Marshall Thompson Movies
A proud descendant of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, Marshall Thompson moved from his home town of Peoria, Illinois to the West Coast when his dentist father's health began to flag. Intending to follow his father's example by taking pre-med at Occidental Junior college, Thompson was sidetracked by a love of performing, inherited from his concert-singer mother. His already impressive physique pumped by several summers as a rodeo-rider and cowpuncher, Thompson was offered a $350-per-week contract by Universal studios in 1943. He accepted, expecting to use the money to pay for his college tuition. As it happened, Thompson never returned to the halls of academia; from 1944 onward he worked steadily as a film actor at Universal, 20th Century-Fox, MGM and other studios, sometimes as a lead, more often in supporting roles. For a while, he was typed as a mental case after convincingly portraying a psycho killer in MGM's Dial 119 (1950). He also acted in something like 250 TV programs, and for eight weeks in 1953 co-starred with Janet Blair in the Broadway play A Girl Can Tell. The boyish enthusiasm of his early screen roles a thing of the past, Thompson provided maturity and authority to his two-dimensional roles in such Saturday-matinee melodramas as Cult of the Cobra (1955), It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958), Fiend Without a Face (1958), and First Man Into Space (1959), assignments that indirectly led to his first TV-series starring stint as the miniaturized hero of World of Giants (1959). In 1960, Thompson briefly went the "dumb sitcom husband" route in the weekly Angel. In 1961, the staunchly patriotic Thompson starred in and directed the low-budget feature A Yank in Vietnam, which he would later insist, with some justification, was the first up-close-and-personal study of that unfortunate Asian conflict (alas, good intentions do not always make good films; abysmally bad, Yank in Vietnam lay on the shelf until 1965). During the early 1960s, Thompson worked in close association with producer Ivan Tors as an actor and director of animal-oriented short subjects. The actor's fascination with African wildlife was later manifested in his two-year starring stint on Tors' TV series Daktari (1966-68), an outgrowth of the feature film Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion, in which Thompson both starred and collaborated on the script. After playing character parts in such films as The Turning Point (1977) and The Formula (1980), Thompson spent the bulk of the 1980s in Africa, where he assembled the internationally syndicated documentary series Orphans of the Wild. While on a visit to Michigan in 1992, Marshall Thompson died of congestive heart failure. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1989
Jessica (Angela Lansbury) accuses the wife of a Palm Springs real estate developer of murdering her philandering husband. Shortly thereafter, the accused woman commits suicide, and her sister bitterly accuses Jessica of driving the woman to her death. Teaming up with police detective Hanna (Elliott Gould), Jessica tries to find out if she indeed condemned an innocent person--and in the process, the two sleuths search high and low for the $3 million allegedly embezzled by the murder victim. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Inspired by guess what television series, this made-for-TV movie traces the follies and fortunes of the Ewings and the Barneses all the way back to the 1930s. The familiar Dallas characters are played by unfamiliar (albeit very able) younger players: Miss Ellie, for example, isn't Barbara Bel Geddes (nor even Donna Reed) but the unknown Molly Hagan, while Jock Ewing is the slightly more recognizable Dale Midkiff. Larry Hagman, aka J.R. Ewing, appears long enough to introduce the film. As for J.R. himself, he shows up as an ominously nasty teenager, played by Kevin Wixted. Playing to fabulous ratings, Dallas: The Early Years debuted March 23, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A cheesy rubber-suit monster flick from Wisconsin -- where they should know a thing or two about cheese. When a lazy local begins fishing with dynamite in scenic Bog Lake, something a bit larger pops to the surface: a green, bug-eyed mutant "were-fish," awakened from decades-long sleep, which promptly begins making hot meals of any unfortunate hard-drinking fishermen who stumble across its lair. When biologist Ginny Glenn (Gloria DeHaven) discovers the creature's evolutionary nature, the local sheriff (Aldo Ray, who looks really tired of playing a sheriff) decides to employ everything from pesticides to plastic explosives to slay the tenacious beast. It is hard to tell whether the filmmakers conceived this out of genuine nostalgia for 1950s rubber-monster films like Horror of Party Beach or Attack of the Giant Leeches, or genuinely thought their monster was scary. The still-attractive DeHaven appears also in heavy old-age makeup as the local hermit -- probably the producers' attempt to keep the film's only legitimate actor on screen as much as possible. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gloria de Haven, Aldo Ray, (more)
A little-seen film, suppressed by Paramount studio executives and never released theatrically in the U.S., this drama is a powerful saga about racism. Julie Sawyer (Kristy McNichol) hits a handsome white dog with her car one night and then nurses it back to health. One day, the theretofore mild-mannered dog saves her life by viciously attacking and killing a rapist who breaks into her home. Lucy discovers that the dog has been trained to attack black skin. She consults an animal trainer, Carruthers (Burl Ives), who urges her to have the dog exterminated. But a maverick black trainer, Keys (Paul Winfield), who has tried before to break the training of such dogs but never succeeded, steps in. Director Sam Fuller had made other controversial films, but this one frightened studio executives, who deep-sixed it. It was hailed by critics when it was released in Europe. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kristy McNichol, Paul Winfield, (more)
- 1980
- R
With George C. Scott and Marlon Brando heading the cast, The Formula should have been far better than it is. Adapted by Steve Shagan from his own best-selling novel, the film is predicated on the concept that a formula for synthetic fuel had been developed by the Nazis during WW II. In the intervening 35 years since the war's end, the formula has disappeared and several people connected with it have died under mysterious circumstances. Also during this period, oil magnate Adam Steiffel (Marlon Brando) had commiserated with one of the decedents. Police officer Barney Caine (George C. Scott), a friend of the dead man, hopes to solve the mystery, and in so doing gets mixed up in a wide-ranging conspiracy to manipulate worldwide fuel prices. Reportedly, The Formula underwent a great deal of editing-room surgery before its release. If so, the editors certainly erred in retaining so many of the film's interminable "steadicam" sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Marthe Keller, (more)
- 1979
An evangelist suspected of financial impropriety is found dead in a motel room, apparently from an overdose of drugs and alcohol. Was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? Quincy (Jack Klugman) is pressured by the authorities to solve the mystery--a task which may or may not be expedited by Dr. Paul Chase (Stephen Elliott), who insists upon performing a "psychological autopsy" on the victim. This episode was originally scheduled to air on October 25, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
Veteran police officer Tommy Bates (Neville Brand) catches Billy Harris (Richard Stanley), a young car thief whose wild behavior indicates that he is high on "angel dust." During the arrest, Harris dies, and his accomplice Steve (Michael Horton) accuses Bates of choking the boy to death. Lt. Monahan (Garry Walberg), an old friend of Bates, pressures Quincy (Jack Klugman) to speed up the autopsy on Harris to learn the truth--while a cop-hating civil rights attorney named Charlie Trusdale (William Daniels) is likewise breathing down Quincy' neck. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1978
This delightfully bad made-for-TV movie throws together an assortment of television stalwarts and movie has-beens for what is essentially a horror version of The Love Boat. The plot involves a vacation cruise in the Gulf of Mexico, during which some of the passengers find an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus in an underwater cavern. Instead of "wasting time" explaining what Egyptian ruins are doing so far from Northern Africa, the writers decide to make things easy by making the coffin's occupant none other than the Devil himself. This stirs things up a bit for the hapless vacationers -- particularly for the fire-and-brimstone preacher (John Forsythe) who happens to be aboard. Cheap, campy, and topped off with a ridiculous ending, the film, at least, is not as boring as most TV movies of the sort. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
The longest (26-1/2 hours), most expensive ($25 million) and most complicated (four directors, five producers, five cinematographers, almost 100 speaking parts, several hundred extras) project made for television up to that time, Centennial was shown in two- and three-hour installments over a period of four months. An adaptation of James Michener's best-selling novel, it told the story of the settling of the American West by looking at the founding of the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, from the settling of the area in the late 18th century to the present. Emmy-nominated for film editing and art direction, it boasts of sterling performances from Richard Chamberlain as frontiersman Alexander McKeag, Robert Conrad as the French-Canadian trapper Pasquinel, and a surprisingly powerful performance from former football star Alex Karras as compassionate but iron-willed immigrant farmer Hans Brumbaugh. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
One of a cycle of '70s post-Women's Liberation "women's pictures," Herbert Ross's drama uses the ballet world to examine the conflict between family and career. Former dance colleagues Deedee (Shirley MacLaine) and Emma (Anne Bancroft) are reunited when Emma's New York ballet company stops in Oklahoma City for a performance. Having dropped her career for marriage and motherhood, Deedee envies prima ballerina Emma's limelight life; aging Emma, realizing that her days as a star are numbered, wishes that she had the fulfillment of a family like Deedee's. Tensions simmer when Deedee's talented teenage daughter, Emilia (Leslie Browne), moves to New York to join Emma's company. As Emma maternally bonds with Emilia, and Emilia falls in love with womanizing dancer Yuri (Mikhail Baryshnikov), Deedee feels that she's losing her place even as a mother. After Emilia's triumphant debut, Deedee's and Emma's resentments boil over into an all-out catfight that ends when they realize they can unite in happiness for Emilia's future. Splitting the desires to nest and to work between two characters, Ross and writer Arthur Laurents reveal the difficulty faced by women in a world of expanding options. As in Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressburger's seminal ballet film The Red Shoes (1948), dancing and a personal life don't mix, even as the films display ballet's seductive power here in the gracefully integrated numbers by dance stars Browne and Baryshnikov. Despite reservations about its melodramatic aspects, The Turning Point earned box-office success and eleven Oscar nominations (but no wins). Even if its wife/work struggle seems a bit old-fashioned, Deedee's and Emma's final bond suggests that the next generation may not have the same regrets. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1974
It is hardly a fond reunion when Ironside (Raymond Burr) is summoned to his home town by a letter from his former high school classmate Alice Schmidt (Fay Spain). Upon his arrival, the Chief learns that Alice never wrote the letter--and that her husband John has been murdered. When another member of the Class of 1940, Dick Gillis (William Bryant), likewise turns up dead, Ironside follows a trail of clues leading to an accidental killing that occurred 34 years earlier...thereby setting himself up as the murderer's next victim! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
In this comedy, the quiet life of an airplane pilot living in Switzerland is terribly disrupted when his sister gets married for the fourth time and bequeaths him her 250-pound St. Bernard. The bachelor and the big slobbery dog do not immediately become friends. Later they bond when the St. Bernard saves the bachelor's life during an avalanche. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Stone (Karl Malden)and Keller (Michael Douglas) spring into action when a priest is killed in his Confessional. It turns out that the victim had attended the same seminary as three other priests who were murdered in similar fashion. To root out the killer, Stone goes undercover, donning the collar and robe of a Roman Catholic prelate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
Under protest, Danny (Danny Bonaduce) agrees to undergo a tonsillectomy. His worst fears about the operation (conveyed via surrealistic dream sequences) seem to be confirmed when, upon emerging from the ether, Danny has apparently lost his singing voice! Actually, his problems are purely psychosomatic, but his family must resort to trickery to prove this. Former Daktari star Marshall Thompson is amusing cast as Danny's doctor, while Gary Dubin makes his first appearance as the boy's goofy best pal Punky Lazaar. Song: "Love is All That I Ever Needed". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1971
George Montgomery, several years before chucking acting in favor of woodworking, directs and stars in Ride the Tiger. Montgomery plays a Miami nightclub owner whose partner is murdered. The cops could care less (so it seems), so the owner goes after the murderer himself. The film takes its sweet time, allowing the viewer to luxuriate in its calculated seediness. And wait until you see who the killer is! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1965
The Viet Cong have captured an American doctor to treat their wounded soldiers, but the doctor's U.S. Marine brother, with the help of a few others, plans a rescue mission. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1965
Dr. Marsh Tracy (Marshall Thompson) is an animal behavioral research director who travels to East Africa with his daughter Paula (Cheryl Miller) in this engaging wildlife saga. While Tracy develops a relationship with anthropologist Julie Harper (Betsy Drake), Paula befriends the visually challenged lion named Clarence. Because his eyes are crossed, Clarence has never been able to rely on hunting for survival, so the family adopts the lovable lion. Richard Haydn plays the schoolmaster with comic flair as he runs scared from the harmless king of the jungle. The evil Gregory (Maurice Marsac) is the leader of a group of mercenaries who plan to capture Julie's beloved gorillas and sell them for profit. Clarence later traps Gregory in a slapstick scene to save the animals from danger. The film served as a pilot for the television series Daktari. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marshall Thompson, Betsy Drake, (more)
- 1965
Ivan Tors Productions, the firm responsible for such aquatic TV delights as Sea Hunt and Flipper, was the prime mover behind MGM's Around the World Under the Sea. The official stars include Lloyd Bridges, Shirley Eaton, Brian Kelly, David McCallum, Keenan Wynn, Marshall Thompson, and Gary Merrill. The real stars are underwater photographer Lamar Bowen, diving-sequence director Ricou Browning, and the folks in Tors' special effects department. The plot concerns a series of underwater volcanic eruptions. Sub commander Bridges (who else?) heads into the depths to find out the cause of the disturbances. Before the THE END sign presents itself, Bridges and his crew are nearly devoured by a sea monster and sucked into a vortex. Though the film's technology-both on-screen and behind the camera--is dated, Around the World Under the Sea is still credible, not to mention thoroughly enjoyable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lloyd Bridges, Shirley Eaton, (more)
- 1964
This jungle adventure provides a wonderfully corny look into the mysteries of the Amazon and the African Congo as it chronicles the journeys of two intrepid explorers. There each of them must face assorted dangers including enormous iguanas, diminutive pygmies, voracious crocodiles, and man-eating natives who like to prepare their ritual meals atop an alter made of human skulls. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1964
In this Vietnam war drama, a Marine survives a helicopter crash and lands in enemy territory. Fortunately, rebels help guide him through the dense jungles to safety. Along the way, he saves a POW, and ends up falling in love with the man's daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This is a routine docudrama on the life of George R. Tweed, a World War II hero played by Jeffrey Hunter. Tweed was trapped on Guam from the day when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and began their Pacific campaign. Tweed manages to survive detection throughout the long war years, and when the time comes for the Allies to invade the island, he is instrumental in signaling information to them from his hidden base on a hilltop. Although the events depicted are based on facts, those facts and the character of Tweed himself are sacrificed at times to the demand for dramatic effects. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Hunter, Marshall Thompson, (more)
- 1961
The Woolner Brothers, ever on the cutting edge of cinema with rank imitations of popular hits, strike again with Flight of the Lost Balloon. In response to the upcoming release of Mysterious Island in 1961, the Woolners put together this cheapjack tale which, like Island, is partially set in a flying balloon. Doctor Faraday (Marshall Thompson) is an American adventurer living in Africa, who is sent to locate a scientist, missing since his plane went down in the wilderness. Since the area is inaccessible by motor flight, Faraday mans his balloon and takes off. Unfortunately, the film never does. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mala Powers, Marshall Thompson, (more)
- 1960
Ben Sutton (Richard Shannon) is having a high old time spending the royalties from his best-selling book, dealing with his experiences a Korean POW. In fact, Ben has apparently depleted his savings, else why would he be borrowing so much from the brother of his long-suffering wife Sylvia (Bethel Leslie)? As it happens, Sutton is being blackmailed by someone who knows that he is a fraud, and that the actual author of his book is recuperating in an Army hospital. Sylvia also knows that Ben is a phony--and as such, she is arrested when her husband is murdered. Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) must find out who else besides Sylvia knew Sutton's secret and was willing to kill him because of it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1959
Originally released as La Granda Caccia, East of Kilimanjaro was filmed on location in Africa. Marshall Thompson plays American photojournalist Marsh Conners, assigned to cover a cattle epidemic. Falling in love with research scientist Dr. Marie Avedon (Gaby Andre), Conners attempts to help her convince the Masai tribesmen to have their cattle inoculated, and to locate the source of the disease. While the plot proper ends happily, the romantic subplot is less satisfying. East of Kilimanjaro was also distributed as The Big Search. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1959
Filmed not long after the launch of Russia's Sputnik satellite, First Man Into Space benefited from a surface realism made possible by enhanced public knowledge of space-travel jargon and paraphernalia. Dashing astronaut Lt. Dan Prescott (Bill Edwards) disappears from view when his experimental spacecraft vanishes in a mysterious cloud. The space capsule returns to Earth, covered in a bizarre extraterrestrial coating. Shortly thereafter, a hulking, half-human creature raids a blood bank, killing the nurse on duty and gulping down the supplies. More bizarre, unexplained events occur before Prescott's older brother Cmdr. C.E. Prescott (Marshall Thompson) concludes that the monster is actually his missing brother, transformed by his experiences in space into a mutant, vampiric beast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, (more)
