Helen Westcott Movies

Father Gregory Lind (Robert Forster) is the Catholic priest who questions his dedication to his parishioners. He becomes disenchanted with the church over the official stance on birth control, unwanted pregnancy and social change. He tries to confide in his family but they rebuke him for questioning his faith. He falls in love with Pamela Gibson (Lauren Hutton) a wealthy social worker. The Bishop (Will Geer) tries to bring Gregory back to the fold, but his love for Pamela is too much. He is beaten up by street thugs who believe he is gay. Gregory considers leaving the church for a new life with the woman he loves. The story for this romantic melodrama is taken from the novel The Wine And The Music by William E. Barrett. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

"The Colonel" is habitual liar Frank Medford, an old friend of Ben Cartwright. Now a poverty-stricken travelling salesman, Frank is determined to convince everyone that he is as successful as Ben. Thus, Frank tells one of his celebrated whoppers, claming to be a millionaire. It takes the love of a good woman-to be exact, Emily Colfax (Hellena Westcott)-to cure Frank of his chronic prevarications. Featured in the cast are such noteworthy character actors as Warren Kemmerling, Edward C. Platt, Mary Wickes and Raymond Bailey. Originally seen on January 6, 1963, "The Colonel" was written by Preston Wood. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on author James T. Farrell's trilogy written between 1932 and 1935 and later combined into a one-volume Studs Lonigan book, this less than two-hour film does not quite do justice to the literary whole. Studs (Christopher Knight) is raised on Chicago's infamous South Side, an Irish kid when prejudice against the Irish was still around and hanging tough was the norm in impoverished neighborhoods. Once he leaves grade school behind and enters high school, a world of "wenching," fights, drinking, and wild parties starts to open up. By 1929, Studs is trapped into a marriage he comes to hate and as the decade of the '30s begins, he is still trying to be as tough as he can. But as he learns, no one can out-tough the Great Depression. At times confusing and histrionic and wordy (not to mention censored to fit a 1960s unspoken coda), Studs Lonigan falls short of the pithy, emotional, rugged world of Farrell's Irish hoodlum. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Set in an isolated, snow-covered town in the far West, this story has a renegade army officer named Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) and his henchmen riding into the town threatening their worst to the men and women there. Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) decides to agree to Bruhn's demands for someone knowledgeable to lead them away from the law and the town, to safety. Mortally wounded himself, Bruhn opts to take Starrett up on his offer in one last act of generosity toward the townspeople, sparing them the mayhem threatened by his men. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In this sci-fi film, a college professor must deal with the cataclysmic consequences that ensue when a transmogrifying dragonfly bites a prehistoric fish from Madagascar. Soon after the bite, the strange fish becomes gigantic and begins passing on its new ability to morph all it comes in contact with back into their primal forms. When it bites a dog, the dog becomes a wolf. When some fish slime ends up in the professor's pipe, the professor put it to his lips, and he turns into a rampaging Neanderthal with a very large stone-axe that he freely wields around the terrified college campus. Bloody mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Invisible Avenger is an ultra-cheap melodrama set in New Orleans. The hero, Lamont Cranston (Richard Derr), is a student of mysticism and mind control. At crucial points, Cranston is able to hypnotically "cloud men's minds" so that they cannot see him. If this sounds familiar, it's because Invisible Avenger was the unsold pilot film for a TV series based on the famed pulp-novel and radio detective "The Shadow". This hour-long pilot was released theatrically by Republic after the TV series failed to sell. The plot concerns the machinations of a banana-republic dictator who fakes his own death in order to draw his country's true ruler out of exile, the better to kill the man. Cranston and his mentor Jogendra (Mark Daniels) set things right by pulling their invisibility act. Filmed on location using "natural light" by legendary photographer James Wong Howe, Invisible Avenger is dramatically uninvolving, but holds marginal interest for modern viewers due to the curiously "close" relationship between Lamont Cranston and his instructor Jogendra (who at one point exhibits jealousy when Cranston eyes a pretty girl!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The redoubtable John Carpenter strikes again with the ultra-low-budget I Killed Wild Bill Hickok. Carpenter serves as the film's producer and screenwriter, and also heads the cast, pseudonymously billed as John Forbes. Everybody knows that Wild Bill Hickok (here played by Tom Brown) was shot in the back while playing poker, but Carpenter/Forbes boldly forges ahead with a wholly fictional scenario, wherein Wild Bill meets his Waterloo in a High Noon-style gun battle with one "Johnny Rebel" (played, naturally, by Carpenter). Though the film's cast (Helen Westcott, Virginia Gibson, Denver Pyle) is more impressive than usual for a John Carpenter production, the film betrays its cheapness through its heavy reliance upon mismatched stock footage. Warming the director's chair is ace stuntman Richard Talmadge, who despite his vast experience isn't quite in the John Ford or Lesley Selander league. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A "big" western by Allied Artists standards, Cow Country is directed with his usual panache by horse-opera expert Lesley Selander. Adapted from a novel by Curtis Bishop, the film stars Edmond O'Brien as Ben Anthony, an adventurer-for-hire who casts his lot with Texas cattleman Walt Garnet (Robert H. Barrat). The villains want to drive Anthony and his fellow ranchers off their land, but Ben's six-guns prevent this, at least temporarily. Meanwhile, Linda Garnet (Helen Westcott), Walt's daughter and the fiancee of the film's chief bad guy Harry Odell (Bob Lowery), aligns herself with Ben when Odell proves to be spectacularly unfaithful with saloon chirp Melba Sykes (Peggie Castle). Barton MacLane rounds out the cast in one of his standard loud, abrasive roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This was the last in a string of spoofs that found the comedy duo tangling with various classic Universal Studios monsters. In this case, Slim (Bud Abbott) and Tubby (Lou Costello) play American detectives who cross wits with Dr. Henry Jekyll (Boris Karloff) in Edwardian-era London when they visit to compare techniques with their British counterparts. Meanwhile, Dr. Jekyll is conducting the usual lab experiments on animals before injecting himself with serum, transforming into the vicious Mr. Hyde and launching a killing spree against fellow doctors who scoffed at him. Slim and Tubby participate in the ensuing investigation, and havoc breaks out when Tubby himself is injected, with predictable results. Karloff lends gravity to the film, but by the time this one followed up earlier efforts like Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein and Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy, the team had mostly exhausted the series' comic possibilities. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

David Trask (Gary Merrill), the sole survivor of an airplane crash, takes it upon himself to contact the families of the various victims. Though he's already formed preconceived notions of his deceased fellow passengers, he's in for quite a few surprises when he meets the relatives. His first visit is to the wife (Beatrice Straight) and son (Ted Donaldson) of a profoundly troubled doctor (Michael Rennie). His second stop is at a nightclub managed by the domineering mother-in-law (Evelyn Varden) of an aspiring actress (Shelley Winters). Finally, he meets the invalid wife (Bette Davis) of an outwardly obnoxious travelling salesman (Keenan Wynn). After his odyssey into other people's lives, Trask gains a new perspective on his own personal travails. Few studios could pull off the "multi-story film" format as well as 20th Century-Fox, and Phone Call From a Stranger is a grade-A example of that format. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Loan Shark was one of several independently-produced films made by George Raft in the early 1950s. Raft plays Joe Gargan, a good guy who pretends to turn bad to trap a gang of usurious loan sharks. In order to convince the crooks that he's on their side, Gargan is forced to call it quits with his sweetheart Ann Nelson (Dorothy Hart). Once he's accepted by the villains, Gargan dreams up an elaborate new method of siphoning money from an unsuspecting public. Inevitably, however, the villains get wise to Gargan's subterfuge, and for a while it looks like curtains for our hero. One of the most appealing aspects of Loan Shark is the no-frills cinematography of Joseph Biroc, who went on to such loftier pursuits as The Towering Inferno. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With a Song in My Heart is the story of popular 1930s songstress Jane Froman, here portrayed by Susan Hayward. We first see Ms. Froman as a humble staff singer at a Cincinnati radio stations, but it doesn't take her long to rise to the uppermost rungs of network radio fame. Jane gratefully marries her agent (David Wayne), but soon both realize they're not truly in love. While touring with the USO during World War II, Jane is in a plane crash, which severely injures her. She nonetheless valiantly makes a professional comeback, and begins a relationship with the pilot (Rory Calhoun) who rescued her. Jane Froman herself provided the vocals for With a Song in My Heart, with Susan Hayward doing a topnotch miming job. Watch for Robert Wagner in his starmaking cameo as a shell-shocked GI. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi