Karl Malden Movies

The Soviets and Americans combine forces to save the world from a meteor in this science fiction disaster adventure. Bradley (Sean Connery) is an American scientist who teams up with Dubov (Brian Keith), and his translator-assistant Tatiana (Natalie Wood) later falls in love with Bradley. Hong Kong and New York are hit hard by tidal waves as the scientists race against time to prevent global disaster. Although a fine cast is assembled, nobody stands out, and the real star of the film is the special effects. This 18-million-dollar feature faced real economic disaster at the box office, although four engineers received an Oscar nomination for "Best Sound" for this forgettable film. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Even after all these decades, there remain those loyal Streets of San Francisco fans who argue that the series would have survived long past it fifth and final season had there not occurred a radical (and somewhat controversial) casting change. Though Karl Malden remained on the job during Season Five as veteran SFPD homicide detective Mike Stone, Michael Douglas, cast as Stone's youthful partner, Inspector Steve Keller, would exit the series after the spectacular, star-studded two-part season opener in order to focus his energies on producing the Oscar-winning theatrical feature One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (On the series, it was explained that Steve Keller had retired from active duty to teach a college criminology class). Keller's replacement was another young idealist, albeit a tad handsomer and more athletic, Inspector Dan Robbins, played by Richard Hatch (not the future American Idol contestant!) Despite the best efforts of the series' writers and directors, Stone and Robbins never developed the same warm rapport that had been the hallmark of the Stone-Keller relationship, nor were Michael Douglas' legions of fans satisfied with his relatively unknown replacement. For this and several other reasons (including the stiff competition of CBS' Barnaby Jones, the ratings of Streets of San Francisco tanked during its fifth year on the air, and was cancelled after 119 episodes in September of 1977 (the series had previously gone on brief hiatus in the spring of that year to make room for a new ABC drama, Westside Medical. In fairness to Richard Hatch, his character did have a few memorable moments, notably the episode in which Robbins falls in love with a "bleeding-heart" public defender, played by a pre-Lou Grant Linda Kelsey. This year's "cast-against-type" candidates include Susan Dey of The Partridge Family and Maureen McCormick of The Brady Bunch, respectively portraying a baby-faced urban terrorist and 16-year-old call girl. And as in seasons past, the series provided a good showcase for young players on their way up: Mark Hamill as a street-gang member, Carl Weathers as a cop, Don Johnson as a reckless motorcycle cop, and, best of all, future "Governator" Arnold Schwarzenegger as a short-tempered professional bodybuilder who turns lethal whenever someone makes fun of him! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Homicide detectives Mike Stone (Karl Malden and Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) continue to track down a wide assortment of Bay Area criminals and lowlifes in the third season of Streets of San Francisco. Arguably the season's most famous episode follows in the "casting against type" tradition of Rick Nelson's villainous turn in Season Two. This time around, singer John Davidson shucks his apple-pie image to deliver a stunning tour de force in the role of a professional female impersonator who develops a fatal obsession for one of his movie-diva idols. Less celebrated but no less impressive is the performance of Mike Evans, then concurrently starring as Lionel on The Jeffersons, as a wannabe gangster. Other guest performers include Leslie Nielsen as an alcoholic cop, Sam Jaffe as an elderly jeweler who confesses to murder to protect an old friend, Brock Peters as a tormented fugitive from justice, and Clint Howard as a troubled teenager. Additionally, Brenda Vaccaro, the then girlfriend of series star Michael Douglas, makes a meal of her role as a wide-eyed "girl next door" who turns out to be an elusive mob assassin! Running up against the competition of NBC's Ironside and CBS' first-run movies, Season Three Streets of San Francisco didn't perform quite as well in the ratings as it had the previous year, but it still raked in plenty of fans and advertising revenue for ABC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moving from Saturday nights to its more familiar Thursday-evening berth on ABC, Streets of San Francisco launched a second season of hard-hitting, location-filmed cop dramas, starring Karl Malden as veteran SFPD detective Mike Stone and Michael Douglas as Mike's younger but no less capable partner, Inspector Steve Keller. As with any Quinn Martin TV production, one of the great strengths of Streets of San Francisco is its roster of guest-star talent. Season Two is distinguished by two remarkable examples of casting against type, both involving popular singers. In the first, Rick Nelson utterly shatters his Ozzie and Harriet image as a charming, sexually ambivalent "Pied Piper" who lures teenage girls into prostitution; and in the second, Lola Falana plays the grim-visaged girlfriend of a professional thief--and even gets to sing in the bargain. Other guest performers this season include Tom Bosley as a pathetic two-bit thief, Martin Sheen as a womanizing bank robber, Leif Erickson as a troubled priest, Leslie Nielsen as a terminally ill cop, Paul Fix as a septugenarian "Robin Hood", Signe Hasso as a colorful psychic, Celeste Holm as a vengeful widow, and series star Michael Douglas' real-life mom Diana Douglas as the mother of a kidnap victim. And of course, viewers are treated to early performances by a number of stars-to-be, including Nick Nolte as a troubled Vietnam vet, Sam Elliott as a rodeo star, future ChiPs costar Larry Wilcox as a nomadic teen, and Cheryl Ladd--still using her pre-Charlie's Angels billing of Cheryl Stopplemoor--as a murder victim. The move to Thursdays did wonders for the ratings of Streets of San Francisco, with the series ending up as the 22nd most-watched program in America. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 2-hour pilot film for the long-running (1972-77) TV detective series first aired on September 16, 1972. Veteran police detective lieutenant Mike Stone (Karl Malden) and his young partner Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) try to solve the murder of runaway Holly Jean Berry (Kim Darby). By reconstructing Holly's last days of life, Stone and Keller draw up a list of likely suspects, foremost of which is slick but not overly bright corporate lawyer David J. Farr (Robert Wagner). The actual murderer may seem to come out of left field, but his sudden appearance on the scene is perfectly credible within the framework of Edward Hume's teleplay. Streets of San Francisco was based on Poor, Poor Ophelia, a novel by Carolyn Weston. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If you want to know what The Wild Bunch would have looked like with Blake Edwards rather than Sam Peckinpah in the director's chair, we submit for your approval Wild Rovers. William Holden and Ryan O'Neal play a couple of shiftless ranch hands who impulsively decide to rob a bank. They manage to make off with the money, but also incur the wrath of their former boss Karl Malden, who sends his two sons Tom Skerritt and Joe Don Baker out to bring back Holden and O'Neal, preferably dead. The film's climax is surprisingly melancholy for an Edwards film, but one can't deny that the ending grows logically from the events leading up to it. Severely edited by its distributor Warner Bros, Wild Rovers doesn't make a lot of sense in its release version; the director's cut, incorporated 30 minutes' worth of extra footage, is fortunately available on video. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1943 North Africa, George Patton (George C. Scott) assumes command of (and instills some much-needed discipline in) the American forces. Engaged in battle against Germany's Field Marshal Rommel (Karl Michael Vogler), Patton drives back "The Desert Fox" by using the German's own tactics. Promoted to Lieutenant General, Patton is sent to Sicily, where he engages in a personal war of egos with British Field Marshal Montgomery (Michael Bates). Performing brilliantly in Italy, Patton seriously jeopardizes his future with a single slap. While touring an Army hospital, the General comes across a GI (Tim Considine) suffering from nervous fatigue. Incensed by what he considers a slacker, Patton smacks the poor soldier and orders him to get well in a hurry. This incident results in his losing his command-and, by extension, missing out on D-Day. In his final campaign, Patton leads the US 3rd Army through Europe. Unabashedly flamboyant, Patton remains a valuable resource, but ultimately proves too much of a "loose cannon" in comparison to the more level-headed tactics of his old friend Omar Bradley (Karl Malden). Patton won 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Scott, an award that he refused. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This comedy finds a veteran crook turning to modern computer technology to steal money from various companies. Even before he is released from jail Caesar (Peter Ustinov) is planning his high-tech heist. He cons American executive Klemper (Karl Malden) and sets up three bogus companies to receive funds from the corporate office. Klemper's faithful assistant Gnatpole (Bob Newhart) is suspicious and investigates the unusual activities. Smith (Robert Morley) gives Caesar the computer lesson that puts him on the fast track to thievery. Caesar marries Patty (Maggie Smith), who surprises her husband by earning more money than her crooked spouse by honest means. Cesar Romero is the smiling customs official who lets Caesar pass through with a bagful of money from the crime while Klemper's jar of instant coffee falls under suspicion. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Harry Palmer (Michael Caine), the reluctant secret agent from The Ipcress File (1965) and Funeral in Berlin (1966) -- both (like the source for this movie) based on novels by Len Deighton -- is back again in Ken Russell's Billion Dollar Brain. Having left Britain's espionage service, Palmer is scraping out a living as a private investigator, but he's still willing to give his old boss Colonel Ross (Guy Doleman) the bum's rush out of his office when he comes calling, offering a raise and promotion if he'll return. But Palmer ends up working for Her Majesty's government anyway -- a letter arrives, with a key and money, and telephoned instructions by a mechanical voice connect him up with a carefully sealed parcel (filled with what an x-ray reveals as eggs) that he must transport to Helsinki. No sooner does he get there than he discovers that an old friend, Leo Newbigin (Karl Malden), and his young lover Anya (Françoise Dorléac) are behind the trip, and that the man who was supposed to receive the parcel is dead. The eggs contain dangerous viruses stolen from a secret British laboratory, and England wants them back and wants to know why they were stolen. That assignment immerses Palmer in a deadly game of deception, double-dealing, and triple-crosses on all sides, as he finds that Leo is working for a privately operated intelligence network, set up by a rabidly right-wing Texas oil man, General Midwinter (Ed Begley Sr.).

The billion-dollar super-computer of the title, built by Midwinter, runs a network of spies and assassins aimed at the destruction of the Soviet Union. That interests Palmer's old friend, Soviet security chief Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka, in an almost movie-stealing performance), very much, and he, too, wants to know what Palmer knows. And then there's Leo, who has taken millions from Midwinter, supposedly to establish a secret underground in Latvia, waiting for the signal to rise up against the Soviets occupying their country that will spread across the Baltics and beyond and bring down the Soviet government. He's taken the money, but all Harry find when he goes into Latvia is motley bunch of broken-down black marketeers whose orders are to kill him and make it look like the work of the Soviets. And there's Anya, who is sleeping with Leo, trying to seduce Harry, and seems to have an agenda all her own, but in whose interest? If it's all a little confusing, so was the book on which it was based, but there's enough striking visual material, courtesy of cinematographer Billy Williams, and engrossing performances (and a wry sensibility), courtesy of director Ken Russell and screenwriter John McGrath, that the leaps in plot, logic, and setting don't matter that much, and it is great fun. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Henry Hathaway's film is based on a character from Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers, who, in turn, based it on cowboy actor Ken Maynard. Set in the West of the 1890s, the film opens with the torture and murder of the parents of Max Sand (Steve McQueen) by a trio of gunslingers seemingly motivated by their hostility toward the mixed nature of the marriage, since the wife is a Native American. Swearing revenge, the young cowhand enlists the help of itinerant gunsmith Jonas Cord Brian Keith, who teaches him how to shoot while counseling against revenge. Nonetheless, Sand doggedly scours one town after the other before finally running up against one of the murderers, Jesse Coe (Martin Landau). He finally kills Coe in a vicious knife fight, but is severely wounded himself and has to be nursed back to health by Neesa (Janet Margolin), a young Kiowa woman. He next heads for Louisiana where another of the murderous trio, Bill Bowdre (Arthur Kennedy), is serving a prison sentence in a remote swamp. In order to get close to the man, Sand stages a robbery, and is soon among the prison inmates. This was the only film on which McQueen worked with Landau, the only other person admitted to the Actor's Studio out of thousands of applicants in 1957. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

Columbia Pictures tried to create a tongue-in-cheek American James Bond with this, the first of five motion pictures based on the character of Matt Helm, a spy created in a series of novels by Donald Hamilton. Dean Martin stars as Helm, a boozing, womanizing cad of a spy coaxed out of retirement by ex-girlfriend Tina Batori (Daliah Lavi). His mission: stop the evil Big O organization, whose leader, Tung-Tze (Victor Buono), schemes to sabotage an atomic missile and thus spark World War III. Producer Irving Allen had once been partners with Albert R. Broccoli in the British film production company Warwick Films, their alliance ironically disintegrating over the merits of creating a Bond series. When Broccoli's instincts proved correct, Allen attempted to create his own spy franchise with the Helm character. The sequels to The Silencers (1966) were Murderers' Row (1966), The Ambushers (1967), and The Wrecking Crew (1968). Allen unsuccessfully tried to resurrect the character as a TV movie, Matt Helm (1975). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Though he's most famous for his portrayal of Victor Laszlo in 1942's Casablanca, actor Paul Henreid took a few turns behind the camera as evidenced by this 1964 thriller starring Bette Davis as twins Margaret DeLorca and Edith Phillips. After landing the beau they both sought after by falsely claiming she was pregnant, Margaret lives a life of luxury as the wife of a wealthy man. Now, 20 years later, a broke and lonely Edith has returned for revenge. After killing the recently widowed Margaret, Edith assumes her identity with plans of living the life she feels she's deserved all along. But in order to pull it off, she'll have to play the role of Margaret connivingly enough to fool her servants as well as a local playboy and the police. Dead Ringer was remade in 1986 as Killer in the Mirror, a made-for-television movie starring Ann Jillian. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide