Les Tremayne Movies

In this western, originally designed as the pilot of a television show that never made it to air, a self-designated preacher desires to control the Big Sag territory of Montana. To do this, he must first force two newly arrived Texans off of their land. Meanwhile, the preacher's wife knows that he is too yellow-bellied to actually do the dirty deed. She sends their lovely daughter to town with a note for the owner of the local saloon. During the journey, the girl is caught in a big storm. She weathers it out with the Texan's son. Naturally the two fall in love, but this does not stop the girl from continuing on to deliver the note to the lecherous proprietor who immediately begins making a play for the innocent young girl. His lasciviousness pushes his alcoholic wife over the brink and in a jealous rage she fatally shoots him. It is then revealed that the greedy saloonkeeper has hired a gunslinger. The gunslinger ends up killed by the preacher, who then officiates the wedding ceremony for his daughter and his rival's son. Afterward he solemnly swears to never again use a gun. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Hoping to secure more assistance from the state police commission, Andy and Barney head to the bustling metropolis of Raleigh, North Carolina. The problem is that Mayberry has practically no crime, and thus no extra help is needed. The powers-that-be change their minds when our heroes inadvertently tangle with a jewel thief. The stellar supporting cast includes Les Tremayne as C.J. Hasler, Allan Melvin as Detective Bardoli, Peter Leeds as Sgt. Nelson, and Arte Johnson as the hotel clerk. Written by Harvey Bullock, "Andy and Barney in the Big City" originally aired on March 26, 1962. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lee Philips stars as con artist Ben Conant (alias Freddie Sheldon), whose latest pigeon is wealthy Mrs. Lisa Talbot (Gia Scala). Together, Ben and Lisa plot the murder of her husband, Peter (Les Tremayne), only to find that a private detective seems to be wise to their scheme. Not only that: the PI has been hired by an "interested party" determined to see that Ben and Ben alone feels the full weight of the law. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alfred Hitchcock Presents moved from its familiar Sunday-night slot on CBS to a new Tuesday-night berth for rival network NBC to launch its sixth season with this amusingly ironic tale from the pen of frequent series contributor Roald Dahl. Audrey Meadows adroitly suppresses her familiar "Alice Kramden" characterization in the role of Mrs. Bixby, the pampered -- and faithless -- wife of a prosperous doctor (Les Tremayne). When Mrs. Bixby's latest paramour, a colonel (Stephen Chase), decides to break off their relationship, he gives her a costly mink coat as a parting gift. Not wanting to have her husband find out how she really got the coat, Mrs. Bixby works out an elaborate subterfuge involving a "found" pawn ticket. But it turns out that Dr. Bixby is not entirely above a bit of subterfuge himself! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "mutual admiration society" consisting of actor James Cagney and actor/director Robert Montgomery culminated in the 1960 film The Gallant Hours. Cagney stars as war hero Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey. On the verge of retirement, Halsey recalls his most fateful wartime experience: his five-week showdown between himself and Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (James T. Goto) in 1942. In command of the American naval forces in the Pacific, Halsey scores a crucial, tide-turning victory at Guadalcanal. In concentrating on the participants rather than the battle itself, The Gallant Hours is a character study of a remarkable American. The a cappella "score" performed by Ken Darby and the King's Men Quartet is a matter of taste. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The United States space program reports that its missing, overdue manned Mars probe has returned to Earth orbit, but that they haven't been able to make radio contact with it. When it is brought down by remote control, they find three of the four crewmembers aboard: one of them, Professor Gettell (Les Tremayne), is dead; another, mission commander Colonel Tom O'Bannion (Gerald Mohr), is in a coma and suffering from some kind of alien infection; and the third, exo-biologist Iris Ryan (Nora Hayden), is in a state of shock. The ship's tape library seems to have been wiped clean of any record of what took place on the mission, and the doctors can't begin to save O'Bannion until they know what happened. In desperation, they decide to put Iris Ryan into a state of hypnosis, forcing her to recall the events of the mission. The bulk of the film is an un-narrated flashback in which we see the voyage to Mars and the quartet of explorers -- rounded out by technician Sam Jacobs (Jack Kruschen) -- proceeding successfully to a landing. As they draw closer to signs of intelligent life, however, the group also encounters increasingly dangerous creatures, including a man-eating plant, a giant bat-rat-spider, and a huge amoeba-like creature that consumes anything in its path. Sam is killed in an encounter with one of these menaces and O'Bannion is infected with an alien microbe, even as the ship is held fast by a powerful magnetic force. Gettell figures out a way to launch, at the cost of his own life, and Iris is left alone with the stricken O'Bannion on the journey back to Earth. The film concludes as the scientists find the one piece of information left on the ship's tapes, a warning from the Martians that the primitive, war-like people from Earth may not visit the planet again, except at risk to their lives. One of a relative handful of 1950s sci-fi films done in color, The Angry Red Planet did its rivals one better with the use of a special effects process called "Cinemagic," which gave the entire screen a deep red tint but also created the illusion of dimensionality (i.e. 3-D, sort of), and made the monsters look particularly eerie. The mixture of better-than-usual special effects, coupled with more than competent acting (Mohr, Tremayne, and Kruschen were veterans of mainstream films and television) helps make this one of the more entertaining space-flight stories of its period, though not quite in a league with It! The Terror From Beyond Space for sheer suspense. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this frothy romantic comedy, a hard-working female Army shrink (Janet Leigh) devises the "perfect furlough" for battle weary men and convinces the brass to let her try it on selected men stationed at her base. According to her plan, selected men would be given three weeks, tailor made to fit their deepest desires. Her first test-case is a handsome ladies' man (Tony Curtis) who chooses to go to Paris with his favorite movie star. Naturally the psychologist chaperones. Romantic mayhem ensues and eventually the furloughed soldier and the shrink fall in love. The story is also titled Strictly for Pleasure. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In some ways, the coming-attractions trailer for The Monolith Monsters is more exciting than the picture itself. The plot gets under way when a meteor crashes in the desert, leaving behind huge black chunks. While being analyzed in a science lab, the crystaline stones are accidentally drenched with water, whereupon they begin to grow to gargantuan dimensions. In a twinkling, these monster monoliths are running amok, "petrifying" whomever and whatever gets in their way. A sudden rainstorm further exacerbates the situation, causing the monoliths to grow to hitherto unimagined heights. Can the world be saved by the saline solution which the scientists are hurriedly developed in the lab? The notion of killer rocks was certainly a novelty: it would have been nice if Monolith Monsters had consistently lived up to the promise of its premise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This very lightweight comedy focuses on young orphan Willie Taylor (Tim Hovey). Upset with the prevarications of the adult world, Willie launches a truth-telling campaign at school, with the blessings of his pretty teacher Joan Madison (Maureen O'Hara). Things begin to get dicey when Willie publicly reveals a slightly dishonest real-estate deal mastermined by his Uncle Arthur (Barry Atwater). Crusading reporter Ernie Miller (John Forsythe) transforms little Willie into a big celebrity, and in so doing wins the love of Joan. A good supporting cast helps smooth over the lumpier passages of Everything but the Truth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's first big-budget science fiction film, Forbidden Planet, combined state-of-the-art special effects with a storyline based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. In the 23rd century, Cmdr. J.J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen) guides United Planets cruiser C-57-D on a rescue mission to faraway planet Altair-4. Twenty years earlier, Earth ship Bellerophon disappeared while en route to Altair-4. Only the ship's philologist, Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), survived; in the intervening decades, Morbius has created an Edenlike world of his own, for the benefit of himself and his nubile young daughter, Altaira (Anne Francis). His private paradise is zealously guarded by Robby the Robot, a piece of technology far in advance of anything on Earth. When Adams and his crew land on Altair-4, Morbius announces that he has no intention of being rescued and returned to Earth. When Adams attempts to contact home base, he finds that his radio equipment has been smashed by some unseen force. Holding Morbius responsible, Adams confronts the scientist, who decides to tell all. At one time, according to Morbius, Altair-4 was populated by the Krel, a wise, intellectually superior race. Using leftover Krel technology, Morbius has doubled his intellect and gained the ability to shape a new world to his own specifications. Forbidden Planet was a big influence on future sci-fi outer-space efforts, especially Star Trek. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Susan Slept Here is the only feature film in Hollywood history ever to be narrated by an Academy Award. After introducing itself, the Oscar statuette invites us into the apartment home of its owner, screenwriter Mark Christopher Dick Powell. Knowing that Mark is working on a script about juvenile deliquency, policeman Sam Hanlon Herb Vigran deposits teenaged troublemaker Susan Landis Debbie Reynolds on Mark's doorstep. Somewhat terrified by Susan's erratic behavior, Mark vows to keep their relationship platonic, but his fiancee Isabella Anne Francis suspects the worst. Director Frank Tashlin aims his satiric barbs at psychiatry, conspicuous consumption and Hollywood itself. The spirited supporting cast includes Glenda Farrell, Alvy Moore, Horace McMahon and Les Tremayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide