George Peppard Movies

Based on a novel by Jack Higgins, this WW-II thriller chronicles the daring rescue of a captured American officer who has vital information concerning the upcoming Normandy invasion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Man Against the Mob is a variation on the 1981 theatrical feature True Confessions. This made-for-TV effort stars George Peppard as a tough LA cop in the late 1940s. Investigating a brutal homicide, Peppard discovers that the killing is more than the sex crime it seems to be at first glance. The trail of evidence leads Peppard to a group of visiting Chicago mobsters, and ultimately to several of Los Angeles' more "respectable" citizens. Man Against the Mob is ordinary at best, but thanks to George Peppard's performance the film scored excellent ratings when first telecast in 1988. A 1989 TV-movie followup, Man Against the Mob: The Chinatown Murders failed to match the ratings of the first effort. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season four of The A-Team finds Hannibal Smith (George Peppard) still in charge of a band of uniquely skilled soldiers-of-fortune, who continue to travel 'round the world protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty, all the while trying to clear themselves of trumped-up criminal charges. As in seasons past, Smith is backed up by weapons expert B.A. (Mr. T), ace pilot Howling Mad Murdock (Dwight Schultz), and a silver-tongued con artist known as "The Face" (Dirk Benedict). This season, the team does without the assistance of a "Girl Friday" (a function filled in past seasons by Amy Allen and Tawnia Baker), while their principal military pursuer is the relentless Col. Roderick Decker (Lance Le Gault), now in full charge of the government's efforts to bring the A-Team to justice for a crime they didn't commit. The season opens with the two-part "Judgment Day," in which the A-Team encounters various mob hitmen on both land and sea. In later episodes, the team must convince the bad guys that their arsenal of prop movie weapons are the "Real McCoy;" Hannibal poses as a street bum to trap a gang that for reasons unknown is methodically killing homeless persons; B.A. busts the heads of the hoods who try to force his mother to move out of her apartment; wrestler Hulk Hogan, playing himself, solicits the aid of the Team to save a youth center from being closed down by crooks; Face is inexplicably given a full pardon by the government leading his teammates to figure out there must be a catch somewhere; Howling Mad coerces the Team into rescuing his psychiatrist from a deadly scam in South America and later becomes a contestant on Wheel of Fortune (and yes, Pat Sajak and Vanna White show up in cameos); and singer Boy George is booked by the A-Team to sing at a country & western joint (you don't want to miss this one!). The season ends with "The Sound of Thunder," guest starring Tia Carrere, who was slated to become a series regular but could not reach the right financial terms with the producers. ~ All Movie Guide

Unfairly imprisoned for committing a bank robbery during the waning days of the Vietnam War (no one could prove they were just following orders), the members of the A-Team, a unit of highly specialized undercover operatives, manages to escape from prison and set about to clear their names by working as soldiers-of-fortune throughout the world. This is the premise established by the two-hour pilot episode of The A-Team and carried out during the series' first season. Led by cigar-chomping, disguise-happy Hannibal Smith (George Peppard), the team includes B.A. (Mr. T), a musclebound black weapons expert; ace pilot "Howling Mad" Murdock (Dwight Schultz), who has to be busted out of a mental institution for each assignment; and all-around wheeler dealer "Faceman" Peck, played in the opening episode by Tim Dunigan and thereafter by Dirk Benedict. Also along for the ride is plucky girl reporter Amy Allen (Melinda Culea), one of the few "outsiders" who believes in the team's innocence. Relentlessly pursuing the A-Team in hopes of either locking them up permanently or seeing them all hang is a certain Col. Lynch (William Lucking).

In the two-hour opening episode, Amy Allen sets out to prove that the shadowy A-Team really exists and becomes involved in the team's plan to rescue one of her fellow reporters from kidnappers in Mexico. The season's remaining hour-long episodes find the team being hunted down "Most Dangerous Game" style by a loony cult leader, saving B.A.'s girlfriend from the clutches of a corrupt prison warden who stages illegal to-the-death gladiatorial battles, matching wits with a rogue SWAT team that commits murders on the side, going head-to-head with a small-town biker gang, taking on the Mob in Las Vegas on behalf of two coeds who are worried about the safety of their professor, championing the cause of New York shopkeepers who are being terrorized by a protection racket, crash-landing in the mountains where they try to save an innocent man from being lynched, protecting a group of farmers from a land-greed rancher, saving a young girl from a forced marriage, attempting to free passengers of a hijacked airliner despite Murdock's temporary blindness, and shielding a small town from a band of crazed murderers. And in an ironic twist, the very government that is determined to clap the A-Team behind bars must solicit the team's aid in order to rescue a general and his daughter who are being held by terrorists in the heart of Borneo. ~ All Movie Guide

In this well-acted but very standard action thriller, Spanish police chief O'Donnell Max von Sydow) hires the tough mercenary David (Jorge Rivero) with the code name "Eagle" to infiltrate an international drug cartel. Carmen (Maud Adams), a policewoman, is to be David's contact. The plot thickens as the drug smugglers, headed by McFadden (George Peppard), also plan on selling nuclear materials to countries like Libya. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Crisis in Mid-Air is essentially a "problem drama" concentrating on a single individual. George Peppard plays a veteran air traffic controller who holds himself responsible for a mid-air collision. With an FAA investigator breathing down his neck, Peppard gets a chance to prove his value when another flight, with 235 passengers on board, puts in a "Mayday" call. The TV Guide ads for this television movie were a little misleading, suggesting that Peppard was in the cockpit rather than the control tower. Crisis in Mid-Air debuted February 13, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Long before Dr. Richard Kimble's one-armed man, there was Dr. Sam Sheppard's "curly-headed man." On July 4, 1954, Dr. Sheppard's wife was found murdered in their Cleveland home. Sheppard, the prime suspect, insisted that he'd seen a man with curly hair fleeing from his home. No matter: he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His road to salvation was paved by columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who revealed that the presiding judge was convinced of Sheppard's guilt before the trial even started. Further revelations proved that Sheppard's trial was, in the words of one Federal Court, a "mockery of justice." After 10 years, thanks to the efforts of attorney F. Lee Bailey, an embittered Sheppard was set free. But Sheppard, who'd had a reputation as a "short fuse" even before his wife was killed, was unable to adjust to freedom, nor was his reputation restored in the eyes of those who still believed him guilty. After a disastrous second marriage, Sheppard tried to eke out a living as a professional wrestler. He died in 1970 at the age of 46. The 150-minute TV movie Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Murder Case does not presume to decide the guilt or innocence of Sheppard; rather, it traces the disintegration of an already troubled man, as well as his infamous "trial by publicity". George Peppard stars as Sam Sheppard, while Walter McGinn plays F. Lee Bailey and Nina VanPallandt is seen as Sheppard's second wife Ilse Brandt. Guilty or Innocent originally aired on November 17, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Doctor's Secrets is a TV "feature film" comprised of episodes from the weekly Doctors Hospital series. George Peppard heads the cast as Dr. Jake Goodwin, chief of neurological services at Los Angeles' Lowell Memorial Hospital. The two 60-minute episodes included herein were originally telecast September 10, 1975 and January 14, 1976-coincidentally the series' first and last installments. In the first episode, Dr. Goodwin introduces four interns to the neurological wing. In the second, Robert Walden and Talia Shire respectively guest-star as an overly compassionate resident doctor and a no-nonsense policewoman suffering from vision impairment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Banacek was the two-hour pilot film for the 1972-74 detective series starring George Peppard. The cigar-smoking, aphorism-spouting Peppard plays T. Banacek, Polish/American investigator for a major Boston insurance company. Independently wealthy, Banacek will only accept cases that have been deemed "unsolvable" by all previous investigators. In this pilot episode, Banacek tackles the case of a Brink's-truck hijacking in the middle of a Texas roadway. The truck and its costly cargo has seemingly vanished into thin air, and the cops are stymied. But with Banacek on the case, we learn that the whole affair was an elaborately orchestrated inside job. The subsequent Banacek series was a component of The NBC Wednesday Movie. The pilot film has been reissued to TV as Detour to Nowhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, New York City undergoes a dramatic change when a toucan carrying a strange virus is smuggled through customs. In those it infects, the virus causes an intense euphoria and a desire to do good. The first man to receive the infected bird is a misanthropic, cynical artist who lives in an apartment with his girlfriend. The couple names the toucan "Amigo," and soon they are indeed happy. They decide to spread it around and so the bird is freed. The Big Apple goes into an economic tailspin as its residents become deliriously happy and stop buying cigarettes, booze and tranquilizers. To save the financially foundering city, the mayor and a presidential envoy begin distributing unpleasant masks to the happy city-dwellers. The artist and friends thwart the officials' scheme by infecting the masks. So begins a battle between the officials and the artist. Eventually Amigo is caught, and an antidote is delivered. The renowned rudeness, cruelty and selfishness of the native New Yorkers quickly returns, and the city is saved. The artist realizes that his quest has been futile, and he devotes the rest of his time and energy to making his girlfriend happy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Reno Davis (George Peppard) is an American writer who has retired from the gentle art of boxing. Now wandering through France, he takes a job as a tutor for the son of a wealthy widow. Anne de Villemont (Inger Stevens) employs Reno to help in the education of her son Paul (Barnaby Shaw). Reno is led to believe Anne's husband was a French general killed in the Algerian conflict. He is puzzled over Anne's fears that her eight-year-old son will be kidnapped. Reno discovers the family has ties to a fascist organization that plans to takeover France, Algeria and finally, all of Europe. He contends with the shady psychiatrist Morillon (Keith Michell) and mysterious family friend Leschenhaut (Orson Welles), both of whom scare Anne whenever they are around. Reno is framed for his best friend's murder as he and Anne become the targets of the ambitious and maniacal schemers who wish to rule the entire European continent. Reno and Anne escape by car and plane, dodging bullets and kidnap attempts as they try to protect Paul from being abducted. The chase ends at the Coliseum in Rome, where Reno and the villains engage in a showdown in this gripping, mysterious crime thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Arthur Hiller directed this exciting World War II drama starring Rock Hudson as Major Donald Craig of the British North African Army. In 1942, Craig is captured by the Vichy French, rescued by Palestinian Jews, and taken to the headquarters of Col. John Harker (Nigel Green). Harker explains that since Craig is an expert on the desert, he has been recruited to mount a suicidal raid upon the fuel bunkers at Rommel's key source of supplies at Tobruk. In order to get to Tobruk, a band of Palestinian Jews, commanded by Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard), will pose as German soldiers escorting a group of British prisoners. Making their way across the Libyan desert, the band endures a series of close calls until two Nazis spies are captured. When the spies suddenly escape, Harker and Craig realize someone in their group is a traitor. But by this point they have reached their destination and have to table the problem of the traitor as they battle the Germans around the fuel depot at Tobruk. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide