Richard Brooks Movies

This frothy fantasy adventure centers upon the exotic romance between a shark fisherman (the sharks he captured are used for the manufacture of vitamin A) and the beautiful princess of Temple Island. They meet when the fisherman asks a young boy with royal connections to introduce him to the princess so he can ask for permission to fish the teeming waters near the island. The boy introduces the hunter to the girl and love immediately blossoms until he makes his request. She believes that he is really only looking for a way to steal the treasure located in the temple pool, and she banishes him. The boy has other plans for them though. At the same time, a crooked treasure-seeking trader conspires to get the booty for himself.. A major confrontation between good guys and bad eventually ensues with wild accusations flying like palm fronds in a hurricane. The shark hunter is accused of murder and imprisoned. Once again, the brave boy comes to his rescue and together they set out to prove his innocence. The story reaches its climax at the great temple that gave the island its name. A terrible earthquake ensures that the villains get their due. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Grant (Ralph Bellamy) is a wealthy rancher who hires four mercenaries to retrieve his wife, Maria (Claudia Cardinale), from the clutches of the desperado Raza (Jack Palance) in this Western adventure set in 1917. Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) is a munitions expert who joins gunslinger Fardan (Lee Marvin), horse trainer Hans Ehrengard (Robert Ryan), and longbow master Jake (Woody Strode) when the men are offered 10,000 dollars apiece for the safe return of Grant's kidnapped wife. The cadre travels 100 miles into Mexico to retrieve the woman, whom they later discover wants to remain with Raza, but they decide to nab Maria anyway to make good on the money. Soon Fardan, Hans, and Jake are chased across the border by the enraged Raza and his equally deadly female accomplice Chiquita (Marie Gomez), while Dolworth stays behind to fight off Raza's Mexican banditos. The film received Academy Award nominations for Best Direction (Richard Brooks), Best Screenplay (Brooks again), and Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall). ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story Babylon Revisited, MGM's The Last Time I Saw Paris is a star-studded soap opera, luxuriously lensed by director Richard Brooks. In his last film as an MGM contractee, Van Johnson plays reporter Charles Wills, who while covering the VE Day celebrations in Paris, meets and falls in love with the gorgeous Helen Ellsworth (Elizabeth Taylor). Soon afterward, Charles and Helen are married. Charles supports his wife with a low-paying wire service job, devoting his evenings to writing a novel. After numerous rejections, Charles is more than willing to give up writing and live off the revenue of a Texas oil well in which he'd invested. As he squanders his newfound riches on creature comforts, he loses his literary ambitions and, slowly but surely, the love and devotion of his wife. His self-destructive behavior is halted only by a devastating tragedy. Donna Reed costars as Charles sister-in-law Marion, who carries a torch for him throughout the picture, and Eva Gabor contributes a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Suburban housewives console themselves with pills and alcohol to tolerate their spouses' infidelities in The Happy Ending. Mary Wilson (Jean Simmons) is married to Fred (John Forsythe) and she prepares for their 16th wedding-anniversary party with tranquilizers and booze. The guests are clients of Fred's, a successful tax attorney. Harry (Dick Shawn) and wife Helen (Tina Louise) are two of the guests. Helen offers herself to Fred, as Mary entertains thoughts of bedding down with the playboy Sam (Lloyd Bridges) or a young gigolo (Bobby Darin). Agnes (Nanette Fabray) is the level-headed housekeeper who wryly observes the proceedings, and Shirley Jones is on hand as one of the guests. Mary ends up in the hospital in need of a stomach pump after a half-hearted suicide attempt. After the incident, her incredulous husband shallowly suggests that she needs a hobby. All is not well in the suburban Shangri-La in this feature, that tends to sympathize with the female characters. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Bette Davis goes the "kitchen sink drama" route in The Catered Affair. As the frowsy wife of Bronx cabdriver Ernest Borgnine, Davis insists that her daughter Debbie Reynolds have a high-class wedding--caterers and all. Reynolds and future hubby Rod Taylor want a simple ceremony, but Davis' mind is made up. The wedding snowballs into an unwieldy affair as Davis and Borgnine find that they must invite everyone they know or risk incurring the wrath of their neighborhood. When the cost of the affair exceeds the family's bank account, Davis rails at Borgnine for failing to be a good provider. It takes her till the very end of the film to realize what a fool she's been. Gore Vidal, of all people, adapted The Catered Affair from a TV drama written by Paddy Chayefsky; the original telecast had starred Thelma Ritter. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"You guys will never be soldiers!" With these words, Richard Widmark opens and closes Take the High Ground. Widmark plays tough drill sergeant Thorne Ryan, whipping his recruits through basic training in preparation for shipment to Korea. Merton Tolliver (Carleton Carpenter) is the standard-issue private who just can't seem to cut it, despite Ryan's (Widmark) relentless special attention. To prove that the behemoth sergeant has a tender side, the script contrives a romantic triangle involving Ryan, Julie Mollison (Elaine Stewart), and Sgt. Laverne Holt (Karl Malden). The film is an amalgam of rugged realism and Hollywood hokiness, with Widmark terrific as the topkick you love to hate. Filmed at Fort Bliss, TX, Take the High Ground utilizes several real-life soldiers in the drill sequences (you can recognize the real ones; they aren't afraid of Richard Widmark). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paul Newman recreates his Broadway role in the 1962 film version of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Newman plays handsome hustler Chance Wayne, who romances fading film star Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page) in hopes of winning a movie contract for himself. The mercenary Wayne and the self-destructive Alexandra find themselves in Chance's home town, where corrupt politician Boss Finley (Oscar-winner Ed Begley) rules the roost. Finley's daughter Heavenly (Shirley Knight), impregnated by Chance during his last visit, dreams of a reunion with her old beau, but Finley and his brutish son Tom Jr. (Rip Torn) make certain that no such reunion occurs. Even the well-intentioned interventions of Heavenly's Aunt Nonny (Mildred Dunnock) fail to move the stubborn Finley. Warned to leave town or risk a broken skull, Chance is dumped by Alexandra, whose recent "comeback" film has proven a success and who thus no longer needs a gigolo to feed her ego. From this point on, Richard Brooks' screenplay departs so radically from the Tennessee Williams original that to elucidate the differences would require a book in itself. Suffice to say that the play's Chance Wayne is rendered "less than a man" by the vengeful Finley, whereas the film's Wayne emerges with all his working parts intact. A second version Sweet Bird of Youth (1989), purportedly based on Williams' own rewrite of his earlier material, was filmed for television in 1989, with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon in the leads, and with Rip Torn, Tom Finley Jr. in the original, stepping into the role of Boss Finley. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The literalism of writer-director Richard Brooks serves him well in this meticulously faithful adaptation of the Robert Ruark novel Something of Value. Filmed on location in Africa, this is the story of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, as seen through the eyes of a handful of protagonists. Virtually alone in a sea of racist British colonialism, gentleman farmer Peter McKenzie (Rock Hudson) strives to understand the demands of freedom and equality made by Kenya's black population in particular and his childhood friend Kimani (Sidney Poitier) in particular. Ultimately, however, McKenzie and Kimani find themselves on opposite sides of the fence when the latter aligns himself with the Mau Mau. Without advocating the terrorism of this controversial movement, the screenplay is careful to deal the ongoing iniquities and frustrations that forced men like Kimani to take arms against their white brethren. There were a few theatres in the American south who, feeling that the racial tensions inherent in Something of Value hit too close to home, refused to book this fascinating, thought-provoking, often startlingly brutal film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Blonde good-time girl Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), who lives in a cheap rooming house in a working-class section of Boston, run by the inquisitive and neurotic Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), goes out one night after a phone conversation with her boyfriend, proclaiming that she's got big plans and might even move to a nicer place. After putting in her shift as a waitress at a cheap dive called The Grass Skirt, she latches onto Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson), an innocently drunk patron, who's trying to wash away his sadness over his wife's stillborn child. She uses Henry's car with him in tow to drive out to Cape Cod, then strands him on foot and meets her boyfriend -- but when she arrives, he puts a bullet into her, then strips the body, throws it into the sea, and drops the clothes and the car into a lake. Six months later, an ornithologist from the cape spots the skeleton of a human foot sticking up through the sand.

Enter Lt. Peter Morales (Ricardo Montalban) of the Boston PD; he and his partner on this case, Det. Sharkey (Wally Maher), bring the bones to Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett), of Harvard University's forensic medical laboratory. Over the next few days, McAdoo and his staff are able to determine the gender, age, and general appearance of the person to whom the bones belonged, and that this is a case of murder -- and that the victim was pregnant. Morales and Sharkey, combing through what they know about the victim and the missing persons records of six nearby states, eventually tie the skeleton up with Vivian Heldon, who disappeared on just about the same day the victim was killed, and also to Shanway's car, which he reported stolen that day. The poor slob, who is merely trying to cover up a drunken lapse from his wife (Sally Forrest), acts guilty enough and lies about just enough so that Morales is certain that he's the murderer. His investigation isn't helped by the interference of Mrs. Smerrling, who sold Vivian's belongings when she didn't return to her room, and now seems fixated, even obsessed with the details of the case and its connection to her rooming house. While the police tighten the screws on Shanway, she backtracks Vivian's phone calls and makes contact with the woman's boyfriend, James Joshua Harkley (Edmon Ryan), member of a wealthy Boston family, and a married man; she also manages to steal a vital piece of evidence. But instead of turning it over to the police, she uses it to blackmail Harkley.

Meanwhile, the district attorney sets an early trial date for Shanway, but with the opening arguments only a week away, Morales begins to develop doubts about Shanway's guilt, in addition to harboring his own sympathy for Grace Shanway, whose life is being gradually destroyed by the prosecution on her husband -- not that Morales thinks he's innocent, but there's enough that's not right about the case, including the missing murder weapon, that he's not 100-percent sure. And that's when Vivian's friend and neighbor, Jackie Elcott (Betsy Blair) reports how strangely Mrs. Smerrling is acting, and the fact that she's got a gun. But before they can question her, Harkley kills Mrs. Smerrling -- now it's a race between Morales and Harkley to see who can get to the murder weapon first. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Surprisingly little known, Universal's Men of Texas boasts an impressive cast and a fairly exciting and complex storyline. Set just after the Civil War, the film stars Robert Stack as Chicago war correspondent Barry Conovan, who is sent by his newspaper to Texas to get the low-down on the martial law that has been imposed on the state. Conovan is accompanied by Sam Sawyer (Leo Carrillo), his photographer-and never mind that newspapers didn't run photographs in 1866! Despite the good intentions of General Sam Houston (William Farnum), Texas is in the hands of carpetbaggers, scallawags and tinhorn dictators, the worst of whom is Henry Jackson (Brod Crawford), a self-styled patriot who runs his section of the territory like his own private fiefdom, with an army of outlaws at his beck and call. The plot gets even hairier when both Conovan and Jackson fall in love with Jane Baxter Scott (Anne Gwynne), whose younger brother Robert (Jackie Cooper) is a living embodiment of the ideological confusion plaguing postwar Texas. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Adapted from Judith Rossner's best-selling novelization of a true story, Richard Brooks's melodrama turns one woman's search for a liberated life into a cautionary tale about promiscuity. After an affair with her college professor, no-longer-good Catholic girl Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) follows the lead of her hedonistic sister (Tuesday Weld) and moves out of her oppressive family home to forge a life of her own. A compassionate teacher of deaf children by day, Theresa metamorphoses into a sexually free cruiser of singles bars by night. She prefers the satisfying attentions of unpredictable, danger-tinged stud Tony Lopanto (Richard Gere) to the more noble intentions of social worker James (William Atherton), but she ditches anyone who prevents her from being her "own girl." As Theresa's life threatens to spin out of control, she makes a vow to clean up her existence once and for all. But before she makes the break, she goes to one more bar and brings home one more man (Tom Berenger). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Richard Brooks and John Huston's screenplay for Huston's Key Largo eschews the lofty blank verse of Maxwell Anderson's original play, concentrating instead on the simmering tensions among the many characters. Humphrey Bogart plays Frank McCloud, an embittered war veteran who travels to Key Largo in Florida, there to meet Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall), the wife of his deceased war buddy. Arriving at a tumbledown hotel managed by Nora's father-in-law James Temple (Lionel Barrymore), McCloud discovers that the establishment has been taken over by exiled gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) and what's left of his mob. Also in attendance is Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor), Rocco's alcoholic girlfriend. While the others bristle at the thought of being held at bay by the gangsters, the disillusioned McCloud refuses to get involved: "One Rocco more or less isn't worth dying for." As he awaits a contact who is bringing him enough money to skip the country, Rocco is responsible for the deaths of a deputy sheriff and two local Indian youth. Unwilling to take a stand before these tragedies, McCloud finally comes to realize that Rocco is a beast who must be destroyed. To save the others from harm, McCloud agrees to pilot Rocco's boat to Cuba through the storm-tossed waters. Just before McCloud leaves, Gaye Dawn slips him a gun -- which leads to the deadly final confrontation between McCloud and Rocco. His resolve to go on living renewed by this cathartic experience, McCloud heads back to Nora, with whom he's fallen in love. Claire Trevor's virtuoso performance as a besotted ex-nightclub singer won her an Academy Award -- as predicted by her admiring fellow actors, who watched her go through several very difficult scenes in long, uninterrupted takes. While Key Largo sags a bit during its more verbose passages, on a visual level the film is one of the best and most evocative examples of the "film noir" school. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi