Alan Oppenheimer Movies

This TV movie was the pilot for the popular series The Six Million Dollar Man. In this maiden effort, we are told just how astronaut Steve Austin became a bionic man. Surviving a near-fatal crash, the mutilated Austin is given artificial limbs (plus one faux eye) and reassembled into a part-human, part-electronic entity, endowed with superstrength and the ability to run faster than anyone--a feat which is always depicted in slow motion. Put to work by the Office of Strategic Information, Col. Austin answers to his immediate superior Darren McGavin (replaced by Richard Anderson in the series proper). Martin Balsam plays the doctor responsible for Austin's superhuman status (Balsam's character was played on the series by Martin Brooks) Filmed in part at Edwards Air Force Base, The Six Million Dollar Man was first telecast on March 7, 1973, where it performed admirably opposite a Bob Hope special; the series itself began on a monthly basis in October of 1973, then became a weekly in January of 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Required to wear braces on her teeth, Laurie (Susan Dey) is worried that her unsightly dental adornments will turn off her new boyfriend, so she goes to great lengths to hide them. Trouble is, she can't go through life covering her mouth and refusing to talk. And besides, the Partridges have been booked to appear on a TV show hosted by Wink Burgess (Alan Oppenheimer) --who demands that all his guests flash big, toothy smiles! Featured as Laurie's beau Jerry is a young Mark Hamill, six years removed from Star Wars. Song: "The Love Song" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Recounting how the West was won through the eyes of a white man raised as a Native American, Arthur Penn's 1970 adaptation of Thomas Berger's satirical novel was a comic yet stinging allegory about the bloody results of American imperialism. As a misguided 20th-century historian listens, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) narrates the story of being the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. White orphan Crabb was adopted by the Cheyenne, renamed "Little Big Man," and raised in the ways of the "Human Beings" by paternal mentor Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), accepting non-conformity and living peacefully with nature. Violently thrust into the white world, Jack meets a righteous preacher (Thayer David) and his wife (Faye Dunaway), tries to be a gunfighter under the tutelage of Wild Bill Hickock (Jeff Corey), and gets married. Returned to the Cheyenne by chance, Jack prefers life as a Human Being. The carnage wreaked by the white man in the Washita massacre and the lethal fallout from the egomania of General George A. Custer (Richard Mulligan) at Little Big Horn, however, show Crabb the horrific implications of Old Lodge Skins' sage observation, "There is an endless supply of White Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human Beings." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Cashing in on the popularity of their comedy series Laugh-In, comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin team up ala Abbott and Costello in this spoof of old horror movies and mysteries. Rowan plays a pornographic film producer and Martin plays his star, who is having trouble sleeping at night and seriously suspects that he has become a werewolf. To verify this, the two travel to a "haunted" Gothic Long Island mansion and end up embroiled with Julie Newmar while searching, amidst a series of murders, for a missing diamond. Rowan and Martin's television show was hip and funny. Alas, this film is neither and bombed at the box-office. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Hogan is ordered to kill British defector Leslie Smythe-Beddoes during an award ceremony for Colonel Klink. The plan hits a snag when Hogan discovers that Leslie is a woman (Ruta Lee). Unwilling to liquidate her in the usual fashion, Hogan concocts a scheme whereby Leslie's credibility with the Gestapo will be destroyed. Ubiquitous Hogan's Heroes supporting player Alan Oppenheimer is here seen as Colonel Sitzer. Written by Phil Sharp, "Who Stole My Copy of 'Mein Kampf'?" originally aired on January 11, 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Friends don't let friends mess around on the side in this comedy, though it quickly becomes obvious that making this happen isn't as easy as it may sound. When David Sloane (Dean Martin), a single lawyer with an eye for the ladies, learns that his best friend, Harry Hunter (Eli Wallach), has been cheating on his wife, he finds himself worried for his pal and decides to help him get his life back on the straight and narrow. David thinks that Harry is having an affair with his secretary, Carol Corman (Stella Stevens), so David begins romancing her himself, and soon he has Carol installed in a cozy love nest of their own. However, David has been using his seductive powers on the wrong woman; Harry has actually been fooling around with Muriel Laszlo (Anne Jackson), who lives nearby. When David tells Harry that he's stolen his mistress away from him, Harry isn't sure what's going on, but the message has the intended effect, and Harry patches things up with his wife Mary (Katherine Bard). But when Carol and Muriel compare notes, they decide that something is fishy, and the two draw up a series of demands -- Muriel insists that Harry leave Mary and marry her, while Carol wants David to make it legal with her. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Touted by 20th Century-Fox as a follow-up to their enormously successful The Sound of Music, Star! reteams that earlier film's leading lady Julie Andrews and director Robert Wise. Andrews plays legendary musical comedy star Gertrude Lawrence, while Daniel Massey appears as Lawrence's friend, co-worker and severest critic Noel Coward (Massey's real-life godfather). The film jumps back and forth in continuity at times, its transitions bridged by fabricated newsreel footage; essentially, however, William Fairchild's script traces Lawrence's progress from ambitious bit actress to the toast of London and Broadway. Her success is offset by a stormy private life, which is given some ballast when she falls in love with an American financier (Richard Crenna). The film is way too long for its own good, though the musical set pieces -- especially the Andrews-Massey duets -- are superb. Julie Andrews welcomed the chance of playing a character as far removed from her goody-two-shoes heroine in Sound of Music as possible; Gertrude Lawrence was temperamental, sarcastic, profane and at times self-destructive, and Andrews makes a meal of the role. Unfortunately, Andrews' fans, conditioned by the Fox publicity machine to expect a continuation of Sound of Music, rejected her outright in this "new" characterization. Star! was a huge box-office bomb, so much so that Fox desperately attempted a shortened re-release under a misleading new title, Those Were The Happy Times. They weren't: it remained a financial disaster, though it has developed a loyal cult following in recent years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Allies' Manhattan Project (which of course was aimed at developing an atomic weapon before the Germans could do the same) is endangered when a Gestapo agent finds out about the project. He also finds out about Hogan's underground activities, forcing Hogan to consider scuttling his operation. But before he does so, Hogan attempts to trick the Gestapo man into revealing how much he knows about the atom bomb plans. The role of Gestapo operative Herman Freitag is played by Alan Oppenheimer -- an ironic bit of casting, in light of the fact that one of the prime movers of the Manhattan Project was J. Robert Oppenheimer. Written by Phil Sharp, "Two Nazis for the Price of One" originally aired on December 30, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Blake Edwards directed this big-screen adaptation of the once-popular TV detective series Peter Gunn, which Edwards helped create. Peter Gunn (Craig Stevens) is a tough but polished private eye who fights crime with the help of friendly advice from an inside source at the police department, Lt. Jacoby (Edward Asner), no-nonsense nightclub owner Mother (Helen Traubel), and Gunn's best girl, Edie (Laura Devon). When a top crime boss is assassinated, Gunn is called in to investigate. Fusco (Albert Paulson) is a mobster poised to take over the city's criminal empire, and Daisy Jane (Marion Marshall) is a madame who thinks that Fusco pulled the trigger to further his own career. Jane wants Gunn to dig up the truth about Fusco, though Daisy Jane turns out to be the one with the biggest secret of all. Gunn retains Henry Mancini's memorable theme music from the original show, and brought back Craig Stevens, who played Peter Gunn on the original TV series, though Herschel Bernardi and Lola Albright were replaced as (respectively) Jacoby and Edie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

One of the most fearsome of the Japanese monsters to hit the screen in the early 60's makes his debut in sci-fi thriller. As tensions between America and the Soviet Union rise to a fever pitch, U.S. troops shoot down a Russian bomber which is flying low in an Arctoc region. The bomber crashes, and its payload of hydrogen bombs explode upon impact. The blast releases and awakens Gamera, a gigantic fire-breathing turtle which had been frozen under the ice since prehistoric times. The newly revived monster makes his way to Tokyo, Japan, where he begins to lay waste to the city. As emminent scientist Dr. Hidaka (Eiji Funakoshi) searches for a way to defeat the monster, a young boy named Yoshiro (Yoshiro Unchida) develops an unlikely friendship with Gamera. For the film's American release, additional scenes were added featuring U.S. actors Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker. The spelling of the monster's name was also changed; he's Gammera with two M's in this movie, but just Gamera in the sequels which followed. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide