M. Emmet Walsh Movies
Rarely garnering a lead role, M. Emmet Walsh has become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood, using his ruddy, seedy appearance to embody countless low-life strangers with unsavory agendas. In his rare sympathetic roles, he's also capable of generating genuine pathos for the put upon plight of struggling small-timers. His effortless portrayals have made him a welcome addition to numerous ensembles, even if many viewers can't match a name to his recognizable mug. In fact, his work is so well thought of that critic Roger Ebert created the Stanton-Walsh Rule, which states that no film featuring either Walsh or Harry Dean Stanton can be altogether bad.Contrary to his frequent casting as a Southerner, Walsh is a native New Yorker, born on March 22, 1935, in Ogdensburg, NY. As a youth he attended the prestigious Tilton School in New Hampshire, and went on to share a college dorm room with actor William Devane. He graduated from the Clarkson University School of Business, but it was not until his thirties that he discovered his true calling: acting. He first popped up in Midnight Cowboy (1969), and has worked steadily ever since, some years appearing in as many as eight motion pictures, other years focusing more on TV movies.
Working in relative anonymity through the '70s and early '80s, appearing in films ranging from Serpico (1973) to Slapshot (1977) to Blade Runner (1982), Walsh landed his meatiest and most memorable role in Joel and Ethan Coen's remarkable debut, Blood Simple (1984). Without batting an eye, Walsh exuded more casual menace as the amoral private detective doggedly pursuing his own self-interest than a host of typecast villains could muster in their entire careers. His role was key to creating a stylish noir that would launch the careers of two modern masters. It earned him an Independent Spirit Award.
Blood Simple did not markedly alter Walsh's status as a supporting actor, as he went on to appear in this capacity in Fletch (1985), Back to School (1986), and Raising Arizona (1987), his next collaboration with the Coens, in which his bull-slinging machinist scores riotously with less than a minute of screen time. One of the first appearances of the kindly Walsh was in 1988's Clean and Sober, in which he plays a recovering alcoholic helping Michael Keaton through the same struggle.
As he crept into his late fifties and early sixties, the stature of Walsh's films diminished a little, if not his actual workload. Continuing to dutifully pursue his craft throughout the early '90s, Walsh again returned to a higher profile with appearances in such films as A Time to Kill (1996), William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996), and My Best Friend's Wedding (1997). More as a reaction to the ineptitude of the movie than Walsh's performance, Ebert called into question his own Walsh-Stanton Rule in his review of Wild Wild West, the 1999 Will Smith-Kevin Kline debacle in which Walsh is one of the only tolerable elements. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
- 1969
- R
Cesare (Alex Cord) is the foreign car dealer who caters to the jet set. A previous favor by a mobster who saved his life has him indebted to the mafia to repay the kindness. With a stiletto, he kills three enemies of the organization, but is hung out to dry when the gang refuse to acknowledge his actions or even admit they know him. As the police close in on the auto dealer, he is caught between the law and the mob with no protection from either side. Britt Eklund and Barbara McNair are the main female leads. Roy Scheider has a small part in this violent and erotic crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alex Cord, Britt Ekland, (more)
Intrigued by the counterculture tale of Arlo Guthrie's epic 1968 talking-blues record The Alice's Restaurant Massacree, director Arthur Penn, co-scripting with playwright Venable Herndon, adapted the song into the 1969 feature Alice's Restaurant. Hippie outsider Arlo (Guthrie, playing himself) encounters suspicion from the straight world; visits his dying father, renowned leftist activist/singer Woody Guthrie (Joseph Boley), in the hospital along with friend Pete Seeger; and hangs out in the title converted church/commune created by his friends Alice (Pat Quinn) and her husband Ray (James Broderick). After Alice's "Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat," Arlo is arrested for littering by rule-following Officer "Obie" Obanhein (William Obanhein, playing himself). That littering arrest helps Arlo avoid the Vietnam draft, but the commune is threatened after more personal, old-fashioned conflicts over sex and partnerships permeate Alice and Ray's alternative world. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arlo Guthrie, Pat Quinn, (more)
Recounting how the West was won through the eyes of a white man raised as a Native American, Arthur Penn's 1970 adaptation of Thomas Berger's satirical novel was a comic yet stinging allegory about the bloody results of American imperialism. As a misguided 20th-century historian listens, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) narrates the story of being the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. White orphan Crabb was adopted by the Cheyenne, renamed "Little Big Man," and raised in the ways of the "Human Beings" by paternal mentor Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), accepting non-conformity and living peacefully with nature. Violently thrust into the white world, Jack meets a righteous preacher (Thayer David) and his wife (Faye Dunaway), tries to be a gunfighter under the tutelage of Wild Bill Hickock (Jeff Corey), and gets married. Returned to the Cheyenne by chance, Jack prefers life as a Human Being. The carnage wreaked by the white man in the Washita massacre and the lethal fallout from the egomania of General George A. Custer (Richard Mulligan) at Little Big Horn, however, show Crabb the horrific implications of Old Lodge Skins' sage observation, "There is an endless supply of White Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human Beings." ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, (more)
- 1970
- R
In this unusual black comedy, Stacy Keach plays Jonas Candide, a former carnival showman who roams the southern U.S. in 1918 with a portable electric chair. He offers his services as a freelance executioner for $100 a pop. He takes a job in a prison in Alabama, where he is supposed to execute a young woman named Gundred Herzallerliebst (Marianna Hill) and her brother. He electrocutes the brother first. On the night before she is scheduled to die, Gundred seduces Jonas and he falls for her. Jonas tries to get Doc Prittle (Graham Jarvis) to help him fake her execution, but the doctor demands a high price. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stacy Keach, Marianna Hill, (more)
- 1970
- NC17
Rated "X" upon its initial release in 1970, End of the Road would probably rate at most a hard "R" today. Stacy Keach stars as Jake Horner, a college professor beset with a wide variety of emotional problems. He seeks out help in therapy, conducted by unorthodox psychologist Dr. D (James Earl Jones). This treatment turns out to have a disastrous effect on Horner, leading him into the arms of Rennie Morgan (Dorothy Tristan), the wife of a fellow teacher. End of the Road was adapted from a story by John Barth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stacy Keach, Harris Yulin, (more)
- 1971
- G
- Add Escape from the Planet of the Apes to QueueAdd Escape from the Planet of the Apes to top of Queue
Escape From the Planet of the Apes is the third in the series of films based upon the Planet of the Apes characters created by novelist Pierre Boulle. At the end of the second film, the centuries-in-the-future world colonized by simians was destroyed, but apes Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) were able to escape in the space vessel left behind by 20th century astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston). Cornelius and Zira pass through another time warp, finding themselves in the Earth of the 1970s. When they reveal their ability to speak, the apes are first treated as curiosities, then as threats when the government, believing the story that the Earth will eventually be inherited by monkeys, tries to prevent the birth of Zira's baby. They are ultimately given shelter by sympathetic circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban). This film was followed by the fourth "Apes" entry, 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1971
- PG
This comedy is notable as the final onscreen appearance (non-speaking) of Edward Everett Horton, a staple comic supporting actor from the early '30s onward. Dick Van Dyke plays an ambitious small-town minister who rallies the whole town to meet a challenge bet by a tobacco corporation. Cooked up by the tobacco company's public relations head (Bob Newhart), the bet is an offer to pay twenty five million dollars ($25,000,000.00) to any town that can quit smoking for the required period of time. Barnard Hughes is Dr. Proctor, a heart surgeon who has to be physically restrained to prevent him from smoking. Jean Stapleton is the mayor's wife, who swells visibly as her eating replaces cigarettes. Edward Everett Horton is eloquent as the mysterious tobacco tycoon who comes to observe the chaos first-hand. There is lots of frantic action as the townsfolk try to win the prize, and the tobacco company (which has no intention of paying off the bet) works to sabotage their efforts. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pippa Scott, Bob Newhart, (more)
- 1971
Native American actor Chief Dan George, who had catapulted to stardom in the 1971 theatrical feature Little Big Man, appears in this Bonanza episode as Red Cloud, a dying Indian chieftan. Before being gathered to his fathers, Red Cloud wants to reclaim a precious warbonnet lost in battle, which now hangs on the wall of the saloon owned by former Indian fighter Frank Ryan (Forrest Tucker). Joe Cartwright, grateful to Red Cloud for saving his life, wants to help the old man fulfill his dying wish-but how can he do this without jeopardizing his long-standing friendship with Ryan? Also appearing are Linda Cristal as Teresa, M. Emmet Walsh as Mattheson, and Patrick Adiarte as Swift Eagle. Originally telecast on December 26, 1971, "Warbonnet" was written by Arthur Heinemann, Charles Goldwad, and actor Robert Biheller (using the alias "Robert Blood"). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, (more)
- 1971
- G
George C. Scott stars as Justin Playfair, a retired, widowed judge who labors under the delusion that he's Sherlock Holmes. Feigning concern, Playfair's greedy brother Blevins (Lester Rawlins) hires psychologist Dr. Mildred Watson (Joanne Woodward) to certify that Justin is insane--and in so doing gain control of the judge's millions. Instead, Dr. Watson is drawn into Playfair's dream world, accompanying the judge on his quest to find the elusive (and imaginary) Professor Moriarty. Reality rears its head when a group of vicious blackmailers, to whom Blevins is deeply in debt, attempt to assassinate brother Justin. In a sequence originally cut from the release version but restored for television, Playfair and Watson are rescued by a group of middle-aged eccentrics, who like the judge would give anything to live the lives of their literary favorites (the most poignant of these is librarian Jack Gilford, who "wishes to God" that he were the Scarlet Pimpernel). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George C. Scott, Joanne Woodward, (more)
- 1971
Fran (Elizabeth Baur) is devastated when word arrives that her cousin Bobby has committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. But the lack of a corpse, and the sudden appearance of several letters allegedly written by Bobby and declaring his unrequited love for Fran, lead Ironside (Raymond Burr) to suspect that the boy may not have killed himself after all--or that someone else is trying to drive Fran insane with grief and guilt. The episode's highlight is a performance of the original song "Growing Up is Hard to Do". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
After attending a party where virtually all the guests are doting parents, Bob and Emily are even more determined to conceive. Finally, they discuss the possibility of adopting a child, and the benefits and drawbacks attending such a decision. The large supporting cast includes Louise Lasser as Mrs. Radford, William Redfield as Arthur Hoover, and M. Emmet Walsh as Jack Hoover. Written by David Davis and Lorenzo Music, "P-I-L-O-T" was originally written to be the pilot episode for the series. After several changes, including Newhart's insistence that he didn't want to be in a show "about kids," the series was held back from release until November 18, 1972, by which time the series was firmly entrenched in the ratings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Newhart, Suzanne Pleshette, (more)
With Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938) as his blueprint, Peter Bogdanovich resurrected and payed homage to 1930s screwball comedy in What's Up, Doc? (1972). When wacky co-ed Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand, in the Katharine Hepburn part) spies nebbishy musicologist Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal in bespectacled Cary Grant mode) in a San Francisco hotel lobby, she decides that Howard and his precious igneous rocks are right up her alley. Too bad Howard already has a fiancée, the propriety-fixated Eunice (Madeline Kahn in her film debut). Using all her arcane knowledge from brief stays at numerous colleges, Judy tries to charm her way to a $20,000 grant for Howard, and Howard himself, at a banquet with grantor Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton). Things get even more complicated the next day when Judy's underwear-filled overnight bag gets mixed up with Howard's rock bag, which gets mixed up with Mrs. Van Hoskins' bag of jewels, which gets mixed up with Mr. Smith's bag of top secret government papers. All sides converge at Larrabee's mod townhouse and the chase begins. Retaining Hawks' machine-gun pace (as well as the sly pop culture referentiality of Billy Wilder), Bogdanovich and writers Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton updated the opposites-attract screwball convention for contemporary times. O'Neal gently parodied not only Grant but also his own Love Story (1970) preppy, while Kahn represents stiff-wigged 1950s manners as opposed to Streisand's long-haired, pants-wearing free spirit. The happy ending, in which Cole Porter-belting youth wins out over old manners, found favor with audiences, as What's Up, Doc? became one of the most popular films of 1972, and the second hit in a row for Bogdanovich after 1971's The Last Picture Show. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, (more)
- 1972
- R
In this comedy, young Donald Beeman (Tom Smothers) becomes disillusioned with his business career and quits to become a tap-dancing magician. However, the grass isn't always greener, and Donald soon discovers that the money-oriented aspects of his former career are starting to creep into his new life. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
Adapted by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from Peter Maas's book, Sidney Lumet's drama portrays the real-life struggle of an honest New York City cop against a corrupt system. Neophyte officer Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) is determined not to let his job get in the way of his individuality. Despite his colleagues' leery reactions, he keeps one foot firmly planted in the counterculture, sporting a beard and love beads and living in bohemian Greenwich Village, while he performs his police duties with dispatch. Serpico's peers genuinely ostracize him, however, when he refuses to take bribes like everybody else. Appalled by the extent of police corruption, Serpico goes to his superiors, but when he discovers that they have ignored his charges, he takes the potentially fatal step of breaking the blue wall of silence and going public with his exposé. Serpico's revelations trigger an independent investigation by the Knapp Commission, but they also make him a marked man, permanently changing his life. Shot on location with a gritty emphasis on documentary-style realism, Serpico presents a city in decay both literally and morally, as everybody is in on the take, and the cops and criminals are almost interchangeable. Released in late 1973, after months of revelations of Presidential malfeasance in the breaking Watergate scandal, Serpico's true story of bureaucratic depravity touched a cultural nerve, and the film became a hit with both critics and audiences, particularly for Pacino's complex performance as the honest, long-haired whistleblower. One year after his star-making triumph in The Godfather, Pacino was nominated for an Oscar again, and lost again; Lumet and Pacino would reunite two years later for another true New York story, Dog Day Afternoon. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Pacino, Tony Roberts, (more)
- 1973
- PG
In this western set at the turn-of-the-century, an outlaw finds himself at one of life's crossroads as he must decide whether to go straight or continue a life of crime. After bungling a train robbery he decides he should go straight and settle down. He chooses the town of Dime Box, Texas. There he undertakes a series of simple jobs under the watchful, ever-suspicious eye of the town sheriff. Try as he might, the outlaw cannot resist the lure of robbery. He ends up stealing a local factory's Christmas payroll and taking off into the desert with some renegade Indian pals. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A lesser but still entertaining Neil Simon work, The Prisoner of Second Avenue was adapted to film in 1974. Jack Lemmon takes over the role played on Broadway by Peter Falk: Mel is a New York-based advertising man who goes through hell when he loses his job. The gods seem to conspire against him as he tries to cope with his unemployed status; he is particularly depressed over the fact that he must now subsist on the income of his wife (Anne Bancroft). There are laughs in The Prisoner of Second Avenue, but it's the laughter of desperation and despair; it might not be advisable to watch this film after a bad day at the office. Watch for Sylvester Stallone as the "human punch line" of an old urban legend about a pickpocket. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, (more)
James Toback made his screenwriting debut with this taut drama, loosely adapted from the story by Dostoevsky. Axel Freed (James Caan) is an intelligent and well-respected professor of literature at a noted New York university, who uses great writing as a springboard for examining moral and philosophical issues in his class. But when he's not in front of the chalkboard, Axel has a serious problem -- he's hopelessly addicted to gambling. Axel will bet on almost anything, and while he lives for the heady rush of winning, it doesn't happen all that often, and Axel's latest losing streak has put him in debt to his bookies to the tune of $44,000, more than a college professor could hope to pay in 1974. Even after tapping his mother (Jacqueline Brookes), his grandfather (Morris Carnovsky), and his girlfriend (Lauren Hutton) for cash, Axel still owes thousands to his bookie Hips (Paul Sorvino), who is quickly losing his patience with Axel, especially when he learns after he finally scored a major winning streak, rather than paying off his bills he used the money to keep gambling ... and lost it all, leading to visits from an increasingly threatening series of underworld "collectors." The Gambler also features supporting performances from Burt Young, James Woods, and M. Emmett Walsh. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Caan, Paul Sorvino, (more)
- 1975
The future of the Waltons' lumber business is jeopardized when, just after spending a huge sum of money for new equipment, John Walton (Ralph Waite) is stricken with pneumonia. Now that the head of the household is incapacitated, will John-Boy (Richard Thomas) give up his writing career and Jason (Jon Walmsley forsake his music scholarship in order to take over the business? Not if storekeeper Ike Godsey (Joe Conley) has anything to say about it! This is the final episode of The Waltons' third season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
Margot Kidder guest stars as Terry Lake, the erstwhile girlfriend of small-time hood Danell (Nicholas Colasanto). A murder has been committed, and Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) is convinced that Danell is the guilty party. Protesting his innocence, the hoodlum is confident that Terry will supply him with an alibi -- but both he, and Baretta, are in for several surprises. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Dana Elcar, (more)
- 1975
The second and last TV pilot film to bear the Crime Club title, the 1975 Crime Club once again involves a state-of-the-art crime solving organization whose members are professional investigators from various public and private sectors. The principal characters are a detective (Scott Thomas), a reporter (Eugene Roche) and a criminal lawyer (Robert Lansing). The crime in question in this pilot concerned a social outcast who seeks public notoriety by confessing to a series of grisly ice pick murders. The three protagonists combine their brain power to solve the case, but their efforts failed to convince any network to pick up the project. Crime Club joined its 1973 predecessor in Universal's syndicated package of made-for-TV movies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Scott Thomas, Eugene Roche, (more)
- 1975
- G
Peter Bogdanovich's attempt to direct a homage to the great musicals of the 1930s is now remembered as one of the embarrassments of the 1970s. The film's thin plot, standard for the genre, centers on the romantic entanglements and misunderstandings among six stock characters: the bored playboy (Burt Reynolds), his never-ruffled valet (John Hillerman), the debutante (Cybill Shepherd), the Broadway diva (Madeline Kahn), her gambler boyfriend (Duilio Del Prete), and her maid (Eileen Brennan). All six are likely to burst into song and dance at any time, and they often do (the performances were recorded live on the set, not pre-recorded), but sixteen Cole Porter tunes, lavish sets and costumes, and an expensive production cannot hide the fact that Reynolds and Shepherd, the two leads, are way out of their depth. A notorious failure, At Long Last Love left a permanent stain on Bogdanovich's career. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, (more)
- 1975
Fresh from her success in The Exorcist (and several years away from her tenure as queen of the women in prison flicks), Linda Blair stars in this searing TV movie. Sarah (Blair), a normal teenaged girl, begins drinking socially at high school parties. She soon finds that she can't stop--and even worse, she can't keep her boozing a secret. After a near-tragic baby-sitting episode, Sarah decides to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, but soon she's back on the hard stuff. Only when Sarah causes the death of a horse does she strengthen her resolve to remain "clean and sober." Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic tempers the more sensational aspects of the subject matter with some unforgettably poignant vignettes--including the A.A. testimony of a boy who's even younger than Sarah. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1975
Though there's no love lost between Jim Rockford (James Garner) and fellow ex-con Moss Williams (Eddie Fontaine), Jim agrees to help Moss locate his missing girlfriend Maria Heller (Mary Frann). What Williams doesn't tell Jim is that he isn't interested in Maria but in the girl's pearl necklace--and that Edgar Burch (M. Emmet Walsh) the "insurance agent" who talked Jim into taking the case, is a phony. Stuart Margolin makes his first series appearance as Jim Rockford's troublesome former cellmate Angel Martin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1976
This time, undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) goes behind bars to nab a master criminal. Posing as a convict, Baretta blends into the prison population in search of a minor-league jewel thief. His real target, however, is the genius who commandeered a huge jewel theft -- and ordered two brutal murders in the process. Guest stars include future Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones and soon-to-be CHiPs star Erik Estrada. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Blake, Edward Grover, (more)
Nickey (John Cassavetes) is a small-time Jewish gangster in trouble with the mob. He calls on his lifelong friend Mikey (Peter Falk) for help. During the night the two spend together, the power of their friendship is undermined by their mutual nastiness and pressing financial concerns. Elaine May's script was allegedly taken from an episode in the life of her uncle. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, (more)
