John Mitchum Movies
The younger brother of film star Robert Mitchum, American actor John Mitchum shared his family's Depression-era travails before striking out on his own. As brother Robert's star ascended in the mid '40s, John remained his elder sibling's boon companion, severest critic and drinking buddy. In later years, John was a convivial anecdotal source for books and articles about Bob, each reminiscense becoming more colorful as it was repeated for the next interview. After holding down a variety of jobs, John decided to give acting a try as a result of hearing Bob's tales of Hollywood revelry; too heavyset to be a leading man, John became a reliable character actor, usually in military or western roles. He frequently had small parts in his brother's starring films, notably One Minute to Zero (1951) and The Way West (1967). Most of John's movie work was done outside Robert's orbit, however, in such films as Cattle King (1963) and Paint Your Wagon (1970). Perhaps John Mitchum's best screen role was as Goering in the 1962 biopic Hitler; he may have been utterly opposed ideologically to the late German field marshal, but John certainly filled the costume. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1989
In this mystery, based on a novel by L.A. Morse, retired L.A. detective Jake Spanner enlists the aide of a group of senior citizens to help him find an ex-mobster's daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Ernest Borgnine, (more)
- 1986
This cut-rate horror anthology is packaged in a TV-series format, lacking even the most rudimentary production values and enhanced only slightly by the brief narrative presence of Vincent Price, who appears in a linking story as a sinister postman who delivers the stories on videocassette to an unwary young couch-potato. The tales involve a fisherman ensnared by his own line, a delivery boy trapped in an endless time-loop in a woodland town, a jogger pursued by mischievous forest monsters, an old scavenger who chances across a crashed alien craft, and a two-bit thief who steals a magical wishing stone. These vignettes run the gamut from tedious to downright silly, bogged down by mealy-mouthed moralizing and childish humor; viewers should be grateful that only five are presented instead of the ten chapters erroneously suggested in the prologue. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1983
Illiterate factory employee Tim Hurley (Sean Kelly) is killed in a explosion because of his inability to read the warning signs posted on the walls of his workplace. While looking into this tragedy, Quincy (Jack Klugman) is shocked to discover that his colleague, coroner's investigator Arnold Chatham (Gerald S. O'Loughlin), is also illiterate. Though it is something of a stretch to believe that Chatham could have held down an important job for so long without being found out, this plot inconsistency is shunted aside as Quincy goes on a crusade against a public educational system that allows its students to graduate without being able to read or write. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
- PG
Don Siegel took over the directing chores from Peter Hyams on this taut cold war action film, based on the novel by Walter Wager. With the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union thawing, old KGB hard-liner Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence) activates a group of Americans who were brainwashed twenty years earlier to blow up United States defenses when a passage from a Robert Frost poem is recited to them. When bombs go off at an abandoned United States defense installation, the Kremlin realizes that they have a rogue KGB agent on their hands who is trying to re-ignite the cold war. To stop him, the Russians send out KGB agent Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson). Accompanying him is KGB double agent Barbara (Lee Remick). As the two agents try to stop Nicolai from starting World War III, they find time to fall in love with each other. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Lee Remick, (more)
- 1977
In this comedy, young Willie alarms the members of his small town when he shows off his computer-programming genius. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1976
- PG
The rugged world of those who built the Alaskan pipeline provides the backdrop for this drama featuring the non-singing film debut of soul-singer Gladys Knight (she and her Pips do sing on the soundtrack though). The story centers on her attempts to regain the love of her estranged husband who works up there. She goes to the wild, wooly town where he is based. There women are hard to find, and those who are there make big bucks selling themselves to lonely workers. Knight is a pretty woman so it doesn't take long for the man who runs the town to try and convince her into becoming a high--priced whore. She refuses and eventually achieves her original goal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gladys Knight, Barry L. Hankerson, (more)
- 1976
It's The Wages of Fear, prairie style, in this tension-laden episode. When the price of grain plummets precipitously, Charles (Michael Landon), Edwards (Victor French), and two other men must seek out employment in a hurry. The four men accept a high-paying but highly dangerous job, transporting explosives over treacherous mountain roads. In the course of their perilous journey, the men are forced to confront their own inner demons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, (more)
Clint Eastwood's fifth film as a director and eighth Western as a star (ninth if you count Paint Your Wagon), The Outlaw Josey Wales chronicles the hero's violent journey westward after the Civil War. With fresh memoris of his family's slaughter by Red Leg soldier Terrill (Bill McKinney), Confederate Josey Wales (Eastwood) refuses to join his captain Fletcher (John Vernon) and the rest of his comrades in surrender to a U.S. Army regiment. Deemed a dangerous outlaw after a bloody one-man battle with that regiment, Josey is pursued by U.S. cavalry soldiers led by the unwilling Fletcher and the murderous Terrill, as well as by bounty hunters who eventually learn how coolly lethal Wales can be. Despite his desire to remain a lone fugitive, Josey soon has a crew of travelling companions that includes Cherokee Lone Watie (Chief Dan George) and the pretty Laura Lee (Sondra Locke) and her vigorous Grandma Sarah (Paula Trueman), settlers on their way to a ranch near ghost town Santa Rio. The few Santa Rio residents welcome the group, but their peace and Josey's burgeoning romance with Laura Lee are soon interrupted by Terrill's arrival. A skillfully violent man of few, well-chosen words, Josey Wales resembles Eastwood's previous Western heroes in Sergio Leone's trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). However, the emphasis on friends and family served notice that, in the words of one critic, "the Man With No Name doesn't live here anymore." Indeed, Josey Wales would be Eastwood's last western before 1985's Pale Rider. Although it did not garner similar critical praise when it was released, Eastwood considers The Outlaw Josey Wales to be the equal of the Oscar-winning Unforgiven (1992). ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, (more)
Number three in the Dirty Harry series, The Enforcer equips macho cop Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) with a female assistant, Kate Moore (Tyne Daly). Their quarry is a terrorist organization which has kidnapped the mayor of San Francisco (John Crawford). Harry goes undercover, attempting to root out the terrorists by beating up anybody who looks at him cross-eyed. When Harry and Kate discover that the mayor is being held at Alcatraz Island, it is only a matter of time before the climactic bloodbath. The Enforcer cleared enough at the box office to warrant yet another Dirty Harry opus, Sudden Impact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, (more)
Posing as a fugitive from justice, frontier undercover agent John Deakin (Charles Bronson) boards a train to go after a ruthless gang of outlaws. Ingredients essential to the action include an anti-military conspiracy involving gunrunners and Indians, a phony epidemic, and a down-and-dirty traintop fight between Deakin and Carlos (boxer-turned-actor Archie Moore). Breakheart Pass was adapted for the screen by Alistair MacLean from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bronson, Ben Johnson, (more)
- 1975
Assigned to a story about a famous wing-walker (a daredevil who climbs out on the wing of a plane in flight for the entertainment of the people on solid ground), John-Boy (Richard Thomas) is pleasantly surprised to disover that the legendary "Bobby Strom" is actually a very attractive young woman (Lee Purcell). Before long, John-Boy finds himself at the center of a mystery involving a an unidentified young Romeo who is plying Bobby with gifts and love letters. Meanwhile, elderly Maude Gormley (Merie Earle) entrusts her beloved goat Myrtle to a younger member of the Walton clan. Appearing in this episode as Rex Barker is Tom Bower, who would later join the series' cast in the role of Mary Ellen Walton's husband Curt Willard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
Steve Forrest, in his last starring role before moving permanently to series television with S.W.A.T., plays James Devlin, a once-notorious gunman who is wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Through an accident -- though the priest Father Alvaro (Rafael Campos) insists it was divine intervention -- he survives the hanging, barely, and is set free, a death certificate having been duly and lawfully issued by the doctor (William Bryant) who examined the "body." A near walking corpse, with an odd, dark fire in his eyes and a strangely low body temperature and heartbeat, Devlin doesn't know what to do with the rest of his life, however long that may be -- he's got enemies still walking around who would like to finish the job, and neither the doctor nor the priest can tell him how long he might live. Having already reformed before he was convicted, he goes the rest of the way and decides to spend what time he's been given, and use the skills he still has as a gunman and soldier of fortune, on the side of the angels, helping people who need it. He quickly finds himself up to his neck in a deadly land war between an ambitious mining tycoon (Cameron Mitchell) and a young widow (Sharon Acker) for the property she owns. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Forrest, Cameron Mitchell, (more)
The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force concerns itself with a vigilante group that has targeted notorious scofflaws for extermination. When a prominent gang boss or drug-runner is set free by the airheaded liberal courts, a covert group of "avengers" is soon on hand to blow the miscreant to bits. While detective Dirty Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is no great friend of civil liberties, he is dead set against wholesale murder as a solution to legal loopholes. Discovering that all the killings have been committed by the same weapon, Callahan reaches the conclusion that his on-the-edge partner, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), is responsible. But the answer is less transparent than that, as Harry learns almost at the cost of his own life. Co-scripted by John Milius and Michael Cimino, Magnum Force was followed by three additional Dirty Harry installments: The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, (more)
"Who are you?" the dwarf Mordecai (Billy Curtis) asks Clint Eastwood's Stranger at the end of Eastwood's 1973 western High Plains Drifter. "You know," he replies, before vanishing into the desert heat waves near California's Mono Lake. Adapting the amorally enigmatic and violent Man With No Name persona from his films with Sergio Leone, Eastwood's second film as director begins as his drifter emerges from that heat haze and rides into the odd lakefront settlement of Lago. Lago's residents are not particularly friendly, but once the Stranger shows his skills as a gunfighter, they beg him to defend them against a group of outlaws (led by Eastwood regular Geoffrey Lewis) who have a score to settle with the town. He agrees to train them in self-defense, but Mordecai and innkeeper's wife Sarah Belding (Verna Bloom) soon suspect that the Stranger has another, more personal agenda. By the time the Stranger makes the corrupt community paint their town red and re-name it "Hell," it is clear that he is not just another gunslinger. With its fragmented flashbacks and bizarre, austere locations, High Plains Drifter's stylistic eccentricity lends an air of unsettling eeriness to its revenge story, adding an uncanny slant to Eastwood's antiheroic westerner. Seminal western hero John Wayne was so offended by Eastwood's harshly revisionist view of a frontier town that he wrote to Eastwood, objecting that this was not what the spirit of the West was all about. Eastwood's audience, however, was not so put off, and an exhibitors' poll named Eastwood a top box-office draw for 1973. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, (more)
- 1972
In this post-Civil War western, an Union soldier sees opportunity abounding in the ruined South, though it's difficult, as everyone he meets there is angry at him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1972
This campy oddity -- featuring John Carradine in one of his patented walk-on roles -- pits some silly facsimile of a motorcycle gang against an even sillier stuntman in a deep-pile shag suit who is supposed to be the legendary humanoid lurker of the Northwestern wilderness. It seems Bigfoot has developed an understandable liking for buxom human females (including Joy Lansing and one-time Russ Meyer regular Haji), whom he abducts and carries off to his scenic woodland retreat and ties to ridiculously scrawny trees. Apparently the bike boys are jealous -- abducting curvaceous cuties is also a favorite pastime of theirs -- and they embark on an uncoordinated rescue mission. Predating mid-'70s Bigfoot-mania (sparked by the famous home-movie sightings), this goofy outing is probably more entertaining than Legend of Boggy Creek and a dozen other "serious" pseudo-documentaries on the subject. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG
In this western, a train robber is framed by a fellow gang member and sent to prison. The gang member betrayed him so that he could marry the robber's love. To get his revenge, the robber helps out a gang of Chinese whose father, the other guy kidnapped. A showdown between the two leads ensues. Naturally the hero wins it all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1971
In the second episode of a two-part story (and a seven-part story arc), Samantha is still trapped in the 16th century, slated to become the sixth wife of King Henry VIII (Ronald Long). With Endora's help, Darrin is himself backed to the Tudor era in an effort to rescue Sam. Unfortunately, she fails to recognize him, and before long, it is Darrin who needs rescuing. Written by Ed Jurist, part two of "How Not to Lose Your Head to Henry VIII" first aired on September 22, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick Sargent, (more)
- 1971
Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Myrna Loy and Sylvia Sidney star as four elderly pranksters devoted to practical jokes. When one of the ladies gets hold of a computer-dating questionnaire, the others invent a mythical girl and feed the falsified information into the computer. Alas, the description matches a very real young lady, who becomes the target of a murderous rapist (Vince Edwards). Attacked at the time of its release for making light of a potentially deadly situation, Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate led to the casting of Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick in the weekly detective series The Snoop Sisters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
"You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its "fascist" message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most enduring screen persona. Harry Callahan (Eastwood, in a role meant for Frank Sinatra) is a sardonic, hard-working San Francisco cop who can't finish his lunch without having to foil a bank robbery with his 44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world." When hippie-esque psycho Scorpio (Andy Robinson) goes on a killing spree, Harry and new partner Chico (Reni Santoni) are assigned to hunt him down, but not before the Mayor (John Vernon) and Lt. Bressler (Harry Guardino) admonish Callahan about his heavy-handed tactics. Racing against a deadline to save a kidnap victim from suffocating to death and unbothered by the niceties of Miranda rights and search warrants, Callahan brings in Scorpio, only to see him released on technicalities. "The law's crazy," opines Harry in disgust, before taking it upon himself to ensure that Scorpio doesn't kill again. Directed in violent and efficient fashion by Don Siegel, with a propulsive score by Lalo Schifrin, Dirty Harry was the fourth Siegel-Eastwood collaboration after Coogan's Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), and The Beguiled (1970). Critics at the time strongly objected to the heroic image of a cop's violations of a suspect's Miranda rights, forcing Siegel and Eastwood to deny that they were right-wing reactionaries. All the same, Dirty Harry proved to be highly popular and spawned four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988). ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, (more)
- 1971
After coming across a corpse stuffed in a sack and deposited in a park, Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway) notifies the homicide division. When the cops arrive, the sack is still there--but the corpse is gone. Embarrassed by the taunts of rival cop Larry Muller (Warren Berlinger), Ed dedicates himself to proving that the body really existed, even though Ironside (Raymond Burr) demands that he devote his attention to a kidnapping case. Inevitably, it turns out that both cases share a common link. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
John Wayne toplines this biography of the cattle owner John Simpson Chisum, a controversial figure who was the most powerful man in New Mexico during the Wild West era. A founder and prominent citizen in the town of Lincoln, Chisum is slow to act when ruthless land baron Lawrence Murphy (Forrest Tucker) moves in on several local businesses and takes them over. By the time Chisum and his ally, fellow rancher Henry Tunstall (Patrick Knowles), decide to go to the law, Murphy's already bought and paid for influence there, as well. The only recourse left to the cattlemen is to take Murphy on in all-out range war that embroils everyone in the county, including Tunstall's hand Billy the Kid Bonney (Geoffrey Deuel) and his comrade Pat Garrett (Glenn Corbett). Screenwriter and producer Andrew J. Fenady based the script for Chisum (1970) on his own short story, a very loosely fact-based account of Chisum, Billy the Kid and their involvement in the Lincoln County wars. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Forrest Tucker, (more)
- 1970
Officers Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Jim Reed (Kent McCord) try to break up a gang of auto thieves who use pretty, miniskirted girls as decoys for unwary male drivers. Elsewhere, the two cops are summoned to a teenage pot party (this is, after all, a Jack Webb) production. And in another incident, Jim and Pete rescue a mugger from an angry old lady (Hope Summers) who turns the tables on the "perp" and beats him up. Former Leave It to Beaver costar Tony Dow has a sizeable supporting role in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
After a debut on Broadway in 1951, Paramount spent an estimated 17 to 20 million dollars in production costs for this Lerner and Loewe musical. With Loewe's permission, Lerner wrote five additional tunes for the film with Andre Previn. Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) is the grizzled prospector trying his luck panning for gold in California. Pardner (Clint Eastwood) is his companion. When Ben buys a woman from a Mormon, Elizabeth (Jean Seberg) expects equal rights for her gender and chooses to live with both men. Ben and Pardner tunnel under the boomtown to gather the fallen gold dust that has filtered through the cracks of the saloon and other places. The musical comedy features 13 songs, the most recognizable being "They Call The Wind Maria". The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band helps out on the song "Hand Me Down That Can O' Beans". Both Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin are given a chance to show their vocal ability (or lack of it) in several songs. The initial release fell far short of regaining the millions put into the production, and most critics dipped their pens in poison to pan the picture -- though the film plays better than the critics would lead anyone to believe. Many jumped on the Paint Your Wagon smear campaign after the film proved to be not nearly as successful as other musicals. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, (more)
