Robert Stack Movies
The son of a wealthy California businessman, Robert Stack spent his teen years giving skeet shooting lessons to such Hollywood celebrities as Carole Lombard and Clark Gable; it was only natural, then, that he should gravitate to films himself after attending the University of Southern California. At age 20, he made his screen debut in Deanna Durbin's First Love (1939) in which he gave his teenaged co-star her very first screen kiss. Two years later he appeared opposite his former "pupil" Carole Lombard in the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or Not to Be (1942). After serving with the navy in WWII he resumed his film career, avoiding typecasting with such dramatically demanding film assignments as The Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), The Tarnished Angels (1957), and John Paul Jones (1959). He earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a self-destructive alcoholic in Written on the Wind (1956). In 1959 he gained a whole new flock of fans when he was cast as humorless federal agent Elliot Ness in TV's The Untouchables, which ran for four seasons and won him an Emmy award. He continued playing taciturn leading roles in such TV series as Name of the Game (1969-1971), Most Wanted (1976-1977), and Strike Force (1981), and from 1987 to 2002 was the no-nonsense host of the TV anthology Unsolved Mysteries. Not nearly as stoic and serious in real life, Stack was willing to spoof his established screen image in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979) and Zucker-Abraham-Zucker's Airplane! (1980). The warmer side of Robert Stack could be glimpsed in the TV informational series It's a Great Life (1985), which he hosted with his wife Rosemarie, and in his 1980 autobiography, Straight Shooting. Though film appearances grew increasingly sporatic through the 1990s, Stack remained a familiar figure to television viewers thanks to syndicated reruns of Unsolved Mysteries well into the new millennium. Memorable film roles in 1990s included lending his voice to Beavis and Butthead Do America (1996) and appearing as himself in the 1999 comedy drama Mumford. In October of 2002 Stack underwent successful radiation treatment for prostate cancer. On May 14, 2003, Robert Stack's wife Rosemarie found the actor dead in their Los Angeles home. He was 84. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley's first foray into the director's chair is a quirky romantic fantasy, featuring Bo Welch's signature production design. Tom Hanks plays Joe Banks, a man who hates his job, thinks the overhead fluorescent lights are making him sick, and quakes at the presence of his boorish boss Frank Watori (Dan Hedaya). He is attracted to the office secretary DeDe (Meg Ryan) but is afraid to speak to her. Then his life changes when he visits Dr. Ellison (Robert Stack). Dr. Ellison tells Joe that he has something called "a brain cloud" that is rapidly spreading throughout his brain. He will feel great, but he'll be dead within five months. Instead of being depressed at this bleak prognosis, Joe suddenly feels free. He quits his job, asks DeDe out, and is contacted by a rich millionaire named Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges). Graynamore owns an island named Waponi Woo, whose natives need to be placated. The natives require a sacrifice to their island volcano, the Big Woo, so that the island won't sink beneath the Pacific. Graynamore offers unlimited wealth to Tom in exchange for Tom's becoming the object of human sacrifice. Joe has nothing to lose, so he accepts the offer. As he heads out to the island, Joe meets Graynamore's daughters -- Angelica, a Los Angeles socialite, and Patricia, Angelica's blonde half-sister (both roles played by Ryan). Joe arrives at the island, and as he stands at the lips of the Big Woo he has to decide whether he really wants to leap into the maw of the fiery volcano. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- 1988
- PG
This direct to video, youth-oriented comedy is about Chuck (Tate Donovan) and Wally (Grant Heslov), friends in their senior year at college. Graduation is fast approaching. A wealthy industrialist (Robert Stack) offfers them jobs after graduation if they'll do him a favor and deliver a car to the his daughter in Lake Tahoe. The car, a red Porsche, gets stolen for use as the prize in a beauty pageant. The lads wind up in San Diego attempting to recover the car and their preserve their future careers. Their efforts are complicated when they become involved with the pageant contestants, exposing them to undreamed-of oceans of feminine pulchritude. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tate Donovan, Danielle von Zerneck, (more)
This comedy returns to the exclusive but crazy country club golf course seen in the original Caddyshack. This time its the blue-bloods against the blue collars as a loud, vulgar self-made millionaire tries to join the stuffy upper-crust club after his daughter falls in love with the son of one of the members. Naturally, the boisterous millionaire is rejected by the genteel jerks. He retaliates by buying the golf course and turning it into an ultra-tacky amusement park. Merry mayhem ensues, but in the end, the snobs learn a valuable lesson, the millionaire gets to join, and his daughter and her lover are finally united. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Mason, Dyan Cannon, (more)
- 1988
- PG
Arliss Howard plays a baby-faced undercover cop, posing as a high school student. Howard is investigating the murder of a teacher, a task made difficult when his own brother (Loren Dean) becomes the primary suspect. Meanwhile, the ersatz student falls in love with Alexandre Powers, the daughter of the school's gym instructor. Before long, Howard is having trouble separating his "real" self from his fictional persona: he event develops a crush on home-room teacher Suzy Amis! Director Martha Coolidge and scriptwriter A. Scott Frank seem to be having a lot of fun pushing the credibility envelope in the amusing but unnecessarily convoluted Plain Clothes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arliss Howard, Suzy Amis, (more)
Archival U.S. government footage re-creates the early days of the Korean War, with particular emphasis on the first 40 days. Clips of soldiers fighting on the front lines capture the dangers posed by major wars. The advance on the Manchurian border and the bloody retreat from the Chosin reservoir are also covered. The key events leading up to the historical 1953 Armistice Treaty make it clear how important negotiations are in times of war. ~ Elizabeth Smith, All Movie Guide
- 1987
In this entry in the long-running mystery series, Perry Mason takes the case of a publisher implicated in the strange murder of a horror novelist. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Few men in the publishing industry have more enemies than Christopher Bundy (Bert Convy), who has converted a once respectable magazine into a lurid tabloid specializing in tell-all exposes and pictures of nude women. Jessica (Angela Lansbury) angrily shows up at Bundy's Connecticut headquarters to protest his plans to reprint her first murder story in his magazine. Inevitably, Bundy is murdered, and Jessica's old friend Chester Harrison (Robert Stack) is accused of the crime--but Harrison is only one of several people whose closeted skeletons had been exposed by the ruthless Mr. Bundy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this theatrically released chapter of the 1984-1987 syndicated animated series, the struggle between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons is taken twenty years into the future as both sides must deal with a world-devouring being called Unicron (voiced by Orson Welles). Set in 2005, The Transformers: The Movie serves as a bridge between the series' second and third seasons, with the deaths of several major characters and the introduction of new ones. Darker and more action-packed than the TV series, the movie was originally dismissed as little more than a feature-length toy commercial, but it has since grown in stature to become a cult favorite. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, (more)
- 1986
Although the earthquake that ended Season Five of Falcon Crest resulted in only minimal damage (aside from a few quick exits by certain supporting characters), there is still plenty of "shaking" as the series enters its sixth season. For starters, unscrupulous newspaper owner Richard Channing (David Selby), in his never-ending efforts to discredit Falcon Crest winery owners Angela Channing (Jane Wyman) and Chase Gioberti (Robert Foxworth), hires a crafy female private eye named Erin Jones (Jill Jacobson). Quickly revealing herself to be as dishonest as the day is long, Erin proceeds to frame Richard for attempted murder, tries to kill Chase and endeavors to blow up Jeff Wainwright (Edward Albert), the obsessive publicist of Chase's first-time-novelist wife Maggie (Susan Sullivan). Eventually, Chase is forced to ship Erin off to a prison in Borneo, but she manages to resurface as a popular singer--and, incidentally, to kidnap Chase and Maggie's new baby Kevin! While Erin is out of circulation, her sister Meredith (Jane Badler) proves equally adept as a destructive troublemaker. In other developments, Angela's daughter Emma (Margaret Ladd) gets mixed up with Vince Karlotti (Marjoe Gortner), a phony spiritualist. Kim Novak joins the cast as a woman claiming to be Skylar, long-lost daughter of Angela's husband Peter (Cesar Romero), but who is ultimately revealed to be Kit Marlowe, a fugitive from an international criminal gang run by billionaire Roland Saunders (Robert Stack)--whose subsequent murder by poisoned cigar is at first blamed on Peter. Later on, Peter divorces Angela, but not before revealing that her arch-rival Richard Channing is actually her son, whom she thought had died at birth. And covetous truck driver Dan Fixx (Brett Cullen) arrives on the scene, determined to replace Angela's grandson Lance (Lorenzo Lamas) as sole heir of Falcon Crest. Also, after an absence of three years, Chase's rebellious daughter Victoria returns to the series, with Dana Sparks taking over from the original Victoria, Jamie Rose. In the obligatory season-ending cliffhanger, Chase Gioberti exits the series in spectacular fashion as he tries to rescue his new baby Kevin from the ubiquitous Erin Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Wyman, Cesar Romero, (more)
It took nearly two years after its completion for Big Trouble to reach the big screen. Peter Falk and Alan Arkin are respectively cast as a shady wheeler-dealer and an uptight family man. Strapped for the cash necessary to send his son to Yale, Arkin reluctantly enters into a murder scheme with Beverly D'Angelo. She is married to Falk, who, though he hasn't got long to live due to a heart ailment, may very well spend every penny D'Angelo has before he expires. Arkin is persuaded to kill Falk before this happens, then split the money with D'Angelo. To Arkin's amazement he finds himself the victim of a carefully prepared confidence scam engineered by Falk and D'Angelo. Now that he has a hold over Arkin, Falk gets the poor fellow mixed up in yet another "perfect crime". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, (more)
- 1985
Based on the novel by Jackie Collins, the steamy ABC TV minseries Hollywood Wives began its three-evening run on February 17, 1985. Advertised with the teaser "If you think nothing can shock you anymore," part one got things up and running by introducing the central players, among them Elaine Conti (Candice Bergen), the ruthlessly ambitious wife of B-list movie star Ross Conti (Steve Forrest), and the promiscuous Gina Germaine (Suzanne Somers), who hopes to emerge from her famous hubby's shadow by pursuing her own screen career. The most realistic aspect of the series is the fact that the actors playing the male stars and producers are all considerably older than the women portraying their "trophy" wives. In part two of the miniseries, Elaine continues wheeling and dealing to advance the career of her husband, a fading matinee idol. Meanwhile, the craven Gina tries to sleep her way into a major role in the latest epic directed by Neil Gray (Anthony Hopkins). And Karen Lancaster (Mary Crosby), a second-generation celebrity, embarks upon a romantic misadventure that may have consequence for her celebrated father and mother -- not to mention nominal heroine Elaine. In the miniseries' third and final part, Elaine throws a huge Hollywood party to advance the career of her aging movie-star husband Ross. The site of the party is the home of established film favorite George Lancaster (Robert Stack), whose daughter, Karen (Mary Crosby), has made no secret of her intention to steal Elaine's hubby away from her. Frances Bergen, real-life mother of star Candice Bergen, is seen as George Lancaster's missus, Pamela. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1985
Midas Valley might just as well have been titled Falcon Crest Goes to Silicon Valley. The heroes are a pair of handsome young computer executives, played by James Read and Brent Cullen. The boys' most formidable rival is their onetime mentor, electronics mogul Robert Stack. Relationships between these business enemies are further strained when Stack's daughter Shanna Reed joins Read and Cullen's firm. When first telecast in June of 1985, Midas Valley was advertised as an "open-ended" TV movie. English translation: it was a busted pilot film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1984
Barry Bostwick plays the Father of Our Country in this 3-part, eight-hour TV miniseries. The Richard Fielder/Jon Boothe teleplay, based on a book by James Thomas Flexner, covers the years 1743 through 1783, tracing Washington from age 11 to his farewell to the troops at Valley Forge. A great deal of screen time is devoted to Washington's alleged early romance with Sally Fairfax (Jaclyn Smith), the wife of George's best friend (David Dukes). Martha Washington, who never goes anywhere near a candy store during the film, is played by Patty Duke Astin. Filmed on the actual locations where the Washington saga occurred, the production earned five Emmy Award nominations. Originally telecast April 8, 10 and 11, 1984, George Washington was followed in 1986 by George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation (see entry 82309) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Ted Kotcheff continues his First Blood fervor with Uncommon Valor. Gene Hackman stars as Cal Rhodes, a former Marine Colonel who has been getting the run-around for ten years from the government concerning the disappearance of his son and his buddies - all Marines who enlisted years prior and served in Vietnam. Rhodes' son was last seen in Laos, where he was fighting in the war and captured as a POW. When word gets back to Rhodes that the men may still be alive and held in prison camps, but the government still has the men listed as missing in action, Rhodes decides to take matters into his own hands. Contacting an old friend, oil baron MacGregor (Robert Stack), Rhodes is granted financial backing to form his own incursion force. He assembles a crack team of men, puts them through an intensive period of training. and heads back with them into the Laotian jungles to search for the MIAs. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Hackman, Robert Stack, (more)
- 1981
In this grim made-for-television thriller, a routine embezzlement trial turns deadly when some of the jurors literally lose their heads. This prompts the police to send out its special strike force to solve the case before more people die. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This spoof of the Airport series of disaster movies relies on ridiculous sight gags, groan-inducing dialogue, and deadpan acting -- a comedy style that would be imitated for the next 20 years. Airplane! pulls out all the clichés as alcoholic pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays), who's developed a fear of flying due to wartime trauma, boards a jumbo jet in an attempt to woo back his stewardess girlfriend (Julie Hagerty). Food poisoning decimates the passengers and crew, leaving it up to Striker to land the plane, with the help of a glue-sniffing air traffic controller (Lloyd Bridges) and Striker's vengeful former captain (Robert Stack), who must both talk him down. Along the way, we meet a clutch of stock disaster movie passengers like the guitar-strumming nun, a sick little girl, a frightened old lady, and two African-American travelers whose "jive" has to be subtitled. Leslie Nielsen portrays the plane's doctor, launching a new phase of the actor's career that carried him through the next two decades in several similarly comedic roles. The trio of directors Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker responsible for the film would eventually go on to solo careers, but not before making Top Secret! and Ruthless People. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, (more)
It's December of 1941, and the people of California are in varying states of unease, ranging from a sincere desire to defend the country to virtual blind panic in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thus begin several story threads that comprise the "plot" of this strange period comedy, a sort of satirical disaster movie, from Steven Spielberg. The stories and story threads involve lusty young men, officers (Tim Matheson) and civilians (Bobby Di Cicco) alike, eager to bed the young ladies of their dreams; Wild Bill Kelso, a nutty fighter pilot (John Belushi) following what he thinks is a squadron of Japanese fighters along the California coast; a well-meaning but clumsy tank crew (including John Candy) led by straight-arrow, by-the-book Sgt. Tree (Dan Aykroyd), who doesn't recognize the thug (Treat Williams) in his command; and homeowner Ward Douglas (Ned Beatty), who is eager to do his part for the nation's defense and, despite the misgivings of his wife (Lorraine Gary), doesn't mind his front yard overlooking the ocean being chosen to house a 40 mm anti-aircraft gun. There is also a pair of grotesquely inept airplane spotters (Murray Hamilton, Eddie Deezen) who are doing their job from atop a ferris wheel at a beachfront amusement park; a paranoid army colonel (Warren Oates) positive that the Japanese are infiltrating from the hills; a big dance being held on behalf of servicemen, being attended by a lusty young woman of size (Wendie Jo Sperber) eager to land a man in uniform; and General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell (Robert Stack), in charge of the defense of the West Coast, who can't seem to get anyone to listen to him when he says to keep calm. And, oh yes, there's also a real Japanese submarine that has gotten all the way to the California coast under the command of its captain (Toshiro Mifune) and a German officer observer (Christopher Lee), only to find itself without a working compass or usable maps. Its captain won't leave until the sub has attacked a militarily significant, honorable target, and the only one that anyone aboard ship knows of in California is Hollywood. By New Year's Eve, all of these characters are going to cross paths, directly or once-removed, in a comedy of errors and destruction strongly reminiscent of the finale to National Lampoon's Animal House (as well as several disaster movies from the same studio), but on a much larger and more impressive scale. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, (more)
- 1978
In this French drama, an aging dentist looks for a little liveliness by abandoning his wife in favor of a younger woman. When he learns that his mistress also has another younger lover, he gets jealous, but tries not to make an issue of it. In the end, he dumps her and returns to his wife, who is not about to stand for his middle-aged immaturity. She leaves him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Stack, Anicée Alvina, (more)
- 1976
In this made-for-TV film later adapted into a TV series, a special detective (Robert Stack) and his unit investigate a series of attacks involving the rape and murder of nuns. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1975
The Queen is a luxury cruise ship, "played" by the Queen Mary in this made-for-TV thriller. The villain has it in for one of the ship's millionaire passengers. Accordingly, he (or she-we're not telling) plans to destroy the vessel and everyone on board. The producer of this all-star disasterfest was-drum roll, please-Irwin Allen. TV movie "regulars" John Gay and David Lowell Rich served as scripter and director, respectively, for Adventures of the Queen, which first sailed into American homes on February 14, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
While bound for London from New York, the occupants of a 747 are terrorized by a mad bomber. The jet's pilot (Robert Stack) and several brave passengers must thwart the plot. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1974
This made-for-TV horror film stars Robert Stack and Vera Miles as a couple whose new home in the country turns out to be inhabited by evil spirits. Director John Llewellyn Moxey (Horror Hotel) manages to raise his share of small-screen chills in this low-key story co-starring L.Q. Jones and Herb Edelman. Fans of the haunted-house subgenre should note that the film was co-written by Sandor Stern, who would go on to script the similar Amityville Horror and direct its third sequel. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1971
Richard Kiley guest-stars in this episode of the TV weekly Name of the Game. Kiley plays a Ralph Nader-style consumer advocate, currently masterminding an expose of the fish-canning industry. When several attempts are made on Kiley's life, Crime magazine editor Dan Farrell (Robert Stack) investigates. The dilemma: the culprit may be one of Crime's biggest advertisers. Pernell Roberts, Diana Muldaur, Nancy Olson and Ed Flanders co-star in Beware of the Watchdog, which debuted on March 5, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
