Barry Sullivan Movies

Cult hero Samuel Fuller wrote and directed this visually inventive western, which didn't fare well with American audiences but earned a potent reputation with European cineastes. Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) is a despotic landowner who, with a posse of hired guns, has made herself the law of Cochise County, Arizona, with the weak-willed sheriff Ned Logan (Dean Jagger) knuckling under to her demands. One day, Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan), a one-time gunfighter turned United States Marshall, arrives with his brothers Wes (Gene Barry) and Chico (Robert Dix) to restore democratic law and order to Cochise County. Griff soon tangles with Drummond's brother Brockie (John Ericson), though Jessica is attracted to the new lawman, and Griff finds love with female gunsmith Louvenia Spangler (Eve Brent). Griff and Louvenia marry, but on their wedding day, Brockie murders Wes, and Griff, who takes pride in the fact that he has never fired his gun since becoming a marshal, must now break his vow of non-violence. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this adventure, a convict gets released and immediately begins looking for the $250,000 in loot a fellow inmate hid thirty years ago before coming to prison. While he looks, the ex-con is pursued by a strange family who wants a piece of the action. He is also accompanied by his new love, a waitress. The explorers are terribly disappointed when they learn that the gold is now covered by Lake Mead. The family is so angry that they try to kill the lovers. Fortunately, a sheriff intervenes before it's too late. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Julie is most enjoyable if one doesn't take it too seriously. Doris Day plays Julie Benton, whose off-the-coop musician husband Lyle Benton (Louis Jourdan) confesses that he in fact killed Julie's first husband. She immediately recognizes that he is so possessive of her that he would sooner rub her out than lose her altogether, and leaves Lyle, seeking protection under the wing of a country club acquaintance, Cliff Henderson (Barry Sullivan).
The San Francisco police deduce that Julie is in danger from Lyle, and begin to close in on the poor woman to protect her, but she inadvertently misses them. In the film's thrilling final sequence, Julie has returned to the stewardess job she once held - without realizing that Lyle has boarded the plane sans detection, planning to murder out most of the crew and take her out next. Silent film star Mae Marsh, a "regular" in the films of director Andrew L. Stone, appears in the closing scenes as an hysterical passenger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Inspired in part by the true story of baseball great Ted Williams, who after serving in World War II was drafted to serve in the Korean War just as his baseball career was taking off, Strategic Air Command stars James Stewart as "Dutch" Holland, a star third baseman with the St. Louis Cardinals. "Dutch" served with distinction as a fighter pilot during World War II, and as the Air Force adds new B-36 and B-47 jets to their arsenal, they need experienced men to fly these new weapons in our atomic deterrent force, and Holland is called back to duty. He's not terribly happy about this development: he loves baseball, his team is doing well, and his wife Sally (June Allyson) is expecting a baby. But you can't fight Uncle Sam, and Holland becomes a reluctant but proud member of the S.A.C., where he and his fellow pilots man the jets that will be our first line of defense should the cold war turn hot. While Strategic Air Command's story hasn't dated well (and for a military drama, there's surprisingly little action), James Stewart and June Allyson make the most of their material, and the aerial footage remains impressive. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this Miami-set crime drama, a secret society of residents united against the ever-encroaching Mafia, hire a reform mobster to help them stop the violence by exposing the Mafia to public scrutiny. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Shelley Winters was still in the sex-symbol phase of her career when she headed the cast of Universal's Playgirl. Ms. Winters plays Fran, a nightclub vocalist whose main squeeze is married publisher Mike Marsh (Barry Sullivan). When Mike makes a play for new employee Phyllis Matthews (Colleen Miller), the jealous Fran shoots him down. The ensuing scandal ruins Phyllis' reputation, whereupon she, and not Fran, becomes the libertine $100-dollar-a-night playgirl of the title. When Phyllis' life is endangered by gangsters, Fran unexpectedly comes to her rescue. Though dealing with a censorable subject, Playgirl manages to stay within the bounds of good taste, for better or worse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In late 1944, an American guerilla unit led by Capt. Matt Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) learns that a Japanese plane carrying Admiral Amara (Philip Ahn) has crashed in China, in warlord-held territory. Reardon and his men are placed under the command of Naval Intelligence officer Commander Bert Thompson (Barry Sullivan) and sent on a mission to ransom Amara -- who is not only the head of Japanese naval intelligence, but also one of the few ranking officers in the Japanese high command known to have questioned the wisdom of continuing the war -- treat his injuries, and bring him back into American hands. Apart from the instant dislike that Reardon takes to Thompson -- a staff officer with no jungle combat experience, who has spent most of the war working in diplomatic circles -- the mission is complicated by the large amount of emergency surgical gear, plus the doctor and his aides that Reardon has to get alive through the jungle, and this is made even worse by the fact that one of them is his surgical nurse, a woman (Jocelyn Brando). When Wu King (Leon Askin), the warlord with whom they're dealing, proves to be less than trustworthy, Reardon and Thompson have to come up with a way of getting past his larcenous nature and getting Amara out of China before the Japanese soldiers sent to rescue him arrive. In the end, the two officers discover that, though they may have gotten to this place by very different paths, they have the same goal -- and each is prepared to go as far as the other to see it through. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The answer is: A turgid melodrama. The question: What is Jeopardy? Barbara Stanwyck stars as a suburbanite on a Mexican vacation with her husband (Barry Sullivan) and son (Lee Aaker). The threesome runs afoul of escape convict Ralph Meeker. Stanwyck's dilemma: Attempting to rescue her husband from drowning, while staving off the carnal demands of Meeker, who holds Stanwyck and her son at gunpoint. Jeopardy is on and off in only 69 minutes, but 64 of those minutes seem far longer. Trivia note: When dramatized on Lux Radio Theater, Jeopardy costarred child actor Harry Shearer, later a comic regular on Saturday Night Live. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kirk Douglas plays the corrupt and amoral head of a major film studio in this Hollywood drama, often regarded as one of the film's industry's most interesting glimpses at itself. Actress Gloria Lorrison (Lana Turner), director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), and screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) are invited to a meeting at a Hollywood sound stage at the request of producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon). Pebbel is working with studio chief Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas), whose studio is in financial trouble and needs a blockbuster hit. If these three names will sign to a new project, he's convinced that there's no way he can lose. But there's a rub -- all three of these Hollywood heavyweights hate Shields's guts. He dumped Gloria for another woman, he double-crossed Fred out of a plum directing assignment, and he was responsible for the death of James Lee's wife. All three are ready to tell Pebbel to forget it, until they hear the voice of Shields, calling from Europe to discuss the project by phone. The Bad and the Beautiful won five Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Gloria Grahame. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Highly respected defense attorney Dwight Bradley Mason (Walter Pidgeon) is able to clear young Rudi Wallchek (Keefe Brasselle) of a murder rap. When it's all over, however, Rudi lets slip a careless comment which leads Mason to believe that his client was guilty after all. Using the evidence at hand, the attorney retraces his steps, only to discover that one of the town's leading citizens is a criminal mastermind. The solution to this ethical dilemma is straight out of the "postman always rings twice" school of crime fiction. Even after justice has been served, however, Mason's conscience dictates that everyone responsible for all previous legal miscarriages be punished -- including himself! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real Matt Cvetic was a borderline alcoholic with a nasty disposition (he once allegedly beat his sister-in-law so badly she required hospitalization). But Cvetic was also a fervent anti-communist, and so, for a brief period in the early 1950s, he was a folk hero. I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. is the semi-true story of how Cvetic (played by Frank Lovejoy) renounced his friends and family and embraced the Red cause--on behalf of the F.B.I., for whom he was a volunteer undercover agent. The film recounts how Cvetic used his job as a Pittsburgh steelworker to contact various American Communist cell leaders, and how he exposed their insidious plans to overthrow the American government. Since the script infers that among the Reds' "subversive" plans was the Civil Rights Movement, I Was a Communist for the FBI is an embarrassing experience when seen today. Cvetic's memoirs were better dramatized by a 1951 radio series of the same title, starring Dana Andrews. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just before filming All About Eve, Bette Davis starred in the marital melodrama Payment on Demand. Davis plays the wife of Barry Sullivan, who one fine morning demands a divorce. Most of the film is in flashback, recounting the events leading up to the marital schism. After Sullivan takes up with Frances Dee, Davis heads for a Haitian vacation, hoping to spark a few affairs of her own. But after a chance meeting with an old friend (Jane Cowl) who's become hard and cynical since her own divorce, Davis heads back to the States and attempts to patch up her marriage. Director Curtis Bernhardt was particularly proud of the opening scene in Payment on Demand, wherein Barry Sullivan requests a divorce as calmly as if he was ordering breakfast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pretty stewardess Marcy Lewis (Jane Wyman) must choose between Three Guys Named Mike in this frothy MGM concoction. There's Mike Lawrence (Van Johnson), a science student who moonlights as a bartender. There's Mike Tracy (Barry Sullivan), a wheeler-dealer ad executive. And finally, there's Mike Jamison (Howard Keel), a handsome airline pilot. Marcy's love life is counterpointed with her ever-increasing expertise on her job; the more self-assured she becomes, the more she changes her views about men. It wouldn't be cricket to reveal which "Mike" Marcy finally chooses, though the order of billing is something of a giveaway. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide