Mort Marshall Movies
Scripted by James L. Brooks from Dan Wakefield's novel, Alan J. Pakula's romantic comedy follows the tribulations of a freshly divorced man as he looks for love with a wary single woman. Phil Potter (Burt Reynolds sans mustache) can't quite believe it when his aspiring songbird wife Jessica (Candice Bergen) kicks him out to realize her career dreams, but the added revelation of her adultery speeds him out the door by choice. Relocating to Boston, Phil starts to settle in with the help of his psychiatrist brother Mickey (Charles Durning), joining a divorced men's therapy group. Phil really begins to feel better when Mickey and his wife Marva (Frances Sternhagen) set him up with her friend Marilyn (Jill Clayburgh), a preschool teacher who has had her share of grief from newly single men. Phil wins her over and even convinces her to move in, but an unexpected visit from a regretful, saucily clad Jessica, and an anxiety attack over buying a couch, threaten to end Phil's new life with Marilyn before it has a chance to start. Starting Over offers a ruefully comic look at how the decade's rising divorce rate did not mean fun and games for all the new bachelors; Brooks' movie debut after a sparkling career in 1970s TV with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi, it was also proof that top '70s star Reynolds could be more than just a good 'ol boy. Still, while the three leads were all praised for their work, only Clayburgh and Bergen received Oscar nominations. Starting Over was a moderate hit, and its humorous yet down-to-earth view of single life and its discontents reassured unattached thirtysomethings that, even though it may not be easy, everything could still turn out fine in modern romance. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Jill Clayburgh, (more)
- 1975
- PG
Burt Reynolds stars in this fast-paced "road" picture as W. W. Bright, a 1950s Southern con man. He takes over Takes over the Dixie Dancekings, a two-bit country-western act headed by Dixie (Conny Van Dyke). Bright wheels and deals to get the Dixie Dancekings into the Grand Ole Opry. Meanwhile, he robs the gas stations of an oil company which he feels has cheated him, and is pursued by Bible-thumping lawman Deacon Gore (Art Carney). W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings is highlighted by musical renditions from Conny Van Dyke, Jerry Reed and Furry Lewis--and from Ned Beatty, playing an image-conscious Porter Wagoner type. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Conny van Dyke, (more)
Ex-football star Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) ends up in a prison run by sadistic sports-nut Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert). Strong-armed into forming an inmate football team, Crewe manages to instill an esprit de corps previously lacking in the prisoners' lives. Besides, they now have the chance to beat the guards' football team, headed by the hissable Capt. Knauer (Ed Lauter). Hazen orders Crewe to throw the match; otherwise, Crewe will never get the pardon he's been promised. The football game that follows consumes nearly a third of the picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, (more)
The Grissom Gang is a remake of the notorious 1949 British melodrama No Orchids for Miss Blandish. Kim Darby plays a 1920s-era debutante who is kidnapped and held for ransom. Her captors are the Grissoms, a family comprised of sadists and morons, and headed by Ma Barker clone Irene Dailey. One of the Grissoms, played by Scott Wilson, takes a liking to his prisoner, which results in a bloody breakdown of the family unit. Both The Grissom Gang and the original No Orchids for Miss Blandish were inspired by the best-seller by James Hadley Chase, though neither film retains Chase's original ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kim Darby, Scott Wilson, (more)
- 1970
- PG
A team of anthropologists travel to New Guinea in search of the missing link in this routine adventure tale. The expedition is financed by Vancruysen (Paul Hubschmid) and lead by Dr. Sybil Greame (Susan Clark). Also on hand are Douglas Temple (Burt Reynolds) and the boozy Otto Kreps (Roger C. Carmel). The two men are on the lookout for phospherous. The party discovers a group that appears to behalf human and half ape. Otto entices the female creature Topazia (Pat Suzuki) with sandwiches. When phosphorous is discovered, the evil industrialist Vancruysen enslaves the primates to work in the mines. Otto, Topazia, and Douglas escape, but there quest is slowed by the stillborn birth of Topazia's child. Douglas tricks the doctor into signing the death certificate that claims the child was human, which forces a murder trial. Eaton (Wilfred Hyde-White) is the South African anthropologist and racist called on to judge the proceedings. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Susan Clark, (more)
Lovers and Other Strangers became a "sleeper" hit, based on a play by Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The story is essentially a series of vignettes and anecdotes, unified by an impending marriage. Father of the bride Hal (Gig Young) has problems with his long-suffering mistress, Cathy (Anne Jackson), who spends much of the film sitting on the toilet, crying her eyes out; Wilma (Anne Meara), the bride's sex-starved sister, can't wrest her husband, Johnny (Harry Guardino), away from the TV; and Frank (Richard S. Castellano), as the groom's father, slips comfortably into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations with his oft-repeated query "So what's the story?" Twelfth-billed Diane Keaton makes her film debut as a garrulous wedding guest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bea Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, (more)
One of the most fearsome of the Japanese monsters to hit the screen in the early 60's makes his debut in sci-fi thriller. As tensions between America and the Soviet Union rise to a fever pitch, U.S. troops shoot down a Russian bomber which is flying low in an Arctoc region. The bomber crashes, and its payload of hydrogen bombs explode upon impact. The blast releases and awakens Gamera, a gigantic fire-breathing turtle which had been frozen under the ice since prehistoric times. The newly revived monster makes his way to Tokyo, Japan, where he begins to lay waste to the city. As emminent scientist Dr. Hidaka (Eiji Funakoshi) searches for a way to defeat the monster, a young boy named Yoshiro (Yoshiro Unchida) develops an unlikely friendship with Gamera. For the film's American release, additional scenes were added featuring U.S. actors Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker. The spelling of the monster's name was also changed; he's Gammera with two M's in this movie, but just Gamera in the sequels which followed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albert Dekker, Brian Donlevy, (more)
- 1955
A woman has been missing for two weeks, and her sister (Barbara Eiler) suspects foul play. She further informs Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) that she is certain her brother-in-law has committed murder. Though the suspect robustly protests his innocence, the two detectives can't help but notice the bloodstain in the man's woodwork shop--which leads to the "big dig" of the title, yielding some unpleasant surprises. This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of December 7, 1954. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Pete Kelly's Blues is arguably the most stylish of director/star Jack Webb's theatrical features. Beginning with a brilliantly evocative pre-credits prologue, wherein we see how WWI vet Pete Kelly (Webb) came into possession of his precious trumpet, the film traces Kelly to his 1927 gig at a Kansas City speakeasy. Most of the film concerns Kelly's efforts to keep his "Big Seven" aggregation together, his off-and-on romance with socialite Ivy Conrad (Janet Leigh), and his frequent confrontations with mob boss Fran McCarg (Edmond O'Brien). The Richard L. Breen screenplay is full of the deliciously hyperbolic allusions, similes, and metaphors that characterized Webb's radio version of Pete Kelly's Blues, while the musical score is graced by the jazz artistry of such greats as Ella Fitzgerald and Teddy Buckner. Peggy Lee, cast as a mob mistress who is rendered an imbecile after falling down a flight of stars, deservedly earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance. Likewise superb is Andy Devine, cast against type as a corrupt, brutal Kansas City detective, and Lee Marvin as Kelly's best pal. Disney art director Harper Goff, who'd been performing miracles on Webb's TV series Dragnet, brilliantly sustains the smoky zeitgeist of the Prohibition era. Pete Kelly's Blues was later spun off into a TV series starring William Reynolds as Kelly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Webb, Janet Leigh, (more)
Regarded by many critics as the ultimate film noir, and by many more as the finest movie adaptation of a book by Mickey Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly stars Ralph Meeker as Spillane's anti-social private eye Mike Hammer. While driving down a lonely road late one evening, Hammer picks up a beautiful blonde hitchhiker (Cloris Leachman), dressed in nothing but a raincoat. At first, Hammer assumes that the incoherent girl is an escaped lunatic; his mind is changed for him when he and the girl are abducted by two thugs. The men torture the girl to death as the semiconscious Hammer watches helplessly. He himself escapes extermination when the murderers' car topples off a cliff and he is thrown clear. Seeking vengeance, Hammer tries to discover the secret behind the girl's murder. Among those who cross his path in the film's tense, tingling 105 minutes are a slimy gangster (Paul Stewart), a turncoat scientist (Albert Dekker), and the dead woman's sexy roommate (Gaby Rodgers). All clues lead to a mysterious box -- the "Great Whatsit," as Hammer's secretary Velda (Maxine Cooper) describes it. Both the box and Velda are stolen by the villains, at which point Hammer discovers that the "Whatsit" contains radioactive material of awesome powers. The apocalyptic climax is doubly devastating because we're never quite certain if Hammer survives (he doesn't narrate the story, as was the case in most Mike Hammer films and TV shows). Director Robert Aldrich and scriptwriter Jack Moffit transcend Kiss Me Deadly's basic genre trappings to produce a one-of-a-kind melodrama for the nuclear age. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, (more)
Paul Newman made his screen debut in the gloriously nonsensical costume epic The Silver Chalice. Freely adapted from a novel by Thomas B. Costain, the film casts Newman as Basil, a first century Greek sculptor who is sold into slavery by his wicked uncle. Transported to Rome, Basil manages to enjoy a measure of freedom when his captors discover his sculpting talents; he also marries another slave, the demure Deborra (Pier Angeli) and dallies with the sensuous Helena (Virginia Mayo), the mercenary partner of court magician Simon (Jack Palance). The plot congeals when Basil is commissioned to create a silver receptacle for the chalice from which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper. Lorne Greene, likewise making his screen bow, is all portentous speeches and prophetic observations as the apostle Peter. Of the many silly highlights, the silliest -- and most memorable -- occurs when the unhinged Simon is possessed with the notion that he can fly with the gods (Palance's performance in this episode must be seen to be believed). When The Silver Chalice was first released, poor Paul Newman was roundly panned as a third-rate Brando; one reviewer noted that he "delivers his lines with the emotional fervor of a Putnam Division conductor announcing local stops." No one has been more vocal in the drubbing of Newman's performance than Newman himself. When the film was first aired on TV in Los Angeles in 1961, the actor took out a full-page apology in the trade papers. In recent years, however, Paul Newman has pointed to The Silver Chalice with pride, observing that he was able to overcome a bad beginning and endure as a screen favorite for over four decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virginia Mayo, Anna Maria Pier Angeli, (more)
Target Earth was adapted from Paul W. Fairman's short story Deadly City. Set in, of all places, Chicago, this sci-fier concentrates on four people who've congregated in the deserted city after a sudden and mysterious evacuation. The ill-matched foursome are Vicki Harris (Virginia Grey), a flashy, trashy blonde; Nora King (Kathleen Crowley), a young widow; Frank Brooks (Richard Denning), a handsome fellow with a questionable past; and Jim Wilson (Dick Reeves), a brutish transient. Though they don't get along at first, the four strangers are compelled to unite against a common enemy: an invading Venusian army, using huge robots to do their dirty work. Nothing spectacular, Target Earth works well within its modest limitations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Denning, Kathleen Crowley, (more)
- 1954
The inspirational story of the famed basketball tricksters The Harlem Globetrotters is chronicled in this drama. The Trotters began in the 1920s when a manager catches a group of talented players on the basketball court. He becomes obsessed with getting these young black men the recognition he feels they deserve. He gathers them together as a team and they begin barnstorming a series of small towns. The film's climax takes on overtones of the Civil Rights Movement when it depicts a major game between them and an all-white team of champions. The Globetrotters beat the tar out of their opponents. One of the main storylines concerns the friendship between Saperstein and his wife, and player Inman Jackson and his wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dane Clark, Patricia Breslin, (more)
