John Marley Movies

Produced by Stanley Kramer, A Child is Waiting is set in an institution for the mentally handicapped, with many actual residents playing supporting and bit roles. Doctor Burt Lancaster and instructor Judy Garland often find themselves at odds over teaching methods, with Garland preferring an intense one-on-one approach with her students. Bruce Ritchey, a non-developmentally challenged youth, plays the retarded son of Gena Rowlands and Steven Hill, whose intellectual and social progress becomes the focal point of the film. The most uplifting sequence in A Child is Waiting takes place during a play staged by the genuinely handicapped children for their parents; while director John Cassavetes gilds the lily with close-ups of the teary-eyed audience, the kids themselves are earnest, engaging, and totally devoid of self-pity. According to Stanley Kramer, Judy Garland left her best work in this film on the cutting room floor; whenever completing a scene in which she'd exercised professional restraint, she'd insist upon a retake, then resort to the sobbing and breast-beating that her fans had come to expect. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Elia Kazan based America, America on the early life of his Greek-immigrant uncle. Stavros Topouzoglow is the young immigrant, whose starry-eyed impressions of America are soon compromised by reality. Despite the casual cruelties, betrayals, and career setbacks, Stavros forms strong and lasting friendships which help him weather the worst. An Oscar went to the painstakingly accurate art direction of Gene Callahan. Despite moments that are not suitable for children, America, America won a rare "bell-ringer" rating from the high-school oriented Scholastic magazines back in 1963; in the years since, it has become a stalwart of the American Movie Classics cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dependable character actor John Marley is afforded a rare starring role in Blade. Marley plays the title character, a world-weary private eye currently working on a murder case as a favor for a friend. The victim was the daughter of prominent conservative politico William Prince, whom Blade "knew when." While hunting for clues, Blade is bombarded by one disillusionment after another. The prime suspect turns out to be someone very, very close to Prince-who may have thought that, by eliminating his daughter, he was doing Prince an enormous favor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

TV certainly makes strange bedfellows, as witness this Branded episode featuring veteran film star Pat O'Brien and recording entrepeneur Dick Clark as those colorful 19th century showmen P.T. Barnum and J.A. Bailey! Angrily turning down Barnum's offer to showcase him as "the greatest coward on earth" in a new Wild West show, Jason McCord (Chuck Connors)--who'd met P.T. when he won a $50 prize by defeating a circus strong man--learns that his gesture is futile, since Barnum intends upon using McCord's name whether he gets permission or not. In order to prevent this from happening, Jason somehow stage-manages a merger between Barnum and his up-and-coming rival "J.A." (whose last name is not revealed until the end of the episode, as if there was any doubt!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This musical spoof of Westerns featured Lee Marvin in dual roles that won him a Best Actor Oscar. Jane Fonda stars as the title character, a prim schoolmarm returning to her hometown of Wolf City, Wyoming, after receiving an Eastern education. On the train ride, Cat meets up with a pair of friendly, charming crooks, Clay Boone (Michael Callan) and his uncle, Jed (Dwayne Hickman), the former becoming hopelessly smitten with the naive but tough Cat. Upon arriving home, Cat discovers that her eccentric father, Frankie (John Marley), is being threatened with bodily harm by a development company that desperately wants his land. When Frankie is murdered by ruthless, noseless killer Tim Strawn (Marvin), Cat straps on a pair of six-shooters and persuades Clay, Jed, and her father's loyal Native American hand Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini) to sign on as her posse. In her quest for revenge, Cat also recruits Kid Shelleen (also played by Marvin), a one-time fearsome gunslinger who's now a hopeless alcoholic. Cat Ballou (1965) is interspersed throughout the narrative with appearances by Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole as a pair of balladeers who comment on the action musically in Greek chorus style. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

This dark, brooding low-budget effort opens in Vietnam, where young infantryman Andy Brooks (Richard Backus) is struck down by a sniper's bullet. At the same time in Andy's hometown, his poor mother is uttering a desperate prayer for Andy to come home... and shortly thereafter, he does. Despite Mrs. Brooks' exultation at her son's safe return, it becomes apparent to the rest of the family that there's something terribly wrong with Andy; he won't do much more than sit in a chair, staring blankly at the walls of his room... that is, until nightfall, when he prowls the town in search of human blood, which he extracts from his victims through a syringe and injects into his own veins. The first horror effort from director Bob Clark, who followed with Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things! and the effective thriller Black Christmas, this haunting film (released as The Veteran in 1972) functions as a Vietnam-era variant on the classic story of "The Monkey's Paw" and was one of the first films of the genre to address the stateside reactions to the horrors of that war. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In this average, made for pay-TV adventure yarn loosely based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Challenger's Gold, the archaeologist Dr. Christopher Falcon (John Marley) is called away from a dig in an Arab country to assess a startling find in Mexico, with the usual dangerous results. When he arrives, he immediately sees that among the uncovered items is a fertility goddess that was once part of a group of precious objects missing since a devastating, 17th-century earthquake. Determined to find the rest of the treasure -- also vaunted as having supernatural powers -- he sets out on an expedition funded by Murdoch (George Touliatos) a suspicious-looking, but super-rich business tycoon. Along for the ride are Falcon's daughter Tracey (Louise Vallance), a spirited British journalist (Simon MacCorkindale), and their guide, the attractive B.G. Alvarez (Blanca Guerra). Following in quick succession like the old-fashioned serials in the Saturday matinees are moments of betrayal, disaster, sudden change, and various sexual encounters. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" series brings you this view of Moses as the liberator of the Jewish people. ~ All Movie Guide

Zachary Scott plays Max Thursday, an alcoholic ex-police detective working as a bouncer at a sleazy rooming house owned by Smitty (Mary Boland), a likeable, earthy old lady. Thursday's former wife, Georgia (Faye Emerson), shows up one night, while her ex-husband is in an alcoholic stupor, to tell him that their three-year-old son Jeff is missing, taken by her brother, Fred, on some errand from which he did not return. Thursday goes after his ex-brother-in-law's employer, Doc Elder (Jed Prouty), a broken-down physician with a shady past, who manages to get the former cop drunk before knocking him cold. Awakening in a police cell, Thursday is questioned by his former boss, Capt. Mark Tonetti (Sam Levene), about where he was last night, and who might've murdered Doc Elder. Thursday has no choice but to stay sober as he tries to trace the leads he has left. No one admits to knowing anything about the person named Saint Paul, who Elder was meeting, so he tries to find the man Elder was afraid of, Otto Varkas, a notorious smuggler. Varkas (J. Edward Bromberg) isn't much help, though he reveals that he is worried about a hired killer named Stitch Olivera (Elliott Sullivan). While leaving Varkas' office, Thursday spots Angel (Kay Medford), a "business girl" he last saw near Elder's building. He finds out that she's the girl Fred was seeing, and that she's got him on ice, wounded, but he hasn't said anything about a kid; he also won't reveal the whereabouts of the package that he was picking up for Doc Elder (a diamond necklace worth 400,000 dollars) which was to go to Saint Paul. Before they can get to Fred, two of Varkas' men grab him, and Thursday is just drunk enough from his stop with Angel to be unable to stop them. He tries to get to Varkas, but the gang leader and his men are killed and Fred is taken by Olivera. Thursday fights off the hit man in a vicious battle in a Brooklyn subway station that leaves him with a clue that to his astonishment seems to point Thursday back where he started: to the rooming house where he lives. He pieces it together through a fading alcoholic haze, and figures out what's been bothering him about Olivera being a step ahead of him each time he was getting close to Fred: Smitty is Saint Paul, and has been manipulating Thursday since he left with Georgia. The wounded Fred tells the ex-cop what he knows, and Thursday, sober and focused for the first time, takes Olivera in a sudden explosion of gunfire. Ignoring Smitty's offer of a half-share from the sale of the jewels, he calls police headquarters and then his wife, so they can go and get their son together. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Grim, almost unbearably intense, I Want To Live is the story of the life and execution of Barbara Graham (Susan Hayward) a perjurer, prostitute, liar and drug addict. The product of a broken home, Graham works as a shill, luring gullible men into crooked card games. She attempts to go straight, marries the wrong man, and has a baby. When her life falls apart, she returns to her former profession and is involved in a murder. Despite her claims of innocence, she is convicted and executed. Robert Wise directs the uniformly fine cast with grim efficiency, telling Graham's story in a series of adroitly crafted scenes that won him a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. However, the film belongs to Susan Hayward who gives a intense, shattering performance without one false note. Her performance is so grimly focused that she is, at times, almost unbearable to watch. The final scenes, which lead up to Graham's execution, are exhausting in their emotional intensity as the audience is spared nothing of Graham's agony, despair and desperation when she finally loses the long battle to save her life. Whether one sees Graham as a murderer or a hapless victim of society, the power and relentless, sordid reality of her story leaves an indelible memory in the mind of the viewer. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Occasionally listed as In Enemy Hands (evidently a working title), In Enemy Country is a war film with "A" ambitions and a TV-movie budget. Wartime secret agents Col. Charles Waslow-Carton (Tony Franciosa) and Lt. Col. Philip Braden (Guy Stockwell) infiltrate enemy lines, posing as POWs. Their mission is to destroy a deadly new type of torpedo, hidden in a Nazi stronghold in France. Their contact is Denise Marchois (Anjanette Comer), whom Waslow-Carton had coerced into marrying a German baron (Paul Hubschmid) before the outbreak of war, thus allowing her to continue her spying activities unimpeded. Upon the completion of their mission, Marchois chooses to remain behind with her husband, whom she has grown to love. Too many peripheral characters, way too many plot twists, and a "French" village obviously constructed on the Universal back lot: for these and other reasons, In Enemy Country is a must to avoid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ironside (Raymond Burr) tries to help his friend Loi Tala (Patrick Adiarte), a Samoan-born boxer who wants to retire from the ring, marry his sweetheart and return to his homeland. Alas, Samoan tradition demands that he uphold the honor of his family by continuing his boxing career, even though he hates it. Inevitably, things take a disastrous turn when Loi Tala seriously injures one of his sparring partners. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A made for TV movie, we follow an art dealer on the Istanbul Express across Turkey. The dealer is really on a secret mission for the government to buy some valuable and sensitive papers at an auction. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide