Adele Mara Movies

Another of the many Arthur Hailey literary properties which were transformed into TV miniseries in the 1970s, the five-part, ten-hour Wheels took place in Detroit sometime in the late 1960s. Rock Hudson starred as Adam Trenton, executive in charge of project development at the fictional auto-manufacturing firm of National Motors. Ambitious and ruthless, Adam let nothing stand in the way of his development and production of a new, youth-marketed car known as the Hawk. Meanwhile, Adam's bored and neglected wife Erica (Lee Remick, who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance) drifted into an extramarital affair and a brief "career" as a shoplifter. Eventually, Adam himself acquired a mistress, who in turn fell in love with Adam's son Kirk (James Carrol Jordan). As if things couldn't get any seamier, Kirk's brother Greg (Howard McGillin) was plagued by a blackmailer, while crooked car dealer Smokey Stevenson (played by miniseries stalwart Anthony Franciosa) cooked up a sinister deal that threatened to destroy National Motors. Originally telecast from May 7 to 15, 1978 on NBC, Arthur Hailey's Wheels posted such disappointing ratings that, when it was later rebroadcast, the property was whittled down from ten hours to four -- with episodes three and four summarily dropped from the proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Winning a high-stakes poker game, Bart (Jack Kelly) finds himself the owner of the Lucky Lady Saloon in Santa Leora. But when he shows up to claim his prize, he is confronted by the hired guns of Marquessa Luisa de Ruisenor (played byAdele Mara, the wife of Maverick producer-creator Roy Huggins). The Marquessa claims that she owns Santa Leora and everything in it, and she and her family are willing to back up that claim with guns, knives and fists. Rather than cut his losses and leave Santa Leora, Bart sticks around to find out if the Marquessa is the real villain of the piece, or if someone else is pulling the strings. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Archeologists excavating the ruins of Pompeii discover what seems to be a perfectly preserved human figure, encased in lava. A scientific team led by Dr. Paul Mallon (Richard Anderson) begins to piece together the history and identity of the stone figure. Using surviving records from the city and the location where the figure was found as a starting point, the archeologists uncover the story of Quintilus, an Etruscan gladiator-slave who was tortured and sentenced to death for daring to love a noblewoman. He vowed to kill anyone who kept him from the woman he loved, and was in the process of being executed when the eruption of Vesuvius destroyed the city and buried Quintilus in molten lava. Their research takes on tremendous urgency when evidence -- in the form of a rising number of dead bodies -- begins to show that Quintilus may not only still be alive, in some impossible-to-fathom manner, but bent on carrying out his final wish, of rescuing and escaping with his beloved, and that the woman he loved has been reincarnated, in some manner, in the person of Mallon's fiancée, Tina Enright (Elaine Edwards). This all seems like fanciful speculation, especially to the police, until Quintilus breaks out one night and starts stalking Tina through the city, impervious to police bullets and a danger to everyone around him. When Quintilus takes the unconscious Tina, Mallon must try to anticipate his movements around the city by finding the modern locations of ancient streets that Quintilus seems able to navigate. He heads for the Cove of the Blind Fisherman, hoping to save his fiancée and put an end to this ancient curse. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Riding into a small town, Bret (James Garner) and Bart (Jack Kelly) are amused when the locals mistake them for the notorious gunfighters Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. But it's a bit less amusing when gorgeous Doll Hayes (Joi Lansing) begins cozying up to the local sheriff (Frank Ferguson) as a diversion so that her cohorts can rob the town bank. To prevent this, the Mavericks decide to exploit their resemblance to Earp and Holliday to the hilt, A cute closing gag tops this final episode of Maverick's first season. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After closing down his film studio, producer Robert L. Lippert took charge of Regal Films, a subsidiary of 20th Century-Fox designed to turn out low-budget, non-CinemaScope productions. One of the first of these films was the modest western The Black Whip. Colleen Gray, Angie Dickinson, Adele Mara and Dorothy Schuyler play four women of questionable morals who conspire to help a notorious outlaw escape the law. The ladies are ushered into a stagecoach by the village elders and ordered to get out of town and stay out. En route to their next destination, the ladies' coach breaks down at a way station managed by Hugh Marlowe. As Marlowe repairs the wheels, an outlaw gang rides up, demanding that the girls be handed over to them. By this time, the ladies have no use for the bad guys, but Marlowe is too mild-mannered to intervene. He finally outfoxes the villains by using brains instead of brawn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Don Siegel keeps the events in Count the Hours moving so quickly that no one has time to ponder the film's huge lapses in logic. MacDonald Carey stars as a defense attorney Doug Madison who races against time to save migrant ranchhand George Braden (John Craven) from execution. While Madison tells himself that his motives are altruistic, there are those who believe that the lawyer has designs on Braden's wife, Ellen (Teresa Wright). Sacrificing everything in the pursuit of justice, Madison finally finds the crucial evidence that will free his client--if he can deliver the goods, and the actual murderer, before the switch is thrown in the death house. Produced by Benedict Bogeaus, whose wife Dolores Moran plays a supporting role, Count the Hours was somewhat pointlessly retitled Every Hour Counts when released in England. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Beautiful Adele Mara, who Republic Pictures took for granted for far too long, finally gets a chance to shine in this fine Western produced and directed by the dependent Joseph Kane. Mara plays Beth Martin, an Easterner traveling west to be reunited with her brother, Bob (Bill Williams). But Bob is not quite the hard-working miner that Beth and kid brother Tommy (Peter Miles) believed him to be and the newcomers quickly find themselves caught between double-crossing saloon owners Mike Prescott (Forrest Tucker) and Lincoln Corey (Jim Davis). Estelita Rodriguez, as Bob Martin's faithful girlfriend, performs "Second Hand Romance" and "I'm Goin' Round in Circles," both by Jack Elliott and Harold Spina. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Rock Island Trail is proof enough that Republic could turn out an "A" western as well as any of the "majors." This saga of pioneer railroading stars Forrest Tucker as Reed Loomis, a visionary railman who dreams of the day that trains will run from coast to coast. During his own efforts to make this dream come true, Loomis must face the formidable opposition of steamboat operator Kirby Morrow (Bruce Cabot). Another ongoing problem is lack of funds: fortunately, Loomis is in love with Constance Strong (Adele Mara), who happens to be a banker's daughter. Longtime Republic leading-lady Adrian Booth plays Aleeta, an Indian princess who has a yen for Loomis -- meaning, of course, that she probably won't survive to the end of the film. The film's climax is an all-out action orgy in the grand Republic tradition. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this courtroom drama, a French girl stands trial for murder. Flashbacks tell the grim story of how, during the Great War she got involved with a wealthy soldier and married him. He disappeared after the war. She then came to the U.S. There she finds him married to another woman. To cover himself, he tries to get her deported. In the ensuing argument, she accidently kills him. She is found guilty, but when they learn that she is expecting, the widow helps her. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

When Republic moved its popular star William Elliot from "B" series westerns to "A" frontier specials, a lot of the fun and excitement was lost in the process. Additionally, Republic seemed reluctant to admit the new Elliot films were westerns, as witness the title Gallant Legion, which could have been mistaken for a Sahara Desert epic. Actually Gallant Legion is one of the better Elliot big-budgeters, with Bill as one of the charter members of the Texas Rangers. The Rangers' task is to prevent greedy landgrabbers from dividing Texas into sections and setting up their own fiefdoms. Elliot's leading lady in Gallant Legion is Adrian Booth, who as "Lorna Gray" had been a Republic serial villainess a few seasons earlier. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Roy Rogers plays Roy Rogers, as ever, in Night Time in Nevada. This time Roy is a cattle owner whose stock is stolen by Grant Withers. It is Withers' hope to sell the livestock, thereby covering funds that he's been appropriating from leading lady Adele Mara's trust fund. Roy is able to vanquish the villain during several lightning-paced fight and chase sequences, stage-managed by the always reliable William Witney. Rogers' song interludes include "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," "Sweet Laredo Lou," and the title tune. The comedy content in Night Time in Nevada is in the capable outsized paws of Andy Devine. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Smugglers are working the border between Mexico and California in this action-filled and, of course, tuneful Gene Autry Western. Autry, sidekick Sterling Holloway, and the Cass County Boys get involved with fiery Elena Del Rio (Adele Mara), a singer in the local cantina who alternately throws knives at them and helps catch a gang of jewel smugglers taking advantage of local refugees. Chasing in and out of Joshua Tree National Monument, our heroes go up against a couple of supposedly law-abiding citizens, a peon (Martin Garralaga) who isn't what he pretends to be, and the local rural residents. Happily, everyone takes time out from the mayhem to perform Jack Elliott's "Twilight on the Rio Grande" and "The Pretty Knife Grinder," Smiley Burnette's "It's My Lazy Day" and "Great Grand Dad," Nat Simon and Charles Tobias' "The Old Lamplighter" and a couple of other selections. In addition to Joshua Tree National Monument, Twilight on the Rio Grande was filmed at Victorville, CA. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

A dude ranch, unemployed cowhands, modern-day bank robbers, and music are the main ingredients in this, Gene Autry's swan song for Republic Pictures, lovingly restored by UCLA and Gene Autry Entertainment in 2001. Swindled out of their savings, Gene and the Cass County Boys mistakenly get mixed up in a bank robbery. The local police chief (James Flavin) let them go, however, hoping the hicks will lead him to the stolen 100,000 dollars. And so they do, right to a dude ranch in the none-too-quiet town of Serenity. With Sterling Holloway supplying the comic relief as a vacationing hypochondriac, Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys perform Autry's own "The Merry-Go-Roundup" and "Good Old-Fashioned Hoedown"; "Goin' Back to Texas" by Carson J. Robison; and "You're the Moment of a Lifetime" by Sergio de Karlo and Kay Charles (in both Spanish and English). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi