David McCallum Movies

This British drama chronicles the exploits of a brutal Liverpudlian gang leader/would-be rock star who finds himself inducted into the army. The troubled youth undergoes basic training and emerges a man. Later his best friend from boot camp is killed by the camp bully. Courageously, he stands up to the bully and wounds him. Fearing retribution, he flees the barracks. Time passes and he eventually rights the wrong, matures, and marries his singing partner. Songs include: "Isn't It a Lovely Evening?" "These Dangerous Years," and "Cold, Cold Shower." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of several feature film versions of the late 19th century novel by Rolf Boldrewood, this frontier adventure is set not in the Wild West of the U.S., but in the equally untamed Australian Outback of the same era. Two brothers, Jim (David McCallum) and Dick Marsten (Ronald Lewis) follow in their father's footsteps by leaving home to seek adventure as gunfighters. They become outlaws in the roving band led by stylish Captain Starlight (Peter Finch), who leads them on a series of escapades robbing banks and rustling cattle. Though they find the excitement and romance they craved, the Marstens soon become disillusioned with a life on the run and begin to wish that they could resume the mantle of honest, hard-working citizens. Unfortunately, events transpire to put the entire Starlight gang out of operation before the brothers can recommence their formerly law-abiding ways. Produced by Britain's Rank Organization, Robbery Under Arms (1957) was followed by a television series remake in 1985 and a handful of other films set against the colorful backdrop of the Australian frontier, including The Man from Snowy River (1982) and Quigley Down Under (1990). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Eschewing the Shakespearean original title (it's a quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream), the British Ill Met by Moonlight was released stateside as Night Ambush. This superb Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger concoction is set during World War II on the island of Crete. Dirk Bogarde and David Oxley play Major Paddy Leigh Fermer and Captain Billy Stanley Moss, two British officers whose job it is to kidnap Nazi general Karl Kreipe (Marius Goring) and spirit him off to Cairo. The motive of this mission is to weaken German morale on Crete and to provide hope to the enslaved locals. With the help of a group of resistance fighters, Fermer and Moss manage to trap the general; now they must transport their captive back to their own lines, avoiding German patrols every inch of the way. Originally 104 minutes, Ill Met by Moonlight was cut to 93 minutes by its American distributor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For reasons best known to local TV programmers, the modest shocker The Screaming Skull was telecast on what seemed to be a daily basis in the 1960s. The hero-villain is Eric (played by John Hudson, who later billed himself as William Hudson), the husband of neurotic millionairess Jenni Peggy Webber. By strategically placing miniature skulls all over the house, Eric hopes to drive Jenni into madness so that he can take control of her fortune. The police suspect that Mickey the gardener Alex Nicol, who also directed the film) is the man behind the campaign of terror, but the truth finally surfaces in the last reel, wherein Eric gets what's coming to him-and more besides. Perhaps it's worth noting that the 10-minute abdridgement of Screaming Skull, made available to the 8-mm home movie market in the 1970s, is just as entertaining as the full-length feature. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in Germany by American director John Huston, Freud is a sincerely felt but overly simplistic biopic of the pioneering psychotherapist. The brooding, introspective Montgomery Clift was a curious choice for the role of Sigmund Freud; at times he looks more off the beam than some of his patients (his comic-opera Viennese accent doesn't add to the credibility). The screenplay takes the shape of a detective mystery, attempting to link various crises in Freud's private and professional life with his theoretical conclusions, most often doing so within well-staged dream sequences. Less successful are the scenes with the poor unfortunates who come to Freud for help, notably an embarrassing sequence with a young man suffering from an Oedipus complex. Freud was at one point supposed to have been scripted by existentialist playwright Jean-Paul Sartre, who gave up after he realized that the subject would require a four- or five-hour film at the very least. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Great Escape is based on the true story of a group of Allied prisoners of war who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prison camp during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the Nazis gather all their most devious and troublesome POWs and place them at a new prison camp, which was designed to be impervious to escapes. Immediately, the prisoners develop a scheme where they will leave the camp by building three separate escape tunnels. Richard Attenborough is the British soldier who masterminds the whole plan, and who commands his motley squad--featuring Charles Bronson as a Polish trench-digging expert, James Garner as an American with a talent for theft, Donald Pleasence as a masterful forger, and Steve McQueen as an American rebel--through the construction of the tunnels and, eventually, their escape. An epic adventure film, The Great Escape runs nearly three hours, featuring a rousing Elmer Bernstein score and exciting action sequences -- including a notorious motorcycle chase between McQueen and the Nazis -- the likes of which had never been seen before in Hollywood productions. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Engineer Alan Maxwell (Cliff Robertson) is using his commercial radio station's antenna to probe into deep space in experiments of his own, in the course of which he makes contact with a being (William O. Douglas, Jr.) from the great nebula in the constellation Andromeda. Through an accident, the alien is transported to Earth, where its radioactive emanations prove lethal to all who come in contact with it. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

A pre-Man From UNCLE, pre-NCIs David McCallum is cast as Phillipe Bertain, an incredibly naïve young Frenchman who gives a "belle femme" named Ninette (Roxane Berard) a great deal of money so that she can afford to divorce her husband Armand (Jacques Bergerac). Instead, the duplicitous Ninette hands the cash to Armand, who immediately purchases a ski resort. The outraged Phillipe heads to the slopes to confront Armand, but before this can happen the scoundrel is killed in a plane crash. When the police determine that Armand was killed before the crash, Phillipe is arrested for the crime. Sacre bleu! Ou est Monsier Perry Mason (Raymond Burr), s'il vous plait? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sixth volume in a collection culled from the 1963-1965 science fiction anthology television series chronicles the time travels of a mutant from the future who goes back to prevent the birth of the mad scientist who is responsible for creating a horrifying virus. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. launches its first season with "The Vulcan Affair," which uses broad but entertaining strokes to quickly establish the series' premise: Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), top secret agent for the international counterespionage organization U.N.C.L.E., enlists the aid of an "average" citizen -- in this case a mousy housewife, played by Patricia Crowley -- to thwart the evil machinations of a colorful master villain (here played by Fritz Weaver) in the employ of the sinister crime agency THRUSH. Although telecast in black-and-white (as was the rest of season one), the opening episode was actually filmed in color -- and, combined with footage from another first-season episode, The Four Steps Affair, it would soon be expanded into the ersatz feature film To Trap a Spy for the domestic movie market. Similarly, another "expanded" Man From U.N.C.L.E. installment from this season, "The Double Affair," would receive theatrical play under the title The Spy With My Face. Originally, Robert Vaughn was to be the series' sole (or "Solo") star, with Leo G. Carroll providing support as his U.N.C.L.E. superior Alexander Waverly. However, the character of Russian-born U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum, scored such an excellent impression in his first fleeting appearances that the character expanded to full co-star status. Rumors still persist that Robert Vaughn was a bit miffed at sharing the spotlight, which may explain the kidding-on-the-square rivalry between Solo and Illya that dominates their scenes together. Although most of the other secondary characters are one-shots during the first season, Jill Ireland (then the wife of David McCallum) is seen as wide-eyed "civilian" Marion Raven and Anne Francis is cast as cold-blooded THRUSH agent Gervaise Ravel in two different episodes, "The Quadripartite Affair" and "The Giuoco Piano Affair." In the same vein, George Sanders appears in "The Gazebo in the Maze Affair" as criminal mastermind G. Emory Partridge, a role he would reprise in the following season's "The Yukon Affair." Other season-one guest performers include a brace of future spy show stars, Robert Culp (I Spy) and Barbara Feldon (Get Smart), as well as such pop-culture icons as Carroll O'Connor, Leslie Nielsen, Yvonne Craig, Eddie Albert, Kurt Russell, William Shatner, and Leonard Nimoy -- the latter two in the same episode! Although the initial season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has its chucklesome and satirical moments, many of the episodes tackled their subject matter with deadly seriousness -- even in such outlandish outings wherein THRUSH surgically creates an exact double of Napoleon Solo, and a mad scientist develops a process to bring Adolf Hitler back to life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In its efforts to emulate the campy hyperbole of the Batman series during its third season on NBC, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. overplayed its hand disastrously, losing many of its longtime fans who had preferred the series when it was a relatively straightforward espionage series with a subtle inner lining of satire. Small wonder, then, that The Man From U.N.C.L.E. returns to its basics for its fourth season, eschewing the ridiculous and outrageous elements that had been inflicted upon its previous season, and focusing more on serious, hard-hitting storylines, with thoroughly credible villains and believable gadgetry. Better still, secret agents Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) have for the most part abandoned their clever bon mots, and in some cases are questioning and even challenging the "dirty" assignments handed them by their taciturn superior Alexander Waverly (Leo G. Carroll). Less flippant and more cynical than ever before, Solo and Illya have completely forsaken the "comic-book" elements that had weakened their characters during the past season. And in another marked improvement -- albeit a superficial one -- the traditionally drab New York headquarters of U.N.C.L.E. have been given a complete face-lift, with the walls now "decorated" with state-of-the-art computer equipment (much of its recently purchased from NASA by the series' producers). One of the few artistic carryovers from seasons past is the "recycling" of certain multipart episodes as ready-made theatrical feature films. Examples during season four include the two-part "The Prince of Darkness Affair," which would be seen in theaters as The Helicopter Spies, and the series' two-part finale "The Seven Wonders of the World Affair," soon to be released theatrically as How to Steal the World. Despite the aforementioned improvements and upgrades in its content, the fourth season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was scuttled by two unforeseen developments. The first was the TV industry's overall toning down of violence, meaning that shows of the U.N.C.L.E. ilk would be denied the huge advertising revenues necessary for long-term survival. The other was NBC's decision to move the series from Friday evenings to Mondays, a move made on the assumption that U.N.C.L.E.'s CBS competition, Gunsmoke, was on its last legs. Unfortunately for NBC, Gunsmoke unexpectedly enjoyed a resurgence of popularity -- and this, coupled with already flagging ratings and a lack of sponsor support, doomed The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to an ignominious mid-season cancellation on January 15, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide