Timothy Bottoms Movies

In this provocative drama, an auto repairman compensates for his deafness with an ingenious computer which allows him to both speak and hear. He created the device himself and shows it to his speech therapist who enthusiastically suggests he try to get the machine manufactured. The mechanic goes to the computer salesman the therapist recommended. The self-serving salesman then exploits the hapless inventor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A fugitive (Timothy Bottoms) and a handicapped woman (Linda Purl) on the run in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies fall in love in this adventure film from Harvey Hart. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

This film showed up on TV as Forbidden Paradise, but you can't fool us. It's really The Hurricane, producer Dino De Laurentiis' ill-advised remake of the 1938 Sam Goldwyn production of the same name. The story of the casual cruelties imposed by the white ruling class on the natives of the isle of Manakoora had the advantage of timeliness in 1938; forty-one years later, the story plays like a Gilligan's Island amateur production of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Playing the old Jon Hall role of the native lad whose rambunctiousness incurs the wrath of the provincial governor, the uniquely ungifted Daton Kane makes Hall look like Sir John Gielgud. Even the expensive hurricane finale (which ate up most of the film's $22 million budget) isn't one-tenth as exciting as the corresponding sequence in the earlier film. The saddest aspect of the 1979 The Hurricane is that it was directed by Jan Troell, who showed flashes of brilliance in his earlier The Emigrants and Zandy's Bride; perhaps significantly, Troell hightailed it back to Sweden after wrapping up his obligation to Dino De Laurentiis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For her dramatic acting debut, singer Marie Osmond chose this sentimental adaptation of the venerable Yuletide short story The Gift of the Magi, previously filmed in 1952 as a segment of the omnibus feature film O. Henry's Full House. Set in turn-of-the-century New York, The Gift of Love casts Osmond as young heiress Beth Atherton, who gives up her life of privilege and luxury to become the wife of poverty-stricken immigrant Rudi Miller (Timothy Bottoms). Though he finds work as a clerk, Rudi is unable to afford a decent Christmas gift for Beth, nor is she able to scrounge enough money from the household budget to purchase a gift for her husband. What happens next hinges on the fact that Rudi is inordinately proud of his gold watch, while Beth takes equal pride in her long, flowing hair. Produced by star Marie Osmond's brothers, The Gift of Love made its ABC network debut on December 8, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rollercoaster was a by-product of the brief "Sensurround" craze of the 1970s. Nutsoid Timothy Bottoms sabotages an amusement-park roller coaster, killing several innocent revelers. After several other acts of terrorism, Bottoms (whose character is credited as Young Man) presents his demands to the authorities via audio tape: one million dollars, or he'll stage five roller-coaster disasters simultaneously in five different parks. Because detective Harry Calder George Segal evinces a grudging respect for the elusive extortionist, Bottoms declares that only Detective Calder will be permitted to deliver the money. Thus the stage is set for an explosive climax, which during the film's original run was accompanied by the Sensurround effect, a gimmick that electronically caused the filmgoer's chairs to begin shaking and vibrating during the "thrill scenes." As with most disaster flicks of the era, Rollercoaster is top-heavy with "guest stars," including Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Harry Guardino, and Susan Strasberg. Watch for 13-year-old Helen Hunt as Detective Calder's spunky daughter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Also titled The Price of Freedom, Operation Daybreak is a retelling of the terrible consequences attending the assassination of Nazi-occupation leader Richard Heydrich. When Heydrich puts all of Czechoslovakia under his thumb, a group of Czech expatriates parachute into their homeland to kill the man known as "The Hangman." They succeed, and in retaliation the Nazis wipe the tiny Czech village of Lidice off the map, killing its male residents and carting off its women and children to concentration camps. For the purposes of the plot, assassins Timothy Bottoms and Martin Shaw survive the massacre, albeit only briefly. The Heydrich/Lidice tragedy was previously dramatized in two wartime films, Hangmen Also Die (1943) and Hitler's Madman (1943). Operation Daybreak was adapted from Seven Men at Daybreak, a novel by Alan Burgess. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in Israel and Spain, the four-hour made-for-TV The Story of David stars Timothy Bottoms as the Biblical king. The "David and Goliath" legend is presented as credibly as possible, while David's later disastrous romance with Bathsheba (Jane Seymour) is handled with taste and decorum. Also in the cast are Anthony Quayle as King Saul, and Terence Hardiman as Bathsheba's unfortunate warrior husband Uriah. Ernest Kinoy's teleplay does justice to the Biblical text, without lapsing into wearisome "thees", "thous" and other such archaic dialogue. The Story of David premiered in two parts on April 9 and 11, 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Philip Kaufman took his production of Eskimo life to actual locations in the Arctic Circle, making it only the third film in history (after Nanook of the North and Eskimo) to shoot there. Kaufman also employs authentic Eskimo dialect in the film, which adds a heightened bit of realism. The story concerns three whalers -- Billy (Warren Oates), Daggett (Timothy Bottoms), and Portagee (Louis Gossett Jr.) -- who becomes stranded in the Arctic Circle and are rescued by a tribe of Eskimos. Living in the Eskimo village, the three men introduce the chief vices of their civilization -- gambling, thievery, and Western-style sex -- to the isolated Eskimo village. At first the natives put up with the behavior of the Westerners, but as their ways begin to encroach upon the traditional Eskimo customs, the villagers begin to resist the three men's habits. A clash of cultures results. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Filmed in 1971 under the title The Widower, Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing finally reached the screen in 1973. Set in Spain, the film stars Timothy Bottoms as the aimless son of doctor Charles Baxter. While bicycling through the Spanish countryside, Charles makes the acquaintance of much-older Lila (Maggie Smith.) He falls in love with her, but she is resistant. Eventually touched by Charles' clumsy sincerity, Lila invites him to bed. The film then wanders into Love Story territory when Lila is afflicted by a terminal illness. Director Alan J. Pakula completed Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing during the "cooling off" period between his more famous Klute (1971) and The Parallax View (1974). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced by Hollywood iconoclast BBS Productions, film critic-turned-director Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 film pays homage to Hollywood's classical age as it chronicles generational rites of passage in Anarene, a fictional one-horse Texas town. In 1951, high school seniors Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) play football, go to the movies at the Royal Theater, hang out at the pool hall owned by local elder statesman Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), and lust after rich tease Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd in her film debut). As the year passes, Sonny learns about the pitfalls and compromises of adulthood through an affair with his coach's wife Ruth (Cloris Leachman) and a thwarted elopement with Jacy after she dumps Duane. Following two tragic deaths, and with Duane gone to Korea and Jacy packed off to college in Dallas, Sonny is left behind in Anarene, wise enough to absorb the life lessons of Sam the Lion and Jacy's mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn). He is determined to honor Sam's legacy as the town's conscience, despite a telling sign of incipient communal disintegration: the closing of the Royal Theater after a final showing of Howard Hawks's Red River. Paying tribute to classical Hollywood directors like Hawks and John Ford, Bogdanovich used old-time cinematographer Robert Surtees and shot The Last Picture Show in crisp black-and-white, with a restrained style devoid of the kind of "new wave" techniques (jump cuts, zooms, and jittery hand-held camerawork) used by such contemporaries as Arthur Penn, Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, and Martin Scorsese. As in such Ford films as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Bogdanovich relies on careful visual composition in deep focus to help communicate the regret over the passing of an era. Hailed as one of the best films by a young director since Citizen Kane (1941), The Last Picture Show premiered at the New York Film Festival and went on to become a hit. It was also nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Larry McMurtry's and Bogdanovich's adaptation of McMurtry's novel. John Ford stalwart Johnson won Supporting Actor and Leachman won Supporting Actress, beating out their cohorts Bridges and Burstyn. For an audience steeped in movie history and caught up in the chaotic 1971 present, The Last Picture Show presented a nostalgic look backward that was not so much an escape from the present as a coming to terms with what the present had lost. Its 1990 sequel Texasville, in which Bridges and Shepherd played later incarnations of their original characters, was not as successful. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide