Dorothy Provine Movies

In this low-budget crime drama a runaway girl joins a gang of jewel thieves and finds herself leading an exciting luxurious life until her older sister shows up during a caper and gets her and the rest of the gang in trouble. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Lou Costello made his only film appearance without Bud Abbott in 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock. Lou plays a bumbling junk dealer who fancies himself a great inventor. One of his creations transforms his girlfriend Dorothy Provine into a towering giant! The subsequent shenanigans involve Lou, the humongous Ms. Provine, her bombastic uncle Gale Gordon, and the entire US Army. Before Dorothy can be returned to normal size again, Lou's invention transmogrifies into a time machine and rocketship. 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock tries to be a satire of Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, a slapstick comedy, a marital farce, and a sci-fi epic all in one, but it never really jells. Ill with rheumatic fever during shooting, Costello seems more solemn and reserved than usual; still, whenever the material is up to par, he rises to the occasion, offering some choice comic moments in the climactic chase sequence. The special effects are a bit grainy, but convincing within their medium-budget limits. Our favorite bit: the "barking Sputnik", a cute comment on the US-Russian space race. By the time 30-Foot Bride of Candy Rock hit the theaters, Lou Costello was dead, precluding any followups (if, indeed, any were planned). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Conflicting views on how to handle juvenile delinquents are not convincingly brought across in this teen melodrama by Edward Cahn. Colonel Walton (John Hoyt) is the repressive head of an institution for young male juvenile delinquents. Responsibility for the deaths of two teens is indirectly laid on Walton's doorstep, and he is replaced by liberal-minded Dr. Paul Furman (Jerome Thor). Furman throws out the old rule book when he decides to change the attitude to the young men by housing female delinquents in the prison. Although warned against this action by a matron and the former warden, Furman goes ahead with his plan. The result is friction between two of the young men over two of the women, and an attempted rape, putting Furman's views and control in jeopardy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

With this all-star Cinerama epic, producer/director Stanley Kramer vowed to make "the comedy that would end all comedies." The story begins during a massive traffic jam, caused by reckless driver Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante), who, before (literally) kicking the bucket, cryptically tells the assembled drivers that he's buried a fortune in stolen loot, "under the Big W." The various motorists setting out on a mad scramble include a dentist (Sid Caesar) and his wife (Edie Adams); a henpecked husband (Milton Berle) accompanied by his mother-in-law (Ethel Merman) and his beatnik brother-in-law (Dick Shawn); a pair of comedy writers (Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney); and a variety of assorted nuts including a slow-wit (Jonathan Winters), a wheeler-dealer (Phil Silvers), and a pair of covetous cabdrivers (Peter Falk and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson). Monitoring every move that the fortune hunters make is a scrupulously honest police detective (Spencer Tracy). Virtually every lead, supporting, and bit part in the picture is filled by a well-known comic actor: the laughspinning lineup also includes Carl Reiner, Terry-Thomas, Arnold Stang, Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, and The Three Stooges, who get one of the picture's biggest laughs by standing stock still and uttering not a word. Two prominent comedians are conspicuous by their absence: Groucho Marx refused to appear when Kramer couldn't meet his price, while Stan Laurel declined because he felt he was too old-looking to be funny. Available for years in its 154-minute general release version, the film was restored to its roadshow length of 175 minutes on home video; the search goes on for a missing Buster Keaton routine, reportedly excised on the eve of the picture's premiere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though overlong even for a Hayley Mills vehicle, That Darn Cat is an expert blend of laughs and suspense. The eponymous feline is D.C., a Siamese belonging to sisters Hayley Mills and Dorothy Provine. One evening, D.C. comes flouncing home with a lady's wristwatch attached to her neck. The watch contains an unfinished plea for help scribbled on its back, written by Grayson Hall, a bank teller held captive in a neighboring house by robbers Neville Brand and Frank Gorshin. Mills and Provine contact the FBI, who send agent Dean Jones (who's allergic to cats) to investigate. In their efforts to locate and rescue Hall and capture the crooks, Jones and the two sisters embark upon a series of slapstick misadventures involving an unending stream of top character actors. The highlight is a lengthy sequence at the drive-in movie theatre managed by ulcerated Richard Deacon. That Darn Cat is based on Undercover Cat, a somewhat more serious suspense novel by The Gordons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this episode from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series, the two good guy spies must stop a criminal mastermind from altering the course of the Gulf Stream. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

An evil scientist attempts to use his newly designed satellite to sterlize everyone on earth. Fortunately two savvy secret agents are set on the case to stop him. Basically this is a low grade, low budget Italian mish-mash of comedy and spy films. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jack Albany (Dick Van Dyke) is an actor in a television series who is mistaken for a real-life murderer Ace Williams (Jack Elam). Comedy ensues when gangster Leo Smooth (Edward G. Robinson) goes after Jack. Robinson reprises the role of the gangster tough guy he made famous in the 1930s. He leads a comical crew of criminals which include Ned Glass, Mickey Shaughnessy, Slim Pickens, Henry Silva and Tony Bill. Sally (Dorothy Provine) is the love interest who comes to the aid of the unhappy Jack. Jerry Paris, who starred as Van Dyke's neighbor in his highly successful television show of the 1960s, directs this Walt Disney-produced comedy. Disney had given the nod to the script and the production blueprints shortly before his death in 1966. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The direction of Michael Ritchie, who later piloted such films as Downhill Racer, Smile and The Bad News Bears, is disappointingly commonplace in the made-for-TV Sound of Anger. Burl Ives is an expensive lawyer hired to pursue the defense on a murder case. The victim was a wealthy man; the accused are the man's daughter and her lover. Confronted by the sister of the male suspect, Ives confesses that he's been told to defend only the daughter and allow the lover to twist slowly in the wind. He rectifies this set-up as the case progresses. In addition to Burl Ives, Sound of Anger also starred James Farentino; both actors would appear in the spin-off series, The Lawyers (one of three rotating series on the umbrella weekly The Bold Ones). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide