Ronan O'Casey Movies

Penelope Spheeris directed this compulsively faithful film adaptation of the popular 1960s television series. The familiar story 'bout a man named Jed Clampett (Jim Varney), a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed, continues to follow the TV show's format. Jed discovers oil on his Arkansas property and overnight becomes a multi-millionaire. He moves his family to Beverly Hills, wanting to turn his daughter Ellie May (Erika Eleniak) into a sophisticated woman. At his new Beverly Hills mansion, he meets Mr. Drysdale (Dabney Coleman), a kow-towing banker, and Drysdale's assistant, the repressed crone Miss Hathaway (Lily Tomlin). Jed announces that he would like to re-marry, and that leaves the door open for Drysdale's scheming lackey Woodrow Tyler (Rob Schneider) and his fortune-hunting partner Laura Jackson (Lea Thompson) to make the moves on Jed. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Although this American action film, which has little of Jackie Chan's comedic martial arts, was less successful in the U.S. than hoped, it is still a worthy effort. Chan plays Billy Wong, a New York cop whose partner is murdered by Hong Kong gangsters. His new partner is Danny Gorani (Danny Aiello). They are sent to rescue an American woman who was kidnapped and taken to Hong Kong. There, they must also stop a shipment of narcotics before it reaches the U.S. The mismatching of Chan and Aiello is reminiscent of the chemistry between Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in the original buddy-cop film, 48 HRS. The lack of success of this enjoyable thriller was unfortunate; Chan would not make another attempt to break into the American market until 1996 with the hit Rumble in the Bronx. ~ Jonathan E. Laxamana, All Movie Guide

Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language production was also his only box office hit, widely considered one of the seminal films of the 1960s. Thomas (David Hemmings) is a nihilistic, wealthy fashion photographer in mod "Swinging London." Filled with ennui, bored with his "fab" but oddly-lifeless existence of casual sex and drug use, Thomas comes alive when he wanders through a park, stops to take pictures of a couple embracing, and upon developing the images, believes that he has photographed a murder. Pursued by Jane (Vanessa Redgrave), the woman who is in the photos, Thomas pretends to give her the pictures, but in reality, he passes off a different roll of film to her. Thomas returns to the park and discovers that there is, indeed, a dead body lying in the shrubbery: the gray-haired man who was embracing Jane. Has she murdered him, or does Thomas' photo reveal a man with a gun hiding nearby? Antonioni's thriller is a puzzling, existential, adroitly-assembled masterpiece. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

British producers Robert Baker and Monty S. Berman, the team later responsible for the classic TV series The Saint, assembled the 1953 crime melodrama Blind Spot. U.S. Army officer Dan Adams Robert MacKenzie, blinded during the war, is framed on a diamond-smuggling rap. Upon regaining his sight, Adams goes after the real thieves in an effort to clear his name. In order to trap the wily criminals, Adams pretends that he's still bereft of his vision. With the delightful Delphi Lawrence as his leading lady, Robert MacKenzie must have been hard put to feign blindness. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Nicholas Ray's WWII drama, two British officers, Captain Leith (Richard Burton) and Major Brand (German character actor Curd Jürgens, who would later play Bond foe Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me), a South African, are being considered to lead a daring raid to steal crucial documents from a Nazi stronghold in Libya. The two don't seem particularly fond of each other. Brand's wife, Jane (Ruth Roman of Strangers on a Train), arrives on the base. There's an odd awkwardness when Brand introduces her to Leith at the officers' club. It turns out the two already know each other, intimately. They were romantically involved long ago, until Leith broke it off without warning. Jane later met Brand. Leith and Jane keep their relationship a secret from Brand, but he realizes something's up when he goes out for a bit and comes back to find them dancing together. He later gets angry when his wife slips up and refers to Leith as "Jimmy." Brand and Leith are chosen to lead the mission together. Jane says goodbye to Leith, and Wilkins (Nigel Green of The Ipcress File) and some other soldiers see them together. The raid goes fairly smoothly, until Brand can't bring himself to kill a German sentry, and Leith feels compelled to step in and do it for him. Brand's resentment of Leith grows. The team steals the documents and heads out across the desert to make their escape. They're attacked by a German patrol, and after the melee, Brand arouses suspicious when he orders Leith to stay with three badly wounded soldiers while the rest of the group leaves for the rendezvous point. Bitter Victory is based on the novel by René Hardy. Jean-Luc Godard famously said of the film in his review, "Nicholas Ray is cinema." ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Tom Conway essays one of his last starring roles in the British melodrama Murder on Approval. Conway is cast as special investigator Duke Martin (a character he'd later essay in the 1956 feature Breakaway), in London to investigate the authenticity of a rare postage stamp called the Barbados Overplate. Someone is willing to commit murder to get his or her hands on the stamp, which puts a crimp in Duke's efforts to romance every beautiful woman he meets. Delphi Lawrence is the principal female attraction, while Michael Balfour provides laughs as Martin's obligatory ex-convict assistant. Distributed in the US by RKO Radio, Murder on Approval was originally released in England as Barbados Quest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

David Niven plays the new squire in a small Irish community. As snooty and restrictive as the old squire was warmhearted and generous, Niven quickly earns the animosity of the locals. Eventually they draw lots for the privilege of bumping Niven off. Before the cad is humanized by the love of Yvonne DeCarlo, the villagers contrive to scare him off the premises by faking a local ghost--which rouses the fury of the town's genuine wraith. Tonight's the Night was originally released in Great Britain as Happy Ever After. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ebullient British music-hall comedian Norman Wisdom made his movie debut in Trouble in Store. The scene is a large department store, where the bumbling Norman (Wisdom) has somehow landed a clerical job. The rest of the film is a series of slapstick catastrophes, some hilarious, others less so. Along the way, Norman saves the store from falling into the clutches of gangsters -- and wins the heroine besides. Wisdom's perennial straight-man Jerry Desmonde has a meaty role, as do British film-faves Margaret Rutherford and Moira Lister. Evidently this film meant a great deal to Norman Wisdom, for in 1992 he titled his autobiography Trouble in Store. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The blarney is as thick as the characters' brogues in You Can't Beat the Irish. Jack Warner stars as lazy but enterprising Irish paterfamilias Bartley Murnahan. To support his family, Bartley has hit upon a foolproof scam. By arranging a series of subtle subterfuges, he convinces his neighbors that he has fallen heir to a huge fortune. Before long, Bartley is the cock of the walk, never having to pay a cent for anything because all the local merchants assume he's going to reimburse them tenfold when the legacy is settled. The beautiful part of the scheme is that Bartley himself never has to tell a lie: he merely relies upon the gullibility and greed of those around him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On the outs in Hollywood due to the blacklist, director Edward Dmytryk briefly operated in England in the late 1940s. Though filmed in its entirety in London, Dmytryk's Give Us This Day is set in New York during the depression. Fellow blacklistee Sam Wanamaker is starred as the head of an Italian immigrant family struggling to survive the economic crisis. Perhaps had it been made in Hollywood as intended, Give Us This Day would not have been allowed to run on for 120 minutes, nor would the actors have been permitted to indulge in terminal sanctimony. Based on Pietro di Donato's novel Christ in Concrete, Give Us This Day was released in the US under the intriguing title Salt to the Devil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide