E.G. Marshall Movies

This video is part of a series that chronicles American history from the 1890s until the Great Depression. The series is a teaching aid intended for use with students from junior high school through college. In this episode, the flapper era is in full swing, as people danced and drank away the cares of the war years. The program includes archival film footage of actor Lon Chaney, whose Phantom of the Opera appearance thrilled audiences, and of gangster Al Capone as he faced federal charges. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, All Movie Guide

Saigon: Year of the Cat is a low-budget drama about the fall of Saigon. The film was made for the BBC in 1983. It was one of many television projects that director Stephen Frears (High Fidelity) worked on in the early part of his career. Playwright David Hare (Plenty) wrote the script. Judi Dench plays Barbara Dean, a depressed loan officer working for a British bank in Saigon in 1974. Barbara politely wards off the advances of her Scottish co-worker, Donald (Roger Rees), who does not share her respect for the Vietnamese people. She also avoids getting involved with Frank (Wallace Shawn), an American embassy employee with whom she plays bridge. When she meets Bob (Frederic Forrest), however, she's immediately attracted to him. She soon learns that while Bob poses as a cultural attaché, he actually works for the CIA. When Bob belatedly recognizes her attraction, he opens up to her, and they become lovers. Bob hears from a reliable intelligence source that the North Vietnamese are stepping up their aggression and plan to take Saigon soon. He tries to convince his boss, Jack Ockham (Josef Sommer), and the U.S. ambassador (E.G. Marshall) to prepare for the fall of the city by evacuating the South Vietnamese citizens who have worked most closely with the U.S. government. The ambassador does not want to appear to be abandoning President Thieu's regime. He refuses to credit Bob's report. Meanwhile, as the crisis looms, Barbara is growing despondent because Bob is not spending time with her, and because there's little she can do to help her South Vietnamese friends get out of the country. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

The 1,000-day presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the early '60s is depicted from the glorious beginning to the tragic ending. Kennedy (Martin Sheen) faces down the Soviets, the Cubans, his military leaders (over the war in Vietnam), FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Vincent Gardenia), and Jackie (Blair Brown), who suspects him of infidelities. He gets by with the brilliant and compassionate help of his Attorney General brother Robert (John Shea). After pulling the nation out of one crisis after another, Kennedy makes a trip to Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the world would be forever changed. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

Two of the most venerable names in the horror field, author Stephen King and director George A. Romero, present this anthology of original twisted tales inspired by the E.C. horror comics of the 50's and 60's (themselves a more direct basis for the popular Tales from the Crypt TV series). The five stories are framed within the pages of a comic book which a boy's insensitive father has thrown in the garbage. The first tale, "Father's Day," features a zombie patriarch returning to claim his Father's Day cake; "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" stars King himself as a slack-jawed yokel whose discovery of a radioactive meteorite turns him into a walking weed; "Something to Tide You Over" presents a deadly-serious Leslie Nielsen as a cuckolded husband who plans an elaborate seaside revenge; "The Crate" unleashes its ferocious man-eating contents on the enemies of a meek college professor; and "They're Creeping Up On You" pits obsessively-clean billionaire E.G. Marshall against a swarm of cockroaches in his sterile penthouse. The chapters are uniformly creative, filmed in garish comic-book colors, and Tom Savini's makeup effects are quite memorable (particularly the monster from "The Crate"), though the campy treatment does become exhausting after two hours' runtime. The final segment is the most impressive, thanks to Marshall's over-the-top performance, though the planned scope of the cockroach invasion was drastically reduced (no doubt due to budget constraints). ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

A powerful alien sorceress from outer space tries again to commandeer the Earth in this sci-fi adventure. This time she can breath fire, change into a giant, and has a magic fan capable of producing tidal waves. Fortunately, a brave super-hero is there to oppose her and her legion of laser-toting monsters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Between giving up his super powers, confronting criminals from outer space, and having problems with his girlfriend, it's a bad time to be the Man of Steel in this sequel to the 1978 blockbuster. When terrorists threaten to destroy Paris with a thermonuclear device as they hold reporter Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) hostage, Superman (Christopher Reeve) comes to the rescue and flings the weapon into space. However, its blast outside the earth's orbit awakens Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and Non (Jack O'Halloran), three villains from Superman's home planet of Krypton who were exiled to outer space for their crimes. Zod and his partners arrive on Earth and use their powers in a bid to take over the U.S., and then the world. However, when Lois realizes that mild mannered Clark Kent and Superman are actually the same person, he brings her to his Fortress of Solitude, where his decision to marry Lois costs him his remarkable strength. Without his super powers, how can Superman vanquish Zod and save the world? Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, Susannah York, and Jackie Cooper return from the first film, which was shot at the same time as parts of the sequel. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This remarkably chilling made-for-TV horror film plays as equal parts old-fashioned supernatural tale and 1970s-style detective thriller. After the groundbreaking of a San Francisco cathedral disturbs the resting place of an ancient European bloodsucker (professional creeper Richard Lynch), an architect (Jason Miller) joins forces with a retired gumshoe (E.G. Marshall) to hunt down and destroy the undead menace before he claims Miller's girlfriend as his nocturnal mate. Gothic trappings, slick production values, and some creepy night photography lend an effective edge to this modest production, although the frequent lapses into "trendy" disco-era setpieces become a bit annoying. Lynch, whose gravelly voice and sinister looks have typecast him for life, thankfully avoids lapsing into camp, exuding instead a powerful air of controlled sexual menace. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

It's Airplane on the rails in the made-for-TV Disaster on the Coastliner. A crazed engineer holds his employers responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter. He gets even by setting two passenger trains on an irrevocable collision course. Salvation comes from a most unexpected corner in this otherwise thoroughly predictable disaster flick. The requisite all-star cast includes Mike Connors, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Fuller, Pat Hingle, E. G. Marshall, Yvette Mimieux and William Shatner. Disaster on the Coastliner premiered October 28, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Diane Keaton, Kristin Griffith, and Mary Beth Hurt play Renata, Flyn, and Joey, the grown daughters of wealthy Arthur (E.G. Marshall) and his emotionally disturbed wife, Eve (Geraldine Page). When Arthur leaves Eve, her three daughters rally around her. As it turns out, none of the daughters are ideally suited to provide an "anchor" for their distracted mother, but all four women are strengthened by their renewed relationship. Interiors received five Oscar nominations, including Best Director for Woody Allen, Best Original Screenplay for Allen, Best Actress for Geraldine Page, Best Supporting Actress for Maureen Stapleton (who plays Arthur's new love), and Best Art Direction for Mel Bourne and Daniel Robert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Larry Cohen's pseudo-biography of J. Edgar Hoover (Broderick Crawford) was virtually howled off the screens upon its release in 1977. Today, with the cross-dressing Hoover so much a matter of historical record that even Oliver Stone didn't bother to make too much of a point of it in Nixon, the Cohen film plays more like a dramatic re-enactment rather than the puerile paranoid fantasy it appeared to be at the time. Unfortunately, Cohen's method is part exploitation and part historical tableau. On the one hand, Cohen dramatizes historical moments in Hoover's momentous life story -- the shooting of John Dillinger in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater, his first arrest -- with a deadening solemnity (even abandoning the backlot facsimiles to shoot on the actual historical locations). On the other hand, Cohen relishes his scenes of Hoover's homosexuality and his propensity for sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey, replaying tapes of the amorous liaisons of high government officials -- the decadently homosexual Hoover built his political power base by getting all the dirt he could on the government's movers and shakers -- particularly their sexual liaisons -- and blackmailing them for their support when he could not get it in any other way. A true schizophrenic masterwork in its time, the film is now muted by a reality more incredible than Cohen ever imagined in his wildest dreams. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Collision Course was adapted from Merle Miller's Plain Speaking, a biography of former President Harry Truman. E.G. Marshall plays Truman, while Henry Fonda costars as General Douglas MacArthur This made-for-TV movie recounts the events leading up to the 1951 firing of General MacArthur during the Korean conflict. In the pivotal scene, an apoplectic Truman verbally lambastes the arrogant MacArthur for failing to show proper respect to his commander in chief. Heavily slanted in favor of Truman's point of view, Collision Course was pilloried by conservative critics, who felt that MacArthur was depicted as a vainglorious zealot rather than a misguided patriot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The flammable money of the title is of the counterfeit variety. Enterprising prison inmate E. G. Marshall devises a scheme to churn out phony moola in his jerry-built printing machine. Conspiring with his wife Mildred Natwick, Marshall intends to smuggle the funny money out of jail, then swap it with the genuine article. The "switch" is to occur in the US Treasury itself! Never taking itself seriously, the made-for-TV Money to Burn proved a pleasant diversion when it debuted October 27, 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season Six of Ironside gets under way with the first episode of a two-part story. Wheelchair-bound detective Robert Ironside (Raymond Burr) travels from San Francisco to Los Angeles, where his assistant Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway) lies seriously wounded in a hospital bed, the victim of an unidentified sniper. The situation becomes graver still when it develops that Ed may well be paralyzed for life, just like Chief Ironside. Ed's only hope for a completely recovery rests with an experimental procedure developed by a brilliant surgeon named Ritter (Vic Morrow)--whose daughter has been kidnapped to prevent him from performing the operation! The conclusion of this story was originally seen on September 19, 1972 as the fourth-season opener of the NBC series The Bold Ones: The New Doctors, with the latter show's stars E.G. Marshall (Dr. David Craig) and David Hartman (Dr. Paul Hunter) appearing in both Parts One and Two. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide