Bill Williams Movies

In this sci-fi film set in the near future, the civilized world is controlled by an all-powerful computerized government that is carefully choosing colonists for its newest space launch. The candidates are selected on the basis of their age, health and IQ. They are only in space a few weeks when the crew begins to rebel against the inhuman control of the computer. They then mutiny and in place of the autocracy, they establish a small democratic society and begin searching for a planet to call their own. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This is the first of numerous westerns produced by A.C. Lyles which became famous not for their stories but for who played in them--all the stars being veterans not often seen on the screen anymore. As far as plot line, essentially we have a badguy who has become a good guy (read that ex gunfighter turned judge) and meets his past in his own court room. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Bill Williams, real-life husband of Perry Mason costar Barbara Hale (Della Street), appears as Mike Preston, an embittered oilman determined to get even with the man who crippled him and stole $100,000. When Harlow Phipps (Noah Keen) is murdered, Preston is framed for the crime by his elusive enemy, whereupon Preston's lovelorn housekeeper Lydia hires Perry to defend her boss in court. The solution to the case is tied in with an earlier incident wherein Preston angrily confronted a pair of hunters who shot and wounded a cougar near his property. (Ironically, this episode originally aired the same week that TV Guide featured a cover story about Barbara Hale). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Assignment: Underwater was one of a small group of aquatic adventure series to follow in the wake of Ivan Tors' series Sea Hunt, which had been a massive success in syndication at the end of the 1950's. But as it happens, Assignment: Underwater, which ran for just one season, was much more than a clone of the Tors series, with high-quality scripts and top-notch guest stars, as well as first-rate action sequences and an excellent pair of stars. Bill Williams portrayed Bill Greer, an ex-Marine and an expert diver, a widower living on his boat The Lively Lady with his eight-year-old daughter Patty (Diane Mountford). One of the most experienced divers working on the West Coast, he is frequently hired by the government -- including the police and the Navy Department -- as well as private industry to carry out dangerous assignments, in addition to routine underwater salvage and surveying jobs. Greer's adventures have him coming up against murder, kidnapping, smuggling, counterfeiting, and other criminal activities, just to add to the level of danger that exists inherently in undersea work. The presence of his young daughter also allowed the writers to add a layer of serious complexity to the hero -- Greer may be a top man under the water, but it's also clear in many of the episodes that he's never wholly sure that it's the best thing for his daughter to be raised on a boat at the harbor; and this leaves him with more self-doubt and even occasionally flawed judgement than was typical for an adventure series of this era. The writers also quickly discovered that they could deliver more complex scripts than was usual on shows like this, owing to Diane Mountford's extraordinary abilities as a child actress -- this was most notable in "Panic Off Punta Banda", where she carries more than half the episode brilliantly, while working opposite characters who speak no English and can't communicate with her. The series was conceived by Frank de Felitta (who was also executive producer) and produced by National Telefilm Associates (NTA), which distributed it nationally in syndication, rather than through one of the major networks. The producer of the series was Bernard Glasser, who brought aboard his longtime collaborators Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman -- although they were veteran film hands most closely associated with comedy (especially that of the Three Stooges), Bernds and Ullman, working in tandem with writer/associate producer Mort Zarcoff (with additional writing contributions by figures such as future director Tom Gries), flexed their dramatic muscles here to great effect in their scripts. The directors included Gene Fowler, Jr., who had already shown his skills as a dramatic filmmaker with movies such as I Was A Teenage Werewolf, I Married A Monster From Outer Space, and Gang War, Steve Sekely (Day Of The Triffids), and Paul Landres (The Vampire). They were aided in their cause by a guest cast list that included notable and dependable performers such as George Macready, Edgar Buchanan, John Van Dreelan, Carlton Young, Alan Hale, Jr., Chill Wills, John Hoyt, DeForest Kelley, Dan Seymour, Robert Shayne, and Charles Aidman, as well as up and coming players such as George Takei, James B. Sikking, and Barbara Luna, at the outset of their careers. All of this talent in the writing and acting departments also allowed Assignment: Underwater to diverge from Sea Hunt in another important respect -- Tors' series tended to be very didactic about its setting, and often seemed focused on teaching audiences about the sea in the course of its adventures; Assignment: Underwater was more oriented toward drama and characterization, although that didn't prevent the makers from informing us about aspects of diving and the oceans. And taking a lesson from one of Sea Hunt's few structural flaws, this show also relied a bit less on voice-over narration by Williams, and more often. where possibly, allowed the visuals to tell the story by themselves. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This standard wartime drama is divided into three chronological segments and is based on the experiences of the real Guy Gabaldon (played as an adult by Jeffrey Hunter, and as a boy by Richard Eyer). In the first segment, Guy is a homeless waif without many prospects when he is adopted by a Japanese-American family. He grows up just in time to be drafted into battle in World War II -- the bombing of Pearl Harbor has a particularly devastating effect on his family and their friends. After a wild last fling with two buddies (David Janssen and Vic Damone) and some women, Guy heads off to war where he distinguishes himself because of his fluency in Japanese. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The 1962 theatrical release of The Scarface Mob was created from the first two episodes of the famously popular 1959 TV series, The Untouchables. It stars Robert Stack as the courageous agent whose job is to corral the powerful mobster Al Capone. Nevill Brand plays Capone and Walter Winchell adds flavor as the Dragnet-style narrator. ~ All Movie Guide

In the sixth episode of Walt Disney's 17-part miniseries Tales of Texas John Slaughter, Slaughter (Tom Tryon) combines his cattle herd with that of fellow rancher Sam Underwood (Sidney Blackmer), intending to drive both herds to Arizona and sell them at the highest price possible. Unfortunately, the two men cannot use the Chisholm Trail because of a recent drought, so Slaughter blazes his own trail -- through Comanche territory. As if the Indians didn't pose enough of a threat, Slaughter must also contend with cattle baron John Chisholm (Harold J. Stone), who is convinced that Slaughter is trying to destroy his business. Originally telecast as part of the Walt Disney Presents anthology, "The Slaughter Trail" and the subsequent episode "The Man From Bitter Creek" were edited together in 1962 and released overseas as the "feature film" Texas John Slaughter: Stampede at Bitter Creek. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This confusingly-titled science-fiction thriller is both an artifact of its time and a surprisingly forward-looking film, in terms of plot. On the one hand, its plot makes it a kind of 1950's B-movie antecedent to The Andromeda Strain -- on the other, it owes a lot to the popular police procedural films and television shows of the decade or so leading up to its production. The title refers to an advanced US satellite sent into orbit, in part to gather and return samples of material from space. The latter includes a microscopic organism believed to be the same existing on the planet Mars which, so one scientist, Dr. Charles Pommer (Paul Frees), believes, is responsible for that world's red coloration. Pommer, who is permitted to take the sample to his home laboratory, is brilliant and single-minded in his work; but his intellect and ambition, coupled with his unstable personality and chaotic personal life, leads to disaster. He discovers that the organism, which he christens "Blood Rust," can multiply incredibly fast in Earth's environment, and attach itself to (and ultimately consume any living host creature, including human beings. The alien organism proves his undoing, and he lives just long enough to warn project security chief John Hand (Bill Williams) of the danger -- but the warning comes too late to prevent Pommer's ex-wife (Lyn Thomas) from becoming an unwitting carrier of the organism. It's up to Hand and his assistant, Radigan (Robert Ellis), to find this woman -- whose identity they don't even know at first -- even as she tries (for purely personal reasons) to elude the authorities, not knowing of the danger she presents to herself and the world. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

George Montgomery stars in Pawnee as Paul, a white man raised by Indians. Upon attaining adulthood, Paul finds himself rejected by both the Pawnee tribe and the white community. He manages to attain a job as a wagon train scout, but even in this position of respect and authority he is treated with hostility and suspicion. When Wise Eagle (Ralph Moody), the Pawnee chief who raised Paul as his own son, dies, the tribe is taken over by Paul's lifelong enemy Crazy Fox (Charles Horvath). Thus, when the wagon train is attacked by Indians, Paul has no qualms about aligning himself with the passengers. Featured in the cast as Dancing Fawn is Charlotte Austin, the cult-favorite star of such horror cheapies as The Man Who Turned to Stone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edward Bernds, graduate of Columbia's "Three Stooges" shorts and Allied Artists' "Bowery Boys" epics, expertly guides The Storm Rider through its paces. Scott Brady plays an ex-gunslinger who is hired by a group of ranchers to protect them from covetous land baron Roy Engel. Unbeknownst to the ranchers, Brady is the killer of their former leader. Emotional complications ensue when Brady falls in love with Mala Powers, the widow of the man he killed. The film's ending upholds the uncompromising integrity of the rest of The Storm Rider. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide