Don "Red" Barry Movies

Old-time Hollywood director Vincent Sherman brings a glossy studio-bound look to The Dream Merchants, a two-part, four-hour adaptation of Harold Robbins' novel. The story follows the career of a pioneer filmmaker (Mark Harmon), who comes to Hollywood in the early 20th century with a pocketful of dreams and helps build the sleepy California orange-grove community into the world's entertainment capital. Typical of the Harold Robbins ouevre, most of the characters are based on real-life movie personalities: Robert Goulet's vainglorious matinee idol is a combination of John Barrymore and Douglas Fairbanks, while Vincent Gardenia's vitriolic mogul can be taken as a low-budget Louis B. Mayer. The film is rife with historical inaccuracies (Goulet is informed that the closeup has "just been invented by D. W. Griffith" as a means to convince him to sign a long-term contract assuring him plenty of closeups!), while the haircuts and speech patterns are firmly locked into the 1980s. All the same, The Dream Merchants was a profitable entry in the syndicated "Operation Prime Time" series of TV specials. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Hoping to contribute to the Ingalls' family coffers, young Albert (Matthew Laborteaux) becomes an apprentice to old Isaac Singerman (John Bleifer), Walnut Grove's coffin maker. Before long, Albert is subjected to the taunts of his classmates, who maliciously label him a "Jew lover." As it turns out, even the most bigoted citizens of Walnut Grove could stand to learn a lesson from the positive example set by Isaac and his brethren. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this western, a family of cattle rustlers find themselves observed by a man who did not want to be sheriff. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

North Carolina filmmaker Earl Owensby assembled this tense tale of hatred and bigotry. Originally titled Seabo, the film stars Owensby himself as a half-breed Indian. Subjected to endless persecution, Seabo (Owensby) reacts with violence, only to end up on a hellish chain gang. When he learns that the goonish warden is planning a wholesale slaughter of the prisoners, Seabo masterminds an escape. Most of the cast is comprised of local unknowns, with the exceptions of oldtime western stars Donald "Red" Barry and Sunset Carson. Seabo didn't get much play north of the Mason-Dixon line until it was retitled Buckstone County Prison and telecast on the HBO cable service in January of 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Following the blockbuster success of Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynolds, Sally Field and director Hal Needham reunited to make the very similar Hooper, an action-laced comedy about a Hollywood stunt man who enters a dangerous rivalry with a younger stunt man. Hooper (Reynolds) and the younger stunt man (Jan-Michael Vincent) compete in a series of increasingly complex stunts in order to earn the title of "the greatest stunt man alive." Hooper is lightweight, mindless fun that doesn't have much story, but it is a stronger film than Smokey and the Bandit, largely because the characters are somewhat stronger. Everyone involved looks like they're having fun; the good-humor translates on screen. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

In the opening episode of The Rockford Files' fifth season, Jim Rockford (James Garner) wants to know why his dad Rocky (Noah Beery Jr.), temporarily employed as a delivery driver, was forced off the road and his cargo--consisting of breakfast sausages--was hijacked. The main culprit would seem to be the sausage company's front man, country-western singer Charlie Strayhorn (Taylor Lachman). But Charlie turns out to be a mere pawn in a widespread smuggling scheme masterminded by the real villain of the piece. The title song for this episode was written (but not performed) by Willie Nelson. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

John Wainwright (Larry Hankin) is an author whose body and soul have been invaded by the reincarnated spirit of the sinister hypnotist Svengali. His best-selling new book on reincarnation not only admits this fact readily, but cites it as proof, though the public dismisses it all as an entertaining publicity stunt. The book's publisher, Sir Steven (Norman Pierce), knows better, however. He, like Svengali, is a member of the Society of the Bleeding Rose, a Satanic cult that has discovered the secret to immortality through human sacrifice and the theft of souls. Despite the new book's tremendous popularity, Svengali has a skeptic who challenges the veracity of his claims. Dr. Gregorio (Geoffrey Land) is a psychiatrist who disdains belief in the occult as superstition and quackery, but what Gregorio doesn't let on is the reason he considers himself an expert in such matters; he's actually a vampire, a creature of the undead who knows the truth about eternal life. Sir Steven demands that Svengali procure a fresh, untarnished soul for their society's wicked rituals, and nightclub dancer Trilby (Jane Brunel-Cohen) is chosen to replenish the Satanists' supply of psychic energy. Unfortunately, Wainwright's soul is fighting to regain control of the body that Svengali has stolen, flooding the evil hypnotist with strange feelings of love for Trilby that he can't control. Gregorio attends the Black Mass to disrupt the society's sacrifice with his vampiric talents, but he hasn't counted on the interference of Stephanie, (Susan McIver), a young woman who lost her mother to Gregorio's fangs and is bent on revenge. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi

Another big-budget monster movie from producer Dino de Laurentiis, Orca concerns the mutual revenge pact between an obsessive whaler (Richard Harris) and an angry killer whale, whose pregnant mate Harris killed. The whale strikes back by biting off Bo Derek's leg, so Harris and concerned biologist Charlotte Rampling follow it to frozen northern waters for the climactic showdown. Just in case you like Jaws better than Moby Dick, there's a killer shark thrown in for good measure. Ponderous, pretentious, and dull, this opportunistic disaster fittingly sank at the box office. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Written and directed by Frank D. Gilroy, this Western casts Charles Bronson as Graham Dorsey, a two-bit Western outlaw who has a three-hour affair with lonely Amanda Starbuck (Jill Ireland). When Dorsey is reported killed, Starbuck capitalizes on her liaison by building up the "legend" of the supposed deceased outlaw. Soon Dorsey has become an icon, glorified in song, fable, and dime novels. Imagine Starbuck's discomfort when he turns up very much alive, and extremely upset at being turned into Amanda's own private cottage industry. At the end, Dorsey isn't even left with his own identity. This picture is somewhat unconventional for a Western, downplaying violence in favor of characterization and dark humor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this crime comedy, a gullible private volunteers to become the subject of numerous military biological and chemical weaponry experiments. Later he becomes so messed up that he is forced into early retirement. He then decides to use some of the experimental gases to rob banks. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Director Robert Aldrich (The Longest Yard) re-unites with Burt Reynolds for this hard-edged neo-noir. Lieutenant Phil Gaines (Reynolds) is a cynical Los Angeles police detective amorously involved with an icewater-veined Parisian call girl, Nicole Britton (Catherine Deneuve). On the job, he begins to investigate the shady death of a teenage girl that appears to lead straight to Leo Sellers (Eddie Albert), an attorney with a frightening number of connections. The problem is, Nicole herself has a direct connection to the case - Leo is one of her clients. Meanwhile, Marty Hollinger (Ben Johnson), the victim's father, decides to undertake a grassroots investigation of his own - little realizing that his seemingly murdered daughter was in up to her neck with prostitution, porno movie acting, and dancing as a stripper, facts which suggest that she may have offed herself. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

After two young women are killed on a University campus, Fran (Elizabeth Baur) has a suspicious accident near the murder scene. Investigating, Ironside (Raymond Burr) finds out that both victims had one thing in common: they had been the mistresses of the college's married dean (Richard Anderson), a man with a spotless reputation--up until now, that is. Although three more episodes remained in Ironside's eighth season, "The Faded Image" ended up as the series' network finale when the show was abruptly cancelled on January 16, 1975. The three leftover installments would not be seen until they were syndicated in the fall of that year. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi