Irwin Allen Movies

John Mackenzie directed this schematic adaptation of Graham Greene's best-selling thriller The Honorary Consul. Richard Gere stars as Dr. Eduardo Plarr, a brilliant doctor who has chosen to practice in the provinces rather than the teeming city of Buenos Aires because his father remains a political prisoner in Paraguay. As the story begins, Plarr is awaiting word from his father after years of silence. One day Leon (Joaquim de Almeida), an old childhood friend, contacts him. Leon was a priest who had left the church and is now working for the Paraguayan underground. Leon blackmails Plarr into obtaining information on an upcoming visit to the province by the United States Ambassador. Leon's plan is to kidnap the ambassador and hold him for ransom in order to obtain the release of Paraguayan political prisoners -- including Plarr's father. The source for the information is an alcoholic has-been, Charley Fortnum (Michael Caine), the province's honorary British counsel, whose wife Clara (Elpidia Carrillo) also happens to be Plarr's mistress. When the kidnapping goes wrong, Plarr is forced to re-examine his relationship with Clara and with Charley, whose betrayal by Plarr has put Charley's life in jeopardy. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Donald A. Stanwood's original novel The Memory of Eva Ryker used the Titanic tragedy as its launching pad. This made-for-TV adaptation of Stanwood's book moved the action up some 27 years, motivating its plotline with the torpedoing of an Athenia-type luxury liner in 1939. The film flashes forward to 1961: millionaire Ralph Bellamy, who lost his wife when the ship went down, hires writer Robert Foxworth (a discredited ex-cop) to investigate the sinking. Bellamy's grown daughter Natalie Wood, who'd survived the ordeal, seems to hold the secret, but she's been in a near-lunatic state for over twenty years. When several other survivors of the sinking are murdered, it becomes all the more crucial to unlock Wood's pent-up memories. In the tradition of Brian De Palma's Obsession (75), Natalie Wood not only plays the title role of Eva Ryker, but also Eva's ill-fated mother. The Memory of Eva Ryker was produced by "master of disaster" Irwin Allen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Irwin Allen's second water-logged disaster film picks up where The Poseidon Adventure left off; Salvagers Michael Caine, Karl Malden and Sally Field enter the Poseidon to take what they can, unaware that evil salvager Telly Savalas and his henchmen lie in wait. When an explosion rocks the ship, the enemies find themselves trapped inside in a battle for survival both against nature and themselves. The good guys pick up some survivors along the way, including Peter Boyle as a stereotypically hot-headed Italian, Mark Harmon as the All-American boy next door, and Slim Pickens as the ship's wine steward in what may be one of the most poorly-written parts of all time. Field looks good in the water, and Caine is charming despite a lack of material, but the merits end there. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

"Master of disaster" Irwin Allen was so confident of his talents in 1979 that he actually thought he could stretch out a suspense tale for a full 200 minutes. Originally telecast in two parts, Allen's Hanging by a Thread concerns a group of friends and tourists, trapped in a sightseeing tram that dangles precariously over a yawning chasm. You might start yawning as well during the film's entirely dispensable flashback sequences. The "suspense" scenes themselves aren't bad, permitting an all-star cast (Sam Groom, Patty Duke Astin, Joyce Bulifant, Donna Mills, Burt Convy et. al.) to alternate between screaming and looking terrified. Hanging by a Thread was first broadcast on May 8 and 9, 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having already exhausted the dramatic possibilities of fire with The Towering Inferno, producer Irwin Allen turns to water in the made-for-TV Flood! The film is set in a small community, conveniently (for the purposes of the plot) located near a huge earthen dam. As the flood waters rise and the dam threatens to collapse, we are made privy to the individual reactions of such all-star victims-to-be as Robert Culp, Martin Milner, Richard Basehart, Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Hershey, Teresa Wright and Carol Lynley. As in Inferno, helicopter pilots come to the rescue. Most of the film was shot in Eugene, Oregon. Flood! first aired on November 24, 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Queen is a luxury cruise ship, "played" by the Queen Mary in this made-for-TV thriller. The villain has it in for one of the ship's millionaire passengers. Accordingly, he (or she-we're not telling) plans to destroy the vessel and everyone on board. The producer of this all-star disasterfest was-drum roll, please-Irwin Allen. TV movie "regulars" John Gay and David Lowell Rich served as scripter and director, respectively, for Adventures of the Queen, which first sailed into American homes on February 14, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A skyscraper and an all-star cast go up in flames in Irwin Allen's classic disaster movie. To celebrate the construction of the Glass Tower, the world's tallest building, architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and builder James Duncan (William Holden) hold a gala bash on the highest floors. Trouble is, Duncan's son-in-law and electrical subcontractor Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) installed faulty wiring throughout the 138-story behemoth to save money. While the guests -- including Doug's lady friend (Faye Dunaway), a rich widow (Jennifer Jones), a con man (Fred Astaire), and a politico (Robert Vaughn) -- enjoy the party, and a security guard (O.J. Simpson) wonders why his equipment is on the fritz, a burnt-out circuit breaker ignites some garbage on the 85th floor, swiftly turning the high-rise into, well, a towering inferno. With the guests trapped on the 135th floor, it's up to Roberts and Fire Chief O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) to find a way to stop the blaze. Though not the first all-star '70s disaster movie (1970's Airport and 1972's The Poseidon Adventure preceded it), The Towering Inferno was the most popular and the most spectacular. In a move that would become more common in late-'90s blockbuster Hollywood, The Towering Inferno's mammoth production was mounted by two studios; screenwriter Stirling Silliphant combined the two novels owned by the studios into one saga. 1970s "shake 'n bake" maestro Allen, with co-director John Guillermin (Allen did the action sequences), tapped into deep fears about the fragility of modern life in the face of extreme natural phenomena, as well as into the envies and insecurities of middle-aged professional men. The Towering Inferno packed theaters and earned eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture; it won for Cinematography, Editing, and Song. While its heroic, no-nonsense men provided some traditional comfort, The Towering Inferno still might provoke second thoughts about going into a skyscraper. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Irwin Allen, praised in some circles as a science fiction genius and damned in others as a shameless schlockmeister, produced and directed this fanciful TV-movie. Set in the 21st century, the film concentrates on a group of colonists dwelling in a modernistic underwater city called Pacifica. The emphasis is on drama rather than special effects, as we see the deep-sea denizens struggling to cope with the pressures of their new existence--and their own personal animosities. Stuart Whitman heads a large cast of TV veterans, including Time Tunnel regulars James Darren, Robert Colbert and Whit Bissell, and onetime Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea star Richard Basehart (as the US President). Expanded from a short "demo" pilot film, City Beneath the Sea is the one Irwin Allen project that could have matured into a truly worthwhile TV series; unfortunately no network was interested in subsidizing this expensive effort. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this, the third in the Matt Helm special-agent series, Dean Martin plays Helm who's called to save those aboard a hijacked U.S. spacecraft. Ambushers is generally regarded as the weakest of the Helm films, lacking inspiration at most levels. ~ All Movie Guide

The Seaview surfaces while on a mission in the Antarctic and finds the sky a raging inferno. Nelson (Richard Basehart) devises a plan to extinguish the blaze, which is roasting the southern hemisphere of the world and threatens to engulf the northern hemisphere as well, but he is opposed by a rival scientist, Dr. Weber (David J. Stewart), who believes that nothing should be done and that the blaze with extinguish itself. As the Seaview races to the coordinates from which Nelson's plan can be carried out, the admiral must convince the other scientists empanelled by the UN and now aboard the submarine that his plan will work -- but someone is killing those scientists and also spreading mutinous dissent among the crew, threatening the survival of the ship before it can even get to the launch point. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The Time Tunnel tells the story of Tony Newman and Doug Philips, two scientists who find themselves lost in time. At the outset of the series, as depicted in the first episode ("Rendezvous With Yesterday") both men are part of a top secret government project, Project Tic-Toc, in the year 1968 (the series was produced in 1966, when that seemed like the "far future"). Project Tic-Toc is devised to open a time portal which would allow people and machines to move through time in the same way that the US space program projected them into space. But it is massively expensive and has thusfar yielded what one inquisitive US Senator, Leroy Clark (Gary Merrill), believes are minimal results. On a visit to the top secret desert base where the Time Tunnel has been built, he reveals that he intends to recommend that the project be shut down. Desperate not to see the work of years abandoned, Dr. Tony Newman (James Darren) takes it upon himself to activate the Time Tunnel and project himself backward in time. He is successful in his gamble, and finds himself alive in the year 1912 -- aboard the Titanic on her doomed maiden voyage. Back in 1968, the team operating the Time Tunnel -- General Heywood Kirk (Whit Bissell), Dr. Anne McGregor (Lee Merriweather), Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba), and Dr. Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert)-- find that they can track Tony, and even observe where he is and what is happening to him, but they can't get him back; and he will almost certainly die aboard the doomed ocean liner, especially as, having realized where he is, and having tried to warn the captain (Michael Rennie), he has been locked in the ship's brig as an apparent lunatic. The only thing they can do is send someone back to help him, and that falls to Doug Phillips, but he is equally unsuccessful in convincing the captain of the threat to the ship from icebergs, or only barely more effective at rescuing Tony from his cell -- and as they discover, the Time Tunnel cannot pull them back to 1968. The two manage to survive, plucked out of time and space at the last possible moment, but now they are lost in the infinity of time. The series, 30 episodes in all, presented stories in which Doug and Tony find themselves in Paris during the Reign of Terror, at Pearl Harbor on the eve of the Japanese attack, at the Alamo just prior to the final Mexican assault on the fort, the impending explosion of Krakatoa, and so on; it was one of the conceits of the series that Doug and Tony always seem to land in a place and at a time of some historical significance (fans of the series do joke about the notion that in one episode, they should have appeared at a time and in a place in which nothing and no one of any historical significance was there to interact with). The Time Tunnel's control over their movements through time and space was problematic, at best, rare instances in which they could actually be directed, to a degree, on specific missions, juxtaposed with situations in which they were scarcely under any control in terms of time travel, and other moments where the operation of the Time Tunnel threatened their lives. Amid the more routine stories in which the two heroes are placed at pivotal moments in history were a smaller, more interesting body of scripts, in which they are moved into the future -- in the second episode, "One Way To the Moon", Tony and Doug find themselves 10 years in their own future, aboard the first manned flight to Mars; in another, they are trapped in a New England town that is under siege from alien invaders. There were also a tiny handful of stories that mixed horror and fantasy with science fiction, in which Merlin the magician forces the Time Tunnel personnel to aid the young future King Arthur; and one tale in which the vengeful spirit of the Emperor Nero manifests itself in World War I Italy, seeking revenge against the descendant of General Galba, that man who deposed him as ruler of Rome. The Time Tunnel was an attempt by producer Irwin Allen to take the concept behind Lost In Space and apply it to fourth dimensional travel. Its existence and chances for success were predicated on the availability of the 20th Century-Fox film library, and his ability to use clips from any number of historical films shot by the studio (and not just films shot in color -- Time Tunnel was the first Irwin Allen series to go into production in color, but even clips from the black-and-white 1953 film Titanic were used successfully in the first episode, tinted and projected through the Time Tunnel itself. The problem with the show lay in its very concept, however -- audiences may not have known what to expect each week, which can be a virtue; but it can also be a stretch, especially as there were no especially charismatic characters or actors (with the possible exception of Lee Meriwether) in the cast -- Darren and Colbert were handsome enough, but the nature of the stories and scripts prevented anything resembling character development in most of the episodes (the one exception was "The Day The Sky Fell In", in which Tony meets his own father shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor in which the man was listed as missing-in-action). The other problem with the series is that many of the costumes and aliens seemed to be leftovers from producer Irwin Allen's other two science fiction series, Lost In Space and Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea -- few could overlook the hand-me-down nature of the props and sets. Still, the series did attract enough viewership to initially get renewed for a second season, though for reasons unclear at this time, that renewal was subsequently rescinded, limiting the program to a single season of 30 episodes. Some viewers, seeing the final episode on the original run of the series lead back to previews of the first episode, interpreted that as indicating that the two heroes had ended up in the time-loop, repeating the same cycle of adventures. According to those involved with the series, however, a handful of second season scripts were written and ready to shoot, with others in the pipeline when the plug was pulled on the program. Those close to the series also say that if there had been a second season, it would have depicted the Project Tic-Toc scientists as gaining more control over the time-travel process, if not the ability to return Tony and Doug home, which would have increased the diversity of stories that could be told. The series did entertain some interesting ideas concerning time paradoxes, though it did avoid the idea that the two heroes could do anything to change already occurred events. Indeed, it often seemed as though Doug and Tony's presence only helped along events to occur in the manner in which we knew them -- this notion was picked up for the short-lived 1980's series Voyagers. More impressive than anything else about this series was the Time Tunnel itself, a huge device that seemed to go back to infinity. And in one of the more intriguing episodes, viewers got double their money's worth -- in "Secret Weapon", are actually sent on a mission of sorts to investigate a top secret enemy project and encounter an early precursor to the Time Tunnel, in Eastern Europe a decade prior to the development of their own time travel apparatus. Like most of Irwin Allen's projects of this period, The Time Tunnel was a very good idea that the producers never had a chance to explore to its (of their) best advantage. There were two attempts to revive the series, both unsuccessful, but a DVD release of the complete run of the show (with the unaired pilot) did prove popular, and airings of the series on the Sci-Fi Channel in the 1990's were also well-received. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The un-aired Lost in Space pilot "No Place to Hide" kicked around underground video collectors' circles for close to 20 years, but until its release, first through Columbia House on tape in the late '90s and later as part of the FoxVideo DVD set Lost in Space: Season 1, it wasn't available to ordinary viewers. The first eight and a half minutes of the show are substantially the same as events in the first episode of the series, "The Reluctant Stowaway," but with two key differences: There is no Dr. Zachary Smith (and, hence, no "reluctant stowaway" -- so no saboteur), and there is no robot. There are also differences in the Robinson family's mission. Their ship, called the Gemini 12 rather than the Jupiter 2, will be traveling for 98 years, with the Robinson party in suspended animation, to Alpha Centauri. (Someone didn't do the math, as they're to be traveling for 98 years at virtually the speed of light, which would enough time to make several round trips to a star only 4.4 light-years away.) The plot changes substantially from what was used in the series at just under nine minutes into the story, as the ship encounters a circular swarm of meteors that leaves it critically damaged. The spaceship is next seen going into a low orbit around a planet and entering the atmosphere on automatic controls (with the family still in stasis) for a crash-landing. The plot then jumps ahead six months, to a recollection of events in Professor John Robinson's journal, read over a montage of space castaway life by Guy Williams. The Robinsons are seen living a spartan, but survivable, existence, and we see events that were ultimately used in episodes four and five of the series .

The castaways determine that the planet's orbit will result in a potentially lethal winter, and then discover a race of one-eyed giants, standing 50-feet tall and living in the mountains near where the ship crashed. Professor Robinson and Don West (Mark Goddard) are trapped in a cave by one of the creatures (Lamar Lundy), but are rescued when Will Robinson (Billy Mumy) arrives with a laser pistol. The travelers abandon their spaceship in the face of the coming deep freeze, and along their journey discover an ancient ruin with the mummified remains of something non-human before crossing the inland sea to safety. The latter segment contains a whirlpool scene -- the work of L.B. Abbott and Howard Lydecker -- that is still chilling. The program ends with the Robinsons setting up a new camp, not realizing that they are being observed and evaluated by a pair of aliens.

With the exception of the ending, all of this action will be familiar to longtime fans of the series from its usage in episodes one, four, and five, although some shots and scenes here run longer than they were in the finished program. Perhaps the best of these is the extended version of John Robinson's rocket-pack ride over the alien landscape in search of his missing daughter Penny, a scene set to Bernard Herrmann's hauntingly beautiful, yet moody, seascape music from Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. As John Williams had not yet been engaged to write the score for the episode (or a title theme), all of the music here is tracked in from Herrmann's scores from various 20th Century Fox feature films, including The Day the Earth Stood Still, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. Although less overtly suspenseful than what Williams would write, Herrmann's music gives all of this material a strangely beautiful, poetic quality -- perhaps not as suspenseful as the network wanted, but quite lovely in its way. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide