Tommy Kirk Movies
American actor Tommy Kirk tried out as a youngster for the Pasadena Playhouse, the result of a dare made by Kirk's older brother. After a few minor TV roles, Kirk was signed by Walt Disney, who cast the teenager as one-half of "The Hardy Boys" on that popular daily segment of The Mickey Mouse Club. Young Kirk was promoted to the leading juvenile role in Disney's Old Yeller (1957), a three-handkerchief classic that made Kirk a star and a stalwart of the fan club set. In 1959, Kirk was the hirsute protagonist of The Shaggy Dog, one of Disney's biggest money-making films. When asked in later years, Kirk had fond memories of Disney but was not so politely inclined to his Shaggy Dog co-star Fred MacMurray. It was MacMurray who gave Kirk "the biggest dressing down of my life" on the set of Disney's Bon Voyage (1962). Kirk would confess that he fully deserved the scolding; at the time of the shooting, Kirk was addicted to amphetamines, and his resultant behavior was both erratic and obstructive. Whatever MacMurray told Kirk on the Bon Voyage set was quickly forgotten, however, for the young actor was fired from the 1965 John Wayne vehicle Sons of Katie Elder because of his being busted for marijuana use. As a consequence of crossing the "Duke," Kirk was effectively shut out of the big studios, and was forced to settle for silly leading roles in the American-International Beach Party films, and in such low-grade farragoes as Mars Needs Women (1968). Compelled to take menial jobs after his movie career ended, Kirk attempted a theatrical comeback in the early '70s, but he had been forgotten by all but Disney buffs. Whatever the case, Tommy Kirk has overcome his drug problems in recent years and has become a favorite all over again on the nostalgia convention-circuit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 2000
Some folks who think they'd sell their soul to lose some weight discover that someone is taking that notion very seriously in this independent horror-comedy. A mysterious firm calling itself "The Corporation" has purchased a failing health spa and is eager to give the business a new lease on life. However, three student journalists are convinced something fishy is going on at the gym, and decide to find out what's going on. Together, they make the startling discovery that the Corporation and its shadowy chairman, Mr. Ex, have a rather unusual agenda -- the spa is a front for a satanic cult, and those looking to get back in shape are paying with their immortal souls. Club Dead stars Leonna Small and features a guest appearance from Tommy Kirk. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1999
In this spooky comedy for the whole family, Billy Frank thinks he's an ordinary kid, until his family inherits an old castle and Billy learns he's a distant relative of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein. Billy's folks decide to visit their family estate, and Billy soon discovers they're not alone in the old, dark house. Tommy Kirk, Vernon Wells, and Darran Norris star in this story directed by cult hero Fred Olen Ray. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vernon Wells, Daran Norris, (more)
- 1997
- PG
An adolescent sorceress-to-be has to pass a special test in order to become a full-fledged witch: she must save a henpecked husband from his battle-axe wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Russ Tamblyn, Michelle Bauer, (more)
- 1995
- R
When a finalist for "Centerfold of the Year" downs an experimental beauty-enhancing potion concocted by mad-scientist Dr. Lindholm, the unforseen side effects render her a shaply 60 feet tall. Jealous over all the attention, a rival guzzles the elixir, and soon the gargantuan beauties are battling it out and trashing much of Hollywood Boulvard in the process. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- J.J. North, Ted Monte, (more)
- 1973
Barry Sullivan guest stars as Chris Bane, a famous and powerful San Francisco newspaper columnist. After murdering his mistress, Bane uses his journalistic skills to pin the killing on his rival. Complications ensue when it turns out that Chris' son Greg (Geoffrey Deuel) was likewise involved with the dead woman. Also in the cast are former Disney leading man Tommy Kirk (here billed as "Thomas") and future TV soap-opera doyenne Anna Lee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Al Adamson, shameless purveyor of countless horror anti-classics, juggles around most of the footage from his 1965 clunker Psycho-A-Go-Go after dressing up and re-releasing it on no less than three prior occasions (under a wide assortment of titles -- see below) with a few incomprehensible subplots added to further confuse audiences into thinking they were watching something else. The initial premise involves an insane Vietnam veteran being fitted with a brain implant by mad medic John Carradine (a regular Adamson player by this point) and used as a remote-control zombie by a cabal of jewel thieves. Their pet maniac subsequently blows a gasket, breaks his programming and turns on his controllers, strangles some dancing girls, then gets his revenge on Carradine. Enter gratuitous subplot #1 as the electro-fiend heads straight for Lake Tahoe (can you blame him?), where his rampage continues until he is eventually killed by the cops. Splice in gratuitous subplot #2: The late psycho's embittered pop is also a monster-making mad scientist, who avenges his son's death by mutilating Carradine's buxom daughter. None of the aforementioned plot combinations can disguise Adamson's trademark style -- i.e. cheap gore, cardboard sets, hideous acting, and so on. Viewers who manage to make sense of this piecework monstrosity should switch off their VCRs and seek immediate professional help. Sundry title variations include The Man with the Synthetic Brain, The Fiend with the Atomic Brain, The Fiend with the Electronic Brain, The Fiend with the Synthetic Brain... you should begin to notice a vague pattern here. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1968
In this sci-fi film a loony farmer finds a prehistoric monster hiding in a cavern on his land. To feed his newest critter, the farmer kidnaps three people. The three desperately try to escape and finally, one of them succeeds. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1967
This independent racing feature was filmed around the Nashville area. The mob has their eye on the stock-car-racing circuit. The owners of the track have hired a publicity man to smooth things over between the two top racers in the interests of promotion. Bobby (Tom Kirk) is the brooding car jockey at odds with longtime nemesis Gary (Ray Strickland). The two not only compete on the racetrack, but both are moving in fast on the same girl, the lovely brunette Shelley (Brenda Benet). One will get the girl, the other will be content to go back to the farm and leave life in the fast lane behind. Brenda Benet was once romantically linked with the late Bobby Fuller (I Fought The Law). She moved on to soap-opera fame in the 1970s before tragically taking her own life. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ray Stricklyn, H.M. Wynant, (more)
- 1967
In this beach romp, a surfin' lothario falls in love with a bikini-clad beauty, but she doesn't dig him until he dons glasses and poses as his bookish brother, Herbert. Music is provided by the Gentrys, the Toys, the Animals, and the Castaways. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1967
Beach parties abound in this youthful adventure that centers on two surfers-turned-detective as they look into the mysterious theft of a priceless Chinese scroll. Musical highlights include Little Richard singing "Scuba Party", and The Cascades with "There's a New World Opening for Me". The film is alternately titled Never Steal Anything Wet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Kirk, Del Moore, (more)
- 1966
Newlywed life is anything but bliss for a woman (Anne Helm), when her husband (Tom Kirk) is plagued by fainting spells every time he contemplates consummating his marriage. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1966
American-International's Beach Party series came to an abrupt end with Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Because of such tangible reasons as contractual commitments, coupled with such intangibles as illness and death, most of the series "regulars" are absent. Deborah Walley and Aron Kinkaid fill the roles usually played by Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, while Benny Rubin plays a comic-Indian role obviously intended for Buster Keaton. Only Harvey Lembeck, as the inimitable Eric von Zipper, is on hand from the good old days. The plot is set in motion by the ghostly Boris Karloff, a corpse who must perform one good deed before gaining entrance into the Hereafter. Together with a sexy spirit (Susan Hart) (the titular lass in the invisible bikini), the corpse attempts to save the heiress (Walley) from the murderous machinations of a greedy attorney (Basil Rathbone) and his cohorts (Rubin and Jesse White). Music is provided by such second-generation celebs as Nancy Sinatra and Claudia Martin, and with The Bobby Fuller Four lip-synching a pair of songs. The climax is a less-funny reworking of the final sequence in Beach Blanket Bingo, with the heroine (Walley) strapped to the longest buzzsaw plank in film history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deborah Walley, Tommy Kirk, (more)
In this sci-fi film, lonely Martians wire Earth in hopes of finding fertile women to repopulate their dying world. They are particularly interested in a voluptuous dancing scientist. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1965
The sequel to 1963's Misadventures of Merlin Jones finds young Mr. Jones (Tommy Kirk) still in college and still going out with Jennifer (Annette Funicello). In this movie, he must help football players pass their tests and invent a flying machine win a contest for the school. Funicello and the Beach Boys sing the title song. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Kirk, Leon Ames, (more)
Based on the same H.G. Wells story as his later Food of the Gods, this silly but good-looking fantasy from Bert I. Gordon is among his more entertaining films. The young Ron Howard plays Genius, who develops a substance which causes animals to grow to monstrous size. After eight kids (led by Beau Bridges and Tisha Sterling) crash their car in the mud, they dance and get drunk, then steal some food containing the growth-gunk, causing them to attain huge physical size as well. It's up to the good teens of the town (including Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman, and "Mickey" crooner Toni Basil) to set things right. That involves a gas-like antidote and a lot of subpar musical numbers from the likes of Freddy Cannon and the Beau Brummels. Joseph Turkel and Rance Howard are also in the cast, and a jokey ending features a number of midgets including Felix Silla, best known as Cousin Itt on TV's The Addams Family. The first in a projected 13-picture production deal with Joseph E. Levine, Gordon followed this with the William Castle-inspired Picture Mommy Dead. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford, (more)
Out of the beaches and into the boudoirs go Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and the rest of the gang in Pajama Party. Actually, the whole megillah is as innocent as a newborn babe, but there's plenty of smirking and snickering during a wild 'n' wacky girl's slumber party. Frankie Avalon has only a cameo, relinquishing center stage to Tommy Kirk, playing a teenaged Martian (!) studying the lovemaking rituals of Earthlings. Old-timers Buster Keaton, Dorothy Lamour and Elsa Lanchester also weave in and out of the proceedings, with Keaton the only one who doesn't look as though he wishes he were somewhere else. And of course there's good old Harvey Lembeck as good old Eric "Why Me?" Von Zipper. Director Don Weis took over for Beach Party's William Asher in Pajama Party, remaining in charge for the ill-fated sequel Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, (more)
- 1964
- G
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In this Disney family film, brainy college student Merlin Jones (Tommy Kirk) invents a mind-reading machine, but the consequences of its use prove to be a lot of trouble. With help from his girlfriend (Annette Funicello), he must set to right all that has gone wrong. The movie spawned the sequel Monkey's Uncle two years later. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, (more)
Son of Flubber represented the first time that Walt Disney ever attempted a theatrical feature sequel: in this case, the earlier film was the 1961 moneyspinner The Absent-Minded Professor. While Flubber is more formula-bound than Professor, it proved an instant audience-pleaser, and a hit to the tune of nine million dollars. Fred MacMurray returns as professor Ned Brainerd, currently working on his new discovery, "dry rain." The comically destructive side effects of this discovery seemingly doom the professor to failure -- at least until the closing courtroom sequence -- but meanwhile he has better luck with Flubbergas, a byproduct of the antigravity glop he'd invented in the first film. In addition to MacMurray, Absent-Minded Professor alumni Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Leon Ames, Elliott Reid, Alan Carney, Gordon Jones, Forrest Lewis, and James Westerfield reprise their roles from the earlier film, while Ed Wynn shows up in a new guise as a nervous agricultural agent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, (more)
- 1963
In the first episode of Walt Disney's two-part miniseries The Horsemasters, the viewer is whisked of to England's prestigious Valleywood Riding School, a training ground for future riding instructors. The head of the riding academy, Janet Hale (Janet Munro), greets her new pupils in her usual no-nonsense fashion. Among the newcomers is Dinah Wilcox (Annette Funicello), who may be "washed out" early on when she develops a fear of jumping. But another pupil, Danny Grant (Tommy Kirk), is determined to help Dinah overcome her terror. Highlights include "The Strummin' Song", written by prolific Disney tunesmiths Richard M. and Robert Sherman. Originally telecast on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, "Follow Your Heart" and the subsequent episode "Tally Ho" were later combined and released theatrically overseas as The Horsemasters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Annette Funicello, Tommy Kirk, (more)
Savage Sam is the sequel to the successful Disney film Old Yeller. This time, the boys take off after a band of Apache kidnappers who have snatched the children of lazy neighbor Bud Searcy (Jeff York). With their true-blue bloodhound Sam, the kids take off with Brian Keith to take back the missing children. The viewer may be confused with the lightheartedness that accompanies the gravity of such an abduction and then is abandoned in favor of a more serious flavor later in the film. Norman Tokar directed this uneven feature that fared far less better at the box office than is predecessor. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Keith, Tommy Kirk, (more)
- 1962
Moon Pilot is an engaging Disney sci-fi comedy that manages to shoot off a few neat and surprisingly satirical barbs at the hypertense US/Russia "space race" of the era. Tom Tryon plays an astronaut who is ordered to keep his upcoming moon flight a secret, even from his family. While on a plane, Tryon is approached by lovely Dany Saval, who seems to know all about the astronaut's hush-hush mission, and who warns him about possible defects in his spacecraft. Despite the diligence of his FBI guards, Tryon is confronted time and again by Saval, who eventually reveals herself to be a visitor from the planet Beta Lyrae. A friendly alien, Saval merely wants to offer Tryon a special coating formula that will safeguard his rocket. Enchanted by the girl, Tryon plays hookey on his guards to spend more time with her, leaving the FBI, NASA, the CIA and the local constabulary to chase their own tails. When his rocket is launched, Tryon discovers that Saval has stowed away. The two sing a romantic song about Beta Lyrae while mission control (personified by Brian Keith at his most bombastic) expresses confusion over the bizarre transmissions emanating from Tryon's capsule. The release of Moon Pilot was heralded by a "preview" on Disney's Wonderful World of Color TV series, titled "Spy in the Sky." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Keith, Edmond O'Brien, (more)
- 1962
In this lively adventure, a pair of American painters travel to Florence to perfect their craft and end up inadvertently forging masterpieces for a ring of crooks. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
An Indiana family embarks on their dream vacation to France. The Willard family, led by Harry (Fred MacMurray) and Katie (Jane Wyman), bring their three children along to experience a slice of continental culture abroad. Amy (Deborah Walley) is the lovestruck teenager whose brother Elliott (Tommy Kirk) is easily as eager for love. Younger brother Skipper (Kevin Corcoran) is the mischievous moppet who is always getting lost. Elliott is mesmerized by a pretty French maid, Amy is wooed by a wealthy teen, and Katie fends off the advances of an amorous playboy. From Paris to Monte Carlo, the Willard family experiences culture shock firsthand and realizes quickly they are not back home in Indiana. This Walt Disney production, while focusing on less childlike themes than in other films, still managed to take in five million dollars in its initial domestic release. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred MacMurray, Jane Wyman, (more)
One of Disney's most entertaining forays into live-action, this hit family comedy stars Fred MacMurray as a college professor so forgetful that he missed his own wedding twice. He creates an extremely resilient flying rubber, dubbed "Flubber," and manages to make his old Model-T bounce all the way to Washington, DC, where it is mistaken for a UFO, as well as helping the college basketball team win the big game with Flubber-powered sneakers. MacMurray is a lot of fun in the title role, ably supported by a cast including Tommy Kirk, Keenan Wynn and Leon Ames, although the central romance between MacMurray and huffy bride-to-be Nancy Olson gets a bit annoying in its repetitiveness. In all, however, this is one of the best children's films of the '60s, and is highly recommended. A sequel, Son of Flubber, followed, with a remake simply titled Flubber appearing in 1997. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, (more)
