Milton Selzer Movies

The first season of Mission: Impossible came to a close with the April 22, 1967 episode "The Psychic." Some valuable NATO secrets have been appropriated in a hostile corporate takeover by ruthless industrialist Alex Lowell (Barry Sullivan). The IMF heads to South America, where Lowell has relocated in hopes of selling the documents to the highest bidder. With Cinammon posing as a psychic, the other IMF agents lure Lowell into a cleverly rigged high-stakes poker game. Written by William Read Woodfield and Allan Baltar, "The Psychic" marked Steven Hill's final appearance as IMF head Dan Briggs.
~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

During a flight from New York to Seattle, a passenger identifying himself as Ernest Putnam (Arthur Hill) hijacks the plane and demands to be flown to Manchuria. Inspector Erskine learns that "Putnam" is actually a scientist named Charles King, and that he is in possession of vital government information that must not fall into the hands of the Red Chinese. In a desperate effort to stop King and rescue the passengers, Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) tries to intercept the plane during a refueling stopover in Alaska--but the situation is far from resolved! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Steve McQueen stars as the Cincinnati Kid, a crackerjack New Orleans stud poker player. Tired of chicken feed, the Kid decides to challenge The Man (Edward G. Robinson), the reigning poker champ, who is in town for a private game. The Shooter (Karl Malden), another gambling pro, arranges a game between the Kid and the Man, with the Shooter dealing. The game is compromised by the intervention of Slade (Rip Torn), an old foe of the Man's who tries to fix the outcome. The Kid finds out about this and tells Slade to get lost, preferring to win fair and square. The outcome is in the cagey hands of The Man, who is smart enough to do (as one reviewer put it) the wrong thing at the right time. The Cincinnati Kid was based on the novel by Richard Jessup. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This is one of a handful of episodes in which Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) appears only fleetingly, with the bulk of the drama handled by a "special guest attorney." While Perry is in Europe on business, fellow attorney Joe Kelly (Mike Connors) agrees to help Bill Jaris (Robert Harland), the owner of a bowling alley in the town of Tesoro. The town is controlled by Bill's monstrous mother-in-law Bonnie Mae Wilmot, aka "The Duchess", who conspires with Dr. Max Taylor (Milton Selzer) to have the bowling alley closed down for health reasons. When Taylor is murdered and Bill is charged with the crime, Kelly works overtime to defend his client. Reportedly, this episode (which for many years was not included in the series' syndication package and thus considered "lost") was contrived by the producers to test out Mike Connors as a potential replacement for Raymond Burr, who at the time was seriously considering retirement at the end of Perry Mason's eighth season. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Condemned as being a "disappointing" and "unworthy" Alfred Hitchcock effort at the time of its release, Marnie has since grown in stature; it is still considered a lesser Hitchcock, but a fascinating one. Tippi Hedren plays Marnie, a compulsive thief who cannot stand to be touched by any man. She also goes bonkers over the sight of the color red. Her new boss, Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) is intrigued by Marnie -- to such an extent that he blackmails her into marriage when he stumbles onto her breaking into his safe. Rutland is in his own way as "sick" as his wife because of his fetishist desire to cohabit with a thief. After innumerable plot twists and turns, Marnie is "cured" by a facile but mesmerizing flashback sequence involving her ex-hooker mother (Louise Latham). Among the critical carps aimed at Marnie was the complaint that the studio-bound sets -- particularly the waterfront locale where the film ends -- were tacky and artificial; curiously, this seeming "carelessness" adds to the queasy, off-setting mood that Hitchcock endeavored to sustain. Even when the direction seems to falter, the film is buoyed by the driving musical score of Bernard Herrmann (his last for Hitchcock). Among the supporting actors in Marnie are Mariette Hartley as a secretary and Bruce Dern as a sailor; twelve years later, Dern would star in Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Coming across a Nazi work camp, Saunders (Vic Morrow) and the squad liberate a group of starving Polish slave laborers. These men had been abandoned by their captors because they are to weak to walk--and it is for the same reason that Saunders may also be forced to leave the prisoners behind. A clue to the story's outcome can be found in titular reference to the Biblical Gideon, an Israelite military leader whose ragtag army won an important battle armed only with trumpets, torches and clay jars! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Perry (Raymond Burr) visits the campus of Manzana Valley Prep School to confer with his client, Dean Aaron Stuart (Milton Selzer). Someone is working very hard to destroy Dr. Stuart's reputation, and that someone turns out to be assistant dean Tobin Wade (H.M. Wynant)--whose own reputation has been tarnished by embezzlement and the theft of a rare book. When Wade is murdered, the police pounce upon Dr. Stuart, but Perry is (as always!) thoroughly convinced of his client's innocence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In his never-ending efforts to outmaneuver Elliot Ness (Robert Stack), bootlegger Joe Lassiter (J.D. Cannon) commissions architect Harry Gordon (Milton Selzer) to build a "Ness-proof" brewery. The finished product is perched atop a six-story warehouse, undetectable to anyone at street level. Though Ness finds out about the brewery, he curiously makes no move to put it out of business--and even provides supplies for the brewers. What exactly is Ness up to? And what will happen to the hapless Harry Gordon once he has outlived his usefulness? An ironic ending caps this fact-based yarn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This episode is set in the late 1920s, explaining why Federal agent Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) appears to still be a bachelor. Bootlegger Pete "The Persuader" Kalminski has been encountering a lot of trouble getting his shipments past Ness and the Untouchables. Enter Joey December (Steven Hill), a second-generation railroad owner facing bankruptcy. For a piece of the action, Joey offers to tranport the liquor right under the Feds' noses on his railroad cars. It seems like the perfect set-up--until Joey commits the fatal error of trying to shake down Kalminski for additional money, using as leverage the written "deathbed confession" of one of Al Capone's boys. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Young Savages is what used to be called a "thinking man's picture" about a potentially lurid subject: urban juvenile delinquency. A blind Puerto Rican boy is knifed to death in Spanish Harlem, and three teenage gang members are accused of the crime. Politically ambitious assistant DA Burt Lancaster initially presses for the conviction of all three boys. But as he gets deeper into the case, he realizes that what appears cut-and-dried on the surface is tortuously complex: for starters, the murder victim was hardly the paragon of virtue that the prosecution claims. Despite pressure from his superiors and from members of the accused boys' gang (who at one point threaten Lancaster's wife Dina Merrill with a switchblade,) Lancaster nonetheless sees to it that justice is properly administered. The defendants are portrayed with varying degrees of Brando/Dean "method" by John Davis Chandler, Neil Nephew and Stanley Kristien; more believable, less affected performances are rendered by Shelley Winters, Pilar Seurat and Telly Savalas. Filmed on location in New York, The Young Savages was based on the Evan Hunter novel A Matter of Conviction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though set in the 1930s, this episode is clearly based on the infamous Appalachin Mafia conference of 1957. Gangsters Al Seeger (Richard Conte) and Joe "The Teacher" Kulak (Oscar Beregi) call a summit meeting to establish a consolidation of all organized crime in the U.S., the better to take over the enterprises of the Capone mob. Though Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) would love to bust this meeting and arrest everyone, he has no evidence to back him up. All this changes when Seegar orders the ice-house murder of Maxie Schramm (Milton Selzer), the "turncoat" husband of Seegar's mistress Roxie (Susan Oliver). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi