Allan Nixon Movies

Anticipating the real-life political career of Maverick star Jack Kelly, who would serve two terms as mayor of Huntington Beach, California, in the 1980s, this episode finds Bart Maverick (Kelly) running for a State Senate seat on the Reform Party ticket. He has agreed to throw his hat in the ring to help Penelope Greeley (Merry Anders), daughter of the actual candidate Ellsworth Greeley (R.G. Armstrong), who has been shot and wounded by an unknown assailant. Well, maybe "unknown" is a poor choice of words: Bart's opponent Wellington Cosgrove (R.G. Armstrong) has made no secret of his plans to kill Mr. Maverick should he win the election. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Keith Larsen stars as the Apache Kid, an Indian scout. He is willing to cooperate with the US cavalry until his brother is killed by another Native American. The Apache Kid is permitted to seek revenge under tribal law, but white law does not recognize this ruling; as a result the Kid is branded a renegade. A fellow cavalry scout (Jim Davis) is ordered to stop the Kid, but decides instead to let him go and seek out justice in his own way. Supposedly based on fact, Apache Warrior was directed by Elmo Williams, who in 1952 was film editor for the landmark western High Noon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mutated spiders, mad geniuses, childlike mental patients, gold-digging blondes, and vengeful little people are only part of the madness in this legendary bit of oddball science fiction. Grant (Robert Knapp) and Doreen (Mary Hill) wander into a shack in the wastelands of Mexico's Muerto Desert, where the sunburned and dehydrated pair tell their tale to a surveyor for an American petroleum firm. Grant was working as a pilot for millionaire businessman Jan Van Croft (Nico Lek), who was to marry the much younger Doreen when engine trouble stranded them in a Mexican border town. Jan and Doreen were killing time in a roadhouse when they were joined by the eccentric Dr. Leland Masterson (Harmon Stevens), who had recently escaped from a mental hospital. Before Masterson's nurse, George (George Barrows), can lure his patient back to the hospital, Masterson pulls a gun and shoots entertainer Tarantella (Tandra Quinn) while she performs a wild dance routine; Masterson then takes Jan and Doreen hostage and demands that Grant fly them away. Further engine trouble strands the traveling party on a mesa, where they discover a handful of strange, tiny men and statuesque women. In time, we discover that Masterson knows the story behind the Mesa's unusual residents -- they're the products of a series of experiments by Dr. Aranya (Jackie Coogan), whose research into the pituitary glands of spiders has produced unusual results. The only screen credit for screenwriter and co-director Herbert Tevos (who helmed the project with Southern exploitation icon Ron Ormond), Mesa of Lost Women also features a memorably irritating guitar-and-piano score and a brief appearance by Dolores Fuller, best known for her work with one-time beau Edward D. Wood Jr. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Pickup was the first self-financed directorial effort by the redoubtable Hugo Haas. The film falls neatly into the pattern followed by virtually all future Haas extravaganzas: A romantic triangle involving a susceptible middle-aged man, a scheming blonde wench, and a handsome hunk. Haas himself plays railroad dispatcher Jan Horak, who succumbs to the charms of zaftig doxy Betty (Beverly Michaels). Upon hearing that Horak has a few thousand dollars salted away, Betty inveigles him into marriage. Soon bored by her new husband, Betty inaugurates an affair with Horak's studdish assistant Steve (Allan Nixon). Because Horak is going deaf, Betty and Steve freely discusses their plans to bump off the old man and abscond with his dough. But Horak isn't quite as hearing-impaired as they think he is. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Siren of Atlantis is the third movie version of Pierre Benoit's fantasy novel L'Atlantide, first film in 1921. Jean-Pierre Aumont and Dennis O'Keefe star as Foreign Legionnaires Andre and Jean, who while on a routine mission in the African desert stumble upon the sunken city of Atlantis. Once they've arrived in the subterranean metropolis, they are forbidden to leave by sultry Queen Antinea (Maria Montez). For her own perverse amusement, Antinea romances both Andre and Jean, then sits back and watches the two duke it out over her affections. One of the men survives to tell the tale-if he can find anyone to believe him, that is. To their credit, Henry Daniell and Morris Carnovsky play their supporting roles with utterly straight faces. Of the many deliriously awful Maria Montez vehicles of the 1940s, Siren of Atlantis may well be the worst, though it's not without its campy pleasures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a novelist visits a local nightclub to do some research for her upcoming novel. Her husband, away on a business trip, knows nothing of her shenanigans. While in the club, the novelist sees her boss out with a stripper. To help her husband's flagging career, the writer begins blackmailing her employer into promoting him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide