Albert Salmi Movies

First published in early 1956, Mark Harris's baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly was swiftly adapted for television; on September 24, 1956, a streamlined 60-minute version of the Harris novel was telecast live on The US Steel Hour. Paul Newman plays Henry Wiggen, a slang-happy, unabashedly self-promotional pitcher for the fictional New York Mammoths. Wiggen spends a great deal of his free time protecting his dimwitted roomate, catcher Bruce Pearson (Albert Salmi), from being dropped from the team. It's not that Henry is overly fond of Bruce; it's simply that he knows (but the rest of the team doesn't) that Bruce is dying of Hodgkin's disease. This TV adaptation remains faithful to the first-person singular style of the novel by having Henry periodically step "out" of the drama to address the audience: this device is most effective at the finale when, after tearfully recalling the "ragging" he often gave his now-deceased teammate, Henry sobs "From here on, I rag nobody." A very young George Peppard appears as Piney Woods, the country-boy ballplayer who sings the ballad from which the drama's title is derived. A kinescoped version of Bang the Drum Slowly was included in the 1981 PBS anthology The Golden Age of Television. Harris' novel was later adapted into a 1973 theatrical feature, starring Michael Moriarty as Henry and Robert De Niro as the "doom-ded" Bruce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Brooding Gregory Peck arrives in a small western town to witness the hanging of the men whom he holds responsible for the murder of his wife (they've been arrested for an unrelated crime). Through the help of a duplicitous executioner, the gang escapes--taking Kathleen Gallant as hostage. The vengeful Peck hunts the fugitives down and kills them in cold blood. He is forced to ask himself if he's any better than the criminals when he discovers that the fugitives, though justly convicted of murder, had nothing to do with his wife's death. The Bravados is as grim and compelling as the earlier Henry King/Gregory Peck western The Gunfighter. And yes, that's "Curly" Joe DeRita, of Three Stooges fame, in the role of the menacing hangman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Practical joker Bradley (Albert Salmi) chooses as his next victim Pop Henderson (Roscoe Ames), the nearsighted, hearing-impaired attendant at the local morgue. Sneaking onto a slab, Bradley pretends to be a corpse -- and when he "comes to life," the terrified Henderson nearly jumps out of his skin, and almost loses his job. But there's a comeuppance in store for Bradley when one of his previous victims knocks him unconscious, leaving him in a state of complete paralysis.... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

En route to Monterey, Paladin (Richard Boone) is detained by a group of men who let him pass only when satisfied that he has never heard of someone named Vernon Good. Upon arrival, Paladin is met by an ill-tempered priest (Albert Salmi)--and by Vernon Good (John Mauldin), who has taken refuge in the priest's mission to avoid a lynch mob. Needless to say, Vernon's problem quickly becomes Paladin's problem--if the priest is willing to let it be so. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stella Stevens guest-stars as Ann Croft, a sheltered deaf-mute girl. Joe Cartwright tries to teach Ann sign language, only to be thwarted by the girl's fiercely overprotective father Albie (Albert Salmi). In the course of John Furia Jr.'s teleplay, Ann ends up saving her father's life, and also falls in love with Joe (the kiss of death for any Bonanza leading lady!) Also appearing are Kenneth McKenna as Sam, James Griffith as the Preacher, Sherwood Price as Eb and Harry Swoger as Tom. Originally telecast on December 10, 1960, "Silent Thunder" was the first of of several Bonanza episodes directed by Robert Altman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This two-part episode chronicles the life and career of Dutch-born Peter Hurkos, who has been authenticated by scientific experts as one of the world's few genuine psychics. Part One begins during WW2, as Hurkos (Albert Salmi) is fighting with the Resistance in Denmark. Falling from a rooftop, he lapses into a coma--and upon regaining consciousness, finds he has been endowed with the gift of prophecy. On a more disturbing note, he now has the ability to determine the good and evil in a person merely by touching him. Unable to cope with his psychic powers, Hurkos begins drinking heavily, then squanders his talents in the entertainment world...until a remarkable event turns his life around. For years, "The Peter Hurkos Story" was missing from the One Step Beyond syndication package. . .on orders from Hurkos himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) joins forces with Willard Thornton (Wendell Corey), newly appointed Special Crime Commissioner of Chicago, to ferret out the brains behind a huge criminal combine. What Ness doesn't know (but the audience does) is that Thornton himself is a member of the combine, in cahoots with crooked lawyer Barney Lubin (a pre-All in the Family Carroll O'Connor). Thornton and Lubin ultimately precipitate their own downfall when they try to rub out fellow hoodlum "Country Boy" Parrish (Albert Salmi)--who, after escaping with his life from the traditional "one-way ride", finds himself in even greater danger at the hands of lovelorn hash-house waitress Emmy Sarver (Mary Fickett). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, Kimble (David Janssen) is forced to go on the lam again when he is recognized in a Nevada gambling emporium. En route to California, Kimble makes the acquaintance of feisty nun Sister Veronica (Eileen Heckart), who agrees to provide him safe passage through a police dragnet if he'll repair her wreck of a car. This very odd couple then embarks on a series of strange adventures, beginning when Kimble goes to work for a cheap chiseler named Chuck Mathis (Albert Salmi). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 60-minute Twilight Zone entry was adapted by Rod Serling from Malcolm Jameson's short story "Blind Alley." Wearing thick "age" makeup, Albert Salmi stars as ruthless millionaire Feathersmith, who would give anything to relive his carefree youth. Enter Miss Devlin (Julie Newmar) -- actually the Devil, but a very shapely Devil -- who offers to strike a deal with the decrepit tycoon. Curiously, Devlin doesn't want Feathersmith's soul (which he had already lost several years earlier), but she will settle for cold, hard cash. Another cautionary "Be Careful What You Wish For" yarn, "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" originally aired April 11, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Derived from the classic 1951 Japanese film Rashomon, director Martin Ritt's The Outrage attempts to modernize the original story of rape and murder, transporting from medieval Japan to the American Southwest of the 1870's. The story is told within the framework of three men waiting at a railway station. A con-man (Edward G. Robinson) listens to the account of a trial held recently in the town as told by a prospector (Howard Da Silva) and a preacher (William Shatner) suffering from a crisis of faith in humanity. Three witnesses at the trial of a Mexican outlaw give conflicting testimony. Each version is shown in flashback. The outlaw, Juan Carrasco (Paul Newman), confesses that he bound the husband (Laurence Harvey), raped the wife, and killed the husband in a duel of honor. The wife (Claire Bloom) claims that the outlaw raped her, and then she stabbed her husband when he contemptuously blamed her for inviting the assault. The third witness, an old Indian (Paul Fix), declares that he found the dying husband who stated that he stabbed himself because he couldn't live with the humiliation. As the story continues to unfold, the validity of each of the stories is questioned before the truth is finally revealed. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Albert Salmi chews the scenery as space pirate Alonzo P. Tucker, self-styled "terror of the spaceways" who has been plundering the universe ever since he'd been abducted from his home planet Earth way back in 1876. Taken hostage by Tucker (who carries a robotic parrot on his shoulder!), Will (Bill Mumy) befriends the lovable reprobate and tries to protect him from another alien from whom Tucker has stolen a mind-reading device. This is the first Lost in Space episode to showcase an essentially comic "guest" villain; it will not be the last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Meanest Men in the West is basically a pair of episodes of The Virginian, chopped up by Universal Pictures' editing department and mashed together (with help from some voice doubles) into what could almost pass for a coherent plot. Judge Henry Garth (Lee J. Cobb), owner of Shiloh ranch, becomes the object of a revenge plot by Kalig (Lee Marvin), a criminal whom the judge sent away to prison for ten years. In the recut version of the two shows (of which the first was directed and written by Samuel Fuller), Kalig sends his half-brother (played by Charles Bronson, in footage from a completely unrelated episode of the show) to kidnap Garth's ranch foreman, the Virginian (James Drury). Not all of it makes sense, but since the two stories were never supposed to be related, that's understandable. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide