Jo Ann Pflug Movies
After her eye-catching debut as Nurse Dish in the 1970 film version of MASH, American leading lady Jo Ann Pflug remained on call for sexy, come-hither roles. Pflug spent the bulk of her career on television, playing regular roles on Operation Petticoat (1978-79, as Lieutenant Katherine O'Hara) and The Fall Guy (1981-82 as "Big Jack"). She also played Nora Charles in an abortive mid-1970s attempt to revive The Thin Man as a weekly series. While starring as Taylor von Platen on the syndicated soap opera Rituals (1984), Jo Ann Pflug became a born-again Christian; rebelling against the prurient content of Rituals, Pflug quit the program, thereafter devoting herself to religious radio and television projects. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Steve McQueen's last film concerns a modern day bounty hunter who searches for bail jumpers. Based on real life bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson, the film details his exciting life, traveling from one city to another, trying to track down fugitives and continually risking his life in the process. Buzz Kulik directed the confusing mish-mash that, nevertheless, features stunt work that anticipates the Lethal Weapon series. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, (more)
- 1980
In this made-for-TV movie four suburban wives become vigilantes to protect innocent actresses from an amoral, blackmailing talent agent. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Don Ameche guest stars as Harry Whitehead, a retired magician whose protégé Mark Santini drowns while performing Whitehead's famous underwater-escape trick on a live TV special. Quincy (Jack Klugman) investigates the tragedy and unearths evidence of a possible murder scheme--while the elderly Whitehead prepares to perform the same stunt on another nationwide broadcast. This Columbo-style episode was originally scheduled to air on September 28, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
In order to collect the $180 necessary to repair the "General Lee", Bo (John Schneider) and Luke (Tom Wopat) hire themselves out to drive an eighteen-wheeler, which is ostensibly transporting shock absorbers but is actually an illegal "casino on wheels" run by the delectable Helen Hogan (Jo Ann Pflug). When one of Jesse's friends loses $1200 at the casino's rigged roulette wheel, the Dukes concoct a "string" to get the money back, with Jesse (Denver Pyle) and Daisy (Catherine Bach) posing as a couple of wealthy high rollers. But they'd better hurry before Boss Hogg (Sorrell Booke) puts the casino out of business--not because he is shocked, SHOCKED, to find that gambling is going on in Hazzard County, but because he wants to get his mitts on the gambling equipment for his own gain! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
After football player Joe Ramsey (Lee Paul) dies of a brain aneuryism, Quincy (Jack Klugman) performs an autopsy and finds that the man was suffering from a drug-resistent strain of gonnorhea. In his efforts to trace the source of the disease, Quincy orders a round-up of the city's prostitutes--and when one of the hookers turns up murdered, it seems that the feisty medical examiner has stumbled onto a widespread conspiracy and coverup. This episode can be regarded as a seminal example of the "AIDS dramas" which proliferated on television during the next two decades (though of course AIDS had not yet been identified as an international epidemic). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
In the conclusion of Quincy, M.E.'s two-part Season Two opener (originally telecast as a single two-hour episode), Quincy (Jack Klugman) continues to look for the source of a mysterious epidemic that has caused several deaths at a pathologist's convention in a Lake Tahoe casino. The casino's customers and employees have now been quarantined, and panic has started to spread. This places Quincy in the unenviable position of preventing a riot--to say nothing of halting the epidemic before it expands into the rest of Nevada. Also, there's a strong possibility that the rampaging illness was far from "natural", and that there's a criminal conspiracy afoot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1977
After a four-episode tryout as a component of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie anthology, Quincy, M.E. launched its regular weekly run with this episode, originally telecast as a two-hour special but since re-edited for syndication as two one-hour installments. In Part One, we find LA County medical examiner Quincy (Jack Klugman) attending a pathologists' convention at Lake Tahoe in the company of his girlfriend Lee (Lynette Mettey) and his pal Danny (Val Bisoglio). No sooner has Quincy arrived than a mysterious illness begins spreading through a Lake Tahoe casino, claiming several lives. Asked to investigate this apparent epidemic, Quincy runs up against resistance from the anxious casino manager (Van Johnson), who is worried that news of the medical disaster will destroy his business. (Incidentally, this episode appeared not long after a medical crisis caused panic at an American Legion convention, thereby earning the designation "Legionnaire's Disease".) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
In this murder mystery, the married detectives must prove that the murder was committed at a posh hotel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1975
Jo Ann Pflug guest stars as Dana Hall, a new female police officer who is determined to prove her worth in a virtually all-male department. Frustrated that her current assignments do not allow her to demonstrate her intelligence or innate skills, Dana demands that she be given some challenging work. Thus it is that a reluctant Officer Jim Reed (Kent McCord) is temporarily teamed with Dana, who soon proves to be as troublesome as she is ambitious. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1974
The Underground Man was the pilot film for a series based on Ross MacDonald's private eye hero Lew Archer (the source of Paul Newman's film appearances as "Lew Harper"). Most of the elements of the factory-approved MacDonald formula are put into effect here: An old flame, a seemingly cut-and-dried case leading to sinister complexities, dark family secrets, ecological rape, and the inadvertent solving of previously unsolved crimes. Archer (Peter Graves) is hired to rescue the kidnapped son of his former love, and the cycle begins. This particular pilot didn't sell, but there would be a separately produced Archer series late in 1974 starring Brian Keith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Written by Richard Matheson, the made-for-television horror movie Scream of the Wolf is about an author (Peter Graves) being stalked by a terrifying, mysterious and lethal beast. The creature is also being tracked by a big-game hunter, who has come out of retirement to make one final big score. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1973
The Night Strangler is the sequel to the enormously successful 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker. Darren McGavin returns as seedy reporter Carl Kolchak, who previously ran into conflict when Las Vegas authorities refused to acknowledge Kolchak's uncovering of a modern-day vampire. Now he's in Seattle, on the trail of a mysterious strangler who drains the blood of his victims. Kolchak's quest takes him to a hidden underground city beneath Seattle and the bizarre residents therein. Margaret Hamilton (The Wizard of Oz) is seen briefly as an expert on alchemy; John Carradine also makes cameo. The success of this telemovie and its predecessor inspired a brief 1974 TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, also starring McGavin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
- R
Where Does It Hurt? is a hospital comedy which is carefully designed to leave no interest group unoffended. In the broadest of broad comic manners, it recounts its tale of greed, ignorance and corruption in the medical profession. Dr. Albert T. Hopfnagel (Peter Sellers), a hospital administrator, is a doctor who is expert in the arts of bill-padding, unnecessary surgery, and kickbacks. His assistant (Jo Ann Pflug) has finally had enough of his destructive and dishonest shenanigans and gets him sent to prison. He is released a little too soon for comfort, however. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, this comedic western tells of a thieving man who tries to get his hands on two million dollars of government cash while trying to avoid his friend--who happens to be a lawman. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1971
They Call It Murder was the pilot for a potential TV series based on the "Doug Selby" character created by Perry Mason mentor Earl Stanley Gardner. Inspired by Gardner's 1969 novel The DA Draws a Circle, the film finds district attorney Selby (Jim Hutton) probing the mystery of a corpse in a swimming pool. It is obvious from the outset that the dead man did not drown, but was killed elsewhere and then unceremoniously dumped in the chlorine. Selby traces the chain of events to a car accident and an insurance scam. Originally telecast December 17, 1971, They Call It Murder was given a network rerun in the Spring of 1973--on a particularly bloodthirsty evening in which the competition included the woman-in-jeopardy TV movie The Bait and a murder-trial episode of Hawaii 5-0! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Although he was not the first choice to direct it, the hit black comedy MASH established Robert Altman as one of the leading figures of Hollywood's 1970s generation of innovative and irreverent young filmmakers. Scripted by Hollywood veteran Ring Lardner, Jr., this war comedy details the exploits of military doctors and nurses at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War. Between exceptionally gory hospital shifts and countless rounds of martinis, wisecracking surgeons Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould) make it their business to undercut the smug, moralistic pretensions of Bible-thumper Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) and Army true-believer Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Abetted by such other hedonists as Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) and Painless Pole (John Schuck), as well as such (relative) innocents as Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff), Hawkeye and Trapper John drive Burns and Houlihan crazy while engaging in such additional blasphemies as taking a medical trip to Japan to play golf, staging a mock Last Supper to cure Painless's momentary erectile dysfunction, and using any means necessary to win an inter-MASH football game. MASH creates a casual, chaotic atmosphere emphasizing the constant noise and activity of a surgical unit near battle lines; it marked the beginning of Altman's sustained formal experiments with widescreen photography, zoom lenses, and overlapping sound and dialogue, further enhancing the atmosphere with the improvisational ensemble acting for which Altman's films quickly became known. Although the on-screen war was not Vietnam, MASH's satiric target was obvious in 1970, and Vietnam War-weary and counter-culturally hip audiences responded to Altman's nose-thumbing attitude towards all kinds of authority and embraced the film's frankly tasteless yet evocative humor and its anti-war, anti-Establishment, anti-religion stance. MASH became the third most popular film of 1970 after Love Story and Airport, and it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. As further evidence of the changes in Hollywood's politics, blacklist survivor Lardner won the Oscar for his screenplay. MASH began Altman's systematic 1970s effort to revise classic Hollywood genres in light of contemporary American values, and it gave him the financial clout to make even more experimental and critical films like McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), California Split (1974), and Nashville (1975). It also inspired the long-running TV series starring Alan Alda as Hawkeye and Burghoff as Radar. With its formal and attitudinal impudence, and its great popularity, MASH was one more confirmation in 1970 that a Hollywood "New Wave" had arrived. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, (more)
- 1970
A Step Out of Line stars Peter Falk, Vic Morrow, and Peter Lawford, a fairly lustrous lineup for a humble TV movie. The trio of leading men portray average Joes, all Korean war buddies, plagued by a string of bad luck. With creditors hounded them at their very fireside (so to speak), Falk, Morrow and Lawford decide for the first--and last--time in their lives to resort to dishonesty. Pooling their military skills, the boys plot and plan to knock over a bank safe. A Step Out of Line moves confidently towards its anticipated climax, sped along by the expertise of its triple-threat star lineup. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Granny is both astonished and flattered when she finds herself courted by two distinguished suitors: Milburn Drysdale's father-in-law Lowell Farquahr (Charlie Ruggles) and Drysdale's banking rival Mr. Cushing (Roy Roberts). Of course, the audience knows that both men are merely interested in Granny's money -- but try telling that to Granny. Jo Ann Pflug appears as Lil. "Granny Lives It Up" was first broadcast on November 23, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
