Marshall Bradford Movies

In one of Petticoat Junction's rare fantasy episodes, the Bradley girls' beloved dog (played by future Benji star Higgins) is accused of being a chicken killer by sadistic dogcatcher Hinky Mittenfloss (brilliantly played by the inimitable, squeaky-voiced Percy Helton). Thrown into a dog pound that more closely resembles a miniature Alcatraz, the pooch awaits his fate while Betty Jo (Linda Kaye) pleads for his life in a surrealistic courtroom. This episode was cowritten by Al Schwartz, the brother of Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Jorgensons are a wealthy family spending the summer on a resort island. Ken (Richard Egan), Helen (Constance Ford) and daughter Molly (Sandra Dee) settle in to a beach house on the island where Ken was a young lifeguard twenty years ago. He rediscovers Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), with whom he had an earlier affair before she married Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy). The Hunter's son Johnny (Troy Donahue) and Molly fall in love, much to the objection of her mother, a cold and cynical woman. When Ken and Sylvia start another torrid affair, the exposure of the liaison leads to the divorce of both married couples. After Johnny and Molly are stranded overnight on a beach, Molly is forced by her heartless mistrusting mother to undergo a physical examination and a pregnancy test. Tests results are negative, but more negative is the mother-daughter relationship. Ken and Sylvia get married and Molly gets pregnant. The newlyweds then compassionately guide unwed couple to marriage. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Filmed under the title Prehistoric World, Teenage Caveman stars future Man From UNCLE Robert Vaughn as the eponymous hero, known only as The Boy. A member of a primitive tribe living in a desolate valley, The Boy has been warned never to journey into the Forbidden Area, lest disaster or death befall him. But after participating in a bear hunt, The Boy and his spear-carrying fellow tribesmen head into the Forbidden Area in search of fresh game. One by one, the intrepid hunters are killed off by quicksand, stock-footage dinosaurs and other such impediments to progress. Exiled by his tribe for venturing into the Forbidden Area, The Boy is compelled to live for a time in an isolated cave, where he is comforted by the Maiden (Darrah Marshall), who has fallen in love with him. Later on, the Boy once more risks life and limb by entering the Forbidden Area. It is at this point that he is told the horrible truth of the Valley's history by a very old man who is dressed in what looks like a 20th-century radiation suit. Without revealing the "surprise" denoument (surprising only to those who've never seen a post-apocalyptic movie), it can be noted that Teenage Cavemen comes to a close with the words "The Beginning." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Vicki Gaye (Cyd Charisse) is a dancer at a night club in early 1930's Chicago. A healthy cynic who still possesses some ideals, she entertains no illusions about the "invitation" (or the $100 that goes with it) that she gets to a party hosted by mob kingpin Rico Angelo (Lee J. Cobb) -- but she still won't let Angelo's head torpedo Louis Canetto (John Ireland) get near her. Angelo's attorney Thomas Farrell (Robert Taylor) is another story -- he's a more complicated than the men he defends, and still enough of an idealist so that when he and Vicki cross swords about who is the worse hypocrite, it actually affects him. Farrell, whose right leg has been crippled from birth and getting worse, took the easy way to success by pursuing a criminal practice, including getting Canetto off a murder rap -- but after meeting Vicki he starts to see another path to take, and also embarks on a year of surgical procedures to cure the worst of the pain in his leg. And he comes out a new man, with a new plan in life, including starting over in a practice that doesn't involve criminal law. But Angelo plans on having Farrell fight an old friend, prosecutor Jeffrey Stewart (Kent Smith), who is trying to indict Angelo's associate Cooky La Motte (Corey Allen). Farrell resists, until Angelo threatens to harm Vicki -- and when the case and the trail blow up in both sides' faces, he finds himself caught between the mob and the law, with Vicki urging him to do the right thing. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

A 15-year old boy dies as the result of a cruel prank during a high school club initiation. It is up to Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) to determine whether the boy's death was accidental, or a deliberate act of murder--and if the latter is true, to figure out who exactly is to blame. Featured in the cast is character actor Joe Forte, best rememembered as the stern anti-marijuana lecturer in the 1936 camp classic Reefer Madness. This is one of a handful of sixth-season Dragnet episodes written directly for television, with no prior radio adaptation. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

From the folks who brought you I Was a Teenage Werewolf comes this relentlessly shlocky variation on the Frankenstein legend. Whit Bissell stars as Professor Frankenstein, descendant of you-know-who, who harbors a few radical theories about limb transplantation. Laughed at by students and colleagues alike, the good professor intends to prove the efficacy of his theories in his own lab at home--keeping an alligator as a "pet" to dispose of discarded body parts. When a carful of teenagers crashes near his home, Frankenstein and his assistant Carlton (Robert Burton) gather up the bodies and begin stitching up the fragments, adding a few chunks of flesh recovered from a convenient plane wreck. The result is a teenaged monster (Gary Conway) with a bad attitude. Already a bit off in the coop to begin with, Professor Frankenstein goes completely bonkers, using the monster to dispose of such awkward witnesses as the professor's fiancee Margaret (Phyllis Coates). The film's final burst of violence is filmed in color, for no discernable reason. If for nothing else, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein would be memorable for Professor F's deathless line to his sullen creation: "Answer me! You have a civil tongue in your head! I know, I sewed it in there!" ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren, this Southern potboiler stars Yvonne DeCarlo as Amantha Starr, the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana plantation owner. When her father unexpectedly dies, Amantha discovers that her father was deep in debt and the family is penniless, and she is forced to drop out of the exclusive girls' school she was attending. What's more, it is discovered that Amantha has a small amount of African-American blood, and under the laws she is to be sold into slavery in New Orleans. Amantha is purchased by Hamish Bond (Clark Gable), a dashing, wealthy, but mysterious landowner. While Amantha is at first terrified by her new situation, in time she grows fond of Hamish and becomes romantically involved with him. However, the outbreak of the Civil War leads to Union forces taking New Orleans; RauRu (Sidney Poitier), Hamish's trusted overseer, joins the Northern forces as the Rebels go down in defeat. RauRu hates Amantha for literally sleeping with the enemy, and Hamish for the corrupt system he represents, but his last remaining threads of loyalty prevent him from taking them prisoner. With his crops destroyed, Hamish must rebuild his empire from the ground up, and, as he joins forces with his former associate Capt. Canavan (Torin Thatcher), he must reveal a shameful secret to Amantha: he once earned his living as a slave trader. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Greer Garson's first non-MGM starring vehicle was the stylish western Strange Lady in Town. That lady is Julia (Garson), who arrives in 1880 New Mexico to set up practice as a doctor. The townsfolk are not only resistant to the notion of a lady sawbones, but they become downright hostile when Julia turns out to be a tireless advocate of the Women's Suffrage movement. Rival doctor O'Brien (Dana Andrews) doesn't feel that there's any room in the medical profession for ladies; his personal feelings for the lovely Julia are another matter. Faced with such roadblocks as prejudice, ignorance and downright stupidity, Julia nonetheless perseveres with O'Brien eventually seeing things her way. When Julia's hotheaded younger brother David (Cameron Mitchell) turns outlaw, the townspeople are prepared to ride her out of town on a rail, but she is rescued by the intervention of the local Mexicans and Indians, who have accepted her presence and her ministrations without reservation. Hmmmm . . . could Strange Lady in Town be the direct ancestor of TV's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Frank Webster (John Ireland) is a man on the run. Newly broken out of prison, the former truck driver and convicted murderer takes Connie Adair (Dorothy Malone) hostage at a lonely roadside diner and commandeers her car, a racing job than she intended to drive in a rally. At first Connie is as frightened as any woman should be in such a situation, but she soon sees that Frank is more than a wanted criminal -- he's an innocent man trying to redeem his life, and forced by circumstance to commit acts of violence. Soon the two are on the run together, lovers and fugitives using the cover of the road rally as a dodge so he can get to the border and freedom. Connie tries to convince Frank to take a stand, get the evidence out that framed him, and redeem his honor, as the authorities close in on the fast-driving pair. The second movie ever produced by Roger Corman, The Fast and the Furious marked the first release of Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson and the beginning of their American Releasing Corporation, soon to be renamed American International Pictures. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

This western stars Sterling Hayden as a man who innocently tends to the needs of a mysterious stranger. When it turns out that the stranger was part of a notorious gang of mercenaries, Hayden is condemned as a conspirator and sent to Hellgate Prison in New Mexico. He earns a pardon thanks to his courage and medical expertise during an epidemic. Hellgate was one of a handful of ambitious 1950s projects from the otherwise cost-conscious Lippert Studios. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After several elaborate Republic western vehicles, William Elliot returns to the clean-cut minimalism of his "Wild Bill Elliot" days in Longhorn. The story involves the efforts by cattle rancher Jim Kirk (Elliot) to cross-breed his Longhorn cattle with Hereford stock, thereby increasing their value. To this end, Kirk heads to Oregon to pick up a prime group of Herefords. Unfortunately, his head cowboy Andy (Myron Healey) is in cahoots with a gang of rustlers who intend to steal Kirk's improved stock. Featured in the cast are all-purpose heroine Phyllis Coates and such sagebrush veterans as I. Stanford Jolley, William Fawcett, Zon Murray, and future TV "Lone Ranger" John Hart. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

All of Washington, D.C., is thrown into a panic when an extraterrestrial spacecraft lands near the White House. Out steps Klaatu (Michael Rennie, in a role intended for Claude Rains), a handsome and soft-spoken interplanetary traveler, whose "bodyguard" is Gort (Lock Martin), a huge robot who spews forth laser-like death rays when danger threatens. After being wounded by an overzealous soldier, Klaatu announces that he has a message of the gravest importance for all humankind, which he will deliver only when all the leaders of all nations will agree to meet with him. World politics being what they are in 1951, Klaatu's demands are turned down and he is ordered to remain in the hospital, where his wounds are being tended. Klaatu escapes, taking refuge in a boarding house, where he poses as one "Mr. Carpenter" (one of the film's many parallels between Klaatu and Christ). There the benign alien gains the confidence of a lovely widow (Patricia Neal) and her son, Bobby (Billy Gray), neither of whom tumble to his other-worldly origins, and seeks out the gentleman whom Bobby regards as "the smartest man in the world" -- an Einstein-like scientist, Dr. Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe). The next day, at precisely 12 o'clock, Klaatu arranges for the world to "stand still" -- he shuts down all electrical power in the world, with the exception of essentials like hospitals and planes in flight. Directed by Robert Wise, who edited Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) for director Orson Welles before going on to direct such major 1960s musicals as West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), The Day the Earth Stood Still was based on the story Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi