John A. Bushelman Movies

Gang wars in Los Angeles is the focus of this film. ~ All Movie Guide

Five years after Mission: Impossible, Peter Graves accepted a starring assignment in the modestly budgeted High Seas Hijack. Most of the film takes place on a highly valuable oil tanker. A group of terrorists decide that the best way to advance their cause is to steal the tanker and imprison its passengers. Their tactics are just as brutal and bloodthirsty as the pirates of old, but the good guys manage to dish it out as well as take it. High Sea Hijack is distinguished by the presence of Gigi Perreau, a former child actress who seldom showed up on screen after 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fairly mediocre, Manila-lensed occult thriller is probably only noteworthy to Tom Selleck fans, who can see him here in his first starring role as an art collector whose latest find is a painting of three witches being burned at the stake... all of whom bear an uncanny resemblance to his wife and her two friends. Weird events abound shortly after the painting is installed in their home, and when a demonic canine begins snooping around the premises, Satanic signs appear, and people start dying. Selleck slowly becomes aware (much more slowly than the audience) that the resemblance in the picture is more than mere coincidence. Aside from the attractive location scenery, this is far too plodding and talky to sustain any devilish creepiness. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

A hardened drug addict finds true solace and peace, not from narcotics but from letting Christ into his life in this religious drama that was filmed in the grim Puerto Rican slums of the Bronx. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on the same H.G. Wells story as his later Food of the Gods, this silly but good-looking fantasy from Bert I. Gordon is among his more entertaining films. The young Ron Howard plays Genius, who develops a substance which causes animals to grow to monstrous size. After eight kids (led by Beau Bridges and Tisha Sterling) crash their car in the mud, they dance and get drunk, then steal some food containing the growth-gunk, causing them to attain huge physical size as well. It's up to the good teens of the town (including Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford from The Rifleman, and "Mickey" crooner Toni Basil) to set things right. That involves a gas-like antidote and a lot of subpar musical numbers from the likes of Freddy Cannon and the Beau Brummels. Joseph Turkel and Rance Howard are also in the cast, and a jokey ending features a number of midgets including Felix Silla, best known as Cousin Itt on TV's The Addams Family. The first in a projected 13-picture production deal with Joseph E. Levine, Gordon followed this with the William Castle-inspired Picture Mommy Dead. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

A young woman on a business trip travels by train from L.A. to San Francisco and finds herself implicated in a murder in this crime drama. The trouble begins as she retires to her sleeping compartment and is knocked unconscious. The next day she wakes up beside the dead body of the woman she had been sharing it with. A police detective arrests her and escorts her off the train. She escapes and is picked up by a passing motorist. He takes her to her home where she discovers another corpse, a friend of hers who was an alcoholic writer. She was letting him stay at her apartment while she was gone. The distraught woman tells the motorist all she knows. She then admits that she is a former mental patient. The motorist becomes suspicious and takes the woman back to her boss, who denies that he sent her on the business trip. Trouble ensues until they learn that the boss was behind it all. The first corpse was his wife. He put the body beside the girl so that so she would be suspected of being a homicidal maniac. The boss kidnaps his hapless employee and takes her to the mountains where he plans to kill her and make it look like a suicide. Fortunately, the motorist trails them and saves the day. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Although limited by a low-budget, this is a respectable wartime drama by director John A. Bushelman, set on the front lines at the end of the Korean War, just before a truce is called. In spite of the pending truce, a gung-ho captain in need of leave time (John Goddard) decides to take his men on a useless patrol, convinced that it is necessary. Before the men can be led into any dangerous situations, the captain accidentally steps on a unique type of landmine (called a "bouncing Betty"). He is suddenly frozen with his foot on the mine because unlike all other mines, these lethal weapons are designed to go off after the pressure on them is released. A corporal long anxious to get out of Korea overcomes his desire for a safe and happy exodus to tackle the problem of disentangling the captain without killing either of them in the process. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Slipping along an ill-defined track between seriousness, subtle farce, and all-out slapstick, this sci-fi comedy-drama by director Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. (The Blob, 1958) would be entertaining enough for the moppet set and highly amusing in many spots for adults as well. What sets the ball rolling is that a tyrannosaurus rex, a brontosaurus, and a neolithic man are brought back to life from their prehistoric world. As desperate leaders of the modern world try their best to kill off the carnivorous tyrannosaurus rex, the caveman is receiving high-voltage culture shock from the "civilization" he encounters all around him. One sequence has him coming face to face with a woman in full make-up -- and both go screaming off in terror. Gregg Martell is the confused Neanderthal, Julio (Alan Roberts) is a boy who tries to make friends with the brontosaurus, and Mike Hacker (Fred Engelberg) is the requisite villain. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Juvenile delinquents run afoul of big-league dope dealers in this low-budget crime thriller. Frankie (Robert Arthur) is a hotheaded teenager whose impulsive streak has led him to the State Honor Farm for wayward boys. Frankie engineers an escape with the help of his curvaceous girlfriend, Donna (Jan Brooks), but he makes the mistake of bringing along fellow delinquent Switch (Steve Rowland), who's behind bars for attacking his father with a knife. Switch doesn't make a secret of his attraction to Donna, which slowly infuriates Frankie, and things become no more comfortable when their car breaks down and they're forced to hitchhike. The three teenagers catch a ride with Rivas (John Goddard) and his wife, Madge (Carol Ohmart), but this isn't the stroke of good fortune it might seem. Rivas is a ruthless criminal who has killed a narcotics agent en route from Mexico while smuggling a large parcel of heroin into the United States. When the delinquents discover they're dealing with a bona fide mobster, they part company with Rivas but inadvertently steal his stash, which is hidden in a large doll, putting the bloodthirsty gangster on their trail. Naked Youth was originally released as Wild Youth, but received more play under its more exploitive title, though doubtless a few viewers were disappointed that it didn't actually feature any youths naked. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

There's a measure of sympathy for the Apaches at the beginning of Fort Bowie. Under the tyrannical rule of ambitious Major Wharton (P. Ian Douglas), a cavalry detachment slaughters a band of Apache who've arrived with the intention of surrendering. A counterattack is inevitable, but before this happens the story is sidetracked by the jealous behavior of Colonel Garrett (Kent Taylor). When stalwart young Captain Thompson (Ben Johnson) resists the romantic overtures of Garrett's wife Allison (Jan Harrison), she screams "Rape!" and Thompson finds himself facing court-martial and execution. This plot strand and several others are resolved after the Cavalry is forced to attack its own fort following an Apache takeover. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Drugs are the focus of the exploitation film set in the Los Angeles harbor. The plot centers around a villain's evil scheme to raid a ship and abscond with surplus war drugs. To help him get backers for the heist, he begins showing criminals a slide show depicting his scheme. A young woman accompanies one of the leader's gang members as he takes the slide show to various gangsters. The woman falls in love with an ambulance driver and gets him involved in the scheme. During the actual caper, the mastermind is killed, the drugs are safe, and the driver and the woman walk away from the whole thing unscathed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, angry Apaches begin a series of raids on a cavalry outpost. First they steal all the horses from a regiment on maneuvers forcing them to march back to the fort. Upon their return, the soldiers discover that everyone at the fort has been massacred. Now a rookie West Point officer is left in charge, and unfortunately, he is too green to lead. Fortunately, a sergeant is there to take over the reins. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

From the title on down, King Dinosaur consistently promises more than it delivers. Filmed in three days by quickie king Bert I. Gordon, the story is predicated on the notion that a new solar system has set up shop "a half-year's rocket flight away" from our own. A group of intrepid space travellers blast off (via stock footage of Germany's V-2 rocket) to explore the earth's new neighbors. Upon landing on one of the planets (actually the mountains surrounding Los Angeles) the astronauts confront all manner of outsized reptiles (courtesy of clips from One Million BC). They are also "attacked" by a harmless-looking kinkajou. When the planet's dinosaurs threaten our heroes, the huge lizards are dissipated by an atomic-bomb blast (more library footage). Having made the planet safe for colonization (?), the space travellers return to Earth. Finding nice things to say about King Dinosaur is about as easy as swallowing lighter fluid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide