David Brandon Movies

Although they are not shipwrecked like the ancient Phoenicians and Greeks who have left their artifacts scattered across this Sicilian island and under the ocean offshore, all the characters in this tragic drama find themselves in strange and unwelcoming territory. In the story, Iano runs the little museum where tourists may view the various Classical and pre-Classical objects turned up by archaeologists on or near the island of Mozia, off the coast of Sicily. Iano also keeps careful watch over his much-too-sexy daughter Iole, with a view to keeping her from harm. However, he must work sometime, and that is precisely when the sneaky girl arranges her trysts with Ioio, a mainlander whose slightly criminal bent leads him to seek out undiscovered antiquities on the island and sell them to an even more unscrupulous aristocrat, who dotes on old stuff. When the aristocrat ropes Ioio into a scheme to steal the museum's star attraction and sell it in order to pay off the older man's gambling debts, tragedy results. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The always innovative Taviani Brothers pay homage to another unique filmmaker, D. W. Griffith, in Good Morning, Babylon. Vincent Spano and Joaquim de Almeida star as Nicola and Andrea Bonnano, the latest in a long line of Tuscany-born cathedral builders. Emigrating to America, the brothers settle in Los Angeles in 1915, even as director Griffith (Charles Dance) is preparing his epic production Intolerance. The boys are hired to help construct the massive sets for the film's Babylonian sequence (hence the title), for no other reason than the fact that Griffith is impressed by Italian craftsmanship. As the film progresses, Nicola and Andrea assimilate to their new surroundings, even launching a romance with a pair of pretty movie extras. On the verge of continuing the family tradition, the boys' ambitions are cut short by events well beyond their control. Still, their past artistic accomplishments, like those of their forebears, survive the ages -- but only on the ethereal silver screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gioia Maria Scola stars in this creepy but minor horror film as a pregnant woman who poisons her husband and helps her lover bury him alive during a raging thunderstorm. Six years later, the sinful couple hire a handyman (David Brandon), unaware that he is the reincarnated spirit of Scola's late husband. The usual hallucinations, rotting corpses, and nightmares ensue, scripted by the omnipresent Dardano Sacchetti and competently directed by Lamberto Bava. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

In three separate, amateurish stories set in an indeterminate future when television rules the roost and humans are increasingly robot-like, the focus is on the first-prize winners in a TV contest. The first winner is a professor who lectures on mythology via closed-circuit television from his apartment. Worried about his ratings, he goes for consultation and consolation to an attractive female friend. But after a lecture on centaurs, tragedy strikes, and the young professor never learns he is a winner after all. In the next story, the winner is a loner who hates the robotic society and falls in love with a woman he only knows by her voice. In the last story, the winner turns out to be a canine, who couldn't care less about his good luck -- or even understand it.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A full-length pilot which was turned into the series A Man Called Sloane, this movie concerns super-agent T.R. Sloane (Robert Logan, but played by Robert Conrad in the TV series) and his mission: to locate and return a powerful machine capable of turning the world into rubble. To complicate matters, the film was later titled T.R. Sloane. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, two dogged FBI agents are on the case to investigate one of the U.S.'s most infamous bank robberies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Buffy (Johnnie Whitaker) and Jody (Anissa Jones) are terrified when a Criswell-like TV psychic predicts that New York will be destroyed by a tidal wave. Though there are some otherwise responsible adults who swallow this story whole, Uncle Bill (Brian Keith) is not one of them, and he must work overtime to convince the twins that their fears are groundless. But when Bill suddenly has to leave New York, the kids jump to the obvious conclusion and the situation gets far worse than imagined! Watch for Erin Moran, four years away from her role of Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days, in a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the opening episode of Family Affair's fifth and final season, Bill (Brian Keith), his nieces Buffy (Anissa Jones) and Cissy (Kathy Garver), and his nephew Jody (Johnnie Whitaker) have been living together in New York for nearly five years. Now the time has come for Buffy and Jody to wax nostalgic over the friendliness of the neighbors in their home town of Terre Haute--especially when compared to the coldness and hostility of their current neighbors in the Big Apple. The kids try to hold a "togetherness" party for the residents of their apartment building, but the event proves to be a failure. It takes something as simple as stuck elevator for the kids' neighbors to suddenly discover that there is nothing wrong with being gracious and generous--at least temporarily. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With the "inside" help of misguided maid Maria Montoya (Pilar Seurat), a gang of thieves steals a 33-carat diamond from wealthy Everlyn Harcourt (June Vincent). The FBI enters the scene after one of the crooks is killed during the heist and the rest scatter to the four winds. Athough the gang's fence is captured, master thief Victor Amazeen (Jack Klugman) manages to elude a trap set by Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.)--but if Amazeen thinks his problems are over, he is sorely mistaken. Featured among the villains is future Hill St. Blues star Daniel J. Travanti, here billed as Dan Travanty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After much intense negotiation, Bill (Brian Keith) agrees to let the twins' new friend Oliver spend three days in the Davis apartment. What the kids have failed to tell Bill is that Oliver is a huge, slobbering, unhousebroken dog. Not only is having such a pet against apartment-house regulations, but Oliver also develops an intense dislike for Bill, which is manifested in wholesale destruction! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bill (Brian Keith) inadvertently lives his life vicariously through his nephew Jody (Johnnie Whitaker) when the boy decides to join the neighborhood stickball team. Determined that Jody become a second baseman--a position to which he himself had unsuccessfully aspired when he was a boy--Bill tirelessly trains the youngster for his team tryout. Ultimately, however, it is Jody's sister Buffy (Anissa Jones) who proves to be the better ballplayer...a fact that seems to bother Bill more than it does Jody! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is a straightforward, unexceptional story about a platoon of Marines taken out of battle in Korea for some R & R in Tokyo, and then sent back to the front lines again. The four men are stereotypes found in many war stories: the simpatico country boy, the intellect though not overtly so, a rich, suave type, and a hard-as-nails tough-guy leader. These four friends are first seen in combat situations, then encountering all sorts of misadventures in Japan before they have to push off to do battle again. This was the penultimate film of director Raoul Walsh (who also provided the story for the script), unusual because he started directing in 1915 -- his career spanned fifty years. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide