Bart Bradley Movies
- 1960
Based on real incidents in the life and death of Lt. Joseph Petrosino (Ernest Borgnine) of the New York police force, this tale set between 1906-1909 details the history of the lieutenant's fight to prove Sicilian Mafia involvement in crimes in his city. Lt. Petrosino has a series of dangerous close calls as he distinguishes himself by saving singer Enrico Caruso from a Mafia bomb outside the Metropolitan Opera, and by also saving the father of Adelina (Zohra Lampert) the woman he loves. Several other exploits eventually lead to Petrosino's trip to Sicily to nail evidence for the Mafia's activities in New York, and for a final meeting with destiny. This represented the last screen credit of scenarist Bertram Millhauser, who died in 1958; he had received his penultimate credit nine years before that, on the 1949 Tokyo Joe. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ernest Borgnine, Zohra Lampert, (more)
- 1958
In this sensitive drama, a commercial artist is devastated by his tiny daughter's death and takes to drinking to numb the terrible pain. Soon he has become a full-blown alcoholic. His loving wife and caring doctor are unable to help. He wants to stop drinking, but he simply cannot until he meets another alcoholic who is also desperate to stop. Together, they support each other as they withdraw from the debilitating drug. Later the fellow founds an organization designed to help other drunks dry out by offering them the same kind of support he had. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Egan, Julie London, (more)
- 1958
In the town of San Sebastian, Paladin (Richard Boone) is hired by wealthy Scotsman Ian Crown (Judson Pratt) to track down Sancho Fernandez (Simon Oakland), a bandit who has been terrorizing the countryside. It soon becomes obvious that there is more to this situation than a simple manhunt: at the center of the intrigue is a valuable religious relic that has allegedly been stolen by Fernandez--and is highly coveted by the tight-fisted Mr. Crown. This is the final episode of Have Gun--Will Travel's first season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
One of special-effects wizard Ray Harryhausen's pre-Seventh Voyage of Sinbad efforts, 20 Million Miles to Earth borrows a few pages from King Kong. An American spaceship crashlands off the coast of Sicily. The rescue party discovers that the astronauts have inadvertently brought back a curious gelatinous mass from the planet Venus. This lump of goo rapidly evolves into be a living reptilian creature, which scientists label an "Ymir". While being subjected to laboratory experimentation, the Ymir begins growing by leaps and bounds, and before long the gigantic monstrosity has escaped and is wreaking havoc in Rome. After battling a zoo elephant and taking a swim in the Tiber, the gargantuan creature holes up in the Colosseum, where the film's pyrotechnic finale occurs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Hopper, Joan Taylor, (more)
- 1957
Rory Calhoun both starred in and put up the money for the Columbia oater The Domino Kid. As the title character, Calhoun's mission in life is to rid the earth of the five outlaws who destroyed his ranch and killed his father. Before the film is ten minutes old, the Domino Kid has killed four of the five miscreants. Before he can mete out retribution to the fifth man, however, Domino must contend with cattle baron Wade Harrington (Andrew Duggan)--not to mention a few romantic entanglements with winsome Barbara Ellison (Kristine Miller) and tempestuous Rosita (Yvette Dugay). Had not Rory Calhoun committed himself to the TV western The Texan, The Domino Kid would have presaged a series of economical western vehicles for Columbia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rory Calhoun, Kristine Miller, (more)
- 1956
Thanks to the somewhat inadequate managerial skills of Fred Mertz (William Frawley), the Ricardos and the Mertzes are booked into a fourth-class Florence hotel during the Italian leg of Ricky's European musical tour. This means that Lucy (Lucille Ball) is unable to make telephone contact with Little Ricky back in the states on the occasion of the boy's birthday. Possessed with homesickness, Lucy "adopts" an Italian shoeshine boy named Giuseppe (Bart Bradley), who claims that it is his birthday as well -- and who turns out to be a first-class con artist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bart Bradley, Vicente Padula, (more)
- 1955
Cell 2455 Death Row is based on the autobiography of condemned prisoner and "jailhouse lawyer" Caryl Chessman. William Campbell plays the Chessman counterpart, here renamed Whit. A seriously disturbed misfit, Whit begins a life of crime, culminating in sexual assault as the "Lover's Lane Bandit." Condemned to the gas chamber at San Quentin, Whit spends six years fighting his sentence, gradually winning the support and sometimes the respect of various legal experts. The film ends in 1955 (the year of its production), some five years before Caryl Chessman's ultimate execution; accordingly, the film's "open-ended" finale has been removed from many TV prints. A more thorough and incisive study of the Chessman case was offered in the made-for-TV movie Kill Me If You Can, which starred Alan Alda. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Campbell, Marian Carr, (more)
