Nestor Paiva Movies

Having the unique distinction of being perhaps the only American drama filmed in Cuba just after Fidel Castro's revolution, Pier 5, Havana is also distinctive because the American hero Steve Daggett (Cameron Mitchell) fights to protect Castro from dangerous pro-Batista counterrevolutionaries. Steve comes to Cuba to find his friend Hank Miller (Logan Field) who has been missing for awhile. It turns out that he has been captured by Fernando (Eduardo Noriega), the leader of the pro-Batista forces, who needs Hank to convert their airplanes into bombers. Steve enlists the help of the local police in his search for Hank. Complicating matters is the fact that Steve's former girlfriend Monica (Allison Hayes) is now Mrs. Hank Miller. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In the second episode of Walt Disney's ten-part miniseries Elfego Baca, the title character (Robert Loggia), a former gunman who yearns to be a lawyer, has been appointed sheriff of Socorro County, NM. Banking on his reputation as a fast gun, Baca "invites" all the wanted men in the area to come into town and give themselves up. All these men surrender except one, prompting Elfego to launch a manhunt in Apache territory. Originally telecast on the Walt Disney Presents anthology, "Four Down and Five Lives to Go" was later edited together with the first Elfego Baca episode, The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca, and released overseas as a theatrical feature. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Case Against Brooklyn was based on an "expose" article by Ed Reid. Darren McGavin plays rookie cop Pete Harris, who goes undercover to help smash a Brooklyn bookie ring. The problem here as that the crooks have been bribing other cops to look the other way. As if Harris wasn't courting enough trouble by going up against his "own", he also falls in love with gambler's widow Lil Polombo (Maggie Hayes), even though he's already married to Jane Harris (Peggy McCay). Daniel B. Ullman's screenplay adheres to the facts as recorded by Ed Reid, right down to the semi-unhappy finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this family-oriented western, a living western legend finds himself plagued by a constant onslaught of young guns, each eager to prove his mettle and become the new fastest-gun in the West. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Left Handed Gun was adapted by Gore Vidal from his own TV play, The Death of Billy the Kid. 33-year-old Paul Newman stars as 21-year-old William Bonney, the hotheaded gunslinger known as Billy the Kid. Avoiding the usual Hollywood glamourization of this controversial character, Newman portays Bonney pretty much as he was: an illiterate, homicidal cretin. Treated with kindness for the first time in his life by rancher Tunstall (Colin Keith-Johnston), Bonney becomes devoted to the rancher; in fact, it is virtually a love affair. Soon after, however, Tunstall is killed, prompting Bonney to go on a murderous spree. In the end, Bonney must face down the other important father-figure in his life, Pat Garrett (John Dehner). In case anyone should miss the Freudian subtext in The Left Handed Gun, the closeups of Bonney fondling his six-shooter will make things crystal clear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The conflict between duty and conscience is explored in the WWII drama The Deep Six. Alan Ladd stars as Naval gunnery officer Alec Austin, a Quaker whose sincere pacifist sentiments do not sit well with his crew members. When he refuses to fire upon an unidentified plane, the word spreads that Austin cannot be relied upon in battle (never mind that the plane turns out to be one of ours). To prove that he's worthy of command, Austin volunteers for a dangerous mission: the rescue of a group of US pilots on a Japanese-held island. The ubiquitous William Bendix costars as Frenchy Shapiro (!), Austin's Jewish petty officer and severest critic. If the film has a villain, it is Keenan Wynn as ambitious Lt. Commander Edge, who seems to despise anyone who isn't a mainline WASP.The Deep Six was based on a novel by Martin Dibner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, a cavalryman disobeys his officer's command to massacre Indians at Sand Creek, goes AWOL and heads for his home in Texas where he wants to protect the women who will soon bear the brunt of the Indians' revenge. Because he defected from the cavalry, his friends and neighbors consider him a traitor, but the young man disregards them. With his expert advice, the women become crack shots. He trains them at an abandoned mission. One of the women is a real smart aleck and it is she whom he falls in love with. When the angry Indians arrive, the ladies defeat them. Later, the young deserter is found not-guilty during court-martial proceedings. His C.O. is not so lucky and is charged with the Sand Creek slaughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ride the High Iron originated as the 74-minute pilot episode of the proposed TV anthology Command Performance. When the series failed to sell, the film was released theatrically by Columbia Pictures. Don Taylor stars as Hugo Danielchick, the son of poor but proud railroad worker Yanusz Danielchick (Otto Waldis). Hoping to find success in the Big City. Hugo is hired as the assistant of high-pressure PR man Ziggy Moline (Raymond Burr), whose job it is to keep his high-profile clients' indiscretions out of the newspapers. Endeavoring to protect the good name of socialite Elise Vanders (Sally Forrest), Hugo falls in love with the girl--much to the displeasure of Moline, who suffers from a bad case of class envy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Mole People holds the dubious distinction of being the weakest of the Universal-International horror films. John Agar plays Dr. John Bentley, who leads a Middle Eastern expedition in search of a lost tribe of Sumerians. Bentley and his cohorts follow a tunnel deep, deep, deep below the surface of the earth, eventually coming across a tyrannical tribe of albino Sumerians, who use the semi-human Mole People as slaves. What follows is so dull and plodding that stars John Agar and Hugh Beaumont seem like Mel Gibson and Arnold Schwarzenegger in comparison. Some prints of The Mole People are minus the pre-credits "explanation" by 1950s celebrity egghead Dr. Frank Baxter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

New York Confidential is based on the Jack Lait-Lee Mortimer bestseller of the same name. Richard Conte plays Nick Magellan, a "torpedo" for Manhattan crime boss Charlie Lupo (Broderick Crawford). Pleased with Magellan's work, Charlie promotes him to the topmost rungs of the Syndicate. He regrets this act of largesse when the powers-that-be demand that Lupo be rubbed out. . .by good old Magellan. The most fascinating aspect of New York Confidential is that there isn't a sympathetic character in the bunch; even Anne Bancroft as Lupo's maladjusted daughter is a bit on the obnoxious side. The original Lait-Mortimer book was later adapted into a 1958 TV series, starring Lee Tracy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of director Douglas Sirk's best and most successful romantic soapers of the 1950s, All That Heaven Allows is predicated on a May-December romance. The difference here is that the woman, attractive widow Cary Scott (Jane Wyman), is considerably older than the man, handsome gardener-landscaper Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson). Sirk builds up sympathy for Cary by showing how empty her life has been since her husband's death, even suggesting that the marriage itself was no picnic. Throwing conventionial behavior to the winds and facing social ostracism, Cary pursues her romance with Ron, who is unjustly perceived as a fortune-hunter by Cary's friends and family--especially her priggish son Ned (William Reynolds). Amusingly, Conrad Nagel was to have had a much larger part as Harvey, an elderly widower who carries a torch for Cary, but his role was trimmed down during previews when audiences disapproved of an implicit romance between a sixtyish man and a fortysomething woman! All That Heaven Allows was remade by unabashed Douglas Sirk admirer Rainer Werner Fassbinder as Ali--Fear Eats the Soul (1974), in which the age gap between hero and heroine was even wider. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man with a strangely misshapen face wanders out of the desert near a small town and falls to the ground dead. The county sheriff (Nestor Paiva) tentatively identifies the dead man as Eric Jacobs, a laboratory assistant to Professor Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), a research scientist living a few miles out in the desert. But there's something strange about Jacobs; his facial features and bodily extremities are distorted to a point where he's barely recognizable. The sheriff calls in Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar), the local physician, who makes a diagnosis of acromegalia, a glandular disorder that affects the body's growth. He also tells the sheriff that it can't possibly be acromegalia, because symptoms as pronounced as those he sees in this case take years to develop, and the man was in perfect health just three months earlier. Hastings refuses to believe the professor's account of Jacobs' rapid deterioration, but the sheriff takes the word of the scientist. Back in his laboratory, Deemer continues his work, going over tests of a chemical on various animals, all of which are jumbo-sized, including guinea pigs the size of rabbits, baby mice the size of full-grown rats, and a tarantula three feet long. Suddenly, the professor is attacked by his assistant (Eddie Parker), whose face and hands are distorted in the same manner as Jacobs, and who injects the helpless scientist with the experimental chemical before collapsing dead. A fire starts during the attack and in the confusion, the tarantula's glass cage is broken and it escapes the burning laboratory, wandering out into the desert. Weeks go by, and a new assistant, Stephanie "Steve" Clayton (Mara Corday), arrives to begin work for the professor. When Hastings gives her a ride to Deemer's home, the scientist explains to the doctor that he's been working on a radioactive nutrient, that, if perfected, could feed the entire world's population. He also says that Eric Jacobs made the mistake of testing the chemical on himself and it caused the disease that killed him. Hastings and Steve begin a romance, unaware that wandering around the desert is the tarantula from Deemer's laboratory, now grown to the size of an automobile and getting bigger with each passing day. Soon livestock and then people begin disappearing, and the sheriff is at a loss to explain any of it, or the one clue left behind in each case: large pools of what seems to be some kind of venom next to the stripped skeletons of the victims. Hastings takes some of the material in for a test; meanwhile, Steve notices that Deemer is going through some bizarre changes. His mood has darkened and his features now appear to be changing, as the acromegalia, caused by the injection, manifests itself. Hastings learns that one of the professor's test animals was a tarantula, which was presumed destroyed. When he learns that the pools near the deaths are composed of spider venom -- equivalent to what it would take many thousands of spiders to generate -- he's certain that the tarantula from the laboratory survived. By this time, the title creature is bigger than a house and ravaging the countryside, killing everything in its path and knocking down power lines and telephone poles as it moves. Hastings arrives just in time to rescue Steve from the attacking creature, which destroys Deemer's house and kills the professor. The sheriff and the highway patrol are unable to slow the creature, now the size of a mountain and moving at 45 miles an hour, even with automatic rifle fire, as it follows the road through the desert toward the town. Even an attempt to blow it up with dynamite fails when the monster walking right through the blast. Finally, the creature is poised to attack the town, when jets scrambled from a nearby Air Force base (led by a young Clint Eastwood, barely recognizable behind an oxygen mask) swoop in. When rockets fail to divert the monster from its path, the jets roar in for a second pass and drop enough napalm to incinerate the creature. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide