Richard Crenna Movies
American actor Richard Crenna started out as a radio performer at age 11, demonstrating an astonishing range for one so young. The momentum of his career was unaffected by an army hitch and time spent earning an English degree at the University of Southern California. But even though he was by then in his twenties, Crenna found himself still playing adolescents, notably squeaky-voiced high schooler Walter Denton on the radio comedy Our Miss Brooks. That he was able to play characters of virtually any age was overlooked by movie and TV casting directors, who could see Crenna only in callow-juvenile roles. After making an excellent impression as ballplayer Daffy Dean in the 1953 film Pride of St. Louis, for example, Crenna wasn't cast in another film until the 1955 movie version of Our Miss Brooks--in which, at 29, he was Walter Denton once more. The following year, Crenna decided "to sorta let Walter Denton die," and took a decidedly mature role in the sleazy exploitation film Over-Exposed (1956). It was a fully grown Crenna who took on the role of Luke McCoy on the Walter Brennan TV series The Real McCoys, which ran from 1957 through 1963 and which gave Crenna his first opportunities as a director. After McCoys, Crenna found himself facing potential career standstill again, since it seemed that now he was typed as the rubeish Luke McCoy. This time, however, the actor had impressed enough producers with his dogged work ethic and the range displayed in guest-star appearances. In 1964, Crenna was cast in a prestigious TV drama For the People as assistant DA David Koster, and though the program lasted only one season, Crenna was firmly established as a compelling dramatic actor. Still, and despite solid Richard Crenna film performances in The Sand Pebbles (1966), Body Heat (1981) and The Flamingo Kid (1985), the actor has never completely escaped the spectre of Walter Denton. Crenna was able to conjure up the old adenoidal Denton voice on talk shows of the 1980s and 1990s, and in the action-film spoof Hot Shots: Part Deux, the actor, with an absolute straight face, portrayed Colonel Denton Walters! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1973
It goes without saying that the 1973 TV-movie version of Double Indemnity doesn't come within shouting distance of the classic 1944 theatrical-movie version. Still, the basic story is a solid one, and the actors are eager to please. Richard Crenna plays the old Fred MacMurray role of Walter Neff, the slightly larcenous insurance salesman inveigled into an elaborate murder/fraud scheme by sexy Phyllis Dietrichson (Samantha Eggar, replacing the 1944 version's Barbara Stanwyck). The scheme almost goes off without a hitch, but Walter's boss Barton Keyes (Lee J. Cobb; originally Edward G. Robinson) has this "stinking" hunch-and besides, you can't trust Phyllis as far as you can throw her. Originally telecast October 13, 1973, Double Indemnity is based on the Raymond Chandler-Billy Wilder script for the 1944 film, which in turn was adapted from James M. Cain's Three of a Kind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Hal Bartlett co-wrote and directed this film curiosity, based on Richard Bach's best-selling fable, featuring an overbearing music score by Neil Diamond. The story begins as a flock of seagulls are pecking at the garbage left by a boat that has dumped a bunch of fish heads in the surf. One of the seagulls, Jonathan (voice of James Franciscus), would rather leave his life of garbage-picking and fly high in the sky to see other parts of the earth. Jonathan leaves the flock and flies around the world. He travels so far that he reaches an aviary heaven, where he meets Maureen Seagull (voice of Juliet Mills). Maureen introduces Jonathan to new experiences, and Jonathan returns to the flock to tell them the news. The other seagulls scorn him, but then they take notice when he heals a seagull that has died. Then the entire flock greets him as "the Son of the Great Gull." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Parisian police commissioner Coleman (Alain Delon) is not a happy man, but he does what he can to get through each day. He has recently started having an affair with Cathy (Catherine Deneuve), and that helps a little. Cathy is also Simon's girlfriend and Simon (Richard Crenna) is Coleman's friend. Unfortunately, Simon is also the head of a gang of criminals. When Coleman's investigation of a drug-smuggling ring closes in, their rivalry comes to a head. One of the highlights of this film is a stunt involving a helicopter and a moving train. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, (more)
- 1972
- R
The Man Called Noon is a western about a man who is called "Noon" (Richard Crenna) because he has amnesia and has no other name. As he searches for his identity, it becomes clear that he is on a mission to avenge the deaths of his wife and child. His quest is furthered by the outlaw Rimes (Stephen Boyd) and he receives comfort from a lady named Fan (Rosanna Schiaffino). The villain proves to be Judge Niland (Farley Granger), and the trio go to extraordinary lengths to put him out of action. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Crenna, Stephen Boyd, (more)
- 1971
- PG
In this drama, based on a novel by Richard Bradford, an adolescent boy and his mother are sent to live in New Mexico after his father goes off to fight WW II. The move is hard on both mother and son. The boy, one of the few whites in the area, must deal with making friends, the strange new land, and first love. Meanwhile, his mother becomes increasingly withdrawn. When they learn that his father has been killed, the son must fight with his mother's lover to become the real head of the household. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG
A captain convicted of deserting his cavalry (Bekim Fehmiu) is released to lead a band of deputized renegades. Together, the force must defeat a band of Apache braves. The film was released to video as Ride to Glory. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
Based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, this comedic western tells of a thieving man who tries to get his hands on two million dollars of government cash while trying to avoid his friend--who happens to be a lawman. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1971
Thief is a made-for-TV drama starring Richard Crenna as a paroled burglar. Crenna wants to turn over a new leaf and lead an honest life. To do this, however, he has to pull one last major heist which will square all his accrued debts. The focal point of this film is a near-silent cat burglar sequence, which is good enough to make up for the patchy character development and by-rote dialogue. The Thief also includes an early TV appearance by veteran character actor Michael Lerner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1970
- R
Among a cliquish set of country club doctors and surgeons, it seems that sleeping around is the norm. Early in the film, however, one husband murders his promiscuous wife (Dyan Cannon) while she is in bed with a rather unlikely adulterer. The various alliances and rivalries in this close-knit community are further stressed as the murderous husband uses his knowledge of the community for a wide-ranging blackmail scheme. While the police investigate, the doctors who do open-heart surgery on their patients experience heart-rending situations themselves. The film has a large and distinguished cast of actors, including Richard Crenna, Dyan Cannon, Caroll O'Conner, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Hackman, John Colicos, Diana Sands and Janice Rule. The story is based on Doctors' Wives by Frank G. Slaughter. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dyan Cannon, Richard Crenna, (more)
- 1969
Get hooked on one of America's favorite outdoor activities. From the American Sportsman video series, Fresh Water Fishing takes you angling in all types of climate and terrain, from Iceland to Africa. The film is hosted by former radio voice of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, and host of The American Sportsman, Curt Gowdy. Joining Gowdy on the fishing expedition is Richard Crenna, best known as Luke McCoy in the popular 1950s and 1960s television series The Real McCoys, and Peter O'Toole, the leading English actor of the 1960s and 1970s. Crenna and O'Toole try their luck, skill, and patience in hooking tiger fish and the mighty fighting salmon. The film offers celebrity flair and style as the team casts their lines in some of the greatest freshwater fishing spots in the world. ~ Sally Barber, All Movie Guide
In this tense and suspenseful science fiction thriller, Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) is the ground commander in Houston who monitors the space mission of three astronauts. Buzz (Gene Hackman), Jim (Richard Crenna) and Clayton (James Franciscus) have their lives put in jeopardy when the oxygen supply in the space capsule drops. Ted Dougherty (David Janssen) is sent to try and rescue the doomed astronauts. When it becomes clear there is not enough oxygen, it is suggested that one of the men commit suicide to allow the other two to live. Jim, the unit commander, makes an excuse to spacewalk. Under the guise of making repairs, he cuts himself loose from the life line and drifts away into the cold darkness of space. Russian cosmonauts race against time to try and save their American counterparts. An Oscar-winner for "Best Special Visual Effects," the film also picked up nominations for "Best Cinematography" and "Best Sound." It was later retitled Space Travelers. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, (more)
- 1969
- PG
A disgruntled British secret service officer and an aspiring author turn to crime when they are again passed over for prominent career advancements. John Pedley (Fred Astaire) is the agent who has been passed over for knighthood one too many times for his liking. He proposes a plan to university professor Mike Warden (Richard Crenna), who has been fired for taking part in a peace demonstration. With the help of Sylvia Giroux (Anne Heywood), they recruit a retired SS officer and a former Italian fascist as they attempt to hijack a fortune in gold bricks from the British crown. Pedley deals with double-crossing opportunists who covet the gold for themselves. Sir Ralph Richardson, Roddy McDowell and Cesar Romero also star in this engaging crime drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Crenna, Anne Heywood, (more)
Touted by 20th Century-Fox as a follow-up to their enormously successful The Sound of Music, Star! reteams that earlier film's leading lady Julie Andrews and director Robert Wise. Andrews plays legendary musical comedy star Gertrude Lawrence, while Daniel Massey appears as Lawrence's friend, co-worker and severest critic Noel Coward (Massey's real-life godfather). The film jumps back and forth in continuity at times, its transitions bridged by fabricated newsreel footage; essentially, however, William Fairchild's script traces Lawrence's progress from ambitious bit actress to the toast of London and Broadway. Her success is offset by a stormy private life, which is given some ballast when she falls in love with an American financier (Richard Crenna). The film is way too long for its own good, though the musical set pieces -- especially the Andrews-Massey duets -- are superb. Julie Andrews welcomed the chance of playing a character as far removed from her goody-two-shoes heroine in Sound of Music as possible; Gertrude Lawrence was temperamental, sarcastic, profane and at times self-destructive, and Andrews makes a meal of the role. Unfortunately, Andrews' fans, conditioned by the Fox publicity machine to expect a continuation of Sound of Music, rejected her outright in this "new" characterization. Star! was a huge box-office bomb, so much so that Fox desperately attempted a shortened re-release under a misleading new title, Those Were The Happy Times. They weren't: it remained a financial disaster, though it has developed a loyal cult following in recent years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Andrews, Richard Crenna, (more)
Wait Until Dark is an innovative, highly entertaining and suspenseful thriller about a blind housewife, Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn). Independent and resourceful, Susy is learning to cope with her blindness, which resulted from a recent accident. She is aided by her difficult, slightly unreliable young neighbor Gloria (Julie Herrod) with whom she has an exasperated but lovingly maternal relationship. Susy's life is changed as she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a baby doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unknown to Susy, her photographer husband Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) took the doll as a favor for a woman he met on an international plane flight and unwittingly brought the doll to the couple's New York apartment when the woman became afraid of the customs officials. Alone in her apartment and cut-off from the outside world, Susy must fight for her life against a gang of ruthless criminals, led by the violent, psychotic Roat (Alan Arkin). The tension builds as Roat, aided by his gang, impersonates police officers and friends of her husband in order to win Susy's confidence, gaining access to her apartment to look for the doll. The climax of the film, a violent physical confrontation between Susie and Roat in her dark kitchen, is one of the most memorable and frightening scenes in screen history. All performances are outstanding, particularly those of Audrey Hepburn who plays a vulnerable, but self-reliant woman, and Alan Arkin, in perhaps his best role, as the ruthless, manipulative Roat. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, (more)
- 1966
An American girl finds love and laughter in the City of Lights in this romantic comedy. Maggie Scott (Ann-Margret) works as an assistant to Irene Chase (Edie Adams), a fashion purchaser for a large clothing store. Irene sends Maggie to Paris as her representative for the annual fashion shows of the major European designers; Irene has an ulterior motive, as her son Ted Barclay (Chad Everett) is infatuated with Maggie and she wants to keep him away from her. While in Paris, Maggie strikes up a romance with Marc Fontaine (Louis Jourdan), a handsome Frenchman who was once Irene's boyfriend. However, Maggie is also being pursued by American reporter Herb Stone (Richard Crenna). To add to the confusion, Ted decides to fly to Paris in an effort to win Maggie's heart once and for all. Jazz fans will want to keep an ear open for performances by Count Basie and Mongo Santamaria. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann-Margret, Louis Jourdan, (more)
Steve McQueen received his only Academy Award nomination for his performance in this epic-scale war drama, based on the novel by Richard McKenna. In 1926, as China teeters on the edge of political revolution in the midst of a civil war, the USS San Pablo, is ordered to patrol the Yangtze River to represent and protect American interests. While the San Pablo may be an American ship, much of the labor is actually performed by Chinese locals willing to work for American money, while stern but inexperienced commanding officer Captain Collins (Richard Crenna) frequently drills his charges, unsure what else to do. A machinist's mate with just under a decade of navy service behind him, Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) is assigned to the San Pablo and immediately makes enemies among the crew -- he prefers to do his own work rather than farm it out to others, and the one Chinese man who works by his side, Po Han (Mako), is treated as an apprentice rather than a servant. Holman also falls in love with an idealistic American missionary (Candice Bergen), while his shipmate Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) falls for a Chinese girl and - with marriage plans in mind - kidnaps her to prevent her from being auctioned off. As Holman's methods and attitudes continue to anger his comrades, they find themselves increasingly at odds with the Chinese, especially after Frenchy's girlfriend becomes pregnant and Po Han is captured by revolutionary forces and branded a traitor. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, (more)
- 1966
This 60-minute psychological drama stars Richard Crenna in the title role. Wielding a gun, Edward Smalley invades the office of attorney J. Marvin Bean (James Whitmore). The attorney has no idea what this is all about until forced to remember an incident in World War II when Smalley had been accused of treason, and Bean was his court-appointed military attorney. The trial was cancelled before Smalley was given a chance to exonerate himself; the charges were dropped, but the accused man feels that he has never truly been cleared. Cowritten by director Robert Altman (the same), The Long, Lost Life of Edward Smalley was originally telecast in the fall of 1963 on NBC's Kraft Suspense Theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Opie invites his new friend Trey Bowden (David A. Bailey) for dinner at the Taylor house. Trey immediately bonds with Andy-so much so that Opie becomes extremely jealous. To teach Opie a lesson about sharing, Andy is obliged to exploit the fragile ego of his own pal Barney. This episode was written by Harvey Bullock and directed by actor Richard Crenna, who'd just finished his own starring TV series The Real McCoys. "Andy and Opie's Pal" first aired on January 13, 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Once again, Barney arrests the wrong person (this time it's the bank president!), and once again he finds himself the laughingstock of Mayberry. Andy encourages Barney to forget his troubles and go along on a picnic-during which Andy and Helen briefly get lost in cave. Though the two picnickers manage to find their way back to town, a nervous Barney has already organized a search party-and it is up to Andy to save Barney from yet another humiliation. This is the episode which imparts the vital information that bats lay eggs in your hair and make you go crazy. First telecast on January 6, 1964, "Barney and the Cave Rescue" was written by Harvey Bullock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Politics and sports clash in this occasionally funny spoof centered around a downed U2 pilot and an extravagant oil sheik. John Goldfarb (Richard Crenna), a former football player, now pilot, sent on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union, is lost and crash-lands in the Middle Eastern kingdom of Fawzia. King Fawz (Peter Ustinov) is constructing a football team to defeat Notre Dame and demands that Goldfarb coach his team or be handed over as a spy. In the interests of international relations, the U.S. State Department not only complies with King Fawz's request to bring the Notre Dame team to his country but in true diplomatic form insists that they throw the game. The romantic interest appears in the form of Jenny Ericson (Shirley MacLaine), an American reporter on an undercover assignment in the king's harem. A pleasant view in scanty harem garb, she lends mild amusement to the story with attempts to avoid the king's amourous advances. Although the humor falls short of its potential, the film was fortuitously saved from obscurity due to publicity generated by an unsuccessful lawsuit brought agianst the studio by the University of Notre Dame, which objected to a scene involving Notre Dame players fraternizing with harem girls. The screenplay for John Goldfarb, Please Come Home was written by William Peter Blatty who was later known for his award winning novel and screenplay The Exorcist. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Richard Crenna, (more)
- 1963
One of the most heart-warming episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, "Opie the Birdman" begins on a startling note, as Opie accidentally kills a mother bird with his slingshot. After being appropriately chastized by his father Andy, Opie dutifully assumes the responsibility of raising the three orphaned baby birds himself. A further crisis develops when Opie must allow "Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod" to leave the nest for good. Beautifully scripted by Harvey Bullock and sensitively directed by actor Richard Crenna, "Opie the Birdman" was filmed as the fourth episode of the series' 1963-64 season, but was wisely chosen as the season opener on September 30, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1963
To impress his erstwhile sweetheart Romenia, who simply adores a man in uniform, village idiot Ernest T. Bass tries to join the army, only to be turned down flat. Outraged, Ernest T. goes on another of his rock-throwing frenzies, threatening to break every window in North Carolina. Attempting to mollify Ernest, Andy and Barney discover that, so far as Romenia is concerned, any uniform will do-even one of Barney's hand-me-downs. Written by Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, "Ernest T. Bass Joins the Army" first aired on October 14, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Howard Morris
