Natalie Masters Movies

Former B-western leading man Donald Barry guest stars as Charlie Bishop, an ex-convict who has ended up on skid row. Relaying a message to Officer Pete Malloy (Martin Milner), Charlie begs to sent back to prison--and indicates that he will go to any lengths to land behind bars. Malloy and his partner Jim Reed (Kent McCord) race against time to prevent Charlie from doing something that everyone will regret. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) round up some kids who have been committing minor crimes while playing hookey. Though society at large is willing to write off these youngsters as incorrigible, Reed decides to appeal to the kids' parents to help curb truancy. . .and to find out just how many crimes can actually be attributed to the truants, or to someone older who is acting as a ring leader. Barbara Nichols, one of Hollywood's favorite "dumb blondes" (dumb on film if not real life, that is), is seen as Mrs. Stephens. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tonight's case load for Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) is a hectic one indeed. The two patrolmen run the gamut from protecting a grocer from a knife-wielding bandt, and hauling in a hippie who has supped too full of "controlled substances." The central crisis involves a runaway boy (played by future Bonanza regular Mitch Vogel) who becomes lost in a cave. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Officers Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Jim Reed (Kent McCord) are kept on the move with a number of emergency police calls. In one of the evening's tenser moments, the two cops come to the rescue of a pair of youngsters who have swallowed a potentially fatal dose of pep pills. And throughout their shift, Pete and Jim pursue an elusive burglar who specializes in stealing color TVs. Former F Troop leading lady Melody Patterson and future Oscar winner Cloris Leachman head the episode's guest cast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tim (Bill Bixby) accidentally interferes with the special "black light" that was intended to give Martin (Ray Walston) a small jolt of rejuvenation--and as a result, Martin regresses to infancy. When Detective Brennan (Alan Hewitt) shows up and asks where the baby came from, Tim alibis that the child was abandoned at his doorstep, whereupon Brennan whisks the miniaturized Martin to a hospital nursery. Dutifully, Tim sneaks into the nursery to rescue Martin--but which baby is which? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Several years after a nuclear war, a handful of survivors are compelled to follow the instructions of the mysterious "old man in the cave." Enter a band of mercenaries headed by Major French (James Coburn), who laughs at the notion of a group of people living under the thumb of an unseen entity. Despite the dire warnings of community leader Goldsmith (John Anderson), French is determined to expose the "old man" as a fraud -- but even he is not prepared for what he finds when he storms the cave. Scripted by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling from a short story by Henry Slesar, "The Old Man in the Cave" was originally telecast November 8, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The LAPD receives a tip about an imminent turf war between five different teenage gangs. Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) have ample evidence that principal agitator behind this war is seventeen-year-old Robert Barson (Dee Pollock). Unfortunately, the detective are unable to head off Barson because of the interference of his overprotective mother Edith (Natalie Masters), who insists that her "Bobby" is both innocent and misunderstood. The tragic climax only serves to prove once again that "denial" is not a river in Egypt. This episode is based on the Dragnetradio broadcast of January 17, 1952, originally titled "The Big Juvenile Division". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Small-town doctor Paul Beecher (John Beal) is given some strange pills by a dying elderly researcher. Later, when Paul gets a severe headache, his young daughter accidentally gives him the mystery pills. He's later puzzled by a series of strange deaths in which all the blood was drained from the bodies of the victims and then discovers the old researcher was working on a project involving vampire bats. The horrified Paul gradually begins to suspect that he himself is the killer. ~ Bill Warren, Rovi

Based on an article in the New Yorker, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life stars James Mason (who also produced the film) as elementary school teacher Ed Avery, a thoughtful, gentle man, with a loving wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), and a young son, Richie (Christopher Olsen), who loves him. Avery is successful and well liked in his community, but he is over-extended in his pursuit of the American dream -- he secretly works a second job to earn extra money, and doesn't dare break stride, despite the increasingly painful physical spasms that he suffers. He collapses one day, and the doctors inform him that he suffers from an arterial disease that will probably give him less than a year to live. But they also offer him one hope, with treatment using cortisone, which was then a new, not-fully-tested drug. Avery makes a seemingly full recovery and returns to work, but it soon becomes clear that he's not the same -- he has a new, cavalier attitude toward money, and then Lou becomes alarmed over his expressions of rage over seemingly insignificant annoyances. He starts expressing himself in grand, exalted terms, first to Lou and then to his colleagues at school, including his closest friend, Wally Gibbs (Walter Matthau). And matters only get worse when Wally determines that it is the cortisone -- which Ed has been taking in far greater doses than prescribed -- that is making him act this way. And his obsession w ith forcing Richie to live up to his full potential soon turns into a much darker fixation. Director Ray later offered regret over having used cortisone by name, as it was still not standard treatment and its benefits and drawbacks weren't known. But this did lend the movie a verisimilitude that was essential for what appeal it did hold for audiences. (Seven years later, screenwriter William Read Woodfield would incorporate Bigger Than Life's cortisone plot device into his script for the Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea episode \"Mutiny\". Bigger Than Life's more immediate problem at the time lay in its broader plot -- with a story that brought drug addiction and fact-based psychological unhingement into a suburban American setting, it was a daring subject for its time, for which audiences were unprepared in 1956. It was also one of a group of offbeat pictures that Mason produced as well as starred in. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) go on the prowl for a holdup man who has hit several bars in a period of a few days. The felon's MO is identical in each case: he orders a scotch and water and turns on the same jukebox song before pulling out his gun. The detectives intensify their efforts when the elusive robber kills a bartender. This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of November 10, 1949. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In a scenario that could as easily be set in the early 21st century as in the mid-20th century, a married couple driving a moving van has been robbing the houses of vacationing homeowners, pretending to have been hired by the occupants to remove the furniture in their absence. Checking out several second-hand furniture dealers, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) gather enough evidence to set a trap for the clever thieves. This episode was adapted from the Dragnet radio broadcast of September 21, 1950. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi