Eva Marie Saint Movies
After studying briefly at Bowling Green State University, New Jersey-born actress Eva Marie Saint entered the hectic world of live television. With a coolness and maturity that belied her youthfulness, Saint made an excellent impression in her first important stage appearance, 1953's A Trip to Bountiful. The euphoria attending her winning the Drama Critics Award was doubled by her 1954 Oscar win for her co-starring stint with Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. The following year, the blonde, graceful actress appeared with Paul Newman in a TV musical version of Our Town (wherein "stage manager" Frank Sinatra introduced the hit song "Love and Marriage"). Saint continued starring in films with everyone from Bob Hope (That Certain Feeling, 1956) to Cary Grant (in the Hitchcock classic North by Northwest, 1959). A string of mediocre films in the 1970s prompted Saint to seek out more satisfying roles on television before returning to the stage in 1983. More recently, Saint won an Emmy for her performance in the 1989 dramatic special People Like Us. A staple of television throughout the 1990s and well into the new millennium, Saint essayed a supporting role in director Wayne Wang's 2005 family comedy Because of Winn Dixie before stepping into the role of the Man of Steel's mother in director Bryan Singer's Superman Returns the following year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideGarry Marshall directed this film which starts as a light comedy but moves into heavy-duty drama later on. David Basner (Tom Hanks in a good performance) works in an ad agency, where he enjoys bantering with his co-workers and meets a lot of women. He hasn't been especially close to his father (Jackie Gleason) and never thought about him much until his Dad is left devastated when his wife of 36 years walks out on him. He is soon faced with serious health problems as well. This propels the elder Basner on a downward slide that affects David and their relationship. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Jackie Gleason, (more)
Convicted murderer Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald had hoped that, by telling his side of the story to investigative journalist Joe McGinniss, the authorities would be persuaded of MacDonald's innocence. Instead, McGinniss ended up unswerving in his belief of MacDonald's guilt, and the result was the devastating best-seller Fatal Vision. In this two-part TV adaptation of McGinniss' book, Gary Cole plays MacDonald, a former Green Beret officer, while Frank Dent essays the role of McGinniss. MacDonald's wife and two children are brutally murdered in their Fort Bragg, North Carolina home on February 17, 1970. The prime suspect, MacDonald insists that the killings were committed by a gang of stoned-out hippies, a story that at first is accepted in toto by the doctor's father-in-law Freddy Kassab (Karl Malden). But after MacDonald is officially exonerated, Kassab notices several holes in his son-in-law's story, and becomes convinced that MacDonald was in fact the murderer. Through Kassab's persistence, as well as the uncovering of new forensic evidence, MacDonald is ultimately convicted for all three murders in 1979. Since the TV premiere of Fatal Vision on November 18 and 19, 1984, there has been a growing movement by MacDonald's sympathizers to discredit McGinniss' book and to retry the case--a movement that has been hampered time and again by MacDonald's own erratic behavior. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
This made-for-Disney drama is the fact-based account of Morris Frank (Timothy Bottoms), who, during the 1930s, trained America's first seeing-eye dog. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
Jane Doe, played by Karen Valentine, is an amnesiac with no clue as to her true identity. She does know that she's recovering from a brutal attempted murder. She also knows that a psychopath--a serial killer known as the Roadside Strangler--is tracking her every move. But why? William Devane plays the detective on the case, David Huffman appears as Doe's husband, and Stephen E. Miller is sufficiently menacing as the Strangler. But don't be lulled into complacency: there's a surprise ending. Originally telecast March 12, 1983, Jane Doe was written by Cynthia Mandelberg and Walter Halsey Davis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Valentine, William Devane, (more)
Malibu is a two-part, four-hour adaptation of William Murray's best-selling novel. William Atherton and Susan Dey play a green-as-grass married couple from Milwaukee who take a vacation in Malibu. Amidst the elite and their million-dollar beach houses, Atherton starts up an affair with divorcee Valerie Perrine, while Dey fends off the attentions of TV star Steve Forrest before succumbing to the charms of tennis pro Chad Everett. Other Southern California satyrs and nymphs wandering in and out of Malibu include James Coburn, Eva Marie Saint, Ann Jillian, Kim Novak, Richard Mulligan, and (who else?) George Hamilton. The multiple story lines all come to a head during a climactic tennis match. Malibu is trash, true, but it's trash cultivated from the highest-quality refuse heaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Made for television, When Hell Was in Session is the true story of Navy commander Jonathan Denton Jr., here played by Hal Holbrook. Shot down during a bombing mission over Vietnam in 1965, Denton endured nearly eight horrendous years as a POW. The plot details Denton's efforts to organize a resistance movement among his fellow prisoners. The film concludes with a powerful re-enactment of Denton's homecoming, as originally seen by millions of American televiewers in 1973. Based on the book by Denton and Ed Brandt, When Hell Was in Session debuted October 8, 1979 ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
William Inge's sexual-awakening drama had already been satisfactorily filmed by director Elia Kazan 1961, twenty years before this TV movie made its debut. Melissa Gilbert and Cyrill O'Reilly are not a completely fair trade for the original film's Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, but the players are game and the results are occasionally worthwhile. The faults lie principally in Inge's dated storyline about a teenaged middle-class "good girl" being seduced by the town's richest boy during the 1920s. The elements of class-consciousness and "retribution for sin" don't play as well in 1981 as they had two decades earlier. Nor does director Richard Sarafian's decision to slavishly follow the Kazan original scene for scene help to make the 1981 version anything of an improvement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melissa Gilbert, Graham Jarvis, (more)
A young girl's dangerous dance with dieting leads to near disaster in this exceptional made-for-television drama. In one of the earliest treatments of the subject, Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Casey Powell, the quiet daughter of an overbearing mother and milquetoast father. Feeling pressure to be the good girl of the family after her troublesome older sister gets pregnant, Casey retreats into her secretive world of self-starvation. When arguing fails to produce results, her parents (Charles Durning and Eva Marie Saint) send her to a hospital where she meets a spunky fellow patient (Melanie Mayron) and a caring therapist (Jason Miller). Casey's road to recovery is not as simple as merely eating though, and she and her family realize that together they must confront the deeply-rooted familial issues that lay at the heart of Casey's affliction. Jennifer Jason Leigh is utterly compelling in the lead role. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
Originally made for television, the film centers on an Egyptian archaeological expedition, and the discovery of the tomb of the famed Pharaoh. After it is opened, disturbing events mark the trip. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
As warm as winter's fire and sentimental as the sixth glass of wassail, this heart-tugging made-for-television holiday drama tells the Depression-era story of a gruff Minnesota grandfather and his wife who must take in their teenage grandson for Christmas. A city kid, the youth finds it difficult to adjust to the quiet of farm living. It is also difficult to deal with his grandfather who treats him cruelly. Unable to stand it, the youth runs away, forcing the grandfather to deal with the reason for his unending anger and to admit that he feels guilty for the death of his son. The teleplay is based on a novel by Glendon Swarthout, The Melodeon. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The Macahans is a two-hour TV movie utilizing characters originally created for the 1962 Cinerama extravaganza How the West Was Won. In his first post-Gunsmoke project, Zeb Macahan stars as frontiersman Zeb Macahan, who in the early 1860s returns to Virginia to visit his family. It takes only the slightest encouragement for Zeb's brother (Richard Kiley) to agree to bring his family along with Zeb on another westward trek. Eva Marie Saint, the brother's wife, isn't keen on leaving her cozy Southern household, but neither is she anxious to be in Virginia when the Civil War breaks out. Narrated by William Conrad (who had coincidentally starred on the radio version of Gunsmoke) and jam packed with action, The Macahans served as the pilot for the subsequent James Arness TV series How the West Was Won, which ran from 1978 to 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The title of this Bob Hope vehicle Cancel My Reservation is a multiple pun, referring to elements in the story. The ever-youthful Hope plays Dan Bartlett, a late-night TV talk show host. Frazzled, he takes a much-needed vacation in Arizona. There, he stumbles upon a murder and a conspiracy by local rancher, John Ed (Ralph Bellamy) to defraud a local Native American group of part of its reservation. Dan is a suspect in the murder, and must investigate in order to clear his name. Though the story is rather light, celebrities of all sorts have either small parts or cameos in this film, and much of the film's entertainment value comes from spotting them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Irvin Kershner directed this comedy-drama about one man's struggle with relationships and himself. Brooks (George Segal) is a middle-aged commercial artist who is at a personal and professional crossroads; he wants to take a stab at a career in fine art, but he can barely land enough assignments to support himself as it is. And while his marriage to Selma (Eva Marie Saint) is starting to collapse, his mistress Grace (Janis Young) suggests that she would like a relationship of greater permanence with him. Hoping to land an important commission from Lepridon (Sterling Hayden), a powerful business mogul, Brooks attends a party at an exclusive private club, but after a few cocktails too many, Brooks gets into a screaming match with one of the club's leaders. Brooks is depressed, figuring that he's blown what could have been a major career opportunity, when word travels through the grapevine that Lepridon was amused and impressed by Brooks' dressing-down of the club's topkick and is ready to give him the job. Brooks is elated, but he wants to keep his good news a secret for the time being; in a celebratory mood, he goes to a party where Selma, Grace, and a number of his friends are also in attendance. Brooks is approached by Nelly (Nancy Phillips), the wife of his neighbor Will (David F. Doyle); Nelly wants Brooks to join her for a quickie, and he eagerly agrees, not realizing that the children's playroom where they've chosen to meet is monitored by a closed-circuit TV camera, with the other party-goers an audience for their lovemaking. Loving garnered many enthusiastic reviews and became something of a cult item among film buffs in the 1970s; Sherry Lansing, who would later become a powerful producer and studio president, appears in a small role as Susan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Segal, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
Richard Widmark stars as a professional gambler who finds himself financially embarrassed. To bail himself out, Widmark marries into a wealthy Mexican household. What he doesn't know is that the family is cursed: its female members are compelled to love their men literally to death. Chaim Topol and Cesar Romero costar in the inconsequential but enjoyable comedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Adapted from a novel by Theodore V. Olsen, The Stalking Moon opens in the Arizona of the Old West, as the U.S. calvary is in the process of relocating Native Americans to reservations. One of the calvary men is Sam Varner (Gregory Peck), an aging scout who is ready to retire to his New Mexico home after this mission. Varner is called upon to sneak into a small Apache camp in order to disarm the guards before the rest of his troupe rides in to round up the whole tribe. After the round-up, a white woman is discovered among the Americans. Her name is Sarah Carver (Eva Marie Saint), and she was captured ten years ago by a mysterious and vicious warrior named Salvaje (Nathaniel Narcsisco), who is not among those captured in the round-up. Held against her will, she now has a nine-year-old son by Salvaje. Although her English is very rusty from disuse, she lets Varner know that she and her son would like to be taken away from the tribe. He agrees to transport her to his home, and they set out together for New Mexico, having to overcome obstacles such as a sandstorm to get there. Along the way, they seem to sense that someone is following them, and after they arrive at Varner's cabin, they find themselves set upon by the vengeful Salvaje. Enlisting the aid of a half-breed scout Robert Forster that he raised from childhood, Varner tries to fend off Salvaje, who seems to be toying with them before moving in for the final kill. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
There's a few million dollars' worth of star power and a nickel's worth of plot in the lavish race-car melodrama Grand Prix. Among the participants in this annual cross-continent competition are characters played by James Garner, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, and Antonio Sabato. Interested parties include Toshiro Mifune (his voice dubbed by Paul Frees), Adolfo Celi, and Claude Dauphin, while the women who agonize on the sidelines include Eva Marie Saint, Jessica Walter, and Françoise Hardy. The racing sequences are top-rank, cleverly utilizing those 1960s devices of helicopter angles and multiple screens. Oscars went to editor Frederic Steinkamp (among others) and the sound-effects supervisor Franklin E. Milton. Filmed on location, Grand Prix made back its cost about half a week into its run. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, (more)

- 1966
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Just because The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming was vastly overrated by contemporary critics does not make it any less amusing. The story gets under way when a Soviet submarine accidently gets lodged in a sandbar on the coast of a New England town. In his feature film debut, Alan Arkin plays the sub's second-in-command, who is ordered by commander Theodore Bikel to free up the sub and skeedaddle before an international incident erupts. Hoping to secure a power boat to tug the sub out to sea, Arkin and his men call upon vacationing TV writer Carl Reiner, passing themselves off as Norwegians. When this ruse fails, Arkin is reluctantly compelled to force Reiner at gunpoint to fetch his motorboat, while gentle-natured Russian sailor John Philip Law is left behind to guard Reiner's wife Eva Marie Saint and pretty neighbor girl Andrea Dromm (yes, love blooms). The plot thickens when the locals, notably bullnecked sheriff Brian Keith and superpatriot Paul Ford, spread the word that the Russians have "invaded" their little community. Several slapstick complications later, the Russians and the locals face each other down in the center of the village, weapons at the ready. Fortunately, World War 3 is averted when the Russians and the villagers band together to rescue young Johnny Whittaker from falling to his doom. Enormously popular upon its first release, The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming still works on a slick sitcom level. The film was based on a novel by Nathaniel Benchley, the son of humorist Robert Benchley and the father of Jaws author Peter Benchley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton -- then Hollywood's most bankable couple -- appeared onscreen together for the third time in this romantic drama shot on beautiful locations along the Big Sur region of the California coastline. Laura Edwards (Elizabeth Taylor) is a free-thinking artist and Bohemian who is raising a her teenage son, Danny (Morgan Mason), conceived out of wedlock, on her own. Laura has issues with conventional teaching methods, and prefers to educate Danny about both intellectual and ethical matters on her own. However, Danny has become something of a problem, and child welfare authorities demand that Danny either be sent to school or become a ward of the state. Rather than send Danny to public school, Laura arranges for him to attend a private academy run by Dr. Edward Hewitt (Richard Burton), an Episcopalian minister. Edward is at first shocked by Laura's embrace of free love and rejection of conventional moral codes, but as he gets to know her better, he finds himself increasingly attracted to her, despite the fact he has a wife, Claire (Eva Marie Saint), and two children. Before long, Edward's desire overpowers his scruples and he begins an affair with Laura. Wracked with guilt over his infidelity, Edward confesses his indiscretion to Claire, which proves to have severe and unexpected consequences. While saddled with poor reviews upon its initial release, The Sandpiper did win an Academy Award for Johnny Mandel's theme song, "The Shadow of Your Smile." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, (more)
In 1950, Maj. Jefferson Pike (James Garner), an Army intelligence agent who served with distinction in World War II, awakens in a hospital with severe amnesia. He isn't sure where he is, how he got there, or even who the woman at his side is, even though the doctor tells him that her name is Anna (Eva Marie Saint) and that she is his wife. The doctor instructs Pike to recall, in as much detail as possible, what he was doing before the accident that caused his traumatic memory loss. But the doctor isn't a doctor, Anna isn't Pike's wife, it isn't 1950, and he isn't in an American hospital. World War II is still very much in progress, and Pike is being duped in an elaborate scheme prepared by Maj. Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor), a German intelligence agent. Gerber is trying to trick a drugged and suggestible Pike into telling him everything he knows, as the injured soldier lies in a Bavarian military hospital after being taken prisoner. Will Pike be able to see through the cracks in Gerber's facade before he spills the beans that could mean death and defeat for American soldiers? 36 Hours was later remade for TV under the title Breaking Point. TV fans will want to keep an eye peeled for bit parts by James Doohan from Star Trek and John Banner from Hogan's Heroes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
Charles Dickens' classic tale A Christmas Carol is revisited yet again in this made-for-television holiday drama. Told with a different twist, in this version, a melancholy father spends his Christmas Day mourning the son he lost in World War II. His holiday grieving is interrupted by the visiting ghosts of Christmases past, present and future. Henry Mancini provides the score. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
In one of his first roles, Warren Beatty plays a callous, self-involved young man who is idolized by his younger brother Brandon DeWilde. When Beatty and DeWilde's parents Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury take in Eva Marie Saint as a boarder, Beatty makes violent love to the poor (but not entirely unwilling) girl. Saint becomes pregnant, a contingency which brings out the absolute worst in Beatty. When he deserts her, she kills herself. Only at this point does DeWilde (who has worshipped Saint from afar) realize that Beatty has feet of clay. Attempting to kill his older brother, DeWilde relents when he decides that Beatty is more pathetic than evil. Playwright William Inge adapted the screenplay for All Fall Down from a novel by James Leo Herlihy. So dependent is this film on its stark black and white photography that the currently available colorized version is tantamount to sacrilege. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eva Marie Saint, Warren Beatty, (more)
Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, Exodus is a 212-minute screen adaptation of the best-selling novel by Leon Uris. The film is concerned with the emergence of Israel as an independent nation in 1947. Its first half focuses on the efforts of 611 holocaust survivors to defy the blockade of the occupying British government and sail to Palestine on the sea vessel Exodus. Paul Newman, a leader of the Hagannah (the Jewish underground), is willing to sacrifice his own life and the lives of the refugees rather than be turned back to war-ravaged Europe, but the British finally relent and allow the Exodus safe passage. Once this victory is assured, 30,000 more Jews, previously interned by the British, flood into the Holy Land. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, (more)
Conceived as a Gone With the Wind for the CinemaScope generation, Raintree County wasn't quite as successful as its role model, but it still proved a moneyspinner for MGM. Elizabeth Taylor stars as a spoiled Southern belle who falls in love with pacifistic Indiana youth Montgomery Clift. Though Clift is engaged to Eva Marie Saint, what Taylor wants, Taylor gets, and she isn't above using the dirtiest of deceptions to win Clift's affections. When the Civil War break out, Clift, a staunch abolitionist, joins the Union, much to the dismay of true-to-Dixie Taylor. While Clift is off fighting the war, Taylor descends into a depression that deepens into insanity. At war's end, Clift tries to come to terms with Taylor's lunacy for the sake of their child. But the strain proves too much for both of them, leading to an operatic climax which curiously segues into a happy ending (happy for some of the characters, anyway). If Montgomery Clift's performance--and appearance--seems to fluctuate wildly throughout the film, it is because he was involved in a serious auto accident during shooting, one that left both physical and emotional scars from which he never completely recovered. The 187-minute Raintree Country (reduced to 168 minutes after its initial roadshow engagements) was adapted by Millard Kaufman from the best-selling novel by Ross Lockridge, Jr. (whose own life story was infinitely more tragic than anything in his book). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, (more)
A Hatful of Rain, based on the stage play by Michael V. Gazzo, is the story of a drug addict's debilitating effect on his family. Don Murray has managed to keep his addiction secret from his pregnant wife Eva Marie Saint and his boorish father Lloyd Nolan, but Murray's brother Anthony Franciosa knows the truth. Murray hits up Franciosa for money to support his habit, but even this is not enough as the addiction deepens and Murray finds himself beholden to a vicious pusher (Henry Silva). Murray is unable to cope with his private hell until he confesses to his wife and father that he's a junkie and needs help. Considered the last word in realism in 1957, A Hatful of Rain seems slightly antiquated in the light of the drug-abuse excesses of the 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eva Marie Saint, Don Murray, (more)






















