Brad Trumbull Movies

With a cast starring such comic veterans as Harvey Korman, Anne Meara, Jack Weston and Tim Conway (who also wrote the script), and executive produced by Mike Nichols, it is normally a safe bet that hiliarity will ensue. Unfortunately, this sure thing does not pay off and is disappointingly dumb as it tells the tale of four luckless gamblers who in desperation borrow a large sum for a local loanshark so they can bet on a particular horse. Unfortunately, they bet on the wrong nag and suddenly the foursome must scramble around for quick cash before the loanshark's thugs show up for some bruising payback. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In Randal Kleiser's telemovie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Eve Plumb stars as Dawn, who leaves home at 15 for the glamour of L.A. Friendless, she is taken in by the smooth line of Swan (Bo Hopkins), who offers to be her protector. Before long, Dawn has become a streetwalker, with Swan taking a sizeable chunk of her earnings. She finds true friendship in the form of another runaway, male hustler Alex (Leigh McCloskey) -- whose own story would be delineated in a 1977 sequel, Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn. Having learned a lesson with its controversial airing of Born Innocent, NBC preceded the September 27, 1976, premiere of Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway with a "parental discretion" disclaimer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed as the first episode of The Andy Griffith Show's fifth season, "Barney's Bloodhound" was not telecast until October 26, 1964, by which time the season was already six weeks old. Hoping to track down an escaped convict (Arthur Banatides), Barney adds a stray bloodhound named Blue to the Mayberry Police Force. Alas, Blue does not respond to Barney's commands-and even worse, the dog develops a strong affection for the fugitive! "Barney's Blodhound" was written by Bill Idelson and Sam Bobrick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man makes the highly unexpected discovery that he has two wives in this romantic comedy. Widower Nick Arden (James Garner) has just set off on his honeymoon with his new wife Bianca (Polly Bergen) when his mother Grace (Thelma Ritter) receives a very unexpected guest -- Nick's late wife Ellen (Doris Day). While Ellen was proclaimed legally dead five years after her plane disappeared in a flight over the Pacific Ocean, in truth her flight crash-landed on a desert island where she was stranded with Stephen Burkett (Chuck Connors) and only now has managed to return to civilization. When Grace informs Ellen that Nick has just left town with his new wife, Ellen heads out to the resort where the newlyweds are staying, and comic confusion ensues. Move Over, Darling began life as a project called Something's Got to Give, which was the film that Marilyn Monroe was working on at the time of her death; besides Monroe, the original cast included Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse, and Phil Silvers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This is a competently put-together "B"-grade film starring Craig Hill as a doctor who in the process of trying to save a man badly beaten by two gangsters, identifies the culprits to the police. When their victim dies and the charge becomes murder, the doctor hightails it to the far woods where he finds a job as a clerk in a sporting-goods store. His plan is to lay low until the hoodlums forget about him. But complications arise from two different sectors. First, the doctor falls in love with a local woman and second, the murderers find out where he is hiding. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this western, an Eastern gambler buys a mail-order ranch, heads out to claim it and discovers that the deed is unregistered, the rightful owner is dead, and that the land has been taken over by cattle rustlers. Strapping on the title weapon, the fellow rectifies the situation, but only after proving himself innocent of murder charges. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This one-hour, police-story melodrama does not focus on the two-legged officers commonly found chasing the bad guys, but a four-legged K-9 corps German Shepherd named "Wolf" (played by Rocco), whose training forms a large part of the story. Wolf is put through his paces so that when the time comes, he can join up with his bosses and head out to capture some nasty arsonists, intent on torching buildings to collect insurance money. Given that Wolf's fans are likely to be the younger set, any ingrained clichés and lines of uninspired dialogue will not be a great problem. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Kathy Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is a cynical newspaper columnist in San Francisco, handling women's advice -- by chance one day, the paper's city editor assigns her to cover the woman's angle on the arrival of a pair of L.A. police detectives, Capt. Manny Alidos (Royal Dano) and Lt. Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden), on the hunt for a murder suspect known to be hiding somewhere in the city. They're both pretty button-down types and seem like fish-out-of-water in the more easy-going Frisco, and Kathy quickly clashes with them both, especially when her column appealing to the missing suspect as a woman yields serious dual results -- not only does Kathy boost her profile and readership, but the missing suspect makes contact and is ultimately brought in; in the process, Kathy goes from journalistic back-bencher to media star. That would be the end of the issue, except that Kathy and Bill have become attracted to each other amid their clashes, parries, and thrusts, and decide to get married -- she spurns the offer of a job in New York to move to Los Angeles and settle down to the life of a wife and homemaker. But that proves impossible -- Kathy quickly chafes at what she regards as the empty vacuous chatter of her fellow detective wives' lives and social interactions, and also her place in their pecking order as determined by their husbands' ranks and assignments (and Bill just doesn't rate high enough). Her own life suddenly cut off from career and ambition, and an ability to act on either, she becomes fixated on Bill's career and advancing it and him as a substitute. She contrives to cross paths socially with Alice Pope (Fay Wray), the wife of Inspector Tony Pope (Raymond Burr), who is both the head of an elite detective unit and the top man in her husband's division, and is soon not only getting Bill invited to parties with Pope and the police commissioner, but also cutting her husband's boss Manny Alidos and his wife Sara (Virginia Grey), to whom she's taken a special dislike, out of those same events.
It's not quite enough, however, and Kathy starts socializing on her own with Tony Pope, on Bill's behalf, and the two soon have their own relationship. Bill is still too much of a nice guy, and not careerist enough or assertive enough -- until she feigns distress at receiving poison-pen letters accusing her of having an affair with Pope, and blames Manny and Sara. This drives Bill to confront and assault Alidos, leading to a hearing in Pope's office where the chief of the division -- now very much beholden to Bill for Kathy's sake -- comes down on Bill's side. When the smoke clears, Manny is bounced back into uniform and Bill is made acting captain and put in charge of the homicide unit that Alidos formerly headed. Bill is on his way, and so is Kathy and Pope's relationship. But Pope proves to be a distressingly honorable and loyal man -- when his wife's health takes a turn for the worse, he decides to put in for retirement, and Kathy wants him to recommend Bill as his replacement. He considers it but decides that regardless of what he's done outside of his marriage, the department is too important to compromise the detective division, and that Bill just doesn't have what it takes to head it. Kathy is too deep in her strategy to back off, and also feels betrayed by Pope; now pushed over the edge, she contrives to threaten him with a gun, and is prepared to make good on her threat. Ironically enough, Bill may get his shot yet at heading the division, as he's head of homicide and takes personal charge of the biggest case the department has seen in years -- bringing in Tony Pope's killer. The only question is if and how he can put together the clues and pieces of the puzzle leading back to Kathy. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The witness of the title is Barbara Stanwyck, who insists she's seen a man strangling a girl in the apartment across the street. The murderer is George Sanders, an ex-Nazi with plenty of experience in covering his tracks. Deftly disposing of body and clues, Sanders is able to convince the authorities that Stanwyck is hallucinating. But Stanwyck persists, forcing Sanders to show his hand in a fateful climax. Witness to Murder is far beneath the talents of its stars, though both Stanwyck and Sanders, pros that they are, give the material the old "Academy Award" treatment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide