Harvey Parry Movies

Richard Pryor gives a compelling performance in Some Kind of Hero, playing a Vietnam veteran who tries to readjust to civilian life. Pryor plays Eddie Keller, who has just spent five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. Most of the time there, Eddie was able to hold his own against his captors, but he eventually was forced to sign a statement denouncing United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Eddie decided to sign the document in order to insure that his friend Vinnie (Ray Sharkey) would be given proper medical treatment. Because of this denunciation, when Eddie returns home from the war he is denied his back pay. He also discovers that his wife has left him for another man, his business has fallen apart, and his mother has been sent to an asylum. Eddie falls into a deep depression and hits rock bottom. But he meets a friendly prostitute, Toni (Margot Kidder), who helps him straighten out his life. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Martin Scorsese's brutal character study incisively portrays the true rise and fall and redemption of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, a violent man in and out of the ring who thrives on his ability (and desire) to take a beating. Opening with the spectacle of the over-the-hill La Motta (Robert De Niro) practicing his 1960s night-club act, the film flashes back to 1940s New York, when Jake's career is on the rise. Despite pressure from the local mobsters, Jake trusts his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) to help him make it to a title bout against Sugar Ray Robinson the honest way; the Mob, however, will not cave in. Jake gets the title bout, and blonde teenage second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), but success does nothing to exorcise his demons, even as he channels his rage into boxing. Alienating Vickie and Joey, and disastrously gaining weight, Jake has destroyed his personal and professional lives by the 1950s. After he hits bottom, however, Jake emerges with a gleam of self-awareness, as he sits rehearsing Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront speech in his dressing room mirror: "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody." Working with a script adapted by Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader from La Motta's memoirs, Scorsese and De Niro sought to make an uncompromising portrait of an unlikable man and his ruthless profession. Eschewing uplifting Rocky-like boxing movie conventions, their Jake is relentlessly cruel and self-destructive; the only peace he can make is with himself. Michael Chapman's stark black-and-white photography creates a documentary/tabloid realism; the production famously shut down so that De Niro could gain 50-plus pounds. Raging Bull opened in late 1980 to raves for its artistry and revulsion for its protagonist; despite eight Oscar nominations, it underperformed at the box office, as audiences increasingly turned away from "difficult" films in the late '70s and early '80s. The Academy concurred, passing over Scorsese's work for Best Director and Picture in favor of Robert Redford and Ordinary People, although De Niro won a much-deserved Oscar, as did the film's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. Oscar or no Oscar, Raging Bull has often been cited as the best American film of the 1980s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

It is hard to get more deliriously fever-pitched than the ending of Mandingo -- in which a plantation master is shot and his main slave gets boiled in oil -- but Drum (Mandingo's mangy sequel) certainly tries. Hammond Maxwell (Warren Oates), the late slave-owner's son (from Mandingo), is trying to follow in his father's footsteps and purchases Drum (Ken Norton) and Blaise (Yaphet Kotto) from bordello hostess Marianna (Isela Vega). Marianna is actually Drum's mother, although her lesbian lover Rachel (Paula Kelly) in fact brought up the boy. Thrown into the package to Hammond is Drum's girlfriend Regine (Pam Grier), who was purchased to satisfy the carnal urges of Mr. Hammond. However, Augusta Chauvet (Fiona Lewis), setting her sites on Hammond, has other plans. Drum is such a perfect specimen of slave that neither men nor women can keep their hands off of him. Drum looks stoic until a climactic slave revolt breaks out, guaranteeing more blood and carnage than Mandingo could ever hope to provide. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) goes undercover to locate a vicious rapist-murderer. What he doesn't know is that the perpetrator is posing as a cop. The outcome of the investigation may well rest in the hands of a deaf-mute shoeshine boy (Charlie Martin Smith). Featured in the cast is Spencer J. Milligan, definitely cast against type for those who remember him as the kindly family man in the Saturday-morning fantasy series Land of the Lost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his third Baretta appearance, Burt Young is cast as Johnny Chekko, the longtime best friend of undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake). Unfortunately, Chekko has taken a different path in life, and is now employed as a professional hit man. Thus it is that Baretta enters into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with his former friend to prevent a high-profile assassination. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a debut on Broadway in 1951, Paramount spent an estimated 17 to 20 million dollars in production costs for this Lerner and Loewe musical. With Loewe's permission, Lerner wrote five additional tunes for the film with Andre Previn. Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin) is the grizzled prospector trying his luck panning for gold in California. Pardner (Clint Eastwood) is his companion. When Ben buys a woman from a Mormon, Elizabeth (Jean Seberg) expects equal rights for her gender and chooses to live with both men. Ben and Pardner tunnel under the boomtown to gather the fallen gold dust that has filtered through the cracks of the saloon and other places. The musical comedy features 13 songs, the most recognizable being "They Call The Wind Maria". The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band helps out on the song "Hand Me Down That Can O' Beans". Both Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin are given a chance to show their vocal ability (or lack of it) in several songs. The initial release fell far short of regaining the millions put into the production, and most critics dipped their pens in poison to pan the picture -- though the film plays better than the critics would lead anyone to believe. Many jumped on the Paint Your Wagon smear campaign after the film proved to be not nearly as successful as other musicals. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson) has a lot of trouble hiding her jealousy when Captain Parmenter's former girlfriend, Philadelphia socialite Lucy Lanfield (Linda Marshall), arrives in Fort Courage. The situation also proves sticky for O'Rourke (Forrest Tucker) and Agarn (Larry Storch) when Lucy demands that Parmenter return with her back East. Rather than lose their favorite fall guy, the troopers contrive to pass off Hekawi maiden Flying Sparrow (Laurie Sibbald) as Parmenter's Native American bride. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in panoramic Cinerama, this star-studded, epic Western adventure is a true cinematic classic. Three legendary directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall) combine their skills to tell the story of three families and their travels from the Erie Canal to California between 1839 and 1889. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, which cost an estimated 15 million dollars to complete. In the first segment, "The Rivers," pioneer Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) sets out to settle in the West with his wife (Agnes Moorehead) and their four children. Along with other settlers and river pirates, they run into mountain man Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who sells animal hides. The Prescotts try to raft down the Ohio River in a raft, but only daughters Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) and Eve (Carroll Baker) survive. Eve and Linus get married, while Lilith continues on. In the second segment, "The Plains," Lilith ends up singing in a saloon in St. Louis, but she really wants to head west in a wagon train led by Roger Morgan (Robert Preston). Along the way, she's accompanied by the roguish gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), who claims he can protect her. After he saves her life during an Indian attack, they get married and move to San Francisco. In the third segment, "The Civil War," Eve and Linus' son, Zeb (George Peppard), fights for the Union. After he's forced to kill his Confederate friend, he returns home and gives the family farm to his brother. In the fourth segment, "The Railroads," Zeb fights with his railroad boss (Richard Widmark), who wants to cut straight through Indian territory. Zeb's co-worker Jethro (Henry Fonda) refuses to cut through the land, so he quits and moves to the mountains. After the railway camp is destroyed, Zeb heads for the mountains to visit him. In the fifth segment, "The Outlaws," Lilith is an old widow traveling from California to Arizona to stay with her nephew Zeb on his ranch. However, he has to fight a gang of desperadoes first. How the West Was Won garnered three Oscars, for screenplay, film editing, and sound production. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

A juvenile delinquent in the "holding tank" lets slip that his older brother is planning to rob a loan office. Though Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) do their best to head off the holdup man, the robbery goes off exactly as scheduled. All the detectives can hope for is that the outlaw's limp will slow him down long enough to be arrested. Iconic 1940s "pin-up girl" Mary Beth Hughes has a flashy role as the perpetrator's fed-up wife. This episode was adapted from the Dragnet radio broadcast of June 7, 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Surprisingly, the Paramount Technicolor actioner Hurricane Smith was not produced by the studio's Pine-Thomas unit (it sure sounds like one of their efforts), but instead by "outsider" Nat Holt. John Ireland plays the title character, a 19th-century mercenary stranded in the South Seas with his pals McGuire (Forrest Tucker) and Brundage (Richard Arlen). When slavetraders come calling, Smith and his confreres steal the traders' ship and head for Australia, in hopes of searching for buried treasure. To raise some quick money, the trio agrees to rent "their" vessel to scientist Gorvahlsen (James Craig), who brings Dr. Whitmore (Murray Matheson) and the doctor's half-Polynesian daughter Luana (Yvonne DeCarlo) along on a scientific expedition. It gradually dawns on Smith that Gorvahlsen and Whitmore are actually fortune hunters, hoping to claim the treasure for themselves. But which side is the lovely Luana on during the film's unending series of crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tuna fisherman Joe Morelli (Tom Neal) is Navy Bound in this Monogram programmer. While on board ship, Morelli becomes the fleet's boxing champion. He gives up pugilistic glory to return home, where he tries to help his family out of a financial dilemma. When things prove harder to handle than he'd thought, Morelli endangers his amateur status by signing up for a lucrative professional bout. Veteran stuntman Harvey Parry (who'd performed many of Harold Lloyd's building-climbing antics in Safety Last) has a rare speaking role as Joe's ring opponent. Navy Bound was based on a short story by Talbert Josselyn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a California artist abandons his work to become a New York prizefighter after he falls in love with a married nightclub singer. Her husband was a fighter, but suffered a crippling accident in the ring and was unable to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming the world champion. The husband decides to live out his dream through the artist and begins tutoring him. Things go well until the hubby discovers that the artist has been sleeping with his wife. He then begins giving the artist bad advice so he will get creamed in the ring. Fortunately for the artist, he wins the Big Fight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide