fortune is rapidly depleted by her high-living (and, it is hinted, incestuous) stepfather Marino Bello (Barry Sullivan). Seeking happiness and security, Jean marries producer Paul Bern (Hurd Hatfield), only to have him commit suicide due to his impotence. Just when her misery is about to be ended by her marriage to movie star William Mansfield (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.)--a thinly disguised William Powell, who refused to allow his name or likeness to be used--Jean dies of uremia at the age of 26. If you can get past those miserable Laurel & Hardy imitators at the beginning of Harlow, you might be able to survive the rest of the picture, which gives a whole new meaning to the word "cheap." Watch for boxing champ Sonny Liston in a one-scene bit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carol Lynley, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., (more)
- 1964
Dr. Gregory Pelham (Peter Hobbs) specializes in discreetly treating high-profile alcoholics. This business reaps quite a profit, so much so that someone decides to cash in on it by kidnapping Pelham's son David (Tom Lowell) and holding him for ransom. As it turns out, the kidnapping is a hoax--but the murder of Joe Velvet (Ron Kennedy), for which Dr. Pelham is charged, is all too real. If ever there was a case for Perry Mason (Raymond Burr), this is it! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
While deep-sea fishing with his colleague Paul Drake (William Hopper), Perry (Raymond Burr) receives word from his old friend Scott Cahill (Jeff York) that the Coast Guard has boarded Cahill's vessel looking for stolen gold bullion. Unfortunately, the officials not only find the gold, but also the body of Cahill's alleged partner Karl Magovern (Arch Johnson). This is the episode in which Perry inveigles his "friendly enemy" Hamilton Burger (William Talman) to take a crucial voyage on a Coast Guard cutter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1960
This is a routine, low-budget drama by Bernard Ray, his last film in a career that started in 1933. At the center of attention is a husband with an obvious desire to get away from his nagging wife. His other obvious desires -- for sexual action -- are not exactly fulfilled by his marriage either. And so he lapses into an affair with a prostitute in order to make up for the deficiencies in his marriage. As this story evolves in its complexity, it is simultaneously heading for a surprise ending that is certain to give the protagonist food for thought. The storyline notwithstanding, Bernard Ray dedicated this film to his late wife and half of the proceeds to a cancer charity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lindsay Workman, Merry Anders, (more)
Short on action and slow in developing, this drama is set during World War II on a small island in the Pacific. Two GI's are holed up inside a cave, the only survivors of a failed offensive on the island. One day they witness a mass suicide among the Japanese soldiers who control the area, and so they realize that the war has ended. As they open up to each other, one of them loses his temper unexpectedly and bursts forth with an anti-Semitic tirade against his supposed buddy. That unexplained outburst mortifies him as much or more than it does his companion, and he takes a shocking punitive action against himself. Meanwhile, the two men need to be rescued soon because the island is scheduled for an atomic bomb test. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Devon, Ron Kennedy, (more)
- 1958
The only clue the police have to go on in the case of a man offering $1000 to anyone willing to commit a murder is the man's voice. To flush out the would-be "client", Lt. Friday (Jack Webb) goes undercover, posing as an ex-convict and aspiring hitman. This episode bears a remarkable resemblance to the first-season Dragnet offering, "The Big Death". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Hidden Guns is not so much a western as a suspense melodrama. Bruce Bennett plays Stragg, a mean-spirited cardsharp with friends in high places. Though he has ordered the killing of a rival, Stragg is able to escape prosecution by greasing a few local palms. It is up to heretofore ineffectual sheriff Young (Richard Arlen) to bring justice to his corrupt community. Aiding Young is his callow son Faron (Faron Young), who likewise is considered too wishy-washy to be effective--at least until the slam-bang climax. John Carradine steals the show as Stragg's saturnine hired gun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Bennett, Richard Arlen, (more)
- 1956
1956's Tea and Sympathy is a diluted filmization of Robert Anderson's Broadway play. The original production was considered quite daring in its attitudes towards homosexuality (both actual and alleged) and marital infidelity; the film softpedals these elements, as much by adding to the text as by subtracting from it. John Kerr plays a sensitive college student who prefers the arts to sports; as such, he is ridiculed as a "sissy" by his classmates and hounded mercilessly by his macho-obsessed father Edward Andrews. Only student Darryl Hickman treats Kerr with any decency, perceiving that being different is not the same as being effeminate. Deborah Kerr, the wife of testosterone-driven housemaster Leif Erickson, likewise does her best to understand rather than condemn John for his "strangeness." Desperate to prove his manhood, John is about to visit town trollop Norma Crane. Though nothing really happens, the girl cries "rape!" Both John's father and Deborah's husband adopt a thick-eared "Boys will be boys" attitude, which only exacerbates John's insecurities. Feeling pity for John and at the same time resenting her own husband's boorishness, Deborah offers her own body to the mixed-up boy. "When you speak of this in future years...and you will...be kind." With this classic closing line, the original stage production of Tea and Sympathy came to an end. Fearing censorship interference, MGM insisted upon a stupid epilogue, indicating that Deborah Kerr deeply regretted her "wrong" behavior. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, (more)
The Killers from Space in this low-budget sci-fier are a group of aliens bent on conquering the earth. To this end, they overtake the mind and body of atomic scientist Peter Graves, using the poor man as a combination spy and saboteur. When Graves realizes this, he tries to warn mankind, but no one believes him. Marching defiantly back to the aliens' Bronson Canyon headquarters, where the slimy villains are busily syphoning off electrical power from a nearby generator, Graves vows to stop the extraterrestrials at any cost...including his own life (or what there's left of it). The makeup used for the aliens is laughable, but the film works so long as it concentrates on Graves' plight. Produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder, the brother of the more celebrated Billy Wilder, Killers from Space was distributed in the US by RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Graves, James Seay, (more)
- 1953
Disreputable wanderer Wes Anderson (Fred MacMurray) has been thrown in a frontier town calaboose, accused of being a "moonlighter" -- a cowpuncher who herds cattle by day and steals them by night. When Anderson escapes from jail, another man is falsely accused of Wes' crimes and is promptly lynched. Driven by guilt and revenge, Wes is determined to punish those responsible for the hanging, and to pay for a decent funeral for the innocent victim. In doing this, however, Wes turns from moonlighting to bank robbing, and it is up to his erstwhile sweetheart, Rela (Barbara Stanwyck) to bring him to justice. Along the way, Wes' criminal tendencies have tragic consequences for his hero-worshipping brother, Tom (William Ching). Originally released in 3-D, The Moonlighter is currently available only in 2-D, its only novelty value being the re-teaming of Double Indemnity stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck (who would again work together three years later in the low-key domestic drama There's Always Tomorrow). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, (more)
