Janice Rule Movies

It takes a fierce three-day bicycle race up in the mountains to reunite two formerly feuding brothers in this film written by Steve Tesich, the creator of another cycle movie, 1979's Breaking Away. This film will please the cycling lovers out there, as it includes actual footage taken from the famous Coors International Bicycle Classic, held in the Colorado Rockies. The plot revolves around the suspicion that one of the two brothers -- either the pragmatic sports doctor Marcus (Kevin Costner) or the impudent, driven David (David Marshall Grant) -- is likely afflicted with an inherited tendency toward cerebral aneurysms. ~ All Movie Guide

Word is about the newly discovered text that is allegedly written by the younger brother of Jesus Christ. It the document is genuine, it would throw the world's theological community into chaos. David Janssen plays an archaeologist who travels to Italy to verify the document's origins. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In this western set at the turn-of-the-century, an outlaw finds himself at one of life's crossroads as he must decide whether to go straight or continue a life of crime. After bungling a train robbery he decides he should go straight and settle down. He chooses the town of Dime Box, Texas. There he undertakes a series of simple jobs under the watchful, ever-suspicious eye of the town sheriff. Try as he might, the outlaw cannot resist the lure of robbery. He ends up stealing a local factory's Christmas payroll and taking off into the desert with some renegade Indian pals. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dan August: The Jealousy Factor relates two stories of two dead men, whose murders are passed off as crimes of random violence. In both instances, detective August (Burt Reynolds) deduces that jealousy rather than happenstance may have been at the bottom of the crime. The most suspicious case is the death of a wealthy man allegedly killed by a burglar, with Janice Rule guest-starring as a markedly nonmournful widow. Offered as a "TV movie" in the late 1970s, The Jealousy Factor was actually comprised of two separate episodes from the 1971-72 TV series Dan August. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Part spoof and part "straight," Gumshoe comes off as an affectionate tribute to the hard-boiled detective films of yore. Albert Finney stars as Eddie Ginley, a Liverpool bingo-caller and erstwhile comedian who has been weaned on the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett. Fancying himself an ace detective, Ginley quits his job to form his own agency. Before long, he is involved in a complex mystery with decided echoes of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, replete with femme fatale (Janice Rule) and sinister fat man (George Silver). Armed with little more than a slick line of patter, Ginley plunges into this baffling case, while his level-headed brother (Frank Finlay) and sister-in-law (Billie Whitelaw) try to talk him out of it. Despite its satirical content, Gumshoe turns out to be a fascinating mystery yarn on its own terms. Albert Finney also produced the film, while none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber supplied the musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Among a cliquish set of country club doctors and surgeons, it seems that sleeping around is the norm. Early in the film, however, one husband murders his promiscuous wife (Dyan Cannon) while she is in bed with a rather unlikely adulterer. The various alliances and rivalries in this close-knit community are further stressed as the murderous husband uses his knowledge of the community for a wide-ranging blackmail scheme. While the police investigate, the doctors who do open-heart surgery on their patients experience heart-rending situations themselves. The film has a large and distinguished cast of actors, including Richard Crenna, Dyan Cannon, Caroll O'Conner, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Hackman, John Colicos, Diana Sands and Janice Rule. The story is based on Doctors' Wives by Frank G. Slaughter. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

John Cheever's "misery in suburbia" short stories, brief and to the point, have always proven excellent TV fodder. Director Frank Perry's The Swimmer, adapted for the screen by Perry's wife Eleanor, is a rare, and for the most part successful, attempt at offering a Cheever story in feature-length form. Dressed only in swimming trunks throughout the film, Burt Lancaster plays a wealthy, middle-aged advertising man, embarked on a long and revelatory journey through suburban Connecticut. Lancaster slowly makes his way to his split-level home by travelling from house to house, and from swimming pool to swimming pool. At each stop, Lancaster comes face to face with an incident in his past. Informing Kim Hunter that he once harbored a secret love for her, Lancaster is mildly upset by Hunter's indifference. Elderly Cornelia Otis Skinner is incensed at Lancaster's intrusion in her backyard and orders him to leave. At the next home, Lancaster tries to seduce the nubile Janet Landgard, who'd once baby-sat for his daughters, but she runs away in horror. And so it goes: as each subsequent suburbanite peels off his self-protective veneer, Lancaster grows more and more disillusioned with what he thought was his ideal lifestyle. The more intensely painful episode is the confrontation between Lancaster and ex-mistress Janice Rule (this scene was directed, without credit, by Sydney Pollack). Thoroughly defeated, the all-but-naked Lancaster laboriously makes his way through the Connecticut woods in a blinding rainstorm, desperately seeking out his own home where he fully expects his "loving" wife and daughters to greet him. Not this time. Dismissed as too self-consciously "arty" at the time of its release, The Swimmer's reputation increased over the decades following its release thanks to constant late-night TV exposure. The film represents the first movie work of 22-year-old composer Marvin Hamlisch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Now working as a trucker under the alias "Stan Dyson", Kimble (David Janssen) falls in love with his company's dispatcher Barbara Wells (Janice Rule). What Kimble doesn't know is that Barbara is a parolee who must return to her jail cell every evening. Nor is he aware of this arrangement when Barbara breaks out of jail to join Kimble at a lakeside resort--with parole officer Art Meredith (Steve Ihnat) and the relentless Lt. Gerard (Barry Morse) hot on the couple's trail. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this, the third in the Matt Helm special-agent series, Dean Martin plays Helm who's called to save those aboard a hijacked U.S. spacecraft. Ambushers is generally regarded as the weakest of the Helm films, lacking inspiration at most levels. ~ All Movie Guide

William Holden stars as Alvarez Kelly in this Civil War actioner. While transporting 5,000 head of cattle to the Union forces, Holden is captured by Confederate officer Richard Widmark. Threatened with instant execution if he doesn't cooperate, Holden sets about the train the raw rebel troops to become cattle drovers in order to transport the herd below the Mason-Dixon line. Widmark turns out to be the least of Holden's problems when he tries to negotiate the cattle through Indian territory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Matt Weaver (George Segal) returns home after fighting for the South in the Civil War to his home in the New Mexico territory. He discovers that in his absence his ancestral house and land have been sold by Sam Brewster (Pat Hingle), an unscrupulous land developer. Matt tries to kill Sam, but when the attempt fails, Matt barricades himself in the place he once called home. Sam sends for the colorful hired gun Jules Gaspard D'Estaing (Yul Brynner), a well-educated dandy whose mother was a black slave and father was a Creole. Jules is as adept with card and piano playing as he is with a six gun. When Jules gets drunk and tears up the town, Sam tries to make a truce with Matt to get rid of the deadly drifter. Janice Rule also appears, along with Bert Freed in his familiar role as the local sheriff. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide