Gary Merrill Movies

Joan Fontaine, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's first American film, Rebecca, and subsequently won an Oscar for her performance in Hitchcock's Suspicion, is here cast as Alice Pemberton, a well-meaning busybody. Unable to keep her nose out of other people's business, Alice has become a pariah in her neighborhood. The only person willing to put up with Alice's meddling is her husband, John (Gary Merrill), but even he has a breaking point -- and it is John who comes up with a rather blunt method to bring his wife's buttinsky behavior to a permanent end. "The Paragon" is based on a story by prolific novelist Rebecca West. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ben Wister (Fess Parker), sheriff of the small town of Linvale, is besieged by phone calls from the widowed Mrs. Logan (Phyllis Thaxter), who insists that her next-door neighbor Harry Jarvis (Gary Merrill) has murdered his wife and buried her in his backyard. When Wister investigates, Jarvis tells him that his wife has walked out on him, and that he had dug a hole in his yard to bury his dead dog. Further investigation would seem to prove Jarvis' innocence -- a turn of events that has a mighty interesting effect on Mrs. Logan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed at least nine times over the last nine decades, Jules Verne's Mysterious Island received its most popular picturization in the hands of producer Charles Schneer, director Cy Endfield and special-effects maestro Ray Harryhausen. During the Civil War, several P.O.W.s led by Gary Merrill escape from a southern stockade in a huge observation balloon. Buffeted about by a violent storm, the balloon lands on an unchartered island somewhere near New Zealand. The fugitives soon discover that this is no ordinary desert isle, especially after being attacked by a giant-sized crab. Joined by a pair of shipwrecked British gentlewomen (Joan Greenwood and Beth Rogan), the castaways find evidence that the island has been previously inhabited-and that they're all being watched. Sure enough, it turns out that the island is the domain of Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom), skipper of the futuristic underwater vessel Nautilus. Having failed to end all wars by blasting battleships out of the sea, Nemo is now experimenting with new means of ending starvation in the world: hence the outsized crabs and birds that the castaways have confronted. Before Nemo can spread his goodwill elsewhere, he is destroyed by the island's volcano, while the others manage to escape in the Nautilus. As in 1957's 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the combination of Ray Harryhausen and musical composer Bernard Herrmann is unbeatable; otherwise, Mysterious Island tends to slow to a halt in-between its spectacular special-effects highlights. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Great Impostor is the true story of chameleonlike Canadian Ferdinand Waldo DeMara Jr., well-played by Tony Curtis. Unable to decide what he wants to do with his life, DeMara goes about pretending to be other people, hoping to eventually "find himself." He poses as a Harvard professor, a Trappist monk, a prison warden, and a navy physician, and manages each time to get away with the artifice. The film wavers uncertainly between tense drama and frothy comedy, with comedy finally winning out. Karl Malden co-stars as Father Devlin, the young DeMara's spiritual advisor, while Joan Blackman is the nominal (and hardly visible) heroine. The real Ferdinand DeMara (if indeed there was a real Ferdinand DeMara) can be seen in a supporting role in the 1960 melodrama The Hypnotic Eye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a short story by John Cheever, this episode stars Gary Merrill as suburbanite Cash Bentley, who despite his business success prefers to bask in his past glory as a college hurdling champ. While at a country club dance, Cash accepts a challenge to run a race with another, much younger man. Fearing for her husband's health, Cash's wife Louise (Patricia Breslin) tries to talk him out of the challenge, but he refuses to listen -- an act of stubbornness for which he will soon pay dearly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Savage Eye opens by introducing the camera lens as a "character" who will follow the leading lady (Barbara Baxley) throughout her day. The woman is a recent divorcee who moves to Los Angeles in hopes of jump-starting her life. As she weaves her way through the LA, we share her observations on the various denizens of the street, from religious fanatics to faddists. Except for a smattering of professionals like Baxley, Gary Merrill and Herschel Bernardi, most of the characters in Savage Eye are the genuine article, though they're all too aware they're being photographed and thus can't be taken as completely "real." A mixed-bag attempt at cinema verite, Savage Eye was cocreated by Joseph Strick, the entrepreneur who later tried to film James Joyce's unfilmable slice-of-life novel Ulysses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Before there was Airport and its offspring, there was this aerial disaster film that stars Nancy Davis (later Nancy Reagan) as the devoted wife of an iron-willed sky pilot in charge of the doomed passenger plane. The trouble begins when the pilot realizes he must make an emergency landing in the Atlantic. Each of the diverse passengers has his or her own reaction to the impending disaster and many confessions are heard all around. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on what each person confessed) the water landing goes without a hitch and a US Naval ship is right there to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Missouri Traveler was one of a handful of independent films distributed by Disney's Buena Vista corporation. Brandon De Wilde heads the cast as 15-year-old orphan boy Biarn Turner. Doing his best to survive in the rural South of the pre-WW1 years, Biarn is unofficially adopted by crusty small-town newspaper editor Doyle Magee (Gary Merrill). Also taking an interest in Biarn's future is wealthy self-made farmer Tobias Brown (Lee Marvin), whose apparently cruel treatment of the boy masks his genuine affection and concern. Highlights include an annual trotting race and a climactic set-to between Magee and Brown. The Missouri Traveller is based on the novel by John Burress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

En route to prison by train, convicted robber Steve Fontaine (William Redfield) is manacled to his captor, Sgt. Rockwell (Gary Merrill). Hoping to escape his fate, the fast-talking Fontaine attempts to bribe the stalwart Rockwell -- and when this fails, more drastic measures are required. The key to the outcome of the story is literally a key, the one which opens the complicated "Oregon Boot" which holds Fontaine prisoner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Edward Bernds proved that he was capable of handling a different sort of comedy than the "Bowery Boys" and "Three Stooges" brand in Navy Wife. The film is set in postwar Japan, where Peg Blain (Joan Bennett) and her daughter Debby (Judy Nugent) join Peg's commanding-officer husband Jack (Gary Merrill). Impressed by the independence and self-reliance of Peg and Debby, the local Japanese wives begin demanding the same rights and privileges as their American counterparts. Things come to a head--and a resolution--at a military Christmas party. If the reader is wondering what Joan Bennett is doing in a low-budget Allied Artists film, it is because the producer was Bennett's then-husband Walter Wanger. Navy Wife was based on Mother Sir, a novel by Tats Blain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the tradition of Dragnet and The Lineup, this is devoted to a typically busy day at a police precinct station house. Despite the presence of such recognizable actors as Gary Merrill and Regis Toomey, the film successfully adopts a documentary approach. The plot concerns a new police chief (Gary Merrill) who is determined to clean up a crime-ridden slum district. The ads for The Human Jungle offered teasing full-body shots of costar Jan Sterling in a skimpy negligee; hopefully the fans lured in by this come-on weren't disappointed once they found how little they actually saw of Ms. Sterling (figuratively and literally) in the film itself. The Human Jungle was an "in between" production for Allied Artists, which in 1954 was trying to divest itself of the "poverty row" onus placed upon its predecessor, Monogram Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gary Merrill heads the cast of the unorthodox western The Black Dakotas. The story is set during the Civil War, as President Lincoln tries to mollify the Sioux Indians in order to free up soldiers for more important fighting. Disguised as a Northerner, Brock Marsh (Gary Merrill) intercepts Lincoln's emissary and heads into Sioux territory himself, hoping to steal Union gold for the Southern cause, and to stir up an Indian war between the Sioux and the Dakotas, who have already cast their lot with the North. It soon develops that Marsh doesn't care who wins the war; he wants to abscond with the gold himself. Wanda Hendrix, who despite her divorce from Audie Murphy was still regularly employed in westerns, costars as the daughter of Southern spy Fay Roope, and the sweetheart of good-guy stagecoach driver John Bromfield. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide