Richard Carlson Movies

War hero Wally Shanks (Michael Witney) is the unwitting pawn in an extortion racket masterminded by his father-in-law, "respectable" banker Hal DeWitt (Richard Carlson). The crooks rely upon Wally to attract his fellow servicemen to DeWitt's finance company for loans, at which point they are all rejected and turned over to a bloodsucking loan-shark operation. Hoping to throw a monkey wrench in this scheme, FBI agent Colby (William Reynolds) poses as an ex-GI named Ed Loomis. This is the final episode of The F.B.I.'s fourth season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Over the protests of the Cartwrights, the Carttlemen's Association hires range detective Marcus Alley (Albert Salmi) to round up a gang of rustlers by any means necessary. Unfortunately, Alley is a psycho who shoots first and asks questions later-and as a result, several innocent people are killed. Also in the cast are Richard Carlson as Hollenbeck, Kenneth Tobey as Heath, Anna Navarro as Prudence and Myron Healey as Johannsen. First shown on January 21, 1968, "The Thirteenth Man" was written by Walter Black. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, this western, filmed on location in Spain, chronicles the quest of an ex-con to locate a fortune in stolen gold and to get even with his treacherous former partners. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sleazy movie producer Tony Fry (Richard Carlson) plans to raise money for his next picture by threatening to reveal the sordid past of Joanne Pennington (Constance Towers), the wife of millionaire J.J. Pennington (Paul Stewart). What Tony doesn't know is that his fiancee Kathy (Mimsy Farmer) is actually the daughter of a man whose career he ruined years earlier, and who hopes to use Tony's extortion scheme to destroy him. But things don't quite work out that way, and by the episode's halfway point Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is defending Kathy on a charge of bludgeoning Tony to death with a film-award trophy (no, it isn't an Oscar; evidently the Motion Picture Academy was not about to allow its sacred statuette to be used as a murder weapon!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Seaview is called upon to investigate a series of bizarre deaths in the North Sea. They find a Norwegian village living in fear, and a few people who aren't telling what they know, and a murderer lurking somewhere nearby. They follow a trail of clues that leads them to an aging research scientist (Steve Geray) and his one-time assistant (Richard Carlson), and their experiments with marine life, which have created catfish as big as whales. But their biggest worry concerns the other creatures that those experiments have loosed into the ocean. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this low-budget, campy horror film, a murderous pianist pays for his crime when body parts from the lover he pushed from a lighthouse come back to haunt him just before he is to marry a prominent socialite. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Another delightful entry in the Bell Science Series, The Unchained Goddess represents a felicitious collaboration between legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra and animation geniuses Shamus Culhane and William T. Hurtz. Appearing in live action, Dr. Research (Frank Baxter) and The Fiction Writer (Richard Carlson) set about to explain how weather is created, and how scientists have endeavored to predict and control it. They are aided by several animated character, foremost among them the beautiful but somewhat haughty Meteora, the Goddess of Weather (whose long gown rather resembles the funnel cloud of a tornado) and her subjects: Winds, Clouds and Rain. A copacetic blend of entertainment and education, The Unchained Goddess became standard fare on the high-school classroom circuit after its original 1958 telecast, and is still available on home video. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Young schoolboy Johnny Rocco (Richard Eyer) has a stuttering problem. Though this in itself is not unusual, the source of Johnny's nervous impediment is off the beaten track: Johnny's father (Stephen McNally) happens to be a high-ranking mobster. When Lois (Coleen Gray), the boy's teacher, takes a special interest in Johnny's plight, she finds her life in danger. Rival mobsters and police officials alike pursue Johnny and Lois because of privileged "inside" information that the boy carries in his head. The script for Johnny Rocco was based on a story by actor Richard (I Led Three Lives) Carlson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second in a group of full-color Bell Science Specials produced, written and directed by the legendary Frank Capra, Hemo the Magnificent is an hour-long combination of animation and live action, explaining in the most entertaining manner possible the human circulatory system. Shakesepearean scholar Dr. Frank Baxter again appears as "Dr. Research," with Richard Carlson as "The Fiction Writer." After establishing that "haemo" is the Greek word for blood, Dr. Research introduces The Fiction Writer to Hemo the Magnificent, a muscular animated figure with a transparent body, allowing us to see the entire blood stream from the heart on down. For the amusement of his animal friends (and, incidentally, the home audience), Hemo demonstrates just what makes him tick, with the help of such characters as Professor Anatomy, the Dispatcher, and the Pacemaker. The highlight is a cartoon segment showing how the brain and heart are interchangeable and inextricable, with UPA animation director Bill Hurtz depicting Man's Inner Workings as a huge, high-pressure factory, replete with whistles, warning buzzers and conveyor belts. The winner of an Emmy award for best cinematography, Hemo the Magnificent was rebroadcast several times, and later became a staple on the classroom audio-visual circuit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For its final program of the 1955-56 season, the prestigious CBS Sunday-afternoon anthology Omnibus offered a 90-minute salute to animation, featuring two distinctly different segments. Dominating the proceedings is a dramatization of the court-martial of Col. Billy Mitchell, which has previously served as the basis for a Gary Cooper feature film. After making public attacks on the Navy's antiquated policy regarding aviation warfare, Mitchell was in October of 1925, brought up on charges by his superior officers. In a tense courtroom climax, Mitchell (played by James Daly, the father of contemporary actors Tim Daly and Tyne Daly) details the deficincies of the Navy's attitude towards air power by predicting a future bombing raid on the Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii--by the Japanese.Jack Lord, still several years removed from Hawaii 5-0, appears as Major Allen Gullion. The second half of this broadcast consisted of a documentary film, The Daily Life of a Test Pilot, focusing on Major Stuart R. Childs of Edwards Air Force base, California. This Omnibus season closer was hosted by the ubiquitous Alistair Cooke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Republic super-production The Last Command is a partial remake of the same studio's Man of Conquest (1939). But whereas the earlier film concerned itself with the exploits of Texas patriot Sam Houston, Last Command concentrates on Houston associate James Bowie, played by Sterling Hayden. When Texas is threatened by the armies of Mexican general Santa Ana (J. Carrol Naish), Bowie at first adopts a policy of peaceful coexistence. When this proves impossible, Bowie joins Davy Crockett (played as an irascible old cuss by Arthur Hunnicut) and the rest of the courageous defenders of the Alamo. The climactic confrontation between the heroes of the Alamo and Santa Ana is long in coming, but well worth the wait. Frank Lloyd's large-scale direction and the vibrant musical score of Max Steiner imbues Last Command with a "major studio" aura not often found in Republic productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Conte plays the obligatory Man With a Past in RKO's Bengazi. Joining up with disreputable Irishman Victor McLaglen and army deserter Richard Erdman, Conte heads into the African desert in search of hidden Arab gold. They in turn are pursued by British police inspector Richard Carlson and by McLaglen's daughter Mala Powers. When the raffish trio find the gold, they must defend themselves against hostile Arab tribesmen. The remainder of the film evolves into a reworking of the 1934 RKO film The Lost Patrol, which also costarred Victor McLaglen. Bengazi was filmed almost entirely out-of-doors, on location in Arizona's Yuma Desert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide