Warren Oates Movies

John Milius's first directorial effort in its own small way set the stage in the 1970s for a subgenre of action films that depict a nostalgia for historical figures tinged with a hard-edged skepticism. Warren Oates stars as John Dillinger, whose short-lived career as Public Enemy No.1 was, at least according to Milius, promoted by Dillinger with a self-absorbed boosterism, comforting his victims by telling them, "Someday you'll tell your grandchildren about this." The film captures the highlights of Dillinger's criminal career, as seen through the eyes of Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson), the FBI agent whose obsession with capturing Dillinger led to Dillinger's death in the back alley of Chicago's Biograph Theater. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

"He wanted to die with me and I dreamed of being lost forever in his arms." A young couple goes on a Midwest crime spree in Terrence Malick's hypnotically assured debut feature, based on the 1950s Starkweather-Fugate murders. Fancying himself a rebel like James Dean, twentysomething Kit (Martin Sheen) takes off with teen baton-twirler Holly (Sissy Spacek) after shooting her father (Warren Oates) when he tries to split the pair up. Once bounty hunters discover their riverside hiding place, Kit and Holly head toward Saskatchewan, leaving dead bodies in their wake. As the law closes in, however, Holly gives herself up -- but Kit doesn't hold it against her, as he basks in his new status as a momentary folk hero. Inaugurating the use of voice-over narration that he would continue in Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick juxtaposes Holly's flat readings of her flowery romance-novel diary prose with the banal and surreal details of their journey. Singularly inarticulate with each other, Kit and Holly are more intrigued by mythic celebrity gestures, as Holly peruses her fan magazines and Kit commemorates key moments before orchestrating a properly dramatic capture for himself (complete with the right hat). The sublime visuals lend a dreamlike beauty to the couple's trip even as their actions are treated casually; Malick neither glamorizes Kit and Holly nor consigns them to the bloody end of their fame-fixated predecessors in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). With the couple's opaque dialogue and Holly's fanzine dream narration, Malick further denies an easy explanation for their crimes. Made for under 500,000 dollars, Badlands debuted at the 1973 New York Film Festival, along with Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and was released within months of two other outlaw-couple road movies, Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express and Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us. Although Badlands did not make an impression at the box office, its pictorial splendor and cool yet disquieting narrative established Malick as one of the most compelling artists to come out of early-'70s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

In this western set at the turn-of-the-century, an outlaw finds himself at one of life's crossroads as he must decide whether to go straight or continue a life of crime. After bungling a train robbery he decides he should go straight and settle down. He chooses the town of Dime Box, Texas. There he undertakes a series of simple jobs under the watchful, ever-suspicious eye of the town sheriff. Try as he might, the outlaw cannot resist the lure of robbery. He ends up stealing a local factory's Christmas payroll and taking off into the desert with some renegade Indian pals. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A famous gunfight is chronicled in this lively western. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Warren Oates guest stars as Richie Billings, a professional thief who ends up the only survivor of a bloody armored car robbery. As he escapes to Canada with $50,000 in stolen money, Billings undergoes a radical personality change--and it may not be for the better. It is up to the FBI's Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist to prevent the "new" Billings from wreaking any more havoc. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Meeting largely mixed reviews during its first run in 1971, counterculture icon Peter Fonda's directorial debut was restored and remastered for its 30-year anniversary. The film opens with three drifters greeting the morning by cavorting in a sun-dabbled mountain river. Harry Collings (Fonda) catches a fish and gives it to Arch Harris (Warren Oates) who grills it over a low fire, while Dan (Robert Pratt) -- the youngest of the three -- bathes in the swift moving current. Later, as they head into Del Norte, a small town in the middle of nowhere, Dan talks breathlessly about going to California while Collings suddenly decides to return home after a seven-year absence. After Dan runs afoul of a group of unsavory characters lead by McVey (Severn Darden), Collings vows vengeance for the lad's death and blows off McVey's feet. Collings and Harris bury Dan and flee from the town riding hundreds of miles to Collings' homestead. His wife Hannah (Verna Bloom) -- now called "Widow Collings" by the local townsfolk -- is none too pleased to see her wayward husband at her doorstep. Taking his wife's anger in stride, he asks only to be allowed to work as a hired hand. Just as Hannah and Collings start to move beyond the years of anger and estrangement, disaster strikes. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Nostalgia is selling angle of this made-for-TV suspenser. Someone is going around breaking into movie vaults and setting precious tins of rare film ablaze. An insurance investigator and a detective investigate this seemingly pointless crime. As it turns out, the "movie murderer" is an extortionist who was inadvertently filmed while committing a crime, thus he's anxiously burning every possible shred of evidence. It happens that the criminal is also an old-movie buff, which permits Universal Studios, producers of The Movie Murderer, to show off film clips from its MCA backlog--including snippets of W.C. Fields from International House, Gary Cooper from The Virginian, and Warner Oland from The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"If they move, kill 'em!" Beginning and ending with two of the bloodiest battles in screen history, Sam Peckinpah's classic revisionist Western ruthlessly takes apart the myths of the West. Released in the late '60s discord over Vietnam, in the wake of the controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the brutal "spaghetti westerns" of Sergio Leone, The Wild Bunch polarized critics and audiences over its ferocious bloodshed. One side hailed it as a classic appropriately pitched to the violence and nihilism of the times, while the other reviled it as depraved. After a failed payroll robbery, the outlaw Bunch, led by aging Pike Bishop (William Holden) and including Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Angel (Jaime Sanchez), and Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson), heads for Mexico pursued by the gang of Pike's friend-turned-nemesis Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). Ultimately caught between the corruption of railroad fat cat Harrigan (Albert Dekker) and federale general Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), and without a frontier for escape, the Bunch opts for a final Pyrrhic victory, striding purposefully to confront Mapache and avenge their friend Angel. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Herbie Hassler (Telly Savalas) and Marty Miller (Warren Oates) are American gangsters who plan to rob an opulent aristocratic home of valuable art treasures. Under the orders of crime boss Nick Marco (Cesar Romero), the duo charms Lady Fitzmore (Edith Evans), a wealthy dowager and proprietress of a monied estate. The plan is to work in collaboration with a British gang lead by Finley (Harry H. Corbett). When the time comes to initiate the big heist, the sentimental American crooks can't bring themselves to rob their eccentric but lovable hostess. They confess the plan and work with Lady Fitzmore and Lord Fitzmore (Nicky Henson) in an effort to catch their British burglar counterparts in this delightful crime comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Dan Blocker made his first non-Bonanza appearance in nine years in the 1968 TV movie Something for a Lonely Man. Blocker plays a blacksmith, John Killibrew, who leads several Easterners to a boomtown in the High Sierras -- only to discover that the town is slated for extinction because the railroad has decided to bypass the community. Now the laughing stock of his comrades, Killibrew determines to save the town by turning it into an industrial center. To do this, he "borrows" a derailed steam engine from the railroad and drags it into town. When things look the darkest for Killibrew, he takes comfort in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson -- and the affections of pretty Mary Duren (Susan Clark). Widely regarded in 1968 as one of the best TV movies to date, Something for a Lonely Man retains its low-key appeal a quarter of a century later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The winner of the 1967 Oscar for Best Picture (as well as four other Oscars), In the Heat of the Night is set in a small Mississippi town where an unusual murder has been committed. Rod Steiger plays sheriff Bill Gillespie, a good lawman despite his racial prejudices. When Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), a well-dressed northern African-American, comes to town, Gillespie instinctively puts him under arrest as a murder suspect. Tibbs reveals himself to be a Philadelphia police detective; after he and Gillespie come to a grudging understanding of one another, Tibbs offers to help in Gillespie's investigation. As the case progresses, both Gillespie and Tibbs betray a tendency to jump to culture-dictated conclusions. Still, the case is solved thanks to the informal teamwork of the two law officers. Based on the novel by John Ball, In the Heat of the Night inspired two sequels, both starring Poiter as Virgil Tibbs. In 1987, a TV series version of In the Heat of the Night appeared, with Carroll O'Connor as Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Tibbs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide