Russ Tamblyn Movies

In this fast-paced actioner, a brave young woman must deliver a specially designed, top-secret super-destructo armored motorcycle that runs on oxygen to the US military after the man assigned to deliver it, her lover, is murdered by enemy agents. Soon after finding his body, the woman finds a video he made that tells her how to work the machine and where she must take it. Unfortunately for her, the enemy is out there waiting and determined to steal the bike for themselves. Part of the fun in this film is looking for popular B movie stars from years' past. Such stars include Huntz Hall, Troy Donahue, and Michael Reagan. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Phantom Empire pokes fun and pays a sly tribute to the sci-fi serials that made Saturday afternoon at the movies such a treat. Featuring plenty of in-jokes, the story centers on the hunt for a lost stash of diamonds that leads the hero into a fabulous subterranean world ruled by a mysterious beauty and scads of scary mutants. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Rock legend Neil Young directed this bizarre bit of sci-fi-accented satire under his nom de cinema Bernard Shakey, as well as starring as Lionel Switch, an amiable but half-bright auto mechanic who has a furious crush on Charlotte Goodnight (Charlotte Stewart), a waitress at the diner next door to his garage. Lionel dreams of becoming a professional musician, and idolizes Frankie Fontaine (also played by Young), a particularly sleazy lounge singer. One day, to Lionel's astonishment, Fontaine rolls up to his garage in a limousine, and Lionel has the spine-tingling honor of working on his car. Meanwhile, suspicious-looking bad guy Otto Quartz (Dean Stockwell) is scheming to buy the diner, which has something to do with a plot against the rattletrap nuclear power plant just down the road (the plant's maintenance staff is played by members of the pioneering new wave band Devo). Along the way, we're also treated to Lionel hanging out with his equally slow-witted pal Fred (Russ Tamblyn), enjoy the residents of the desert community performing an enthusiastic rendition of the old Kingston Trio chestnut "Worried Man," and witness Lionel and Devo jamming on a long and wildly discordant version of "Hey Hey My My (Into the Black)." Financed by Young out of his pocket, and featuring Stockwell, Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, and Sally Kirkland several years before they enjoyed critical rediscovery, Human Highway received a mostly puzzled reaction from audiences during its handful of theatrical engagements. It went largely unseen until it was released on home video more than ten years after it was completed (with the box featuring a quote from one of Young's associates: "This is so bad, it's going to be huge!"). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Three rollicking bumblers get into all sorts of slapstick trouble as they attempt their get-rich schemes at the race track in this comedy. The film is alternately titled The Big Payoff. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

With a barrage of cinematic distancing devices at hand (flashbacks and flash-forwards, super-imposed titles, missing frames, projectionist cue-marks placed in the wrong locations in a film reel), Dennis Hopper concocts a hallucinatory acid-trip concerning an American movie company making a western in Peru. In a remote mountain village in Peru, a Hollywood film company wraps up shooting a western and returns to California. Staying behind is a young stunt man, Kansas (Dennis Hopper). In the village, he takes up with the resident whore, Maria (Stella Garcia). At this point, the film flash-forwards to Kansas being crucified by the villagers. Back in the old time frame, the Peruvians decide that they want to make their own movie. Not having the necessary film equipment, but plenty of local raw material, the villagers construct the needed cameras, microphones, and sound recorders out of bamboo, and although the equipment is faked, the villagers substitute real, bloody violence for the make-believe violence of Hollywood. During this eruption of violence in the Peruvian village, the local priest (Tomas Milian) blames Kansas for the carnage. The priest decides that movies are the root of all worldly evil and convinces the villagers to seize Kansas. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The Mojave desert becomes a battleground when vicious bikers go on a killing spree, causing innocent would-be victims to get bloody revenge. Classic exploitation film violence and action ensues. This low-budget film marks the comeback of formerly popular child actor Russ Tamblyn who goes against type and plays the leader of the motorcycle pack. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western set during 1877 along the Mexican-American border, outlaws attack a stagecoach and find themselves defeated by an ace gunman with a hatred for evil-doers. The gunman decides to take off after the group leader, but the good guy shootist is hit while defending a beleaguered rancher from Mexican banditos. Later the rancher's daughter and the gunman fall in love. The gunslinger and a bounty hunter take off after the outlaw. Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, the outlaw refuses to fight without the gunman because he cannot bear to kill his own son. This does not stop the gunman's partner from taking a shot; the outlaw is wounded, causing his son to rally to his aid, and the gunslinger rides back to keep the banditos from stealing the ranch. They are finally stopped but not before the bandito leader and the outlaw fatally shoot each other. Afterwards, the gunman gives up shooting and begins leading a pacifistic life with his new bride. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this elaborately mounted seafaring adventure, Rolfe (Richard Widmark) is a Viking leader with the cunning and devious mind of a pirate. Rolfe tells others sailors of "The Mother of Voices," a mammoth bell made of gold and as tall as three men, but he adds enough incorrect details to throw them off the proper trail. However, Aly Mansuh (Sidney Poitier), the leader of a group of ambitious Moors, sees through Rolfe's story, and soon the two are in a breakneck race to be the first to capture the precious bell. The Long Ships also features Russ Tamblyn and Oscar Homolka. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Filmed in panoramic Cinerama, this star-studded, epic Western adventure is a true cinematic classic. Three legendary directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall) combine their skills to tell the story of three families and their travels from the Erie Canal to California between 1839 and 1889. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, which cost an estimated 15 million dollars to complete. In the first segment, "The Rivers," pioneer Zebulon Prescott (Karl Malden) sets out to settle in the West with his wife (Agnes Moorehead) and their four children. Along with other settlers and river pirates, they run into mountain man Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), who sells animal hides. The Prescotts try to raft down the Ohio River in a raft, but only daughters Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) and Eve (Carroll Baker) survive. Eve and Linus get married, while Lilith continues on. In the second segment, "The Plains," Lilith ends up singing in a saloon in St. Louis, but she really wants to head west in a wagon train led by Roger Morgan (Robert Preston). Along the way, she's accompanied by the roguish gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), who claims he can protect her. After he saves her life during an Indian attack, they get married and move to San Francisco. In the third segment, "The Civil War," Eve and Linus' son, Zeb (George Peppard), fights for the Union. After he's forced to kill his Confederate friend, he returns home and gives the family farm to his brother. In the fourth segment, "The Railroads," Zeb fights with his railroad boss (Richard Widmark), who wants to cut straight through Indian territory. Zeb's co-worker Jethro (Henry Fonda) refuses to cut through the land, so he quits and moves to the mountains. After the railway camp is destroyed, Zeb heads for the mountains to visit him. In the fifth segment, "The Outlaws," Lilith is an old widow traveling from California to Arizona to stay with her nephew Zeb on his ranch. However, he has to fight a gang of desperadoes first. How the West Was Won garnered three Oscars, for screenplay, film editing, and sound production. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Romeo and Juliet is updated to the tenements of New York City in this Oscar-winning musical landmark. Adapted by Ernest Lehman from the Broadway production, the movie opens with an overhead shot of Manhattan, an effect that director Robert Wise would repeat over the Alps in The Sound of Music four years later. We are introduced to two rival street gangs: the Jets, second-generation American teens, and the Sharks, Puerto Rican immigrants. When the war between the Jets and Sharks reaches a fever pitch, Jets leader Riff (Russ Tamblyn) decides to challenge the Sharks to one last "winner take all" rumble. He decides to meet Sharks leader Bernardo (George Chakiris) for a war council at a gymnasium dance; to bolster his argument, Riff wants his old pal Tony (Richard Beymer), the cofounder of the Jets, to come along. But Tony has set his sights on vistas beyond the neighborhood and has fallen in love with Bernardo's sister, Maria (Natalie Wood), a love that, as in Romeo and Juliet, will eventually end in tragedy. In contrast to the usual slash-and-burn policy of Hollywood musical adaptations, all the songs written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim for the original Broadway production of West Side Story were retained for the film version, although some alterations were made to appease the Hollywood censors, and the original order of two songs was reversed for stronger dramatic impact. The movie more than retains the original choreography of Jerome Robbins, which is recreated in some of the most startling and balletic dance sequences ever recorded on film. West Side Story won an almost-record ten Oscars, including Best Picture, supporting awards to Chakiris and Rita Moreno as Bernardo's girlfriend, Anita, and Best Director to Robbins and Wise. Richard Beymer's singing was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant, Natalie Wood's by Marni Nixon (who also dubbed Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady), and Rita Moreno's by Betty Wand. The film's New York tenement locations were later razed to make room for Lincoln Center. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Producer Albert Zugsmith serves up another all-star exposé with High School Confidential. Delivering a superb performance under the circumstances, Russ Tamblyn heads the cast as "typical" high schooler Tony Baker. Usually seen in the company of his voluptuous "aunt" Gwen Dulaine (the truly impressive Mamie Van Doren), Tony convinces one and all that he's looking for kicks of the controlled-substance kind. In truth, however, our hero is really an undercover narcotics agent named Mike Wilson, bound and determined to smash the operation of drug lord Mr. A. (Jackie Coogan). The once-in-a-lifetime cast includes such worthies as John Drew Barrymore (Drew Barrymore's daddy), Ray Anthony (then married to Mamie Van Doren), Charles Chaplin Jr., Michael Landon, and Jerry Lee Lewis as "himself." This updated Reefer Madness is not to be missed! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Grace Metalious' once-notorious bestseller Peyton Place is given a lavish -- and necessarily toned-down -- film treatment in this deluxe 20th Century-Fox production. Set during WWII, the film concentrates on several denizens of the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place. Top-billed Lana Turner plays shopkeeper Constance McKenzie, who tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison (Diane Varsi) -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi (Lee Philips). Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson (Terry Moore), falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn). And while all this is going on, "white trash" Selena Cross (Hope Lange) is raped by her stepfather, drunken school caretaker Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy). Other characters essential to the action are wealthy Rodney Harrington (Barry Coe), who must pay the price for his dalliance with Betty Anderson; Nellie Cross (Betty Field), Selena's long-suffering mother; and the town's Voice of Reason, Dr. Swain (Lloyd Nolan). This 166-minute soap opera (whittled down to 157 minutes before release) culminates in a spectacular murder trial which lays bare the deep, dark secrets of Peyton Place. Filmed on location in Camden, Maine, Peyton Place was a huge moneymaker (even those who felt that the film was but a heavily laundered shadow of the Metalious original were pleased with the professionalism of it all); it not only spawned a 1961 theatrical sequel, but also a long-running prime time TV serial. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in the West of the late 19th century, Richard Brooks' film stars Robert Taylor as Charles Gilson, a brutal buffalo hunter who kills purely for sport and enjoyment. Stewart Granger portrays Sandy McKenzie, a former hunter on whom Gilson is seeking revenge. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide